Platinum Sand

The spy, Mario, whom Yulon had prepared to place in the Free Cities, had his subsequent operations entirely handed over to Daggmo.

Daggmo was appointed as Yulon's bodyguard by King Kolen. It wasn't just about protecting Yulon's safety; Kolen wanted to allow Yulon more freedom to pursue his own goals, and Daggmo's abilities and connections could help him. Their more than twenty days at sea aboard the Hao Yin could be considered a shared life-and-death experience. Yulon had come to understand Daggmo: he appeared rough, impulsive, and dull-witted, but in reality, he was shrewd and capable, with a delicate touch beneath his gruff exterior.

Yulon had many plans in mind, and he could only prioritize them based on importance and difficulty. Currently, the only thing he could do that had a low investment cost, low trial-and-error cost, high probability of success, and high returns was—salt!

The deepest stone cellars beneath Pike were as damp as the Drowned God's womb. Salt frost seeped from the rock walls, casting a ghostly pale white glow under the flickering torchlight. Every breath carried a cold, salty stench, and every falling water droplet echoed hollowly in the dead silence. Here, the wails of salt slaves and the eternal roar of the waves were shut out, leaving only the silence of stone and a brewing, world-altering stillness.

Yulon Greyjoy stood in the center of the cellar, his dark gray cloak almost merging with the shadows. Beneath his hood, his heterochromatic pupils burned with a focus and control beyond his years in the dim, yellow light. He was no longer an observer but the core of this secret ritual, the source and helmsman of a torrent of Knowledge. Daggmo had helped him find this quiet location and prepared everything Yulon needed. Lysa, shedding her deep-sea silence, had transformed into the most precise instrument and extended arm. Her emerald eyes closely followed Yulon's every subtle command, like a believer gazing upon divine pronouncements. His uncle, the Greyjoy priest who had performed his Drowning Rite, had been invited from the Drowned God's temple by Yulon to bear witness, silently observing his every move.

On the rough wooden table lay the common, crude implements of the Iron Islands: heavy earthenware jars, polished wooden buckets, thick iron cauldrons, fine woven strainers, and smooth whalebone rods. Beside them lay a pile of coarse salt, just transported from the salt fields, grayish-yellow and brown, emitting the briny and bitter scent of seaweed.

"Step one, dissolve," Yulon's voice echoed in the stone cellar, his clear, childlike tone carrying an undeniable command that precisely sliced through the silence. He extended his slender fingers, pointing to the wooden bucket filled with clear rainwater and then to the pile of dirty coarse salt. "Take the quantity and pour it into the water. Let it settle, like a reef sinking into the abyss. Allow the mud, gravel, shells... all the impurities from the earth, to settle to the bottom on their own."

Lysa acted as instructed, her movements precise as a machine. The coarse salt granules fell into the water with a dying hiss. She stood still, her gaze locked onto the water's surface like a falcon. The turbid water gradually separated into layers, the upper liquid taking on a sickly yellowish hue. Yulon nodded slightly. "Filter! Take only the clear liquid from the top. The sediment at the bottom is useless; discard it like worn-out shoes." The woven strainer swept across the water's surface, filtering the relatively clear saltwater into another clean earthenware jar. The muddy residue was completely abandoned in a waste bucket in the corner, symbolizing a discarded past.

"Step two, devour." Yulon's gaze shifted to a sealed earthenware urn in the corner. He walked over and personally lifted the lid, revealing charcoal blocks as black as ink jade and brittle in texture—these were activated charcoal he had specified sea oak to be smothered in a special kiln. "Crush them into powder." Lysa immediately took the charcoal and carefully ground it in a stone mortar until the charcoal powder was as fine as ink jade's bone ash. Yulon picked up a pinch of charcoal powder with his fingers, observing its texture under the firelight, and nodded with satisfaction. "Sprinkle them into the saltwater. Stir," he picked up the whalebone rod and personally demonstrated a slow, powerful circular stirring motion, "let the bones of this charcoal devour! Devour the 'spirits of bitterness' dissolved in the water, devour the 'souls of iron' that bring the rusty smell, devour all the impurities that shame the salt!" His words were like incantations, but in reality, it was just the simple—activated charcoal adsorption method. He just wanted to give it a mysterious name, after all, in this world where people widely believed in deities.

Lysa took the bone rod and began stirring. The turbid saltwater, within the vortex of charcoal powder, miraculously lost its yellow color, becoming increasingly clear and transparent! Yulon watched from the side, his heterochromatic pupils like precision instruments, observing every subtle detail of the color change. "Enough," he raised his hand to signal a stop. "When the water is as clear as snow in a cold pool, the impurities are all removed. Filter again! This time, filter away both the charcoal powder and the spirits of impurity it has devoured!"

The woven strainer worked again. The filtered saltwater was almost colorless, pure as melting snow from a high mountain. The black charcoal residue and the bitter spirits it had imprisoned were thoroughly removed.

