The last time the legendary panda-kin Xiu Ming had visited the area near the Iron Mine, he had opened a Teleportation Portal and sent the Fire-Pattern Ammonite over.
Xiu Ming remembered that back then, the Iron Mine could at best be considered a somewhat large viscount's territory. It was still far inferior to the Beastmen cities in the Hindukush Basin.
But when he returned on February 5, the place had undergone a complete transformation.
First, the small lake nestled against the mountains near the Iron Mine had been renamed Red Iron Lake. It had now doubled in size to the northeast, following a tributary of the Falling Moon River,
Viewed from above, the lake, which had once been completely frozen over, had thawed. Faint traces of Magic Arrays could be seen across the entire lakebed.
The part of the lake closest to the mountain, which was the original body of Red Iron Lake, was much deeper than before, reaching at least a hundred meters. By comparison, the newly expanded area was shallower, though even its shallowest point was six or seven meters deep.
Farther northeast, the area that would eventually become part of Red Iron Lake stretched nearly thirty kilometers along a tributary of the Falling Moon River toward West 7 Castle. It was a vast construction site, where teams worked feverishly on plots of land divided into squares, digging earth and building walls,
An area about thirty kilometers farther northeast had even been enclosed. It looked like plans were underway for a rather ambitious artificial lake.
Aside from the new lake area, the Iron Mine itself had also changed dramatically. A cluster of urban districts had been built along the shore. The most distinctive feature of these new districts was the lakeside houses. Each extended a considerable distance into