“Everybody’s got their poison, and mine is sugar.”

Derrick Rose

Sometime on the island . . .

“Ha, hah!” I cackled as I conjured the drug that all parents feared their children would find. I used my mana to heat the morass I was stirring and looked positively malevolent in my method.

“You look crazy.” Commented Aleera. I had promised her a new product to trade that would sell even better than salt. She had been ecstatic to start with, but my failed attempts and the mess they had caused made her somewhat more hesitant this time. However, she still hoped I would come through with something new. The trust she had in me was humbling though as often she was confused by my methodology.

“What exactly are you hoping to achieve here?” she asked. I had been suitably vague about the process and the end product, as I was unsure how to get there without a little trial and error.

Now that I was, fingers crossed, a lot closer to success, I felt a little more comfortable in answering her, “Just like we boiled the salt out of the water, I’m boiling the sweet out of the plants.” It was a little simplified but then the closest that this world had to chemistry was alchemy and that required more magic than science. It simply did not make sense on many levels from what I had learned from Lady Acacia so far. Neither of us was that well versed in either Alchemy or Science as evidenced by my row of failures.

One benefit though, to being a little lord and the pampered scion of the Silversea family was the ability to delegate and the freedom of a child to play. Our employees followed my orders while my family tolerated my experimentation as a child's exploration. It didn’t hurt that the majority of my more unusual experiments had resulted in profitable products. I was allowed a failure or two, even three or four.

First, I enlisted our freemen to help plant and harvest sugar beets. We were running out of space within the cauldron caldera and had started planting around the lagoon. Even though we now had a few fields being cultivated with all the final magical preparation taking place within our hidden halls, I had been able to hide my earlier failures. Once I was successful sugar and salt would look much the same so no one would become aware of our new production line. We would be able to store them alongside one another, and no one would be the wiser.

Now that we had our two trade routes, one from Libeccio and one from Ponente I was working on forming our own trade triangle between the two countries with Wester Ponente as the linchpin. As far as we were aware the trade between the two countries directly was not exactly smooth with taxes and pirates making a mess of most of it. Still, it was profitable enough that merchants still attempted it. That would be where we came in by adding a third point to the trip they could hopefully trade here without worry and most importantly minimal taxes. It would make a huge difference. If it worked with the two of them, we could open it up to a few others or perhaps Mercurio and Kashif’s profits would be enough for them to expand their own businesses. Alternatively, we could start building our own.

We would probably have to create our own anyway if the trade route proved exceedingly profitable and popular we would, in the end, start drawing pirates of our own to ply our waters. Hopefully, Arawn and Namir would prove a suitably strong deterrent, but the world was wide, the oceans deep, and who knew how strong the monsters that swam the depths or sailed above it were? We would have to be cautious in our expansion.

I also hoped our little triangle would be a little more ethically honourable than those of my old world but hopefully equally profitable. Enslaved people were freed for their weight in salt and in the future sugar. Once freed, they were then employed by our house. A few of them had decided to work in the town under others. A very small minority had attempted to create their own businesses, but even then those who had tried that route had taken loans from us to start up and were essentially our house’s subsidiaries and selling under our family's crest.

A noble family's crest was more important than I had realised a level of protection that was invisible and, in our family's case, in reality, not all that strong. Yet with our name and crest to sail under, Captain Kashif would soon be able to sail relatively safely within Ponentian waters. Our hope was that in time Mercurio’s icy disposition toward the southern captain might melt a little, and he might be able to achieve a similar trade triangle although he would probably require an introduction to the southern markets by Captain Kashif and possibly even have to be protected by him on sailing in the waters south of the border with Ponente.

We were working on being able to produce everything in the triangle, salt, rum, cloth, sugar, etc. Our problem was the quantities we could create. We could only produce a small amount compared to what the continent would be able to produce. It would be enough to ensure our self-sufficiency but not enough to truly dominate the rest of the market if other people caught on and were able to steal our secrets. So, we would be biding our time and waiting until we were stronger or at least had stronger allies. The best we could do was stockpile the stuff prior to entering the market and then hope we would be strong enough to weather the attention it would bring. As far as I could tell from Lady Acacia sugar was neither common nor known in the circles she had moved in. The elves were more druidic than industrialised, relying on honey to sweeten their foods.

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As Aleera watched, I transferred some of the syrupy mixture onto a tray and after a short application of cooling using my mana it was ready for her to taste. “Try it. I broke off a thin piece.”

“After you.” She waited to see my reaction before risking her taste buds again. Some of my earlier attempts had not been particularly successful and were not of much use other than to add to the compost heaps.

The moment of truth, I cautiously tasted the product I had with a little luck, hopefully, manufactured properly this time. It was sweet!

