CHAPTER FIVE

Wolf

When I got back to Octor with Jacob we stopped by the alien castle to see how things were coming along. When we got to the castle and walked in I was surprised by how the castle looked it looked buitiful. But as we walked further into the castle I saw more of the old run down castle that I saw a few days ago. When I finally found Marie I decided to ask her about it.

Marie why is the front of the mansion clean while other parts are not.

I don’t understand what the problem is with what I did said Marie.

There is no problem I just wanted to know why the front was clean while it was still dirty in the dining room and kitchen.

The reason for that is quite simple and I will explain it to you since you don’t grasp the concept. I’m sure it is something that you will learn soon in the war college. But until then it is my job to help educate you on the finer points of what I person of stature should be doing. What I’m trying to tell you is I will teach you etiquette until you learn it at the war college said Marie.

But what does this have to do with why the kitchen and dining room are not cleaned.

It has to do with your stature. A man of your stature should have a clean house and until it is clean all over the place a place where a visitor might see will be cleaned first. Like that your guests don’t see the mess the rest of the house is and they don’t look down on you. Also I thought I had a little more time to clean the kitchen and dining room. They were supposed to get done today so like that you could have guests to dine.

But now that you are back maybe we could discuss hiring more staff. We are going to need more maids more chefs more butlers and a whole lot of other stuff. So you are going to have to go back to the slave market and buy a few more slaves said Marie.

Thank you for answering my questions and thanks for letting me know about buying more staff. But I will not be having any guests for at least a month so that will give me some time to go to the slave market. Make me a list of the peaple we are going to need. But I don’t want you putting down peaple for a full staff. Put down what we need at the minimum. Because we aren’t going to be using the whole castle so we don’t need a staff for the whole castle.

I understand and I will get right on it sir said Marie.

Dinner will be served at seven o’clock in the dining room. But until then would you like a snack Maria could prepare you something quickly said Marie.

No I don’t want anything I’m just going to go to the study and relax for a little while.

Wolf spent the rest of his time at the castle thinking about things he would like to add. One of the things he wanted to do was expand the library. It was full of book pads but had very little physical books which was something Wolf liked. So Wolf put expanding the library down on his list of things to do.

Wolf had to go back to the war college on a Monday the day was to start off with a lecture from the president. One of the things Wolf noticed that he thought was weird was that the president gave a lot of speeches.

Ok peaple I hope all of you found your houses or mansions likeable. If not please don’t go talk to the head instructor. Because yourparents picked the places you would live with and they picked based on what they thought you should learn. So learn what your parents want and stop complaining.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way let’s move on to more important topics like your employees or slaves. Most of you will need more staff for your property and you will add them at your convenience.

But now we are going to spend the next two weeks on etiquette. You are going to learn how your house should be run. Which utensils to use for what occasion and what to serve and how to do it. This will also turn into a food education class for those who want to take it. Most of you this is your first real responsibility so don’t let your family down. The food class is optional but if you want my advice take it. Also we will be starting classes you should all sign up for the classes you want to take. You should have discussed it with your parents so you should only have to fill out the forms.

This next quarter of the war college is when most peaple leave and drop out . It’s the time that we put a lot of pressure on you to learn and learn a lot of subjects. But what we really want is for you to master the classes you take.

Another thing that we at the war college start is your exposure to other people. For the first two and a half years we wanted you to be on your own except for your companion. Now that all of you are sure in your capabilities and have good relationships with your companions we want you to interact more. Which means we want you to hang out with friends study or simply talk.

Along these lines you will have noticed that your houses are not all in the same area. What we do is we mix up the three classes that are here that live in their own places as you know there are four classes here at a time. But you only interact with the two older ones. Because as you know every two and a half years a new class comes and one leaves and the youngest class lives near the war part of the college. The point of interacting with the classes that were here longer then you is that they should help teach you.

