[DCI] Chapter 51 - A Precise Venture (Patreon)

Levia looked at me with a tinge of curiosity in her calm, wise eyes as I stood up. As for Aisha, she had an excited grin on her pretty lips, already knowing what was going to happen. As she’d mentioned earlier, she’d enjoyed our previous business project greatly and there was no doubt that she was looking very forward to the new idea I had just come up with.

I took one of the chairs with me and we all walked to my desk. Setting it down in front of the computer, I glanced to the side, wanting to check where my drakan mate would like to set her own seating. But, she hadn’t brought any chairs with her and only smirked at me slyly.

Before I could question her, Aisha jumped onto my comfy desk chair and patted her sexy thighs. Rolling my eyes, I sighed softly and resigned myself to my fate, watching Levia already sitting down next to her on the chair I had taken for her. Ignoring the teasing expression of my mischievous mate, I sat down on her lap and turned to the screen as she wrapped her arms around my waist, resting her chin on my shoulder.

“How are we going to earn thousands this time?” she asked, brushing her fingers over my sides.

“It’s good to be optimistic but you shouldn’t expect every single thing we try to turn out a near-perfect hit.” I chuckled lightly. “We might not be as lucky to receive a free promo from a well-known member of the community again. Besides, we first have to check if what I have in mind isn’t already super popularized and not worth getting into.”

“I have complete trust in you and your genius.” She placed a delicate peck on my neck. “Hopefully, we won’t have to boil a few tonnes of water or other liquid this time. It’s only fun in the beginning.”

I nodded. “I agree. And that’s why I don’t plan on going further than personal use if we can’t automate most if not all the processes associated with the production of the goods that I have in mind. We are quite busy with our current Dungeon and don’t really have a lot of time to spare.”

“The killer is still amongst us. It is true that we need to remain wary and careful,” Levia chimed in. “That said, I too am curious about what we are going to do.”

“Alright. Let me just do a quick search on the D-Shop and D-Market, then,” I replied and focused on the PC.

First, I headed into the D-Shop since the available goods there weren’t as vast and unending as on the D-Market. Though, the D-Shop definitely couldn’t be called lacking. The choice was incredible, and I was planning on picking a few things from the General Goods section in a moment. It should be possible to get a bunch of things off my list with the use of Earth Dollars.

The girls observed as I moved through all the categories related to talismans, runic chips, magical bombs and contraptions, spell crystals, and so on. There were plenty of categories with magical trinkets and items that I browsed through. Their prices varied greatly but the general level started much higher than our previous little project, obviously. We were going to deal with a slightly more complex product this time and just the cost of materials was bound to raise the numbers.

But, as far as I searched, now and then receiving some tips and hints from Levia when it came to consumables used for storing and activating spells, I didn’t find anything exactly like her arcanas, in the form that I had in my mind. Plenty of talismans flooded the D-Shop, though, which wasn’t surprising.

Then, we moved to the D-Market and tried our luck with a much wider catalog of products. The quality, quantity, and price of the listed items varied way more than in the case of D-Shop, but that didn’t surprise any of us. We found some kind of wooden and metal plates that looked to work in a similar way to Levia’s arcanas, though their price was insane, in simple words. We concluded that the extremely sophisticated and precise manual labor was the main cause, alongside the cost of raw materials, of course.

So, while our idea wouldn’t be anything revolutionary, there was still a chance that we could utilize our strengths properly and manage to squeeze out a product with a lower price that would still earn us buckets. If the plan was even doable.

Without further ado, I returned to the D-Shop and switched to the General Goods section, bringing up the products available in my homeworld for the local dollars. It didn’t take long before I navigated right into the branch related to various types and kinds of laser printers and engravers.

“What are those machines?” Aisha asked, moving her crimson eyes over the displayed items. “They look peculiar. The price range is quite wide too, even though it's in Earth Dollars so it isn’t that much in the end.”

“They are crucial for production. We’ll need at least one of these for my idea to succeed. Though, I’m not yet sure if we want to get a cheaper, hobbyist model or go full industrial mode and grab a much more advanced but also bigger and more expensive one.”

“What do they do?” Levia examined the picture of the engraver I’d clicked on.

“Well, in simple words, they condense energy into a super thin and precise stream and drag it around all over the work area to burn into the surface of the base material. The strength of that beam can be adjusted and allows the operator to decide how deep the burn should reach. The higher-grade ones can even cut through most metals like through butter, but they consume an ungodly amount of power,” I explained as briefly as I could.

