FFF-Tier System, SSS-Rank Wife-Chapter 53: An esoteric way to confirm the quality of the product

"Would you like to do the honors?"

With my hand pointing at the kiln, I stood aside, giving Selia the necessary room to either gently remove the cap...

Or to smash the whole thing into pieces.

Given the proportions of what was dug into the ground and what was molded from the excavated earth above the ground, adjusting for the reduction of volume to the wood and the removal of all the fire padding... It didn’t really matter.

Either way, the above-ground walls would need to be removed just to allow easy access to our prize hidden within.

Selia first looked at my face, then at my hand, and finally at the kiln it was pointing at. She then smiled as she turned to me before pinching at the edges of her skirt and offering me a well-practiced curtsy.

"Then, I shall take advantage of your kindness," she replied in a playfully formal tone. And as she straightened her knees back and looked over to the kiln...

Whoosh!

She merely swung her arm out, cutting at nothing but the air with the edge of her hand.

And yet, following her motion, the whole upper part of the kiln... shifted by a few inches to the side, clearly separate from the rest of its underground structure.

Then, rather than kicking it away or pushing at it with her hands, Selia merely flicked her hands, sending the now empty dome of the kiln flying.

With a single step, she stood over the hole in the ground only to then squat down and... frown.

She stared at the hole’s insides for a moment before slowly turning her face to me.

"Uhm..." her voice was full of hesitation, "is this what you were aiming for?" she asked, still squatted with her legs pressed perfectly together and her skirt covering just enough skin not to take away any of her modesty. Yet, while squatting and resting her crossed arms over her knees, she kept her hand still and merely pushed her forefinger to point at the kiln’s insides.

"Let’s see..." I muttered as I squatted down next to her, only to quickly switch over and put one of my knees down for better stability.

’So far, so good,’ I thought, staring at the almost all-black mess inside.

When stacking the wood inside, I made sure to arrange it into layers of rings before stuffing the remaining space with nicely shaped leftover blocks of wood. Now, however, the insides were just one big, black mess of broken and charred wood, all bathed in a load of ash and soot.

From the outside, it appeared as if everything worked out. But just my eyes alone wouldn’t be enough for me to tell.

I reached down before pushing my hand through the outer layer of the mess and then grabbing at a random, still warm piece of the charcoal before pulling it out.

It felt... extremely fragile with my fingers, shattering into three bigger and a few dozen smaller pieces as soon as I applied just a bit of pressure on it.

Yet, now that I held it in my hand, I could tell with near perfect accuracy — at the very least, the piece that I was holding was exactly what we were here to obtain!

Still, now that the whole process was done, there was one more way to confirm, now with absolute certainty, whether my plan worked.

"Hey, do you happen to have any money on you?" I asked, turning my hand to the squatting Selia right next to me.

"Hmm?" Saintess leaned her head over her right shoulder, her eyes filled with a bit of confusion. "I think..." she furrowed her brows just a tiny little bit, "I think I do have some coins...?" she replied, her voice revealing just how unsure she was. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"Then, humor me for a bit and play along," I requested as I stood up, cleared my throat, and then took a deep breath. Taking just one more moment, I constructed a proper scenario in my head before clearing my throat for the second time and then standing as straight as a soldier at attention would.

"Haaa..." I slowly exhaled my breath while allowing my body to relax a bit. Then, as I gathered myself up, I put on a professional customer service smile from my part-time days on my face before half-kneeling down and slapping my hand against the ground right next to the kiln’s hole.

"This bad boy can generate any amount of a coal replacement that you could want! You want just a bit? Then fill it with wood, set it on fire and watch how your cheap wood turns into black gold! You want more? Then dig another one! All it takes is just a few swings of a shovel and then a bit of playing with the dirt. I bet you could find some kids who would do it for you for a penny or two!"

Even though I was never really into sales or personal trade, I knew the job well enough to come up with a random sales pitch right on the spot.

That’s how I made my poor student life a bit more bearable, after all!

I stood up and, with the same professional smile on my face, I showcased a piece of charcoal on an open palm to the Saintess.

"Just look at this black beauty," I smiled... Only to then close my palm over the piece and take a step back while simultaneously pulling my hand back. "The question is... how much are you willing to pay for it?"

For but a second, I looked Selia in the face, enduring the slightly weirded-out look she gave me with those precious eyes of hers.

Then, I instantly started to look around, searching for something. And before long, right as I looked back to the hole of the kiln...

There it was.

[1 Cart Load = 8 silver coins]

I dropped the piece of charcoal from my hand and smiled.

"Yeah," my smile grew even larger as the full extent of what I just did finally dawned on me. "It worked perfectly well."

Right in front of me, Saintess stood rooted in place, giving me a look that made it seem as if she couldn’t decide whether to be concerned, happy, or confused. And so, not to make such a hard choice, she decided to act all three of those emotions all at once.

Ultimately, she simply shrugged her shoulders before smiling herself, right as I brought over my empty backpack and started to grab the charcoal from the broken-open kiln by the handful and then tossing it into the backpack.

As it turned out, this was the most laborious part of the process, given how most of the easily movable chunks of wood had now broken down into pieces I couldn’t exactly grab without breaking them even further apart.

Thankfully, within just a few minutes, I managed to grab most of the bigger pieces before scooping a few handfuls of the smaller ones, and then topping the pile in my bag with a few fistfuls of the charcoal dust mixed with the ash of what little wood actually burned away.

In the end, the backpack full of wood that I brought over turned into just over two-thirds of my backpack volume worth of charcoal.

Whether that was a good ratio or not... I honestly had no clue.

I only knew about the method of making it from an isekai novel I’d read in the past, so I was fully prepared for this method to be a total and absolute bust. But seeing how I now unlocked the ability to read the price of the items I was trying to sell to a potential buyer...

The wood I brought over turned into... something.

Whether it was charcoal, I couldn’t tell. But seeing how my ability was now online, it definitely was something that Greg could use in his smithy to replace the expensive coal with!

"Okay, I’m ready," I announced as soon as I zipped up the bag before kicking whatever leftover earth was around to bury the hole in the ground, covering our tracks to some extent. And as I put the backpack on my back and stood up, I looked over at Selia with a bright smile of satisfaction on my face.

"Shall we go? I think we can still make it before the town’s gates close for the night!"