Chapter 91: Plans
That night Sam left the two lackeys he kidnapped at the same place where he left the lackey yesterday. Their states are same as the previous guy, but the brands on the backs are different. They are numbered 19 and 18.
At this moment, Zeke isn't aware of it. After leaving Sam's mansion he made himself busy with a task to make sure that he and his lackeys will enter the special branch. He hired people to spread the rumours about the news of two cities withdrawing from the Special branch and the rankings from top 21 to 40 will be awarded these positions.
He plans to make the public believe this in order to force his father to make the decision.
Even though, his plans are going well, when the news about his two lackeys in half-dead situation made him even more frustrated.
He didn't know why a rank 5 Artisan is targeting his lackeys and what his motives are.
Sam did have motives and he is right track to achieve them. According to his normal style, Sam would just come to the city and use some tricks to deal with Zeke and his lackeys directly.
He was able to deal with a great mage with his wits and a Novice isn't a big deal. But Sam has different goals.
He just didn't want Zeke to experience some physical torture.
Why did Zeke so arrogantly attack him in Falcon Cliff city and walked away without giving a flying f.u.c.k about confidence? Because, Zeke is arrogant due to his three main aspects.
First one is he has a lot of lackeys who are willing to work for him which gives him a sense of superiority that others should bow down to him.
Second one, he has successful business which helps him get required resources and gives him sense of superiority against poor people
Third one and the most important aspect which made the first two aspects possible is that his father is powerful and influential.
Since, Zeke wants to get into the special branch by hook or crook, he will let him. But before that, Sam intends to destroy the sense of superiority Zeke has and will show him how worthless these things could be.
That is why, Sam is doing things slowly. By attacking his lackeys, Sam will achieve two things.
First one is, by making the lackeys suffer in this way but still leaving them a chance to get back to their original shape is to sow a seed of doubt in lackeys' hearts.
Even though, he crushed their bones and damaged their bodies, if a high-level healer takes action they will get back to his original shape.
But is the high-level healer, so cheap to hire? Zeke will have to fork out hundreds of thousands of spirit stones if not millions to treat one person. Is he ready to take that much money out of his own pocket? Fat chance.
From what he understood, Zeke is a selfish and ambitious brat. He would rather discard his injured lackeys and take in new people.
But this will decrease the loyalty of other lackeys towards him.
Second result he achieved is the unrest in public.
Sam's actions were a form of revenge, but this news is only known by a very few people and they aren't sure of what sort of grudge this is.
For the remaining public, they felt a sense of danger. Because, for all they know these three people are from commoner zone and they are attacked. They don't know the reason or motive and all they felt was they might also be in that position.
Sam wanted to cause chaos in the city. The citizens panic will surely get to the Marquis. Even though, this is world of strong, the people are important resource to maintain a kingdom. Even if they can suppress them by force, the people will just take different approach. They might not be able to retaliate but they can just ignore them. They can just leave the country and migrate. They cannot tail all the people and stop them after all.
That is why, Sam is going to cause a panic in the citizen's hearts and when the Marquis finds out that his eldest son is the cause of all this, he would love to see how he will react. He heard that Marquis is a righteous person and he wants to see how far he can go to prove this point.
The third aspect is the business and Sam has already made plans regarding this. Next day, Sam came out of the mansion early and went to the Artisan tower to meet with the tower head.
After he said his purpose to the receptionist and the latter informed to the superiors, he was invited into a small meeting room. There he saw a beautiful woman in her late twenties with long wavy hair reaching her waist looking outside through the window.
When he entered the room, she turned around with a mesmerised smile and spoke.
"Hello, Artisan Sam. Nice to meet you. I am Chaya."
She introduced herself as she extended her hand. Sam shook her hands, and both got seated.
"I actually wanted to meet you the other day when you took the assessment. But you seemed to be in a hurry and left immediately." She said before Sam could speak.
"Oh, I had really important things to deal with."
