The caravan that Leo joined was not a caravan from a local tribe, but a mixed caravan formed by people from different small tribes. Caravans like this were rare in the city-states east of Saville.

But they can be seen everywhere in the city-states in the west.

In addition to the fact that most of the tribes in the west of Savile are small tribes, it is also because the Savile people here often come into contact with the Maris and Dyliat people, and will be more or less affected by them.

Due to some influences, the traditional tribal concept has become much weaker.

The caravans of these small tribes are willing to risk encountering sand pirates and the danger of human-eating fog, and also take the dangerous trade route of the Xiaogus Desert, mainly because of their interests, but also because of the conflicts between small tribes and large tribes.

.

The western city-state area of ​​the Saville Kingdom is jointly ruled by seven large tribes with extremely long traditions. Nearly 80% of the government officials and military officers here come from these seven large tribes. These seven large tribes also control the entire western part of the kingdom.

It is regarded as its own property and will not allow other newly rising tribes to step in and take a share of the pie.

Therefore, these seven large tribes with a long history have adopted the method of marriage with each other, integrating the seven large tribes into one, and jointly suppressing the small tribes in this area. Among them, the most effective and obvious means of suppression is taxation.

When caravans belonging to large tribes enter various city-states in the west, they only need to pay a very small amount of commercial tax to pass smoothly. However, caravans belonging to small tribes need to pay several times more commercial tax. If they pass through

The more city-states there are, the more commercial taxes paid. Often the commercial taxes paid for a commodity exceed the value of the commodity itself.

In this way, it would be difficult for the products of the small tribe's caravan to compete with the products of the large tribe's caravan in terms of price. If it weren't for those people in the large tribe who are too greedy and always sell inferior products, they would not be able to compete with the products of the small tribe in terms of quality.

In comparison, perhaps the caravans of large tribes have completely monopolized the commerce of the entire western city-state.

In order to survive, small tribes can only find other ways to find reasonable and legal ways to avoid business taxes. Taking the dangerous trade route in the Xiaogus Desert is one of them.

After Leo joined this caravan composed of multiple small tribes, the most common words he heard from the Savile people in these caravans were words cursing the seven major tribes, and the people of these small tribes had no scruples.

Saying these words in front of a stranger like Leo shows that the dispute between large and small tribes in the western city-state has been brought to the fore.

As a condition of the transaction, the packcar hired by Leo was also used by the caravan to transport goods. These goods were some golden velvet woven blankets from the city. The golden velvet used to make the blankets came from a plant called the velvet tree.

This plant is one of the few trees that can grow extremely tall in the desert. It is said that the tallest golden velvet tree can grow to about thirty meters.

The bark of the velvet tree is very hard, and even if you use a sharp ax to chop it, it may be difficult to break through the bark.

Only when the velvet tree matures, the bark-wrapped trunk part will expand rapidly, and then the whole tree will be blown to pieces from the inside out like a bomb. The velvet-wrapped tree trunk fibers composed of these will be here.

Under the impact of a huge explosion, the seeds flew far away, but when the velvet fell, the seeds burrowed into the sand and grew into a new velvet tree.

The velvet produced by the velvet tree is mostly white velvet and yellow velvet, while there is very little gold velvet, and its warmth retention is much better than the other two kinds of velvet. In addition, the carpet woven with gold velvet will sparkle in the sun.

It emits light, making this product very popular in cold areas like Dalyat, and it has become one of the most important exports of the Savile Kingdom.

So when Leo saw that the caravan had stuffed a lot of velvet carpets into his car, he couldn't help but be curious about the goods that the caravan was actually transporting. After all, no caravan would put its most important goods in a halfway place.

The only possible explanation for the strangers who joined the car was that this caravan probably used Leo's pack car as a bait, which could be discarded if necessary to attract sand bandits, so that the large caravan could take the opportunity to escape.

