After some workout and a shower, Jack ate breakfast while admiring his body using a mirror.
"Not bad. I wonder if Rose would recognize me...
"Maybe she will call me "Oppa" now. Hehe…"
Thanks to Nardar's hellish training, Jack's figure underwent a drastic transformation after only three months. His thin and skinny body is now packed with a perfectly balanced muscles.
Maybe this change won't make him as handsome and charismatic as Lee min-ho. But with a little bit of makeup, I am sure that every damsel on earth would mistake him for a prince on a white horse now.
"Time to hunt some slimes."
Jack put on his crow armor that fits his body perfectly after readjustment by Tarud before leaving for the Old Blackrock mine.
He already explored 80% of its mining lines during these three months, yet only found a group of slimes hiding behind a thin stone wall about a week ago. If not for the 'Slime' book written by Raworin Lantoris, he might not find any even if he searched for another year.
The book is so well written and detailed to the point of making Jack feel awed and horrified at the same time. The contents are impeccable. Raworin even writes about its body structure, behavior, and habit without missing anything.
According to him, slimes are very unique and passive monsters. They will not attack unless they feel threatened. But strangely, they won't hesitate to approach something that emanates a rich smell of mana, like mana potion or medicinal herbs.
They also have a tendency to hide inside a dark place, especially when they smell some danger. So Jack made sure to knock on every crevice he finds to check if there was any hidden room behind it.
This is great news for Jack. After finding a few specimens, he immediately began with experiments to test some of his theories.
According to his knowledge, slimes multiply by splitting his body through mitosis. So Jack gives them a mana potion and sees if their number will increase after some time passes.
The result is positive, but it takes too many resources and time. The process needs about half a day, and a single slime requires about a quarter bottle of a mana potion.
Mana potion is not cheap and only produced by the guild because the cost of its raw material and refining process is almost equal to the final price. An ordinary company or even a workshop won't be able to do it.
On the one hand, the guild has no choice but to spend money to maintain its production because mana potions are valuable resources that could save adventurers' life during a mission.
On the other hand, selling them without restrain is not an option either. There is a limit on how much the guild could produce with today's technology. Therefore, the guild can only afford to sell one bottle per adventurer per day to avoid monopoly.
On the contrary, Jack's cooperation with the Dragon Hammer workshop went smoothly.
As Jack had expected before, the paper-making business was a big hit. Because of their improved paper, the other workshop was forced to close their paper factory. And the fact that it is being mass-produced makes the condition even worse.
But it's not a rare occurrence in Alexandrium because the guild encourages rivalry between workshops. As a matter of fact, large workshops often abuse their status to oppress smaller workshop businesses and take their market.
That's why only a few of them could survive till now. If a workshop didn't have a unique product or talented craftsman, they would only become easy prey for superior workshops.
Luckily Dragon Hammer does not belong to that category. They only compete with their skills. They believe that with good skills, profit will definitely follow.
Jack does not stop there. After dominating the paper market, he also plagiarized a typewriter, fountain pen, and simple printing press machine.
The profit from those inventions alone is enough for him to live luxuriously without caring about money ever again. But money is not his goal, just a means. Because in this world, power is everything.
Lack of power drives Jack to create a magic tool. However, because his understanding of magic is still lacking, making a magic weapon or armor is still impossible.
Therefore, he only could make a simple tool with the lowest level magic circle. After lots of hard work and sleepless nights, he finally could redesign a flashlight, headlamp, lighter, stove, and heat sensor binoculars powered by mana energy.
At a glance, these things are just everyday tools that people on earth often possess in their homes. But in this world, each one of them could increase his survival chance or even give him an advantage over others.
With binoculars alone, he could spot his enemy from a thousand meters away. Compared with today's telescope that could only see clearly for a few hundred meters, a binocular is like revolvers in front of a toy gun.
If used correctly during a war, a binocular will become a strategic weapon that could match a thousand soldiers.
Of course, these tools are not for sale. Only a select few trusted by Jack and Tarud are allowed to have such a cheat tool.
Still, fame is a sarcophagus.
Even though Tarud and the other core members strictly kept Jack's contribution a secret, their rival workshops were still able to find traces of his involvement.
Fortunately, they didn't have any evidence of how vital Jack's role is. To them, Tarud is still the key figure in this sudden breakthrough. And they dare not cause trouble in front of Tigreal Pendragon himself.
Nevertheless, they still relentlessly try to persuade Jack to leave the Dragon Hammer workshop and join theirs. Of course, Jack declined it every time.
That's why they started to spread an awful rumor about him, even frequently badmouthing him in front of other adventurers over the past month.
For Jack, mental oppression like this is nothing new. The best way to overcome it is to keep a low profile while assuming everything they throw at you as passing wind.
"Let the dogs bark all they want. In the end, all of them are just side characters in this story. Hehe..."