Chapter 1795 The Strange Theft (Ⅱ)

"Oh! Dr. Vida, a gifted scholar at Midgard University, it's a great honor for you to visit me!"

Mr. Hodge recognized Joan's identity without waiting for Klein's introduction, and stepped forward to greet him with a smile on his face.

"You are too generous, Mr. Hodge."

Joan shook hands with the enthusiastic president of the Royal Mining Company, and politely declined the cigar offered by the other party.

Mr. Hodge invited him to sit down, ordered the servant to bring coffee, lit a cigar as thick as a thumb, and sat on the sofa opposite Joan and Klein across the tea table, casually crossing his legs, deeply He took a sip of the cigar and slowly exhaled the smoke.

Joan picked up the coffee cup and observed Mr. Hodge's big nose through the smog. Thinking of the image of a fire dragon spewing smoke in humorous comics, he couldn't help laughing to himself.

"Dr. Vader, to be honest, I entrusted Mr. Klein to invite you to the mining area this time because I want to use your extraordinary wisdom to investigate the theft of the coarse crystal warehouse." Mr. Hodge was straightforward, explaining his intention straight to the point.

Joan nodded: "I heard that two warehouses were stolen and two tons of coarse crystals were lost."

The so-called "coarse crystal" refers to the intermediate product between the original magic crystal and the industrial magic crystal.

Most of the raw magic crystals mined in the mining area are impurities. After a series of rough processing processes such as cleaning, crushing, calcination, and distillation, the raw stones are "coarse crystals".

For high-grade magic crystal ore, only 1 ton of coarse crystals can be extracted from every 100 tons of raw ore, and the coarse crystals have to go through a series of more complicated alchemy purification processes to extract 1 pound of industrial magic crystals.

The abyss mining area is seriously short of water, coupled with lack of light, poor materials, and inconvenient transportation. It is not suitable to build a magic crystal refining factory in the abyss. The rough stones dug out of the mines usually only undergo some relatively simple rough processing, and the rough stones are refined into rough stones. The crystals are stored, and when a certain amount of production is accumulated, they are transported to the surface world, where they are further processed in the refinery in Midgard Port, and finally purified into industrial magic crystals.

Because of this, although the mining area has a rich reserve of magic crystal mines, and the raw stones mined are piled up like mountains, they do not produce industrial magic crystals, and the final product is coarse crystals.

Although the purity of coarse crystals is not as high as that of industrial magic crystals, they are more valuable than rough stones. Calculated according to the market price, each ton of coarse crystals is equivalent to 10,000 Gold Duga.

Most of the aborigines of various ethnic groups in the underground world do not have the technical strength to smelt magic crystals, but skilled craftsmen such as dwarves, drows, stone giants or underground gnomes have each developed a set of refining coarse crystals and even crystals from raw magic crystals. The craft of high-purity magic crystal.

The mining area not only produces coarse crystals, but also purchases coarse crystals from various underground races. Over time, coarse crystals have become one of the common currencies in the underground world, and the relationship with magic crystals is equivalent to that of silver coins to gold coins.

"Dr. Vader, the first theft happened six days ago. That night, an alarm came from Warehouse No. 3. When the security guards arrived, the safe in the warehouse had already been smashed open, and the 1 ton of coarse crystals in stock disappeared. !"

"Just two days later, the cunning thieves sneaked into the mining area again at night. This time they aimed at the No. 8 warehouse, and even without triggering the magic alarm, they stole a whole ton of coarse crystals without anyone noticing it. No trace left to trace!"

Mr. Hodge snorted coldly, with anger flashing in his eyes.

"The matter has come to this point. I can't bear the arrogance of the thieves. At the same time, I am deeply disappointed with the security measures in the mining area."

"On the second day after Warehouse No. 8 was stolen, I told Ms. Gray Bird face to face that if another similar case happened, I could only think that she and her family members were not qualified for the job, so I had to fire them and find another one that was more reliable. security contractor."

"Ms. Gray Bird assured me that the mining area will never lose even a pound of coarse crystals. So far, she has not broken her promise."

"The stone-blind barbarian mercenaries guarded all ten warehouses in the mining area strictly. Just the night before yesterday, they managed to stop the thieves from stealing at No. 5 warehouse. Unfortunately, they failed to catch the thieves on the spot, and finally let those cunning thieves slip away. "

Mr Hodge sighed regretfully.

"The conflict that happened in Warehouse No. 5 the night before yesterday, I heard from Gray Bird just now, that group of thieves had obviously been blocked in the warehouse by the stone-blind barbarian security team, but they all disappeared in the blink of an eye. No trace, it is said that there is no trace left to be traced." Joan couldn't help suspecting that the thief was good at teleportation spells.

"I'm not sure about this, Dr. Vader, we invited you here to unravel the thick fog surrounding this series of bizarre theft cases."

Mr. Hodge stood up, pacing with his hands behind his hands while holding a cigar in his mouth, his face shrouded in smoke looked particularly gloomy.

"Mr. Vader, what we are talking about here today must not be revealed to the outside world."

"To tell you the truth, since the theft happened, I have been trying my best to keep the news from the outside world, lest the case be exposed."

"If the news leaks, it will not only damage the reputation of the Royal Mining Company, but what worries me more is that it will cause public panic and cause turmoil in the Magic Crystal futures market, which in turn will affect the banknote reform that the imperial government is implementing. The consequences will be serious. , Even if I cut off my head, it won't make up for it!"

Joan was horrified!

In the first period of time when he came to the mining area, he didn't think it was a big deal to lose two tons of coarse crystals in such a huge mine. He even felt that Mr. Hodge's reaction was too violent and made a fuss over a molehill.

However, after listening to Mr. Hodge revealing his thoughts at this moment, Joan suddenly realized that he was still too young and thought the problem too simply.

Indeed, compared to the huge assets of the magic crystal mining area, the loss of two tons of coarse crystals is nothing. However, as long as the case is not solved and the thieves are still at large, the warehouse still has the risk of being stolen.

What's more terrible is that once the news of the theft of the mining area is spread, it will be magnified thousands of times by the newspapers and media, turning it into an explosive bad news, prompting the capital market to make an emergency response.

If only the bonds and stock prices of the Royal Mining Company were affected by negative news, it would not be a big problem. However, it is now a critical period when the imperial cabinet is issuing gold banknotes and fully promoting currency reform. The credit of gold banknotes mainly depends on collateral, and It is the assets of the Royal Mining Company. If the scandal of the Royal Mining Company breaks out at this critical moment and undermines the confidence of investors, the Imperial Gold Banknote will also be affected and become eclipsed. It may even cause the currency reform to run aground, which will trigger The vicious chain reaction will involve political struggles and even all aspects of the national economy, and the consequences will be disastrous!

Even if he doesn't consider the overall situation of the national economy and the people's livelihood, Qiao An will never forget that all the 1 million real money he lent to his mentor has been converted into gold notes!

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