I submitted the report as we agreed We should have word from Ghost within a few weeks The man said speaking overly loudly to the woman Randidly sighed and settled back down sipping his bitter drink This was the type that liked the attention he received from exposing his connection with Ghost it seemed
The young woman straightened her eyes bright A few weeks Isn’t Ghost a computer Why is it taking so long
Blinking the man seemed to falter Randidly readjusted his assessment A coward too then
There are there are channels The man said stubbornly This is an official process I was able to
Just leave The woman said dismissively dropping her head to the bar Trusting you was a mistake You probably lied about even seeing my brother
The military man’s hands clenched into fists Again Randidly moved his needle on the man he had temper problems
Don’t you dare sully my good name The man announced to the unamused tavern puffing out his chest I risked my career to help you and I’ll not have
Pah The woman spat at the man’s feet His face went red
Being only three seats over from the woman Randidly was very close to the yelling and was becoming annoyed They were only about a meter away from him Aside from Randidly and the bartender there was also a group of three men farther along the bar They looked at the military man as he entered then went straight to ignoring them
On the opposite side of the room two men in cloaks were sitting at a low table talking quietly Since the young woman came in the shorter of the two seemed transfixed staring at her
You’ll regret that The man hissed and he raised his hands above his head producing a long taser baton The man leaned back and put it over his head preparing to bring it down in a crushing blow towards the young woman
Which of course threw the end of the taser back in Randidly’s direction The fucking thing was about to hit Randidly’s head as the man performed a ridiculous windup for the blow Over some spit
Shaking his head Randidly reached up and grabbed the taser so he wasn’t poked with it The electricity discharged harmlessly through his body not even causing the twitch The military man tugged Randidly couldn’t see his face but assumed it was at this point that the man realized that something was going wrong with his strange burst of anger
And at that moment the shorter hooded figure appeared before the military man kicking the guy in the chest smashing him towards Randidly
A vein in Randidly’s temple throbbed
His hand blurred as he pressed his palm against the military man’s back The powerful force of the kick was slowly bled of as Randidly’s hand slowed his rapid speed and then Randidly pressed him to the side so he skidded off to the side diagonally not slamming into Randidly And based upon the speed the man was flying backward he would likely have been gravely injured if he had just smashed into the bar with that force
Rushing over and kicking had knocked back the hood of the cloak revealing a handsome man with curling golden hair His eyes widened in shock as saw the military man twist in some profound way skidding to the side out of his kick
The golden haired man’s eyes narrowed Who who are you There are not many men who can dodge my kick like that
The military man snorted and then turned and confidently walked out of the bar with his chest held high
Randidly sighed Yup just a coward
Chapter 507
The orange haired woman stood to thank her benefactor shock in her eyes She was a good 4 inches taller than him The two flirted for quite some time so much so that Randidly gave up on learning more about the creature and walked back to the factory early shaking his head Besides he had no interest in being pointlessly tangled up in more nonsense than he had to be
He spent another week working Extracting Refining and then mixing monster bones into the metals It was relaxing in a way and his Skills slowly ticked upwards as he continued to work However his most recent batch had a slight problem he had used a different type of monster bone so the metal was slightly different
This metal was more rigid harder and cracked rather than bent Almost helpless Randidly could only take it to Foreman Davey to be tested
Formula go awry The man asked curiously regarding the metal Randidly could do nothing but shrug
Finally after snapping two ingots Foreman Davey seemed satisfied I can still give you the 2 50 for this It’s more rigid but it has good strength I’ll take it all
So Randidly sold all 300 ingots that he had made netting himself 750 Including the money he had from his previous sales he had just below 1000 It was still quite a bit short of the amount required to buy preliminary citizenship but it would close that distance fast if he dedicated himself to it
Increasing the quantity would be easy Randidly had no doubt that he could do almost 1000 ingots a day But that might draw too much attention Best to keep the quantity constant while pushing the quality enough to make more money
Four hours later Randidly looked down at a metal ingot with chagrin It was a dull red but there were thin lines of emerald running through it which seemed to pulse with a strange light Randidly shook his head dourly He had spent the last hour trying to do ANYTHING to it but even with his prodigious strength he wasn’t able to bend or warp it
Acri could cut it but barely His blade got stuck into it after about a centimeter and it would pull itself out and complain to Randidly He shrugged helplessly It was gratifying that the mixture of a Level 65 spine and a bit of his own blood would result in such a powerful metal but it was too powerful Randidly stored it away and began to think about how he could pull back somewhat on the formula strength
Instead of the potion brewing portion of the process Randidly decided to focus his efforts on increasing the efficacy of the Extract and Refine portions If he could strengthen the base materials he wouldn’t need to work more ingredients into the formula yet
Plus the past two weeks of working with the metal further deepened his understanding of it The more he saw examples of pure iron and steel the stronger his image would be So Randidly took two days to just extract and refine working on forcing more out of his raw materials
When his progress was frustratingly slow with just the iron ore Randidly also began refining the bones he had Acri slice up This avenue bore fruit Not only did he gain quite a few Skill Levels in Refine for it but it also seemed to condense the strengths of the prior two metals into one
He was quite pleased when after only 8 days he returned to Foreman Davey with 100 ingots of the improved metal
You aren’t a lad that takes many breaks are ya Still this is good Better than good I’d like to buy this for myself 5 an ingot Foreman Davey said with a warm smile on his face Make sure you come to me with any more experiments eh
Foreman Davey walked off whistling in the smoggy and hot steel smelting factory Randidly shook his head filled with wonder
He sensed the other approaching but felt no real need to do anything about it It was only when a hand gripped his arm that he looked up finding himself face to face with a shaggy looking man with deep bags under his eyes
Even his smile felt tired and overused Congratulations brother It seems like you’ve been doing a lot of business lately It gives men who are down on their luck like myself some hope for the future Say since you’ve come into such a windfall how about a night on the town A friend of mine is throwing a party tomorrow and I’m sure I could get you an invite What do you say
Randidly’s immediate response was to open his mouth to say no but he thought better of it Although it would likely be a waste of time low profile is key From the way this situation was developing he might be muscled more directly into cooperating with these seedy elements if he didn’t seem willing to play ball
Beating the shit out of these people would draw attention to him if nothing else If they continued to push however Randidly intended to make them regret bothering him so insistently It had been a while and several hundred Intelligence since he had last exposed someone to the Pollen of the Rafflesia Randidly wondered if it would be too much at this point and just kill someone at this level