Summoned Again?

That night, I delivered a load of ore on a medium sized dump truck that I had rented completely for show, and the workers stared at the small pile of nearly pure gold ore that was in the back. The dump truck couldn't carry much more than twenty tons, so I had to make several trips to deliver it all. It took a while, because I had just over 300 tons of it that I had to fake picking up and delivered to them. The workers were stunned at the total when they finished weighing it all.

“Sir, this... I can't believe...” The woman I had working in the office said as she wrote down the total.

“I assume you're doing the math in your head?” I asked and she nodded. “What's it come to?”

“Well, if you use a metric ton of a thousand pounds for the base, there's 32,150.7 Troy ounces in it.” She said. “The relative price of gold is about $1,500 a Troy ounce, or 48.23 million dollars.”

There was a lot of cursing, a few whistles, and three marriage proposals. Only two of them were from women and a bunch of them laughed when the man shrugged and didn't take his proposal back. I politely declined them, of course.

“We use American tons, or 2,000 pounds, so double it and multiply it by 300, since the smelting will take a few tons off.” She said. “If my mental math is right, that's close to 29 billion dollars.”

Complete silence met her words and they all stared at me with shock on their faces.

“Does anyone regret moving here now?” I asked and they all shook their heads. “What about the other metals?”

“The only one close is platinum and you had about 30 tons of it. That's only about another billion dollars.” She said and looked at her list. “The values of everything else is negligible in comparison, despite them being much more plentiful and in demand.”

“Yeah, I thought as much.” I said. “Call me when the zinc is done and you've got some of the gold melted. I'll be over with a load of scrap gold to add to it.”

“Yes, sir.” She said and made a note of it. “Can you give us an estimate of how much scrap you'll have?”

My inventory didn't give me a weight for all of the gold things that had been in the dragon's treasure. It just took up a ton of inventory space of 'miscellaneous items of gold'.

“Um... I'm not sure. I'll have to crush them in the compactor first if you want them weighed.” I looked at the back of the dump truck. “Maybe sixty or so loads that big. I'm just guessing, so it may be more.”

“You have that much?” One of the women asked, clearly shocked.

“I picked up a bunch of things when the previous owner died and I gained control of their belongings.” I said, which wasn't a lie. “We might just have to count the gold bullion bricks as they come out, because crushing the items might make them take longer to melt.”

“Not really.” She said. “As long as we don't compact them too tightly, it'll still weigh the same in a smaller size.”

I had to think about that. “Well, we could spend a few minutes sorting out the obvious jewelled things and then crush the rest for each load.” I looked at the workers. “No stealing. If you see something you like, just put it aside and we can discuss it.”

The women's faces lit up and they had happy smiles.

“Be reasonable, all right?” I said with a chuckle. “You can't keep everything.”

“Well, damn.” One of the women said with a pout and the others laughed.

“Don't worry, you'll all be getting completion bonuses for your hard work when this is all done.” I said and they all looked happy for a moment, then they all went sad.

“This isn't a permanent job?” One of the men asked.

“You signed on for a year, with extension options after that.” I said. “I've got some people looking into local area mines; but, I doubt there's any even close to where we are.”

“Did they do a deep geological survey?” One of the women asked.

I looked at the woman who ran the office. “I guess that'll be your job to check.”

“Yes, sir. If they have, I'll let everyone know. If they haven't...”

“You already have access to the budget for this place. Go crazy with it if it'll find you guys more work.” I said. “Just don't announce anything. Tell me where and I'll see if the property is available to buy, then we'll start a mine.”

“I can't run a mine and this operation, sir.” The woman said.

I chuckled. “I'll bring in more people if you can actually find me a mine nearby. I've got a lot of experience in what kind of staff is needed for it, since I've got eight of them scattered around the world. Then again, I have to wonder if they'll even grant me a mining license with all the crap they've been putting me through.”

The woman smiled. “If I find it, I'll claim it.”

I raised my eyebrows for a moment, then gave her Angel's professional smile. “Would someone like a silent investor in their new venture?”

The woman stared at me and didn't seem to be blinking her eyes.

“It's all right.” I said and turned my smile down to a normal one to make her relax. “As you can clearly see, I have access to a little bit of capital and can afford it.”

A lot of the workers laughed and the woman had to smile.

“Call me when the smelter's set for the gold.” I said and walked over to the loading dock.

“Yes, sir.” She said and held her clipboard tightly. “I'll get the office workers to start researching right away.”

