Business

Hundred?

Because of the prolonged use of the vigesimal system, it took a moment for them to comprehend. He explained it as 5 sets of 20. Having 5 sets of 20 gave a way to grade material. Beginner, average, good, superior and excellent. Rather than using the word poor as the grade of the first set of 20, calling it beginner had a better fit. It would be cheap and good for anyone starting out. It would also not hurt the pride of the blacksmith as much or so Daniel thought when he decided on the naming.

Everything was to be judged based on their properties. A measure of how many strikes a sword would take before it starts to bend, crack and so on until it is unusable.

After an in-depth discussion between the various blacksmiths and Daniel, they formalized the rules of the contest. To ensure fairness, magic automations were employed to do the strikes.

Without revealing their secret formula, these craftsmen have found a common platform to compete and prove themselves. He had inadvertently created a new form of standard that humans would employ. The other races had advanced much further using magic technology but humans could not advance as efficiently in that aspect. Rather than measuring with magic, they do it with science. Little did Daniel realize that what he did had started the scientific approach to things for humans.

Daniel had looked at the whole thing like a businessman. He saw a need and he met it. What he gave was knowledge and he gained from them was more knowledge and connections. Connections to other business and other trades and traders. He had chosen blacksmiths as his starting point for that very reason. He saw himself as the one to kickstart the industrialisation and bring about things like steam engines and cars. He may not know much about those things but he can get others to do it. That is what a businessman is all about. Finding the right man for the right job and making money while doing so. He saw it as something simple.

If you cannot build something, build something or get someone to build something that can build that something.

He wanted flushing toilets and a long warm bath. These small luxuries that exist only for the rich and magicked in this world.

He understood the difference between luxury and priority. What he needed was to focus on priority.

During these 10 days he had learned about what the people were lacking, what he is lacking and what he can do.

He had managed to worm his way into the network of blacksmiths. It had meant that his tools were more or less secured.

What he now needed was food, water and shelter.

As a temporary measure he could stay at a nearby tavern that cost 3 Quids a night with very light breakfast at 1 Quid. It was cheap stale bread which was tough as rock but better than nothing.

The only thing he had issues with was water.

Sanitation was not exactly on people's agenda or in their understanding. They did not understand microbes or anything smaller than the stuff that they can see. They know about it but they were clueless about it. The most common cause of death for humans was toxins in their body.

Everyone cleaned up by the river, drank from it and dumped their waste into it. The only problem was that the upstream of this river was part of the waste transportation of the nearby city of the other races. The only local water source is polluted and they did not know it was a problem

For the other races that had such issues, it was an easy to solve problem. They just use water magic.

As magic deprived humans, to do so would require someone gifted in water magic to generate that water. This would mean that supply is always much lower than demand.

Health becomes a secondary concern.

While he is under protection under the law, he is granted limited access to clean water. It was clear that that supply would end soon.

From what he could tell, people with water purification knowledge never ended up here. Maybe they landed here but did not survive to the point of awakening due to high mortality rates.

He understood a simple way to produce a small amount of drinking water and that was by boiling and distilling. After spending some of his money to obtain writing material, he drew a simple filtration system and a connected boiling and distilling device and brought it to the blacksmiths.

After a long detailed discussion with the blacksmiths, they made a simple prototype.

The filtration system was just a container with gravel sand charcoal stacked over each other in trays.

It was just a prototype so it would be good enough for the next step.

For the next step he had to employ a rune crafter. His boiling and distilling device consisted of 3 containers. The first had a rune carved on it that would boil and stop on its own when the water reaches a certain temperature. It would help kill microbes but it would not get rid of the dissolved toxins in the water. This would work for most people and daily use.

The other had 2 types of rune carved on it. It consisted of 2 containers connected at the top with a pipe. At the bottom of 1 was a rune that just keeps boiling as long as there is water and mana. On the pipe was a weak rune of frost to cool the steam. He wanted to use a wind charm originally but there was none available when the designs were made. That increased the cost but it could not be helped. However, thanks to that, he got himself some cold water. He could not complain about that especially after a hot day.

