25 Business Plan

"A business? You want to open your own blacksmithing shop?"

"More than that. I'm gifting you this sword for a reason. Go spread news of this forging technique that I possess."

"Sure that's possible, but what's your name?"

"My name's Kael."

"Kael? Why does it sound so familiar?" After thinking for a while, the old man's eyes grew wide.

"You are that Kael from the Whitemoon Mines?!"

"Yup, that's me. Aha, that's not important. The important thing is to relay this piece of news to all your networks."

"I will surely do it. I was the one who forged the City Lord's axes using the Whitemoon Stones that you harvested! Haha! Seems like fate really draws us together!"

Kael wanted to roll his eyes, but he decided not to. He merely gave a weak smile to neither affirm nor reject Wayland the Smith's words.

Having achieved his objective, Kael left the blacksmith's place, leaving the onlookers to haggle over the sword in Wayland the Smith's hands. Kael returned to the private room that he booked at the tavern near the city square.

In the private room of the tavern.

Kael sat cross-legged on the bed. He then took out the five eggs he stole from the Black Line Drake, as well as the Ice Artifice. He examined the eggs closely, and realised that their incubation had nearly reached completion. There were signs of life wiggling within the eggs, awaiting the day where they could break out from the shells.

This process of incubation was slowed by the fact that their incubation means, the Ice Artifice, was forcefully disrupted by Kael when he needed to keep the item in the item bag.

Kael undid the mini Spirit Arrays locking the powers of the Ice Artifice. The beautiful crystal diamond began exuding cold energy once again, hovering over the five eggs, letting the hatchlings inside to absorb the cold energy so that they could continue growing.

Between hatching the eggs and cultivating in the Ice element, Kael chose to hatch the eggs first. That was because the eggs were very close to hatching, and he could brand them spiritually, making the baby Drakes his own pets. When they grew up, they would be a valuable fighting force.

Kael decided to cultivate in the Ice element after his business plan was up and running and that he had the qualifications to enter the Fledgling Myriad Institute.

Right now, his opponents were mainly demonic beasts, and they weren't too difficult to deal with. Even the Herald Rank Middle Phase Black Line Drake was unable to harm him. His main competitors would be cultivators who were proficient in the use of Spirit Arts. When that time comes, he had to have an arsenal of Spirit Arts that he could use to counter them. That was when his Ice Element Spirit Arts would be useful.

The night thus passed with Kael watching over the eggs as it absorbed the cold energy from the Ice Artifice. From now onwards, Kael would spend every night to repeat this process till the eggs hatched.

The next morning, Kael kept the eggs and the Ice Artifice and went down the stairs of the tavern to have breakfast. He didn't quite expect this scene, but there were several dozens of people waiting downstairs, looking at him as he walked down the stairs.

"That's Kael!" Wayland the Smith was one of those within the crowd and he pointed Kael out to the rest of the people.

"Oh Master Kael! Good morning! Your heavenly presence has graced us in this tavern today and we are so delighted to have you here. May I know what do you want for breakfast? I'll tell the innkeeper to cook the most delicious meal for you!" A bootlicker amongst the crowd went forth and approached Kael.

Kael wanted to laugh but he couldn't. From this man's gestures and speech, he knew who they were and their intention of coming here.

He didn't want to keep up with the pretence, thus he said, "Good day to all of you. Judging from your appearance and the roughness of your hands, I can tell that all of you here are refiners and blacksmiths within Fledgling City. I assume that all of you are here because of the sword that I refined earlier yesterday?"

"Yes! Master Kael, all of us are itching to know the art behind such a wondrous technique. Teach us and quote us any price! There are so many of us, I believe we can come to a deal with this!"

"That's right. We are influential in our own right within Fledgling City. We have connections and quite a bit of money, as well as Heaven and Earth treasures. Just tell us what you need and we will be willing to oblige!"

There murmurs and shouts from various people within the crowd. Clearly, all of them were dying to learn how to craft weapons and armours using Spirit Arrays.

Kael quietened them down, and then spoke slowly, "It's not an issue imparting the skills to not just one or two, but all of you. There must only be a few blacksmiths amongst you, and the rest are apprentices. That's not a problem. However, this has to be done according to my terms and conditions…"

"Feel free to speak, Master Kael. We are all ears." Wayland the Smith took the initiative to get to the crux of the issue.

"Alright. Firstly, I want to have ownership and control, having a stake in your shops. That means 20% of the sales of weapons crafted through Spirit Arrays will go to me. The 80% goes to you."

"That sounds agreeable. I think all of us here have no problem with that." Everyone began nodding their heads.

"Good. The second term might be disagreeable to some of you. I want to form a blood contract, swearing that you wouldn't leak out this technique to anyone else, including people outside and inside of Fledgling City. You also only can produce these weapons in the name of Fledgling City. This means that you have to swear fealty to the City Lord. All these crafted items must pass through the City Lord faction and sales to other cities will be managed by them. All of you are only involved with the production and local sales of the crafted items."

The blacksmiths all had no problems with this blood contract, since their whole lives were dedicated to Fledgling City, it made no difference to them. A few of the apprentices frowned though. They didn't want to be holed up in Fledgling City their whole lives.