After the contract to supply teleportation platforms became public knowledge, Robert's junior enterprise received a lot of orders and requests. Almost none was for teleportation platforms, though. The price he sold them to the defunct company was too expensive and it reduced their competitiveness.
The junior enterprise had to source materials using the Academy suppliers or the ATA. The availability was crap and the wait times stretched for months. Robert could get most monster parts and raw materials that weren't under lock and key by some faction himself but that ate into his time.
Manufactured items such as the huge crystal slabs necessary to hold the essence necessary for teleportation took a lot of time to source.
If he wanted to have everything he might need to craft items with, he'd need to invest billions in materials and fill a warehouse with them.
He needed to adapt the crafting recipes to make more use of standardized materials. The issue with crafting was that once some whack found a working recipe, all research into that particular item stopped. Researching new recipes was costly and risky; more often than not, the result was the discovery of a new way to not do it. Copying what the others were doing was not.
Nobody had the time and the resources to experiment. But for Robert… he had plenty of time, a simulation environment, and a spell that could fix his mistakes. He also could learn other people's skills.
The experience he stole from the enslaved teleportation platform craftsman was already fully assimilated. It was no different than if Robert had studied and practiced for all these years. Yet, he felt it wasn't enough. He needed to diversify his knowledge. He had to walk a mile in someone else's shoes, the wrong way.
*
*
Though he couldn't find anything about Gwen, former cartoon animator turned Time/Void Arch, the four-star powerhouse that was erased from history, he had a lot of historical data to reference and find noteworthy people who might have skills worth copying. He found one Italian craftsman who was the most sought-after maker of magical wonders in known history. His name was Pappardelle but he had retired for good a few decades ago.
Robert found it easy to arrange a visit to Pappardelle's Tuscany retirement farm. The retired craftsman looked to be in his eighties but his actual age was two hundred and eleven years.
There, he made his proposal.
The following interaction happened in Italian.
"A hundred million dollars for an hour of my time?" The retired craftsman asked.
"No questions asked," Robert corrected.
The guy was a three-star Arch and two hundred and ten years old. He was born a decade before the cataclysm and survived the worst of it as a teenage mortal. Sourcing life-prolonging treasures was hard and he was left behind, to go into his long twilight years.
That made Robert think about the Life affinity. It was a must-have to achieve immortality as it was the only affinity that could grant Supreme-quality healing on its own, though it didn't happen until stage 3 abilities. Robert's Vitae Infusion tempering was getting close.
"Also, an insurance policy and a treatment to fix your ailments, sir," Robert said. "I am sure I can fix most of your health issues."
"Malarkey!" Pappardelle cried. "The treatment I need costs billions."
"How valuable do you think is the knowledge in your head?"
"Worthless. It if was any good, I wouldn't be starving!"
"Then, what do you have to lose? If you don't survive the treatment, your grandchildren get the insurance money. If you do, a new life will open up to you."
Robert knew he was proposing his case a bit too strongly but he knew the deal was good and that the man would take it. Pappardelle looked defeated. His self-esteem was in shambles and he thought that Robert might get angered and take what he wanted by force. Hells, if the roles were reversed, Pappardelle would take it by force himself.
"Fine, but I want a notarized contract with the ATA."
Robert cracked a smile. "I already have an appointment with an ATA auditor. Let's go."
They took a carriage to the local ATA in Florence. There, they went to a meeting room where the contract was read and signed by all parties. The ATA people brought a recliner, which the old man sat on.
"What do I need to do?" Pappardelle asked.
"I'm going to probe your mind for the knowledge I need. Make sure you won't resist the treatment. You need to surrender completely."
The old man closed his eyes and tried to relax. "Go ahead."
Robert placed a wall of Force around them and activated an isolation ward to keep the ATA from eavesdropping. He leaned and whispered in Pappardelle's ear, "Mind Blackout!"
The domination was automatic. The consent made the spell take a tenth of the effort it would have otherwise needed. Robert grasped the man's wrist and took him to the liminal void. He had allowed, on purpose, his time in reality to reach close to the twenty-four-hour limit. Which meant he had three months and a week to work on the old man's body and mind.
Robert implanted a mental command to keep the man conscious and willing to accept Robert's essence into his body, but not register his surroundings as new memories. This way, he wouldn't need to stay under the effects of Mind Blackout all the time.
iRobert started to copy the old man's memories, more than a century of it. The upgrades to Mind Palace made it much faster than before. Meanwhile, Robert started to use Life essence to fix the multitude of issues in the man's body.
