Chapter 17 (part 2/2) - Commission

  “Ah! So you finally show up!”

  “What are you doing here?” Vincent whispered in an exaggerated way, gesturing frantically for them to get up. “Do you want me to get killed?”

  Vincent quickly opened the door and ushered them into his room. He had warned them to be cautious, but apparently not enough. He couldn’t let anyone see him as a supplier.

  “What are you talking about? We just came to visit a friend… to bring him the good news.”

  “Good news?”

  Charly grinned arrogantly, flashing his white teeth.

  “To no one’s surprise, you’re standing before the greatest salesman of all time. I already have four interested buyers.”

  “I got three, but I’ve got many more potential ones. If it weren’t for Charly’s reputation for not paying his debts, people would be way more willing to deal with us,” Tammy added.

  “I only got one interested buyer… I also had a couple more, but they only wanted to pay four silvers for the pipe,” Ben admitted, a bit embarrassed that he hadn’t sold more.

  “And that’s why you only have one sale. It’s not a pipe, it’s a vaporizer!”

  Charly jumped to the invention’s defense, something strange to see after Vincent had felt he’d been against him from day one. Even so, eight sales in a single day wasn’t bad at all. If he’d had the vaporizers ready right now, he’d be sitting on forty silvers in profit.

  “Once other husks see people using it, I’m sure you’ll sell more units. They’ll come to you. But remember not to raise the price too much at the start. You’ll earn more by selling in volume, don’t try to make a fortune off a single vaporizer.”

  “…”

  Charly and Tammy felt personally attacked by the comment, realizing they probably would’ve had more offers if they’d given a more reasonable price.

  “And you, Ben, just focus on using it and letting people see you. Let them come to you. Once it’s in circulation, you can demand the same price as the other two.”

  Ben nodded, looking a bit less troubled. He wasn’t doing it out of charity, but they were a group, and he couldn’t leave him out despite being a terrible salesman.

  “Now let me sleep in peace. I’ll have your vaporizers ready by early tomorrow.”

  “Great… I’ll finally be able to stop working,” Charly commented, immediately catching Vincent’s attention.

  “You can't stop working, not yet. It would raise too many eyebrows. “

  “Suspicion of what?” Charly replied indignantly. “We’re not doing anything illegal.”

  “It’s not illegal, but this product will only be available until the tower deems it revolutionary enough to sell it itself. Then what do you think will happen to your profits?” Vincent explained, careful not to humiliate him completely; he needed them on his side. “We have to keep a low profile. The profits won’t last forever. Use this time to save, to buy herbs and grow. Don’t waste it on ornate clothes or other frivolous things.”

  “An ornate robe isn’t frivolous,” Tammy interjected, defending the importance of good attire.

  “You’re right, but if you start showing off you’ll spark envy in others. It’s better to appear humble when selling this.”

  “I-Investing in herbs sounds reasonable to me, it’s what I was planning to do,” Ben added, stepping into the conversation. “After all, the goal is to stop being husks.”

  “Hmmm…”

  Charly nodded. He didn’t like being corrected, but this was exactly what he’d always preached himself.

  “Fine. I’ll keep up appearances, but I don’t plan to spend the whole day working. I’ll donate coins to the tower when I get my commission and pretend to work while selling to other husks.”

  “Donate to the tower?” Vincent asked.

  “You can use the machine near the treasury to ‘donate’ to the tower. That’ll calm your bracelet if you can’t or don’t want to work.”

  “Oh… good to know.”

  After chatting for a while, the husks finally said their goodbyes, leaving Vincent to sleep peacefully after a long and dangerous day. The bed was uncomfortable and the blankets rough, but having a room to himself and the feeling that everything was ready for the next day let him sleep soundly, uninterrupted.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The next morning, after washing up, Vincent headed to the husk dining hall to eat. To his satisfaction, a group of husks was gathered around the trio. That could only mean one thing: he would soon need a large amount of product…

  Without even finishing his bite, Vincent bolted toward the abandoned bathroom, stopping first by a section of the library detailing how to construct accumulation arrays, and then detouring to buy the blood crayon needed to draw the array.

  “Good… no one’s looted it,” Vincent reassured himself upon reaching the bathroom.

  After cleaning and setting the room up, there was always the chance that someone might decide to explore it. That was why Vincent had left the entrance and part of the access buried under trash, to scare off the curious. A filthy, decrepit place “repelled” some of the energy, but it was a necessary sacrifice while he still lacked a safer space of his own.

  The accumulation array was relatively simple to assemble. The required runes could be drawn with almost anything, though a wax-and-blood crayon was ideal for tracing the engravings on the floor. The quartz crystals were arranged in a circular pattern toward the center of the array, where the fabrication circle would sit. At its very center, Vincent placed the unfinished ceramic cylinder.

  “Alright… in theory, it should start working as soon as I place the sphere and give it an activation pulse,” he muttered to himself.