Not only Leo saw what he thought about this caravan, but also the owner of the pack car he hired. So before setting off, he found Leo again, told Leo what he had discovered, and asked Leo if he was still there.

I want to go with this caravan.

"Don't worry, it'll be fine." Leo responded calmly.

Seeing that Leo had already made a decision, the owner of the carriage did not say anything more and began to prepare for departure.

The caravan did not choose to set off during the day. Afterwards, they set off to the edge of the Little Gusi Desert, and then traveled along the edge towards the Little Gusi River.

Leo discovered that he was not the only one who followed this caravan to Dry Steel City. After a quick count, there were more than twenty small teams following this tribal caravan, but these small teams did not join this group.

Instead, they followed a joint caravan from a distance. It seemed that these small teams just wanted to use the strength of this joint caravan to avoid the attack of the Gus Sand Bandits.

I have to say that their approach makes some sense. Although the two teams are not together, they look like the same large caravan from a distance, and their bluff is very real.

Perhaps because it was still just on the edge of the desert, the caravan moved smoothly without encountering any difficulties. Except for a pack truck that overturned while going over the sand dunes, almost exposing the goods inside the truck, there were no other problems.

Something unusual happened.

However, although nothing unusual happened, the caravan's vigilance attitude never relaxed, and Leo was asked not to get out of the car casually.

It can be seen that in addition to the sand bandits who have not yet appeared, the caravan's alert targets are also the small caravans following behind.

Obviously in the eyes of this caravan, the small caravans following behind are not kind people. At some point, these seemingly submissive and weak tribes will suddenly transform into vicious sand bandits. This kind of thing

It appeared more than once or twice in the desert of Saville.

However, those small teams may not have the same idea. They are also on guard against the joint caravan ahead, lest the other party turn against them.

It took the caravan about two hours to reach the Xiaogusi River, and then traveled southwest along the Xiaogusi River and went deep into the Xiaogusi Desert.

Although it is called a desert, compared to a real desert like the Gujia Desert, which has nothing but floating sand, the Xiaogusi Desert is obviously not worthy of its name.

Because of the Little Gusi River and the humid monsoon blowing from the Quinsis Snow Mountains, the desertification of the Little Gusi Desert is not very serious. There are still lumps of soil in most areas, and many plants grow there.

Because of this, traveling through the Little Gus Desert is not difficult for the Savile people.

The caravan traveled continuously all night, and easily completed nearly half of the distance in the Xiaogus Desert. After the sun came up in the morning, the caravan did not go further, but chose a river bend that was easy to defend and difficult to attack.

They set up camp on the ground, and it seemed that they were not prepared to travel in the hot day.

Seeing the caravan in front stop, the teams behind also stopped. However, they did not set up barracks or set up fortifications in a very formal way like the caravan. They just surrounded the pack cars and simply

It's just a fence built.

After the convoy stopped, the owner of the pack car hired by Leo went to the joint caravan and asked for some food. He also brought some to Leo. The food was naturally not gourmet, it was just dry pancakes, butter and some minced meat.

dry food.

Leo was not picky about food. After quickly finishing the hard dry food, he picked up the metal ball he bought at the Hebend Market and continued to study it.

When he first saw this metal ball, he subconsciously thought that it was another part of the Wyatt spacecraft. However, after two days of research, he found that this thing did not seem to be a part, or even a Wyatt or any other universe.

The object made by civilization is just a metal ball.

So he put the metal ball aside and didn't pay attention to it anymore.

But when he was driving in the bumpy car yesterday, he felt a little bored, so he took out some random items to sort them out. However, when he saw the metal ball, he found that the pattern on the surface of the metal ball had become a little different.

It’s different.

When Leo first got this metal ball, he also saw that the patterns on the surface of the metal ball looked like some kind of pattern containing mysterious power. However, during the research, he found that these patterns were like the superimposed forging of steel.

There's nothing special about that metal pattern.

