Thomas Prest: A Simple Magician

Chapter 4: Tom's machinations

The business deal with the Jasin family went well and Tom started to receive his new shares of profit the following month. Fortunately, there was something called a magic contract that could make the terms ironclad so they couldn't straight out screw him over.

There were many ways the Jasin Family could try to get out of their obligations. For example, they could state the profit was lower and pay Tom less with him being unable to check. After all, it was their family business now and Tom had no right to inquire about these matters.

But with a magic contract, that was all avoided. James at first didn't want to sign a magic contract and it took another two hours of playing an obstinate naive excitable idiot researcher for Tom to get his way.

Of course, Tom was not afraid of the Jasin family reverse engineering his alchemy circle. Not after they came the second day after they signed the contract, begging for a second alchemical circle because the previous one 'broke'.

As much as they wanted to accuse him that Tom gave them a defective circle, all he needed to do was innocently say, "You tried to tamper with it, huh?"

And they instantly shut up, realizing the circle had a self-destructing sequence to protect its inner structure from tampering or reverse engineering. One could think that an alchemical circle was made up only of the symbols drawn on the floor but that was not exactly true. There were a lot of materials transmuted into it, a lot of components merged to its core to give it magical properties or change its essence...

It was not as straightforward as it seemed.

That was the very first time Tom did something that made the Jasin Family start to have doubts that he was just a fat lamb they could slaughter at their leisure. But it was also not enough to make them worry overly much.

Yes, they now knew there was no way to reverse engineer Tom's alchemy but Tom was not going anywhere, in their opinion. In fact, this only increased Tom's value in their eyes and therefore postponed any shady ideas of theirs.

Tom didn't put much thought into it. He had time... approximately six months before the Jasin Family started to be annoying.

He knew James's character. The man would no doubt send some rougher members of his family to 'persuade' Tom to create a new product for them if he doesn't deliver results in time.

It wouldn't matter to him that Tom never signed any contract stating he belongs to him or works for their family. In James's mind, Tom was definitely 'his' resource now.

But... Tom couldn't act yet. First, the reputation of the new product had to spread so he could do his counter-move.

That's why he decided to spend the next two months holed in his lab, researching, researching, and researching some more, preparing for the grand way to screw with every prick trying to pick on him in the magician community in England.

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After all, the Jasin Family were just small-time thugs compared to the bigger families. Even if Tom fended them off, he would not have achieved anything of worth.

It was better to put an effort to be shielded from everyone's greedy ambitions in one fell swoop rather than spend his time trying to fend off one pitiful dog barking at him at a time.

...

Five months passed in a blink of an eye and Tom was having the time of his life as he was amusedly reading an invitation to a party where anyone of importance within the English Magical Community was invited.

And how did someone insignificant like him manage to get an invitation?

Weeell... the story goes like this.

The Jasin Family's fortune increased a lot in just two months. Of course, it was nothing compared to what the big families earn every month but one has to realize, their earnings are the result of numerous businesses all pitching profits into the final massive number.

The Jasin Family managed to create a massive business with just one product, the Jasin Apples, which was an extremely curious thing for all those greedy magician families on the upper spectrum of their society. There was no such thing as too much money and no family grew complacent when it came to business. They always tried to expand.

Naturally, the Jasin Family's sudden fortune became a great source of curiosity for many families And when magic users want to know something, they will eventually find out. Especially when it comes to the really powerful ones.

Finding out where the Jasin Family got their product from was in no way hard for these families. In fact, it was just a trivial task that took them no longer than a few days at best.

For all the threatening image and arrogance Jasin Family had among the upstart magician families, they were just ants nobody cared about before they started to get a bit financially bloated.

Thomas fully understood this and used it to his advantage.

That's why he went around the idiots and started sending requests for meetings to most of the influential magician families in England around two months after the Jasin Apples were introduced to the market.

There weren't that many of these families, just around twenty, among which only Pendragons refused his meeting request, not deeming him worth their time. Pricks...

Obviously, the Jasin Family had no way to find out about these meetings with their influence barely reaching past their neighborhood so... sucks to be them.

Then again, Tom picked them to be his stepping stone exactly for that reason.

It wasn't easy, but Tom made a similar agreement with every important magician family in the country as he did with the Jasin Family. Well, except for the Pendragons.

Of course, the cunning old coots that led these families wanted to bully and scheme against him too. Some invited him to their families, offering marriage, which was actually a show of respect from their side so it somewhat flattered Tom.

From their perspective, he was an upstart so offering him to marry into their family simply for one achievement in alchemy was very generous, considering how many resources and benefits it would have granted him.

Yet, despite that, he refused.

Standing his ground against those people was not easy at all. They tried much subtler schemes and verbal manipulations than James Jasin. But it was also obvious they wanted to get their hands on the product Tom was offering.

Fortunately for Tom, the heads of these families did not have as much free time as James so they didn't pester him for hours on end. When they saw Tom would not respond to threats or promises, they made proper deals.

After all, the base deal Tom was offering was extremely favorable to them. For free and just a very small effort, their profits would increase a substantial amount.

If a family of seven people like the Jasin Family could rake in so many profits, how much could get a family such as Belgrade that had over fifty members with over five hundred subordinated magicians?

Tom purposefully skewed the deal in the favor of these families to not get a lot of trouble from them and get the deals smoothly.

It might sound stupid but... Tom focused on quantity over quality. He would receive profits from all of them each month so money would not be a problem for him anymore. Even if it is only ten percent of the profits... it really added up.

And with that, his second goal was completed.

The fun part of the deal-making came when one product with enhanced taste came popping after another, all in the same month, with different families supplying different products to the market. It was a sight to behold. The confusion. The chaos!

Tom only laughed his ass off as these old families thought they were the only ones with whom he made a deal only to realize he made deals with literally almost everyone that mattered.

Only three family heads really expected this move of his and Tom could respect that kind of foresight. Tom even stipulated in the contracts that the alchemical circles to enhance products would start working only at a certain time so it wasn't as if they had no clues as to what he was planning.

Still... he was giving all of these families different products from fruits to chocolate, to other different foods, so no family was in direct competition with another. On top of that, it wasn't as if foods were some kind of important product for which the families had to battle. It was simply easy money for them so after the initial discontent grumbling, there wasn't much complaining involved.

That's the only reason why this scheme worked at all and why Tom went for lower profit rates for himself.

Tom made allies with everyone through deals, bringing profit to them, and making anyone in the magician community who would want to target him have to go through these families first.

God bless for the existence of the magical contracts!

And in the very end, the Magician Families in England were just a means on end for him. They definitely were not the end goal. As much influence as they had in England, they were not exactly powerful in the grand scheme of things. Not really.