Shortly after walking for about five minutes, Jay arrived at a large-looking blacksmith shop.
Several blacksmiths were seen hammering and forging red-hot iron.
Jay arrived there and asked one of the youngest blacksmiths.
"Excuse me, may I speak to your manager?" Jay asked the blacksmith, who appeared to be an apprentice.
"What is it? Do you want to see the shop manager?" the young man asked Jay.
"There's something important I need to discuss with him. Can I see him now?" He explained his purpose for coming and then asked again.
"Okay, you can wait here for a moment," the young man replied, and then entered the shop.
Shortly afterward, a very muscular middle-aged man emerged from the shop with the young man.
"I heard you wanted to see me. What's your name, and what's your purpose?" asked the middle-aged man, who was the blacksmith shop manager.
"My name is Shadow, and I'd like to trade food for some iron," Jay replied, still using his alias, addressing the shop manager.
"Oh, you want to trade food for iron? Okay, you can come inside and talk with me," the manager replied, inviting Jay into the shop.
Shortly after, Jay was led into the shop and soon arrived at the manager's office.
After being invited to sit down, the manager introduced himself. "Let me introduce myself, I'm Anton, the manager of this blacksmith shop. You said you were exchanging food for iron.
Are you sure about that?" Anton asked Jay.
If it weren't for the food shortage and the order to stockpile iron tools, Anton certainly wouldn't have engaged in such a risky business.
As is well known, private business is strictly prohibited, and if caught, they could face jail.
However, the situation was urgent and concerned the future and survival of his family and employees.
Anton certainly didn't have many options. With the intense workload of a blacksmith, he naturally needed nutritious food to sustain his work.
And during this time, the blacksmiths hadn't been able to get an adequate food supply, causing their assigned work to pile up.
Furthermore, due to the changes, the central government made a swift decision to stabilize the situation by increasing the productivity of agricultural equipment.
This, of course, was their responsibility, but as they knew, working without adequate food only posed hidden dangers.
So, for some time now, Anton had been trying to find a food source for his workers.
But unfortunately, he couldn't find it, due to the scarcity of food and the high price.
"How much does 1 kg of iron cost? And how much does 1 kg of steel cost?" Jay asked.
After acquiring a blacksmith's workshop within his space, the workshop was able to produce simple agricultural tools as well as sharp weapons and bows.
Jay had anticipated that he could also make ninja weapons like shuriken and kunai, especially when he learned about the materials used to make them.
Basically made from ordinary iron, Jay was naturally intrigued. (There are special shuriken and kunai made from special materials other than iron and steel, but Jay didn't know about them and didn't have access to the information, so he could only make them from iron and steel, like the common shuriken and kunai in the ninja world.)
"One kilogram of unprocessed iron sells for $2, while processed, ready-to-use steel sells for $3 per kilogram.
Steel is very expensive and rare; there's only a small amount in stock at the warehouse. It's priced at around $5 per kilogram and is sold in limited quantities," Anton replied.
"Um, I understand. Then I'll order 20 kilograms of ordinary iron and 5 kilograms of steel. Is that possible?" Jay asked again.
"For iron, I can sell you a maximum of 50 kilograms, and for steel, I can only sell 3 kilograms," Anton replied.
"Okay, then I want 50 kg of regular iron and 3 kg of steel," Jay replied.
After agreeing on a price, Jay asked Anton to be ready in 9 days. Before leaving, Jay purchased 1 kg of regular iron from the store for his experiment.
Jay calculated (1 kg of iron can be made into 5 kunai, each 20 cm long, and 1 kg of steel can be made into 10 shurike). A ninja iron is 7-10 cm long and 0.5 cm thick. The data was taken via AI, so it's just an illustration. If there are any differences from what you know, please understand.
So, if Jay ordered 50 kg of iron, if it were made into kunai, it would become 250 kunai, and if it were made into shuriken, it would become 500 shuriken—a decent number, but for a merchant, it was clearly insufficient.
So, Jay decided to look for iron elsewhere and collect as much as possible. On the other hand, he didn't dare buy more from the blacksmith's shop.
Because if he had too much, he would certainly be suspected, so Jay chose a safer approach.
After leaving the sub-district area and re-entering the forest, Jay, walking quickly, soon arrived at a secluded location.
After ensuring no one was following him, Jay then decided to enter his room and try making ninja equipment with the power of his workshop.
Returning to his room, Jay immediately made his way to his blacksmith's workshop. There, Jay saw a manual on how to craft tools using the forge.
From the instructions, Jay simply placed the main ingredients into the furnace and then entered the desired item.
He then placed his hand on the spot where he had instructed the tool to be crafted, and from there, his memories and knowledge of the item would be transferred.
It would then be realized in tangible form.
Shortly after completing all these steps, Jay found the furnace in his forge starting to operate automatically.
Shortly afterward, a screen appeared before Jay's eyes, displaying the creation time.
[5 minutes to create one kunai, please wait] the system informed Jay.
"Ohhhh, 5 minutes is pretty quick. Okay, I'll wait and see what kind of kunai this blacksmith produces."
Five minutes passed, and Jay found a sharp, gleaming kunai in front of him. It had a pointed shape and a brightly shining point.
Satisfied with its appearance, Jay then tested the kunai on a nearby piece of wood.
Miraculously, the newly-made kunai easily pierced the wood Jay was testing.
And soon a cut at least several centimeters deep appeared in the wood.
Satisfied with the results, he now wanted to compare the quality of the kunai with the cold weapons he had obtained in this world.
Was his kunai better, or was his weapon better?