48 Love In The Air

A week had passed, Jim ordered a new smartphone for himself and a couple of laptops so Astril and Libta would leave his desktop free, the packages had just arrived. Swapping his sim card, he completed the procedure to activate the new phone.

Over the past week, Jim had been focused on magic theory. He had ended up creating two new spells, firstly was Force Magic's Magic Hand. It literally condensed a hand out of mana which moved around at his will, creating a pseudo-telekinesis. Although the hand can carry stuff around and extend rather far, the actual strength was extremely lacking. Punches and Palm Strikes from it weren't able to damage a zombie, sword swings and spear thrusts also lacked power. He figured it just couldn't be used directly in combat.

The second spell created was Space Magic's Aport. It worked similarly to Displacement, but could be used on larger objects and over longer distances. Displacement required eye contact with the object he wanted to move, but Aport allowed him to move things through Detection. He could now make things appear and disappear over pretty much all of north america.

Jim had now reached a point where he understood the entirety of a spell's structure just by looking at the circle. There was a certain spell he wanted to create, but it seemed just outside of his reach. 'One step at a time.'

Bill arrived to purchase more pills, Jim welcomed him in. Astril was in the living room on her laptop when he walked in, the two stared at each other without blinking for a long time. Jim could feel that both of their hearts were beating fast. 'Oh? Seems they've got some chemistry.'

Jim: "I'll be back in a minute, take a seat."

Heading upstairs, he played with Libta for a few minutes to give those two some privacy. Coming back downstairs, he started talking to Bill about the pills.

Jim: "You gave me too much money before, I planned for each bottle to go for $500. How did it turn into $5,000 each pill?"

Bill: "$500 for a bottle? Are you insane!?"

Jim: "What's wrong with that? the ingredients are cheap and they're easy to mass produce."

Bill: "Listen to me carefully. It's great that you can mass produce them for cheap, yes. But you need to take into account the effect. People would kill for these. Forget $5,000, I'd be fine paying far more than that!"

Bill was out of breath from shouting, he couldn't understand what Jim's thought process was when coming up with the price. It was nonsense, the guy had a monopoly on a product everyone would want. Why did he want to sell it for so cheap?

Jim: "Alright, what pricing would you suggest?"

Bill: "$200,000 per pill, many will pay that much for something that makes them smarter."

Jim: "Are you for real?"

Jim was lost in thought for a while, this was outside of his expectations. Before a short time ago, he had never met anyone that would be able to spend $200,000 on something. How could he be expected to set such a price?

Jim: "Alright, prove it to me, find some buyers for me."

Bill: "Me?"

Jim: "Yeah, I don't know anyone but you who would fork out that much money. I have no reputation allowing me to meet such people either."

Bill: "And what do I get out of it?"

Jim: "As many of these as you want."

Bill was stunned for a moment. 'This guy just used the price I quoted against me. Damnit, if I hadn't forced him to raise the price then his offer would have no value. This is strange, what was I thinking?' The Negotiation skill had been working its magic, making Bill more honest and open during the conversation.

Bill: "Okay, I'll do it."

Jim: "Great! Here's another 200, call me when you line up a buyer."

'Did I just become this guy's employee?' Bill was in a daze as he left the condo.

Jim got back to magic research. After a few hours, he was about to finish up for a day when his phone started ringing.

Jim: "Hello?"

Sam: "Jim, we've got a case we need to you."

Jim: "Okay."

Sam: "Whoa!"

Sam was startled as Jim suddenly appeared behind him and talked in person.

Sam: "...Right, teleportation."

Jim: "Yeah, so what's up?"

Sam: "There's a...hole."

Jim: "A hole?"

Sam: "Yeah, I'll take you there."

Getting in the nearby car, a short drive later had Jim in front of another large tent set in the middle of the street.

Sam: "We don't know if the place is harmful yet, get suited up."

Jim: "No need."

Jim immediately headed into the tent. 'Huh, yeah, that's a hole alright.' Other than several men in hazmat suits fiddling with some equipment, there was what looks like a sinkhole. Except, it was dark, too dark, you couldn't see past a few centimeters down despite the flood lighting set up pointing at it.

Jim tried using Mana Sense first, the surrounding mana was normal. Qi Sense didn't show anything strange either. Detection gave that familiar concealment blurriness that he felt when discovering the Void Treader.

Sam entered soon after, now also in a hazmat suit.

Sam: "It appeared a few days ago, swallowed up a couple of pedestrians. We sent in a response unit, they haven't been heard from."

Jim: "I see, you want me to explore it?"

Sam: "Yeah, investigate any dangers. Bring back any survivors you find. You can leave easily with your powers, right?"

Jim: "Most likely."

Sam: "You aren't filling me with confidence here."

Jim shrugged, he took note of the number of ropes leading down into the hole. '8 people total if we count the pedestrians, huh?' He took a deep breath and jumped in.