Now, if you want to refine oil, it doesn’t have to be soybean oil—it could be other oils as well—but you still need the right tools.

Fortunately, Ethan Clark liked to watch some archaeology programs before he crossed over; otherwise, even if he understood how to make electrical machines, without an entire scientific system to support him—since so many things hadn’t been invented or created—he wouldn’t be able to come up with a complete system on his own.

To extract soybean oil, you first need to stir-fry the soybeans until they’re about seventy to eighty percent cooked, and then use a pressing method to get the oil out.

This overlapped with some of Ethan Clark’s plans.

For example, making some iron woks.

“Oh, there’s no blacksmith in the family?” Ethan Clark accidentally used a word that didn’t exist in the Spring and Autumn period, and asked, “So the metal tools at home were bought, then?”

The steward barely understood.

Ethan Clark had to break it down, one word at a time, slowly explaining until the steward finally understood what he meant.

Great nobles definitely had their own metallurgical craftsmen, but they usually only made things for personal use, including weapons and armor.

But the Wei clan held the largest share of the metal goods market in the state of Jin.

There were no metallurgical workshops in the villages of the fief, nor in the nearby villages.

If Ethan Clark wanted to make an iron wok, he’d have to go to a big city called “Lü.”

And Lü City belonged to the Wei clan; it was one of their many cities.

When the steward learned that Ethan Clark wanted to go to Lü City, he said shamefacedly, “Master, the chariot is broken.”

Nobles, of course, had to ride when they went out.

And the vehicle was a war chariot, not the kind of carriage common in later times.

It was a chariot with a wooden frame, sewn with leather, called a “leather chariot.”

The war chariot was a reward that Ethan Clark’s “previous self’s” father had earned for great merit.

In other words, not every noble had a war chariot.

It hadn’t been used for years, and with the family’s decline, it hadn’t been maintained and was now broken.

When Ethan Clark went to look at the chariot, the first thing he saw was that one of the wheels was missing.

And the vehicles of this era didn’t have axles; the wheels were mounted directly onto the frame.

Not having an axle was not only very dangerous, but also meant that turning required a very wide arc.

Don’t underestimate a single wheel—given the Lü family’s current capabilities, they simply couldn’t make one. The lack of skilled professionals was one reason; another was the absence of necessary tools.

So, just to go out, would Ethan Clark have to make a wheel, and then “invent” the tools needed for that?

That was simply crazy!

Ethan Clark wasn’t a real noble, and his family didn’t have the means to put on noble airs. He muttered, “We’ll walk!”

The steward’s face showed even more shame.

To go out, Ethan Clark had to personally report to the old matriarch and get her permission.

The old matriarch gave Ethan Clark a deep look, asked what he was going to do, and said, “You may.”

Did he think that was all it took to go out?

Most areas in this era were uninhabited; there were all kinds of wild beasts in the wilderness, so villages had to go to great lengths to build fences to keep animals out.

Unless you were confident in your martial skills—meaning you could handle or escape from wild animals if you encountered them outside—going out alone meant there was a high chance you wouldn’t come back.

It wasn’t just wild animals; you also had to watch out for poisonous insects, snakes, and even wild men.

These “wild men” referred to people who didn’t live in villages or cities. They had no lord, paid no taxes, and didn’t obey the laws of the lords or the state.

Nobles could kill or capture wild men at will.

If the wild men were bold enough, they could rob, kill, and so on, and they especially liked to target people traveling alone.

Because of all these factors, even though Ethan Clark was just going out, eight warriors were summoned, and thirty strong young serfs from the village were called up, forming a team of forty people in total, including himself and the steward.

Ethan Clark couldn’t ride a horse, and the two horses that had been used to pull the war chariot were so skinny they were unfit to ride.

Of the eight warriors, only three had metal weapons, and none had armor; the other five just carried sticks.

The serfs were simply empty-handed.

Ethan Clark saw the steward personally carrying a heavy animal skin bag, and heard the clinking of metal inside. He signaled for the steward to hand the bag over to him.

Since they were going to the city, even if Ethan Clark just wanted to make a few woks, he’d definitely need to spend money; if the steward wasn’t too dim, he should take this opportunity to buy whatever else was needed.

But all he saw was an empty ox cart—simply because the Lü family had nothing to sell.

The serfs wanted to sell things, but didn’t dare bring them along while they were responsible for protecting their lord.

Ethan Clark reached into the animal skin bag and pulled out two coins.

Currency in the Spring and Autumn period hadn’t yet been standardized; the currency of the state of Jin was shaped like a spade.

It was a hollow-handled spade coin, shaped like a farming tool, large and thick, with a long handle almost half the length of the body; the handle had a square hole for a shaft; the shoulders were raised, the feet pointed, and the crotch came in both round and square shapes, which could be further divided into large-arc and shallow-arc types; the body often had three raised vertical lines, remnants of the reinforcing ribs made to strengthen the spade’s blade and handle.

Ethan Clark saw characters on the spade coin, recognized the script as large seal script, but couldn’t understand what it meant.

Along the way, even though they walked along the road, they could still see all kinds of animals appearing from time to time not far from the roadside.

Most were harmless creatures like rabbits, pheasants, badgers, deer, and so on.