Second Visit to the Trading Hall
Chapter 8 - Second Visit to the Trading Hall
Two weeks after being discharged from the hospital, Carlos was in a classroom taking a high school completion exam while being supervised by Antônio Ribeiro, also known as 'Tonhão,' a man in his 50s with a beer belly, an intellectual beard, and one of the best math teachers Carlos had the pleasure of knowing (the best teacher I ever had). With his mother approving the establishment of the company, he couldn't spend three years in high school; he needed to get into a university, and fast.
Although she wanted him to finish high school like any other normal young person, Carlos was firmly against it, reinforcing the idea that he didn't want to waste time. So after much insistence, he got her permission to take an exam to complete high school. This exam would be divided into 3 parts in total, each covering all the material from the 12 subjects of each year. Totaling 540 questions, to be answered over three days, and thankfully, today was the last.
"Now let's see, it's Physics II..."
Although Carlos was not a bad student in his previous life, expecting him to remember all the high school content after more than 30 years was too much. However, with the system, all he had to do was spend 40 thousand cruzeiros and voilà, three years of study knowledge were forever ingrained in his mind.
Unfortunately, when Carlos acquired all that knowledge, he didn't feel good. On the contrary, it made him realize how degraded and indoctrinating basic education was in schools.
In 11 years of study, the student leaves school completely unprepared for real life. How can someone live in a country without even minimally knowing its laws? Without basic financial education? What's the point of knowing the Bhaskara formula and Thermodynamics when you don't even know the role of a city councilor? (
Note: Seriously, I had a chemistry teacher with a master's degree who had no idea what a city councilor did, and he still said his candidate was the best in the city. Damn, we're in deep shit.)
In fact, schools, especially public schools, function like an assembly line producing employees. Could entrepreneurs or competent leaders emerge from this group? Yes, but very few. With the quality of education offered in public schools, if the student doesn't strive on their own, their future is behind a fast-food counter or as a retail store clerk. And even then, often, this effort is not enough. Even the most diligent could fail due to another factor, luck.
Take Carlos's mother, for example. An exemplary student, always with the best grades, the first of her sisters to finish high school, yet after that, she found herself on a pre-established path. Even though she dreamed of studying medicine, the university in her city did not offer the course, and she couldn't afford to live alone in a big city.
So she studied for another year to complete her teaching degree and as soon as she graduated, she immediately pursued one of the few undergraduate degrees available in the city, that of a teacher. After that, she even pursued a postgraduate degree, but unfortunately, at that time, Carlos had just been born, and with his 'sperm donor' out of the picture, his mother had to manage to take care of him and ended up postponing her postgraduate studies until he was six.
As far as Carlos could remember, just like his mother, all his aunts were teachers due to the same situation. Although he never saw his mother or his aunts lament about it because that's just how it worked at the time.
"Tonhão, I'm finished."
"Good."
The teacher gestured for Carlos to bring the test to him and then dismissed him before going to the teachers' lounge to grade the tests. Over the past two days, the teachers had been surprised by Carlos's intelligence, and although they were annoyed by the extra work, they were still pleased with their student's ability.
His mother was also happy to hear her son being praised by his peers, but this did not diminish her concerns. In fact, she had postponed for 2 weeks a visit to a lawyer to start the bureaucratic process of creating the company, but now, with the exams done, she had no more excuses.
Leaving school, Carlos went straight home because his mother was still grading his test, and he wanted to check on a few things. Upon arrival, he went straight to his room where he lay down for a while as he looked at a notebook where he wrote down some ideas.
"The System"
[STATUS]
HOST - Carlos Dias de Andrade Correia Neto
AGE - 13 years
ABILITIES - None
POWERS - None
TITLES - Friend of Death
TRADING HALL - Allows meetings with personalities from other worlds for trading goods and knowledge from different worlds (Available)
STORE - Allows purchasing items, abilities, and powers from different worlds that can be used by both the host and third parties. (national currency only)
ARENA - Locked until payment - 500 thousand cruzeiros
UNIVERSAL HR - Locked until payment - 1 million cruzeiros
"Well, although the last encounter was good, this one may not bring me anything useful."