The reason for that is, that to truly understand something you have to be able to teach it to some one else. Because when you teach each student learns differently and through that difference you gain clarity. So to when you are older you will teach younger classes.

Another thing gained is you learn what is expected of you. So you may emulate it and another thing you gain out of it is just plain friendship. So I hope everyone is ready to move on with their time at the war college said the president.

With the end of the president’s speech started two weeks that Wolf would never forget. After the two weeks were over the head instructor called Wolf into his office for a chat.

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I see you took what the president said about taking a lot of classes to heart said the head instructor.

Well I decided I was going to try and take as many of the classes I could take while I was here.

Ok I wish you luck with that. But I do have a question and that is how did you pick the classes that you are now as supposed to what you are taking the next quarter asked the head instructor.

I thought the order I chose would be good for me. Why is there a problem with what I chose.

No problem I was just curious to know why you picked the order you picked them. Because I see you have a few classes that are considered extra credit scheduled for the beginning of the seven and a half years you are going to be here. Where everyone else would take those classes at the end of the fourth quarter. So do you mind telling me what you were thinking about asked the head instructor.

Well let’s start with business. I think business will help me with any businesses I might open or deals I might make. It will help me make sure I don’t get robed when making a deal.

The intelligence and investigation class will help me think an many levels. It will also help me see through plans and and make plans that will be beneficial to me. It will also help me with the mercenary business. So if I take these classes I will hopefully be much more ready to become a member of the mercenary company.

The political theory will also help with plans and how to exploit situations for the companies benefit.

The law class will help to make sure I’m protected from everyone.

The basic science class I’m taking is to help me understand how things work so I don’t look like a idiot. Also it will help me sound smart with the ladies.

The food class will help make sure I don’t say anything stupid about delicacies I may come across. It will help me with knowing the good places to eat and if it’s worth the price they charge.it will also be useful if I decided to go into the food business.

Last but not least the advanced martial arts training will help keep me in shape and my thinking sharp.

Ok it sounds like you know what you want Wolf. I was just making sure you weren’t making a mistake by taking so many classes said the head instructor.

The reason the business and science class would take the rest of the quarter. The reason they would take the rest of the quarter is that the business class taught everything to do with business. The science class would give a basic understanding into a lot of the science we use daily. It touched on many of the more in-depth science but for that you would have to take another class.

After walking out of the head instructor’s office I sat down and thought about lying to him about why I wanted to take those classes. I came to the decision that he only had to think it was I that wanted to do it for the reasons I said. He didn’t have to know I did it because while looking at the list of classes those called to me. Well there was the point of not telling Jacob that I still felt iffy even after the thing with the Uzbaz was settled. Well everything felt better now that I signed up for those classes. So I didn’t mind lying to the head instructor because if I know one thing it’s not good to be different. I was different enough as is and I didn’t want to be any more eccentric.

But then again being eccentric could be a great cover. Because everyone did there own weird things. That is what happened when you mixed all these different species and cultures together. So maybe I should be the most eccentric of them all. With me being the most eccentric no one would notice all the weird things I did. They would just think it’s part of being me and that would mean no one would pay to close attention to me. With realizing that I also realized I would have to start acting very eccentric.

As I continued to sit outside the head instructor office I started thinking of ways that would make me stand out. The first thing that came to mind was getting rid of Jacob as my companion. I could never get rid of him as my companion because he was part of my mental network. But I could give him jobs to do but that would leave me more room to work with. Because I could send him on errands while focused on studying.

So I found one thing I could do to be more eccentric but I needed more. As I continued to think about it I couldn’t come up with anything. So I started walking towards my home I stopped thinking of it as the alien castle and started thinking of it as home. I never had a home I could remember but so far I really liked the home I had now. So as I was walking home it came to me that I was considering it home but I don’t own it. So I walked over to Kalnas’s office to ask if I could buy the castle to truly make it mine.

