In order to get Feng Chou to join this famous club in the New Port District, the female housekeeper Melissa first introduced Feng Chou to a mid-level alchemist. After spending a sum of money on this mid-level alchemist, Feng Chou attended a salon organized by the alchemist's boss, the owner of a small alchemy factory.
In this salon, Feng Chou mentioned that he had a ship of low level alchemy products on the way to Tailun, attracting the attention of the alchemist merchant.
After a few exchanges between the two parties, the merchant introduced Feng Chou to the Alchemy Club and made him an unofficial member of the club.
In the club, Feng Chou quickly reached an agreement with a few small merchants to buy and sell some alchemy products. Of course, this was only an agreement. Whether or not a deal could be made depended on whether or not Feng Chou's products could satisfy them.
Feng Chou had no doubts about this.
After entering the Alchemy Club, Feng Chou found out some information related to Count Patrick.
Count Patrick was one of the directors of the Alchemy Club. This family had a remote and ancient territory in the north of Tailun City, near the eastern mountain range.
This family had entered Tailun City three hundred years ago. The father of the current Count Patrick was one of the founders of the New Port District Alchemy Club.
The Patrick family had their own Wizard Tower and Wizard School in their own Count's territory. They controlled a sizable alchemy factory and exported alchemy products worth tens of thousands of kronor every year from their territory. They were one of the top twenty alchemy merchants in the New Port District and had a strong influence in the New Port District Council.
Other than the information Feng Chou gathered in the club, the simulated pigeons and sparrows released by Qiankun Pagoda also gave him a lot of information.
Count Patrick's villa had a lock that prevented the simulated pigeons and sparrows from entering, but the people who came out of the villa could not escape being tracked.
After more than a month, Feng Chou figured out all the properties under the name of Earl Patrick's family.
Count Patrick owned more than ten commercial buildings in the new port area, a magic steel mill that mainly produced stainless steel and secondary black steel, a low-level alchemy factory that produced alchemy glue and alchemy cement, and a large magic energy armed merchant ship. He also owned a large arcane shop in the arcane street of the new port area.
Coincidentally, Feng Chou had been to that large-scale secret arts store before.
In Newport's Arcane Street, there weren't many arcane shops that occupied an entire commercial building. Patrick's Arcane Shop was one of them.
Feng Chou had sold soul crystals in this magic shop before.
After understanding this information, Feng Chou roughly understood why Count Patrick had his eyes on him.
Due to the negative nature of Blood Energy, most Vampire Mages would specialize in Necromancy. To Necromancers, Soul Crystals were essential and extremely precious magic materials. Therefore, any Necromancer would be very sensitive to the Soul Crystals, which were priceless on the market.
After Feng Chou had sold a few soul crystals in Patrick's Arcane Shop, he had sold a few more in other shops. He had sold more than a dozen soul crystals in total. After all, he had more than enough of them.
It wasn't hard to imagine that his actions in selling soul crystals in Patrick's Arcane Shop might have attracted the attention of the other party. The situation of him selling soul crystals in different shops might also have fallen into the other party's eyes. This inevitably gave the other party the impression that he had a lot of soul crystals in his hands!
Of course, this was the truth.
Knowing why Count Patrick had his eyes on him did not change Feng Chou's current situation by much.
However, this at least allowed Feng Chou to know how to deal with what was going to happen next.
… …
On this day, Feng Chou finally received a short message from Natasha. His cargo ship had a safe journey, and there was still a week's journey away from Tyrone.
After receiving the message, Feng Chou immediately went to visit the manager of a level three port company in the southwest of the new port area.
This level three port company was a small contractor under the new port area's port authority. They contracted a small port that had a small throughput.
Although it was called a small port, it was enough to dock a dozen mid-sized ships that weighed more than a thousand tons.
Feng Chou had met the manager of this port company half a month ago through an alchemy merchant in the Alchemy Club who dealt in ocean trading.
He had successfully booked a berth and enough cargo space for a week's time in this port company.
At the port company's dock, Feng Chou saw an iron ship from the Kingdom of Goblins of the Southern Continent for the first time.
What surprised Feng Chou was that this suspected steamship had three tall masts with retracted sails.
Feng Chou pretended to be curious as he approached the black iron ship.
On the tall side of the black ship, a few small green-skinned creatures were gathered together. They seemed to be chatting. Their appearance was very similar to the wild goblins Feng Chou had seen before, but their mental state was completely different. Just like what Sheriff Kent had said, one could tell at a glance that these goblins were civilized creatures.
Feng Chou pretended to be curious as he walked from the bow to the stern. Qiankun Pagoda scanned the entire ship.
The analysis was completed quickly, and the result disappointed Feng Chou.
It was indeed a steam-powered ship, and a relatively mature one at that.
According to Qiankun Pagoda, the technical level of this steamship was almost equivalent to the mid-19th century on Earth, the level of European technology that had basically completed the first industrial revolution.
Moreover, because of the magic welding technology and other advanced technology that Earth did not have, the quality of the steamship was much higher than that of Earth at the same time.
If there was no magic, this level of industrial technology was enough to beat any agricultural civilization.
It was a pity that this was a world with magic.
According to Qiankun Pagoda's analysis, this armed merchant ship, which was equipped with a fairly complete triple-expansion steam engine as its power source, cruised at only twenty knots with pure steam power when fully loaded. It was even slower than an ordinary inland river magical merchant ship, not to mention the more advanced large ocean-going magical ships.
This steamship had an iron hull that was generally over eighty millimeters thick. At the position of the steam engine and the main cannon at the bow and stern, there was armor that was over two hundred and fifty millimeters thick.
The Goblin Kingdom's ironmaking level was about the mid-19th century on Earth. The quality of the outer shell of the ship was not high. It was not even considered steel. According to modern standards, the slag content and sulfur content were excessive. Such an iron hull was also limited in strength compared to magical wood. Naturally, it was far inferior to magical wood that had been enchanted.
Moreover, such a low-quality iron hull could not possibly be enchanted. An iron hull without enchantment was even inferior to a normal wooden ship when faced with targeted magical effects.