After discovering that someone was tailing them, Liang En quickly focused on the current situation. He realized that the person following them wasn't very skilled at the job, as it was easy to detect their presence with a bit of attention.
"Yes, there is indeed someone following us." After Liang En informed the police officer who had been sent to assist them, the officer observed for a few minutes and came to the same conclusion.
"They're a bit far, so we can't see what the driver looks like." The police officer told Liang En after finishing his observation, "But we can basically be sure that they don't have good intentions."
This was obvious without the police officer pointing it out, as in the current situation, anyone following them surely wasn't doing it just to say hello, making it a safety hazard.
"So what should we do next?" Professor Harry was a bit nervous at this point because he had brought three students along, and any trouble would be a major issue.
"Don't worry, we police will handle this." The officer smiled. "It looks like they're planning to follow us into town. So, I'll call my colleagues and figure out what's going on."
However, as their car approached the town, the situation changed. The car that had been following them closely suddenly turned off the main road.
It seemed that although the follower made many novice mistakes, they still understood that it was best to stop following when the target was about to reach their destination.
Even though they were being followed, Liang En and his team couldn't let it stop their archaeological work. The next day, they proceeded with their plan, taking the recruited workers to the site to start the excavation.
During the excavation, Liang En and Fan Meng kept an eye on their surroundings, believing that the followers wouldn't just follow their car but might also watch the excavation site.
At this moment, Liang En missed his ravens. Although the Daedalus Eye card was excellent for short-range detection, ravens were indispensable for wide-range surveillance.
Unfortunately, since this was a group archaeological expedition, Liang En had decided not to bring the three birds due to various considerations. Now, he realized how essential they were.
Fortunately, this shortfall could be partially compensated. Using the pretext of observing their surroundings, they released drones to scout the area.
However, contrary to their expectations, the drones didn't detect anything suspicious. This meant that the followers were not focusing on the excavation site.
This was inconsistent with the previous situation because Liang En had always believed that the followers were likely connected to the underwater ruins. If that were the case, they wouldn't ignore the current excavation site.
Liang En felt uneasy about not finding the followers, thinking it indicated a hidden threat ready to strike at any moment. However, his attention was soon diverted.
After over two days of excavation, they finally cleared away the accumulated debris from the passage of time and saw the ruins below.
What appeared before Liang En was a simple furnace, with obvious burn marks inside, indicating it had been in use.
"Clearly, this is a metal smelting furnace, though it looks very different from later furnaces." Liang En carefully cleaned the furnace while explaining to Joan of Arc.
"This type of furnace couldn't reach high temperatures, meaning it couldn't smelt iron-based alloys and could only smelt copper, copper alloys, or other metals with lower melting points."
"And what's this?" Joan of Arc asked, pointing to a pile of broken ceramic containers. "These look like they've been in a fire. Are they crucibles? But why are they all broken?"
"Yes, these should be crucibles." Liang En nodded, examining the burnt fragments.
If restored, these fragments would reveal crucibles of modest size, capable of holding no more than about 1 kg of molten metal.
Early crucible metallurgy couldn't smelt large quantities of metal at once, as it was difficult for people back then to make large enough crucibles from refractory materials.
The crucibles Liang En found were smaller than those previously discovered, capable of holding only a few hundred grams of molten metal.
This was not due to technical limitations. According to their information, the people here could cast larger bronze items.
Considering this site was located in the core area of an ancient town, representing the highest technological standards of that era, Liang En believed it was likely used to smelt special or valuable metals.
Fortunately, the crucibles had many residues from smelting, so after returning that evening, they quickly used simple testing equipment to extract and analyze the residues.
The results confirmed Liang En's hypothesis. The residues showed that these crucibles had been used to smelt gold, silver, bronze, and a small amount of brass.
According to a scholar from the National Museum of Ireland, the residues indicated that the people here were experienced in smelting gold, silver, and bronze, and their techniques seemed quite advanced.
However, the brass smelting was problematic, with a high proportion of impurities in the residues, indicating that all the brass-related crucibles were failures.
Additionally, the metal ratios in these alloys were chaotic, suggesting that the people of that time had no knowledge of brass casting.
From the excavation site, it was clear that these people could produce brass, but unlike gold or bronze, it was not a stable process and was more of a hit-or-miss black-box reaction.
"Perhaps in their era, brass was more valuable than gold." After Liang En shared his findings from the testing, Joan of Arc offered an opinion.
"I remember that when aluminum was first refined, it was more expensive than gold. Napoleon III even made a set of aluminum cutlery to flaunt his wealth. These brass items might have been similar."
"That's very likely. Sometimes, the added value from technology can far exceed the raw material's value." Liang En nodded, then turned to Fan Meng. "By the way, have you seen those followers in the past two days?"
"Just once, while we were excavating the previous site." Fan Meng said, showing Liang En his phone. "But they just watched from a distance and then left."
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