The Industrialist

As a teenager at 16, he felt his life had transformed into becoming a man. Too early for his age, and too early for responsibilities. Despite his age, a must to take down a Tyrant had become his driving force, his passion, and his curse.

His palms tingled upon the thought of processing to become a Mechanic Tier 1 now, wondering how would SARS assessor Mari would react seeing him the second time in just a few weeks.

He heard stories that the perks of being a scrapper and that of a Mechanic had an obvious gap. The latter would make one a Mid-classer from a low-lifer.

Scrapping was his passion for months, although overcoming the stench, the dirt, and the grease, he surpassed them with flying colors. He would miss the smell though, and the site of scrap yards.

"Welcome back, Master," Jasper’s voice emerged inside the room.

Lance did not answer and sauntered directly towards the only room that his Aiveez consumed.

"Master, onto the next project, I presume?"

"Yes, Jasper. However, I do not have an objective yet for the next project. I have prospects, though."

"You can share your prospects if you want. Let’s brainstorm!" Jasper responded.

"Yeah. Later. My brain is drained, Jasper. What disturbed me about right now was the offer from the SACers."

"What is it?"

"T.O.R., well, not officially. It’s just an assistant for Doctor Zee."

"Why not take it? It’s a no-brainer. You needed more units for your future endeavors and it brings you closer to your enemies."

"Yeah, but I have to balance my time. As you can see, I can barely move to my existing dealings."

"What do you mean?"

"Like this for example," Lance responded.

He stood upon his Aiveez nursery in his only room. The moisture-inducing bulbs, one of them, seemed to deteriorate its lumen strength. He dragged a stool and stood from it, and outstretched his hand upon the faded lamp.

He turned it and dislodged it from its electric casing that connected the wires that hung from the ceiling.

He inspected the bulb and a dark surface appeared, with apparent deteriorations at the bottom of the bulb.

’I gotta replace this.’ He thought. He then checked the wirings of possible line shortages that could produce abrupt electric surges that made the lamp bust. His tired mind and body could use a rest, but the necessity called for his attention.

He used the luminometer to check the illumination inside the room if the levels would decrease with one busted bulb.

"If you want to scan the luminosity, I can do it for you, Master," Jasper suggested.

"Nah. Let me do it," Lance dismissed.

Using the instrument, Lance scanned every corner of the room that touched his nursery.

’Whew. At least it is not urgent. The lumen intensity is within range,’ He thought after the scan.

The Aiveez nursery should maintain a certain level of moisture to emulate that of a greenhouse. The bulbs induced moisture in the confines of his room which fed the requirement of the Aiveez seedlings.

’Water, they need water. At least twice a day,’ He rushed towards the sink and filled a pint with water.

"Jasper, activate Holo monitoring for the plants," Lance commanded.

"Copy, Master," there was a holographic construct above each plant which showed details of each seedling; its stalk length, stem dimension, leaves dimension, water content, and its age.

"They needed water, Jasper," Lance said.

"I have an idea. You can set up an automatic sprinkler above the plants and program the frequency of activating the sprinklers," Jasper suggested.

"It’s a good suggestion but I don’t have the time," Lance responded.

He then sprinkled the seedlings with water, just enough to wet the soil. He would know that the seedlings had sufficient water for how the leaves emitted a bluish glow. The brighter the glow, the better their water intake.

He checked on the plastic insulation that covered his floors so as not to flood his entire apartment. A certain tube connected from the room towards his apartment drainage to pass the water from the soil.

Preparing the plastic sheet that would cover his entire room floor against dirt was challenging. It should be at the certain angle of elevation or slope to drain water from the soil, every time he watered the plants, towards the drain pipe that connected to his apartment’s main drain.

On one side of the room were his racking placed. These racks held the minuscule seedlings placed in seedbeds. They were stacked upright just to conserve space. What’s challenging in the future if these seedlings would grow enough for transfer to the main plant plots that lined up on his floor. His floor space had a constraint to accommodate such volume.

Inspecting the plants again, he observed a certain stalk length of the plants needed transfer to a bigger pot. And some of them were required for repotting.

He wore his garden gloves, took out his garden spade, dug it way down the roots, and took them out, leaving the roots intact with the soil. Then he transferred them to pots.

He had to repot twenty of them. Or else, the adult plants would die.

As he started repotting them, then he realized the need for healthy soil. He could not just dig soil outdoors and place it on sacks for his nursery. The soil outside was contaminated.

To achieve a highly nutritive soil, one must mix it with decomposed food waste and mix it with soil. The organic component of food provides nutrients to the soil as it decomposes.

Even sludges, collected lumps of pollutants from wastewater, could also be used to mix with soil to achieve sufficient nutrition.

He had to go to WWMD to collect such requirements in which he had to deal with Grebert of Wraithport for delivery.

Such an operation would entail another overhead cost. Find exclusive stories on NovelBin.Côm

’Maybe the Agricultural Sectors had stocks of compost soil. I doubt that. Maybe Jaqi knows who would I talk to about gardening needs,’ Lance thought.

The process of taking care of a nursery was tedious. His mindset was just to prepare for the worst, especially since the Demetrian season was approaching, 4 months from now.

The atmospheric air had built up coolness already as the season was approaching. That cold air, its sudden temperature drop, had given Lane tremendous concern.

’I need more bombs to mine salt in the future after the Demetrian season.’ On the other hand, sharing his poison bombs with the Outsiders would give at least the advantage to fend off stray Abominants.

’This is not working for me,’ He thought about outsourcing his nursery. It took a heavy toll on his energy and also on his physical body. He needed to talk to Jefferson.

He took out his gloves, placed his gardening tools on the ground, and settled himself in his massage chair. He called it his thinking chair.

"Jasper, load profile," Lance commanded.

A holographic construct appeared before his vision.

_____________________________________________________

[Name] Lance Berkley

[Rank] Scrapper 2 – pending offers

[Age] 16 years old

[Origin] Bay City

[Currency] 6700 units

____________________________________________________

"You have enough units Master to acquire the Energy Accelerator," Jasper said.

"Yes. It’s true. But I need timing, Jasper. We can’t just buy the Energy Accelerator and let it sit for months and wait for the Demetrian Season to pass. It would be a total waste of units and time," Lance responded.

"You are right again, Master. So what’s your plan?"

"I will take the offer of Mechanic Tier 1. Enjoy its perks and gain more units. I will also accept the offer of co-TOR."

His schedule became more hectic than ever before. He needed to outsource his laborious activities such as his nursery farming.

The Rebels could do the farming of Aiveez plants while Lance could fabricate and assemble the bombs. The product would be sold to the Outsiders, and Axiom Trench served as their trading hub.

They would know about his poison bombs. Handsome had witnessed their effectiveness against the Abominants.

Another business opportunity. On the coming week, he would have another Zelkian delivery for Jonaz Enterprises. He must again be there physically to ensure smoothness of transaction. He heard the news about the ensuing Mafia wars in the western sectors, Inland. He knew that Jonaz was the rival group involved in territorial wars and hopefully, their transactions would not be affected.

But the Media and the Government had broadcasted that the Rebels caused the gunfire and the explosions in the affected streets.

One of the culprits that made his father fell to being a traitor was the Media. He knew that the Media was being controlled by Menks which provided the latter power over the citizens of Axe Central City.

Without the Media was like cutting Menks off his one arm. However, such endeavors were yet unreachable. He needed to augment and make a name for himself.

"I had to go to SARS to register to Mech Tier 1," Lance said to Jasper.