Sitting in the chair I listened to the salesman, Dale was his name, apologize again while all I thought was 'dammit Dale!' After the fifth apology, I told him I was fine and asked for some tea. A few minutes later I sipped my tea and sat in awkward silence with Dale though letting him stew in it any longer would make the rest of the meeting weird so I struck while the iron was hot with guilt, "So Dale, tell me what happened, I was next door when I heard shouting and the guards seemed extremely anxious, did something happen to the lots? I had my eye on a few of them and would prefer to know if the goods were damaged while in your care."
Dale grimaced and looked at the door he turned back to me, "it's not really a secret but an intruder broke in and poisoned one of the lots, it would have been fine losing a single slave but he was caged with the rest of his pack and they tried to suck out the poison, unfortunately, they made the situation worse. Twenty-five lots are now poisoned and the medicine to cure them all would negate any profit even if we sold them so the head elder is probably going to dispose of them."
Huh, maybe their misfortune is my gain, "Do you have the information on the lots?" Dale nodded and activated a hologram built into the room with his tablet, wolves more specifically wolf demi-humans, they had a human form and beast form the human form just had them looking like a normal human with a tail and wolf ears while their beast form was a humanoid wolf that made everything on the ground prey. They were impressive, to say the least, but their alpha was a step above the rest. He was close to a seraph in power with a level of 40 as well, though the poison was probably sapping away his strength and cultivation as we speak. With little time to lose as a potential asset was on the line, this was a subordinate that he had to have.
"Hmm that is a real shame, well I have a slight need for the dying. Go ahead and package them up for me, I will give you 50,000 credits for the walking corpses." The offer caught Dale off guard, to say the least, he tapped his tablet a few times before he made a counteroffer.
"100,000"
"70,000 and that is my final offer, and I want them alive, I will butcher them myself."
He would pay more but he was hoping Dale wouldn't call his bluff….
"Deal"
He had barely finished the thought before he realized what happened, 'this bastard just squeezed an additional 20,000 from me.' Dale sent him the contract for the lots, he read it over as the price was set for 60,000 for the lots with a generous tip of 10,000 credits.
Still irked by the daylight robbery he signed and recorded the contract and left immediately. He called Rin as he made his way back to the tower, he told her to send men to both the shops and sent a copy of the invoices so nothing went missing. Right after he hung up he received a message from Owen, the steward of his parents' estate, all it said was for him to return home asap. Crap his parents must have finished their trip early and were on their way home. 'Shit, I'm in trouble, if they catch me with all my gear they will probably sit a few mercenaries on me till I'm eighteen.'
He reached the trolly and bought a ticket to the tower, he should have everything done and back home within the hour. He messaged Owen to prepare a few cleansing potions from their family's stock, they were an emergency use item his father had prepared in case their home was ever invaded or assassins targeted them.
It took ten minutes to reach the tower, once he got on the lift he remote activated the shuttle to prepare for launch, once he reached his platform he found Rin waiting next to the shuttle, she smiled at his approach, "Master one of the packages has been received, while the other two were just picked up and should be here in twenty minutes, everything has been taken care of on my end and my contract will end as soon as your packages arrive. Do you have any orders for me master?"
He smiled, she was attentive and detail-oriented, she would make a great subordinate. "Good work, have you heard anything about the rise in homeless, or has it been this bad for a while?"
She frowned and replied in a shaky voice, "From what my father told me was that there was a newly discovered dungeon about 6000 miles south of the city but other than that I haven't much other than a rumor that a band of pirates entered our solar system which could be the cause."
"When was the dungeon discovered?"
"Last year master, though no one has even managed to clear the first floor. Most adventurers have stopped trying because the person who let the information out about the dungeon lied about its difficulty costing hundreds of adventurers their lives." she started to tear up, I could see she was one of the victims of that informant's deception, I took her into my arms and she cried, we stood like that until my packages and wolves arrived.
The wolves were still shackled when they arrived, they seemed a bit worse for wear, some even had to be carried onto the shuttle. This included the alpha, he had a small knife wound but the blood was black and his heart rate was low but he should be able to make it to the manor.
"Let's go, Rin, I have to get us back home as quickly as possible." I moved into the shuttle with Rin right behind me, it was a bit crowded but I managed to get to the pilot seat and Rin sat in the copilot seat she was looking at everything, I initiated the launch, we decouple from the tower and made a small loop to gain height before heading towards home. When we finally reached the manor I saw Owen with staff members following behind him toward the shuttle, "Owen we need those potions and medical aid", he motioned to the head maid so she could take over before coming to me and whispering into my ear.
"Young master we need to talk in private, immediately, this is about your parents now please follow me." he quickly turned and headed for the manor. I followed behind him wondering what was happening.