"I know. Your actions are quite well-known among public." She said with a smile.
Sam didn't reply or feel offended. He knew that this news won't escape the bigshots. By now, even the Marquis might have learnt about this matter.
"I have something to discuss with you." Sam said completely ignoring the statement.
"Please, tell me. I am listening."
"I want to make a business deal with the Artisan tower." Sam said without a change in expression.
But Chaya thought that she heard something wrong. The Artisan tower is a huge entity and they have deals with a lot of noble families in supplying them with ores for weaponry and some other channels. Their scale of deals isn't small at all.
Even if Sam is a genius, he shouldn't have enough money to make a deal with Artisan tower. After all, just earlier this morning she got the report of investigation on other party and he is an orphan. But she didn't say anything and asked.
"What kind of deal are we talking about?" Chaya asked.
"I want to open a weapon store in cooperation with the Artisan tower."
"Artisan Sam, even though Artisans of the tower accept requests on some custom-made weapons, and we do sell the weapons here, we never cooperated with other people." Chaya said.
After all the focus of the Artisan tower is still grooming artisans. The businesses are only for getting the necessary resources. So, the higher-ups don't care much as long as they have enough resources to self- sustain.
"Artisan Chaya, even though you think that your business is sufficient don't you need to think about the younger generation Artisans. They are being trained and groomed by the Artisan towers and are being recruited away by other families and rich people. Why do you think they are leaving the Artisan tower easily?" Sam paused speaking up to this point.
Chaya didn't answer, she knew the reason but too ashamed to accept it. It is because, the Artisans who work in the tower won't make much money. If they were to work in a noble family, they will be treated well and also get a lot benefits. But in the artisan towers, they have to compete with the rest of the Artisans for the projects and they cannot get the special benefits they will get when they work for the families directly.
Seeing her expression, Sam continued.
"I think both of us know the answers. If you cooperate with me, you can stop these Artisans from leaving the tower."
"How is it possible? No matter how big your shop is, there are a lot noble families who do business in the city. The competition is too high. Even if we use the name of Artisan tower, they might just buy the products from the normal shops because their families aren't any less influential. And the products are same and they have a very solid foundations in business."
"Artisan Chaya, take a look at this." Sam said as he placed the arm guard he used for assessment on the table.
Chaya started checking the details. The arm guard has a very fine craftsman ship. After checking all the details, she finally stopped at the energy cell. When she scanned it with spiritual sense, she could feel the highly compressed spiritual energy in it.
Sam made this cell with normal spirit stones. So, it is pure form of spiritual energy. It has eight core, but energy stored inside is almost an energy of ten spirit stones.
Chaya tried to pick the energy cell and rotated it in its position. It is circular in shape, and when rotated, it made a click sounds as it came out of the arm guard leaving a socket.
She observed the metallic protrusions under the cell which are responsible for holding the energy cell in place. She fixed it back and wore the arm-guard to test it.
"Don't use your own spiritual energy. Try to use the energy inside it to make an attack." Sam said to her.
She nodded her head and stood up and walked to the window. From the window, she aimed the hand which has the arm guard towards a tree in the yard and tried to use the energy inside the cell to launch a fire ball.
The attack worked, just like normal. She didn't find much difference from using the energy from her spiritual core and the energy cell.
"You can also cultivate with the energy." Sam said and she tried. When she felt that the energy is purer than a normal spirit stone and the extraction of energy is also easy, she couldn't help but feel surprised.
This isn't because, it beneficial for cultivating. But this can be an important gadget when injured in a battle or some emergency battle situations. This can even save one's life.
If a person exhausted all his spiritual energy, he will be very vulnerable in wild or battlefield and he can't concentrate to absorb the energy from the spiritual stones efficiently. But this cell makes it easier for them and they can use this energy to escape.
"This is my invention which gave me the rank-5 Scholar Artisan title." Sam interrupted her train of thoughts and when he got her attention he said.
"Do you think this has a commercial value?" Sam asked.