Chapter 23
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[Days Remaining: 86]
James had spent the last two days getting a lot of things to prepare for his sales pitch to the nobles. He had long since given Fletcher's men the spears to train with and when he last checked there were another 50 spears ready for him to collect that were done entirely; it was almost like a small production line had been set up in the blacksmith's shop.
They had one apprentice raking the iron in the Reverberatory Furnace constantly and another working the bellows pushing the air through it. There was then another apprentice working another set of bellows on what had been the bloomery but had since been remodelled into a small forge to heat the clay pot for the reduction reaction.
There was then yet another apprentice on the bellows for the actual forge where the crushed iron ore and crushed charcoal were mixed and melted together then stirred while molten. This would then be poured into the sand mould that had been made, while it did leave some sand impurities in the steel it was negligible compared to the ones removed at the earlier steps.
Then there was Tobias using the forge to heat the ingots and work them into spearheads, after shaping the spearheads he would leave them to heat on the forge and afterwards another apprentice would take and quench them then leave them on a lower temperature furnace to be tempered.
Lastly, the final apprentice was working on sharpening the blades after they had cooled from the tempering stage. Every half hour they would rotate to allow some of them to have a rest while others had to go on continually. It's safe to say if they weren't being paid well the apprentices would have long since quit.
James had also spent some time every day practising with a sword and a spear and had taken to carrying a sword with him, as long as he kept it sheathed he didn't have any problems with carrying it out in public.
This regular workout had lead to an increase in his stats and had unlocked a new section in the system called combat.
'System show me my stats'
[Underworld Engineering (System Rank: D-)
Name: James Reel
Title: Frugal
Vessel Rank: D-
Age: 12
Host Level: 0
Exp(Experience): 6
Job: None
Bank Balance - 1 Cedi, 63 Leones, 36 Birr
Body condition: Normal
STR(Strength): 1.2
DEX(Dexterity): 0.8
CON(Constitution): 1.0
INT(Intelligence): 1.2
WIS(Wisdom): 1.2
CHA(Charisma):0.8
1 representing average stats from hosts age range.
Location: Angaria (Outer District)]
The reward for the permanent residence achievement had been a 0.2 increase in CON the other 0.1 had come from James working out and eating well.
'Open the combat section please.'
[Combat:
Spear Proficiency: Level 0(12/100)
Sword Proficiency: Level 0(22/100)]
James had initially found his proficiency points with the sword flying up compared to the spear, but over time it slowed down a lot, upon asking the system it said it calculated it as such as the sword was more straightforward for beginners to gain proficiency in compared to the spear.
Feeling it made sense James decided to accept that it was hard to train with weapons when you had no experience in it, his only help was the mind full of techniques from his last life which had helped immensely otherwise he felt he would still be sitting around 5 proficiency points for the sword and even less for the spear.
'Alright, I suppose I better go and get the courtyard prepared for my visitors' After asking Fletcher about hosting his guests he found out the nobles weren't as overbearing as he thought they would be, well at least the ones focused on the military weren't. Being men who recruited for their armies they naturally had to hire from common folk for their troops, so they were better when dealing with lower class people than the snobbish merchants and politicians.
As long as they weren't looked down upon they would be quite accommodating which worked out nicely for James as he wouldn't have to host the meeting in Fletcher's house and could use his small courtyard. Fletcher organising the conference had already been more than enough on his part, and James was sure he was going to repay his favour.
When James had thought about repaying his favours, he made sure to go back and buy the map from Roland to thank him for letting James see the map without paying when he had first arrived in this world. He had really helped James get situated, having no use for the map he went back to the pawn shop he had gone to before to sell his necklace and sold the map to the owner who had given him a fair price, he also bought a few of the musical trinkets he had been interested in for 5 Leones each.
After James felt he had settled his debts with these people, he hired a cart to take to his carpenter shop to pick up the oak furniture that he had them make. They had some free time between making the staffs as they were quicker to make than the spearheads.
James also had them all sign spirit contracts contracting the chief carpenter Kaine Samuels to himself and the apprentices to Kaine. After he had no concerns with that, he gave them designs to play around with if they had any free time. After he left with his furniture, he stopped to collect the cushions and tablecloth he had made at the fabric workers.
[System reminds host to attend the opening of his Patent office]
'Thanks for the reminder, thank god I set that, or I would have forgotten completely.'
James headed towards the building that Merchant Fletcher had shown him on his map; it really was a great location. It was located right on the border of the inner and outer districts so people of the inner districts wouldn't feel too disinclined to come and register for patents, or they could just order their servants to go for them.
After arriving James saw a building that was made entirely from stone and had more of a Victorian architecture style compared to the other Tudor style buildings making it stand out massively on the street. Next to the main entrance there was a plaque fastened to the wall showing the kingdom's support for the office. Mr Fletcher indeed had some fantastic connections and James couldn't help but feel his respect for the man raise a bit.
