Early the next morning.
After finishing her usual morning training, Ye Ling Yue got ready to head out. As per Ye Huang Yun's arrangements, she arrived at the Ye clan's forge workshop.
The Ye family's foundation was built on mining. They extracted ore from Seven Star Mountain, then brought it here to the forge, where each piece was sorted and processed. The refined metal slabs were then sold in the main county.
Besides that, the forge also acted as a small ore trading hub for Autumn Maple Town. It supplied residents with the metal they needed. In essence, it functioned much like a market.
Around seventy to eighty percent of the Ye family's annual income came from this workshop. Its importance was second only to the actual mine at Seven Star Mountain.
"Ling Yue, this is your first time visiting the forge. I'll give you a tour," said Ye Saint, her older cousin.
Ye Saint was sixteen years old and fairly handsome. But as the family's eldest grandson, he naturally carried some arrogance.
Before this, Ye Saint had no particular impression of Ye Ling Yue. All he knew was that she had been considered mentally challenged since birth.
However, after her shocking performance in the clan competition, his father had started praising her non-stop—even calling her a genius.
Of course, Ye Saint wasn't pleased with this. Seeing her in person today, he just thought she looked average and assumed her win over Ye Qing had been a fluke. "Calling her a genius… Father is definitely exaggerating," he thought.
In Ye Saint's mind, even if Third Aunt had been a genius in her youth, that didn't mean her daughter was too. Right now, the only one he acknowledged as a real genius was Ye Liu Yun—Ye Qing's older sister.
Since he had already made up his mind about her, Ye Saint's attitude toward Ye Ling Yue wasn't exactly friendly. Ling Yue, however, didn't get upset. Instead, she quietly followed behind him and began asking questions about the forge.
"Ling Yue, you're a member of the family. Do you know what our main business is?" Ye Saint asked while walking ahead.
"Mining and selling iron ore. I heard that the family's founder set up here after finding a huge ore vein in Seven Star Mountain," Ling Yue replied. She wasn't an expert on family history, but she knew the basics.
"Wrong. Do you think ordinary iron ore is enough to support the entire Ye family in this region? The real strength of our clan lies in smelting ordinary iron and refining Yuan Iron," Ye Saint said with a click of his tongue, clearly displeased.
Even the younger children of the family knew that, so her ignorance only annoyed him more.
"Please teach me, big cousin," Ling Yue said calmly, ignoring his attitude. She kept her tone humble and curious.
"Iron and Yuan Iron are completely different. Look over there. The grayish-white stones are regular iron ore. The silvery ones are Yuan Iron. They might look similar, but the price difference is more than twenty times. Any worker can handle regular iron, but Yuan Iron is another matter. You need to be at least at the third rank in the constitutional domain to cut it. To refine it further, you need to be at the fifth rank," Ye Saint explained, picking up a piece of Yuan Iron to demonstrate the differences.
From his explanation, Ling Yue now understood the differences between the two ores.
In Da Xia, regular iron was used for common household tools. But Yuan Iron was different—it could be used to forge weapons for the military.
Not only was Yuan Iron rare, but refining it was also extremely difficult. Even the Ye family could only do preliminary refining, that is, removing the major impurities.
The ratio of Iron to Yuan Iron in their mining output was roughly 100 to 1. Still, it was this small amount of Yuan Iron that kept the Ye clan in a dominant position in Autumn Maple Town.
As they walked around the forge, every worker and merchant they passed respectfully greeted Ye Saint with, "Young Master Ye Saint." It showed how high his status was.
Naturally, people noticed the beautiful girl walking beside him. But since Ye Saint didn't introduce her, they figured he was intentionally ignoring her and kept their distance.
"I've got some things to take care of. Ahead is a pile of iron and Yuan Iron. If you're interested, try identifying them," Ye Saint said, then turned and left.
His reason for doing this was simple—when ores were first extracted from the mountain, they looked almost identical. Only experienced masters could tell them apart. In the past, there had been incidents where miners tried to pass off regular ore as Yuan Iron to earn more.
To prevent that, every Ye family member training at the forge had to learn how to distinguish between the two types.
For most people, this was difficult to do with just their eyes. But for Ling Yue, who had the spirit smoke of the cauldron, it was easy.
She flicked her finger, releasing a strand of spirit smoke into one of the ore pieces.
Just as Ye Saint said, the grayish-white ones were iron, and the silvery ones were Yuan Iron.
As Ling Yue focused more deeply, she quickly realized most of these rocks were worthless. Not even one-tenth were real Yuan Iron—and even those were scattered in tiny fragments.
At most, maybe twenty percent of the pile was actual Yuan Iron, she estimated.
This level of purity was clearly not good enough for the county market. That's why the Ye forge would cut, hammer, and smelt them to increase the quality before selling.
As she thought about this, Ling Yue's mind drifted to her Xuan Yin Jade pendant. Compared to that, these Yuan Iron pieces were clearly low quality. Her spirit smoke only scanned them once before lazily retreating back into the cauldron.
Peng! Peng!
Suddenly, loud banging noises came from ahead.
Curious, Ling Yue walked over and saw about thirty workers busily processing the ores—cutting, hammering, and smelting them.
HAAA!!
A loud shout rang out. A man at the third rank of the constitutional domain swung his massive axe, channeling his Yuan energy into it. He split a boulder-sized chunk of Yuan Iron into smaller pieces for easier handling.
Once the cutting was done, the pieces were passed to another martialist, this one at the fifth rank, for further refinement.
With a hammer in hand, the man began smashing the ore.
As the loud thuds echoed through the workshop, a crowd began to gather. Cheers broke out.
With each strike of the hammer, bits of debris flew from the rock—impurities being knocked loose.
Unlike ordinary blacksmiths, the Ye family's forge workers all had to use Yuan energy. This was the only way to process Yuan Iron.
After being cut and hammered, the size of the Yuan Iron chunk was reduced by more than half. It took over an hour, but it was necessary. This process increased the purity by thirty to forty percent before the metal was smelted into bars and shipped to the county.
As the cheers continued, Ling Yue quietly slipped away from the workshop.
"This is way too much effort. I wonder… can I use the cauldron to refine Yuan Iron instead?" she thought, still holding a piece of regular iron and Yuan Iron in her hand.