My Anime Shopping Tree & My Cold Prodigy Wife!
Episode : 126

Chapter: 251

A single, brilliant, azure spark crackled into existence at his fingertips with a sharp, audible pop. Then another. And another. They danced across his palm, like captured fireflies, tingling against his skin, smelling faintly of ozone and rain.

Lloyd stared, mesmerized, a laugh of pure, unadulterated delight bubbling up from his chest. It was small. It was weak. But it was real. It was lightning. His lightning. Or rather, their lightning.

He concentrated harder, pouring more of his will into the bond, drawing more of the power Fang Fairy so willingly offered. The sparks intensified, coalescing, weaving themselves together, until a controlled, crackling, miniature stream of pure, azure lightning, no thicker than a piece of string, danced and writhed across his open palm. It didn't burn him. It felt… alive. Warm. A part of him.

He could feel the drain, the effort it took to maintain even this small manifestation. His own energy reserves were clearly the limiting factor. But it was a start. A powerful, brilliant, electrifying start.

He looked up at Fang Fairy, a wide, triumphant grin spreading across his face. She met his gaze, her own golden eyes shining with a shared, silent pride. He had done it.

This was a new weapon. A new tool. A new dimension to his power. His Steel Wires were for precision, for binding, for lethal, hidden strikes. His Black Ring Eyes were for subtle, terrifying, metaphysical control. And this… this was raw, elemental power. A tool for distraction, for defense, for a sudden, shocking blast of pure, untamed energy.

He thought of his enemies, the ghosts from his past. They might be prepared for a Ferrum warrior. They might even, if they were truly well-informed, be wary of the legendary Austin eye-powers. But a Ferrum heir who could command not just steel, but lightning? An heir with an Ascended, humanoid, storm-goddess spirit at his side?

That, he suspected, was a variable they would not have anticipated.

He let the stream of lightning dissipate, the sparks fading, leaving only the tingle of residual energy on his skin. He felt drained, yes, but also… exhilarated. Reborn. The ninety-eight System Coins remaining in his account felt less like a paltry sum and more like the first installment in a new, much more powerful, future.

“Alright, Fang Fairy,” he said, his voice ringing with a newfound confidence that was absolute, unshakeable. “The game has changed. Let’s go show them what a storm really looks like.”

---

The intoxicating scent of ozone and newly wielded lightning faded, leaving behind the stark, pragmatic reality of Lloyd’s situation. Power was a wonderful, exhilarating thing. An Ascended spirit partner who looked like a storm goddess and a newfound ability to shoot sparks from his fingertips were, undeniably, excellent additions to his personal arsenal. But power, he knew with the weary certainty of an eighty-year-old who had managed military budgets, was expensive. It required fuel. And in this world, and especially in the world of the System, that fuel was money.

His brief, terrifying, and ultimately successful foray into the Galla Forest had netted him a respectable haul of quicksilver and a vital boost to his System Coin balance. His dramatic, tournament-winning performance had earned him his father’s grudging respect and a very welcome purse of two thousand Gold Coins. And his impromptu sales pitch to a disguised king had secured a fifteen-thousand-gold investment. He was, by any reasonable measure, suddenly, astonishingly, successful.

But it wasn’t enough. Not for the future he envisioned. Not for the arms race against the ghosts of his past he now knew he was in. The gold was finite. The System’s appetite for coins was endless. Upgrading his own Void powers, acquiring new spirits, buying the skills necessary to survive the coming storm… it would require a river of gold, not just a single, fortuitous flood.

The thrill of his new power receded, replaced by the familiar, cold focus of the strategist. He couldn't rely on one-off bounties or tournament prizes. He needed a sustainable, scalable, long-term source of income. He needed an engine of commerce.

He needed to get back to the soap.

He shoved the existential dread about reborn enemies, the unsettling mystery of Ben Ferrum, the lingering memory of the Red Man in his dream, into a tightly sealed box in the back of his mind. Those were problems for another day. Problems he could only face if he had the resources, the power, to do so. And the most immediate, tangible path to those resources was not through magic or combat, but through the mundane, messy, and potentially incredibly profitable, business of saponification.