"I would like to register a few patents please" James approached the counter and placed a large stack of papers he had prepared with a lot of the things he had brought into this world already such as the composition of steel, the Reverberatory furnace and the new blacksmith tools. There were also a few different weapon designs he had decided he would get around to producing eventually.
His main idea was to test if the office could handle large amounts at once or if it would fall apart; their processing speeds were truly fast as there was a task force of people who would check the patent applications to see if they matched the criteria they were given. James had thrown in a few red herrings such as standard nails to see if they would be accepted and every single one of them was filtered out by the employees.
James was more than happy with their performance and felt that he had indeed underestimated Mr Fletcher. After paying his fees for the patents, he met Fletcher in the back office to discuss a few pieces and tell him how impressed he was with his work.
Fletcher handed James the PTM for his account that would hold 10% of the profits for future projects, and James was surprised to see it already had a full Cedi in it. He was also told by Fletcher that he had applied for a large number of patents and had allowed a few of his business partners and friends to apply for licenses before the office was officially opened. Checking his balance with the system he was happy to see his balance had increased by a few Cedi aswell.
James then left to prepare his courtyard for the nobles visits the next day. On his way out he was happy to see a few people who should be the servants of nobles each holding a stack of papers and a sack of coins ready to apply for patents for various industries. He had also asked Fletcher where he could temporarily hire some maids to serve the nobles when they visited, he planned to throw a feast for them and needed people to prep and serve the food.
After a few hours of work, James was happy that he had everything in order and so spent a while practising to increase his proficiency even further then went to sleep early to make sure he was ready for the following day.
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[Days Remaining: 86]
James had spent the last two days getting a lot of things to prepare for his sales pitch to the nobles. He had long since given Fletcher's men the spears to train with and when he last checked there were another 50 spears ready for him to collect that were done entirely; it was almost like a small production line had been set up in the blacksmith's shop.
They had one apprentice raking the iron in the Reverberatory Furnace constantly and another working the bellows pushing the air through it. There was then another apprentice working another set of bellows on what had been the bloomery but had since been remodelled into a small forge to heat the clay pot for the reduction reaction.
There was then yet another apprentice on the bellows for the actual forge where the crushed iron ore and crushed charcoal were mixed and melted together then stirred while molten. This would then be poured into the sand mould that had been made, while it did leave some sand impurities in the steel it was negligible compared to the ones removed at the earlier steps.
Then there was Tobias using the forge to heat the ingots and work them into spearheads, after shaping the spearheads he would leave them to heat on the forge and afterwards another apprentice would take and quench them then leave them on a lower temperature furnace to be tempered.
Lastly, the final apprentice was working on sharpening the blades after they had cooled from the tempering stage. Every half hour they would rotate to allow some of them to have a rest while others had to go on continually. It's safe to say if they weren't being paid well the apprentices would have long since quit.
James had also spent some time every day practising with a sword and a spear and had taken to carrying a sword with him, as long as he kept it sheathed he didn't have any problems with carrying it out in public.
This regular workout had lead to an increase in his stats and had unlocked a new section in the system called combat.
'System show me my stats'
[Underworld Engineering (System Rank: D-)
Name: James Reel
Title: Frugal
Vessel Rank: D-
Age: 12
Host Level: 0
Exp(Experience): 6
Job: None
Bank Balance - 1 Cedi, 63 Leones, 36 Birr
Body condition: Normal
STR(Strength): 1.2
DEX(Dexterity): 0.8
CON(Constitution): 1.0
INT(Intelligence): 1.2
WIS(Wisdom): 1.2
CHA(Charisma):0.8
1 representing average stats from hosts age range.
Location: Angaria (Outer District)]
The reward for the permanent residence achievement had been a 0.2 increase in CON the other 0.1 had come from James working out and eating well.
'Open the combat section please.'
[Combat:
Spear Proficiency: Level 0(12/100)
Sword Proficiency: Level 0(22/100)]
James had initially found his proficiency points with the sword flying up compared to the spear, but over time it slowed down a lot, upon asking the system it said it calculated it as such as the sword was more straightforward for beginners to gain proficiency in compared to the spear.
Feeling it made sense James decided to accept that it was hard to train with weapons when you had no experience in it, his only help was the mind full of techniques from his last life which had helped immensely otherwise he felt he would still be sitting around 5 proficiency points for the sword and even less for the spear.
'Alright, I suppose I better go and get the courtyard prepared for my visitors' After asking Fletcher about hosting his guests he found out the nobles weren't as overbearing as he thought they would be, well at least the ones focused on the military weren't. Being men who recruited for their armies they naturally had to hire from common folk for their troops, so they were better when dealing with lower class people than the snobbish merchants and politicians.
