Bradley headed back to his work station, only to find James covered in burns, ash, and a big smile, “Bradley I made my first weapon. Come take a look.” Bradley walked over and used the inspection crystal on the steel sword. “It has stats comparable to the mass produced goblin sword. Try making one with these ogre bones.” Bradley dumped a large pile of disgusting bones onto the floor, “Based on the fact that you turned regular metal into something as usable as goblin bones, I can’t imagine what you can do with this.”
James nodded, “Is there anything else I need to make?” Bradley thought as he sat down at his desk, “Make a sword, and make a spear. I owe Devin one after all, and he deserves this new product.” James smiled, “I’ll get right on it. I can already tell how to make what I need out of this.”
Bradley came to a realization, “Ohh yea, Devin was really upset he didn’t have a long range weapon. Can you make it so the spear handle and the spear head are separable, and make a few spear heads. I’ll need to make some modifications later.” James agreed and went back to his work, and Bradley watched as the flames grew and shrank, their color changing, and then passed out to the sound of the rhythmic hammering.
By the time Bradley woke up the sounds of hammering were gone, and the time on his tablet said it was 2am. Bradley glanced around the room and noticed James inspecting the new product. “Hand me that, I’ll take a look at its stats.” Bradley sat up, and James handed him the spear handle, and a separate spear head.
Bradley looked at the stats, “Hmm, the head itself has the same damage as a goblin sword, while the bonus from the handle makes it much better than I ever expected. It's twice as good as the mass produced ogre sword.” Bradley shoved the spear head into the handle gap, feeling how tight the gap was, then tried to pry it out and barely could. “Damn this fits in well, good job James. I just need to imbed a crystal or two to handle the magic for this weapon.”
James smiled, “Check out the ogre blade. I think it looks a lot less gross than the stuff you make.” Bradley laughed, “Well yea, I needed to use ligaments to hold the damn thing together. What do you want from me.” Bradley grabbed the sword out from James’ hands.
It was sleek, the handle had good gripping grooves, a good hilt, and the blade was made like a medieval greatsword. “Holy hell, the stats on this thing are even better than the spear. I’m guessing because it’s not in multiple pieces.” James smiled wide, “I did the best I could, I’m happy I was able to handle the task.”
Bradley sat for a moment, “Alright, I think these are better than most people’s basic equipment they are running with now. I’ll write you down a list of stuff I need out of you, and I’d like it before the end of the month. It’s for Squad 0.” Bradley began hastily scribbling down a list of demands, and when he didn’t know how to describe something he drew an image for it. “James, I don’t know how effective it will be, but try using these crystals in the production.” James took a look at the crystals scattered across the table, “I know exactly what to do with these. It’ll work.”
Bradley began to leave, “You can go to bed you know. That’s where I’m headed.” James shook his head, “I can’t sleep. I’ve never felt this excited before.” Bradley shrugged, and walked back to the west wing to go to bed.
James hammered away, creating more and more usable material. Once he created bone ingots, he left them on Bradley’s desk for Bradley’s production. He hammered away at the crystal’s he was given, and managed to interweave it into the bone and metal he had been using. James continued, sweating as he went. Hours and hours passed, but he didn’t stop, he didn’t sleep.
He produced weapon after weapon, getting better as he went. He used varying materials even for the sake of design. First the assassins daggers, blade coated in magic crystal, then a large greatsword with crystal flowing through it like veins, then a full body shield, with a crystal laced brace handle, metal edging, and a smooth bone design.
He then began creating a single handed sword, with a gem centered at the base of the blade, and strands stretching through the rest of the blade and a one handed shield also encrusted with a gem, as a pair with the blade. James' thoughts raced, as he hammered and hammered and grinded and hammered. He reached the next requests, rings or staves made to use crystals as a main component.
James began to calm down, not sure exactly what to make anymore. Then he remembered the ring Bradley had made quickly for him and decided to replicate it with better material. He began to take his time, and let a more artistic instinct flow. He decided to simply craft a couple rings. Once he completed the last ring, he collapsed.
Bradley entered into the production room, and was hit with a wave of heat. Bradley looked around and found James passed out on the floor. Bradley ordered a bed, and drug James into it. Bradley smiled, ‘Golden child indeed. I hit the jackpot.’ Bradley glanced across the room and found ingots of spell crystal, bone, and metal on his desk, as well as every single thing he ordered scattered across the room.
Bradley scanned the qualities of the items. He noticed that no item used the spell crystal the same way, not even the dual daggers. One dagger had a boost to mana regeneration, and another had a boost to magic damage. The rings all boosted mana regeneration. The sword and shield for Kathy decreased mana costs for spells used while they were equipped. Betty’s shield had a high resistance to magic damage.
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Bradley seemed stunned, “I didn’t even need to put spells in these. The effects are already tremendous.” Bradley sat down in his chair and inspected the ogre bone ingots. ‘These will make much better bullets. And maybe.’ Bradley began tinkering. He first used the material to craft a beretta. Then he disassembled the pieces, and began to modify it.
“I can add a slider to handle what crystals are activated. Place the crystals here, and then…” Bradley scrambled with his new side arm until it was complete. Then disassembled it to pull the normal crystals out, and then reassembled it with a spell ingot.