“That is hard to imagine.” She nodded calmly, stroking her chin.

“You’ll see it with your eyes soon.” I smiled at her. “Right now, we need to decide which one to pick since all the other things have to be compatible with the model we select.”

“Just get the best one, no? We have enough money for the purchases in this realm,” Aisha suggested.

“True, but usually, the pricier the laser cutter the bigger it is. Some can be the size of our kitchen.” I gestured to the side. “I’m thinking about where to set up the production. The machine should be able to work on its own after the initial configuration. The smaller one can be placed near the PC, and the bigger one can perhaps be located in Aisha’s workshop.”

“I assume they emit either light, noise, or fumes. If I am not mistaken, then the wiser choice would be not to pick your bedroom,” Levia said.

“You are right. It might get annoying having to ventilate the apartment all the time. I guess we go with your workshop then if you don’t mind. We can always buy a laptop if the engraver needs to be plugged into something.” I nodded to myself.

“I do not mind. The main cauldron is already doing everything I have mentioned.” The composed Witch gently shook her head.

“Great. Let’s shoot for the middle then and pick a mid-grade one. It’s going to be more or less the size of this desk. We’ll have to remove a counter or two from your workshop but it should fit nicely.” I added the product to the cart and moved on.

“What’s next?” Aisha asked enthusiastically.

“The base material. Now that I have the specs of our laser engraver, I can pick the correct one. Otherwise, we would risk ordering something that the energy stream isn’t able to cut into. There are also some materials that might react in an unwanted way when treated with certain lasers. It would all just be a waste of money,” I answered.

“What kind of material does our device work with?” Levia turned her face to me.

“Many of them, but most importantly, stainless steel. It should be the best pick in terms of price-to-quality ratio. It can be pretty thin when necessary so the arcanas wouldn’t end up too heavy or take too much space. Let’s order a small sheet of one square meter, for now, to test it out,” I replied, throwing one piece into the cart.

“Anything else?” Aisha chased with her gaze after the cursor as I moved it around.

“Well, technically, the ink to fill up the patterns but that’s Levia’s expertise.” I glanced at the quiet, blue-skinned lady next to us.

“I can naturally prepare something but I would like to see the cards first. That would make it much easier to figure out what kind of ingredients I might need. It also depends on the desired spells. So far, the markers you provided me with have been enough, but it might be different for arcanas made of metal.” Levia found my eyes and looked deeply into them.

“Got it. Let’s set the engraver up and see if we can even start thinking about those steps.” I smiled at her kindly and tapped the button to purchase the items collected in the cart.

The doorbell rang instantaneously and we stood up to receive the packages. No ugly Skeletons lurked around our front entrance so we could safely transport the goods inside. Seeing the big, rectangular box, Aisha winked at me and put her arms around it. But, even though she pulled the entire thing up, its weight clearly surprised her as her eyes widened ever so slightly.

Shaking my head with a warm smile, I gave her a helping hand and we brought the box into Levia’s den. Even though I’d said that she didn’t have to do any heavy lifting, the dainty Witch picked up the thin sheet of metal and transported it alongside us, locking the door after everyone was back inside. We placed everything on the stone ground and glanced around.

Levia pointed us to a spot she didn’t mind getting occupied by the engraver and I shoved two counter blocks into the mystical storage of the Residence Management submenu. After we unpacked the laser machine, I realized that it would need electricity, and there was no socket behind those counters. A quick search through the same menu taught me that I could place one pretty much wherever I wanted and it would be connected to the mainframe by default.

Thank gods. Pulling additional cables through the walls would be a chore.

Though, thinking about how hard it would be to receive permission to carve into the walls also made me realize that I had been altering my apartment like crazy without saying a word to the actual owner. Yeah, it was through some wacky magical means pretty much out of this world, but still, this was no longer the apartment I was renting from the guy. And he would most likely never know that it wasn’t due to the whole perception-altering mumbo jumbo working in the air, making him think that this had always been the state of things.

Wait. Was he going to raise my rent because the living space had literally exploded when compared to the initial size of the apartment?

Well, no matter what, I had the money to pay for it so it shouldn’t be an issue. To be honest, I started feeling like I was somehow scamming the dude now that I was still paying the same but was turning his crib into a fucking house-sized master suite.