Carlos frowned as he remembered the conditions of the trading hall. Although he could get what he was looking for, it was a two-way street. If he had nothing useful to offer, the deal would be nullified.
Plus, there was the possibility that the other party wouldn't want to negotiate with him. After leaving the hospital, he didn't rush to enter the trading hall. Instead, he took the opportunity to jot down some ideas about the future of his company. He wanted to navigate through various markets, but would primarily focus on three: Agricultural, Technological, and Pharmaceutical.
These are markets that Carlos must dominate, with a solid agricultural base already established in the country, as long as the country's technology and health levels rise, it won't be difficult to stop being a third-world country.
For this, he has been wandering through the store in search of technologies and medications, focusing primarily on worlds he knew from movies, series, and games. Carlos didn't remember many useful worlds, but he still remembered some like Resident Evil (games), Crisis, Halo, COD: BO2, Ghosts and Modern Warfare, Fallout, Elysium, Metal Gear Rising, Gears of War, and a few others.
He also sought to avoid worlds like The Boys. Although the V compound was interesting, it was too dangerous and could end up becoming a problem later if it fell into the wrong hands.
Despite all the security in the world, it wasn't enough guarantee in the DC universe, so he wanted to stay away from the V compound. This also applies to the super soldier serum and its infinite variations in various worlds like the 'soldier genome' in MGS, Chromosome 24 from the movie Doom, and who knows what else existed.
"The only problem is that when I start showing results in the market, the big companies will do everything to swallow me up, if they don't try to kill me first."
Carlos closed his eyes as he sighed, thinking about his difficult future. As for counting on government protection, he honestly didn't have much hope for that, of course there may be politicians interested in helping him, but not without a benefit.
"Oh well. Let's see what I can get today."
Carlos then lightly touched the screen, and in the blink of an eye, he found himself somewhere other than his room. Looking around, he saw that the room where he spoke with Ed last time remained the same. The table with the two chairs and the pitcher of water were still there, as was his small chest of gold in one corner. Seeing that nothing was different, Carlos sat down at the table and called up the interface screen to look for something he needed most urgently.
"Well, what I need most urgently now is... Knowledge and Power, I think."
Carlos tapped his finger lightly on the table as he thought about what to search for. In fact, when Carlos unlocked the store, he thought the trading hall would become somewhat less valuable. However, with the lack of available funds, he could only rely on it to try to get something useful.
"10 thousand is all I have left; I gave 1 million to my mother, and the rest is gone. Although I have the formula and can produce harmless fungicides, first I need to prepare properly."
To avoid being swallowed up too early, Carlos had already planned to remain discreet until 1992, when the so-called RIO-92 would take place, a major United Nations event to discuss the impacts of industry on the environment and Social Responsibility.
This would be a good opportunity to introduce your product in a way that could gain recognition in the international market. However, with this opportunity also come problems. Becoming known worldwide is just the beginning of your concerns. Carlos feared that his actions could cause irreversible damage to Brazil's major political partners and hinder the creation of economic blocs like BRICS.
BRICS is a union between Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, created to establish better economic cooperation, political dialogue, sustainable development, and other benefits.
Although China only began to take an interest in Brazil and invest in its capital in 2003, after the victory of "the mollusk," this does not mean that it had not attempted to enter the Brazilian market before. It was only due to the military dictatorship and subsequent rulers, most of whom were against the communist model, that prevented such an agreement.
However, from 2003 onward, with China entering the national market and the growing importance of India and Russia in the geopolitical scenario, Carlos knew that Brazil would experience a growth boom for the next 14 years before the crises began in 2015, which would only worsen over time and lead to political divergences in the country.
Carlos did not want to cause problems in the creation of BRICS; he knew of its importance to Brazil. However, this did not mean he would stand still, letting an opportunity to appear in the international market pass him by. All he needed was to know how to move and seize the opportunity, and therein lay the problem.