Doing that in the real world was the same as murdering the patient. These modifications took time and caused a lot of side effects. The body was too complex and in constant motion. The immune system and the cellular regeneration every living creature had would act against Robert's efforts.
But here, in the liminal void, body functions were halted. The patient experienced no internal bleeding, no involuntary muscle movement, and no immune reaction.
On top of that, since the patient was under his mental domination, he felt no pain and couldn't have any stray thoughts that could momentarily lift the indispensable consent. With all these enormous roadblocks out of the way, Robert could work on fixing every little problem at a cellular level at his leisure.
Robert had to take short breaks to sleep but the patient's body suffered no changes between sessions. It was the only reason Pappardelle's body didn't die during the treatment.
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This was a breakthrough in rejuvenating treatment. Though Robert got the benefits of the liminal void for free, these conditions could be replicated with a special stasis chamber. It didn't exist yet but Robert thought he could invent one.
He worked on the old man's body for three months, reversing several decades of aging. His apparent age went from eighty years to the early forties.
The copy of his memories was so precise they could become an imprint with just a little more data. iRobert didn't get those remaining memories unrelated to crafting on purpose. Just the tamed librarian was enough population for Robert's head at the time.
Instead, iRobert scrubbed a copy of the raw memories of all extraneous data, especially the man's biases. His goal here was to shore up some deficiencies and gaps in his crafting knowledge as well as build a base for future research.
In the end, Robert formed a spell out of the exercise. He named it Meticulous Rejuvenation. Due to using it interrupted for three months, it was already at the point where it could take in a concept.
*
*
Pappardelle was ecstatic when Robert dropped his mental domination spell. He leaped and danced a little jig, then sang a local song.
Robert knocked on the door. The ATA auditor returned to the room and looked surprised.
"Done already?"
"I used a healing treasure," Robert lied. "You can understand why I didn't disclose this before."
"Of course, sir," the auditor coughed. "But you can trust us to not jeopardize your business."
That's what Robert was paying them for. But a treasure that could do that would sell for more than ten billion dollars if it was ever sold for money. The people who needed such things had that much money.
Too bad Robert couldn't sell this service. The people who had that much money would never subject themselves to mental domination. Because they wouldn't trust Robert not to turn them into his bitches or even emotionless puppets.
Pappardelle was desperate and felt he had a foot in the grave already. It was an exception, not the rule.
They finished their business and went their separate ways. Robert's bank account barely felt the expense.
Visiting the Academy, Robert upgraded his latest spell with the concept of "Meticulousness". On the nose but it helped him to avoid mistakes.
Meticulous Rejuvenation was a Life-affinity, channeled, healing spell that delivered Supreme-quality healing but it required the target to be in biological function suspension, conscious, fully willing, and forced the caster to channel essence forever to work.
At least the essence cost was low. The spell was designed to do things slowly.
Now all he had to do was to revive the memories and assimilate the skills. After that, he needed to train them so he could develop muscle memory.
The spell was useless to anyone but himself. The requirements were nigh impossible to meet without expensive preparations. Preparations were so expensive it wasn't economically viable to use. The people with the money to pay for such treatment wouldn't stay for months on end laying down on a chair while someone treated them.
Cautionary tales abounded, warning people about what happened to people with talents that could grant others Supreme healing. They were so valuable that powerful people enslaved or just murdered them, afraid of letting one's enemies amass too much power.
*
*
Just because the spell was useless for anyone but him wasn't enough reason to stop Robert from making some cash with it. He wanted to let people know it was possible and maybe build the puzzle and reach him.
He sat with a blank scroll and his engraving pen. An Ether scroll held the formula to add a spell to one's Ethercosm but not everyone could make one. The engraving process was delicate and almost impossible without the ability to see magic. If making those heating plates blind to magic during the excursion was a bit hard, this was the equivalent of throwing a grain of salt in a desert and finding the same grain a decade later. Without cheating with magic.
Robert used the shell in his soul to write the scroll. Another problem was this. The one writing the scroll needed to know the spell and have the ability to cast it. And the scrolls always contained the weaker version of the spell.
He made two scrolls and wrote detailed instructions on how to use the spell on the side.
He kept one for himself and set out to auction the second one at the Japanese ATA.
But he didn't want to do it himself.