Anyway, Aisha assisted me in setting up the engraver while Levia curiously watched us work from the side. It truly was the size of my desk, more or less. Though, it technically was higher because of the barrel-like lid which was supposed to close the top and prevent any fumes from being released wherever they wanted. The entire thing had a closed-circuit air circulation system with a small device similar to the AC unit we had on our balcony wall. This time, without fancy magical shit inside but still able to filter out the bad elements.

When everything was ready, I turned the device on to see if it was booting up properly and went through the initial calibration mentioned in the user manual. The girls jumped a few times as it released various different sounds and noises which spooked them a little, making me chuckle at their reactions. After it finished, I grabbed the thin sheet of stainless steel.

“Ah, shit. We need one more thing.” I scrunched my face.

“What is it?” Aisha raised a brow at me.

“Something to cut this into smaller pieces. Be right back,” I replied and jogged to the PC.

A moment later, I was back with professional scissors for cutting metal and clipped the sheet in half. Thankfully, since it was only about half a millimeter thin, I didn’t need anything more powerful. And, I was pretty sure that the laser in our engraver could do it too so we shouldn’t need to manually cut the cards out of the sheet after they were done.

I placed one half on the working surface and operated the touchscreen on the side of the device to engage a demo option. It had a few pre-programmed engravings so I selected the cutest one and entered the specifications of the prepared material. The engraving was a vector and I was allowed to scale it down so it wasn’t made over the entire surface of the sheet. I tried to set the size as close to Levia’s cards from my memory.

This time warning both my companions about the upcoming noise, I started the program and stepped back, leaving the lid open so that they could witness everything with their own eyes. The sight definitely captivated them as neither of the girls blinked even once during the entire duration of engraving, watching how the laser dug deeper and deeper into the metal. Though, it didn’t take it too long to finish its job and the chime of completion played decently soon.

I stepped closer and made two cuts from the edges of the sheet to separate the engraving from the rest of the material, not really paying attention to the dimensions or the lines being perfectly straight since it was just a test.

Having the thin rectangle in my hands, I turned around and presented it to the girls. A vertical figure of a cat licking its paw was engraved into the steel, digging about halfway into its surface. Since Levia looked the most interested, I handed the small plate to her.

“Amazing. The contour is extremely precise, without the tiniest inaccuracy.” She ran the tip of her finger over the shallow niche. “The imprint could be a little bit deeper but it is already very impressive. I think it might be possible to fill even this one with a spiritual conduit.”

“Neat. How do we make it cut the patterns we want? It seemed so simple and fast. You wouldn’t have to spend hours meticulously drawing the circuits ever again,” Aisha said while peeking over Levia’s shoulder.

“I’m afraid it’s not that easy.” I chuckled softly. “While it technically has a joystick that allows the operator to guide the laser, things like these have to be programmed properly before they can be perfectly executed by the device. Think of it like stamps or seals. You need to prepare the symbol before being able to press it into wax, or ink and then onto paper.”

“How do we do that? Can you make those?” My fierce mate turned her charming eyes to me.

“I might be able to after a bit of practice, but that would surely consume a lot of my time. Instead, I think I’ll just hit Zeke up. He knows at least a bunch of people working on renders, vectors, and so on. My plan for this is to have Levia draw the circuits once, as accurately as she can, then scan them with our scanner, send them to a professional, and receive them in the format already prepared for the engraver,” I explained.

“I am not sure that I follow every step of your plan but I will do my part to the best of my ability.” The calm Witch made a polite skip with her head.

“Don’t worry. You don’t need to think too deeply about all the technicalities. I’ll take care of that.” I smiled at her warmly. “Instead, I will have to rely on you when it comes to the circuits and the magical ink. We still have to cover that aspect. Do you have any ideas after seeing this slip of metal?”

“I do, but I will need some time to conduct a few tests on the surface of this material to be certain about its compatibility with the substances I have in mind,” she replied, grazing her palm over the metal engraving. “I should be able to mainly use what you have gathered during your delves if we want to reduce the production costs. The weaker solutions made from lower-grade ingredients might not fuse with this metal properly, but if that guess proves to be correct, I am thinking about using the crystal making the pylons in our current Dungeon. It is already infused with a lot of mana.”

