A few days earlier, Shen Le had dumped the task of firing Porcelain Swords onto Mr. Zhao, then happily and cheerfully ran off to play at sea with Cloud Kun.
A few days later, Shen Le returned to Jingdezhen looking dusty and disheveled, carrying a huge pile of materials the experts had urgently calculated—materials whose process he could not understand at all and had to skip straight to the conclusions...
"You're here?"
Mr. Zhao stood before the kiln, turned his head, and beckoned Shen Le over with a smile.
As he moved, Shen Le saw the long robe covered in various glazes fluttering in the firelight, taking on different colors, some portions even turning semi-fluid:
Shen Le strongly suspected that Mr. Zhao used this robe as a pyrometric indicator for gauging the kiln's heat. One glance at how the glazes on the robe had changed, and he would know whether to add fuel or reduce the fire...
Around him, porcelain bowls, porcelain plates, porcelain bottles, and porcelain figurines bustled about. Some carried firewood, some worked the bellows, while others plunged headfirst into the porcelain kiln, spun around, then came back out gesturing wildly.
A huge screen hung about ten feet behind Mr. Zhao. Experts in a laboratory continuously monitored the data and communicated rapidly with Mr. Zhao through speakers:
"Kiln One, Point One: temperature 1,320 degrees... Point Two: 1,327 degrees... Point Three..."
Very good. Everyone was working hard, and they had clearly adapted to this style of work, with low-level Porcelain Demons helping out.
Shen Le guessed that the experts might even be extremely envious:
After all, being able to enter the kiln themselves, personally feel the shifts in temperature and atmosphere, and witness the changes in the porcelain firsthand was far easier than craning their necks outside, guessing, and