Pouring Silver into Progress
With the sudden windfall from selling pottery fired in the refractory brick kiln, I poured silver into fixing all the nagging inconveniences I'd endured up to now.
The first priority was properly furnishing the workshop building. I lined sturdy wooden shelves along the walls and hauled in a wide workbench for the center. The shelves soon held tools bought from the village forge—saws and planes for woodworking, hammers and axes in various sizes, and boxes stuffed with nails. Having them all stocked made me feel secure at last.
The one exception was carving chisels fine enough for etching patterns into pottery; there was no way to source them locally. I even offered the blacksmith a generous payout, but he turned me down, saying he lacked the skill to make such tools. In the end, I placed a special order with the merchant caravan that had delivered the contract scroll before. Two weeks later, they handed over a set of chisels procured from the count's castle in assorted varieties.
"Clay, these are all the tools you'll be using."
Clay came running at my call and fussed excitedly over the chisels in the box.
"Wow! Now we can etch patterns into the pottery!"
Seeing her so thrilled brought a smile to my face. Furnishing the place with proper furniture and specialized tools had cost around 50 silver, but it was money well spent when I considered the boost in work efficiency.
Next up was tackling the chronic fuel shortage. I was sick of wasting time detouring into the woods to gather twigs every trip hauling clay. I bought up a massive stock of firewood and charcoal from the general store all at once. I also hired a carpenter to build a small shed next to the workshop to protect it all from the elements. Between the fuel purchase and shed construction, it ran me about 100 silver.
Now the environment was set for uninterrupted work without fuel worries. The best part was the time saved on foraging, which let me increase my daily clay hauls. A single day's load would now last several days without leaving the village.
With more clay coming in, it was time to scale up the sedimentation process capacity. I had Clay smash the piled-up limestone in the yard using the new plane and hammer I'd bought. I fired fist-sized chunks in the brick kiln to make quicklime, slaked it in water, and mixed in sand to produce lime mortar. I carefully applied this to line the interiors of the stepped settling tanks I'd built earlier.
I also gave the dirt floor inside the building where we stacked the separated materials a major overhaul. I crushed damaged bricks and broken pottery shards to use as gravel base, then smoothed it over with lime mortar. I sloped the surface so water would drain naturally to the gutters along the edges.
No more materials getting contaminated by mixing with dirt or turning into a muddy mess when wet.
Finally, I spent on securing reliable transport. The manor staff knew I'd made a killing, so borrowing their cart and packhorse indefinitely felt awkward. Time to get my own. I commissioned the carpenter for the basic cart body and the forge by the guard post for the metal wheels and axle.
While placing the order, I added a few convenience features. A seat up front for the driver, and an arched wooden frame over the bed covered in oiled, waterproofed sturdy canvas. The result was a proper covered wagon with the entire interior as cargo space. The carpenter mentioned this top-cover design was called a wagon cover or tilt.
For the packhorse, I picked a large, docile one from the village's public stable on the outskirts. My knight training had taught me how to judge horses, so selection was no issue. It was a rough purchase, but no worse than the manor's loaners, so it could handle my usual workload just fine.
Outfitting the packhorse, wagon, and tack cost another 100 silver or so. That exhausted the pottery profits, but these were essential investments for ramping up efficiency. With my cash gone, it was time to earn more.
After this lavish shopping spree, I dove back into work. The new settling tanks delivered overwhelming output compared to the old 10-liter jars—equivalent to 120 jars in raw capacity alone, and closer to 200 in actual efficiency thanks to slashing the labor of transferring water. With my 20 jars, that meant production had jumped tenfold.
The now-redundant jars went onto the cart; I kept only the ones I'd made myself for fetching water and sold the rest back to the general store at half price.
A single sedimentation cycle now yielded enough material for 200 pottery pieces or 100 refractory bricks. Demand for raw materials could no longer keep pace with output. Running the process twice a month produced enough for one kiln load of pottery every four months, plus about 700 refractory bricks.
A small kiln took around 500 bricks to build, so in just a few months, I'd be free from the heavy labor of rebuilding every time one wore out. Refractory brick kilns lasted far longer than standard ones—over 100 firings—and recoating the interior with white refractory wash each time could double that. Even after reaching the end of its life, swapping the innermost brick layer would grant another 200 firings. By the time I reached adulthood, I'd never need to build a kiln from scratch again.
That would finally free me from this endless brick-making grind.
Clay and I worked far more comfortably now, firing standard bricks to repair kilns, then using those to produce refractory bricks, repeating the cycle. In between, we made supply-grade pottery to earn pocket money for firewood and charcoal.
These were mixed from kaolin, feldspar, and silica stone in a 3:5:2 ratio, firing to a hard, stone-like texture in pale yellow or grayish-white. We glazed them with a low-fire glossy transparent glaze (feldspar 6 : silica 3 : wood ash 1) that didn't require kaolin. It fired fine at standard brick temperatures, allowing mass production without kiln relining.
Priced at 8 large coppers each, general stores and passing merchants snapped them up in quantity. Common folk rarely used teacups, so we stuck to three types: thick bowls, plates, and mugs.
Similar price to earthenware pots from common clay but vastly more durable, non-porous thanks to the glaze so food didn't contaminate, easy to clean, and shiny enough to look upscale. They dominated the market overnight.
Bigger than teacups or small cups, the small kiln only fit about 100 per firing, but slow sales over two or three months meant inventory never piled up—a nice balance.
And so time passed. Four months after my first pottery sale, I turned 15. By abusing the small kiln with constant relinings, I'd steadily stockpiled properly fired refractory bricks. At last, I demolished the crude original standard-brick kiln and built a proper refractory brick kiln.
The new one was slightly larger, firing about 500 bricks at a time. Larger kilns improved fuel efficiency and batch size but extended firing times proportionally, so I kept it small enough for loads under 12 hours.
Once the refractory brick kiln fired up, everything changed. Its lifespan dwarfed standard bricks, eliminating the need to produce more regulars. We quickly rebuilt the pottery kiln too—demolished the old one and replaced it with indestructible refractory bricks.
No more constant standard brick firings meant firewood use plummeted. Charcoal increased, but overall fuel costs dropped below half.
I test-fired the remaining glazed pottery stock during shakedown runs and sold it all to the pottery merchant who returned via the butler. This deal pushed my silver holdings past 300.
Now, firing the kiln once or twice every three months yielded over 200 silver in pure profit. Based on two firings every three months, the kiln's durability projected over 12 years of life. No more brick-making meant free time after shaping pottery.
Ramping production further wouldn't sell—the entire count's territory demand was met with time to spare. A proper kiln's impact was revolutionary.
I could coast now, but stopping here wasn't an option. With limited demand, the key was selling the same volume at higher prices to maximize profit. Since I'd lucked into a fortune by accident, I aimed to squeeze every drop of efficiency.