Barov opened his mouth, probably to remind him that there were still pending matters, but ended up closing it. After a brief bow, he left the chambers to carry out the order.
Edmund did not take long to get ready.
He left behind the formal clothes he had worn the previous day and chose the clothes he had arrived in: a coat and trousers that allowed him greater mobility in close combat.
Under the coat, he wore a belt with a holster for his revolver. The rifle, meanwhile, was secured in a leather cover. Both weapons were strange to most of the inhabitants of Graymont, but no one had dared to ask too many questions about them.
His rapier would remain behind, along with his other belongings, sealed by a spell; a life in the wilderness had taught Edmund not to trust anyone.
When he arrived at the fortress courtyard, he found Jhon waiting for him alongside two other knights. The commander wore light armor and a sword at his side. The other men, both of a similar age, wore chainmail beneath their cloaks and carried short spears.
"My lord," John greeted him. "These are Ser Aldren and Ser Mathis. They will accompany us during the tour."
Edmund nodded. "Good. Do both of you know the mines?"
"They have served there on different occasions," Jhon replied. "They know the roads and the guard posts."
"Then you can tell me if the reports I have received are true."
Jhon seemed confused. "Is there any reason to doubt them?"
"There are many reasons to doubt anything in this place." Edmund mounted his horse. "Let's go."
The journey through the fortress was brief. Edmund observed the walls from the inside, the warehouses with their deteriorated doors, and the workshops where some craftsmen had already begun working. He did not need to stop for long to understand that the problem was not only the lack of money.
Everything seemed to function out of habit or intuition.
The warehouses received goods without a uniform record. The workshops used worn-out and excessively repaired tools. The carts piled up near the gates because no one had properly organized the movement of goods and there was no designated unloading area.
The city was a mess, in which everyone did what was necessary to survive the day.
It still made no sense to start giving orders if there were no people who understood the intentions behind them and who were observing their implementation.
For now, he would see the only possibility of saving this territory: the mines that had been the reason for this city.
The road to the north crossed an area of low hills and scattered forests. As they advanced, the terrain became more irregular and the signs of human activity more frequent. Small cabins, wooden warehouses, smelting furnaces, and secondary roads leading to different extraction points began to appear.
However, the activity was lower than Edmund expected. Few carts were loaded with ore, and too many workers waited beside the tunnel entrances.
"Is there always so little activity?" Edmund asked.
Ser Aldren looked toward the facilities. "No. A few years ago there were more workers, and the carts came and went all day. Now many tunnels are closed."
"Why?"
"Some stopped being profitable. Others flooded after the rains. There were also collapses during last year's earthquake."
Edmund frowned. "And they simply abandoned them?"
"We did not have the money to repair them, my lord."
It was clear that in Graymont, when part of the system stopped working, no one seemed to ask how to recover it. They simply adapted to the loss and continued working with what remained.
Edmund dismounted in front of the main entrance to the mine.
The administrator, a broad-shouldered man named Harlan, approached, accompanied by two supervisors. His clothes were covered in dust, and he had the expression of someone who had not received important visitors in a long time. The man, unlike yesterday, when he had presented himself to his new lord, had a disheveled and dirty appearance that blended in with that of the other mine workers.
"My lord. We did not expect your arrival."
"Relax, Harlan," Edmund replied while observing the facilities. "I want to know the real state of the mine."
Harlan bowed. "Of course. If you accompany me, we can show you the production records."
"Later. First, I want to see it."
The administrator hesitated.
"There are some areas that are not safe."
"Just get me an experienced guide. John is responsible for ensuring my safety."
Edmund pointed toward the main entrance.
"I want to see the active tunnels, the abandoned ones, and those that are causing problems. I want to know what is being extracted, how much is being extracted, and what prevents us from extracting more."
Harlan exchanged looks with his supervisors before nodding.
"As you command, my lord."
The tour began with the active tunnels. Edmund descended accompanied by John, the two knights, and several workers carrying oil lamps, along with Harlan himself, who had offered to serve as a guide out of fear that something might happen to him. The air became more humid as they advanced, and the sound of picks striking the rock echoed through the tunnels.
The mine was larger than Edmund had imagined, as well as much more primitive.
The workers used picks, shovels, and small wooden carts. Ventilation depended on rudimentary ducts and several vertical shafts. In certain places, water accumulated in small depressions in the ground, forcing the miners to go around them and spend more time excavating.
Not to mention the support beams.
