After pondering for a moment, Li Ye nodded.
“Alright, let their Lord come then.”
Not long after, the Lord of the Azure arrived in an off-road vehicle.
The vehicle, as before, stopped three hundred meters away from the Tomorrow.
The car door opened, and a middle-aged man with a severed left arm slowly got out.
Upon seeing his appearance clearly, Li Ye prepared to take the lift platform to the ground to talk with him.
Old Zhou quickly reached out to stop him.
“Li, that person might not be the real Lord of the Azure. It could be a trap! For safety’s sake, you’d better not show yourself. We can just find someone to impersonate you.”
Li Ye smiled and waved his hand, signaling him to rest assured.
Previous intelligence mentioned that the Lord of the Azure had lost his left arm due to serious injury, so that middle-aged man was definitely the real one.
Since the other party had shown enough sincerity, it would be unreasonable not to meet him in person.
Out on the plains, the two Lords stood face to face, their Mobile Cities looming in the distance behind them.
The middle-aged man was the first to extend his hand.
“I’m Li Jin, Lord of the Azure.”
“Tomorrow, Li Ye.” Li Ye shook his hand.
Li Jin then explained his reason for coming.
“We want fresh water,” he said. “These days, we haven’t found any water sources. We’re almost at our limit. Originally, we had plenty of fresh water in our Water Tower, but a few days ago because...”
He suddenly snapped back to his senses, hurriedly coughed a few times, and didn’t continue.
Li Ye couldn’t help but smile slightly.
In fact, the other party didn’t know that he was fully aware of the location of their attack, the reason for the amputation, the damage to the Water Tower, and the recent seizure of their resource point.
“We currently have enough fresh water reserves and can sell you some,” he replied. “It’d be best if you trade iron ore for it.”
Upon hearing this, Li Jin let out a sigh of relief.
“Alright,” he nodded. “We recently secured a mine and have extracted quite a bit of ore from it.”
After a round of bargaining, Li Ye exchanged 600 units of fresh water for 300 units of iron ore and 50 units of saltpeter.
While handing over supplies, Li Jin inadvertently noticed the Peregrine Falcon Assault Rifles worn by Old Zhou and the others.
“Level 1 firearms? You guys actually have this kind of good stuff?” he exclaimed in surprise. “We only have regular guns—it takes a lot of effort to kill monsters.”
Full of envy, he hesitated and said,
“Could you possibly...”
Li Ye couldn’t help but smile slightly.
“We can sell them to you, 100 units of iron ore per rifle.”
Li Jin instantly looked dismayed.
“Though crafting Level 1 firearms consumes a lot of iron ore, it should cost no more than fifty or sixty at most. Your price is outrageous!” he said. “Can’t you go a little lower?”
“Ninety units of iron ore per rifle. That’s the lowest I can go.”
After another round of haggling and seeing that Li Ye wouldn’t budge, Li Jin hesitated for a long time, sighed softly, and seemed to have made a tough decision.
“Will this be enough?” He pulled something out from his pocket.
Li Ye looked closely and was momentarily stunned.
【Frost Cannon - Design Blueprint】
【Item Name: Frost Cannon】
【Item Level: Level 1】
【Attached Effect: Applies a freezing effect on hit and makes the target more fragile.】
【Crafting Requirements: 300 units of Frost Ore (Level 1), 1 Frost Crystal (Level 1)】
【Note: Frost Cannon ammunition requires 10 units of Frost Ore and 1 unit of gunpowder.】
He rubbed his eyes in disbelief.
He hadn’t expected the other party to have a Level 1 Cannon design blueprint.
Li Jin laid out his conditions.
He would give the Level 1 Cannon design blueprint to Li Ye, and in exchange, Li Ye would give him 6 assault rifles, 3,000 rounds of ammunition, and an additional 300 units of fresh water.
In truth, Li Jin was also very reluctant to part with this blueprint.
After all, the Azure only had regular-grade cannons.
He had stumbled upon this blueprint on the body of an elite monster three months ago and had been overjoyed at the time.
But in the past three months, no matter how hard he searched, he couldn’t find a Frost Ore Vein.
Rather than keep waiting in vain, it was better to trade this blueprint for tangible upgrades.
Li Ye agreed almost without hesitation.
After all, a Level 1 Cannon was a huge boost in firepower for a Mobile City.
He immediately brought out five assault rifles and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition from his stock, then used the iron ore Li Jin had just given him to craft one more rifle and the remaining ammo to complete the trade.
Although Li Jin showed a lot of sincerity, Li Ye, being cautious, deliberately removed some components before handing over the rifles.
Additionally, he had Old Zhou and the others stand beside the heavy machine guns and cannons during the handover.
Li Jin didn’t seem to mind too much—after all, this was the wilderness, and people were hard to read.
He was guarding against others too.
“I have to warn you,” Li Jin said. “Frost Ore only comes from rare Frost Ore Veins. Frost Crystals only appear alongside them, and the chances are extremely low. Even if you find a Frost Ore Vein, you may not get a Frost Crystal.”
He was aware, but since he had the Intelligence System, locating a Frost Ore Vein should be easier.
Once the deal was done, Li Jin left with his people.
With a roar, the Azure slowly started up and soon disappeared from Li Ye’s sight.
Li Ye contentedly tucked the blueprint into his chest.
He was quite satisfied with this transaction.
In fact, trading between Mobile Cities had great benefits.
The two sides could trade resources and Level 1 items to fulfill their needs and boost their strength.
But such transactions had to be based on mutual trust or sufficient sincerity from both parties.
In the following time, Li Ye arranged for people to continue mining at the mine.
The mine wasn’t very large, and since Li Ye had deployed additional manpower, it was fully mined in just an hour and a half.
Li Ye tallied the mining results.
This time, they extracted 230 units of iron ore, 49 units of saltpeter, and 23 units of copper ore.
Originally, Li Jin had traded him 300 units of iron ore, but after crafting a rifle and the remaining ammunition, only a little over 100 units were left.
Adding the iron ore left in the warehouse, the iron ore dropped from the Serpentfolk corpses, and now this new batch, he had over 400 units of iron ore.
Li Ye went to the Production Workshop and began operations.
He no longer had any Peregrine Falcon Assault Rifles on hand and needed to craft new ones.
Now that he had saltpeter, he could turn it into gunpowder for cannon ammo.
Also, the heavy machine gun ammo was almost used up and needed replenishment.
Although he wanted to upgrade the Tomorrow’s city components, replenishing firepower was more urgent.
Crafting assault rifles and their ammo, producing cannon shells, producing machine gun bullets...
Before long, his iron ore was back down to single digits.
Li Ye couldn’t help but sigh.
“Sigh, this iron ore really gets used up fast.”