"Step three, boil with fierce fire, temper the true form." Yulon pointed to the thick, dark cast-iron cauldron. "Pour it in." The filtered saltwater was poured into the cauldron. He personally walked to the hearth and lit the fuel, a mixture of dried seaweed and whale fat. Azure flames rose like living things, licking the cold bottom of the cauldron. "Fire is the will of tempering. It must be fierce at the beginning, to dispel the inertia of water vapor." Initially, the cauldron was calm, then fine bubbles rose from the bottom, from sparse to dense, crackling and popping, steam filling the air with a pure salty scent. "When it boils like a raging sea, it must be softened." Yulon's voice was like chanting ancient alchemical incantations. When the steam rose and the liquid level dropped by about one-third, he picked up a long-handled wooden spoon, dipped a drop of the concentrated liquid, and dripped it onto a cold obsidian plate. The droplet quickly solidified into tiny colorless crystals. "Look, the essence of salt begins to awaken!" A sharp glint flashed in his eyes. "At this time, the fire must be like a warm bed, not violent. Let the moisture recede leisurely like the tide, allowing the true form of salt to condense and grow leisurely in the mother liquor. Those 'evil spirits' (magnesium chloride, etc.) that bring bitterness and deliquescence, they cling more to water; let them stay in the water now!" This was the essence of the evaporation crystallization method—the control of heat determined the separation of purity and impurity. Lysa concentrated, adjusting the fire according to Yulon's every glance and subtle gesture, maintaining a gentle boil in the cauldron. Fine, frost-like white crystals quietly grew on the cauldron walls and the liquid's edge, like sacred ice flowers.

"Step four, drain the blood, sever the poisonous roots!" When the bottom of the cauldron was covered with a layer of snow-white crystals, and the remaining mother liquor became viscous, small in quantity, and had an unsettling yellowish-brown hue, Yulon decisively ordered, "Extinguish the fire!" He pointed to a shallow wicker basket lined with several layers of fine linen cloth. "Scoop it out! What's in the cauldron, the snow-white is the essence, the viscous yellowish-brown is the 'bitter blood' (bitterness brine). The cloth is the filter; the essence stays on top; the 'bitter blood' drains below! This blood is poisonous; touching it will tarnish the salt's soul, its roots must be severed!" The solid-liquid separation was imbued with the decisiveness of severing fate at this moment. Lysa carefully scooped the scalding mixture into the filter basket with a specially made wooden shovel. The scalding, viscous bitterness brine hissed, passing through the linen cloth and flowing into the earthenware jar placed below, emitting a brow-furrowing bitter aroma. What remained on the linen cloth were the damp, yet shining with pure light, proto-salt crystals. Yulon looked at the drained bitterness brine as if looking at the severed head of a poisonous snake.

"Step five, condense, seal the pure soul." The damp proto-salt was evenly spread in several wide, shallow earthenware plates. Yulon led Lysa to a well-ventilated, dry stone chamber nearby. The chamber contained only a small basin of smokeless charcoal fire emitting dry heat. "Wind and slight heat are the final sculpting. Turn it, like grooming wings, ensuring every grain is dry, light, and independent!" He personally demonstrated the action of turning the salt layer with a smooth whalebone slice, gently and evenly. Lysa took the bone slice and turned it periodically. Time flowed by in the dry hot wind, moisture being stripped away strand by strand. The salt grains gradually became loose, dry, and shimmered with a snow-white cold light. Drying, this final step, was like adorning a pure soul with an eternal outer garment. When Lysa picked up a pinch of salt, only pure saltiness remained on her fingertips, with no trace of other flavors or stickiness, she looked at Yulon. Yulon extended his small hand and personally picked up a bit and put it in his mouth. That extremely pure saltiness exploded on his tongue, like the perfect condensation of the sea's essence. He closed his eyes, as if tasting power itself. When he opened them again, the light in his heterochromatic pupils was enough to pierce the thickest darkness.

"Step six, seal in a stone coffin, imprison the authority." The completely dry, cold proto-salt was carefully scooped into small, thick-walled earthenware jars by Lysa with a specially made bone spoon. Yulon stood by, personally supervising every action. The mouth of the jar was covered with soft sheepskin soaked in beeswax, and then sealed tightly with melted black sealing wax, symbolizing House Greyjoy. Each sealed small jar was like a miniature tomb, imprisoning snow-white purity and world-altering power.

Lysa held the first sealed earthenware jar before Yulon, kneeling on one knee as if presenting a sacred relic.

"Its value from this moment on is comparable to its weight in gold dragons! From now on, call it Platinum Sand!" Yulon took the cold earthenware jar, his small fingers caressing the smooth surface of the jar and the hard sealing wax. He felt the power contained within, enough to change the fate of the Iron Islands.

Making it so solemn and grand was naturally intended to imbue "Platinum Sand" with a relative sense of mystery. After all, the vast majority of people in this world had faith; the more mysterious and secretive it was made, the more it could make people feel as if they were possessed by a divine spirit. After the whole process, Yulon felt that Lysa and Daggmo looked at him with adoration. If the system had a trust level that could be viewed, Lysa's trust level would be at least 80, and Daggmo's would be a perfect 100.

This was not salt; it was a scepter! It was chains! It was the cornerstone of House Greyjoy's rule! When Platinum Sand was mass-produced, that would be the beginning.