I unbarred the door and turned around to look at her. “You can do it in the morning.” I said and looked at everyone. “Get some rest. We've got billions of dollars worth of gold to smelt.”

“Jesus, I never thought I'd hear that!” One of the men exclaimed and then laughed, as did a few others.

I went home and parked the dump truck behind my apartment building out of sight, then stored it. I couldn't take the chance that it might get damaged or stolen. It also wouldn't fit into the parking garage, so it was store it or take my chances. I wasn't taking chances.

I spent the night with Susan, who was as enthusiastic as ever in her lovemaking, and the next day we spent the whole time hanging out with Crystal, Nat, and Sandy. Nat and Sandy's first normal date had gone off spectacularly and Nat had swept Sandy off of her feet just as well as I had with Susan's first real date. They'd had several dates since then and they were definitely having a great time with their relationship.

I was called the next day and the smelter was ready. By the time I arrived at the industrial complex with the first load of miscellaneous gold things, the workers already had half of the machine filled with molten gold, which was perfect. I backed the dump truck up and parked it, then hopped out as the loading bay doors opened.

Rather than dump out the things in the back, several ladders were placed on the sides and all of the workers climbed into the back. There were a lot of gasps, squeals, and a few comments about only taking one or two things.

“Remember, there's sixty more loads.” I said loudly up to them. That earned me a few more squeals and then a bunch of things were handed down to me and the office workers. We put them aside and the workers climbed down. “You next.” I said to the office workers and they looked surprised. “Go on. You work here, too.”

They looked very happy and climbed up and rooted for several minutes.

“Maybe next time.” They said and climbed back down.

“We've got all day to find you something nice.” I reassured them and they nodded.

“I've got the crusher ready.” One of the men said and rolled over one of the large metal carts with wheels. I operated the dump part of the truck and tipped the back up. A pile of items flowed out and quickly filled up the large cart. It took five carts to fill the crusher, with a short break to pull out any obvious items with jewels on them.

That's how the day went. I pretended to pick up more gold items, all nearly completely pure, they picked out a few things they wanted to keep, removed the jewelled items for ease of smelting, and then crushed them to weigh them. Whole blocks of that crushed gold were dumped into the smelter and they melted just as well as the loose items did. They were added in after the jewels were removed and then ingots of gold were poured into the waiting molds.

When nearly cooled, they were stamped with my corporation logo, a serial number for tracking purposes, and the content of 999.98 percent pure gold. It needed that slight impurity to hold its shape, or it would be too soft and deform when stacked. Of course, the damn things were quite heavy, since gold was so dense. At approximately 25 pounds each, even a small stack was a significant amount of weight, and there were going to be a lot of stacks.

Each stack would weigh 2,000 pounds and contained 80 gold bars for ease of counting, and when just the ore was done, that would be 300 stacks of 80 gold bars on pallets. It was... a lot. A whole heck of a lot at 24,000 gold bars. Most semi-tractor trailers can carry a load limit of 25 tons, or 25 stacks. We would need twelve fully loaded trucks to carry the gold ingots made from the ore alone.

That's when our real work began. Over the next several weeks, the other smelters finished with their other metals and were quickly filled with molten gold. The extra gold items we were tossing in would continuously increase the number of gold ingots we were smelting as well. It didn't seem like much at first, almost like we were not making any difference, then the gold level in the smelters would drop slightly and we would add more gold items.

Everyone picked out a few nice things for themselves from the miscellaneous items and they were all happy as the work went on and on. It was amazing to watch the process as more gold ingots were produced and the ore was being used up. I had to hire security guards to guard the storage room that was starting to fill up with stacks of gold bars. With six machines working for twelve hours a day, the workmen had been right. In no time at all, I had a lot of gold bars.

A month later, after the geological survey and I had used up the last of the gold items, I finally found out the amount of gold that I had gained from the dragon. I had thought the ore alone was the heavy things I had absorbed to cause me pain and I couldn't have been farther from the truth. The dragon's treasure that had been inside that huge chasm was over three times the amount of total tonnage of ores I had gained.

It was mind boggling, considering the amount that I had given to the wolf pack and donated to the cat clan taking care of My Favorite. I hadn't realized that a room full of treasure was worth so much at the time and I had given two of them away without measuring the rooms first to see the volume. That meant I should have had a significant amount more for smelting, which was crazy.

