It was a rushed decision.
She had no idea if any word he uttered was true.
And yet, she had accepted his offer anyway.
That was fine with Cæ.
He didn't particularly care enough to hold her hand and tell her she should be more prudent. He would be honest and transparent about his intentions and motivations, but that was it.
Frankly, he had made the equity offer a bit spontaneously and rashly, but it was fine. He didn't particularly mind. She was talented and skilled, and exactly what he needed, on top of that, if he didn't go with her, he would incur greater costs with a third-party magitech company.
That was why he ultimately decided to bite the bullet and get away with choosing a route that was more attractive.
He didn't want to rely on third parties.
He wanted this business to truly be his own.
"Good," Cæ nodded with a friendly nod. "I'm glad to have you on-board. We will have to meet up with Feidin, the other owner of the yet-to-exist company so that we can discuss our relative arrangements in more detail. But to begin with, I intend to give you complete free reign over the product as long as you adhere to constraints and conditions that I set."
Cæ raised a finger. "First, the price of the micro-housing unit cannot exceed one thousand leenars."
He raised another finger. "It needs to be able to protect people from the extreme weather and climate that Elendir experiences."
He raised a third finger. "It needs to be mana-independent."
He raised a fourth finger. "It needs to have the lifespan of eighteen months at most."
Her eyes widened at his words. "W-Why that last condition?"
He simply gazed at her like she was naive.
"So that our customers keep coming back."
She frowned at his words.
Yet, he didn't intend to relent on this constraint.
Product mortality was something that companies engaged in to preserve demand for their goods and services so that their customers kept coming back for more.
Customers hated it. The consumer market hated it. But unfortunately, he didn't see any other option for this business to survive. He could only offer limited value for a limited price.
"…Fine, b-but only if there is no alternative," she replied with a nervous determination as she gazed at him with her green eyes.
"Done," Cæ replied. "The other constraints are also the absolute necessities. I will discuss the later details with you at another date. Rest assured we will give you everything that you need to work in a good lab and environment."
She tilted her head with a flustered hint of confusion. "W-Why don't we just use the magicademy labs?"
Cæ paused for a moment as he stopped his reflex to tell her that it was not allowed.
He actually wasn't sure if it was allowed.
Students in the Senior Program were allowed to use the facilities and amenities with much greater leeway than those of the Apprentice Program.
Cæ's eyes lit up with a hint of excitement. The labs of the magineering department of the Elendir Institute of Magic were first rate within the nation. There would probably be no better place than to do all their development and testing than in the Institute itself.
This would drastically improve the quality of the end product.
"Unfortunately, it won't be possible to allow our yet-to-be-hired employees within the magicademy but…" Cæ grew engrossed in the matter. "That can be handled. You can coordinate all the testing with them remotely. But that will be a larger burden on you…"
She straightened her back. "I-I can handle it!"
He gazed into her determined green eyes with intrigue.
"If you're that certain… then sure."
Her smile lit up with bright alacrity. "I-I will make sure to live up to my words!"
Cæ nodded.
He was a little concerned about whether she was fit to be the head developer as far as her personality and temperament went. The lead needed to have spine, confidence, and leadership, and she certainly was lacking in all aspects.
However, he knew that he was lucky to even have her on-board. He still had no idea why she had agreed so quickly, perhaps it was sentiment to what he was trying to achieve with the slums.
Or perhaps she was more desperate to have her skills recognized.
Perhaps she felt bad for the incident she had caused.
Regardless, he was glad that he had managed to get her on-board this easily.
The conversation proceeded as they ironed out the details of their agreement. Cæ gave her the same amount of equity that he had offered to Feidin.
The reason that he wanted her to get so involved in the project was that it was good for the project's long-term development in the future, with greater iterations that would improve smoothly.
She would be able to do more to improve it than someone new, no matter how well they developed it. Thus, he added many incentives for her loyalty and made it more profitable to remain with the company in the long-term.
"T-Thank you for the talk and the offer!" she smiled at him nervously as she shifted a tuft of her blue hair away from her circular spectacles. "I look forward to meeting with your business partner. I hope we can get along."
Cæ nodded in a friendly manner.
"…I have a feeling you two will get along."
The two were very similar to each other in their mannerisms.
And thus, he bid her goodbye as he returned home.
Unless Feidin found some major flaw in her, it was very unlikely that the arrangement would fail to go through.
