The changes inside Hollen’s forge did not happen overnight.

At first, most workers downstairs barely even noticed what Ernest was doing upstairs.

To them, he was simply Victor’s strange son who somehow escaped furnace duty and started carrying parchments instead of coal.

But by the end of the first week, the effects slowly started becoming visible.

The first thing Ernest focused on was organization. The forge previously handled records like people stuffing random tools into a single chest and hoping they could find them later.

Merchant requests were constantly delayed because paperwork disappeared beneath unrelated documents.

Workers often waited for instructions because nobody knew which orders had priority.

Even Hollen himself wasted time searching through ledgers.

So Ernest changed that first.

He divided the shelves into categories.

Merchant orders.

Inventory records.

Completed payments.

Pending payments.

Coal deliveries.

Iron shipments.

Finished contracts.

At first, Hollen thought the system looked unnecessary.

Then one morning, a merchant arrived asking about a delayed farming tool shipment.

Normally, Hollen would spend several minutes digging through random parchments while getting increasingly irritated.

This time, Ernest immediately walked toward the shelf, grabbed the correct record, and handed it over within seconds.

The merchant looked surprised.

Hollen looked even more surprised.

That alone already changed workflow speed upstairs.

The second improvement involved inventory tracking.

Before Ernest arrived, workers simply grabbed materials whenever they needed them.

Nobody accurately tracked how much iron or coal actually remained.

As a result, shortages constantly happened unexpectedly.

And whenever shortages happened, Hollen panic-bought materials from nearby suppliers at inflated prices.

Ernest introduced standardized inventory sheets.

Every incoming material got recorded.

Every outgoing material got recorded too.

Then at the end of each workday, remaining stock got physically verified.

At first, the workers downstairs hated it.

One blacksmith even grumbled openly.

"So now we count coal like merchants count coins?"

Ernest simply replied calmly.

"If we don’t count materials, then we don’t know where money disappears."

That statement spread surprisingly fast inside the forge.

By the second week, the improvements became harder to ignore.

For the first time in years, the forge stopped running out of coal unexpectedly.

That alone stabilized production.

Before, furnaces occasionally slowed down because workers waited for delayed fuel deliveries.

Now, Ernest started forecasting consumption rates.

He reviewed how much coal each furnace consumed daily and compared it against incoming deliveries.

Once stock levels reached a certain point, new orders were arranged before shortages happened.

To explain it to Hollen simply, Ernest used an analogy.

"Right now, your old system was like waiting until your stomach was empty before planting crops."

That explanation immediately clicked inside the forge owner’s head.

Planning ahead reduced desperation.

And desperation was expensive.

Another thing Ernest introduced was production tracking.

Before, nobody truly knew how productive each workstation was.

Workers forged tools endlessly without measurable output targets.

So Ernest created daily production sheets.

Worker Team.

Product Type.

Quantity Produced.

Materials Used.

Simple.

But powerful.

After several days, patterns immediately appeared.

One furnace team consistently produced more horseshoes than another despite using nearly identical material quantities.

At first, Hollen assumed the second team was simply lazy.

But Ernest investigated further.

The issue turned out to be workflow positioning.

The slower team constantly walked farther to retrieve tools and water buckets.

Small inefficiencies.

But repeated dozens of times daily.

Back on Earth, modern factories optimized floor layouts carefully for exactly this reason.

Even seconds mattered at scale.

So Ernest reorganized several workstations downstairs.

Coal storage moved closer to the furnaces.

Frequently used tools got grouped near specific stations.

Water buckets became assigned per workstation instead of shared randomly.

To the workers, the changes initially felt minor.

But after several days, production speed noticeably increased.

Less walking.

Less waiting.

Less shouting for missing tools.

The forge slowly started feeling less chaotic.

By the third week, Hollen’s attitude toward Ernest changed completely.

At first, the owner treated him like an unusually useful child.

Now?

Hollen started actively asking for his opinion before making purchasing decisions.

One afternoon, the owner entered the office carrying two supplier contracts.

"Which one should I take?" he asked.

That alone honestly said a lot.

Three weeks earlier, Hollen barely trusted Ernest enough to organize parchments.

Now the forge owner consulted him on business decisions.

Ernest reviewed both supplier offers carefully.

One supplier offered cheaper coal but inconsistent delivery schedules.

The other charged slightly more but guaranteed stable shipments.

Most people here would simply choose the cheaper option immediately.

But Ernest calculated differently.

Delayed deliveries created furnace downtime.

Downtime slowed production.

Slower production delayed merchant contracts.

Delayed contracts delayed payments.

So technically, unreliable cheap coal could become more expensive long term.

He explained it simply to Hollen.

"A broken wheel costs more than a strong wheel if the wagon stops moving."

Hollen stared at him quietly for several seconds after hearing that.

Then chose the reliable supplier.

By the fourth week, even the workers downstairs started noticing the changes.

The forge operated smoother now.

Materials arrived more consistently.

Orders got completed faster.

Merchant complaints reduced.

Workers no longer spent half the morning searching for missing tools or waiting for instructions.

Even payment processing improved because Ernest started organizing wage records properly.

Before, labor payments depended heavily on rough memory and scattered notes.

Now, each worker’s attendance and workload got recorded clearly.

That reduced disputes immediately.

One worker tried claiming extra wages for days he never worked.

Ernest quietly checked the records and disproved it within seconds.

After that incident, workers slowly stopped questioning the new systems upstairs.

Because for the first time, the forge no longer felt like a giant machine barely holding itself together.

It finally started functioning like an actual business.