Path of Spirit (Disgardium Book #6): LitRPG Series by Dan Sugralinov (best free e reader .txt) 📗

Infect was sat at a neighboring table working on his finds, cleaning the dust off each item with a brush and scraping off clinging dirt with his fingernail. At our table were Bomb, Crawler, Irita and myself. The mage had covered both tables with a Dome of Silence. I quickly told the boys about the events of the previous night, then took a cup of black halfling coffee from Eniko and suggested we start:

“Alright, let’s go, the clan council is in session. How are our finances?”

“Almost four million gold has gone out in loans to workers,” Crawler answered. “They all got standard-class capsules. Infect and I can’t level the men up properly here, we’re too far above the mobs. So Patrick and Irita are doing it, we’re just there as backup. Anyway, the workers drew straws and we’re leveling up the first group now.”

“Once they hit one hundred, they’ll go to Auldforge, the underground dwarven city,” Irita added. “We’ll have a portal to there when the dwarves finish the castle. The cheapest Mining teachers are there. Using their services is 20% cheaper than buying the crafting books. The clan pays for tuition, but if the workers want to leave in the future, they’ll have to pay it back.”

“Makes sense, I like it,” I said.

“Rank one will allow them to mine not only copper, iron and tin, but silver and gold too,” Crawler concluded. “We haven’t taken into account higher-level gemstones yet, but even without them, the increase in crafting rank will double the miners’ contribution to the clan treasury.”

“More like triple it,” Irita argued. “Crawler is being conservative. At first he calculated only a quarter increase.”

“My mistake,” Crawler admitted. “But Scyth, it’s still nothing! We’ll increase our profit to three hundred thousand a month, which gives us three million and six hundred a year. But our expenses?! You know how much the building in Cali Bottom costs us? The insurance and taxes eat up all our income, and that’s before paychecks. Worse…” Pausing a moment, he shot a glance at Irita. “You know the situation with Diego? The security officers have a big order: weapons, equipment, other stuff. The money has already gone out, all in dark phoenixes.”

“I know about it,” I nodded. “Necessary cost, believe me. What do you suggest?”

“We need more firewood!” Infect piped up, still digging through his artifacts.

“Firewood, ore, gems, fish, herbs — everything that can be gathered on the archipelago!” Crawler pressed. “We can boost the clan’s income pretty well. But we need more workers.”

“Ed wants a magic tower too,” Irita said, throwing the gnome under the bus.

“Well, I mean…” Crawler lowered his eyes. “At some point. Wouldn’t hurt to invent some new spells. Not many make a serious try of it, it’s too expensive, but we have piles of legendaries, so I thought…”

“Nine floors!” Infect muttered. “The first costs a million and every next one is two times the cost of the last! That’s why not many try it — they go bankrupt!”

“The guy who invented Ultima became a category-A citizen and founded his own city under a dome on the Moon!” Crawler argued, rounding on the bard. “I can invent something too!”

“There’s something to it,” Bomber allowed. “As for nine floors, Infect is exaggerating. Nobody has more than four — the floors are bound to your magic rank. Rank four has only just been unlocked. Crawler has the chance to be the first to build a fifth floor. Five rank spells don’t exist. Yet. But if our gnome wizard invents one, we’ll be rich!”

“Alright.” I looked over all of them, my eyes stopping at the mage. “On the whole, I’m all for it. But we do it after we solve our current problems, alright? Since we need more workers, let’s handle that first. We’ll tell Manny and Gyula to pick out some reliable people, approach them and sign contracts. For the chance to live in spacious apartments, an interest-free loan and a high paycheck, I think we’ll get the best of the best. Next we need to figure out how to deal with the Destroying Plague. He’s our biggest headache right now. Agreed?”

“I’ll tell you right now, the security team won’t agree unless they get more hands first,” Crawler said, looking at me. I nodded and he sighed heavily. “Alright, I’ll handle it. I’ll talk to Hairo. Next issue. Firstly, ingredients from Disenchanting.”

“He got ten million’s worth of reagents from disenchanting,” Irita breathed. “I don’t even want to think how much the destroyed items could have sold for.”

“I know we need money, Scyth,” Crawler said, embarrassed. “But I only disenchanted the worst ones! Anyway, we can sell the Shining Substance I farmed from them…”

“But we won’t sell it, beca-a-ause…” Irita paused.

“Because I really want to use it to level up my craft,” the mage admitted.

“Don’t forget about the three Hero’s Hearts too,” Irita interjected again.

“Wait,” I raised my hands. “Crawler, we agreed that you’d disenchant the legendaries only with me there, didn’t we?”

“My bad. But remember, you haven’t had time for anything since we left the sandbox! How many times did I message you about it?”

I thought a little, then admitted:

“Yeah, you did ask about it. I remember. I don’t remember how many times. Definitely more than two.”

“Right. And I needed to level up my profession! I only disenchanted ten or fifteen, anyway…”

That wasn’t counting the fifty he did before Irita joined the clan. Making hay…

The girl laughed:

“Ten or fifteen, like it makes no difference, yep. One less legendary, one more… You guys are so full of yourselves! Patrick is demanding a second clan vault, he’s running out of space for all the loot.”

“Patrick will make do for now, but it’s a good thing you reminded me…”

I unloaded my loot from Darant