High quality steel armor and weapons were highly sought after in the Sutton Empire, and the demand was high as well. After being shipped over, one could earn twice the profit.
Due to the lack of alchemists in the Sutton Empire, the production of high quality alchemy steel was very low.
The quality of the refined iron produced from non-magical furnaces in the Sutton Empire was too low, and couldn't meet the demand for high quality weapons and armor.
Although they were close to the Moradin Mountains to the east and could obtain high quality equipment from the dwarves, the dwarves' equipment was of high quality, high price, and limited in quantity. Add to that their internal consumption and export to the Radiant Empire, the amount of equipment exported to the Sutton Empire was far from enough to satisfy the needs of this huge warrior nation.
The refined steel produced in Auvendell was a product of alchemy. Although the quality wasn't as good as the dwarves', the difference wasn't that great. The price was also cheap, so it was very popular in the Sutton Empire.
Feng Chou had also purchased a large number of excellent ordinary inlaid leather armor. This kind of inlaid leather armor was made with steel plates, ordinary leather, and special alchemy glue with the help of low-level alchemy. Its defensive power was not much worse than a full steel armor, and its flexibility was almost the same as ordinary hard leather armor. Because every metal plate was separated by leather and alchemy glue, when wearing this armor, there would be no sound of metal rubbing or colliding. It was the favorite of rogues and rangers.
This kind of inlaid leather armor was very popular among the lizardmen, Troll, and nature elves of the Dark Forest. The profits were even higher than selling medium and heavy equipment in the Sutton Empire.
Feng Chou also purchased some mid to high level alchemy products. The price of these goods was too high, and the market was too narrow. Even if the profits were high, he couldn't purchase too much. In terms of total price, these high quality goods took up a large portion of his funds, but in terms of transportation space, these goods were nothing more than a drop in the ocean on a merchant ship.
In just a little over a week, the Patrick was stuffed with all kinds of goods.
The captain of the Patrick was a level 16 warrior named Locke. According to Count Patrick's memories, Locke was also a vampire marquis. He was a vampire warrior and also a rogue.
In the vampire family that Patrick belonged to, Locke was Patrick's second in command, and was responsible for managing the Patrick.
The first mate of the Patrick was a level ten mage by the name of Bradley. He was the most powerful vampire spawn under Patrick.
The second mate was a level 10 warrior and level 10 rogue. His name was Colbert, and he was a vampire spawn of Locke.
There were more than twenty crew members on the Patrick, all of whom were mid to low-level Mages.
This was the advantage of magic ships. They only needed a small number of mages to operate, unlike sailing warships which required a large number of crew members.
Apart from the crew, there were also more than six hundred gunners on the Patrick. Every alchemy cannon required one main gunner, two loaders, and one grenadier.
There were also two brigades of guards on the ship, totaling more than five hundred people.
Among the thousand guards, cannoneers, and crew, the backbone was made up of Patrick and Locke's vampire spawn.
Feng Chou used his original identity as Baron Amborite to replace Patrick's first mate, Bradley, in the name of Patrick's new vampire derivative.
The Patrick was fully prepared, but did not set off immediately. Instead, it waited at the port with a full load of goods.
The sea route from Tailun to the Empire of Light or the Sutton Empire was close to a hundred thousand miles. Although the God of the Sea had opened up the sea route, in reality, the God of the Sea and the Goddess of Commerce had only built a number of stable and safe havens on this hundred thousand mile sea route. Between the various havens was still a stretch of wilderness. In the vast sea, countless sea monsters, intelligent sea creatures, and pirates along the coast tested the passing merchant ships … It could be said that it was full of danger. With only the power of a ship like the Patrick, the possibility of reaching the destination was less than ten percent.
Therefore, the Church of the God of the Sea, the Kingdom of Meredith, the Tailun City Council, the Federation of High Towers, the Red Robe Mages Association, and other organizations jointly formed a few voyage fleets to provide protection on the sea. These voyage fleets would organize merchant ships to form a large fleet and set off together every once in a while. Every merchant ship that participated in the fleet had to pay an expensive protection fee. The price varied according to the size of the merchant ship, and it was almost a third of the profits of a merchant ship.
However, compared to the risk of less than ten percent, a third of the profits was naturally nothing. Many voyage merchant ships were scrambling for it.
The Patrick was waiting for the next voyage fleet to be formed.
… …
Half a month later, a voyage fleet made up of hundreds of ships sailed out of the new port and into the deep blue sea.
Before the fleet set off, Feng Chou used the name of the Patrick to seal the Mages' Laboratory from the inside with the excuse of an important magic experiment.
After the fleet left the port, the first thing Feng Chou, who boarded the ship as the first mate, did was to set a trap with the Qiankun Spatial Door in the tower and trick Captain Locke.
If Locke had been a level-16 priest or druid, the Spatial Door trap wouldn't have been able to escape their powerful senses. If he had been a mage, he would have been able to discover the trap as long as he had a spell like Secret Vision. However, this guy was a warrior and a wanderer, and he didn't have a spell like Secret Vision, so the Spatial Door trap was very effective.
After tricking Locke, Feng Chou transformed into Locke and repeated the same trick, using Qiankun Pagoda to reveal part of Locke's aura.
As for the sudden disappearance of the first mate, Locke could easily suppress it. Vampire nobles had absolute bloodline suppression over vampires, even if it was someone else's vampire spawn.
After dealing with Locke, Feng Chou completely took control of the Patrick.
He used the memories that Qiankun Pagoda had dug out of Locke's body to command the merchant ship. He mixed in with the mighty fleet and sailed along the coastline towards the southwest.
On the west side of the Alvindale Empire, all the way to the western coast of the continent, there was a forest belt that was even wider than the Alvindale Empire. The northern part of the forest belt was mostly a sparse temperate broad-leaved forest. This was the territory of the nature elves and was known as the Emerald Forest.
The southern part of the forest was mainly subtropical broad-leaved forests. This was the domain of the lizardmen and Troll. Because the vegetation in the subtropical broad-leaved forests covered the sky and hid the cold-blooded lizardmen and the terrifying Troll, people called this part of the forest the Dark Forest.
Between the north-central part of the forest zone and the Alvindale Plains was a mountain range that was tens of thousands of kilometres long due to the difference in topography. It separated the forest zone from the Alvindale Plains.
However, in the southern part of the forest zone, the difference in topography gradually disappeared and so did the mountain range. This allowed the southern part of the Dark Forest and the southern part of Alvindale to become one.
In this area, there was a fierce conflict between humans and lizardmen living in the Dark Forest. The Alvindale Empire had no choice but to build a series of defensive fortresses in this area.