“The Blacksmith”

3 Months Later...

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Walking into my newly built shop that sells various kinds of moss, I breathe in the greatness before going back door. There, is the newly modified greenhouse with various crystals situated around the room to try and simulate the original lair of Michael. There's even a flowing stream embedded into the ground with rocks covered in moss.

Underneath this greatness however, is around about 100 mana tanks, all supplying the stream of water with their filtered bodily fluids such as spit, blood and hair. All of these contain mana since the mana tanks had above average mana compared to normal people.

They are filtered through various ways. For the hair, teeth and skin, we crush them into a pulp before slowly mixing them into the stream. For the blood, spit and sweat, we incorporate it with mana water before sending it into the stream.

The new greenhouse was much bigger than before, sizing about 75 sqm. Enough to hold about 750 growing kits stacked on top of each other. The mana tanks can supply the growing kits while Cathy and Aya's temporary replacement, Doug, can enchant their mana producing capabilities and the moss.

The moss are separated into two sections: the river and growing kits. The river hosts the more needy mosses such as Purple Octagon, Michael's Fyr and Blue Maloo while the growing kits are for the less needy mosses like Hero Herb, Barked Woof and Poltergeist's Joy.

The place used to be Toothless' equipment tent. Now, it's a strong and beautiful Michael & Chul's Mossy Emporium. Made out of cobble and limestone, it's decorated with big windows showcasing the various mosses, perfect lighting provided by Fyr crystals encased in glass, showing the mosses and the entrance in a glimmering light with 2 beautiful employees welcoming guests. That's right, employees, not equipment.

I'd better pat myself on the back for helping the economy, eh?

Toothless' tent was the perfect place to set up a store since it isn't too far from the middle-class section filled with hard laborers, start-up merchants and new adventurers. All of which, need an outlet for their pent-up stress.

That combined with the brothel run by Lyca attached and you make for a killing. Fucking while smoking, smoking while fucking, smoking while smoking and fucking while fucking.

Just that day, I made nearly 1 gold, 989 silver and 46 copper to be exact. A very, very good number. I now have about 90~% of the slums hooked while about 10-15% of the middle class sector is getting there after experiencing the brothel and the moss.

By the way, I decided to name the brothel as "Lyca and Chul's Entertainment Boutique". Lyca now has around 35~ women working for the "Entertainment Center"... that's what it's legally called after we established the company, after all.

Sadly, to have a company, you need at least 10 working people with salaries so she hired 4 janitors for the... biohazards, 4 veteran bartenders that know to keep their mouth shut and 2 receptionists. The rest are the good looking equipment got from Toothless' tent.

You see, I'm a money loving man and I hate to waste. Before blowing up the tent, I told George's men to escort all of the equipment into my estate before going back and blowing it up. I then took the better looking women to work with Lyca and the rest to either be mana tanks, sellers or bodyguards, depending on their mana capacity, sly tongue and bulky-ness, respectively.

The reason we called it an "Entertainment Center" when establishing the company was because... prostitution is very illegal, for the pimp and for the prostitute herself.

If your are caught selling yourself, you will be branded on your neck and will not have any chance at a job. If you are caught pumping, you will be punished to at least 10 years of hard labor. Both very unfortunate and very extreme. However, the profits are too large to stop.

Despite only having 35 women, we are pulling in about 42 silver on average per day. That's why we put the front of Lyca and Chul's Entertainment Boutique as a bar with good looking maids while having the real money-making in the back. After all, serving customers without clothes on isn't a crime right? They aren't selling their bodies nor are they having intercourse.

Well... if they pay enough, they can take a back room.

There is a problem that I was anticipating happening with our expansion to the middle class segment of the city. That is, they can't afford the old price of the moss.

As mentioned before, most of the people living in the slums that were hooked could afford the moss since they were living in the slums not because they were poor, but because they had a lot of money through illegal means. Prostitution, Equipment sellers, bandits and mercenaries.

The middle-class sector however was the problem. The people living there were more... law-abiding. The adventurers there were proper and followed the regulations of giving treasures to their guild master, the merchants paid their taxes properly and on-time and the hard laborers didn't get paid enough to live freely but just enough to live a regular life.

Thinking of this, I got more mana tanks and started fattening them up. Once all of them surpassed the regular size of humans, their mana output was much more efficient and cleaner than before.

This boosted the growing process which allowed for me to lower the moss price from 3 silver a roll to just 50 copper per roll. Despite this decrease, our sales were up big time and we started pulling in about 90 silver per day. 90 silver is about 9 months of the regular salary.

Even though that's before tax, combining that with Lyca and I's business, that's more than 1 gold per day before tax, give or take. The tax for businesses earning more than 100 gold per year in E Mo Zhi Di is about 10%. For businesses earning 1,000 gold it's 15%, for 10,000 gold it's 17.5% and for businesses earning 100,000 gold or more, it's 15%.

This cost is not counting the bribery costs and silencing costs but they are circumstantial at best.

While the shop was being built, the explosions being covered up by Jared and Ross, the taxes discounted by Lenny and the building labor covered with tax rebates given by Lenny to the company that took the order, I was training Aya... again.

It was a really big pain since Aya was really slow at the start. Every night, I had to read her various bedtime stories from this world and from the old world. Luckily, she still saw me as her father and was very obedient.

Sadly however, the Phoenix's Fyr effect doesn't stack and she didn't become a double genius, just a regular genius. No matter, I was able to teach her how to use the most basic spell 'Growth' in just 9 days and it's more complex but still basic brother, 'Übergrowth' which has stronger vines and better binding power.

In 30 days, 5 days longer than the original, she learnt 'More Green' which she uses to help Cathy and Doug growth quicker. Though, Cathy isn't too fond of Aya despite them working together, saying that she "succumbed to the devil" and is "a horrible human". A few shocks put her back into line.

By the second month, Aya was able to grow the moss at about a 1/6th of the power she used to before she reset. It really is a pain having to take 5 hours out of my day attending to her baby needs like wetting herself, needing feeding and more while teaching her plant magic.

Luckily, she, being a genius, noticed her father's stress and that his workload is much more than a normal person should have. Being a good girl, she strives to better herself quicker than he expected, making her mature to have the mentality of a 10 month old baby in the span of only 2 months.

Well, if you consider that this 10 month old baby can talk, cast intermediate spells and read emotions, then you have a regular 10 month old baby... I think.

After taking care of Aya and putting her to sleep after reading Cinderella for the 4th time, I sneak out and start my next plot. From what my equipment brought back from Toothless' tent, the supplier of Toothless for his equipment was a very cautious person known only as "The Blacksmith"

Allegedly a man, he only contacts through messenger and is extremely cautious about the people he sells to.

From the rumors provided by Jared, The Blacksmith provides equipment for most of the sellers in Jinjin and its surrounding cities. They also have multiple ties with the capital and probably know a noble or two.

Hearing the rumors and seeing the files on how cautious The Blacksmith is, I don't plan on taking his position anytime soon. Even if I could, I wouldn't since that position requires a lot more connections, credibility and allies than I would be comfortable with.

I'm very happy with just a simple symbiotic relationship: I give silver and gold while they give me cursed swords.

After all, isn't that the law of equivalent exchange?

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(A.N) Another chapter back for you peeps! I hope you enjoyed it and had fun reading this slice of life chapter acting as the barrier between the Paul Demm arc and the next arc.

On another note, my summer vacation is coming up in March 13 soo... I'm looking forward to that! Hope you enjoyed, peace ✌️!