Chapter 16: Chapter fourteen – Expansions

In the morning, I went over to the blacksmith’s shop to get better weapons again. I hadn't been able to sleep much, so I had combined my analisis and CAD runes, and made some alloys with those new types of metals. One of them acted a lot like tungsten, only even harder, denser, and more brittle, another had amazing ductility and springiness, but less strength than normal steel. Some other elements I couldn’t find uses for in their pure states, like vanadium, molybdenum, manganese (why would you even have something like this? It’s practically useless.), cobalt, and other things. Most of these were quite useless on their own, but good for alloys, so I think that they were used in some type of metallurgy processes. The main alloying metal was likely the ductile and springy one, and some of the tungsten-like one, and each of the extra ones in smaller quantities. 

Using my newly improved rune, I tried to make an alloy of the ductile and springy one, I’ll just call it better iron for now, and the tungsten like one - I’ll go with the old name, wolfram. Getting the density up to about four percent wolfram, I look at the properties and see that it is already so much harder and more resistant to plastic deformation. Adding in the vanadium, molybdenum, manganese, and cobalt, each with less than one percent density, I watch as the alloy is said to gain better shock resistance, amazing creep resistance(deformation over a long time), forgeability, hardenability, wear resistance, then everything improved with cobalt, plus hardness. Then I put in about half a percent carbon and silicon, to get the forgeability and common properties up more. Then, I got the crystals to form on all the molecules, sticking them together. Making the bar, I was shocked to see how much more Makt it took to finish - almost my whole pool at once -  for one bar. 

Once I got to the blacksmith, I had another bar about half the size, ready for use. When I pressed the counter bell, I was quite surprised to find a Bevinget, as they are usually all high and mighty, and stick to their own. Luckily the smith was much nicer than that, and left her home city because of the attitude of her species.  Explaining my problem - how the steel wasn’t actually that good right now, and that I wanted it to be redone - I handed over the new bars and copies of my weapons while also telling her that I would do the handles myself. She told me that they would be done within three days for the price I paid.

After walking around for about another hour, I found a Merchant’s Guild branch. The Merchant’s Guild was something I had only ever read about - there wasn’t one in Domene - but I had learned many of the rules and guidelines, as well as read up on protection for overland travel. Overseas traveling wasn’t much of a problem, you had to look to find trouble more than pirates or corrupt mercenaries, as nearly all merchant vessels doubled as light gunships in times of emergency. 

Walking into the lobby, it looks very nice, though not fancy. More of like a ‘everything is expensive, but just because it is’ not a ‘everything is expensive, and you must know this’ kind of way. I honestly am thankful to the manager or guild master or whatever here for making it not gaudy and awful, that would have been quite difficult to talk business seriously in. As I got to the front of the short line, I asked the receptionist about a good distribution channel for a new product. They raised their head from the paperwork covering the counter and met my eyes, saying “And how do you plan to keep everything supplied? You need a constant initial supply in order to make demand, and you don’t seem like the kind of person who has been making this new product for years in preparation.”

I paused, looking at them strangely, before making the few connections needed to understand. This world didn’t have advertisements in order to make things more popular, so they relied on word of mouth and availability to get things out there. There also wasn’t any mass production, so that wasn’t even something to be considered. “I can make about a hundred of these a day, more if I push it, and all are fully functional besides a small process before sale.”

They blinked, then burst into laughter. After calming down, they said “Oh, that was great. If you can make that many, then how bad is it? No one will want an awful product.”

I just pulled three out, along with instructions - created on a thin metal sheet this time, not handwritten - and handed them off for their inspection. A few minutes of silence later, they just handed them back to me, and told me of an office on the third floor that was reputable and had good prices. I headed up to the office, known as ‘Nexus’ Transportation and Merchant Services’, and knocked on the door. There were some knocking and crashing noises for a couple seconds, then some of what seemed to be curses in one of the languages yet unknown to me. The same voice called out a few seconds later for me to come in, with quite a heavy accent, and I did so.

The being that I came to face as I opened the door was also one that I hadn’t met any of yet, a Høstere. They, from what little I know, are sapient undead, either created by themselves, or risen from another of their kind. I had found that this world didn’t have many of the same qualms about necromancy, as long as there wasn’t a skeletal army, or—shockingly enough—they didn’t smell bad. There were actually laws about that in most countries, cities and towns had to be regularly sniffed by a subspecies of Dyrisk, usually elephants, bears, or wolves, and that if the scent was deemed too bad or distracting, the city had to take measures to reduce the smell.

Tangent now over, I started the conversation. “Hello, I’m Ikke Ogólny, I was told you were a reputable merchant company, and I have a product that I want to distribute. I don’t know many of these procedures, so you will likely have to walk me through them.”

The Høstere blinked, or at least the eye-fires flashed for a fraction of a second, then spoke. “Well Mx. Ogólny, we can certainly get something started, and we are one of the largest companies. As for the procedures, don’t worry too much, I’ll cover most of everything. My name is Kaupmaðr, though I normally go by Kau, as my name is not the easiest to pronounce.” 

As he was speaking—his voice was distinctly masculine—I saw fangs flashing in his mouth, fangs previously unseen. I had heard of the Livsdrikker, as they are where most of our magical knowledge comes from, but never seen one in person before, not to mention a Høstere as well. Both races are very rare around here—hardly ever seen outside of their respective home countries on the other side of the known world.

The meeting continued as one might imagine, explanations of the product, contract drafting, that the product was mass producible, contract drafting, what mass producible meant, contract drafting…

You are reading story Verden – Rise in a new life at novel35.com

You can find story with these keywords: Verden – Rise in a new life, Read Verden – Rise in a new life, Verden – Rise in a new life novel, Verden – Rise in a new life book, Verden – Rise in a new life story, Verden – Rise in a new life full, Verden – Rise in a new life Latest Chapter