Chapter 757: Forging License exam
After the small altercation in the form of trial and the veiled threat Sam gave him along with the free advice he gave to Raunak, Sam got himself busy with the construction.
This is the first detailed and proper construction he is doing after he got the earth element and he is using a special new technique. The special reinforced concrete.
Normal concrete is actually quite good, but he wants to see how the reinforced concrete structure works in this world with all the special metals with special properties and their special affinities with the different elements, he wants to see how he can make use of it.
Anyway, while he is researching in this direction, his friends are working on the foundation of the building.
It has been around five months since they came here and there is only a month away before the completion of a year since the last palace of inheritance.
Sam must finish laying the path for his development in this realm within a year as he has to go and find the next Palace of inheritance location from Arkiv or Arman who are still in the Desolate realm.
While Sam is planning the development, someone familiar came back. He is none other than Braman the builder-merchant.
"I can help you with the forging license, but all the weapons or weapon designs you make have to go through the One-Star military unit."
"Of course, I already agreed to that."
"Then let's put it in a paper and sign it."
"I am not really okay with that. I will only sign an agreement after the license comes to me."
"That is not what we previously agreed on."
"We didn't agree to sign the document early either. Its your word against mine. What do you say we do?"
"What if you leave after the license and hang me out to dry?"
"What if you hang me out to dry without the license after I signed it, you are going to strong arm me into giving my designs away since we cannot put your help for the license in the agreement. Do you think I was born yesterday?"
"This is absolutely ridiculous. We shouldn't have just agreed with you. Now you are showing your true colors."
"I never hide my true colors Mr. Braman. Its just that the people are too dumb to recognize that. Do you really think you are so smart and the decision maker who might have convinced and more likely forced you to accept my terms is dumber than you?
Just how good do you think you are?
You might think that you and I are making this deal, but that is not true in any sense. The deal is between me and the ones behind you.
And you better what you are told, as I am sure there are enough people that could replace you if anything happens.
As for taking me on by force, I already told you, do you think that the two factions and your superiors are so dumb that they didn't think of that idea? Or are you for some reason ignoring the burned forest around you and the rumors that are surrounding it.
Don't talk to me in that tone one more time. All this while I am playing defense just for the fun of it, if I go on offense, your superiors will serve you on the silver platter like an offering to a deity.
I will finish the deal after the license is approved. Do whatever you want. Otherwise, I am sure that the faction 2 would be kind enough to get me a license in exchange for the same deal."
With that Sam left the spot and went back to do his research. Sam is currently feeling a bit frustrated with these stupid political driven place.
It is easy to take advantage, but there are just too many dumb people here. Politicians are happy to run this place because of this blind superiority complex these elves have and the blind inferiority complex these elves drilled into the humans and the centaurs, which made it easy for the manipulators to take advantage.
But the factions are too large and too detailed for Sam to tolerate this.
Due to the nature of these factions, the leaders are not coming out to talk for themselves as everything they do is being magnified and the public opinions matter too much.
This happened back on earth too. But on earth there is no use of physical strength compared to a strong political power. A person's strength wouldn't matter much individually in an open place full of public eyes which made the footing of the politicians more solid, but here the physical strength or more precisely the raw strength of a person easily makes a big difference.
In fact that strength matters more than the political power and this creates a conflict between the political image and the image based on strength. Here the balance is delicate because a person who is part of the public and also possess immense strength will retaliate when the politicians get out of their façade and do what they want.
The same thing cannot happen in earth. Even if the politicians are known for their opinions and evil deeds, normal people cannot do much.
This difference caused the politicians here to hide deeply and they wouldn't interact with anyone who is troublesome directly.
This made things troublesome for Sam.
If only he could meet a proper leader who has enough decision making power, he is sure that he would be able to fix this ongoing headache.
He has to kill people secretly when they are coming at him and he has to make sure that there is no implicating evidence at whatever he does.
He is getting bored of this.
Braman is clenching his fists hard and tried to control his urge to smack Sam once and be done with it.
Meanwhile, Sam processed the paperwork through Raunak.
Even though he is a special officer, he is actually like assistant to Sam who is making all the arrangements regarding the government issues.
Sam's application process is clearly faster, but there would be a test about his forging skills.
Only after Raunak explained did he understand just how complicated this procedure is.
The easiest way to get past this is join the college in the capital of the Planet 1. There is a college for all these vocational disciplines besides the school of bureaucracy. After they finished the course and passed the required tests they are good to go.
But the courses are extremely pricey.
Of course, there is also a way for the people who didn't want to go to the college and that is the direct examination which Sam has to take.
These direct examinations are a lot stricter and harder and the basic requirement to even apply is to be a civilian and the second requirement is actually the financial status. A person has to pay a large amount of fee for the test.
Both of them are not a big deal for Sam, so there is no need for him to worry. As for the skill test that is going to be the last part, he is confident that even the faction members who wants to create trouble for Sam wouldn't be able to do anything to him. He is confident to the point that it is border line arrogance and narcissism combined.
The only problem is the long processing time. But when he asked about this, Raunak's answer surprised him.
He was told that this is the fastest processing of an application that ever happened, the faction candidates will not go through this process and they will go through the college so their applications don't count.
Apart from them, Sam is the only commoner who managed to get his application processed this fast.
Soon, Sam's exam date arrived, it is the last day of the month on which he is settling all the taxes.
He left the taxation troubles to his friends and went for the exam. The panel of judges really surprised Sam.
One of the judges is actually the city lord who is looking at Sam with those meaningful eyes. Sam just didn't care at all.
From what Sam knew all the town heads and the city lords in this planet are just some puppets that are used by their respective faction's bureaucrats. If the city lord is really smart or skilled enough to find a mistake in Sam's forging, then he wouldn't be a puppet pushed around by others.
There are not many tests, it is just the direct forging tests. He has to forge three different things based on the images and the blue prints given to him and each level becomes tougher and tougher.
The final test is actually a full body armor.
It is in the style of a foot combat armor of the medieval periods mostly used in the tournaments.
The armor is mostly focused on the intricate and delicate details within the surface design.
Even the first two tests are not easy, he has to forge some tricky weapons. One of them is a large Flanged head Mace and the other one is a Buckhorn Parrying stick.
These are pretty complicated weapons that need excellent control of strength and force used to forge the metal. The shapes are a bit complicated and it is just a lot of trouble.
He knew that these guys wants to make trouble for him, but Sam is not really that flustered. It is unexpected, but not impossible.