“There’s no rush so take as much time as you need.” I reached to the side and turned off the engraver since we most likely wouldn’t be using it anymore today. “Before you get into it, I would like you to pick the finished arcanas that you are satisfied with and bring them to my desk so that I can scan them. I’ll talk to Zeke in the meanwhile and see if he shares some of his contacts.”

“I shall do so right now.” Levia returned the metal slip to me and trotted to one of the drawers, starting to browse through it.

Leaving her to it, I walked back to the main section of the apartment with Aisha following after me. Sitting in front of the PC, I typed a brief explanation of our current situation and sent it on its way to Zeke. No surprise, he read it immediately and agreed to cooperate. Under the condition that we made a few cards for him too.

I shared with him the details and specifications of our laser engraver alongside all the manuals and documents I had so that he could forward them to his contacts. Levia brought the arcanas I’d asked for a moment later and Aisha decided to help me scan them while Rose floated around us curiously the way she usually did. We’d grown so used to her by now that it was hard to imagine this place without our adorable pink orb of pure enthusiasm.

With all the cards scanned and uploaded to a shared folder on the web, we went to the kitchen to make something hot to drink for ourselves. The two of us settled with some tasty tea while preparing a cup of coffee for our hardworking elf friend. Bringing sugar with us, we returned to Levia’s workshop and joined her in the fascinating experiments over the sheet of stainless steel.

For about two hours, we assisted our Witch by bringing her the ingredients she wanted from the storage, mixing them together in various combinations and doses, preparing some ominous-looking substances, and finally applying the results to the demo engraving we had made earlier. It was both fun and interesting watching the reactions and hearing Levia comment on every small detail like the way the liquid spread over the smooth surface, which direction the energy swirled inside a droplet, how much fumes it released, and much more.

But, at one point, I left her with Aisha and wandered off to the side, thinking about the next steps. We almost had everything else covered so it would be more efficient for me to deal with the remaining elements, like figuring out an easy way to apply the solutions the girls were preparing onto the engraved arcanas.

I thought about ordering a bunch of painting brushes, the small, thin ones for the best accuracy, but that was still a lot of manual work. It would be better if we could apply the ink over the entire surface at once. Perhaps I could order some kind of a dispenser that would pour a calculated amount of ink onto the engraving. But, while that sounded nice on paper, someone would have to calculate that amount for every single circuit, which would add so much work and effort into the process.

Remembering the bigger, rolling cousins of the artistic brushes often used to paint walls during renovations, I got a different idea. We could just cover the entire card with the ink and wipe off the unwanted bits away with a cloth or something else.

Then, I realized that there was a different way and I could potentially make it work with our newly acquired laser engraver. I verified that it could operate on plastic too and jogged to my desk. Taking a pencil into my hand, I sketched down the design I had in mind and scanned it. Adding a bunch of notes and explanations to it, I sent it to Zeke so he could forward it to the person we would end up working with.

We didn’t need the solution right at this moment so it wasn’t a problem if it came with the other projects for the engraver. I just had to purchase a few additional things that cost literally nothing and could be found in any random store with cleaning products and we were set. Granted, the design worked as intended.

With that out of the way, I purchased a few heat lamps and brought them to Levia’s workshop. They would come useful for the last step in the whole production process, which was drying the spiritual ink up. We could technically just leave the arcanas be and wait for the liquid to dry naturally by itself but there was no reason not to speed up the process if there was nothing against it. Time was of the essence when it came to supply and demand.

For the rest of the day, we continued conducting tests until it was time to hit the bed. Levia didn’t even notice how tired she’d gotten after so much intense thinking and fell asleep on top of the comfy sheets while waiting for her turn in the bathroom.

We chuckled at each other with Aisha after seeing her serene sleeping face and my drakan mate helped the slumbering Witch disrobe before pulling her under the covers on the left side of the bed. Making sure that our friend was all warm and comfy, she turned around and snuggled to me lovingly.

We again had lots to do right from the morning. And I again was looking very forward to it.

★━━━━━━━━━━━━Author's Notes━━━━━━━━━━━━★

I'm currently halfway into the next chappy but I have to leave for a drive soon and might not be available until New Year's due to our plans suddenly changing and coming a day earlier. If I don't finish it in time before the departure, I might need to post it on Sunday/Monday instead. Maybe I'll find some time after reaching my destination but I unfortunately can't predict that, just like I couldn't predict our plans moving ahead by a whole day :P Apologies if the chappy won't make it out soon.