William's eyes shone brightly, and his face showed how excited he was about what was going to happen.
And seeing this look made Thomas feel quite bad and restless.
"Tell me, there are those alchemists here, then how about artisans? Is there any gathering of them?"
"Well…" Thomas didn't get William's intentions, "artisans aren't in a better way than alchemists. And that's because of what Alfred said before."
William got what Thomas wanted to say. People coming here already had their own supplies from the places they came from. Not to mention those who were rich enough got higher grade stuff from places that were much better than here.
Comparing a fort with the capital of a kingdom? That was indeed quite unfair. And that was why people here didn't get much from this fort. And that was why William decided to act fast.
William noticed something from his meeting with Alfred, the news about his bet already got spread all over the fort. And that made Alfred quite anxious to close this deal fast, even to the extent of sending someone to track William.
William was excited that he secured such a gem. A place filled with experienced alchemists? That'd save him lots of time and trouble. Not to mention he wouldn't pay a single penny to get this place.
All he'd do was to come up with new formulas and give them to the alchemists of this place. The most he'd do would be teaching a few tricks and new techniques to the selected few, to let them make better elixirs, potions, and pills.
He'd suffer little loss at first, to purchase lots of materials. But coupled with the great fame he'd acquire after winning the bet, and with the new potions, pills, and elixirs produced by his alchemy branch, then business was destined to boom.
Being equal to one of the Big Seven in one year? William was positive that in less than one month, this place would reach such a stage and even much higher.
He didn't set his eyes over the place of the shop here. He got a much better place. And so, he planned to invite all the alchemists from Alfred's shop and let them go and work at his place. As for this shop, he'd remodel it entirely, turning it into a selling outlet for their final products.
Good publicity with great fame and new products that everyone would need made William quite confident in this move. And made him even a little greedy, aiming for securing another gem, artisans.
In the eyes of spirit masters in this tiny world, artisans and alchemists were simply weak and pretty useless. But William would teach these spirit masters how scary alchemists and artisans could be.
"Is there any artisan shop nearby? One as good as the Seven Heaven?" William asked while walking calmly forward.
"There is also something similar to the gathering of the alchemists in this fort, but they aren't here," Thomas paused, looking to the west before adding, "we need to go to another street."
"Lead the way then," William was ecstatic about this. He didn't know if the artisan shop owner would be easy to deal with like Alfred or not. But he wanted to try. And if he succeeded, then all he needed to do was to crush the traps in that fox residence, win the bet, and start a mega business plan.
Yet things didn't turn out the same way he expected.
"Sorry, we won't accept any customers today!"
"No, we are closing!"
"Leave, we don't need any cursed people to come in here."
William followed Thomas around, passing through side streets until reaching another big one.
There were too many shops there, few were selling gears, many were selling herbs and ores. But no matter which Forging shop he visited, he ended up being literally kicked out.
And that made William frown after facing such treatment in five stalls.
"What's going on?" Even Thomas couldn't help but mutter in doubt, "something is wrong. Something is very wrong."
"Yes, and I know what it is," William turned around, to look at the one that Alfred sent after him, "let's go back."
William already guessed what happened. And despite that, he didn't show any sign of anger or frustration.
If someone wanted to dig a hole for himself, then William wouldn't have a say in that. He simply returned back to the Seven Heaven shop, where he saw Alfred waiting for him outside with a broad smile on his face.
"You are smiling as if what you did is funny or something," William didn't go easy on that dude and just said this in a cold way.
"What? Don't blame me for worrying about my business!" Alfred was indeed the one behind the weird situation William and Thomas just faced at the artisan shops.
It was just like how William guessed it. The worker Alfred sent after him informed Alfred about their change in direction and heading towards another big street.
William didn't need to ask to know that there were other rivalling alchemy shops there. And that made Alfred wreck his mind, come up with a perfect lie to scare others away from William.
But in the middle of his panic of letting such a deal escape his clutches, he overdid it and let this lie spread over other professional circles.
"What exactly did you tell everyone?" William went inside the shop, to find out no one else was there, "where are the customers? Where are the workers?"
"Ahem…"
"You sent everyone to spread rumours about me?!" William turned to face Alfred, and that dude seemed like a thief caught in the middle of his crime or something.
"Don't blame me…"
"I'm not," William shrugged, and his face turned to show a vicious smile, one that didn't suit a kid like him at all, "you are just going to take responsibility for what you did."
"I was preventing you from dealing with other alchemists, why would I take responsibility then?"
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