The firing range had a dozen people waiting when Robert came in with Sophy. The old man Naoki, manager of Black Dragon Goldfair branch was also with them. Robert was angry at that man as he was responsible for Robert getting dragged down here by Sophy.

Naoki had the looks of a wise old man, his silver hair and beard showed his age, but his eyes shone with wisdom. Taking with this man, Robert did n’t particularly like this grumpy old fellow. He had the air of command that was required to run the whole business of the Black Dragon clan in this city.

This man was seen shouting at the workers of the weapon shop as they Robert was coming in. This was because the workers had moved the cannon that was in front of the store a few feets into the shop while arranging the displays.

“The cannon is placed out there in the street for a reason you fools, were you so tired to move it a few feets out? Didn’t you guys have your meal this morning?”

He waited for a second, and seeing that the men were just standing there like idiots, he yelled at them

“What the hell are you waiting for? Move it!”

The employees all ran off to change the position of the cannon. Some even stumbled on the way from looking back at Naoki.

The people waiting in the firing range were clearly of the two main families and other large business families.

They all talked merrily with Sophy and Naoki, Robert was simply ignored. He wanted to stay that way, as he had no means of protecting himself if he is attacked by some powerful magicians. Not to mention the thought of getting tortured for information.

He had already taught a store employee to fire the cannon and was only there to oversee things.

After fifteen minutes and firing the cannon three times, All the men were staring at the cannon with stunned looks. Even those four men from the large families who had seen large spirit cannons were amazed by the firepower of this cannon.

Old man Naoki had a slight smile on his face, he was deep in thought, probably thinking of a way to make the most money out of these people.

Suddenly a man dressed in scarlet spoke up.

“What a great cannon! It works with fire magic, I would like to add this to our Flaming volcano family’s arsenal, say manager Naoki, how much does it cost?”

Naoki shook his head and said,

“It is all madam Sophy, I have no part in this invention”

All the eyes focused now on Sophy and the man dressed in scarlet facing Sophy said,

“No wonder! Its Madam Sophy’s invention! The daughter of the clan leader of Black Dragon is truly skillful”

Daughter of clan leader? The books from the library had information on the major clans in the country, and Black Dragon was one of the four great clans of the Lorvale nation. Being the daughter of the clan leader of such a clan, what kind of background was it!

Robert had guessed that she had a high position in the clan. But he never imagined that she will be the daughter of the clan leader! What was she doing in a small city like Goldfair? And why would she spare time to talk to a random stranger in her shop?

“It was not me, I came across a master alchemist, he is the one who made this fire cannon”, Sophy also shook her head not accepting the praise.

She could have easily accepted the praise and took credit for the invention. But she was not someone who did things like that. And she had many uses from Robert, this young man could be a great asset to have. Sophie thought while refusing the credit for the invention.

“Oh! Is it possible for us to meet this master? We the Blue lotus family would love to have him as a guest”

Although sure of refusal, one of the representatives of the Blue Lotus family asked Sophy.

“I am deeply sorry Danyal, but this master does not like meeting with people, much less being their guest. I apologize for it.”, sophy quickly refused the invite.

What a joke, inviting as a guest? These guys are sure trying to rope him in. We should keep info on Robert a secret.

“Oh, no wonder. It is only natural that someone like that is aloof of social aspects. Can I ask for his name?”, The man called Danyal wanted to at least know the name of this man to get his background information.

“It-It’s Blaze, Black Blaze”, Sophy made up a name on the go. Although she had certain morals that she followed on business, withholding certain information for her own good was nothing outside of those morals. She had to run a business, what would be of her if she was to reveal all the trade secrets to everyone?

“Black Blaze. I see, ” pausing for a while, he continued,

Black blaze? It must surely be a name that was made up by her to hide this expert’s real name. But he could do nothing other than accepting it. Although she had no power now, she was the daughter of the clan leader of the Black Dragon.

“Our water and wood magic is incompatible with this weapon, thanks for giving us a splendid show though, we will be on our way.” He was about to turn around to leave when Sophie spoke out

“Wait a moment Danyal, this cannon have nothing to do with magic!”

She explained the gunpowder to them, and they decided to stay. Not having a weapon this destructive was truly something they couldn’t afford to do. And their eternal rivals were here, looking to multiply their firepower.

After a round of fierce negotiations, the cost of a cannon was set at 1000 Golds. A round of charges cost 10 golds, the same amount required for a spirit cannon.

Manager Naoki truly lived up to his reputation and managed to raise the price to a good point without making the other party lose out. He had already calculated the price to quantity ratios and gave the other parties a good bargain.

