23: Chapter 23: Selling trash to your opponent is the most cost-effective attack.

In the warm fireplace, the pine wood crackled, reflecting a ruddy glow on Baron Hans's fat face.

He sank comfortably into the velvet-wrapped armchair, swirling the crystal wine glass in his hand. The crimson liquid left elegant streaks on the glass, much like his currently perfect mood curve.

The first piece of good news came from the tax official he had stationed at the border.

That little brat who inherited the House Byron title, Levi, had actually begun frantically selling off his pitiful family assets.

Iron ingots, farm tools, low-quality leather armor... everything that could be turned into money was flooding the market at suicidal low prices.

"Typical profligate behavior," Baron Hans snorted disdainfully, draining the expensive wine in his glass.

In his view, this was undoubtedly the final struggle before Blackstone Territory's capital chain snapped.

That rumored trash who couldn't even cultivate Battle Qi probably couldn't even afford the grain tax for the next quarter and could only survive by selling off his inheritance.

This gave him a few more points of confidence in annexing Blackstone Territory, which, though barren, held a vital strategic position.

And the second piece of news made him laugh so hard his double chin squeezed out.

That useless lord had actually sent someone to negotiate, wanting to buy the slag he was worried about having no place to store at a high price.

Slag!

What was that?

It was worthless trash left over after iron smelting!

Aside from occasionally being used to fill potholes in the road, even farmers despised them for polluting the soil.

And now, that little fool actually wanted to spend money to buy trash?

"Philip," Baron Hans lazily lifted his eyelids and looked at the financial advisor standing bowed by the desk, "what do you think of this?"

Philip, a thin-faced, shrewd-eyed middle-aged man, immediately took a step forward upon hearing this, his face showing a perfectly timed hint of "worry."

He adjusted the monocle on his nose and said cautiously, "Baron, this might be a trap. Although Levi of Blackstone Territory has a bad reputation, according to reports from the informant I planted in their caravan, his recent behavior has been quite... bizarre. We are dumping ironware at a loss specifically to suppress his survival space. Not only did he not retreat, but he also lowered prices along with us. Now he's proposing to buy something as absurd as slag. When things are abnormal, there must be a catch. I'm worried if he has discovered some new method of extracting precious metals from slag that we don't know about."

These words of Philip's were exactly what Levi had personally taught him to say before the plan began.

Such is human nature. Greedy people will swallow a piece of fat dangled in front of them without hesitation; but if someone warns them 'this meat might be poisoned,' they will instead swallow it even more impatiently to prove their own judgment and demonstrate their brilliance.

Sure enough, after hearing Philip's "advice," Baron Hans was not only unalarmed but instead let out a loud laugh.

"A trap? Philip, you're getting more cowardly as you get older!" He tapped his temple with a thick finger. "Think with that brain of yours filled with gold coins! What could be in slag? The alchemists of our Ironhoof Territory have studied it for decades, and besides extracting a tiny bit of pitiful sulfur, they can't even find a piece of copper! Can Levi, a trash who doesn't even know magic, be smarter than my alchemists?"

He stood up and paced to the window, overlooking the iron-smelting workshops in his territory with their many chimneys that never stopped day or night. A sense of pride in controlling everything welled up.

"No, there is only one truth." Baron Hans turned around, his eyes gleaming with greed. "That little brat must be at his wit's end! I bet he wants to use this slag mixed with mud to repair his dilapidated castle walls! Hahaha, only someone driven mad by poverty would think of such a method! The more he needs it, the less easily we should give it to him!"

He waved his hand and gave the order: "Philip, go reply to the messenger from Blackstone Territory. Tell them the slag can be sold, but the price must be raised by another thirty percent on top of what they proposed! Not a single copper less! Also, sign a supply agreement and have him pay the full amount for the first batch in advance! I want to see how long that money he got from selling his family assets can last!"

"...Yes, my lord." Philip lowered his head, and behind his lenses...

The transaction went exceptionally smoothly.

Levi's side seemed terrified that Baron Hans would back out, readily agreeing to the thirty percent price hike. That very day, they used all the funds from selling their inventory to pay for the first batch of fifty large wagonloads of slag.

Three days later, when a long convoy laden with black-gray industrial waste drove grandly into Blackstone Territory, Levi even impatiently signed a larger, three-month long-term order and paid a high deposit, creating the illusion of being "extremely thirsty" for slag.

Looking at the long-term supply agreement with wet ink presented by Philip, along with that heavy deposit, Baron Hans's final doubts vanished.

He was now one hundred percent certain that he had Levi's lifeblood firmly in his grasp.

That stupid trash had fallen into the trap he had prepared for him.

"Pass my order!" Baron Hans roared excitedly, spit flying everywhere. "Have all the blacksmith shops in the territory work three shifts at full capacity! Throw all those poor-quality iron ores into the furnaces too! No need for refining, just crude smelting! I want to produce the maximum amount of slag in the shortest time! Sell as much as that brat wants! I'll use this trash to squeeze out every last bit of his family assets!"

While the workshops of Ironhoof Territory were in a frenzy to produce trash, deep underground in Blackstone Territory, a subversive technological revolution was quietly underway.

The entrance to the underground sealing hall had been transformed into a heavily guarded temporary workshop.

Hill's expression was very poor, one could even say she was quite reluctant.

Having her, a noble Elven alchemy master, process the trash left over from human iron smelting was simply an insult to everything she had learned in her life.