We went to my fathers' study, which was normally off-limits to everyone even Owen would have to receive an invitation, he closed and locked the door behind us and motioned for me to sit in my fathers' chair. I hesitated for a moment before sitting down, "Owen what is going on?"
"Your parents' caravan was supposed to arrive four days ago, they had reached their destination and sent confirmation, they purchased the fuel for the ship and said they were on their way back, we received word that the caravan was attacked on the return trip."
My chest tightened, the world seemed to have dropped underwater.
"The wreckage of your parents' flagship was found and reported earlier this morning, their bodies haven't been found so they are considered missing. I know this is hard for you to hear but your father and mother left a message for you before they left on this trip." he tapped his tablet and hologram began to play, my father and mother stood in the center of the room. Owen didn't leave but he stood aside, and the message began to play.
My father spoke first.
"Alioth, I and your mother just wanted to tell you we love you. Assuming you see this message it is most likely we have 'Gone Missing' we are being chased by an old enemy of our and it is unlikely we can come back anytime soon, we aren't dead son but to make sure you or your sibling don't get pulled into the fight we had to escape and draw that enemy away. Do not come looking for us, if you can become a high tier seraph then you may look for us but until then you just need to focus on getting stronger. Owen knows what to do trust him and learn from his advice, he will be closing my businesses, I'm assuming the mercenaries are probably dead or scattered so your mothers business will be transferred to your name, if we left the businesses to stay running it would only draw out competitors to your door and they will do what they can to destroy you."
My mother stepped forward shushing my father.
"Ali dear, be strong and take care of yourself. I have already set up a contingency plan for your income, a list of buildings have already been set up for you along with a business model that will provide you with a stable income, though you will have access to the families estate funds, Owen is your legal guardian until you turn eighteen and then those businesses that I set aside for you will be transferred completely over. So, for now, you will only get to keep 20% of the profits. The rest will be distributed into taking care of the employees and other expenses. Now, don't you worry about me or your father, just watch out for those shifty merchants. Bye baby, see you soon!"
With that, the hologram closed and Owen immediately got to work. 'At least they are alive, on the run but alive'. I kept telling myself that they would be fine, they saw their enemy coming and were prepared.
Taking a few deep breaths the world slowly began to revolve again, there was no time to mess around now. He needed his own strength to fall back on, he also needed to revive that alpha and that pack. If he could have a high-level subordinate watching over the operation then he would be able to focus on building my own forces, who would believe that a fifteen-year-old could start his own business when the ones 'left to him' began to fail, they would give off the appearance that their businesses had dried up and all they had left was their savings.
I left the study and took a cold shower to help clear my head, after changing into more comfortable clothes I sat at my desk and began to study the crafting methods for puppets, as I went through and noted down the similarities and changes made to puppets over the eons. There were a few interesting things that he could only base on theory but with the technology they did have, they could make artificial intelligence rather easily, giving the puppet a semi-consciousness, it could think and perform on its own but it wasn't a true soul. That being said it would still produce very strong puppets capable of defending their master without being ordered to do so.
The highest tier puppet was one that had a genuine soul, usually of either a beast or expert so it still had all its experience and techniques, but that required making a puppet either from their body or making a new body that was compatible to their fighting style and abilities. The new way to bind your puppets to you was either a mental or blood connection, neither of those was especially great as using your mind to control your puppet might give you better control but then you would be a sitting duck.
The blood connection was slightly better as the puppets would still listen to your commands, but you wouldn't know if a puppet was destroyed unless you watched it die. The other way was to bind it to your soul which was the best way as you could communicate and feel your puppets with just a thought and even see through their eyes if you were that far into your mastery. That would take quite a bit of training, he would also need to be able to merge his puppets with technology so they could gain that semi-consciousness if he wanted the puppets to protect him without orders.
Technology was a strange thing, even when your universe and all elements get all screwy there was a way to persevere when the world lacked technology you would place a consciousness within a stone or gem, and when your world was ruled by science you make a chip. Now you can design an AI and have that same AI burned into a crystal on a massive scale or that is a theory that I was coming up with. The gems may have changed to something new but AI had not, you could hire someone to create one for a few thousand credits and once you have the source code they were all yours. And that is exactly what I did, I made a request on the cloud network and posted what I wanted and added the credits so if someone completed the task they would be paid once I received them.
The hard part was finding a machine that could copy the AI and download it into the crystal, this would take research and additional trial and error. The way puppets were made today was to use all the material and enchant that with mana, activating the latent power in the materials itself, you would then use the specialized cutting tools on the metal to shape the pieces that you needed some of this could be automated but certain aspects required the puppet master to carve sigils, runes, and alchemical arrays to achieve a true magical puppet. The outer shell was the easiest part, you could make it look like anything. A knight, bear, bare-fisted warrior, even a maid, that all depended on what the crafter wanted or customer if you sold certain puppets.