They already got an order for 20 of those cannons when the last person had left.

And almost all of them had wished good health to Sophy’s father.

After asking manager Naoki, Robert understood what was really going on and why Sophy is in this small city instead of the capital.

Sophy’s father Lucio had been poisoned and is now in a coma, the Black Dragon clan had been taken over by his younger brother Luca. After getting the control of the family he immediately sent Sophy into the smallest city that had a branch of Black Dragon clan. There was no way she could fight against it.

It was not that she didn’t have a way to fight it, it was that she was unwilling to. There was a lot of her father’s supporters that will rally behind her if she truly wanted to fight against Luca. But she didn’t want to do anything that harmed the integrity of the family, let alone split the family. She wanted to gain respect and power within the family without rebelling directly. She was almost certain that the one that poisoned her father must be Luca. But she couldn’t point her fingers without enough evidence.

She had brought her dad along with her on this exile and made sure that he couldn’t be harmed by Luca anymore. She waited for the right oppertunity to strike at Luca.

Robert showed a sad face on the outside. It was not that he didn’t feel bad for Sophy, but the happiness that he has gotten from this golden opportunity to raise up made him happy. If I could get her to win back her position on the clan it would raise me up to the upper strata of society as well!

Robert was not somebody who will do anything for the reason of pure benevolence. It has always been his motto to only do something if it really benefitted him. He was no altruist, he will exploit every opportunity to rise up. He didn’t mind someone else growing with him though. Like now, both Sophy and he will gain from the partnership, and if they could keep up this symbiotic relation, it would lead to both their growth.

Robert spends his rest of day reading in the library. For the onlookers, it might seem mundane, but Robert was visualizing the great war of SouthEastly and NorthEastly nations. The heaven shaking war with heavy weapons and spirit animals.

He also read the books on star maps and astronomy to find if he was at least in the milky way galaxy and it was a fruitless effort. This world’s sun was almost identical to Earth’s sun, but there were 13 planets in this solar system. Robert also took into account that this world has not yet created telescopes, so he was sure that there were more planets to be discovered.

He slept that night like a baby, he was still sleep deprived and tired from the reading last night. And when he woke up it had already been noon in the next day. He decided to spend that day to test out more theories about magic. He went to the inner garden of the Black Dragon residence.

Situated in an opening in the middle of the mansion it had a pond in the middle. There were some lotus flowers in the pond, and plenty of medicinal plants growing in the garden, their aroma thickly filled the air.

Although he had success with air magic, he was still having trouble with all the other elements. He could create a strong wind with his hand now, but that was about it. He could raise vapors from water, that was the limit of his water magic. He could break bricks with his hands, and that was the limit of his earth magic. But he was still to find any success in doing wood element magic.

Robert wanted to observe how exactly is his body able to convert the mysterious dark energy into flames. He thus had asked for the fire mages at Black Dragon’s crystal shop to make him some lenses. He intended to create a microscope with them. Hopefully, it is only a cellular level process, if he wanted to see anything smaller, it would require a scanning electron microscope.

There was nothing that he could do until he found how this dark energy was being converted to different elements. So Robert decided to leave the science behind for a moment and use this world’s magic techniques to make some improvement in power.

He lit the candle flame in his index finger and started switching it into the middle finger. The flame disappeared with a pop from his index finger and then slowly appeared on his middle finger. Then he did the opposite, switching the flame from middle finger to index finger. Slowly the frequency of shifting decreased and after images of flame started to appear in both fingers.

This was the 1st step in increasing the power of the flame. But Robert understood the problem with this method, the energy output was relative to the frequency of shifting of the flame. Sooner or later there will be a limit to the maximum frequency one can control. He tried to meditate and get a feeling of the energy. A book had said that he could try to feel the energy cycle in the body which will help him improve the magic output.

Entering into a trance state, he concentrated solely on his breath. The natural process of energy inflow, and after a while, he could visualize energy flowing into his body with each breath he takes. An hour had passed when he was able to finally sense an energy all over his body. The highest concentration of this mysterious energy was in the left chest region. And the energy distribution vaguely reminded him of the blood circulation system!

Does this mean the dark energy is carried by blood, like oxygen by red blood cells?

He wanted to confirm this as soon as possible because this opened up a whole lot of room for different theories. Maybe there are different types of blood cells like blood groups that make it possible for the difference in elements of magic. Does it mean the spirit animal blood can be used to store magic energy? What if there are cells that convert magic energy to different elements? If so can he force blood into some spirit animals severed digit and make it form a flame? Like a dragon head flamethrower, or a sea-wyvern water cannon.

The possibilities made him let out an evil grin.