To him, efficiency was an important factor. A trader must always balance his accounts and make profit as soon as possible.

He looked at the ugly prototype. It worked. However it cost him almost everything he had to get it made. He got himself clean water. Now he just needed to sell it. He went near the gates and set up a pushcart stall with a sign.

Cool Refreshing Water For 1 Quid

1st Cup Free

After 1 hour of waiting, no one came up to grab even the free cup of water. He knew he had to change plans. He walked up to the guards and offered it to them, promoting it to them in full business mode.

Hi. I am Daniel. I will not take up too much of your time. I am starting this small business of selling clean cooling water. As you can see here I am not getting any business so I am handing them out to let everyone hard at work to have a taste of it. It is also a token of appreciation to the guards for standing here under the hot sun. This clean cooling water is the perfect drink for a hot day like this.

The Guard looked apprehensive.

Daniel pointed at his push cart.

This was made by the blacksmiths Wayland, Rick and a few other blacksmiths. Even if you cannot trust me, you can trust their handiwork right? Not to mention that this is made with the help of so many of them. This is something from the future. Just look at it. It is something you have never seen before. You are not just drinking clean cooling water, you are drinking the future! Just imagine yourself boasting to the others that you were the first to drink from this revolutionary breakthrough that came 200 years early…

… If you do not believe me, I can drink from this and get you another cup. It would be colder and even more cooling than you can imagine. How about it?

Blasted with a chunk of information and plenty of sales speech, the confused guard nodded his head.

Daniel drained his cup of not so cold water and poured a new cup. A quick activation of the rune chilled the water in the 2nd half in no time. While doing so, he explained how easy to use this device is and how this is just the prototype.

As you can see here, it is barely 10 seconds and I have a cup of clean cooling water. Try it. It has no taste at all. In fact it might even taste sweet to you because of the lack of unpleasant taste.

The guard looked once again apprehensive. He looked at the other guard and looked back.

How about this, if this drink kills or hurts you in any way, 10 Quids and I will lose the protection that I am supposed to have by law. Would that suffice as proof?

Deal.

The Guard took a sip. Then another, then he drained the whole cup.

He stared deadpanned at Daniel…

I Need ANOTHER Cup Of This.

Daniel smiled.

This cup will be free too but the one after will cost 1 Quid.

After that drink, he offered the very same deal to the other guard.

He too took it as it was free.

So one guard became 2 guards and 2 guards became 3. It did not take long before the entire squad each had a cup or more.

As he made sales with the guards, he noticed multiple shifty personals by the corner of his eye. They were eyeing the device, whispering to themselves and trying to keep out of sight. It was clear to him. Corporate spies. One thing Daniel understood was that he now had to sell this prototype to someone or a group with authority. The military or the mayor would have both been good choices. There was no copyright protection. Ideas would be copied as long as they were popular.

That in turn made him change his sign slightly.

Cool Refreshing Water For 1 Quid

1st Cup Free

10 Quids refund if it makes you sick.

Also at the same time, he asked the guards to convey the message to their superiors that he has interest in selling this device.

By night fall, he sold the device and made a small profit. It was only a measly 20 Quartz above the cost of production.

He felt really encumbered. There was no electricity, no plastic and most importantly, no entertainment. As a trader, he enjoyed reading and learning new information. Entertainment in this world was solely for the rich. There is of course another type of nightly entertainment but that was not up for consideration.

With what he had it was time to commission tools for the new age. Despite how it seemed in the beginning, this junk town has everything needed for what he wanted to make. As a trader, he had toured enough manufacturing plants to know what is needed to create a fairly efficient work flow.

Many of the ideas that he had required material properties never seen before. Things such as thin metal sheets, wires, screws and nails were just the basic items needed. However, perfectly flat thin metal sheets were laborious and time consuming to make with current technology. Same went with wires. Instead of wires, they were just long sticks of metal. The blacksmiths had to hammer them to thickness so there was a limit of how thin it could be. The precision and tools required were just lacking.

