Capítulo 12: Rome
Year- 400 BC
Years in world-3,600 years 4 months 16 days
Name- Adam Anthony Gray
Age-18[immortal] (3,618 years old)
Height- 6'3
System abilities-mind shield,
Once I got my fill of the peaceful life I decided to head to Rome. Over the past few hundred years Rome has started to conquer lands in what will become Italy and grow. knowing how powerful Rome will become I decided to start making some serious money. So after packing my belongings onto a cart I headed south to Rome.
The closer I got to Rome the more I saw the flourishing lands full of farmers and crops.
Once the city came into view I was amazed
the temples to the gods and just the number of buildings was incredible to see
Once I got to the more populated part of the city I couldn't stop myself from looking in all directions. Taking in the happy atmosphere of the citizens.
As I traveled to Rome I came up with an idea of how to make a living in Rome.
Of course, I had a boatload of gold in my cart but that won't last me forever so I decided to become a blacksmith.
It took a few days to find a blacksmith willing to sell me the shop and tools. But he was only willing to sell at an insane price. But I would make it back in time. And I had a lot of that.
The shop was in a good market district and had a lot of foot traffic. So I wasn't too upset about the loss of gold.
Once I owned the shop I began to build tools or weapons for sale. Pumping them out at an incredible speed.
Business was slow for the first few years only doing farm tools for farmers or tools for craftsmen.
But finally, I had a soldier enter my shop looking to see if I could fix his heavily dented sword.
The sword looked like it was used in battle so I asked.
"Seen some fighting?" I asked picking the blade up from his hand
"Yes, the northern Gauls are pushing south. My patrol found a group of them far into our borders. My guess is they are going to attack soon so I wanted to get my sword fixed before that happens just in case." the soldier said, scratching his head tiredly.
"Well, we can't have one of Rome's soldiers entering battle with a sword like this," I say looking at the heavily dented sword.
"how long until you can fix it?" he asked me.
"I can have it done by early afternoon," I say to him.
"but that's only a few hours. Most smiths take days." the soldier asked in a confused but happy voice.
"yes most smiths would take that long but I'm not them," I say, giving the soldier a smile.
"How much will it cost me?" the soldier asked.
"I will do it for seven bronze"
The soldier only got more confused.
"but the rest of the smiths do it for ten or more bronze."
"Like I told you, I am not like the rest of the smiths."
Of course, I wasn't doing this to go broke. I was doing this so he would go and tell his military friends that there's a smith that does good, fast work for a lower price.
Fixing his sword would only take me an hour at most. For most smiths, it would take multiple hours so they charged more for the time it would take to fix their blades and the material needed to do so.
Once his buddies come I will charge them 8 or 9 bronze for things that will take me an hour. Making me a good profit for an hour of work.
And it worked. before I knew it I had more work than I could handle. I ended up hiring people to work the front of my shop while I hammered away in the back.
But even then I was getting flooded. So I took on some apprentices. Teaching them how to forge of course they couldn't get as much done as me but they did get very skilled.
The good thing about all that was I was making some serious money. Allowing me to buy some more shops. And sending those smiths to my shops. With me only taking a 10 percent cut of their sales.
Within thirty years I had over 10 smiths shops. Unfortunately, Rome was taken over by the Gauls for seven months. They massacred many innocent people and stole anything that wasn't attached. While Rome burned for the first time I used my main shop to hide civilians, my smiths, and their families while I killed any gaul solder that tried to enter. Only when I had killed more than a hundred soldiers with ease. Did they finally leave me be.
Once the Gauls were defeated and left did Rome began to rebuild and so did I.
Most of my shops were still intact but had been looted for any weapons or tools that were inside.
But I could buy and rebuild because what else could I do?
After a few months, business began to pick up explosively. Due to the fact that, my smiths and I were some of the only living smiths in Rome. all the others either died or fled and haven't returned yet. Leaving a vacuum for weapons or tools that I was more than happy to fill.
In just a few years things were back to normal.
And once again I was making more money than I knew what to do with, so I started buying more stuff. Because the best way to make more money is to buy things that can make you more money…its simple math.
So I started buying potteries. These places made all sorts of stuff from bowls, cups, plates, or decorative pieces for the rich. My biggest seller was roof tiles. And chouses.
Then I started to buy land. A lot of land.
Of course, I had to bribe a lot of officials to do that. But as long as they got paid enough they had no problem doing what I asked them to do.
Once I got the land I would buy slaves and set them free. Paying them to work my land.
I also built them homes to live in.
Happy workers happy life…and harder workers to bring in more money.
Most of my land was for regular crops but I also paid people to start a large wine vineyard.
All this happened over one hundred years.
Around the forty-year mark, I started to employ people to do things for me so I wouldn't have to show my face and make people curious as to why I don't age.
The last thing I need is for people to think I'm a god or something.
Over those one hundred years I made a deal with the Roman Senate to make me the sole supplier of the weapons and armor for the Roman military. Spending a large chunk of money to bribe members with a lot of sway to do that.
I made the first makeshift factories to do this.
I constructed a massive foundry. And I mean massive. I had over a thousand workers all in one massive building.
At one end is where the ore would come in and be melted down into bars. Once the bars were done it would move to the smiths.
The smiths were separated into different groups.
One group did the sword another did spearheads, then one did the armor.
The smiths that made the weapons would make them while having apprentices. Giving me more smiths to add to my employ once they know how to forge. Allowing me to grow even bigger.
Once done with the swords they would go to the sharpeners who would use files or grindstones to sharpen the swords or spearheads.
The sheaths for the swords were made by others and I bought the sheaths from them in bulk for the swords.
They would every now and then try to get me to pay out the nose for the sheaths because they knew I was making massive amounts of money.
But every time they would do that all I had to do was go to my good friends in the Senate and tell them their army wouldn't have sheaths for their swords because the sheath makers were charging me an arm and a leg for a sheath. making me lose money that I could be using to give them donations.
It's incredible to see what lengths the officials will go to just for money.
One of the sheath makers that screwed with me was arrested for "violating the law" because he was interfering with the Roman military stopping them from getting their weapons.
After a few times of that happening no one was willing to rip me off.
After it became law that all men must join the Roman military. I had a constant flow of money. Even though I had to pay my workers above-average pay I was still making insane amounts of money.
Over the next few hundred years I became the richest man in Rome.
I bought a number of quarries where Rome would get their stone for the aqueducts. Or their massive coliseums. Or homes. Making me all the richer.
But still every few years I would head north to check on the Volturi.
Surprisingly they had begun to find vampires with abilities. Nothing incredible just some with strength-based abilities but still that was a start.
I knew that Jane and her brother were the ones that gave the Volturi the advantage when they fought the Romanians and they wouldn't be turned until the 900s AD so that gave me a time period of when the Volturi would attack the Romanians.
And finally, end their rule.
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