But now he discovered that after a few days, the pattern on the surface of the metal ball had changed. This change had no trace at all. If Leo hadn't specifically written down the metal ball in order to study whether there was a mysterious power in the pattern on the surface of the metal ball,

I'm afraid there won't be any changes in the pattern shape on the surface.

Leo carefully recorded the patterns on the surface of the metal ball, and then carefully compared the two patterns. He soon discovered that the two sudden changes were like natural changes when a certain fluid moved. This situation usually occurs in

This should not happen to a liquid like paint and a solid metal ball like this.

However, Leo couldn't find out the reason for the change of this metal ball using any method. In his opinion, this metal ball is just a metal ball made of ordinary steel. The special thing is that this metal ball is a

A nearly perfect sphere.

You must know that in the industrial system of cosmic civilization, it is not too difficult to make a perfect sphere. However, in the primary industrial stage of the vinylon world, it is obviously necessary to make a perfect sphere with such high precision.

impossible things.

"Can I hide here?" At this time, a rush of footsteps suddenly came outside the trailer, and the curtain of the tent on the trailer was lifted up. A Savile child looked at Leo and asked timidly.

.

Although the Savile Kingdom has established various schools in every city, due to the high fees of the schools, not every child can enroll, so the vast majority of the Savile people still inherit the tribal traditions.

Take your children to do business together, go nomadic together, and teach the children in the tribe their own knowledge step by step.

The same is true for this joint caravan. However, due to their walking route and transportation of goods, there are not many children studying with the caravan. There are only five or six. When the caravan is camping, these children are bumpy in the car.

The little ones who had been there all night were also let out to move their shaken bodies.

Leo nodded and said, "Don't mess up things."

"Yes." The child quickly climbed onto the carriage, then lowered the door curtain, leaned against the door curtain, moved a small gap, and looked outside.

The child looked outside for a while and found that no one was coming, so he smiled proudly, then turned around and looked at Leo, who was studying the metal ball, and came over curiously.

"Hey, isn't this a map of the Little Gus Desert?" The child said in surprise after seeing the patterns on the surface of the metal ball.

"Map?" Leo was stunned and looked at the child.

"Yes, a map!" The child stretched out his hand and pointed at the pattern on the surface of the metal ball, and said: "Look, this is the Little Gouse River, this is the Bone Broken Hill, this is the Sand Wolf Forest, and this is the Widow's Garden.

Weeping Forest..."

The child pointed out the geographical names of the small Gusi Desert one by one on the patterns on the surface of the metal ball.

After seeing the location pointed out by the child, Leo seemed to be inspired. He quickly compared the pattern he had recorded previously with the map of the area he passed, and found that the original pattern of the metal ball he had written down,

This is a map of the area around Ethiopian City.

At this moment, Leo felt more and more that this metal ball was extraordinary.

"You did me a big favor," Leo said to the child. "I don't like to owe people favors." As he spoke, he rummaged in his pocket and took out the money he had bought at the Hebend Market.

Several other exquisite wood carvings arrived and he handed them to the child and said, "Pick one!"

These wood carvings are a set of rare objects. Leo had already learned the details of the power and usage of this set of rare objects the night he bought them. Using this set of rare objects is very simple. You only need to grab the wooden sculptures and think in your mind.

Just release the most primitive desire to fight and kill.

After using the wood carving, the user can obtain a powerful power from the wood carving. This power will be determined by the beast corresponding to the wood carving.

If it had been the time when he first came to the world of Velen, this set of wood carvings would definitely have become Leo's most useful set of extraordinary items, but now this set of wood carvings can no longer play any role on him, so it is better to use them as

Make gifts for others.

Even if these wood carvings are not strange objects, their appearance is extremely exquisite, and the carved animals are vivid and very attractive to children. After hearing Leo's words, the children were not polite and glanced back and forth at the wood carvings. Finally,
Chapter completed!