Some were crooked; on others, moisture and mold were even visible. You didn't need to be a mining expert to see they were waiting for an accident before repairing the structures.
They continued until they reached an area where a layer of dark water covered the ground.
"This is one of the flooded tunnels," Harlan explained. "The water began leaking from a lower vein approximately two years ago. We tried to drain it, but the drainage shafts were not enough."
Edmund crouched near the edge and observed the water.
The problem was not necessarily impossible to solve with a steam-powered pump; this area could be recovered.
But doing so would come at an absurd price. Above all, it made no sense to build complex machinery without first knowing the amount of ore that could be extracted from that tunnel.
"What was down there?" he asked.
"Iron. The vein was quite good before it flooded."
"Quite good?"
Harlan nodded.
"According to the old records, yes."
Edmund looked at the water again.
That could be an opportunity, but it could also become a black hole in which Graymont's scarce reserves were wasted.
"I want the records for that tunnel," he said. "Including the drainage expenses and the amount of ore extracted before it was abandoned." Edmund thought that he would have to make a gamble and trust his ancestors; he could not ask anyone to go in and verify the information; no ordinary person would survive that.
"I will prepare them, my lord," Harlan said.
After inspecting the flooded area, they returned to the surface and headed toward an older excavation located on a nearby slope.
The surface was covered with fragments of reddish and gray rock. Several workers separated the ore with hammers, but they discarded large quantities of material and piled it into mounds beside the road.
"What is happening here?" Edmund asked.
"The vein still produces, but the ore is impure. It has too much rock mixed in, and the iron we obtain is low quality. Buyers pay less for it, so it is barely profitable to continue." Harlan replied.
Edmund took one of the fragments the administrator offered him.
He turned it between his fingers, looking at the ore that seemed to contain mixtures of sulfur and phosphorus. At a glance, it looked like an ordinary stone with metallic veins. In his previous life, it would have required a chemical or mineralogical analysis to determine its composition precisely.
Here, however, he had another possibility.
His element of magic, Cahmon.
Edmund closed his fingers around the fragment and allowed his power to slowly spread through the rock.
It was not an explosive or spectacular transformation. There was no flash that illuminated the mountain. He only felt the structure of the mineral become clear to him: the iron, the rock, the impurities, and the elements he did not need.
Edmund focused his will, and the world responded.
The stone dissolved into small particles that fell to the ground, while the iron gathered in his hand, taking on a compact and dark form. In a few seconds, what had previously looked like mediocre rock had become a small piece of almost pure metal.
Jhon took a step forward, his hand near his sword, fearing that a demon was going to be summoned, according to the rumors.
Edmund ignored their reactions.
The magic was simple in appearance, but the effort caused a sharp pressure behind his eyes. His breathing grew heavier, and he felt his concentration begin to wear him down.
It was not like lifting a stone or lighting a flame; besides, he had left his sword, which served as a focus for concentration, in his room.
Separating the impurities required identifying each component and maintaining control over them while altering the material's structure. The greater the quantity, the greater the difficulty.
He had eliminated the impurities, but the result did not justify the effort. If he needed to concentrate like that to purify a small amount of ore, it would be impossible to use his magic to process tons of iron.
He would not only end up exhausted.
He would also be wasting an ability that could have much more important uses.
"What have you done?" Harlan asked in a trembling voice.
Edmund raised his gaze. "I separated the iron from the rock." Edmund handed it to him.
The administrator looked at the small metallic fragment as if he were contemplating a sacred relic, despite the fear of magic that everyone felt. Harlan was certain that he had never seen purer iron than what he held in his hands.
"This proves that the ore contains usable iron. We only have to figure out how to remove them without resorting to magic," Edmund said while trying to recover his energy without anyone noticing anything; the only advantage he had was being a mage, and no one knew the extent of his abilities, so they feared and respected him.
Harlan blinked. "But… if you could do it with all the ore…"
"Don't be foolish. Even if I had been the best mage in the class, something at this level could only be done by a mage in the world."
Edmund also did not want everyone to expect that, with his magic, he could solve all the problems of the territory.
Jhon observed the fragment with a mixture of caution and curiosity. "Then, why do it?"
Edmund looked at the mounds of discarded sulfur and phosphorus, pleased by Jhon's question, which he had expected from the others.
"To confirm that the problem is not the absence of iron, but the way we are extracting and processing it."
Harlan frowned. "Do you think we can make better use of it and do it another way?"
"I think so, but we need to improve the furnaces to be able to do it, and it would be a much more effective use of my magic."