But Levi's orders were not to be disobeyed.

She could only frown as she directed several dwarves to carefully place baskets of slag transported from Ironhoof Territory into a circular area defined by runic lines.

In the center of the area, a slender mithril tube extended from the depths of the dark corridor, its opening pointing directly at the pile of slag.

"Energy injection, three percent." Hill coldly ordered the dwarf in charge of controlling the valve.

The dwarf immediately turned the valve, and a trace of calamity energy, almost invisible and like black smoke, was precisely channeled through the tube. Like a gentle breeze, it brushed over the pile of slag.

A bizarre change occurred.

Those originally lifeless black-gray slags, the moment they touched the calamity energy, developed a faint, metallic dark luster on their surface.

Their internal structure was completely reshaped and tempered on a level beyond mortal understanding.

"Alright, take it away! Next batch!"

Blackfinger and his dwarf blacksmiths were waiting at the other end of the workshop.

Using special long-handled iron tongs, they picked up the "energy-tempered" slag that had been reborn and threw it into another newly built furnace.

Under the forging techniques passed down through the dwarf race for millennia, this original waste was forged into a completely new light alloy that shimmered with a dark light.

Blackfinger picked up a newly cooled pickaxe and swung it at a piece of hard granite used for testing.

With a soft "thud," like a hot knife through butter, the seemingly ordinary pickaxe easily sank into the rock. The whole process was incredibly smooth.

"By my beard!" Blackfinger pulled out the pickaxe and cried out in shock at the mirror-smooth cut. "This thing is three times sharper than tools made with our best steel! And... look!"

He handed the pickaxe to everyone; there wasn't even a hint of curling or wear on the blade.

Never-wearing.

Levi named this brand-new metal "calamity alloy."

Two days later, the drawing room of Blackstone Territory.

Evelyn, dressed in practical attire and looking heroic, had the first batch of five hundred "calamity alloy" farm tools laid out on the table before her.

Her destination for this trip was the black market of the lawless "Trifolium City."

And the person she was looking for was the local big shot there, a woman named Linda.

According to information provided by Levi, this woman was one of Baron Hans's largest ironware export distributors.

Evelyn did not choose to sell these epoch-making farm tools directly.

She found Linda, placed a "calamity alloy" sickle in front of her, and proposed a gambling agreement that left this female merchant, who had spent half her life in the black market, dumbfounded.

"These five hundred farm tools, I'm giving to you for free." Evelyn's purple eyes shimmered with charm and confidence. "You are responsible for distributing them to all of Baron Hans's downstream markets. I don't want a single gold coin from the sales; it's all yours. I have only one requirement," she held up three slender fingers, "within three days, I want Baron Hans's ironware orders to drop to zero."

Linda picked up the sickle and, just by testing its edge, understood the terrifying business opportunity hidden behind this agreement.

She signed her name without hesitation.

At this moment, Baron Hans was immersed in the immense joy brought by the slag business.

In just a few days, by selling trash, he had earned a profit that usually took a quarter to achieve.

He had even begun planning to use this money to expand his army and take Blackstone Territory in one fell swoop once he had squeezed Levi dry.

However, his beautiful dream was soon completely shattered by a series of bad news.

His exporters, as if by prior arrangement, sent messengers one after another. All ironware orders already signed or under negotiation had been canceled.

The reason was surprisingly consistent: a type of "black gold farm tool" had appeared on the market, priced only ten percent higher than his goods but with several times the quality.

Those farm tools were sharp and durable, supposedly lasting a lifetime. All downstream retailers and farm owners were going crazy, preferring to wait in line rather than buy his crudely made ironware.

"black gold tools?" Baron Hans crushed the wine glass in his hand. Glass shards pierced deep into his palm, but he felt no pain.

An ominous premonition, like a cold poisonous snake, coiled around his heart.

It wasn't until a scout bought a sample of the so-called "black gold farm tool" from the market that he finally realized he had been completely duped.

That familiar metallic texture with a hint of dark luster was clearly made using the slag he had sold!

He had a mountain of crudely made, low-quality slag accumulated in pursuit of production, as well as an equally massive inventory of ironware that no one wanted now.

And Levi, the trash in his eyes, had used the "trash" he sold to destroy the entire market he relied on for survival.

The capital chain was broken.

To produce slag and ironware at full capacity, he had mortgaged almost everything. Now, he could barely even find the money to pay his soldiers' wages.

Collection letters from banks and chambers of commerce flew into his castle like snowflakes.

Just as Baron Hans was overwhelmed by the cash flow disruption and even starting to consider selling off territorial assets, his financial advisor Philip knocked on his study door.

"My lord, perhaps... there is another solution." Philip's expression was as respectful and worried as ever.

He handed a document to Baron Hans.

"A business alliance from the royal capital is willing to provide a long-term loan with extremely low interest to help you through the current crisis."

Hope instantly flared in Baron Hans's eyes. He grabbed the document like a drowning man clutching at a final straw.

"However," Philip added at the right moment, "they have one condition. They require the mining rights for all mines within Ironhoof Territory for the next thirty years as collateral."

"Collateral it is!" Baron Hans couldn't care less at this point. As long as he could overcome the crisis, he would agree to a hundred years, let alone thirty!

He eagerly flipped to the last page of the document, preparing to sign his name.

Philip's finger tapped lightly on the signature line at the end of the document.

And the header of the document, in an elegant and ancient business font, clearly marked the name of this "business alliance"—

"Byron Investment."