The Blacksmith's Hoard

[Precision Forged Furnace (Green): After personally building or participating in the construction of smelting furnaces within your territory, metal recovery (extraction) rate increases by 50%, impurity removal efficiency increases by 50%, and finished product strength increases by 100%]

"Another enchantment trait!"

Thane's eyes immediately lit up.

Take iron ore for example—the iron extraction rate in this era was usually between 50%-60%.

With the trait bonus, furnaces built by Thane could achieve 75%-90% iron extraction rates—this was basically a game-changer!

Why sell ore when he could just buy ore and smelt iron ingots for profit!

No, no, no!

Iron ingots with such low impurity rates and high finished product strength definitely couldn't be sold yet!

Thane thought to himself and continued reviewing the information in his mind.

Besides the ability bonus from unlocking the trait, Thane's mind was also flooded with extensive knowledge about smelting blast furnaces, including construction and usage details.

The smelting blast furnace itself wasn't cutting-edge, but it was an improvement on ordinary furnaces, with technology and concepts way ahead of this era.

Blast furnaces were much larger, often reaching 10 to 16 feet tall, with more logical designs.

Compared to ordinary iron smelting furnaces, blast furnaces had higher internal temperatures, making iron smelting more efficient with fewer impurities in the final product.

And blast furnaces could be used over and over—as long as there were enough raw materials fed into the furnace, molten iron could flow out continuously, making them perfect for large-scale production.

But building blast furnaces required fire bricks or massive amounts of stone, usually taking several months to half a year to complete—way too long for Thane's current situation.

After a general overview, Thane turned to check the unlock requirements for the next trait:

[Next trait: Smelt 220 pounds of pig iron within your territory to unlock: Ore Vein Detection]

"Good thing it doesn't require me to personally smelt, or I'd be stuck babysitting furnaces all the time."

Thane closed the notification interface and turned to find everyone staring at him.

"What?"

"Noble sir, your smile just now was pretty scary."

Thane automatically ignored that topic and looked at Pegin: "How much iron ore do we have now?"

Pegin turned to look at another blacksmith—the owner of this smithy.

Hearing this question, the blacksmith couldn't help but shiver.

He'd already felt that the lord personally helping repair his shop today wasn't a good sign, and now it seemed his gut feeling was right.

The lord was eyeing his iron ore.

"About 240 pounds, sir."

Seeing the two strong knights beside the lord, the blacksmith answered honestly.

Two hundred forty pounds was pretty skimpy.

Iron ore wasn't expensive in the Northern Borderlands wilderness—220 pounds was worth about one silver coin.

In fact, if you didn't consider the lord's heavy taxes, blacksmiths and other skilled craftsmen were truly high earners.

The blacksmith should have more assets—240 pounds of iron ore really wasn't much.

Without a lord's exploitation, he still ended up like this.

You could only say this blacksmith's skills really weren't that great.

Good thing Thane had brought Pegin from the city.

Two hundred forty pounds of iron ore could smelt at most 48 pounds of iron. Even using Thane's enchanted furnace, it would only produce about 66 pounds of pig iron.

This was way short of Thane's goal—not even enough to make full armor for Pamin and Eliric.

Full plate armor alone needed 110 to 130 pounds of iron—what they could smelt would only be enough for single pieces.

"Where do you get your iron ore from?"

Thane asked: "Otto never mentioned there were iron mines nearby."

"Sometimes we can find some in the mountains and rivers, or trade with the Blackstone Mountain people," the blacksmith answered honestly.

"Who are the Blackstone Mountain people?"

"They live in the Blackstone Mountains, mainly surviving by hunting, and often come down to trade hides and iron ore for grain with us."

Thane remembered now.

The Blackstone Mountains were northwest of Fontdmer Town, nearly fifty miles away—vast mountain forests.

The Blackstone Mountains covered over 600 square miles, comparable to some small earl territories in the Loanium Empire, with rich wild resources and river tributaries at the foothills.

Thane wasn't surprised there were iron ore veins there.

The Blackstone Mountains formed the northwestern border of Shadowpine Ridge, but territorial boundaries in the Northern Borderlands wilderness weren't clear—exactly who the Blackstone Mountains belonged to was totally up for debate.

As far as Thane was concerned, the Blackstone Mountains could belong to Shadowpine Ridge.

But Thane hadn't even surveyed his entire Shadowpine Ridge territory yet—he didn't have the bandwidth to deal with the Blackstone Mountains for now.

"Smelt those 240 pounds of iron ore—I'll pay you properly for it."

Thane looked at the blacksmith: "I can pay you in silver coins, give you rye now, or record it as work points to exchange for grain later."

Actually Thane could use a hardball approach to requisition this iron ore, but blacksmiths were talented people—he should show more respect to attract talent.

Plus having just collected taxes, Thane had plenty of grain—over 66,000 pounds of rye and wheat combined, plus various eggs, frozen meat, fish, and other abundant supplies. No need to be too heavy-handed.

Currency was the least—only about 500 copper coins.

Currency couldn't circulate well here, so Thane had Kralfard create a work point record system based on copper coin prices. Except for slaves, all commoners' work would be recorded as points.

Points would be settled at the end of each month—commoners could exchange them for grain and supplies, or save them up.

Thane figured he couldn't let commoners work for free, or they'd eventually take off.

With work points, he both provided compensation and created ties between commoners and Shadowpine Ridge.

"We have enough rye at home... I'd like some meat or fish, sir," the blacksmith said quietly.

"Fish will be delivered tomorrow, but your current work can only be recorded as points."

Thane understood—blacksmithing was brutal physical labor, and blacksmiths needed more meat to have the strength.

"Alright, alright, thank you."

The blacksmith bowed excitedly.

The lord hadn't just taken his iron ore and had even personally helped repair his shop.

The lord wasn't as bad as he'd imagined.

Thane turned to Pamin: "Bring all the iron ore from our tax collection to be smelted."

The tax collection materials included about 440 pounds of iron ore—put together, they could forge two pieces of equipment first.

Whether plate armor or chain mail, both took nearly a month to make. There was time to gather more iron ore during that gap.

"Go prepare materials to build furnaces—we're smelting all the iron ore today."

The low furnace's main material was clay, mixed with quartz sand and dry grass.

The furnace bottom had to be laid with a layer of sand first, then a layer of clay with quartz sand, ensuring the base was hard and level.

After mixing the clay, it had to be rolled into thick cylindrical shapes, bent into half-arcs and stacked together, finally building a cone-shaped furnace with a flat top.

Worth noting was that when the furnace bottom was about half-built, they had to start fires, building and drying at the same time.

The ratio of charcoal to iron ore was one-to-one, with the final iron ingot weight being about 10%-20% of the ore.

Of course, if the iron ore quality was high, iron ingot production would be higher too.

"Sir, are you going to build furnaces with us too?"

The blacksmith looked at Thane in surprise.

Pamin and Eliric already knew Thane had personally worked farmland, so they weren't too shocked.

"I'll make one, you make one, Pegin and Eliric handle mixing the clay."

Thane's purpose was to run an experiment—what level of participation was needed for "participating in construction" of furnaces.

Theoretically, if Thane ordered the blacksmith to make a furnace, that should count as participation, right?

After all, in criminal law, the mastermind behind the scenes was a serious charge.

The blacksmith scratched his head in confusion, not understanding why they needed to make two.

Thane didn't explain further and commanded: "Let's get to work."