It was not the fine white crystals I was used to in my old world. But it didn’t matter just yet. These were just the trial runs. In time I would, and before we started to ship it we would get there it was just a matter of time.

“It’s sweet. I did it.” I crowed to Aleera.

. . .

Medieval chamber concert . . .

It was nothing like a modern-day concert. There were no large speakers. No giant crowds of thousands. We had decided to start smaller than that, and even if I had been more confident, there were two problems with that idea. Firstly there were hardly thousands on our island to come and listen. Secondly, skills helped significantly, but I had yet to develop speaker skills and was still limited to what I could project from the instruments or my voice.

Instead, we had started with all of my family, including the extended one and all of our employees, which was beginning to add up now. Despite knowing everyone it was still a little daunting standing in front of them all.

Lady Acacia had taught us a wide range of courtly dances and the songs to accompany the set pieces. However, that did not mean I couldn’t have fun when planning our own concert for them. I had taught Aleera some old-world tunes and made arrangements for them. Though it would mean that we had to play percussion as well as sing and play an instrument. We were not quite one-man bands, but we were not far off.

Now we just needed to bring the crowd along with us.

“First things first,

I’m going to say all the words in my head.

Second things second,

Don’t tell me what I’m going to be

I’m the master of my ship, and I’ll sail to wherever I see.”

The first song was down, and they seemed to be enjoying it even if they found it a little strange to what they were usually used to. Accompanied by Aleera, I would bring a revolution to the music of this world. The fantastic thing about my skills was that I could recall so much of what I had heard before, and there was no one to cry foul or decry my plagiarism when it came to the music. Even better was the bigger the impact we had, the greater experience we got from our performance. Bringing new songs, to everyone was worth that much more in terms of the experience we could gain from them.

It was not so scary now that we had gotten started. There was a rush to it, much like free falling or flying. The buzz of performing was euphoric. I grinned at Aleera. “Ready for the next one?” She nodded her agreement, equally enthused by the response from the crowd. She had worried that the unusual nature of the songs might stop them from enjoying the unfamiliar songs. But that did not seem to be the case.

“I got the eye of the tiger,

I am the champion, and

you are going to hear me roar.”

Namir seemed to enjoy that one, he was not a tiger kin, but the similarities were enough to make him smile, a rarity for him. I was looking forward to being a little older with a lower voice, but for the moment, at least, it was going to be a long time until it dropped, so might as well make the most of my higher range. There was no reason that we couldn’t make this a weekly event for our friends and family. As time went on, we could expand our audience, especially if we received any skills to amplify our voices or instruments.

“Lately, I’ve been losing sleep,

Dreaming about the things that we can be,

Old, but I’m not that old,

Young, but I’m not that young.”

Arawn found that entertaining, especially as he was aware of the true dichotomy of my nature I was both old and young while neither at the same time. That was the magic of music and lyrics. In particular, what a piece meant to you differ depending on your perspective, history and opinions. Every melody meant something different to whoever listened to it, depending on how they approached it.

“I wish we could turn back time

To the good old days,

When my mum would sing us to sleep

When I was stressed out.”

Mother smiled at that, remembering all the times she had sung to us before she even knew we were listening. Her voice had been the first evidence that I wasn’t alone, her words vibrating through both my body and soul. Not that the days now were not good. Things had never been better, but as we grew stronger, we faced larger threats things that we had never considered before forming a noble family. Much like anything, there were pros and cons to every situation.

“Are you, are you, coming to the tree

They strung up a man they say murdered three

Strange things have happened here how strange would it be

If we met at midnight at the hanging tree.”

It was not the most cheerful of songs, but it was certainly memorable. Lady Acacia gave a nod to the attempt. It was not entirely inaccurate Elves had a propensity to guard their borders harshly. However, they were more likely to bury the bodies than hang them up for better fertiliser for their trees that way.

Some songs translated across okay, others needed alteration to fit a little better, while others still would never work without the cultural references that made them make sense. I was also a little restricted to what I could, in theory, understand or have some experience of. That meant that most pop songs and their references were out of reach for another decade or two. That didn’t mean that I couldn’t take their tunes and repurpose them. But there were so many I could use that would be a long time down the line.

Time to finish a catchy one and the first solo for my sister. This time I am silent in my accompaniment.

“I’ve been staring at the edge of the water

For as long as I can remember never really knowing why

I wish I could be the perfect daughter

But I come back to the water no matter how hard I try."

I didn’t change the words, and though my sister sang it, I can’t help but feel that it echoes with my soul more. I want to go travelling. I want to see the world.

Yes, it might not be safe, but still, I want to see it for myself.

Whatever the future may bring, the concert was a success.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Singing (Lv75 -> 76)

Drumming (Lv50 ->51)

Music Prodigy (Lv30 ->31)

The concert had been enough to push them over their thresholds!

. . .