Starting from Zero

I checked my income and left the bank. First, we came to the transport service NPC and spent 1,000 crystals to hire 200 carriages. Then, to the carpenter workshop and paid 16,000 crystals for 1,600 giant wooden boxes. We took the hired helpers and tools back to the port and carefully stuffed the gold bricks into the boxes. Each carriage can hold 8 of them. Barely. I can see these four-wheeled vehicles are at their very limits with my eyes. I already told them to prepare two horses for each cart. Best decision ever.

Still, we have to order two sailors to give each cart a starting push, or the horses can\'t get them moving at all.

Frankly speaking, 1,600 boxes aren\'t a lot. It took us 10 round trips to move all the gold. Before the bank can finish their job, the system told me I can\'t carry more currency! I have to ask Rose to hold onto the rest. This is the first time I learned about this limit. Never thought I\'d have enough money for it.

"What\'s the plan now?" Coin asked me.

"The new cannons. Let\'s replicate them." Zirai said.

"Agreed. That comes first." I nodded. It is absolute disadvantage when enemies have something we don\'t.

"What about those Indians?"

"Let\'s split up. Hawk, take Elfy, Merciless and Passerby, go interrogate the captives. The others come with me to the weapon shop."

Hawk left with his team while I took mine to the edge of the city.

"Hey mister, can you come here for a sec?" I called the chief blacksmith and ordered the sailors to move the long-range cannon here.

"What it\'ll be this time?"

"First, the payment we owe you."

We acquired most ammunition by using the old designer\'s message, we should settle this up first.

"And can you look at this?"

I moved aside and waved at the cannon behind me. The blacksmith climbed onto the cannon and opened the chamber, looking inside.

"Where did you find this thing??"

"We recovered it from a sunken Indian ship. How does it look?"

"Imported huh?" He checked it again. "Aye, never seen this technology around here. So what do you want me to do with it?"

"Can you make something similar?" I explained. "It shoots farther than any of our cannons, and more powerful. It will improve our coastal defense by a lot if we can reproduce it."

"It\'s...possible, but I need to break down several of these to study. Is this the only one you have?"

"We have more. I\'ll tell them to move them here."

"Good, good! Show me as many as you can, I\'ll make out a blueprint faster." He became excited. "Together with our own tech, maybe we can build something even better."

"How long will that take?"

"Two days should be enough. The thing\'s not complex, there\'s just something we never thought of before."

"Thank you very much! We\'ll leave you to your work then." I told the accompanying sailors to fetch the rest of the cannons, then we left the shop.

Next stop is the shipyard. I need adjustments done to Bi-Lin. A lot of them.

The designer immediately yelled at me when he saw us, something about "ruining his masterpiece". I shut his mouth by taking out a stack of gold bricks I left behind.

Old moneybag.

"Oh, heh heh... How can I help you this time?"

"I need you to make some adjustment to the cabins." I summoned Aldeina and asked her to give me a pair of those shield sticks. "Install these things outside the ship and create a third defense barrier. Open up an entrance below the ship and use a shield to seal it up."

"An entrance under the ship??" He didn\'t understand.

"This magic shield is waterproof. Lock this thing at the entrance so we can go in and out of the ship while keeping water outside."

"Where did you...?" He looked around the item in curiosity.

"It\'s secret. Just get it done." I continued. "Can you further improve the ship\'s speed? It\'s not fast enough."

Aldeina answered this one first. "You should told me that earlier!"

"You know how to do it?"

"We have ship boosters stored in Atlantis! Those are way faster than using paddles with human hands."

"Really? You didn\'t mention it back in the warehouse."

"We didn\'t know, since you didn\'t ask. Did you look at our speedboats carefully? They\'re propelled by these boosters. I thought you already noticed them."

"Okay okay. Can you get me some of that?"

"They\'re too small for your Bi-Lin. Wait for some days if you\'re not hurry, I\'ll tell them to build a bigger one."

"Go then. Tell them I\'ll buy those boosters with additional energy crystals."

"Right away, master." She changed back her fish tail, jumped into the water and disappeared.

Now I kinda envy those convenient legs. I only know how to use dog-paddle underwater.

"I\'ll leave these to you." I pointed to the shield sticks I prepared. "Change the entire base level into one integrated area, I want to place some small boats in there. Leave four exits covered with shields, triple layer, just in case. Oh and, leave some space in the rear where I can install the boosters. Change all paddle rooms into cannon chambers. We don\'t need paddles anymore. Seal the windows with these shields too."

That will make the windows waterproof as well, so I don\'t have to worry about taking in water the next time I move gold blocks.

"One last thing, make sure you change all the ballast material (*) into movable parts so I can take them away when I want."

Ha, I can just use gold bricks as ballast when necessary. This will create an emergency gold reserve too, we might need something like this in the future.

"That should be it. How much?"

The old man kept his head lowered for a while.

"1.5 million crystals!"

"What?? Are you trying to rip me off?"

"I already gave you a discount!" He gave me a sad face. "Look at your ship\'s size, we need an overhaul from tip to tail! And you removed over half of the existing cabins! You know it\'s harder to modify something than to create something right? I would have simply rejected this offer if you\'re someone else!"

"Fine!!" I paid him anyway. Damn he\'s smart.

My next job is to ask for more energy crystals. I guess I\'ll need a lot more, considering the trade with Atlantis. As Clark mentioned, I should go find Domergor.

I turned to the rest of the people: "I\'ll try to find more energy crystals, you don\'t have to follow me now. Take the time to level up or something, I\'ll contact you guys when something happens."

"Alright!" Zirai responded first. "We\'ll be off then."

Most people followed her, while Yuri and Rose decided to follow me. Well, it\'s a bless to have beauties following around, why would I refuse?

I gave them two teleport scrolls to the Lost City, then activated my ring myself. I waited at the teleport station for a while but they didn\'t show up as expected.

Weird. Do you need several minutes to use a scroll?

When I almost lost my patience, two figures appeared in the station with a white flash. Yuri is holding onto one of Rose\'s arms, with her head leaning on Rose\'s shoulder. Something doesn\'t feel right yet I can\'t tell what it is.

"Let\'s go!" I summoned Night Shade, hopped on and pulled Yuri up. Before I gave my hand to Rose, she summoned her white wolf and climbed on herself.

"Three people on one horse won\'t be easy, you two go ahead. I\'ll take Chubby."

She ordered the wolf to run ahead. Wait, "Chubby"?

I told Night Shade to follow behind. Something must have happened during the interval, but I probably shouldn\'t ask, since they aren\'t telling me.

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(*) Ballast: heavy objects, such as sandbags, used for adjusting altitude for certain vehicles, like ships and air balloons.