Chapter 4 – New Land

When he arrived in America, he found flyers for world war. Arthur stole an identity of an unlucky guy, that died in a bar fight, to join the war. As luck would have it, that guy share his family name, black. Eddie Black run away from home to join the war against his father's wishes.

Arthur kept up the pretense of a soldier and followed orders along with his fellow soldiers. He tried to live as a regular human with an invisible shield. There is no way that he will allow himself to die in this war. But he is ok with everything else. The bad tasting rations, the smell of gunpowder and everything else related to war except placing his life in danger.

He spent months until he had enough. When a bomb hit and injured his squad, he relied an illusion spell to make everyone think that he too is injured. Weeks later he was back in the states. He wanted to meet Eddies parents and help them out if they have problems. He didn't know that they passed away during the war and that they left a sizeable piece of land to Eddie. They own a big farm in Texas.

Arthur decided to try to live in Texas and farm. The war does not look like it will be over in a few years and food is scarce right now. IF this world developed like his original world, then it would be good to earn money and become filthy rich in the future.

Because he has a farm and he wanted to help out with food, he decided to spend his time growing crops. Casting magic every day to speed up the process, large amounts of produce can be harvested weekly. Not just that, he even used magic to increase the yield of his crops. His harvests are equal to all farmers in Texas combined. The problem of selling produce doesn't exist in war time. They are more concerned with how much you can provide rather than where did you grow them. Of course, to be safe, he visited several States and sold them in several batches.

He quite enjoyed his life in Texas. Because of his high income, he was able to live in luxury, often letting his neighbors borrow money from him without interest. Seeing how much he spends; he became friends with a few wealthy people. They introduced him to gambling and other vices. No matter who tries to cheat in gambling they were never able to get Arthurs money unless he allowed it.

One time they invited him to an auction. Arthur was shocked to see that slaves are still being sold. Although he bought a dozen. He still thinks that slavery is wrong. He watched the auction until the end and was shocked at the last item. A piece of meteorite. He forgot that with enough money he can buy many things. Maybe the metals that he need can be purchased from somewhere. But he needs money to do it. He may have earned a lot from farming but compared to the rich people in the room, he is just average.

Arthur ordered his slaves to plant grapes. He plans to turn them into wine. This will be normal wine. He wants to store it and sell it after a hundred years. Then he searched for oil deposits and gold mines. When he sees a land with gold deposits that people haven't discovered yet. He would buy it, hire workers to cultivate the land. He will secretly mine the gold and store it somewhere safe.

He did not hide the existence of two gold mines and obtained the right to mine them from the government. He had to intimidate a few groups to be able to mine gold without interruption. Soon he became one of the richest individual in Texas.

Aside from gold mines, Arthur also searched for oil deposits. It's a piece of cake to obtain a couple of lands rich in oil and he started his oil business. He obtained seven lands with huge oil deposits. For now, his plan is to build a company and take the oil from one of the seven lands. The rest would be left untouched.

Gold mine and oil business made him very rich. He used part of the income in buying metals and resources that he needs for his tower or for creating artifacts. Since he has a lot of extra money, he decided to help somehow.

Arthur decided to build an orphanage and hire people to take care of the orphans. Beside the orphanage he built a small school. With an attractive salary, he lured fresh graduates to teach the orphans with particular focus on sports and arts. There is also scholarship for intelligent orphans who wanted to pursue medicine and science. The last building, he built beside the school and orphanage is for veterans. The veterans would be given a place to crash in for free. Food will also be free. For the few of them that are looking for work they can choose between community service and guard duty.

Community service would be patrolling every day, cleaning up the roads, reporting to the sheriff of any troublesome characters and the quarterly scheduled tree planting. Guard duty would be guarding the school and orphanage as well as being bodyguards during fieldtrips.

This is taking up a lot of cash but it is worth it. Arthur first started in Texas and plans to build one in every state. He made sure to visit now and then to check if any groups have malicious aims to his people. If he finds one, he would get rid of that person.

From the orphanages he would choose those with good character offer them work in his company. He plans to enter other industries in the future and he wanted to hire some orphans that he helped in this new business.

One time, he saw a burning building. Because he arrived late, he was only able to save a few people. One of those that died is a young woman. Elizabeth Stuart is an orphan that was working as a waitress in the inn that was destroyed by the fire. Arthur hid the fact that she died and buried her in the town's cemetery. Them he used his magic to make people believe that he married Elizabeth Stuart and had a baby with her.

The wife and baby did not exist but he needs them to create the illusion of a family. The baby would only be homeschooled and tutors would be placed in an illusion. They would believe that they are teaching the only heir of the Black family while in reality they are only talking to a wall. When the baby is old enough, Arthur (currently Eddie) would take the identity of the child. He named his fake baby, Thadeus.

Thadeus Black inherited his father's business. He would often visit the orphanages and play sports with the other kids. He displayed talent in painting and often stop and paint in his travels. Although he never sold or gifted his paintings, people are free to visit his workshop.

The black family line continued in this way. They would always choose a female who does not have any family left, only have one child who is always male, and would just continue the family business. Every child of the black family would be trained heavily that they were expert marksman, martial artist and possess other skills needed in the battlefield. A member of the black family would be good enough to teach in military school by the time they are 18.