Trial And Error

This chapter's song is: boy does nothing by Alesha Dixon!

Sylvia's POV:

I wake up with a groan, it's been four days since I've disbanded the slave trade and now, I'm currently being shaken awake most likely by Lilian.

"Miss, it's time to wake up now," Lilian says. I sit up and rub my eyes. After yesterday, I was still very tired. Still, I got up and got dressed. Today was a special day since I was meeting Niki and vio at Niki's house to create the very first weapon. I change into a simple ivory dress and head to the carriage after eating breakfast.

Violet's house is was very but as extravagant as my own house. As I arrived, I could see Monique's carriage already there. The Deveraux butler greets me and showed me to where Niki and Violet were.

"Sylvia! About time!" Violet says as she walks towards me.

Violet was wearing a plain white dress with her hair styled in a half-bun.

Monique was wearing a white, flowy top with a blue skirt. Two pieces are fashionable right now and this outfit really suited monique especially with her Raven dark hair and sapphire eyes.

"Well I'm here now, so shall we get started?" I say.

"Of course! I've been waiting for this since forever!" Monique says as she lays down her draft of the first weapon we're going to make: a water sword. It's not really good as a fire sword but we wanna use the least dangerous element first as a tester.

"Okay, trial 1: copper and water." Violet says as she holds out her hands and soon, a bronze light started shining. It was taking the form of a very rough sword.

Soon after, Monique started to pour in her water element and the sword was complete. I held it in my hand. It was pretty heavy but at least we know that it was working.

"Wow! On the first tr-" Violet spoke too soon because a minute after it was made, the sword started to literally break into pieces.

"O....k. Um, maybe we should use a different metal?" Monique suggests, "maybe steel?"

"Good idea," I say as I write down the first test was a failure. "Okay, trial 2: steel and water." We tried the test again and the sword rusted within a minute. We continued this trial and error ten different times with different silvers.

"Ugh, it's no use! All the swords keep breaking down!" Violet complains as she slumps into her chair.

"There has to be something wrong with what we're doing,"I say as I look at all of our results.

"What's going on, Monique?" We all look over to the door and see a boy with a little girl on his shoulders.

"Hi Lionel, nothing much. We're just stumped in our progress," Monique sighs. "Oh I forgot to introduce you, this is my second oldest brother Lionel and that is my youngest sister Nicolette." Monique introduces.

"Pleasure to meet you," Lionel says.

"Yeah, pleasure to meet you!" Nicolette copies.

(Lionel and nicolette)

"So, what's wrong with your progress? I thought you already had that magical weapons thing figured out," Lionel says as he looks over at the results and blueprints.

"All the swords rust and break down in less than a minute. Gold was the only one that didn't rust as fast," Monique says as she shows him all the progress.

"Well then that's your problem," he says.

"What's our problem?" Monique asks.

"It's the water. This is magical water. It'll rust any metal," Lionel explains.

"So... This is pointless," Violet guesses.

"No, because if we somehow prevent the metal from rusting then it'll be perfect! Let's see... What about.... Coating it in dark magic so the darkness can eat away at any rust?" I suggest.

"That could work! But then what metal shall we use?" Monique asks.

"How about silver? Silver isn't that expensive to mass produce and it's way lighter than gold," Violet replies.

"That'll work. Now, let's try trial 14: silver coated with darkness and water."

Violet sighs as she gets up and starts to create a silver sword. I use my dark magic to wrap around the sword like a blanket before monique adds the water element. The sword started shining really bright and I had to look away in order to not get blinded. After the light dimmed down, the sword floated down into the table. I pick it up by the hilt and wait. A minute goes past and it didn't rust... Two minutes...

"It worked!" Violet exclaims.

(the sword)

"Good thinking brother! Now we'll be rich!" Monique beams.

"Your welcome, Monique," Lionel says as he puts Nicolette down.

"So... Is this the magical weapon then?" Nicolette asks as she peers over the desk.

"Not yet, this sword did work but it's going to need a lot of improvement. The sword isn't sharp nor professionally made. Also, we can't have Violet create all the silver so we'll need to buy the silver and hire blacksmiths. Then, we need to recruit some mages who can cast runes," I say.

"Well, what about a rune stamp?" Monique says.

"What's a rune stamp?" I ask.

"It's something that merchants have. Since not many people have an affinity for runes, those who do can create rune stamps for a specific type of rune and they can stamp it on their merchandise." Violet explains.