As long as they weren't looked down upon they would be quite accommodating which worked out nicely for James as he wouldn't have to host the meeting in Fletcher's house and could use his small courtyard. Fletcher organising the conference had already been more than enough on his part, and James was sure he was going to repay his favour.
When James had thought about repaying his favours, he made sure to go back and buy the map from Roland to thank him for letting James see the map without paying when he had first arrived in this world. He had really helped James get situated, having no use for the map he went back to the pawn shop he had gone to before to sell his necklace and sold the map to the owner who had given him a fair price, he also bought a few of the musical trinkets he had been interested in for 5 Leones each.
After James felt he had settled his debts with these people, he hired a cart to take to his carpenter shop to pick up the oak furniture that he had them make. They had some free time between making the staffs as they were quicker to make than the spearheads.
James also had them all sign spirit contracts contracting the chief carpenter Kaine Samuels to himself and the apprentices to Kaine. After he had no concerns with that, he gave them designs to play around with if they had any free time. After he left with his furniture, he stopped to collect the cushions and tablecloth he had made at the fabric workers.
[System reminds host to attend the opening of his Patent office]
'Thanks for the reminder, thank god I set that, or I would have forgotten completely.'
James headed towards the building that Merchant Fletcher had shown him on his map; it really was a great location. It was located right on the border of the inner and outer districts so people of the inner districts wouldn't feel too disinclined to come and register for patents, or they could just order their servants to go for them.
After arriving James saw a building that was made entirely from stone and had more of a Victorian architecture style compared to the other Tudor style buildings making it stand out massively on the street. Next to the main entrance there was a plaque fastened to the wall showing the kingdom's support for the office. Mr Fletcher indeed had some fantastic connections and James couldn't help but feel his respect for the man raise a bit.
"I would like to register a few patents please" James approached the counter and placed a large stack of papers he had prepared with a lot of the things he had brought into this world already such as the composition of steel, the Reverberatory furnace and the new blacksmith tools. There were also a few different weapon designs he had decided he would get around to producing eventually.
His main idea was to test if the office could handle large amounts at once or if it would fall apart; their processing speeds were truly fast as there was a task force of people who would check the patent applications to see if they matched the criteria they were given. James had thrown in a few red herrings such as standard nails to see if they would be accepted and every single one of them was filtered out by the employees.
James was more than happy with their performance and felt that he had indeed underestimated Mr Fletcher. After paying his fees for the patents, he met Fletcher in the back office to discuss a few pieces and tell him how impressed he was with his work.
Fletcher handed James the PTM for his account that would hold 10% of the profits for future projects, and James was surprised to see it already had a full Cedi in it. He was also told by Fletcher that he had applied for a large number of patents and had allowed a few of his business partners and friends to apply for licenses before the office was officially opened. Checking his balance with the system he was happy to see his balance had increased by a few Cedi aswell.
James then left to prepare his courtyard for the nobles visits the next day. On his way out he was happy to see a few people who should be the servants of nobles each holding a stack of papers and a sack of coins ready to apply for patents for various industries. He had also asked Fletcher where he could temporarily hire some maids to serve the nobles when they visited, he planned to throw a feast for them and needed people to prep and serve the food.
After a few hours of work, James was happy that he had everything in order and so spent a while practising to increase his proficiency even further then went to sleep early to make sure he was ready for the following day.
Days Remaining: 86James had spent the last two days getting a lot of things to prepare for his sales pitch to the nobles. He had long since given Fletcher's men the spears to train with and when he last checked there were another 50 spears ready for him to collect that were done entirely; it was almost like a small production line had been set up in the blacksmith's shop.They had one apprentice raking the iron in the Reverberatory Furnace constantly and another working the bellows pushing the air through it. There was then another apprentice working another set of bellows on what had been the bloomery but had since been remodelled into a small forge to heat the clay pot for the reduction reaction.There was then yet another apprentice on the bellows for the actual forge where the crushed iron ore and crushed charcoal were mixed and melted together then stirred while molten. This would then be poured into the sand mould that had been made, while it did leave some sand impurities in the steel it was negligible compared to the ones removed at the earlier steps.Then there was Tobias using the forge to heat the ingots and work them into spearheads, after shaping the spearheads he would leave them to heat on the forge and afterwards another apprentice would take and quench them then leave them on a lower temperature furnace to be tempered.Lastly, the final apprentice was working on sharpening the blades after they had cooled from the tempering stage. Every half hour they would rotate to allow some of them to have a rest while others had to go on continually. It's safe to say if they weren't being paid well the apprentices would have long since quit.James had also spent some time every day practising with a sword and a spear and had taken to carrying a sword with him, as long as he kept it sheathed he didn't have any problems