The sale of tools brought a modest improvement to the Gómez family's reputation, but it was far from decisive—at least in the beginning. The reality was simple and unforgiving: steel was scarce. Even at four tools a day, the production barely made a dent in the needs of the region. Hundreds of laborers worked the fields, mines, and workshops across the valley, their hands blistered and aching, their livelihoods dependent on worn iron implements passed down through families or rented at crushing rates from the caciques.
Four tools a day was nothing.
Yet scarcity did not mean irrelevance.
The very existence of Gómez-made tools—stronger, cheaper, and tied to credit instead of submission—introduced something far more dangerous than abundance: expectation. People began to calculate. To wait. To hesitate before paying tribute. And that hesitation alone was enough to disrupt the old order.