To make metal sheets he had the blacksmiths make lathes. Lathes already existed but they were not at the level that he was satisfied with. Using machines to build better machines. That was how things would be back on Gaia. It was what he knew.

Back on Gaia, he was just a smart businessman. He just needed to know how things work and not how to make things work. He had left those parts to the experts. He just needed to tell them what he wanted and gave them a timeline. If they made it, he would sell it. If not he just goes to the next project. He had done so all this while and coming here had been no different.

After a good amount of discussion with the blacksmiths on his end goals, he made the blacksmiths build machines after machines.

Accuracy increased by leaps and bounds.

Along the way he cheated a little. As long as he had a completed product he would dismantle it and learn everything about it. His gift required him to absorb a blueprint of an object to remake it.

It took mere days and the blacksmiths could make lathes that could make very precise rollers. He knew that this would not last. There are always spies waiting to steal his ideas. During the past few days he had noticed people sneaking around attempting to take completed and uncompleted items lying around. Needless to say all the items that failed were turned back into ingots using his gift to prevent the ideas from being stolen.

In his head, he just needed to imagine what is required to make an object and immediately be able to do so as long as he had the materials before him. It seemed that this gift of his needed extensive and comprehensive understanding of an object to turn it from raw material into something. However, he tried it with magic materials and failed. It would seem that items with magic in them had properties that he did not understand.

During his testing of his gift, he understood and named them based on what they do.

Index, Replicate, Upgrade and Refine.

Whenever he holds or touches an item or items, In his head there would be the index of what they could become. An image would appear along in the index for each item. He could narrow down what is in the list by imagining what he required.

For items unknown to him, it would usually state the item as Unknown 'something' material with its Item potential, known chemical elements, mana element, Unknown use and Amalgamation Unknown. It would add itself to the index as Unknown 'something' material until it is given a name.

When he selects an item from the index he can create it as the cost of mana. He can use a near precise amount of raw material as everything else that is in excess is turned into near useless dust. He named this process Replicate.

He named another part of his gift as Upgrade. When holding 2 similar objects, it would upgrade the base item in one or more aspects such as item potential, its use or the strength of the mana element. It is even capable of combining with similar looking objects even if they are unknown to him as seen in the junkyard. However, it costs much more mana and generates a larger amount of waste in the form of dust. The dust cannot be used in any way other than as pure raw material.

Lastly he named this last part as Refine. With all that waste dust, he made blocks of raw material that he easily could sell. However, he only made iron ingots as he was at a blacksmith workshop and most of the things were made of iron metal.

As part of the local amusement, they would often joke and say that ever since he arrived, the workshop has been really clean. He had swept up all the fine dust and turned them into iron ingots that the workshop would buy and reuse.

The blacksmiths marveled at the new creations, eagerly absorbing all these new knowledge and skills that allowed them to refine their tools. These machines work in a way that they could not fully understand but they understood that it brings increased efficiency to what they were doing. Whatever useful knowledge that they gain, they used it to improve what they had.

These new tools were not powered by Earth, Fire, Water, Wind Light or Dark. It was not that magic could not do what they were seeing. It was the fact that it was done without magic that excited them. It was something that they could do and actually use for long periods without the limit of mana exhaustion.

Everyone was excited. Everyone except a certain group. Tusharks. Daniel was not blind. He could see the shabbily dressed individuals lurking around watching him. It was even clearer when he returns from the junkyard each time with usable items. From the lone guy watching him as he scavenged to the group watching him leaving for the gate, he knew he had to do something about it.

At the end of the day, he looked for the guard he met on his first day here.

I would like to meet Deratti. I am very sure he would be very interested to meet me by now. I have a business proposal to make with him.

A business proposal? No one makes a deal with Deratti. You can only listen to what he says.

Just tell him that I have things that he desires.

He will be here tomorrow. Wait at the broker. If he wants to meet you, we will find you there. He does not like waiting.