Bradley took a deep breath as he inspected his new baby, “Now this is a gun.” The gun was almost entirely ivory white, including the bullets, the magazine, etc. There was a slider on the side, made of spell crystal, to handle which crystals will activate on firing. The gun that was once made of scrap was no longer needed. He had an almost perfected gun, and a blueprint to allow him to mass produce it.
Bradley checked the time and noticed that it was already 2pm. It took him several hours of tinkering to make his new gun. James rolled out of bed and fell on the floor. He suddenly woke up in a panic, “Ahh what the hell!” James jumped up, “Ohh hey Bradley. Why is there a bed in here?” Bradley laughed, “You were passed out on the floor so I got you a better place to pass out when you’re working.”
James blushed with embarrassment, “Sorry about that. Ohh, how were the weapons?” Bradley gave James a genuine smile, “It’s the best stuff I’ve ever seen. It’s a huge step up even from my crystal embedded stuff. It isn’t just a spell embedded, it's a whole stat modifier. Honestly it’s incredible.” James smiled, “Well I guess it was worth working myself until I passed out.”
Bradley patted James on the shoulder, “Be more careful next time is all I ask.” Bradley grabbed James, “Come here, I wanna show you what I made with your supplies. I think you’ll like it.” Bradley drug James over to his desk where his Beretta was sitting. James picked it up, and began inspecting it, “Holy hell, this is sweet. The trigger is crystal, and the side bar, ohh I see. And the barrel now is the proper size.” James handed the gun over to Bradley, “This is probably the sweetest gun I’ve ever seen. I never expected bone to work as well as metal, but I also never expected people to be teleported to other worlds, so you know.”
James took a deep breath, “How much would a non, magical version cost to produce?” Bradley thought for a bit, “Based on your insane production time, and material costs, I’d say it’s about a thousand in actual cost, but the selling price would be like 5k with a decent ammo supply. Why?” James grinned, “So local governments are allowing for citizens to defend their cities right? What if we partner with my father’s gun company to sell these to citizens and maybe a few contractors?”
Bradley thought for a bit, “Hmm, that could work, but that’s a big cost for an average citizen, besides Ogre bones aren’t the easiest to get a hold of. You burned through most of my supply already.” James smiled, “We can just make goblin grade guns, and sell them for like 2.5k, and allow for people to exchange goblin corpses for a better exchange rate if they have a history with the gun company.”
Bradley sighed, “The problem is the military. They won’t want the public to have better grade supplies than them, but we also don’t want to sell garbage.” James’ smile disappeared, “Fine, we can use minimal bone, and instead use my upgraded metal, and sell it for like 1.5 thousand.”
Bradley patted James on the back, “That’s a good market slot, let’s do that. Get me in contact with your father. I’ll produce the new weapon real quick.” Bradley grabbed a bar of the new metal ingot, and got to work producing the necessary parts to make several of the weapons and James grabbed his phone.
Once Bradley had finished James was already done with the phone call, “Let’s go, we need to go to Cleveland, where his office is based.” Bradley nodded and put everything in his inventory, “Let’s roll out.”
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Kevin had been grinding away at his skills, using the goblin blade that everyone else had been using. He trained many of the sword based recruits after they finished Devin’s initial training. He grew frustrated, as he and several of the others were being sent out on missions, but Bradley hadn’t been joining them. It seemed he had been focused on building up a monetary empire instead of building skills.
‘Fuck, I’m a member of Squad 0 and he doesn’t even drop by. He just spends all day at his workstation.’ Kevin let his frustration get the best of him and accidently hit a recruit too hard, knocking the weapon out of their hand and slicing into him. “Keep your grip firm damnit, Trisha I need you!” ‘Fuck, fuck. He’ll be fine.’ Kevin took a breath, “I’ll end training today. Make sure to still exercise properly.”
The injured man was healed up quickly, but fear was written across his face, “Sorry for messing up sir.” The man turned and left, and Kevin didn’t respond. “Trisha, when was the last time you saw Bradley?” Trisha shrugged, “I think it was just a few days ago. He needed me on standby during his defense training. Why?”
Kevin sighed, “I haven’t seen him in weeks. It doesn’t feel like I’m really a Squad 0 member. I’m more like a Squad 1/2 member.” Trisha walked closer, “You know how busy he is, he had to organize the huge influx of new people. He’s basically running a city now.”
Kevin sat down, “I get it, and I know this sounds terrible, but I miss when we were fighting for our lives in the other world. Back when Squad 0 were constantly working together. Now we all have manager positions, instead of acting like the main warrior squad.”
Trisha nodded, “I’m less important now, since we have access to hospitals and proper medicine. I get what you mean. Joel’s been getting frustrated too, he joined the team because he wanted to follow Bradley but now he feels isolated. Just someone to meet quotas or help others meet their quotas. You aren’t the only one, but he’s building all this up because he knows it’s important.”
Kevin chuckled, “It’s just so funny that I could cleave a concrete building with ease, or easily dispatch an Ogre now, but I’m training newbies. Thanks Trisha, you made me feel at least a little better. I’ll wait for a bit longer, but I didn’t join this squad to manage other squads.” Trisha sat next to Kevin and leaned against him, “Yea, you’re worth more than that.”