with carrying it out in public.This regular workout had lead to an increase in his stats and had unlocked a new section in the system called combat.'System show me my stats'Underworld Engineering System Rank: D-Name: James ReelTitle: FrugalVessel Rank: D-Age: 12Host Level: 0ExpExperience: 6Job: NoneBank Balance - 1 Cedi, 63 Leones, 36 BirrBody condition: NormalSTRStrength: 1.2DEXDexterity: 0.8CONConstitution: 1.0INTIntelligence: 1.2WISWisdom: 1.2CHACharisma:0.81 representing average stats from hosts age range.Location: Angaria Outer DistrictThe reward for the permanent residence achievement had been a 0.2 increase in CON the other 0.1 had come from James working out and eating well.'Open the combat section please.'Combat:Spear Proficiency: Level 012/100Sword Proficiency: Level 022/100James had initially found his proficiency points with the sword flying up compared to the spear, but over time it slowed down a lot, upon asking the system it said it calculated it as such as the sword was more straightforward for beginners to gain proficiency in compared to the spear.Feeling it made sense James decided to accept that it was hard to train with weapons when you had no experience in it, his only help was the mind full of techniques from his last life which had helped immensely otherwise he felt he would still be sitting around 5 proficiency points for the sword and even less for the spear.'Alright, I suppose I better go and get the courtyard prepared for my visitors' After asking Fletcher about hosting his guests he found out the nobles weren't as overbearing as he thought they would be, well at least the ones focused on the military weren't. Being men who recruited for their armies they naturally had to hire from common folk for their troops, so they were better when dealing with lower class people than the snobbish merchants and politicians.As long as they weren't looked down upon they would be quite accommodating which worked out nicely for James as he wouldn't have to host the meeting in Fletcher's house and could use his small courtyard. Fletcher organising the conference had already been more than enough on his part, and James was sure he was going to repay his favour.When James had thought about repaying his favours, he made sure to go back and buy the map from Roland to thank him for letting James see the map without paying when he had first arrived in this world. He had really helped James get situated, having no use for the map he went back to the pawn shop he had gone to before to sell his necklace and sold the map to the owner who had given him a fair price, he also bought a few of the musical trinkets he had been interested in for 5 Leones each.After James felt he had settled his debts with these people, he hired a cart to take to his carpenter shop to pick up the oak furniture that he had them make. They had some free time between making the staffs as they were quicker to make than the spearheads.James also had them all sign spirit contracts contracting the chief carpenter Kaine Samuels to himself and the apprentices to Kaine. After he had no concerns with that, he gave them designs to play around with if they had any free time. After he left with his furniture, he stopped to collect the cushions and tablecloth he had made at the fabric workers.System reminds host to attend the opening of his Patent office'Thanks for the reminder, thank god I set that, or I would have forgotten completely.'James headed towards the building that Merchant Fletcher had shown him on his map; it really was a great location. It was located right on the border of the inner and outer districts so people of the inner districts wouldn't feel too disinclined to come and register for patents, or they could just order their servants to go for them.After arriving James saw a building that was made entirely from stone and had more of a Victorian architecture style compared to the other Tudor style buildings making it stand out massively on the street. Next to the main entrance there was a plaque fastened to the wall showing the kingdom's support for the office. Mr Fletcher indeed had some fantastic connections and James couldn't help but feel his respect for the man raise a bit."I would like to register a few patents please" James approached the counter and placed a large stack of papers he had prepared with a lot of the things he had brought into this world already such as the composition of steel, the Reverberatory furnace and the new blacksmith tools. There were also a few different weapon designs he had decided he would get around to producing eventually.His main idea was to test if the office could handle large amounts at once or if it would fall apart; their processing speeds were truly fast as there was a task force of people who would check the patent applications to see if they matched the criteria they were given. James had thrown in a few red herrings such as standard nails to see if they would be accepted and every single one of them was filtered out by the employees.James was more than happy with their performance and felt that he had indeed underestimated Mr Fletcher. After paying his fees for the patents, he met Fletcher in the back office to discuss a few pieces and tell him how impressed he was with his work.Fletcher handed James the PTM for his account that would hold 10% of the profits for future projects, and James was surprised to see it already had a full Cedi in it. He was also told by Fletcher that he had applied for a large number of patents and had allowed a few of his business partners and friends to apply for licenses before the office was officially opened. Checking his balance with the system he was happy to see his balance had increased by a few Cedi aswell.James then left to prepare his courtyard for the nobles visits the next day. On his way out he was happy to see a few people who should be the servants of nobles each holding a stack of papers and a sack of coins ready to apply for patents for various industries. He had also asked Fletcher where he could temporarily hire some maids to serve the nobles when they visited, he planned to throw a feast for them and needed people to prep and serve the food.After a few hours of work, James was happy that he had everything in order and so spent a while practising to increase his proficiency even further then went to sleep early to make sure he was ready for the following day.