For the most part, his business venture was starting to fall into place.
He had chosen the in-house development and had even found the lead developer. On top of that, he had managed to lower developmental costs of the company by using the labs of the Elendir Institute of Magic.
With this, they could commence the product development.
Once the product development was completed, they could understand the cost of production per unit. They could understand what the supply chains were and what kind of fixed magicapita, such as machines, assembly lines etc, they would need. They would have a fleshed out understanding of the process of production.
Then, the operations could be fine-tuned around these requirements.
Once the operations were fine-tuned, then all the labor and management aspects of the business could be completed, followed by tertiary aspects of the business such as marketing, among other things.
And then, they could commence the sales.
Cæ's eyes lit up with enthusiasm as his vast and vivid imagination fleshed out the entirety of the developmental trajectories of the business foundation. It had been more than half a year since he first came up with the idea of tapping into the slums' latent demand for stable and secure housing.
Half a year later, he had business partners, funding, and a place to conduct product R&D.
This might have seemed like a very slow ride, but in reality, it was a decent pace.
This was the reality of business.
Unless one had a lot of magicapita, one would need to spend a lot of time strengthening the foundation of one's business before it was time to commence sales.
Many laymen didn't understand that businesses needed to be treated like growing children. Their growth to maturity could not be rushed, not without a lot of money. Else there would be a price to pay.
Regardless, he was happy that he had finally reached this stage in his business development.
"The most essential parts of my job are complete."
His strengths were the gifts he got with his Acquired Savant Syndrome. Creating business strategies that were extremely novel and beyond what people would normally conceive of.
Defying established paradigms to such an extraordinary degree was something that very few people dared to, after all. It was extremely ill-advised. Most businesses that went for the supreme novelty ended up failing miserably.
An overwhelming majority of businesses played safe by utilizing tried and tested strategies to etch out their place in the market and earn stable revenues.
Cæ, on the other hand, was not.
And he had the gifts needed to defy all paradigms and still come out on top with his Acquired Savant Syndrome. His task came at the very beginning of business development rather than later when things had already been established and fleshed out. For this particular business, he had already completed his most time-consuming commitments with the business.
"Now I have more time to dedicate to my academics."
He hadn't forgotten about his agenda of mastering magic.
It wasn't just enough to cultivate magicapita, he needed to master the power he got from them.
"When the business commences, I will have to become extremely involved in its day to day affairs."
That was why he needed to make substantial progress with his magic mastery before it was time to launch his new business. He needed to ensure that his mastery of magic was covered in the span of time when he didn't have any other commitments.
"…Product development, operational establishment, labor, inventory, base, supply chains, marketing, and sales," he murmured aloud. "Should take around a year at least."
Especially since they were starting this business from absolute scratch.
"One year… should just barely be enough."
He had already made the resolution to finish the Apprentice Program in the very first year. He had no intention of wasting any more time amid teenagers.
His eyes flared with determination.
"Time to grind."
And just like that, he began immersing himself into magic, immersing himself in not just theory but also training the practicals. He didn't want to become a magic scholar that would simply shift his eyeglasses and act like he simply knew better than everybody else.
He wanted power.
Time passed as he focused on making the best of the business development phase, which began slowly but steadily developing.
Unsurprisingly, Feidin and Celiphaz got along very well with how similar their temperaments were. Feidin began monitoring the minutiae of the yet-to-be business. They had delayed registering until the last moment so that they could fit into a governmental scheme that was limited to businesses only three months after they were created.
Feidin spent most of his time focused on business development, preparing for operations and management, as when he learned something new from Celiphaz, who began working on the product development in an extremely dedicated manner.
The facilities of the Elendir Institute of Magic helped a lot with its extremely high-grade facilities and labs, allowing her to make a remarkable amount of progress very quickly compared to if she was using lesser labs that were rented for use.
She was also pressured by the fact that she didn't particularly have a lot of time. This was her last year in the Elendir Institute of Magic as a senior student, which meant she would no longer have access to the magical labs once she graduated.
Simultaneously, his magic mastery progressed.
Cæ's mastery of magia and the cultivation of his mana-motive force continued growing stronger and stronger with each passing day. He began grinding aggressively, swiftly blazing past progress that would have taken his peers much longer to achieve as he resolved to hit the next stage in his magic mastery.
All of them worked hard to complete their respective tasks in the timeline they had set for themselves.
And just like that, half a year passed.
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