Chapter 126: Printing Gold
Lucius waited.
Nothing happened.
Luna had just said "Flash," but the P40 hovered motionless in the air like a decorative piece of metal.
There was no movement... no light... not even a damn sound escaped the drone.
’Did it break?’ he thought, frowning a bit.
The thing looked fine... its frame wasn’t cracked and its wings weren’t trembling but still, he couldn’t help but think something had gone wrong.
Maybe it had short-circuited... or maybe it had broken on the inside...
He turned to Luna, ready to ask if it needed another command, but froze.
She was grinning.
That wide, mischievous grin told him all he needed to know.
"Oh fuck..." he muttered. "What’s Flash going to—"
Before he could finish the sentence, a burst of light erupted directly in front of him.
It was like staring directly into the sun.
Everything turned white.
His eyes stung immediately.
For a full second, his brain couldn’t even process what had just happened... he just knew that his entire vision was gone.
He couldn’t see anything except white all around.
"What the hell?!" Lucius shouted, instinctively raising a hand to his face.
His mind clicked, and a pulse of spatial energy wrapped around his eyes like a filter.
The world returned in muted tones, barely visible through the afterglow.
The P40 was right above him, bathing him in a concentrated cone of pure, blinding light... bright enough to turn the entire basement into a miniature sun.
It was more impressive than what he had expected when Luna had said Flash...
"Did you like it?" Luna called out from in front of him.
She had wisely taken cover, standing under the P40 which was well out of the floodlight’s path.
"It’s one of P40’s defense mechanisms."
Lucius blinked rapidly, still seeing small spots in his vision.
"What the hell kind of defense blinds your allies too?"
"Not permanently!" she said quickly. "It’s a calibrated flash burst. The intensity hits around two hundred thousand lumens for half a second... just enough to overload visual mana receptors in Awakeners and regular eyes alike. But the wavelength modulation keeps it from burning the retina or causing lasting damage."
Lucius rubbed his temples. "English, Luna."
She laughed softly, scratching her head.
"It’s bright enough to blind someone temporarily... but safe enough to recover from."
The P40 turned off its light and descended gracefully, landing back on her forearm with a soft metallic click.
"I get it, you’re a genius," Lucius said, rubbing his eyes one last time. "Still... don’t you think you’re overpreparing? You’ve basically turned a bird drone into a walking war weapon."
"There’s no such thing as overpreparing," Luna said firmly, hugging the drone to her chest like a pet. "I want to be able to contribute. You always protect me in battles and I appreciate that a lot... but even if I’m not an Awakener, I still want to be useful to you."
Lucius stared at her for a long second.
She was serious... genuinely serious.
He sighed and folded his arms.
"You know, most people would be happy letting me handle things. I’d kill to have someone protecting me 24/7."
For example he would! Who wanted to work when you had an overpowered person standing protective over you!
So what if he was called a weak man online? Would the average person want to be stuck facing monstrous abominations in a dungeon?
"I’m not most people," she said quietly, smiling.
That, he couldn’t argue with. She was special...
"Alright," he said finally. "In the next dungeon raid, I’ll let you engage a few monsters."
Her entire face lit up. "Really?"
"As long as you promise not to blow yourself up with another prototype," he added dryly.
She was going to wear the protective suit that he got for her... that one didn’t have any weapons on it so he wasn’t worried, he found it funny picturing Luna stabbing at a monster with a knife though.
Luna laughed, twirling a strand of her bright purple hair between her fingers.
"Deal. But you won’t use space to control them, right?"
Lucius froze mid-breath.
"I control monsters with space?" he repeated innocently.
Such accusations!!!
"Yes," she said flatly. "You think I didn’t notice? Maybe once or twice, I could believe it was a coincidence. But when twenty monsters tripped on invisible rocks and another dozen exploded midair without being touched..."
She stepped closer until she was right in front of him, pouting adorably. "So you won’t do that with me, right?"
Lucius exhaled and patted her head. "I won’t."
’Much,’ he added silently in his head.
He wasn’t going to risk her life, no matter how smart she was.
She was far too valuable and not just because of her inventions.
She was going to be his golden ticket to a life of effortless luxury.
He just needed to keep her alive long enough to see it.
Who didn’t want to be rich after retiring?
"Anyway," he said, changing the subject, "how’s the pre-ordering going? You said the site was getting a bit traction after the test stream, right?"
Luna’s eyes brightened immediately. "Oh, right! I haven’t checked that in a while."
She pulled out her phone and opened the website she’d coded herself.
The loading bar spun for a moment, then a number appeared at the top of the page.
Her mouth dropped open.
Lucius leaned closer. "Well?"