The workers stood there and stared at just over 1,346 stacks of solid gold bars, while I lightly laughed to myself, because it was only four fifths of what I used to have. With each stack worth $96,460,000... it was a whopping total of $129,835,160,000 or almost 130 billion dollars.

What I found funny was that I still hadn't added in the 13 billion, 680 million, and 800 thousand or so gold coins that I had from the first world I visited or the gold coins I had gained from the dragon's treasure that had been separated into another area in my mind automatically.

The term 'set for life' wasn't applicable for me anymore. Set for forever, maybe? I asked myself and looked at the workers around me. “So, who else wants to go out to get something to eat? For some reason, I feel like celebrating.”

A few people laughed.

“We'll need 54 trucks to haul all of this to the federal reserve.” The woman that ran the office said. “I don't know if I can get that many all at once. We'll have to settle for ten or twelve and then rotate them through to keep a constant delivery schedule.”

I nodded. “I should assume that the federal reserve has forklifts and things; but, I'm not taking that chance.” I looked at the workers. “Forklift drivers?”

Six of them lifted their hands.

“You'll be riding along with your lifts as these things are delivered over the next few days.” I said and looked at the time. “Damn, it's too late to call for an appointment.”

“Yes, it is.” The woman from the office said and touched my arm. “Go home and get some rest.”

I let out a sigh and nodded. “I think we all deserve a rest.” I said and everyone agreed. We left the building after locking everything up and when they were all gone, I drove home and did the same tucking Crystal into bed ritual I did every night, kissed her forehead, and left her room to go to bed.

I spent a bit of time with Susan, enough to tire her out, and then I left the apartment and went back to the industrial complex. “I forgot a few things. Don't mind me.” I said to the guards and then made them forget that I went back in and to ignore any noises for the next few hours.

I proceeded to the storage area and stored all of the gold ingots on their pallets, like I did every night, because there was no way I was leaving them there with just the guards and the security system protecting them. Of course, now that they were all done, the storage space didn't have to be opened anymore. I locked it and wouldn't put the gold back until the day we would ship it out.

I had been sorely tempted to mint the gold ingots and mill them down into a refined shine, then decided that I didn't have the time to polish them up like that. I went to the smelters and started them all up again, then started adding in the gold coins from the dragon's treasure. They weren't certified by the US mint like my other coins were, which meant I couldn't sell them legally. So, into the smelter they went.

I didn't bother counting the gold bars as I made them and stamped them. I was too busy and just stacked them onto pallets and stored them in a different spot than the others. I would find out how many I have when I was done.

When the coins from the dragon's treasure were gone, I thought about funnelling in some of my legitimate coins to make even more bars, then decided I'd rather have the coins. They were easier to use in the long run and I could legally sell them... which brought my thoughts right to the business that I had sold them to before.

Since I was going to the federal reserve anyway, I wonder if they would want another billion or two in gold coins? I asked myself and cleaned out the smelters. After that, I dropped off most of the ores I had in inventory into the ore storage rooms at the back of the warehouse. I kept quite a bit of iron ore, just in case. You never knew when it could come in handy.

When I left the place early in the morning, I had eleven more pallets of gold ingots, or another 1.06 billion dollars. It was just numbers by this point, because I doubted that I'd be able to use any of that fiscal power. Locally, anyway. As I drove home, my mind went over my plans. Summer was almost over and soon Crystal would be back in school and Susan would be back at college, which would free up most of my day.

I had been kind of slacking off and not pushing things forward with my revenge, just because I wanted to spend as much time as I could with the people I care about. Now, it was about time that I put things into high gear. I would call Derek in the morning and get him to list the corporation on the public stock exchange. Once that happened, we would be an officially recognized international corporation with shareholders from all over the world.

The federal reserve would have to let me store my gold there, especially with all of the heavy load airplanes coming from eight different countries that carried more pallets of gold and other precious metals for me. It wasn't much, not compared to what I already had; but, having it come from all over the world was what mattered right now.

I would love to be in the head of the Secret Service's, the NSA's, and the FBI's offices when they learn what I'm putting into the federal reserve bank. I thought with a grin. When they learn what I'll be taking out... well, all hell might break loose or it could be completely covered up. I chuckled. I really hope for the cover up option. I want to see them try to work their way out of the mess I'm going to cause them without them admitting that it's happening.

I drove home and my enchanting work would have to wait until later today. I had a few choice spells I needed to try, as well as a few rings to change out. I had a pile of Memory Manipulation rings that were just sitting in my inventory for weeks now, unused. I needed to re-purpose them as soon as possible.