"That's great! So, where can we get one?"

"I'll have my father contact the Mage he got it from and order one for us," Monique says. "Also, I feel that we should sell other things apart from weapons, such as jewellery."

"That's a great idea! My sister Christiana has connections to a talented but underrated jeweller. I'll ask to see if we can feature some of his jewellery sets on the front desk," Violet says.

"We can also sell magic bags since adventurers frequent the capital a lot. Not to mention there's a guild not far from here," Monique says.

"Let's focus on the weapons and jewellery first. Then, after a month, we can start to sell magic bags and magical armour for the adventurers," I say.

"Well, I'll leave you girls to it. Come on Nicole," Lionel says as he picks up Nicolette.

"Awww but I wanna see the pretty sword!" Nicole whines as she was carried away by Lionel.

"So, shall we head to the workshop and assign jobs?" Violet says.

"Yeah, if we see what skills they have, we can set them up in their own groups and have them design different parts of the sword. Let's see... We need: blacksmiths, mages, shop workers and polishers and much more," Monique says.

We all board Monique's carriage and head for the workshop. There, Emily and jack and the rest of the group were waiting.

"Thanks again for saving me, miss!" Emily thanks me.

"Yeah! Thanks for savin' Emmy miss!" Squirrel says.

"It's no problem. After all, you all are officially under my protection now that you work for me," I reply.

"Still, what you did was very brave. I could never go on a rescue mission like that," Violet says.

"Enough of this, let's get started," Monique says as she claps her hands, gathering everyone's attention. "I'm going to need those who can use magic on the left, those who can read and write on the right and everyone else in the middle!"

Damn Niki, you're really good at organising. Surprisingly enough, only a few people could read and write, squirrel and robin included.

"I didn't know you were literate," I say to Robin.

"Emmy taught us!" Robin replies with a grin. Soon, four people entered the workshop.

"Perfect, there you are," Monique says as she addresses the men.

"Who are they Niki?" Violet asks.

"Well we need people to train the workers at their jobs, so I've hired a professional blacksmith, salesman and Mage." Monique explains.

"Wow, you did all this without us noticing? You really are a businesswoman," I click my tongue.

"Oh please, this is the bare minimum we need to make sure this business is successful," monique replies.

The workers with magic were taught how to use their magic and the blacksmith taught those who couldn't read or didn't have magic how to create a sword from scratch. The salesman taught those who could read and write how to be salespeople and the art of the business. All we did was watch and eat some snacks.

"Say, what do we name our new shop?" Violet asks as she takes a bite out of her chocolate mousse cake.

"In have no idea, what about you Sylvia?" Monique asks me as she drinks her juice since it was summer.

"Well... Since all of our swords are going to be silver then I guess silver should be in the name... And we have to be bold or other businesses may take advantage of us, so how about silver dragon?" I suggest as I reach for another piece of cake.

"That's a brilliant name. Silver dragon sounds so intriguing," Violet says. I would've said cool but I forgot that that's slang from my past life.

"Girls, I think this is the start of a wonderful partnership," I hold out my juice glass in a toast and we all clink glasses and drink.

"The stamp should be delivered by tomorrow so that should be when we officially mass produce the magical swords," Monique says. "After the launch of the water sword, I can imagine that we create fire swords and ice swords..."

"It can be a whole elemental based sword collection, then we can move onto bows and arrows," Violet exclaimed.

"So how much shall we sell this for?" I ask.

"50 large gold coins per weapon," monique says. Wow, just 5 large gold coins can let your live a decent life as a commoner. 50 large gold coins meant that we would be able to buy our own villas if we sell over a hundred weapons, which I'm sure we will. The King will probably order the weapons for the military and that will give us good advertising.

"That is a lot, Monique," Violet says.

"These weapons will be a lot stronger than other weapons. With Sylvia's dark magic around it, it's almost impossible to physically break. Not to mention that the magic compartment and maintenance will only need to be redone every year or so. That's way more durable than normal swords where you have to get maintenance done every month or so. 50 large gold coins is defiantly a good price," Monique explains.

"I agree. Dark magic isn't exactly easy to come across. Once the magic stamp is delivered, we can create our first batch of water swords and sell them," I say, "then we can move onto other weapons. I've always wanted to make an axe..."

"Wow, how medieval," Violet giggles.

The rest of the day flew past with us supervising the training and we all agreed that tomorrow shall be the day where we mass produce the magic swords.