To recover from his weakened state, Liam required roughly two weeks. The others completed their power-up by digesting the Kikal Tonic as well.
They were also weakened, but that was given. Their cells had been strengthened by crushing and healing them over and over again. Not only was their body more endurable now, but their muscles were also firmer, their organs more elastic and their bodies felt much lighter than before.
None of them was able to increase their stats above A+ Rank but that was already incredibly good. Liam didn't expect that Jennie and Hellen would be able to endure and overcome the aftermath of the Kikal Tonic, but they did a very good job.
Derek, Olivia, and Felicia did well. Their stats increased rapidly, and they rested only for a few days before their weakened state wore off.
"I wonder if Jennie is doing fine," Felicia mumbled while caressing Claire's fluffy ears.
She, and Olivia were the first to get to know Claire Orion, and they had gotten close pretty fast. The native girls liked watching the mythical process of her unique art of forging – if one could call it such.
Claire used Transformation to change the shape of the metal she was holding. However, she didn't simply transform iron bars into iron weapons but created alloys by merging different types of metals together. Using her Soultrait, this was not further difficult, and it allowed her to unleash the strongest traits of the respective metals.
Using this method, Clair expelled impurities using her ordinary forging skills and a complex method of Transformation to create the strongest possible weapons and armaments. The complex method used was something Claire had been taught by her father. Her father learned it from his father, and the line continued in a similar way for more than a dozen generations.
Despite having said that he wouldn't feed Claire anymore, Liam continued to provide food one more week. He didn't touch her except for that one time he groomed her to clean her up when she was too weak to do it herself. Claire didn't seem to be traumatized by men, or by the sight of blades and other weapons that could have been used to torture her. She was only a glutton, which Liam considered a good sign.
When he heard that Claire had been enslaved for five years, he was a little worried that her enslavement might have a bad influence on her work, but that was not the case. On the contrary, she was more eager to create high-quality weapons and armaments using rather cheap materials.
Her motivation seemed to grow even further when she found out that Liam was not alone. Claire first thought that Liam was a lone wolf and that he hired her to keep him company. However, he didn't want anything from her other than her experience and powers to create highly profitable armaments.
Liam had four women and one young man by his side. The young man seemed a little stupid because he was eying one of his arms all the time. It felt like watching a baby find out that it had two arms and two legs.
What Claire found out later was that Derek asked the system for a loan to purchase an item that grew back his arm. The feeling in his regrown arm was a little different compared to before but the arm was certainly not worse. It was just that Derek required some time to get used to it.
At the same time, he was deep in debt, and his Soul had been used as collateral. What did that mean? Well, it was pretty simple.
Unable to pay his debt? Bye, Soul!
"Jennie will be fine as long as she doesn't give up. I don't think she will do that, but it will take some time before she finds out what she wants to do in life, and in the Arcane Apocalypse," Olivia said, also watching Claire, who was trying to escape the two girls' harassment.
Claire was trying to keep working. The Arcanium in her balance was slowly increasing, but she felt that it was still too slow. As the heiress of the Orion Clan, she wanted to rescue her clanmates as quickly as possible. Liam had yet to purchase any other slaves, and it looked like he saved up his Arcanium.
Claire wanted to help Liam save up more Arcanium. That way, he should be more inclined to puy a Were-Tiger Slave before his promised date.
Liam only said that he would purchase a Were-Tiger Slave once a month. If Claire worked hard, he would increase the quota. This month's quota had been used up by purchasing Claire Orion. That was what he said.
Of course, something like a quota didn't exist. Liam came up with it in order to make sure that Claire would work as much as possible.
The Arcanium accumulating in his balance were for his Bloodline Awakening, to purchase an Enchantment for the Arcane Kunai, and to make sure that Derek wouldn't accidentally use too much Arcanium and be unable to pay for his debt. The latter was unlikely to happen but Liam encountered too many idiots in his short life. He would rather be careful than lose out a potential powerhouse in the building.
And that was exactly how he assessed Derek. He was a little idiotic because he didn't know much about the Nine Realms. However, his personality was good, he was able to think independently, and he had instincts that could be honed and refined until they were razor-sharp.
Meanwhile, the other girls had their own perks. Everyone had their own good and bad points; however, Liam was quite satisfied with all of them.
But the most interesting was Claire, right now.
The deal they made was clearly a win-win situation, though Liam gained more benefits. Claire Orion was able to increase her Arcanium to 350. Meanwhile, Liam profited more than 13,000 Arcanium from Claire's hard work.
If one were to exclude the material cost, Liam's income was around 14,000 Arcanium for two weeks of work. Working eight hours a day was the most Claire could work fully focused. She made 12 weapons in those eight hours, which was why she ended up producing little more than 140 weapons over the course of 14 days.
Each weapon was worth roughly 100 Arcanium, and the market's demand for weapons and armaments created by Claire Orion kept increasing.
Liam was pretty sure that he could slowly increase the price for her goods, but he was not sure if he wanted to do that, in the first place. The traffic of his shop improved slowly and steadily. More natives and other races took note of his shop, which was great and exactly what Liam had been trying to achieve.
If Claire improved her skills, it wouldn't be impossible to create a few 'unique' weapons and sell them for an exorbitant price by auctioning them off. At the same time, Claire would make her own gains as well. As long as she continued to work hard, she would be able to purchase her freedom in a little bit more than a year!
Even though Liam made much more than Claire, she didn't mind. It was already a miracle to think that a single year of hard work would be enough to buy pack her freedom.
After all, she was currently just a mere Slave, someone who was never supposed to regain her status.
It was a miracle, and it was a Devil who allowed her to dream about freedom once again.
Was that fate?
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