Carlos knew he was not a very competent politician; he was diligent but tended to see things a bit too superficially. The world is more complicated than it appears. The issue of hunger itself is simple to solve, but it is necessary to maintain control over certain regions.
Another thing was his current power; he lived in a world full of crazy people with the power to destroy cities or intellect comparable to...
"Wait a minute. I'm in the DC. Why am I planning everything as if I had just gone back to the past?" Carlos frowned and looked at the screen where he was about to search for a 21st-century political science professor.
Although the events were similar, in this world, there were many variables, but Carlos forgot about them. Because it was Brazil, a country basically never mentioned in a comic book, he forgot about that and was considering the creation and influence of economic blocs that might not even exist in the future.
[Search: Political knowledge]
"I rushed too much, almost searching for something unnecessary for the moment." Looking at the screen and seeing that he was about to search for something useless, Carlos stopped and decided to search for something else.
"Although knowledge is important, I shouldn't rush so much to get it now. For now, I think I can hire professionals to help me. Now, as for power... Is power necessary now? Maybe not. But I think it's better to get something. Something good, something good..."
Carlos began to think about various powers he knew, mostly from movies and anime from the 90s and 2000s. There were many anime and movies with powerful characters, however, most of them were Shounen anime or action movies, and the powers were very flashy or caused a lot of damage around.
"Something with little impact but that allows me to stay safe and in control... I have the title: friend of death, should I get a Death Note?"
Carlos thought for a moment, although the Death Note was interesting and could partially control people before they "played for Vasco," it was more of a weapon than a proper power. Furthermore, Carlos was not sure if he would know how to use it correctly like Kira did. Kira or Light Yagami, an excellent user of the notebook, a true genius. Of course, he was a sociopathic lunatic with a God complex, but still a great strategist.
Carlos wasn't like that; if for some reason he could get his hands on a Death Note, he would undoubtedly take this country to hell in less than 24 hours, that he was sure of.
"Hm... Alchemy from FMA. Ki from DBZ, Devil Fruits, Ninjutsu from Naruto... the list is too long to choose something like that, besides, it's possible not to get anything useful from the person who is summoned."
Thinking about this kind of thing, Carlos finally came to the conclusion that it was better to contact the Naruto world; this was one of the worlds he knew most about and where he could profit more depending on who was summoned.
"Alright, here we go. God, please bless me."
[Search: Ninjutsu - Naruto Universe]
"Please let it be someone at least decent, not idiots like Danzo or Hiruzen."
While waiting, a door opened in front of Carlos, and a woman entered with calm and vigilant steps. She was beautiful, with fair skin and beautiful red hair tied in two buns, like Chun Li. She also had a small purple rhombus on her forehead.
"Uzumaki Mito."
"Who are you, young man? Where is this - hm? A space for exchanging between people from different worlds?"
Mito Uzumaki, wife of the legendary Hashirama, the first Jinchuriki, a master in fuinjutsu.
"Welcome, Miss Mito."
"You know me."
"Yes."
"Well, I understand more or less how this place works, but I still don't understand why I should accept this agreement with you."
"Hm. What moment is your world in?"
"Moment?"
"Yes. Has Konoha been founded? Has Madara deserted? Has Hashirama died?"
"..."
"..."
"The ninja war has just ended; Tobirama has just left with his students to negotiate the surrender of Kumogakure."
"I see. In that case, how about this. You train me and teach me everything you know. And in return, I give you information that will prevent the destruction of Uzushiogakure."
"What?"
Mito was a little surprised, but quickly calmed down. Both looked at each other in silence for a while, and she saw that he was not lying. She didn't even need to confirm with the space system; she herself was very sensitive to people and knew when someone was lying to her.
"All right, I agree with you. In exchange for information about the future destruction of Uzushiogakure, I will teach you everything I know about fuinjutsu."
"Actually..."
"What else do you want?"
"No. It's just that in my world, there is no Chakra, so if you could teach me how to refine and control it, I would appreciate it."
"There is no Chakra in your world?"
"Well, as far as I know, no."
Mito frowned, but then nodded in agreement with Carlos's demands, and so a contract with the presented terms emerged for both.
