"Make a fortune? Ha!"
Pakura put down her bowl of liangpi, dismissing Mukai's proposal.
A Genin from the village, with a little talent for making puppets,
was already dreaming of getting rich?
The village's puppeteers weren't poor, but in a buyer's market,
they wouldn't be willing to pay a high price for something a child had made.
Even if it really was useful.
That was their ingrained arrogance.
Mukai didn't mind Pakura's reaction. They were going to the Iron Sand anyway,
and for many things, facts spoke louder than words!
The three of them finished their meal as they talked.
Seeing how much Pakura and Sasori liked the liangpi,
Mukai specifically had Sasori pack some liangpi ingredients in a storage scroll.
In a world of shinobi, going out on missions was an everyday occurrence.
Mukai said goodbye to his original body's parents and to Shisō, who helped out at the shop.
After putting on their power-assisted jumping shoes and waist supports,
the three of them set off for the Land of Wind's northern border.
The Land of Wind's villages and towns along the way were all clustered around oases.
Water would always be the most important necessity of life in this land ravaged by wind and sand.
The common people's living conditions were worse than those in the Edo period,
while the nobles and wealthy merchants in the towns lived in luxury.
Seeing this, Mukai, who came from China, was filled with mixed feelings.
Society in this shinobi world really had developed in a twisted way!
But the wisdom of the sages had taught him:
when poor, one should cultivate oneself; when successful, one should help the world.
He was still very weak.
He had to survive in this world and keep growing stronger before he had the right to speak of changing it!
This wasn't an urgent mission, so the three of them weren't in such a hurry.
When they passed an inn, they would stop to rest for a while.
Two days later, the three of them arrived at the little black hill.
"Is all of this Iron Sand? Iron Sand extracted by the Third Kazekage?"
Mukai stared open-mouthed at the black mound of sand before him, which stood several meters high.
The iron-bearing grains were extremely fine. Perhaps because they had been extracted so long ago,
much of the iron sand was coated in windblown sand and rust.
Judging by the size of it, several hundred tons of iron sand had been left here!
In modern society, this iron sand might only have filled a dozen or so minecarts.
But in this resource-starved world, the pile of iron ore sand was a spectacular sight!
It was all his!
This was his first pot of gold!
Perhaps because of the previous war, the village in this oasis had long been abandoned.
The workshop where puppets had been repaired during the war stood near the little hill of Iron Sand.
Mukai wasn't in a hurry to inspect the abandoned workshop. Instead, he asked Sasori to take out the things they had prepared.
Sasori brought out a large pile of white powder and a specially made graphite crucible.
The graphite crucible alone had taken the two of them a great deal of effort to make.
"Oh, little Mukai, what did you get all this stuff for?"
Mukai first checked the inside of the graphite crucible.
Only then did he say mysteriously:
"In a moment, Teacher, help me use Extremely Steaming Murder to draw the moisture out of this big pot,
and heat it until everything melts.
Then I can show you how we're going to make a fortune!"
"That's it?"
Pakura had seen how people in the Land of Artisans smelted iron.
They used tall furnaces and lots of charcoal, and they needed a blast of air.
This big, pitch-black pot didn't look anything like an iron-smelting furnace!
Mukai put the white granules and the fine black iron sand into the crucible,
then signaled for Pakura to use Scorch Release: Extremely Steaming Murder.
The white granules were none other than
the salt crystals left after treating brine with electrostatic adsorption!
What Mukai intended to use was an efficient laboratory smelting method he had learned about in his previous life:
molten salt electrolysis smelting!
In this world of Chakra, this smelting method was more convenient than other oxidation-reduction methods.
He had already tested its feasibility on a small scale.
Now it was time for his large-scale production method!
Mukai finished mixing the two powders and gestured with his hand.
"Teacher Pakura, it's up to you now!"
Pakura held out a hand, formed an Extremely Steaming Murder fireball, and tossed it straight into the black graphite crucible.
"That's all?
Brat, if you're messing with me, watch out for my fists!"
When the Scorch Release: Extremely Steaming Murder fireball entered the crucible,
the water vapor in the mixed powders was immediately drawn out.
That was how overpowering a Kekkei Genkai combining wind and fire release could be!
Then, as the high-temperature flames of Extremely Steaming Murder continued to burn,
the powder in the crucible soon began to melt.
"Teacher Pakura, your Extremely Steaming Murder fireball is over seven hundred degrees, but I'm afraid it doesn't reach a thousand.
Flames at that temperature can't melt iron."
Pakura watched the mixed powder in the crucible begin to melt.
Although she didn't understand Mukai's assessment of the temperature,
she had seen him put the discarded Iron Sand into it.
Had her Extremely Steaming Murder improved?
It clearly couldn't melt that Iron Sand!
Pakura immediately formed another Extremely Steaming Murder fireball and threw it straight at the little hill of Iron Sand nearby.
As the fireball burned, the iron sand where it landed began to glow red.
But that was all. It showed no sign of melting.
Now it looked like the reason lay with the white granules Mukai had put in.
Seeing that the molten salt mixture in the crucible had completely melted, Mukai had no time to explain the underlying principles to Pakura. He rubbed his hands together and stepped up to it.
"The rest is up to me!"
"Neutral on the left, live on the right! Thunder God, lend me your power!"
Despite shouting that cringe-worthy slogan, Mukai actually used his left hand as the positive electrode
and his right as the negative, and began the electrolysis.
Mukai kept the direct-current voltage around 3.5 volts, but the current was enormous.
The current flowing to the crucible's electrodes reached four hundred amps!
Under that current, a vigorous electrolytic reaction began inside the crucible.
At that voltage, the molten iron ions were extracted by electrolysis,
forming elemental iron.
Because of its specific gravity, the elemental iron sank straight to the bottom of the crucible.
This molten salt electrolysis method was efficient and fast, but its drawbacks were chlorine gas pollution and very high energy consumption.
The mixed powder also had to be dried beforehand, making it very uneconomical.
But as Mukai saw it, this was the Shinobi World, where resources were desperately scarce!
Those drawbacks weren't worth mentioning!
Besides, the iron wasn't his main objective!
After Mukai maintained the electrolysis for more than half an hour, nearly all the iron in the Iron Sand had been reduced.
Mukai turned to Sasori.
"Sasori, use the Chakra Threads to open the bottom of the crucible, just like we tested in the puppet workshop!"
Sasori, who had been standing ready, nodded and gave the Chakra Threads a hard pull, opening the discharge gate at the bottom of the graphite crucible.
Some viscous molten iron flowed out and cooled rapidly in a simple mold made of sand.
"Close the gate!"
At Mukai's command, Sasori quickly shut the gate once the molten iron had drained out.
"Hehe, Sasori, I knew I could count on you!
Good, we worked perfectly together!"
Mukai wiped his sweat and patted Sasori as he praised him.
Pakura didn't even wait for the iron to solidify completely. She immediately scraped it with a Kunai and hefted it, exclaiming:
"Half an hour, Mukai! How did you do it?
You refined over a hundred jin of fine iron from this low-grade Iron Sand in just half an hour?
This fine iron is worth at least a hundred and fifty thousand ryō!
That's as much as two C-rank missions.
You really do have a way to make a fortune!"
Faced with Pakura's exclamation, Mukai calmly wiped his sweat and said:
"Oh, Teacher Pakura, you really haven't seen much.
This is just the beginning!
The fine iron isn't what's really valuable.
It's the scraps left in the crucible!
Those are the priceless treasures!"