  He took the silvered-steel sphere from his pocket and set it into its slot. Then he sent a pulse of energy to activate the circle.

  The sphere began to levitate gently and, a few seconds later, started to spin. It took a moment to reach the required speed, and then it shifted into position, moving toward the cylinder. Vincent had already calculated the dimensions so the sphere wouldn’t need to carve away excess material, but that precaution turned out to be unnecessary. The small sphere reached a rotational speed that would have been impossible for Vincent to achieve with his atrophied meridians.

  An intense buzzing, caused by the sphere’s high revolutions, filled the room, which fortunately was isolated from the rest of the tower, with no risk of discovery.

  If I’d tried to do this in my room, it would definitely draw attention.

  The small levitating lathe moved quickly and precisely, following the virtual shape of the casing to be completed, filling the air with ceramic dust. Less than ten minutes passed before the process finished. The piece was flawless and precise, though it still remained to be seen whether the other circles would perform just as well.

  It didn’t take long for his fears to fade. The fabrication circles worked perfectly, and the one assigned to the engravings had no trouble automating the internal runes of the vaporizer.

  Fortunately, Vincent had brought a good number of prepared ceramic cylinders, though he hadn’t expected to finish them all in just a couple of hours. Before lunchtime, he already had sixteen vaporizers ready, or at least their incomplete versions, still lacking gemstones.

  He only had thirteen silver towers to his name, enough to manufacture roughly four more vaporizers… as long as he didn’t take on more debt.

  No, I can’t do that. They’ll know I’m plotting something.

  Vincent chose the safest route. He bought the gemstones and finished the vaporizers quickly. Fortunately, Charly and Tammy were already hovering around his room, looking for more product to sell.

  “I’ve got three new buyers. Do you have the devices or what?” Charly demanded.

  “They’re expensive to make, you know? Here, two each. Sell the prototype I gave you as well, I need every bit of liquidity you can get.”

  “Why don’t you take out a loan?” Tammy asked. “You’re considered a resurrected, right?”

  “I already have a debt to pay. I can’t keep borrowing…”

  Charly and Tammy exchanged glances, but chose not to say anything. Once they had the product, they rushed off to find their buyers. They returned before the hour was up with thirty silver towers in profits, meeting Vincent just outside the forge. There was no time to waste. Tomorrow was payday, and many husks would have money to burn. He needed to build stock fast.

  “I’ve never seen this much money together… you’re lucky I’m an honest guy,” Charly commented as he handed over his share.

  “You’ve already got your commission, and you definitely made more than a week’s wages with this sale. This is just the beginning. Tomorrow will be crucial, but we can still keep selling today. I’ll have another ten vaporizers ready in a few hours. Start gathering your buyers around the dormitories, then swing by my room to pick them up. Understood?”

  Charly and Tammy nodded.

  Vincent used the thirty towers to buy raw materials for more vaporizers, which earned him an even more suspicious look from Phil. Ceramic, flux, and simple gemstones weren’t strange purchases on their own, but the quantity was starting to raise alarms.

  “Where did you get all that money? Another loan?” Phil, the clerk, asked.

  “Should you really be asking that? Isn’t it bad manners?”

  “…”

  Vincent had a point, even if it didn’t make the situation look any less suspicious. And it would only get worse when he came back later with another fifty towers to buy even more materials. There was no time to lose. He had to amass as much money as possible before the tower discovered his operation.

  Vincent returned to his room to finish the vaporizers. Charly and Tammy were already waiting for him. The unintentional shortage had caused a bit of an uproar outside his door, with a stream of cascarones trying to get their hands on the product. Vincent had to walk past them until Tammy caught the hint and pulled the buyers away from the entrance.

  “You’re short on money, right?” Charly asked as Vincent handed over the profits from this batch, fifty silver towers.

  “We were thinking,” Tammy continued. “If what you’re lacking is liquidity, you can use this.”

  Tammy placed nine additional silver towers into his hand.

  “These are our savings. You have to pay us back tomorrow… but with this you can buy more gems to sell, right?”

  It wasn’t much, but it helped. With that money, added to what he already had, he could make about twenty vaporizers. It was already getting late, and he still needed to prepare more ceramic cylinders in the workshop to use with his fabrication circles. But tomorrow, payday, he would have enough stock to generate around a hundred towers in profit. More than enough to settle his debts with the treasury and the husks. Enough to generate even more stock… and to fund other projects.

  It can’t be that with all this knowledge and skill I’m still unable to use even the simplest spells. I need something to assist me, an external system to raise my magical skill level.

  Vincent began scheming on the way to the workshop. There was nothing he could do to prevent the tower from eventually shutting down his operation, and he was already working as fast as possible. His mind moved on to the next problem almost immediately. It was inevitable. His brain was a problem-solving machine, and Vincent’s mind never stopped.

  Maybe a gauntlet… once I have enough money, I should start prototyping it.