As we walked to Kalnas’s office Jacob asked where we were going. So I told him we were going to Kalnas’s office to see if I could buy the property that my home was on.

After that we spent the rest of the time together walking in silence. But that didn’t mean my brain wasn’t working because it was. My brain never stopped working and as such I figured out another way to make me stand out. That was for me to hold weekly parties at my home with no one invited. But if you showed up you would be allowed in so it would travel by word of mouth.

I liked this idea very much because it would mean I would have to get the rest of my house in working order and I knew right where to start.

So I showed up at Kalnas is office and he sold me the land for one credit because he couldn’t use it. Once we left Kalnas’s office and started heading to my home I told Jacob that we would be taking some time off class. With this time I would start working on the piece of equipment that would get my house ready in less then a week. So while we walked Jacob called the head instructor and told him I wouldn’t be there for a week.

The next day we head to Octor to buy more slaves. I knew I was going to be purchasing only a few of the number I would really need. But mine and the peaple in the mental networks heads needed to rest when I add to many peaple at once. I’m not sure how I knew that but I do I think it comes from the crystal. But who knew and so because of that information I decided to add workers and employees to my network slowly starting today.

So once we got to the slave market on Octor I started looking for what I needed. We spent the day looking for the slaves I needed. Because I didn’t want to train any slaves so it took time to find ones that already had the skills I wanted it was also more expensive. Once I finished buying the last slave I connected them to my mental network and we headed back to Octor Three..

Once we got home I introduced Marie to the new slaves and told her to take care of it then I went up to my room and went to bed. After I finished my morning ritual of martial arts practice shower and breakfast I headed to the basement. In the basement was a drone machine I only knew about it from when the castle excepted me as lord of the castle. It was a very interesting machine in that it made and was a interface for the drones. The drones were actually controlled by the castle computer.

So to start using the drone machine I would need for the computer to get more power lucky for me the engineers only needed another day or two. So while they focused on adding power to the computer and castle I started working on the drone machine. I spent the next four days fixing up the machine then once it was fixed it needed base materials to build the drones. So I made a list then Jacob and I headed over to a metal dealer that would sell me what I needed.

When we got to the metal dealer the placed looked like a stuffed cargo ship with all of containers all over the place. We could barely get in when we finally made it to the desk the guy there looked like he hadn’t slept in a few days. I decided that a talk with him would do us both some good. So I invited him to lunch he said he couldn’t because there was no one to watch the store. So I told him that Jacob would watch the store while we had lunch. So I left Jacob at the metal dealers store while I headed out with the metal dealer for lunch.

When we got to the restaurant we sat down we ordered some food then we started talking. I asked his name first because I didn’t know it.

So what’s your name and that’s how the conversation started he told me his name was Goron.

So Goron tell me why does your store look like a stuffed cargo ship I asked him.

Well first off I lost my warehouse I’m trying to expand and I need more metal because I have more customers. Towards the end of the day most of it will be gone then I will get a shipment early morning and it will be full again. I’m also short staffed because part of expanding I’m trying to mine my own metal instead of buying it from miners or a mining company. That’s why my place looks like a stuffed shipping container.

Ok let me see if I could put into simpler words. You want to expand your business by mining and selling your own metal. But you need cash to expand because you are stretched to thin. Did I get that right.

Yes you got it perfectly said Goron.

Ok if I was to invest money with you how much would you want and how much ownership in the business would you be willing to give.

I would give you 20% for 250 million credits. But from looking at you something tells me you would be a good business man in the future. So when you meet some one who needs a lot of metal in this area of space send them to me said Goron.

Ok perfect let’s get the lawyer’s to write a contract then I will send you the 250 million credits. After that we both went back to his store he traded places with Jacob. Then Jacob and I headed back to the house with ten pounds of the metals I needed for the drone machine.

When we got back to the house I opened the correct slots in the machine and put the metal in. Then I went back upstairs had dinner and went to bed because I had classes to catch up on.