Chapter 75: Specialty Crafter

Chapter 75: Specialty Crafter

Junior greets Qiang You. Junior greets senior, I said and bowed to the man before me. Unlike most cultivators I had seen, he was not wearing a martial robe of some kind, but a large overcoat with lots of pockets. His thick glasses made him seem even more eccentric.

He walked up to me and put a hand on my head. I felt a wave of energy pass through me and then he released his hand. You dont ask for anything simple brat, the eccentric man said. The fact he could call Qiang You a brat was heart stopping. That was when I noticed the symbol of the Heavenly Alliance stitched in upon his over coat.

I had been called here after a cycle of just waiting around the TripleX faction trying to work on my techniques and figuring out a business plan. I didnt dare pester Qiang You to hurry up, since he clearly would not let me stick around and break through on the faction.

Back in the garden I had first met Qiang You in, it was clearly time for my cultivation to be fixed. I steadied my breathing to reign in my excitement.

A challenge then. I have covered the expenses and have not lied, Qiang You said.

If you had, I would have left already after teaching you a lesson. I havent seen a cultivation system this messed up and stable for at least an era. An entirely new system and an organ to help it. You are lucky child. Out of everyone in the Forever City, I can count the cultivators on one hand that could fix your problem, the eccentric man said.

Thank you, seniors, I quickly replied and bowed deeply again.

Raise your head, let me look at you. I obeyed quickly. I am Cultivator Po. My titles and other achievements would make your head explode. Qiang You here did me a small favor long ago, and he has called it in to get me to take a look at you. I glanced over at the man in question who was staring intently at me and then back at Cultivator Po. I wasnt sure what to say.

I understand it is a great honor and a debt that will be near impossible to repay, I replied. Cultivator Po let out a scoff.

At least you understand the enormity of what must be done. Your cultivation is impressive as well as your body. You have stolen the foundation of multiple beings. The monster cultivation you have undergone is formidable. It took me a moment to process that statement. Tell me of them.

I began to list off everything I had used to boost my body and cultivation. Cultivator Po just listened while I went through everything. The Astral Soul Stabilizer, inspired, but sub-par in construction. The blood reinforcement, decent but from a weak beast. At least you managed to kill it yourself. The plant combination for a pill, is far too aligned to nature. It would have been better to be from an animal. The energy vortex, is interesting but slightly unbalanced. He cut down all my major achievements in the past.

Please tell me there arent more like him? Cultivator Po turned towards Qiang You.

His origins have been inspected. Apparently he is a genius under the heavens, Qiang You said with a touch of amusement.

Heavens save us from geniuses who get ideas, Cultivator Po muttered and then turned back towards me. To craft you an organ that links your body and soul and will draw in power from your body core is only one part of the problem. It is by far the largest. Your foundation is incredible and impressive. But it has cracks, serious cracks.

Can it be done? Qiang You asked him.

Technically yes. Anything is possible as you know. But I will need reassurances that the breakthrough wont happen inside the Forever City, Cultivator Po said.

I was thinking about using him on the outskirts to disrupt a certain faction that is entrenched against our interests, Qiang You said, and Cultivator Po shook his head at that.

It will exceed any safeguards we have in place. It would not be a minor incursion. So, I wouldnt be able to turn a blind eye, even with our friendship, Cultivator Po said.

That is unfortunate. Very well, I will make use of him in other ways, Qiang you replied. I didnt dare interject or complain as these two immortal cultivators discussed me like a piece of meat in the market.

Good. Then I can grow something useful, Cultivator Po said and Qiang You nodded at him. The eccentric man approached me once again and placed a hand on my head and another on my sternum. I felt powerful waves of energy move through me, and my cultivation shook. He moved the hand on my head to my gut and I felt like my cultivation was going to rip apart.

Breathe, you wont die while you stand in front of me, Cultivator Po said, and I breathed. The pressure got worse. I felt like my channels were being compressed. Your cultivation is too good, which is my I must be a bit forceful here.

After ten minutes he let go. I struggled to say on my feet. And done. Check my work, Cultivator Po said, and Qiang You came over and put his hands on me.

Inspired as always. Your technique is flawless, Qiang You replied and released me. I looked at Cultivator Po wondering what he had done. The man took pity on me and explained thankfully.

I created an organ on the spot. I have a specialty in biomanipulation. Surgery would wreck your cultivation and create massive instability. You would have never survived such a procedure. And even if you did, you would never break through. I merely combined the leftover bits from all the other things in your body to form an organ, Cultivator Po explained.

It is small but will grow over the next couple of cycles. I would wait at least five before breaking through. When you do, your body core will implode directly onto the organ and draw in the energy, forcing it to link with your astral soul. It has no name, since it has not been done. There are long term issues though. I listened intently to the next portion that he would explain.