*
*
Arriving in Tokyo-4, Robert visited the local police to buy a catalog with the outstanding bounties. He wanted to find a criminal he could dispose of later, to cover his tracks. He justified the killing by telling himself he was complying with the law.
Keeping Archhumans under lock and key was hard, especially if they had some strong affinity or were ascended. One-star Archs were rather easy to contain. They were often jailed along with mortals. Two-star? Not so much but possible with the right resources. Three and above? Better kill or coerce them into service, because they were hard to pin down. And forget about even cuffing four-star Archs. These had special statutes and regulations, depending on the country. But if they went rogue, it was "kill on sight".
He found his mark.
This particular Archhuman only had the Earth and Metal affinities but was one of the two stars that couldn't be jailed. His Talent, "Solid Swim", allowed him to move through solids as if they were liquid. The second star evolution made it even better. He suffered no damage from materializing inside a solid. Instead, the solid matter was forcibly moved out of the way to make room for him. Ichiro Keisuke killed hundreds of people by shoving an arm inside their heads and then materializing said arm. The pictures of his victims were gruesome and hard to look at.
Fairy-Robert flew around the Tokyo-4 slums where Mr. Ichiro was last seen, searching for superficial thought patterns depicting murder or Solid Swim sightings. The psychopath was always daydreaming of snuffing someone's soul candle.
Once he got some leads, Robert scanned the building where Ichiro allegedly hid in and used sense life to find him. He found Ichiro ten meters under the deepest basement, in a secret space he must've created with his talent.
Robert went through the liminal void and found Ichiro. He was licking a bloodstained knife. He was also naked and pleasing himself but, whatever.
Robert appeared in the hideout and shot a psionic blast straight away, empowered by his two stars. Ichiro went unconscious and Robert put him in a resilient sphere. He then waited to see if Ichiro would evade the Force Bubble even ghosts couldn't escape from.
Ichiro woke up, smacked his hand against the bubble, then smirked and became translucid.
Next, nothing happened and Ichiro despaired. He started to slam the Resilient Sphere like his life depended on getting out. It did but it was useless.
Robert shook his head and said, "Mind Blackout."
He got into Ichiro's head and replaced it with a heavily edited copy of Pappardelle's imprint when the craftsman was sixteen years old. This copy had most of the personality and 95% of the identity scrubbed. But the moral system and willpower remained.
From there on, Ichiro as the world knew him ceased to exist. The body and soul remained the same but only Time magic could restore the mind.
Robert then made more changes to the resulting person, making sure his plan would go without a hitch. He took his puppet to the liminal void and dropped him near the local ATA branch.
*
*
Ichiro put the scroll up for sale at the Tokyo-4 ATA branch. On a Blitz Auction, along with an extensive explanation of what the spell did. The bids started modestly as people didn't believe that it was real. Then Robert placed some leaping bids that made the item skyrocket on the "hot stuff" rankings, putting it on everyone's radar.
The bids started to jump higher and higher. Robert withdrew from the auction and watched.
Three hours later, the scroll sold for one hundred million dollars. Ichiro was a rich man. Also, a very dead man once he left the building. He used his ID to register the item for auction and the local authorities were alerted. They didn't come inside the ATA to arrest Ichiro because the ATA wanted to keep their hands clean. Getting the police to arrest a customer while they owed the guy money would raise some eyebrows.
While still inside the ATA, Ichiro went to the counter and placed an order. He purchases a storage crate with crafting materials that were cheaper here in Japan if compared to America, spending all the money. The storage crate was a cube one meter on each side with a heavy spatial dilation enchantment, able to hold two hundred and fifty cubic meters inside of it but it was impossible to place it in a storage ring.
Once the crate was delivered on a small pull wagon, Ichiro asked to review the contents. He placed a hand on the crate while Robert shapeshifted into a mosquito and invisible, landed on it. Robert wrapped the crate with Spatial essence and then shifted into the liminal void with it, transporting the crate to the Puffbloom Islands before returning. He spent the time tempering, then returned to the top of the entrance door to watch.
The ATA confirmed that Ichiro’s balance was zero. The cops barged inside and drew katanas, slicing the fugitive dead on the spot.
Robert knew the scroll would stir some serious raised eyebrows. People could even attempt to make copies of it and sell them around. He would wait and see if anyone managed to get it to work. But he also knew that many people would try and find the source. Depending on the reaction, he might even drop hints on how to find and hire him.
But he needed to wait and let the rumor develop.