Volume 1 Chapter 11 (1/2)

Chapter 11: Pottery

“How is it? Can you see it?”

“Yeeah, kind of. It’s blurry.”

Right now I’m doing magic training.

What I’m doing now is what can be called the fundamentals of the basics, practice to see the soul, but…apparently I’m no good at it.

“It’s not that you’re very untalented. It’s more like you’re just a bit on the ‘bad’ side for boys. Since it’s just the basics you’ll definitely be able to master it after about three years.”

“Three years, huh…How long did it take you, Julia?”

“For me, it was three days.”

“…Isn’t the difference a bit too big?”

I’m guessing Julia is just a monster. That’s relieving.

“In the first place, in magic the difference between having no talent and a lot of talent is just that wide. Ninety percent of it is about talent.”

“Then doesn’t that mean that it’s pointless to even try?”

“No, that’s not the case. If you just want techniques to resist curses, as long as you’re not some kind of super airhead anyone can learn it.”

Airhead, huh…

So I guess that since I’m just on the ‘bad’ side it’s fine.

“Curses, like chickens, come home to roost. That is common sense when it comes to cursing. It is much easier to defend yourself from a curse than it is to use one. For ordinary shamans, even cursing someone who doesn’t know magic would only work about half the time. If the target realises that they have been cursed, the curse won’t succeed. You can easily reject a curse with only willpower. Although when it comes to someone of my level, it would be easy to curse you to death.”

“If I recall, I believe that it’s easy to curse plants since they don’t have any will, right?”

I think I heard something like that before.

“That’s right. That’s why you need to protect crops with barriers. For the most part, I think shamans are better at defending themselves from curses than using them. Because you need at least three shamans worth of power to break the barrier that one single shaman set up. Because I’m as powerful as a hundred people, this law doesn’t apply to me though!”

Julia said and puffed up her thin chest.

Don’t brag about every little thing.

“Since we’re not going to be getting anywhere until you are able to gain awareness of the spirit world, make sure you try hard every day. You should also meditate a little each night before going to sleep.”

“It feels like I’m going to do muscle training.”

“Because those are the basics. I also meditate everyday. Before going to sleep.”

In the end I just have to keep on putting effort in every day, huh.

So nothing changes in terms of exercise and magic in that area.

“By the way, how valuable is salt? Do you take it from the sea? or from rock salt?”

“Salt? I guess it’s fairly valuable. Mostly rock salt. If we took it from the sea, to boil the water we would need a lot of firewood.”

I see. So they’re valuables.

I want to avoid trading with iron ware. Because I want to leave some of the ironware for self-defense. In that case, should we mine the rock salt ourselves, or make some kind of special product…

“Is there anything you want?”

“What’s this about? Are you going to give me a present?”

“No, not like that. I was thinking that I could make something to trade for the salt. I was asking just for reference.”

“Ehh, asking something like that all of a sudden…Let me think. If I had to say, maybe some kind of pottery?”

“Pottery?”

Doesn’t everyone have pottery? It’s not anything special really, right?

“Occasionally someone crosses the sea, from a region called Karisha. The pottery that they bring is tough and entirely different from what we use. Also, they have a really beautiful colour. Because of that, it’s really popular among royalty.”

“I see. The pottery we use is fragile, and the colour is dirty. Thank you for the information.”

I’ll think about it as soon as I get back.

First we should think about the features of the pottery we use.

They are thick and fragile. They are also red.

This is caused by the fact that the clay contains oxidised iron. The criminal is ferric oxide.

Pottery in this area is mainly made by heating the clay in an open environment. Because of this, a large amount of oxygen is constantly being supplied, making our pottery like this.

Then what should we do?

We should just bake it in the ground.

We should make an anagama kiln. (TLC/ED: An ancient type of kiln made by digging into a slope. For more information, google is your friend.)

Since heat can’t escape from a closed s.p.a.ce easily, it can also heat objects at a much higher temperature than baking something open-air.

At the end we block the flue and the kiln’s opening with firewood. By doing so, we can limit the amount of oxygen being carried into the kiln.

As the amount of oxygen decreases, we won’t get a buildup of ferric oxide. Instead we will get iron monoxide.

Iron monoxide is black. So we will get a piece of black-coloured pottery.

In other words, Sue ware. (TL: type of unglazed pottery made from the middle of the Kofun era through the Heian era)

Well, I’m not really familiar on the subject though.

Anyway, I can make something better than the pottery used currently. Though I don’t know whether it is superior to Karishan pottery.

Now then, an anagama kiln is necessary to bake the clay.

Since this ‘anagama kiln’ (lit. hole kiln) is, as the name suggests, a kiln in the ground…that means it’s time for some hard labour.

Do we have the time for that? Don’t we have to work on the farm?

That’s not the case.

Rather, we are super free right now.

We’ve finished harvesting the turnips and are now raising clovers. Since clovers are half weed or something, we don’t really need to trouble ourselves over them.

Although because of that they’re so tough that I can see us having a hard time trying to remove them next year.

So, we have plenty of time.

“That being the case, do you have the hoe with you? We’re going to begin making it right away.”

“Where will we make it?”

Soyon asked while holding the hoe.

“On a slope. I think that there was a slope that seemed just perfect for this over in that direction. We’ll make it over there.”

“Are we going to be digging just so that we can trade for salt?”

“We’re not doing this only to get salt. When we aren’t able to harvest wheat and the like, it would be handy to have something that we could use to trade for foodstuffs.”

We don’t have an unlimited supply of iron for tools.

On the contrary, there are trees that make firewood and clay in abundance. We don’t have to worry about exhausting those.

Also, we can use the anagama kiln to make useful things other than pottery.

We’re not going to lose anything by making it.

“Let’s do it!”

“Yeah!!”

Like that, we began working on the anagama kiln.