What I have done is to smooth out your breakthrough and your next portion of cultivation. But reaching immortality with such an organ, will pose difficulties. You walk the path of physical force. A solid and dependable path, but the organ I created does not support such a path. I didnt understand and he let out a small sigh, clearly sensing my confusion.

A regular cultivator follows the path of the Dao, which sounds repetitive, but it is not. The idea is to connect to a concept and become that concept in part by attuning ones soul to the cosmic energy of the astral plane. Drawing power and energy from there. That organ bypasses that connection. You will draw in immense amounts of energy and filter it for use. But to breakthrough to immortality, you will not follow a Dao to attune yourself. Speak, he said to me.

Senior Cultivator Po, couldnt I just gather more and more energy to break through to immortality? I asked.

For others yes. For you no. The energy gathering method focuses on processing the energy into ones body as a whole. And while that happens slightly with our cultivation system, it is not the focus. You will never be able to reach that kind of density. Cultivators of our system focus on throughput, not on ones reserves. But your connection is now regulated by the organ I have created, Cultivator Po said.

Senior Cultivator Po, couldnt I improve or replace it? I asked.

Improve, no. Replace, anything is possible. But unlikely. You will need to find a new way to breakthrough to immortality. That is what it means to develop a new system, which is what you are doing. If I had to use my considerable experience to guess, your next stage would be Energy Filtering. Where you mentally construct the processes to draw in and filter energy. Then Energy Gathering, to fill yourself up. After that, no idea. No idea how it will impact your lifespan. I can say that the organ I have given you, will last longer than you, Cultivator Po said.

Thank you, Senior Cultivator Po, I said with a bow.The most uptodate novels are published on n0velbj)n((.))co/m

Thats what I am being paid for. Qiang You, that concludes things, unless there is something else? Cultivator Po asked.

That is all. Thank you for your time my friend, Qiang You said and bowed his head.

Cheeky brat. At least you bothered me for something slightly interesting. If he makes it to immortality, I would be curious to see what the outcome is, Cultivator Po replied.

If he lives that long, I will let you know, Qiang You said and then the eccentric Cultivator Po just disappeared with a slight swirl of the air. I hadnt noticed before, but the birds hadnt been tweeting in harmony in the garden. Now they started up again.

You will not understand Yuan Zhou, but that was one of the great powers of this city. Cultivator Pos generosity was immense, Qiang You said as he went to his stone seat and sat down.

Thank you Vice Leader Qiang You for helping me, I replied and bowed deeply.

Sit. Let us drink tea and talk, he said. The Head Servant quickly brought out tea and served both of us. He didnt even complain or say anything as he poured us both a cup and then left. I drank first as the guest to show trust. Not that there was anything I could do if Qiang You decided to squish me.

Honored senior, while you can freely manipulate energy, tools will be required for us lowly individuals to do so. If artisans are created instead, the material cost would be the same, the labor cost would be 10 credits, and the set-up cost would only be around 50,000 credits.

That was 450,000 credits difference. If we sold these recyclers for wholesale around 15 credits each with the high investment option, then it would take 55,555 units to be sold to break even. With the artisan option it would take 50,000 units to break even as well. But the first option would see more money generated long term. This excluded the taxes I would be subject to as well.

Cultivators thought long term, very long term. That was why they would take the first option and throw money at the problem. This was why I had asked for Ting Rong to work with me. She was incredibly knowledgeable about setting up production floors. Now the question was, which option did I want to pursue.

I am guessing the equipment cant be repurposed? I asked and she shook her head.

It would be specialized to produce the parts only for your recycler. The artisans can be reassigned to other projects, she answered.

Lets start with the artisans. They can produce the recyclers, and I can look for buyers. Any suggestions on that end? I asked.

I am sorry senior, but I have only been trained in production methodologies, Ting Rong said. Very little creativity. That was the biggest issue with vat grown humans. They were good at what they did but struggled going outside their area of expertise. This wasnt always true but held in most cases. Occasionally you got someone like Rhiza who charted their own path in life.

Any issues with security? I asked her.

That will be part of the set-up process, Ting Rong said, and I nodded at that.

How long would it take to set up? I asked. She took a moment to answer that question while looking over the prototype I had made.

A single cycle. It can be done sooner, but that would greatly increase the price, she replied.

That long? I asked.

It will take that long to produce the artisans needed and arrange for raw material shipments, she explained.

That is fine. Any ideas on improvements that can be made to the recycler? I asked.

Streamlining using the TripleX standard formation system. Minor improvements to the layout and construction methodology. But that would require a professional craftsperson, she explained.

How much would that be? I asked.

That would have to be requested of another cultivator. There is an in-faction job board that can be used. Our you could hire externally, she said, and I shook my head at that. Hiring outside the faction would look bad for someone so new to it.

I guess that means I will be working on improving this. When would the design need to be finalized? I asked.

If we are going with artisans, then it needs to be ready when they are, in one cycle. You do know, there are other products like this out there senior? Ting Rong asked, and I nodded.

