Raunak came to the residence Sam was given after his daily business was over. Both of them sat in a private room and this time, Raunak doesn’t have that air of superiority and even the attendant was not present.
"Have you thought about what I said yesterday?" Sam asked casually.
"Who are you and where did you come from?" Sam could see the anxiousness in his eyes. This is clearly a show of how green Raunak truly is. He is not that much older than Sam. He might be scheming but he definitely lacks experience required to play in the same league as Sam.
"Does it matter where I am from?"
"How can I trust you, if you are not willing to give out any information?"
"Its simple, you don’t have a choice. From what I observed, there is something weighing on you and you need to be promoted as fast as you can. You are looking to achieve something and actually you are actually doing quite well for someone of your age.
All the officials are old men compared to you. But you are still desperate.
You just don’t want this promotion because of your ambition, you need it because of something else."
Sam said as he took a sip of wine. His voice is casual as if he is talking about the taste of the wine.
Raunak shuddered for a second before he looked at Sam only to see him smiling as if he knew everything.
Sam is not really surprised. Once again he shot an arrow in the dark and it hit perfectly on the bullseye.
"It seems like my assumptions are true. I have a way to help you out of this and all I need is your support. Not only will you get promoted, you will also gain a boat load of money if you follow my lead."
"You know too much for your own good." Raunak said in a low voice almost as if he is whispering and abruptly stood up with a crystal bottle in his hands and tried to pour the substance on Sam.
But before he could do anything and even before a single drop of the substance left from the bottle, he felt like a large brutal force hit him and he wooden table in between him and Sam was broken into two and Sam held the hand that was holding the crystal bottle in place tightly.
The spiritual energy storm held him in place and Sam’s killing intent oozed out as he looked directly into his eyes.
"Why are you so feisty? We are still talking."
His hand turned metallic and he used fire elemental energy to heat it. He started crushing the bone before Raunak could come out of his daze and defend. He held the crystal bottle while he kicked Raunak into the ground and held him there.
Sam sniffed the bottle that is clearly emitting some vapors showing the intensity of the poison. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ ɴo(v)elFɪre.ɴet
"There is such a woody smell in it. Is it some tree extract or something?" He looked at Raunak who is currently under Sam’s foot still trying to make sense of situation, but after he came to his senses and was about to fight back, Sam’s foot also turned into metal and pierced the skin on his chest as a sharp spike cut through his flesh and just a few inches away from the heart.
"Don’t move too much, you might die. By the way you still didn’t answer my question. I haven’t smelled a poison till now."
He said as he nudged his foot even more.
"Widow Tree extract."
"Widow Tree. What a name, lets see how potent it truly is."
Sam said and he immediately poured all the poison into his own mouth. He drank all the poison as if he is drinking water or even some sort of delicious beverage.
Raunak looked at Sam as if he is looking at a ghost. His eyes widened in disbelief and almost slipped out of the sockets.
Sam finished the poison completely and looked at Raunak as he licked his lips.
"Not bad. The name seemed to be extremely well deserved."
He threw the crystal bottle away and continued.
"I can kill you in my sleep if I want to. I don’t even need to waste a single second to kill a man of your caliber. The league I play in is completely different. The only reason I play along is because I like your ambition. I decided to give you a chance.
But the most plausible reason would be my laziness so that I could relax without wasting my time to find another partner.
So now are you ready to talk business or do you want to pull another stunt."
Sam removed his foot and took a seat. Raunak nervously sat down and Sam said.
"I want to take a tour in the sugar factory and other surrounding factories."
"It can be arranged, but may I ask why do you want to do that?"
"I have a better way of creating sugar and there are some by-products I would like to have so that I could experiment some more."
"I will have it arranged by tomorrow morning."
"Just behave normally and don’t do anything suspicious. Just let the plan flow and what is the target tax amount that you need for the next promotion?"
They went on discussing the plans and right before Raunak left, Sam gave him one last advice.
"If you pull another stunt , trust me to pull your spine off of your body. And I would make sure that you feel every second of the process without missing a single step."
Raunak shuddered a bit before leaving the place in a hurry.
He didn’t even have any intention of sending the guards or other people here to take revenge, because he is still not sure how Sam managed to guess or probably see every move of his. He might be under some form of surveillance. So, he is not willing to take any risks.
He went back and carefully arranged for what Sam asked for.
The next day, Sam’s friends managed the business while Sam went to tour the factories. His guess was right, the crystallized sugar is not being made properly. The molasses is not being separated from the cane juice and when he looked at the scrap of the cane, he was delighted.
"The cane was clearly not ripened, it would take another week for the harvest, where did you get this cane from?" Sam asked after looking at the sugar cane that was being processed.
"The sugar cane crop is one of the widely grown crop here. There are some villages nearby where the maturation the cane happens a bit faster than normal. That load came yesterday and along with that, all the stocked cane crop which is stored in spatial devices for some emergencies is also being processed now."
"Okay then, send me a batch of canes and also send me the leftover scrap from the juiced out sugar cane."
Sam also went to the rice processing plant. There are using some pounding machines that works on the pedal power to pound the rice out of the grain. They are using such an old school technique, if not for the fact that they have to infuse the spiritual energy into the pounding to truly crack the shells, he would have felt like he is back in good old days of earth where technology is still in its infancy.
After touring, he went back to his place and decided to start the experimentation immediately. Particularly with the sugar cane scrap.
He has extremely high expectations for it. Everything that Sam has in this world with spiritual energy and also can be related to the things on modern earth are extraordinary. The counter parts of the normal things of the earth in this world are so much more better and completely abnormal in this world. And he is expecting the similar effect from the sugar cane’s by products.
The molasses and the scrap which is also called the bagasse.
Bagasse has many uses, it can be used to make bio-fuel, paper and a type of plywood.
Sam is currently thinking on which method to use. Obviously the paper is not his choice. No matter how extraordinary a paper is and how interested he is to see the effects, he cannot spend his time on it at this moment. He has to delay it a bit and look for the two other options.
One of them is the bio-fuel and the other making the Plywood.
He is looking forward to what results it would give him as he proceeded in both ways.
The process cannot be replicated as it is and he can only explore slowly. By the time he has any significant results it is already the end of the second week which also concludes his deal with the two candidates.
He is really fascinated by the results he achieved. Even though the bio-fuel is a bit lackluster compared to the methane gas, it still has its uses when he used some other ingredients that could help him process the bio fuel.
But the wood is extremely useful and versatile. He knew that this wood is going to be the next best thing on this planet which also made sure that he couldn’t reveal it this early.