"We’re at... one hundred thousand pre-orders," she said slowly, blinking at the number as if her brain refused to believe it. "Wait, that can’t be right. I swear it said one thousand last time I checked."
Lucius’s jaw dropped. "One hundred thousand?!"
He grabbed her shoulders, shaking her lightly. "Oi, do you realize how much that is?!"
Her phone nearly slipped from her hands.
"I-I mean... I priced the standard drones at 250 royals and the high-end ones at 450. Most people picked the high-end version..."
Lucius did the math in his head, and his pupils shrank.
"That’s... over fifty million royals."
Lucius felt the urge to kick Luna...gently, of course just to shake some sense into her.
Fifty million royals.
Fifty.
Million.
From pre-orders alone.
They hadn’t even launched a full marketing campaign yet, and the world was already throwing money at them.
People wanted the drones so badly that the stock hadn’t even been advertised properly.
And yet here she was, sitting at her desk with a focused look on her face, designing another prototype instead of mass-producing the one that had made her rich.
She was supposed to be printing money for his... ahem their mutual retirement.
Not tinkering around like some underpaid intern!
"You have to work," Lucius said firmly, removing his hands from her shoulders before he got carried away.
Luna wasn’t as enthusiastic as he was.
"Work?!" she repeated, looking like she’d just been told to lift a mountain. "I don’t even have the parts to make a thousand drones, let alone a hundred thousand! What am I supposed to do?"
Lucius shrugged. "Tell Villy?"
It was his go-to solution for most problems.
Whether the issue was food, money, or existential dread, the answer was usually Villy.
And as if fate had been waiting for its cue, the dwarven maid appeared right then, walking into the room with grace.
"My lord, you called?" Villy said, bowing with perfect posture.
Lucius turned to her, a mischievous grin spreading across his face... one that made even the unflappable dwarf take a half-step back.
"Luna needs help with assembling drones," Lucius said smoothly. "About a hundred thousand of them. There are two designs... a standard and a premium. Do you think that’s doable?"
Villy didn’t flinch.
She placed a hand on her chest and bowed even lower.
"My lord, whether it be a hundred thousand or a million," she said with unwavering loyalty, "as long as you desire it, I can do it. My dwarven magic can shape and build anything... so long as I have the proper materials."
’Right. Dwarves are born builders.’
He stepped closer and pointed toward Luna’s arm.
"Can you replicate that drone she’s holding?"
Luna perked up instantly, her earlier panic forgotten.
"There are enough spare parts on the table to make another one!" she said, excitement bubbling in her voice. "You can use those!"
Villy nodded, turning toward the table cluttered with metal shards, small screws, broken plates, and three faintly glowing mana stones.
She gave the P40 a longlook, her emerald eyes glowing faintly.
Her pupils dilated as light spread across them.
Then, she turned bsck to the table and said, "Assemble."
A powerful green beam burst from her hands, bathing the entire table in light.
Every loose piece of metal began to tremble.
One by one, bolts lifted, gears floated, plates aligned.
Even the mana stones drifted upward, swirling in a circle.
Luna and Lucius watched in awe as the parts clicked together... almost like an invisible craftsman was working at supernatural speed.
Sparks of mana flashed between the pieces as the final segment snapped into place.
The drone’s eyes lit up, glowing the same soft blue as its twin.
It hovered once... perfectly balanced then flapped its metal wings and soared into the air, hovering proudly above their heads.
Lucius’s jaw dropped.
"You actually did it," he muttered. "It looks identical."
Luna beamed. "That’s incredible, Villy!"
Villy smiled. "Thank you. It was a simple matter."
The P40 let out a mechanical chirp and then, without warning, unleashed a blinding beam of white light downward.
The entire room was swallowed in brightness.
Luna screamed. "VILLY!"
Lucius recoiled, shielding his face instinctively but it was useless.
The light pierced through his eyelids, flooding his vision until all he could see was white.
Villy’s voice sounded through the chaos.
"My lord, I apologize! I didn’t check the internal programming thoroughly. It appears to be malfunctioning!"
Lucius didn’t hear her.
Or rather, he did but her words barely registered over the euphoric thrill that was bubbling up inside him.
He was blind, sure.
Temporarily.
But that didn’t matter.
Because what had just happened proved something monumental.
If Villy could replicate a drone like that in mere seconds, they could mass-produce anything.
A hundred thousand? Easy.
A million? Give them a week.
They were standing on top of a gold mine.
Lucius started laughing... at first, it was soft and then it became uncontrollable.
He grabbed Villy by the waist, spinning her around even as the room remained a blur of white light.
"I love you, Villy! We’re rich! Flipping rich!"