"Well. Now that I have agreed to teach you, tell me first what will happen."
Mito spoke seriously as she looked at Carlos.
"Tobirama will die on this trip, and within a few years, your country will be destroyed due to Konoha's inaction."
"Impossible. Konoha would never stand still."
"Even if it was surrounded by Sunagakure, Amegakure, and Iwagakure, and preparing for a new ninja war?"
"... "
"Kumo and Kiri, taking advantage of the situation, invaded Uzushiogakure in an attempt to get their hands on the seals and some Uzumaki to be used as Jinchurikis, given that their clan is perfect for it. In the end, few were the survivors, and even they were hunted. After 60 years, honestly, I only have information about one relatively pure-blood Uzumaki."
Mito remained silent, still in shock; she was already sad about Hashirama's death, and now knowing that her homeland was in danger, that her people could be exterminated, how could she not be anxious?
"And what about the Senju? Even if Konoha couldn't move, it doesn't mean they would stand still." She asked.
"As for that, I cannot affirm with great precision, but part of the reason was suppression."
"Suppression?"
"Having produced two Hokages, the Senju clan began to be suppressed within Konoha by the then Third Hokage and his allies."
"How could they do that?"
"Politics, Mito, it's like stepping into a mud puddle: no matter how clean your clothes are, you will inevitably get dirty. At least that's how my teacher summarized it once. Anyway, with the Senju clan stalled and due to internal pressure and the external threat of war, Uzushiogakure ended up being destroyed."
Mito frowned and looked at Carlos, and after a while, she shook her head.
"Even if all that is true, there's still one thing I don't understand."
"And what would that be?"
"Uzushiogakure is located on an island surrounded by extremely strong whirlpools that can destroy vessels as if they were nothing. Additionally, there are various barriers around it that can prevent an invasion of this scale or at least delay it long enough for most people to be safely evacuated. It would be impossible to destroy Uzushiogakure like that, unless..."
"Want to hear something interesting? After the destruction of Uzushiogakure, Kumo and Kiri returned empty-handed, no Uzumaki or seals from your clan fell into their hands, and coincidentally, the last Uzumaki with direct lineage to the patriarch was in Konoha shortly before the destruction to become the village's new Jinchuriki."
"That's..."
"Furthermore, for some reason that even I am unaware of, the only village in the entire ninja world that retained knowledge of your clan's Fuuinjutsu was-"
"Konoha..."
"I'm not saying that Konoha betrayed the Uzumaki, but they certainly weren't allies, at least not after the deaths of Hashirama and Tobirama, the two strongest of the Senju clan."
Carlos and Mito fell silent once again as she tried to remain as calm as possible. Finally, after who knows how long, she raised her eyes and locked gazes with Carlos.
"Let's start your training; I need to return to Konoha as soon as possible and prevent Uzushiogakure from being destroyed."
"I wouldn't recommend that."
"What?"
"If you interfere too much, the one who manipulates the entire ninja world for over 1000 years might feel uncomfortable."
"What do you mean?"
"It's better not to talk about it. If you want my advice, send a letter after Tobirama's death to the Patriarch and tell him to set aside a batch with those with the purest lineage and send them periodically to an isolated place. I recommend the Land of Snow. With time, many can be saved, and your clan will remain alive. Then tell him to prepare for the destruction of Uzushiogakure. With this, the world will forget about their existence, and after a few years, they can resurface."
"Is that the only way? To let my clan live like a hidden mouse?"
"No, but it's the simplest way with the least chance of going wrong... I think."
Mito fell silent and finally nodded to Carlos.
"Alright, I'll follow your plan. At least my clan will remain alive; that's enough. Now, let's start your training."
"Yes, Sensei Mito."
"Call me Sensei, little one..."
"Carlos Dias, with Carlos being my first name... Sensei Mito."
"Well, then let's start with the basics, Carlos. Chakra is..."
Carlos fell silent as Mito began her explanation, unaware that this simple plan to save the Uzumaki clan would bring about significant changes to his future life.