Struggle in the Steam Age

Knowing that it would take a while before the formal talks could start, Lawrence and his mission immediately got busy. Immediately after the doctor got permission, he started a free clinic at the gate of the big house, while agricultural technicians and mineral geological prospectors, accompanied by the tauren, went to the surrounding area to conduct mineral surveys, as well as surveys of agricultural water and soil conditions.

Naturally, Lawrence, as the head of the mission, was not idle. Instead, I chatted with several tauren leaders about the surrounding tribes, and as they talked, they talked about the ancient ruins that had been discovered.

"Do you mean those stone roads and piers?" As a shaman, the white-haired tauren thought for a while after hearing Lawrence's inquiry, and then said, "If my deduction is correct, these stone roads and The wharf should be a contemporary product of the buildings in the hills."

"Hills?" Lawrence raised his head subconsciously and looked through the window at the rolling hills behind the village, and keenly noticed that the vegetation on the hills behind the tribal buildings was obviously not right. Because there should be many varieties of normal tropical rainforest trees, and they will look very messy. However, the vegetation behind this tribe seems a bit too uniform, and it looks more like the result of some artificial intervention.

"You also found out." The Tauren shaman said after Lawrence looked away, "The hilly area behind us is probably a plantation of some kind of crop that someone built here before, but I don't know why they finally Abandoned the land and let everything be submerged in the rainforest again."

"Don't you know the source of these things?" Lawrence felt a little curious after hearing what the tauren shaman said, because this group of tauren had been in this place for hundreds of years, theoretically, they should know everything around them like the back of their hands. right.

"Of course I don't know." The tauren shaman showed a smile on the bull's face, "These things have been standing in this place for a long time before we came, and we discovered this after a little bit of exploration after we discovered this hill. A series of important traces left by those who came before."

"For example, there is a ruin that looks like a temple in the middle of this hill. If you are interested, we can accompany you to see it later—" Finally, the tauren shaman said A piece of news that interested Lawrence.

In this world, temples are the easiest buildings to judge civilization, because different temples have different characteristics, even an abandoned temple can allow future generations to pass through the temple as long as it is not destroyed too much. The lines, pictures, sculptures and other clues can easily determine what the civilization here was before. So after simply eating something, Lawrence and Nora walked towards the interior of the hill under the leadership of a tribe hunter.

The security of this hill is very high, because these tauren people have regarded the hill area as their heartland since they settled here, so whenever they have time, they will send a large number of people into the hill area to clear everything that may happen to them. Threatening creatures of all kinds.

So when they headed deep into the hills along a small road, they saw nothing except scattered plants on the slopes on both sides, and occasional sheep or rabbits, no beasts, no goblins. There are no ferocious and dangerous supernatural creatures in the imagination, and the whole journey is like traveling.

Maybe it's because she's extremely boring and the surroundings are not very dangerous, so Nora didn't stay with Lawrence as cautiously as she did when she entered some dangerous areas, but flew around happily, just like a Like a happy bird, it flies to various places around to have fun.

Of course, Nora's basic vigilance is still there. For example, the places where she flies are all satisfied that she can see Lawrence and Lawrence can see herself at the same time. Both parties will never let the other disappear from their eyes. Besides, on the other hand, Nora's flying around is also a method of patrolling.

"My lord, what is this?" Nora the little puppet flew to a tree, picked something, looked down, and then flew towards Lawrence at the fastest speed. Still calling Lawrence's name, waving the hand that held the pile of things he had just plucked from the tree.

"Let me see." When Nora flew in front of Lawrence and opened her hands like offering a treasure, Lawrence looked down at the open hands of the little doll. As a result, she saw a thin branch in her white and translucent palm like a jade carving, and on the branch grew more than a dozen thumb-sized, yellow-green olive-shaped leaves.

"Is this tea?" Lawrence took the leaves and looked at them first, then sniffed them under his nose and asked a question, because these leaves do look similar to the popular drink tea, but they smell the same The real tea leaves are quite different. Not only does it not have much tea fragrance, but it smells a strange sour taste.

"Ah, this thing!" Looking at the branch Lawrence was holding and the leaves on the branch, the tauren hunter who led the way thought for a while and said, "We tauren call this thing a small thing. Bitter leaves are usually made into soup to drink by yourself or mashed and mixed with feed to feed cattle and sheep. After eating, it can cure some diseases on us and the animals we raise, such as poor diet and lack of appetite, such as Some small headaches and brain fever."

Speaking of which, the tauren hunter slapped himself on the forehead as if remembering something. The force made Lawrence a little worried that he would give himself a concussion. But fortunately, things did not change as he imagined, and the tauren hunter quickly said something he knew.

"Actually, the first batch of humans we saw called the little bitter leaves what they called tea." The tauren said a piece of news that shocked Lawrence. "But they finally gave up this kind of thing after a lot of tossing, and never mentioned it to us again."

"I think it might be because the taste of these tea leaves is not right." After hearing that this thing could be eaten, Nora grabbed the next two leaves from the branch and put them in her mouth to chew. After chewing, she probably understood this kind of tea. Why is there no reputation for tea that should be of the same nature as the tea you usually drink.

"What's going on?" Lawrence also felt very strange. After all, when he asked the Tauren what you can sell here, the Tauren didn't tell him that there was tea here, but insisted that the Tauren wanted to hide the tea. If it exists, it seems obviously unreasonable to let them come over so directly.

"These tea leaves are both bitter and astringent. I can assure you 100% that if this thing is processed into tea, the brewed tea will make human tongues numb after just two or three sips."

Nora's answer also made Lawrence realize why the tauren did that, because although this thing is tea, it is not very suitable for human consumption at all. Therefore, the humans who discovered this batch of tea trees did not take this thing seriously at all, and the tauren also did not take this thing seriously. So when Lawrence asked the tauren what valuable products there were in their territory, the tauren didn't think of these tea trees all over the hilly area at all.

"It's really a joy." Lawrence shook his head helplessly. At first, he thought that he could sell tea to make money after discovering the tea tree in the morning, but now it seems that this plan will not work.