At the riverside base.
Shinichi stood in the clearing.
Two Hyuga ninja walked over.
One Hyuga ninja bent down and picked up a new kunai.
The other Hyuga ninja reached out and picked up the old kunai made back at the old clan grounds.
Holding their kunai, the two stood facing each other.
Gengorō and a dozen or so craftsmen gathered beside them.
Shinichi watched them, everyone's eyes fixed on the two kunai.
The two Hyuga ninja swung their arms at the same time, smashing their kunai hard against each other.
Clang!
The sound rang out, and sparks flew.
The Hyuga ninja were strong. They swung their arms and struck their weapons together repeatedly.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Sparks kept flying as the two kunai clanged against each other.
After a dozen or so strikes, a chip broke off the old kunai's edge.
The Hyuga ninja holding the new kunai glanced at it, tightened his grip, and swung again.
Clang!
Crack!
The old kunai made back at the old clan grounds snapped cleanly in two at the middle.
The broken half fell to the ground with a sharp clink.
The Hyuga ninja holding the new kunai turned it over and examined its edge.
It was smooth and even, its edge intact, without a single nick.
Shinichi spoke.
"Try a few more old kunai. Keep testing the new ones."
The two fetched several more old kunai and resumed testing.
Clang! Clang!
Crack!
The second old kunai broke as well.
Then the third, and the fourth.
They tested several old kunai in succession, but the new kunai remained intact, without a single nick.
Gengorō crouched and picked up a new kunai that had just been tested against the others.
Gripping its handle tightly, he turned and walked over to the nearby anvil.
He had personally cracked the kunai from the previous mass-produced batch by striking them against the anvil.
Gengorō raised his arm and smashed the kunai hard against the anvil.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
He used considerable force, striking it hard several times in a row.
Gengorō stopped and brought the kunai before his eyes for a close look.
The kunai's edge was completely undamaged, without any chips, and its blade had not fractured either.
Holding the kunai, he walked up to Shinichi.
Gengorō lowered his head.
"Lord Shinichi, this batch of kunai is better than those made by the best shops in the Land of Iron."
"We misjudged them."
Hearing Gengorō's words, the craftsmen gathered nearby stepped forward as well.
Each picked up a new kunai from the ground.
Holding the new kunai, some craftsmen struck them against anvils, while others struck them against rocks.
Clanging rang throughout the clearing.
Everyone stopped and held the kunai, repeatedly running their fingers along the edges.
"They really didn't break. There isn't even a tiny crack."
"This edge hasn't rolled at all."
"I never thought something mass-produced could be this sturdy."
A young apprentice ran his fingers over the smooth blade.
"This time, we really have to give them credit."
From that day onward, the entire riverside workshop went into full operation.
Several hundred people were divided into groups, with the work passing from one stage to the next.
Those crushing ore did nothing but swing their hammers at the ore.
Those tending the furnaces focused solely on watching the large furnaces, adding coal and pumping the bellows.
As molten iron flowed out, designated workers poured it into molds to make blanks.
Forging, quenching, sharpening, and polishing followed immediately afterward.
Each group stayed at its own station, handling only its own stage of the work.
Several tall new waterwheels had been erected along the river.
The rushing river water drove the waterwheels around without stopping.
The waterwheels drove large iron hammers up and down, pounding the red-hot blanks heavily.
They spared the workers the effort of swinging hammers.
Gengorō led a dozen or so craftsmen back and forth between the different stages.
They no longer needed to make ninja tools themselves.
Their eyes watched the commoners at work, and whenever they spotted something wrong, they stopped to offer guidance.
"This blank hasn't been heated through. Send it back into the furnace!"
"The sharpening angle is off. Press your hand down a little more!"
Shinichi stood to one side, watching the wooden baskets filled with new ninja tools pile higher and higher.
Every step followed the next without any delays in between.
Over the course of a full day.
The workshop could produce several thousand brand-new kunai and shuriken.
Shinichi bent down and picked up a newly made kunai from the ground.
He began calculating the cost of this batch of ninja tools in his mind.
The iron ore used in the workshop had been mined deep in the mountains by Hyuga ninja.
The coal used to fire the large furnaces had also been mined locally in the neighboring valley.
The Hyuga had not spent a single ryo buying raw materials elsewhere.
The commoners working in the workshop received one thousand ryo in wages per day.
The craftsmen hired from the Land of Iron received fixed monthly wages.
There was also the expense of having commoners dig pits and slowly burn raw coal into coke.
All these costs were added together and spread across each ninja tool.
The total cost of a kunai came to around five hundred ryo.
Shuriken used somewhat less material, with the estimated cost coming to around three hundred ryo apiece.
Shinichi recalled the market prices he had calculated when he went to Konoha to buy ninja tools a few days earlier.
On the market in the Land of Fire, a kunai sold for five thousand ryo.
A shuriken sold for three thousand ryo.
He turned his wrist and hefted the solidly weighted new kunai in his hand.
Based on their current expenses.
The kunai and shuriken the Hyuga produced themselves cost only a tenth of the market price.
Shinichi then thought of the other ninja clans.
The other ninja clans all made ninja tools in their own small workshops.
One craftsman handled everything from start to finish, even burning his own charcoal.
They also had to spend money buying iron from the Land of Fire.
Making a kunai themselves cost them around three thousand ryo.
Making a shuriken also cost around eighteen hundred ryo.
Selling at outside market prices, they could make a profit of forty to fifty percent.
If the Hyuga sold at market prices too, they could make a net profit of ninety percent on each one.
But that would mean buying from the Hyuga cost the same as buying from anyone else.
Others would have no reason to insist on buying from the Hyuga.
Shinichi settled on the prices in his mind.
Hyuga kunai would sell for two thousand ryo apiece.
With a cost of five hundred ryo, each would earn fifteen hundred ryo.
Shuriken would sell for one thousand ryo apiece.
With a cost of three hundred ryo, each would earn seven hundred ryo.
These prices were even lower than the other ninja clans' own production costs.
Rather than going to all the trouble of making their own, they would be better off simply paying for Hyuga products.
A month passed.
The riverside workshop turned out goods every day.
A full fifty thousand brand-new kunai had been produced.
Eighty thousand shuriken were delivered to the village alongside them.
Wooden baskets filled with new ninja tools arrived cartload after cartload.
The storehouses in Hyuga Village were packed full. Even the aisles were stuffed, leaving absolutely no room for more.
Shinichi summoned several Hyuga jonin.
"Go make preparations."
"Invite the ninja clans and shinobi villages from every country."
"In half a month, we'll hold a distributors' conference in Hyuga Village."
One jonin scratched his head.
"Clan head, what's a distributor?"
"Someone who buys our ninja tools, takes them back, and sells them."
Shinichi looked at the storehouses piled full of ninja tools.
"I want every ninja tool used throughout the Shinobi World to come from our Hyuga Village!"
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