Hax studied the 3D printer blueprint on his desk. Ratha was studying beside him while the cat slept on her thigh.
He had been studying them for a while now. The materials that Bodin ordered were late by a few days. They said they would deliver it today with some extra materials as compensation for the delay. Hax almost burst into anger that time. He couldn't wait to make the power suit because he wanted to take the Boiling Volcano. Defeating an army was not enough. He had to conquer an entire sect before the norms could be truly moved by his strength and valor.
"Sir, the materials you ordered have come."
"Finally," Hax said. He stood up and brought Ratha outside the forge hall.
Dozens of wagons pulled by magic bulls arrived at the shooting field. His men immediately unload the crates and put them next to the forge hall. Hax planned to make the 3D printer right next to the forge hall.
After all the crates were unloaded, Hax called his manufacturing bots. This time, he called every bot available to help him. Building a warehouse-sized printer wasn't easy.
The bots hovered out of the forge hall and he commanded them to eat the materials and print out the necessary parts. This process was already tedious enough. Printing all the parts would take a few days if not more.
"Thankfully, I have made a lot more manufacturing bots in my free time."
A dozen more manufacturing bots came from the forge hall. Hax had delegated a few of his bots to make more bots. Because of this, weapon production increased exponentially. He was confident that he could arm one hundred thousand men within five months. Of course, he could only arm them with rifles within that time span. If he wanted to give them the BC-75 and the Weler-150 then it would take longer than that.
Now, he had a lot more manufacturing bots in other forge halls, but he couldn't use them because they were still used to produce more weapons for the army. The army which had a flood of new members was in dire need of weapons. The thirty thousand from the Black Wolves, twenty-five thousand from the Man Hunter, and more than sixty thousand from Bodin. Of course, this was possible because of the parade. The Man Hunter and the Black Wolves couldn't recruit many people at that time because they still needed to put some thought before joining. After a few days, they traveled to Barmwich and joined the army through Bodin's administration team.
That said, Barmwich was also being expanded almost every day. Because there were a lot of new members joining in, the army had to make more space to make houses or barracks.
The new members had strained the financial situation of the army. But Hax fixed that by making more than a dozen forge halls and letting them produce weapons that would be sold to the norms. The sales saved the army from collapsing.
It was justified that the entire existence of the army relied upon Hax. Without him, the army would almost collapse immediately, Unless someone could takeover his coat.
As Hax oversaw the bots printing out parts, a group of guards dragged a man in front of him. The man growled as he pushed himself with his pale white hand. He rubbed his red nose and scratched his messy hair. He tidied his wrinkled clothing before he turned and faced the guards. "Don't you know who I am? I am the one and only plastic maker. My loyal customers would hunt all of you down for treating me like this."
Hax coughed.
The man turned around and looked at Hax up and down. "You must be the boss. Listen, I will not teach anyone how to make plastic because there is only one person that could make it—me."
Hax showed him a pistol and shot the ground. The gunshot made the man jump.
"Can you make something like this?" Hax asked. Then he took the guard's rifle and sprayed the ground with bullets. "What about this?" Then he told someone with BC-75 to come over and basically destroyed the ground with it. "And what about this?"
The man had his mouth fell open. "This stick can shoot powerful metal projectiles? How is that possible?"
"I'm not done, yet." Hax ordered his manufacturing bots to come over and the man was shocked to see a flying object.
"How can that thing fly?" The man put his hand under the bot, a little wary because the tool arms looked a bit scary.
The bots printed out a pistol out of its mouth. The timing was perfect when the man was about to see inside of it. It made him jump again, and his head almost hit the bot.
"How is this possible? This weapon comes out of this thing? What kind of creatures are you?"
"It's not a creature. It's a robot."
"What's a robot?"
"A mechanical machine that can be programmed to execute a certain task or carrying out a complex series of actions."
"Can you repeat that again?"
"Basically it's a tool that can do what humans can do."
"Can it farm?"
"Yes, it can."
"Can it clean?"
"Yes, but those are not their main function."
"You're such a dumb person. If these bots can farm and clean by themselves, you could have stayed in bed while they make money for you."
"We're not short in money because we can sell weapons. You might already know, but this weapon can kill a cultivator."