Chapter: 252

The next day, Lloyd was not in the training yards, practicing his new lightning-wielding abilities. He was at the old grain mill, his fine noble attire replaced once more with practical, hard-wearing clothes, the scent of rosemary and curing tallow replacing the crisp smell of ozone.

He stood on a newly constructed wooden platform overlooking the main floor of the manufactory, a clipboard (another of his Earth-inspired innovations, much to Alaric’s delight) in hand, assessing the progress. And the progress was good.

The place was transformed. The dust and decay were gone, replaced by a sense of clean, organized industry. The great water wheel turned with a steady, rhythmic groan, the clanking of Borin’s ingenious wooden gear system a constant, productive heartbeat. The huge cauldrons, tended by the diligent Martha and Pia, simmered over controlled fires, their contents slowly transforming from raw ingredients into the creamy, nascent Elixir.

Up in the lofts, the air was a fragrant forest of curing hard soap. Thousands of pale, rosemary-scented bars, each stamped with the elegant ‘FF’ monogram, rested on meticulously spaced racks, hardening, mellowing, becoming more perfect with each passing day. The sheer volume was impressive, a testament to the efficiency of the workflow he, Lyra, and Jasmin had designed.

Downstairs, the first large, industrial batch of soft soap, the one they had made with the new mechanical stirrer, had cooled completely. It rested in large, sealed earthenware jars, a thick, creamy, pale beige paste, its rosemary scent clean and inviting. Alaric, ever meticulous, had taken samples, testing their pH with alchemical litmus strips, checking their consistency, their lathering properties. His ledgers, already thick with data, confirmed his initial assessment: the quality was consistent, stable, and, most importantly, replicable.

The first ten prototypes of the new, simplified dispenser bottle had arrived from Master Valerius’s workshop. They were beautiful, a testament to the old craftsman’s skill, the standardized bronze pump mechanisms, coated in Lyra’s alchemical sealant, fitting perfectly into the smoothly turned wooden bodies. They had successfully transitioned from a one-off miracle of Void power to a manufacturable luxury item.

It was, by any measure, a success. A resounding success. The factory was operational. The team was efficient. The product was ready.

Lloyd stood there, a quiet, deep satisfaction settling in his chest. This was real. This was his. A tangible achievement born not of inherited power or cosmic luck, but of knowledge, of planning, of hard, collaborative work.

But he was a pragmatist. A successful product and an efficient factory were only two legs of a three-legged stool. The third leg, the one that would determine whether this was a successful business or just a very expensive, very fragrant hobby, was sales. Distribution. Marketing.

He knew his own limitations. He could design a factory. He could formulate a product. He could even, when sufficiently motivated by giant snakes or disguised kings, be surprisingly persuasive. But the day-to-day grind of dealing with merchants, of haggling over prices, of building a distribution network, of crafting a marketing campaign that would convince the skeptical, tradition-bound nobility of Riverio to abandon their harsh lye blocks for his revolutionary cleansing elixir… that required a different kind of skill set. A skill set he did not possess.

He needed a professional. A merchant’s tongue. A mind attuned not to alchemy or engineering, but to the subtle, ruthless art of commerce. He couldn't be the face of this enterprise; his time was too valuable, his position as heir too conspicuous. He needed a general for his commercial army. A Head of Sales and Marketing.

His thoughts immediately turned to the one person he knew who possessed an almost religious fervor for the principles of commerce, a man whose professional skepticism had transformed into the wide-eyed zeal of a true convert.

Master Elmsworth.

He found the economics tutor in his dusty, book-lined office later that day, poring over the very same profit-and-loss projections he had so manically scribbled during the initial presentation. Elmsworth looked up as Lloyd entered, his eyes gleaming with a familiar, slightly unsettling, economic fire.

“Young Lord Lloyd! Excellent! I was just refining my five-year forecast for market saturation in the Southern Provinces! The potential for displacing the imported perfume market is, I believe, significantly underestimated!”

“Master Elmsworth,” Lloyd began, getting straight to the point. “The factory is operational. The product is ready. Now, we need to sell it. And for that, I need someone… specific.”

Elmsworth leaned forward, his interest piqued. “A sales agent? A factor? A seasoned merchant to manage the initial contracts?”