"O Main God! The red mountaintop, the brass-colored mountain stones, the sparse grass and trees... This is the Great Iron Mountain, filled with iron ore!"
"Huh? Lord Shaman is right!... This evil mountain runs east to west, south to north, long, long, very long! At the foot of the mountain to the east, there are several bubbling poisonous springs... Look! Those faint yellow glimmers are them!..."
The "Great Iron Mountain" in Death Valley stood beside a small Bitter Lake. This evil mountain, where legend said the Evil Serpent lived, was only a few hundred meters high, but its ridges stretched on and on, like a long snake coiled upon the land.
The group walked into the mountains. There were few grasses, trees, birds, or beasts, and everywhere was steeped in deathly silence and the smell of sulfur. From the foot of the mountain to halfway up its slope lay broad expanses of exposed pale brass-colored rock, exactly the same as the pyrite they had smelted before. And when they climbed all the way to the summit, they saw red stones of every size, some even several dozen meters long!
Clang! Clang!...
Scholar Miki pulled out his Copper Axe and struck the red stone on the mountaintop hard twice, and a metallic clang rang out. He carefully felt around for a while, then tasted the powder of the red stone. It carried a faint taste of blood. Only then did he confirm it excitedly.
"The Main God bears witness! What's on this mountaintop is Hematite, just like the iron ore at Black Rock Mountain! And all the brass-colored ore across the whole mountain is that pyrite!... Praise the Main God! This is an unprecedented, enormous Great Iron Mountain!..."
"Ah! Praise the Main God, this truly is an iron mountain! Such a