Day 120.
The caravan returned to Blackiron City quietly. There were no trumpets, only the creaking of sleds heavy with "scrap metal."
Rian jumped off the lead wagon.
"Grom! Take this metal to the foundry. It's mostly broken armor, high-quality steel. Melt it down."
"Lara! Take the 20 sick men to the Quarantine House. Warm baths, soup, and willow-bark tea. I paid 5 Gold for them; I expect them all to live."
Among the coughing, shivering slaves Rian had bought, one man looked up. He was older, missing an eye, and his hands were stained with old ink.
Elias, a disgraced scholar Rian had spotted in the pen.
"You... you are not treating us like cattle?" Elias rasped.
"Cattle don't build empires, Elias," Rian said, tossing him a clean blanket. "Recover. Then, you work."
The Market Void
That evening, in the War Room.
Lara put a letter on the table. She was grinning.
"My Lord, the rumors from the South are... itching."
"Sir Roderick is in hiding," she reported. "The Duchess of the North broke out in hives after using his 'Blackiron Soap.' She has put a bounty on his head. The name 'Blackiron' is now cursed in the capital."
"Good," Rian nodded, sipping hot water. "The cheap brand is dead. The competition is eliminated."
"But My Lord," Lara frowned. "If they hate our soap, how do we sell more?"
"We don't sell 'Blackiron Soap'," Rian stood up. "That was garbage. We are going to launch a new brand. 'Aurora'."
"It won't smell like fish and ash. It will smell like spring. It will be purple. And it will cost 10 Gold Coins a bar."
"But," Caelum the Elf interrupted, "nothing grows here. There are no flowers in the ice. Where do we get the scent?"
Rian tapped the table.
"System."
[Ding! Daily Intelligence Report - Day 120]
[1. Resource Location: Aromatic Flora]
Target: Frost-Violets (Rare Alpine Flower).
Properties: High concentration of essential oils. Smells of vanilla and mint.
Location: "The Steam Vent Valley" (6 miles West, hidden inside a geothermal crater).
Guardian: A pack of Snow Apes.
"Pack the sleds," Rian ordered. "And bring the copper pipes we bought from the scrap pile. We aren't just picking flowers. We are building a refinery."
The Valley of Eternal Mist
The journey took half a day.
Guided by the System, Rian, Varg, Caelum, and the Wolf Cavalry arrived at the edge of a massive crater.
Warm steam rose from it. The snow around the rim was melted.
Inside, it was a hidden paradise.
Green moss covered the rocks. And covering the floor of the crater was a carpet of glowing purple flowers.
Frost-Violets.
"Incredible," Caelum whispered, inhaling the scent. "These flowers feed on the geothermal heat."
HOOOO!
A loud hoot echoed from the mist.
On the rocks, massive white shapes appeared. Snow Apes. They were huge, with four arms and thick fur. They looked angry.
"They protect the heat," Varg drew his sword. "Do we kill them?"
"No," Rian stopped him. "If we kill them, the ecosystem changes. Besides, I don't want to fight every time I need flowers."
Rian looked at the Intel.
[Snow Apes: Love sweet things. Addiction level: High.]
Rian pulled out a barrel from the sled.
Molasses. (A byproduct of his Sugar Cane experiments).
He poured the thick, sticky brown syrup onto a flat rock near the entrance of the crater.
The lead Ape sniffed the air. The smell of sugar was overpowering.
It grunted, climbed down, and dipped a finger in the molasses. It tasted it.
Its eyes went wide.
It hooted happily and waved the other apes down.
"While they eat," Rian commanded, "harvest the flowers. Take only the petals. Leave the roots."
The Copper Still
Back at the Fort, Rian didn't just boil the flowers. That would destroy the delicate scent.
He went to the workshop where Elias (the scholar, now recovered enough to walk) was looking at Rian's drawings.
"Distillation?" Elias adjusted his glasses. "I have read of this in ancient texts. You want to capture the soul of the plant?"
"I want the Essential Oil," Rian corrected.
Rian and Grom built the apparatus using the scrap copper pipes.
The Boiler: Water is boiled to create steam.
The Chamber: The steam passes through the Frost-Violet petals, carrying the oil vapor with it.
The Condenser: The steam travels through a coiled copper pipe cooled by ice water. It turns back into liquid.
The Separator: The oil floats on top of the water.
They fired up the furnace.
Steam hissed through the pipes. The room filled with the smell of vanilla and cool mint.
Drop by drop, a glowing purple oil fell into a glass vial.
"It is concentrated luxury," Lara whispered, mesmerized.
The Birth of Aurora
Rian took the oil.
He mixed it with his highest quality soap base (filtered three times to be pure white).
He added a pinch of Mica Dust (found in the mines) to make it sparkle.
He poured the mixture into new molds.
These molds didn't look like rough bricks. They were oval, smooth, and carved with the image of a Stylized Mountain.
When they cooled, they were beautiful. Pale purple, shimmering, and smelling like heaven.
Rian picked one up.
"Lara, wrap this in silk. Put it in a wooden box made of polished Ironwood."
"Where do we send it?" Lara asked.
"We don't sell it in the market," Rian smiled. "We send a free gift to the Grand Duke Valerius."
"Include a note," Rian dictated.
"To His Grace. A remedy for the harsh North. From the 'Beggar' of Blackiron. P.S. This is not for sale to commoners."
"The Duke will love the exclusivity," Rian explained. "And once the Duke uses it, every noble who wants to suck up to him will beg us for a bar."
[Ding! Product Created: Aurora Frost Soap]
[Grade: Luxury (S-Tier)]
[Market Value: 10-15 Gold Coins per bar]
Rian looked at the purple bar.
He had turned flowers and "scrap copper" into a fortune.
And because he was using a secret location (the Crater) and a secret method (Distillation), no one could copy him.
"Let the copycats play with ash," Rian said. "We own the scent."
End of Chapter 43