"And no bulk rate for having a lot of them? Ah well, I'll just charge a bit more."

When he's done with Valanda he might notice their knowledge mage hanging around outside looking at something. Probably not what's in front of her.

An opportunity to discuss potential future work! And figure out why his first attempt at a semiconductor was trash. And appreciate her pretty face a little bit, not that he'll let that affect his decisionmaking or anything.

"Hi Dareni! Have you got a minute to chat? I might have some work for you, depending."

"Sure! What are you looking for?"

"So, I'm going to be trying to build a lot of things that we have back home that rely on tiny precise physical structures and chemistry. They're going to be incredibly useful, really. A knowledge mage could help me figure out why my first attempt was worthless and generally speed things up a lot. Since I plan to sell these and anyone could make them if they knew how, I would need a nondisclosure agreement," or a slave but saying so would unnerve her, or so he thinks, "Which would mean a premium wage, of course."

"I'll want to be very precise about what you want to keep secret. Only specific facts about the design of your inventions. If you threaten me or steal from me while I'm at work I will tell. And I want to make our contract outside your illusion, I want to be able to demonstrate to a judge what we agreed on."

"No objection to the last two items but you could sell information about the general principles upon which they work, make your own versions or sell that information, that way. I'd have to explain them for you to be useful to me, of course."

"I can avoid repeating specific facts you tell me about chemistry to other people or making nonmagical computing devices for a year. If the work is done under illusion I will want to write things down about it, but I'll keep my notes at least as hidden as you keep your inventions."

It's going to be impossible to stay on top of computing forever, in this world, isn't it? He'll just need to make a nice nest egg before that. And even then, he'll be a supernaturally good programmer. He won't run out of things to make money on any time soon. Hopefully.

And it's a good way to test whether knowledge mages can defeat encryption, he'll be able to plan a bit further ahead after that.

"...Chemistry and physics and mathematics, if you did not know the facts already, of course. For now I'll only need the help for an hour or two at a time, every couple of days or so. One hundred twenty rings an hour?"

"That works."

"Hmm... When exactly does the one year timer start? I'd prefer it to be 'since the last time you did any work for me under this arrangement' and not 'since the time I was told this fact' or 'from right now'."

"How long do you expect I'll be working for you?"

"You never know for sure, but I'm expecting 'a while, first sporadically, eventually full time'. If this takes off like I expect, I'll eventually need a knowledge mage more and more often, maybe full time. And one who's already experienced with my inventions is a lot more useful than some slave or baby-faced new hire."

"How about if we go a month without me doing any work for you the countdown starts?"

"Sure. If for some reason we go a month without you doing any work for me and then I want to hire you again, the new contract will certainly contain a clause to reset that counter."

He produces paper and writes out the terms they just agreed to lightning-quick, also including the current date and two places to sign, and tosses his little charm away into the air dramatically before presenting it to her.

"Here we are, one contract."

She reads it, holds it up for anyone spying on them to see, tells anyone spying on her that these are the terms they agreed on...

...and finally signs it.

And so does he. "Fantastic! Got that squared away. Unfortunately, I'm not ready to have you work right this second. Need to ward my workspace and get some stuff ready. Can I find you tonight, or is tomorrow better?"

"Find me tonight if you're ready then."

"Looking forward to it."

He fetches his illusion charm and goes off to... Do things. Expands his igloo which is off in the waste somewhere. Has the heat mage and illusion mage work on it - he's going to be using it for a few weeks at least, so this is acceptable expense. Works out some crypto experiments. Takes a quick refresher on semiconductor design.

And then he finds Dareni again. "I'm ready to get to work on the project now if you are. It's a bit of a hike and it's faster if I carry you, though. Won't hurt you if I do."

"Gimme a second."

She finds a place to stand where she's completely unhidden.

"Hey, some other knowledge mage, Nikolas is carrying me to his hidden workshop to do unspecified things with me! Don't charge him with anything if I come back safe, okay? Okay, now you can carry me if you want."

"I promise to return you unharmed."

He picks her up in a bridal-style carry. (Shut up, internal monologue, that's the easiest and most convenient.) Whoosh! They're phenomenally fast and there's a cold cold wind against her for about four seconds.

Here's his igloo-workshop. It's room temperature inside. There's all sorts of very inventory things around. He sets her down and puts his little charm outside and picks some rings off his necklace and tosses them gently toward her.

"First hour in advance. Any preference whether we start on chemistry or physics or mathematics first?"

She shrieks but not in a particularly terrified kind of way about being carried that fast.

"Whichever one means the explanation takes longer and I get paid more for sitting around learning?"

Ha. "That would be semiconductor physics! It took about ten years to go from a physics experiment to a useful device. But before that you need to know some things about electricity."

So he starts in on the fundamentals of electricity, with generous help from his tablet and paper and pens.

She listens intently. She watches his tablet and paper and pens.

"...You can repeat that experiment if you want and it'll show the same thing. So that means that while the electrons can't be said to have specific locations, they can be thought of as having a certain energy level. This is important for understanding why a lot of elements and compounds and electricity behave the way they do..."

He gives the part of the lesson about the different electron orbitals found on atoms in isolation.

"...So I want to know if you can detect these electron orbitals. I know what the answer should be, but which electron orbitals are occupied in the atoms of second-element I have in this vial?"