I Became The Chief of A Primitive Village

Chapter 122: Hitting a Bottleneck

After finishing his noodles, Su Bai walked to the stone table and sat down, picking up an Animal Hide and starting to ponder the next steps of development.

He looked up at the chipped stone bowl on the nearby table, and an idea began to form in his mind. [Yeah. We should make porcelain, It’s about time to produce some. Eating from a large stone bowl every day, which becomes heavy and hot when filled with food, is hard. It is far from an ideal dining utensil. Moreover, crafting a stone bowl is quite challenging. It requires the right stone and it is generally a time-consuming process to carve the bowl out. Right now, the Tribe’s priority is the production of weapons like stone knives and spears. We can’t allocate too much resources into making dining utensils like stone bowls.]

Su Bai closed his black eyes and began to recall intensely. He remembered seeing a webpage about making pottery when he was on Earth.

“Shaman, what’s wrong?” Yu Ying asked worriedly, looking at Su Bai.

“It’s nothing, I’m just considering something. You don’t need to mind me for now. Go about your usual business,” Su Bai said, still with his eyes closed.

“Oh, alright.” Yu Ying lowered her head and continued sewing the linen clothes.

Recently, the Tribe’s linen production speed has been gradually increasing. After setting aside linen for trading with the Spotted Deer Tribe, the rest was all brought back to Su Bai’s Main Teepee for him to distribute.

Su Bai swirled the stone cup in his hand, pondering, [To make ceramics, we definitely need clay. Clay is a widely distributed, colloidal, lusterless, sticky soil. It is moldable when moist and hardens after baking. So, clay is the best raw material for making porcelain. To make ceramics, the most important thing we need to do now is to find clay.]

[Clay! Clay! Where to find clay is the difficult question…] Su Bai frowned, thinking. He recalled the environment around the Tribe, trying hard to think where this material might be found nearby.

*Tsk!* After thinking for a while, Su Bai clicked his tongue and shook his head, then looked up and asked, “Xiao Yu, do you know if there’s any sticky soil near the Tribe?”

“Sticky soil? What kind of soil is that?” Yu Ying paused her work on the linen and continued, “The soil near our Tribe is all hard. I don’t know if that’s what you mean.”

Su Bai was amused by the innocent fox eared girl’s response  and changed his question: “Let me ask this way, is there any soft, moist, yellow mud?”

“Shaman, I’ve always stayed within the Tribe, so I’m not very clear about the situation around it.” Yu Ying said, a bit embarrassed. Her fox ears drooped. She felt a bit dejected because she could not be of help to Su Bai, feeling that she was quite useless as a Shaman Priestess.

She often heard Uncle Cang Shi mention that Shaman Priestesses from other Tribes were very capable, able to do all sorts of things. Unlike herself, who could only sew linen clothes, tidy up the Teepee, and at best, make some dried meat.

“It’s alright, you’re already taking very good care of me.” Seeing the fox eared girl’s dejected look, Su Bai felt sympathetic and continued, “Go and call the Chieftain for me. He might be able to help.”

“I’ll go right away,” Yu Ying said, twitching her fox ears.

Looking at the still swaying door flap, Su Bai muttered, “There should be more of this clay by the riverside. There probably isn’t any nearby.”

He picked up a charcoal and started sketching his plan on an Animal Hide, thinking of a temporary solution for the lack of porcelain.

The charcoal made continuous rustling sounds on the Animal Hide as bowl-shaped and cup-shaped patterns began to appear.

[Let’s use wood for now. If there’s no clay, we’ll have to delay making porcelain till we can find some.] Su Bai said, pursing his lips.

Although wooden utensils were not as hygienic or easy to clean as porcelain, their lightness was their biggest advantage. Moreover, the production cost was low, far lower when compared to carving bowls from stone. After all, wood was much easier to work with.

About ten minutes later, Yu Ying brought the Chieftain to the Main Teepee.

“Shaman, what did you need me for?” Yan Jiao asked with a slight bow.

“Do you know where there might be clay near the Tribe?” Su Bai blinked his black eyes and continued to explain in a more understandable way, “It’s a kind of soft…”

He repeated what he had told Yu Ying to the Chieftain, adding other characteristics of this clay.

Yan Jiao narrowed his eyes, thinking carefully, and said, “I think there’s this kind of soil by the river in the Ancestral Land, but I don’t think there’s any near our Tribe.”

“I see…” Su Bai sighed. [As expected. Guess things are not that easy…]

“Shaman, why do you suddenly need this kind of soil?” Yan Jiao asked, curious, not understanding why they suddenly needed to find this soil.

“It’s useful for the Tribe’s development, and we can trade it for quite a few things.” Su Bai did not go into the details and just made this simple statement.

“Useful for the Tribe’s development?” Yan Jiao immediately became excited. He remembered the Tribe’s water source, the classroom, and the Wolf Tail Grass Noodles, and began to look forward to what this soil could do.

“Give this to Gu Mu. I’ll tell you what clay can do when we move back to the Ancestral Land.” Su Bai handed over an Animal Hide.

Before actually making anything, he did not want to speak too definitively, This was to avoid disappointing others if nothing came of it.

Yan Jiao took the Animal Hide and briefly looked it over, asking, “Shaman, aren’t these the things we use each day?”

The patterns on the Animal Hide were roughly the same as stone bowls and cups, but with some changes in detail. There was also a pair of chopsticks drawn. Of course, the drawings were not very elaborate, given that it was sketched with charcoal.

“Yes. For now, using wood will take less time and effort. We can also make them as big as we want,” Su Bai said.

He had specifically drawn plates and basins, things that only existed on Earth. They could not really keep using leaves to hold meat.

“Yes, I’ll go inform him right away,” Yan Jiao nodded.

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