The man raised his eyebrow. "No way. How can this small thing kill a cultivator. Only a magic weapon can do so."
Hax was surprised by this. "You didn't know? This weapon is all over the kingdom now. Haven't you ever heard of the Hax Rebellion Army?"
"Nope."
"Have you been living under a cave?"
"How did you know?"
Hax turned to his guards. "Is this guy serious?"
"Yes, sir. It took us a while to find him. Most of his customers were very reluctant to share his location."
"Then how do we get plastic chairs if we didn't know his location before."
"His customers were mostly resellers, sir. They buy from him and then they sell it back in the area."
"You're a rich man. Why would you live under a cave?"
"Who said I'm rich? Does this unwashed clothes look rich to you?"
"Your products are expensive. Surely you must have a few thousands gold coins in your home."
"My products are expensive? Hell no. One plastic chair cost around a bowl of rice."
"A bowl of rice? They didn't pay you in coins?"
The man shook his head. "No, they said my products are not worth it at that cost."
"Who said that?"
"My customers."
"Why continue making plastic chairs if it was that bad?"
"It's the only thing I know. I never farm in my life. I never go fishing, hunting, or any other stuff."
"Who taught you how to make plastic?"
"It was my father. He was a great sorcerer. He could make hard objects soft, and soft objects hard. It was always weird things that interest him. One day he make this thing called rubber. It was just material that bounced all the time. He said it would change the world one day. I never believed him. How could a bouncing rubber change the world?"
"What do you mean by sorcerer? Was your father a cultivator?"
The man shook his head. "No. It's just people call what we do as sorcery. So they call him a sorcerer."
"Well, from now on you're going to call it science. Sorcery is for the cultivators. While science is for the norm. Do you understand?"
"Right. But let's put that aside for a second. Why do you tell your guards to bring me over? What do you want from me."
"I want your specialty. Make plastic for me and I will give you the best life you could ask for."
With that promise, Gorre, the plastic man, shook hands with Hax and proceed to work.
Gorre listed out all the materials he needed and someone under Bodin immediately got it for him. The materials were simply oils and plants. To turn them into plastic, Gorre had to refine them into ethane and profane. These ethane and profane are then treated with high heat. This was done to turn them into monomers. The rest of the process was very complicated. The curious onlookers that saw the process commented that it was like seeing sorcery.
After Gorre fed a molted polymer into a pipe, it turned into a long plastic tube as it cooled. He then cut them into small pellets and put them in a crate. He would later melt and mold these pellets later on according to what Hax needed.
After a few days, Hax and Gorre worked together to teach the bots how to make plastic and integrate them into the weapons. The result was satisfactory as the weapon became much lighter. This way, the soldiers wouldn't tire much faster than they were supposed to.
When they were done, Gorre asked how to make the guns and the bots. Hax immediately put him into his workshop and told him to study together with Ratha.
Ratha finally had her first classmate. Though the study materials they learned were very hard, it was much easier now that she had a friend to discuss a problem with.
Gorre finally knew what a good life was. He could order any food he want. And every time he was thirsty he could ask for orange juice for an unlimited amount of time. As he enjoyed more food with Ratha, both of them started to like each other. Ratha was just a sweet little child, while Gorre was just a caveman sorcerer—scientist that never talked to people for more than five sentences.
Gorre cherished Ratha as she was the first person he could talk to extensively after his father.
"Gorre, try this out. This is one of the best food we have. It's called stir-fried cloud chicken."
"Cloud chicken? I don't think cloud would taste good."
"The chef said they called that way because they can fly towards the cloud."
"Why not just call them birds if that is the case?" Gorre said.
"…"
"I also don't know. Go have a bite."
"Sure." Gorre stabbed the tender chicken with his spoon and took a bite. The meat melted inside his mouth and the smell and taste was so good that it felt like he was flying in the clouds. "It's fantastic!"
"I told you," Ratha said.
Gorre looked at the menu. "I wonder what other food is on the menu. Soft Scaled crocodile, Tenderized Fire snake, and Chubby Cat. Hmm, the last one seemed interesting. Should I order it?"
Ratha pouted. "The chef is pranking me again!"