"Shela, haven’t you gone out to see that little boyfriend of yours lately?" Mr. Mischael looked at the newspaper in his hand, his leg encased in plaster, watching his sister push the door open and walk in with a mix of curiosity, puzzlement, and an eighty percent feigned smile.
To speak of it, his sister having a boyfriend was something that delighted Mr. Mischael; he was overjoyed that his sister finally had someone to love, and even more so that the Nobles of Carterburg seemed to have completed their ritual... Yes, that damned ritual.
It was a sin that could only rot away in the hearts of those involved, and it was also the reason Mischael had to painstakingly select his targets for revenge after his initial anger subsided.
But regardless, his sister deserved a good outcome, and that Jason kid wasn’t too bad. Although those who took up close combat professions weren’t generally the sharpest, at least the youngster had a handsome face and a fine physique, worthy of his Highlander lineage. In this world, apart from the elves and the giants, there was scarcely any life that could uniformly grow to be over one meter eighty like the Highlanders.
"I’m very tired, brother. I’m going to sleep first," the sister pouted and greeted her brother before heading upstairs, "By the way, how many times have you broken your leg this year?"
"The third time. The first was when I sprained my ankle at home, the second was half a year ago when a runaway carriage ran me over in the street, and this time was when a horse went mad in the street, and I was accidentally kicked trying to control it."
"...Brother, take good care of yourself."
"Dear, I know," he replied.
The conversation between the siblings ended there, with the sister trotting up to the second floor, leaving the brother glancing at her retreating figure, then glancing at the newspaper in his hand— "Alchemist Clovis White’s hair regrowth serum highly acclaimed by the Alchemy Association."
Ha ha, these bald long-haired fellows.
Laughing to himself, Mischael reasoned and then pulled out a checkbook from his pocket: "Old Westlin."
At his call, a half-human butler appeared in his sight, smiling and waiting for instructions from the last master of the family, having walked around from behind the sofa.
"Take this check to Miss Clovis White and tell her that the Mischael family will support her in all her efforts to expand production of the regrowth serum. Ask her if she would like to collaborate with the Mischael family."
"No problem, Your Excellency," the half-human took the check, swiftly disappearing from Mischael’s sight.
Then, after a while, in his perception, the half-human had also vanished.
In the tool workshop, the dwarven Great Craftsmen sat together, listening to Malin’s presentation like students—today, Malin had prepared two gifts for them: one was the hair regrowth serum, although this would need a different name for the dwarves, a name Malin had already thought of.
A great invention, the Beard Repair and Maintenance Serum!
The dwarves prided themselves on having the most beautiful and lush beards, and this product was guaranteed to sell out among dwarves, just as it would in the human world among gentlemen of a certain age.
The only problem now was production capacity. The Alchemy Guild had already mortgaged a tenth of their workshop shares in Carterburg to Malin for use—they originally intended to sell him two-tenths, but Old Ferrero was infuriated and overturned a table with the regional head of the Alchemy Guild in Carterburg, and they never dared broach the subject again.
As a heavyweight in the Alchemy Guild, Old Ferrero’s words were more effective than those of the local head.
In return, Malin gained usage rights to the workshops in the Carterburg area from the Church of the Goddess of Harvest, selling their goods internally at cost. Similarly, the Church would also sell these potions as merchandise to various Churches of Rightful Gods... The market was extremely vast.
As Malin had already filed a report with the Alchemy Guild regarding production materials and applied for recipe confidentiality with the Church of Justice, he wasn’t worried about copycat products—he even agreed to OEM production. His only stipulation was that there must be no skimping on materials, as producing underweight goods would be driving Malin towards a dead end. Thus, Malin didn’t mind the former, but he cared greatly about the latter.
The second gift was what Malin was discussing now: trauma ballistics.
In this world, where front-loading firearms still held a significant market share, and rifling had to be manually carved by skilled craftsmen, breech-loading rifles and cartridge ammunition were still trendy novelties in some remote areas. Today, Malin spoke of these rear-loaded rifles and cased bullets.
This was also a recent innovation in the Sydney Union and nearby states. It was still an era where simply wrapping bullets in copper met needs. Thus, when Malin brought out magic gel, the Dwarves quickly realized its benefits—they were also advancing a classification design for bullet heads. With this gel, they could determine the extent of the damage their bullets could inflict.
So, Malin simply had them bring out all the bullets they had on hand, and, except for the hard-head armor-piercing bullets and steel-jacketed round that were sort of reliable, none of the others made much sense.
Take, for instance, the hexagonal bullet one Dwarf handed over; if that hit someone, it would be the end for them, but could it actually hit someone?
Upon later verification, the stable trajectory of the bullet could only reach forty yards at most. Beyond that, hitting anything was really a matter of fate, with the only good news being that these bullets wouldn’t turn 180 degrees.
At this moment, they were thoroughly engrossed in listening, while Old Ferrero also stood by, having already received a report from Malin and acquiring ample understanding of the gel. It seemed he came this time to mock the Dwarves in his Elven form—of course, not really mocking; if he laughed for real, the Dwarves would hold a serious grudge.
After sharing his knowledge, Malin handed over the next steps to Xingyan and, after saying goodbye to Old Ferrero, headed to the Church.
His sister, Maya, should have completed the preliminary preparations for the Enlightenment Ceremony by today, with the ceremony itself to commence in the afternoon.
As her brother, Malin would have to make time to attend the ceremony—even if he lacked the time—especially since their wastrel of a father had run off again, leaving Malin at a loss for words.
However, upon reflection, considering his father had already suffered so much in pursuit of the truth Malin wanted to know, he no longer felt like berating him.
So, he decided to go himself.
"You’re going to attend your sister’s Enlightenment Ceremony, aren’t you?" Old Ferrero asked before Malin departed.
To this, Malin nodded, "Yes, I need to be there for my sister, so if anything happens, I can think of a solution immediately."
Malin was genuinely worried; his little leopard could be quite clueless at times.