Another key component was the heart or core, this is where he would put the consciousness crystal and the energy source, if he had to power the puppets with his own mana then he might die due to mana exhaustion.
Owen came in and gave a report on how the alpha was doing, he was now stable but it would take some time before he was back to full strength, they discussed the need for a lab to be built within the manor as well as training for Rin which he gave Owen the ok to give her a cultivation technique if she wanted to train in it. Human cultivation took quite a bit of time but it had fallen at first but advanced after the merge stabilized, it may not be popular but it never hurt to have another ace in the sleeve, he wasn't sure what her talents were yet, another thing to find out.
I studied till midnight before I took a break to cultivate for a few hours, I could feel the energy like always but now I could feel my soul receiving the nourishment from the cultivation art, it felt like standing in the cold rain on a hot day, the heat ebbing away leaving a refreshing sharp chill down to my core. I kept cultivating for two hours before laying down for a few hours of sleep, there was still a lot of work to do.
Why is it so hot in here? When I opened my eyes, I was in my bed so no one moved me but it still feels so warm. I sat up and looked around, 'um am I dreaming?' there were five naked girls in my bed, each of them had a wolf's tail and ears, why are these wolf girls in my bed? Making sure this wasn't a dream I poke the closest wolf girl to me on the cheek, soft like silk. I sat there for a few minutes playing with her ears and tail while she slept, she had an adorable smile on her face while I pet her but as soon as I stopped she would move in my direction trying to find my hands.
I was curious if this was how she was while she was awake or just a subconscious longing for affection. My movements had not been as subtle as I hade hoped as the other girls began to stir, in their half-awake state they crawled over and hugged onto me, it was bliss and hell at the same time. The press of soft sensual flesh was fantastic and was making me excited, but I didn't have that particular relationship with these girls, even if I did want an orgy early in the morning this wasn't the way to get it. They may be slaves but that wasn't why I bought them, heck if they accepted the contract I and Owen came up with they wouldn't be slaves anymore.
"Ahem! Girls, it's time to wake up." This took a few attempts but they slowly came to their senses, which led to an awkward silence. The one I had been petting came forward and asked in a shy voice, "Master did we displease you, please don't be angry we won't do it again, we promise." her hands were shaking, looking at each of them I could see traces of fear in their eyes, they were probably told that they would be used as toys after they had been captured.
I was sure they had seen the ugliness of the world, the wolves would have put up a fight instead of lowering their heads to be bought and sold.
I raised my hand to comfort her but she flinched, and shut her eyes, a warm sensation came from the bedding with a strange smell. She had been so scared she had peed the bed, she noticed what had happened a few seconds later and started begging me not to hurt her or the others, the fear and panic in all of their eyes was heartbreaking. The rest of the girls said similar things in quiet voices hoping I wouldn't punish them, I could hardly believe that someone had tormented them so much as to make proud wolves act like this.
I grabbed the poor girl who had soiled the bed and gave her a hug, she struggled and resisted while I whispered into her ear, "shh it's ok, I'm not going to hurt you, everything is alright. You are safe now." I repeated softly into her ear while holding her close. After she stopped struggling she began to cry, I comforted her through the racking sobs until she had calmed down, I tapped a small console on my nightstand and within a few minutes, a maid came into my room. She didn't even bat an eye at the crying wolves, "Please arrange showers for these girls, breakfast too once they are ready. The bed needs to be cleaned or replaced, and find clothes for all of our guests if it hasn't already been taken care of."
"Right away master." she gave a curtsy and approached the wolves, in a stern motherly voice she chided the wolves, "Come now you are disturbing the masters' rest with your shenanigans, he is very busy if he wanted to bed one of you I'm sure he would've called for you himself. You too missy." she grabbed the girl who had her arms wrapped around me and quickly ushered them all out of my room.
That particular maid had caught him several times with girls from the academy, I might not like being a pretty boy but girls seemed to like it plenty. I stripped and took a quick shower, by the time I had come out the bed was missing, there was a message from Owen saying that the rooms to my right and left would be renovated and turned into a lab and an office. There was a list of documents to sign that had me taking the estate under my name and selling the businesses my father had built over the years.
There was also a long box on my desk, there was a handwritten letter from my father, it was short and to the point, "I can't have your mother thinking that she won with that stunt she pulled with that secret business she prepared, I found out shortly before we left so I had this crafted for you, there are a lot of surprised packed into it so take your time figuring them out because I had the craftsmen burn the manual, can't make it too easy on you, good luck son."