I've been transported to the orc continent.

Winter is just around the corner, but the temperature seems to have stopped changing, which is completely different from the situation on Earth where it gets colder day by day as winter approaches.

These past few days, Bai Ling and her people have been living on this side of the riverbank. The further upstream they go, the more iron ore they find.

For this reason, Bai Ling went to the section of the river that just enters the Gaoshu tribe to search carefully. He searched for a whole day in this section of the river, and even went to the upper reaches of the river in the Dahe tribe, but he still couldn't find a single piece of iron ore.

This led Bai Ling to suspect that the iron mine was very likely located within the territory of the Gaoshu tribe.

This is truly great news. If there really is an iron mine in the tribe, then he can collect a lot of iron ore to smelt iron and make many iron products. The tribe will undergo earth-shattering changes.

In the past few days, Bai Ling and her people have collected a total of 120 baskets of iron ore, and even on the last day they collected 40 baskets, which is more than they collected in the first four or five days.

Bai Ling guessed that the iron ore he was looking for was probably not far away.

However, Bai Ling didn't have time to search for iron ore. During the meal, a tribesman asked Bai Ling, "Ling, winter is coming tomorrow. Should we continue to stay here?"

This tribesman is named Shan. He is the oldest among the tribesmen here. Shan is steady and never arrogant or impatient. Shan helps Bai Ling with many things.

Bai Ling was taken aback. Winter was coming tomorrow? He hadn't noticed anything unusual about the weather.

Shan noticed Bai Ling's confusion and explained, "Ling, didn't you notice? It's been blowing north winds all day, and there's already a slight chill in the air. And the trees—they all seem to know that winter is coming, and they're all listless."

Bai Ling knew that the wind was blowing from the north today, but he really couldn't tell whether the trees were alive or not.

When winter comes, the tribe will stop hunting, which means he can smelt iron with Yue.

Bai Ling's lips curled up, and she became cheerful: "Uncle Shan, we've collected quite a lot of iron ore. I plan to go back to the tribe tomorrow to smelt it." Bai Ling called out the names of two tribesmen: "Zao, Lan, you two are fast runners. Go back to the tribe at dawn tomorrow and ask the tribesmen to help transport the iron ore back."

The iron ore that Bai Ling and his people collected was piled up in the cave. They couldn't transport it back by themselves. Zao and Lan were both white wolf beastmen, and they were fast runners. It would be perfect to send them back to ask their people for help.

"Let's continue collecting iron ore tomorrow, so we can collect more iron ore and make more ironware."

The bright firelight made people's faces glow red. The tribesmen sat together, eating and listening to Bai Ling and Shan talk. After Bai Ling finished speaking, Xiao asked, "Ling, tell us again, what exactly is ironware?"

The tribespeople have asked this question many times, and Bai Ling has explained it many times, but they still ask it tirelessly because they simply cannot imagine what ironware looks like.

Bai Ling laughed and said, "I won't use iron knives and axes as examples today. Let me talk about something else. First, let's talk about iron pots. Cooking things in earthenware pots is not only time-consuming and laborious, but earthenware pots are also prone to cracking. Iron pots won't do that, and they heat up evenly, making the food taste better. Then there are sickles. They are curved knives. When gathering, orcs used their fingernails to pinch, hit with stones, and pull by hand. With sickles, fruits and vegetables can be easily cut off. Also, when digging cassava, we used stone knives. With iron, we can make hoes, which makes it much easier to dig things out of the ground."

As Bai Ling spoke, he gestured, and the tribespeople drank meat soup while listening to Bai Ling talk about the benefits of ironware, their eyes filled with thoughtful and longing expressions.

Ling described ironware so well, I hope it really is that good, so that they can hunt and gather more smoothly and with less effort.

*

In the middle of the night, Bai Ling felt a chill. The chill wasn't strong, but it was real. The white lion shivered slightly but didn't wake up from its sleep.

When Bai Ling opened his eyes in the morning, he immediately sensed something was wrong. It seemed a bit cold today. He always slept in his beast form at night, and if even his beast form could feel the cold, it meant that the temperature had indeed dropped.

Bai Ling exhaled a large puff of hot air, shook its big head, slowly stood up on its four limbs, and strolled out of the cave.

The cave where they lived was halfway up the mountain. Standing in front of the cave, they could clearly see the river below, the riverbank, and the endless forest on the other side of the river.

When Bai Ling finally saw the forest, which seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see, he was dumbfounded.

Yesterday, the forest was lush and verdant, but today it has turned golden and deep red, as if an unseen hand has dyed the leaves with color.

Besides these, Bai Ling also clearly felt the change in temperature. If yesterday's temperature was the coolness of early autumn, today it was the chill of early winter. It's only the first day of winter, and even in beast form, one can feel a slight chill. What will it be like when it's coldest? The temperature will definitely be terrifyingly low. No wonder even though orcs have strong physiques and can transform into beast form to resist the cold, they still shiver and even freeze to death in the coldest part of winter.

Memories of winter resurfaced in Bai Ling's mind. He took a deep breath, thankfully there was a kang (heated brick bed) this year, which would make winter much easier.

Bai Ling found a place to transform into his beast form. As soon as his skin touched the air, Bai Ling shivered from the cold. He shivered as he put on his clothes, and it took him several breaths to recover.

Now that the weather is cold, Bai Ling is wearing a robe. Clothes in the beastman world are very simple; when it's hot, they wear animal skin skirts, and when it's cold, they wear robes.

The robe was made of several pieces of animal hide pieced together. It had no sleeves, buttons, or belts. When the beastmen wore it, they usually tied it around their waist with animal hide belts or straw ropes. There were no trousers in this world, so the robe would easily slit when walking, and the cold wind would blow straight up to their legs.

When the weather gets coldest, the beastmen will put on two sleeves over their robes. It's not too cold yet, so Bai Ling can only wear this sleeveless robe.

Bai Ling put on animal skin shoes and walked out from behind the stone. Goosebumps rose on his exposed arms, which made him rub his arms back and forth, and his feet started to jump.

Once he returned to the tribe, he was determined to make the shirt and pants. Bai Ling thought to himself as he walked, "I also need to make a pair of trousers so I won't have to wear an animal skin skirt under my robe anymore."