Yes, but the trick is to make the construction cheap, but the processing high quality. These pieces of equipment arent meant to be used in a combat situation. They arent weapons. And unless a cultivator or person using them is incompetent, they wont get damaged that easily. Other models cost around 20 credits for the low end. But our market is the mid-end, which is around 50 credits, I explained.

It was honestly surprising no one had done this, but it wasnt an improvement. Just another way to handle a situation by creating something that was an incremental improvement and could come in at a lower price point. The plan was to sell these for 30 credits each, wholesale.

That would leave 15 credits after the faction tax. With production costs at 14 credits using artisans, I would make 1 credit per unit sold. But it was part of an entire product line. I then pulled out a much larger device I had constructed and set it next to the table. While the recycler was about the size of two large microwaves, the divider was about the size of two stoves stack on top of each other.

This is a divider, another product. The idea is people toss in stuff into the top portion, and it is divided up into the lower portions containers. These containers are then slotted into the recyclers, I pointed out. Ting Rong moved in and took a closer look.

The entire idea behind the divider, was that people clearing out floors, could just toss everything into it and it would be split up quickly into standard sized containers, which would then be taken out and placed into the recyclers. That way things didnt have to be divided and sorted by hand.

The recyclers would churn out material cubes, which were more easily handled. The specialty waste would also be separated for more high-end recyclers to handle. But it would greatly reduce the movement of goods and time needed to process a floor.

One thing cultivators liked was more upfront investment to save a few credits over the long term. That was what my recycler and divider combo idea was all about. The divider would also compact stuff down as much as possible into the container that would be moved over to the recycler. Set up one divider and ten recyclers on a floor, and it could be cleared out incredibly quickly.

It would screw over scavengers, but there was no loyalty there. It was a job I had worked at long ago. Also, by quickly processing materials on site, then the risk of an enemy force retrieving them was low.

The divider would be priced at 100 credits, with Ting Rong estimating the production cost being 20 credits for the materials and another 15 credits for the labor. After the tax, that would give me 15 credits of profit per divider. Thankfully the same artisans could be used, but they would only be able to produce one recycler per day or one divider over two days. Dedicated production equipment would have run about 1 million credits and reduce the labor to 2 credits.

While tempting to go all out, better to have more flexibility in case I needed to pivot to other product ideas. The idea would be to sell bundles at the start. One divider and ten recyclers as a whole, for 400 credits. The hard part would be selling them in volume. Out of those 400 credits, I would only be making 25 credits of profit for myself.

It would take a lot of sales for this business to become profitable. The tax was the real killer. Otherwise, my profit would have been 225 credits per batch sold. Just to earn 50,000 credits, the difference was between 222 batches sold versus 2,000. It was a huge difference. But the faction tax was not something that could be worked around.

Since they provided protection and backing for production. That was the security guarantee. It was also why most businesses were individual service providers working for the tower master. They didnt have to pay taxes to themselves, and the faction portion of the tax was only twenty five percent, which was much more manageable.

The entire system was incredibly frustrating, and I disliked how much I had to kick up to Qiang You. But opposing him was a fantasy. While I had planned to ask him for a floor, I had been waiting until I broke through. The fact he had given me a floor to set up a business showed how well informed he was about me. It made sense since I was such a large investment.

That was also why I wanted to verify what I was told. I used my granted access to the faction records, to look up anything about Cultivator Po. TripleX had an extensive database on factions and individuals from the information it had collected. Cultivator Po was a senior member of the Heavenly Alliance who specialized in biomanipulation.

That was it. There was nothing more listed about him. But it did confirm what I had been told and witnessed. While Qiang You could have tampered with the records, it was unlikely. I even visited another tower owned by the TripleX faction just to double check and got the same information. That was enough for me to put aside my fears.

And while I had considered running away, I was much more interested in starting up a business and working as a cog within the system. Trying to go my own way had led to nothing but hardship. While I had been free and independent that came with a cost of its own. After experiencing both sides, I was content with the deal I had made with Qiang You.

That didnt mean I liked it, or thought the deal was fair. Just that it was better than living out of stairwells and going to shady merchants who would carve me up. All it cost me was crippling debt and putting my life into the hands of Qiang You and his whims. But that debt was also my shield. It would keep me alive. The more I earned, the less inclined he would be to sacrifice me using one of his favors.

The more thought I put into the matter, that was probably why he had given me this business opportunity before my breakthrough. He wanted to see if I could actually earn credits to pay him back. I was too weak to fight, which meant that my only value was my ability to conduct business. A deadline of five cycles had already been given.

It would take one cycle to grow the artisans. Which meant I needed to look at scaling up. Having one batch grown for 50,000 credits wasnt enough. I had Ting Rong put in an order for four groups of artisans, which was the most my floor could handle. That would cost 200,000 credits, but I needed to go into this with a mindset of success.

My life was on the line based on how well I did. I would also need to come up with other products to develop a catalogue.