Year 1731

Six months have passed since Nicholas and his team began learning about advance elements. A lot of things happened as time passed, but nothing tremendous to be noted about. Not until today, he finally completed the draft of his new business venture that will surely change the world.

Currently is sitting on the couch of his new office at one of the buildings in the city center. He planned to have an office building in the past since the clutter and documents are slowly building up in his room, and now it has been two months since he relocated his business from his room in Curtana mansion to here.

The building is a large, two-story building that was originally for the new boutique that the countess planned for the physical store of the beauty shop. It has been a few months since the start of the production of Nicholas's beauty products. The quantity has been increasing, and the supplies are slowly increasing. It was inevitable to set up a physical store rather than relying on merchants and pre-orders.

The building was supposed to be used for the store, but since it was too large for a single boutique, Nicholas requested to her mother that he should use the excess for office space. His mother didn't hesitate and agreed to his dear son's request.

Hence, that's how Nicholas obtained his own office space.

The design of the building was quite straightforward; the first floor of the building will be separated into two parts; a quarter of the space would be dedicated for the lobby of the office leading to the second floor, while the rest would be for the boutique shop. And for the second floor, a quarter would be allocated for the stocks and storage, a quarter for document storage, and the rest is for office space.

He decided to push through to have his own office space ever since he had the idea of applying his advance elements, which are nature and poison, to business. Both advance elements are applicable in dungeon exploration; some might argue it is crucial in certain cases. However, there are more suitable ways of using these elements. It was by applying it through expanding his business in agriculture and potion making. He found out about these applications of nature elements while he was learning more about them, and it was also quite a common-sense idea to use nature elements in agriculture.

Therefore, he decided to allocate more time to learning about the agricultural application of nature's elements and poison element's applications in poisoneering. Of course, while he has been focused on learning and mastering this, he also did not neglect the significance of gaining experience points in the dungeons daily.

He spent his mornings this past month researching agriculture and nature elements, until he stumbled upon fertilizer. He had knowledge about synthetic fertilizer and natural composting since he had managed one of the chemical engineers' departments there. Hence, he had the idea of recreating synthetic fertilizer here.

Of course, this world wasn't estranged from using fertilizer when growing crops and grains. But they are quite ignorant of fertilizing technology since most of them rely on mana to increase the quality of the yield. This ignorance can be attributed to different things: overreliance on mana and skills, primitive technology, and most significant, a lack of focus.

[Earth's Blessing] was one of the well-known skills in nature of elemental awakeners; this, when cast and applied to crops, will give them resistance to rot and pests and increase their quality. But this is not the most well-known application of nature elements since this world is rather focused on being the strongest by developing the most powerful combat-oriented skill. So, this kind of miscellaneous research not related to fighting is often underfunded.

One might expect that if there is a natural element in the world, food would be the least of people's problems. However, this world of Asterik still has problems with yearly crop yield. He noticed early on in his life that harvest was quite lacking in terms of amount of plant yield to the ratio they planted in the county. So, this is what Nicholas gave the idea for creating the synthetic fertilizer; he used countless trials and errors before he succeeded. Fertilizer has known effects of increasing yield quantity and quality, and more importantly, it decreases the time for crops and plants to grow.

He decided to create a composting farm by buying useless monster body parts and letting them decompose. Decomposing bodies will release nitrate and ammonia, which can then be isolated into containers that can be turned into synthetic fertilizer. While the decomposing bodies themselves can be turned into natural compost, resulting in creating two separate sources of fertilizer.

This idea of Nicholas was another nonexistent market in this world since synthetic fertilizer hasn't been discovered in this world and, when completed, will definitely have a tremendous effect on the market.

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This project, if completed, will definitely bring tons of profit to their family since he was essentially starting a monopoly on a new market. However, the scale of this project is so large that it may affect the world as a whole since it can introduce a product and services as a whole. First of all, his family needed backing or multiple backers for support in this kind of business venture. A count family may be influential, but this project will surely attract the attention of the world in the long run.

But who was possibly the most likely backer that the Curtana family can have? The royal family might work as a great deterrent to trouble, but sadly that might be quite unlikely. Letting the royal family alone on this might backfire greatly since the power dynamics between the ruler and their subject are crucial; it would also attract the ire of the high nobles, especially the ones the Curtana family has close ties to.

It took a lot of thinking, but the best solution he could think of to this problem is definitely forming a company and selling shares to the friendly high nobles and royal family to share the profit of this business venture. This will form some sort of alliance with his family and the shareholder while still holding a significant part of the project to have a say in it. It was a win-win condition between the Curtana and the shareholders; the high nobles will be happy to get cut in this project, while the royals will get more shares than the nobles.

This idea of creating a company was not full proof since the dynamic of power in this world is quite delicate, but Nicholas cannot think of any ideas to make this project work without sharing the glory. If he and his family don't have allies, they definitely have a high probability of failing this venture due to different factors.

But this compromise doesn't only have a downside since while they would share the profit, the Curtana would also benefit not by monetary value but with support and protection. The high-nobles and the royal family will drastically improve the rate of development of this industry. They will also help protect this business from being taken or stolen by other greedy people not part of the company. And lastly, it will also help build up connections and, most importantly, influence in the noble community. Over all, sharing the investment of this new synthetic fertilizer with multiple families will be a net positive rather than just starting it on his own.

…

At noon

Nicholas was on the couch, just finishing something.

Nicholas: "That should be it…"

He just finished his final draft of the business proposal; this includes the final product, the schematic diagrams, and the and the plans of the new composting farm that he will be starting. He would take this to his mother first since he has not the final say in the family.

*knock**knock*

As he was filing the document in order, two knocks were heard outside.

Maria: "Master, it is already noon."

Clarice: "I'm already starving; how long would you still take before finishing my liege?"

The girls talked outside of the door, urging Nicholas to eat lunch with them.

Nicholas: "Heyy, I'm already finished on the documents. Let's go."

He put every document in his pendant, stood up from the couch, and went outside of his office. Maria and Clarice didn't enter his office and only knocked because he explicitly told them not to disturb him until noon.

Nicholas: "Where should we eat?"

Clarice: "Let's go to the tavern that serves lamb stew. I'm craving some lamb lately."

Maria: "I think it would be best for something light since we will be going to the dungeon right after; we wouldn't want to feel sleepy by eating too much."

Nicholas: "Well, I'm also famished. I haven't eating anything since yesterday night. So, let's go eat some lamb stew!" Then he looked at Maria and patted her head lightly.

Maria: "Fine…"

So, there they went. They went to the tavern near the outskirts of the city center; the tavern itself mostly serves adventurers and mercenaries, so the atmosphere of the place is quite different than the usual café or dining establishment goes to. It was filled with loud chatter and clanging of utensils around the dining area; this kind of noise was not that unfamiliar to Nicholas and his team since they also often eat at the cafeteria on the Curtana mansion, where guards and soldiers dine, and the vibe of this place is similar to that. They went up to the counter to order their food.

Clarice: "We will have three orders of the lamb stew with some side of bread." Then she looked at us to check what we wanted.

Maria: "A side of salad for me."

Nicholas: "I'll also have some bread. Also add some drink. What kind of non-alcoholic drinks are available today?"

Lady-at-the-counter: "Well, we have some fruit drinks, shakes, and cider."

Nicholas: "Well, we'll have some fruit drinks."

Afterwards, they went to find a table that was unoccupied; they didn't find any on the first floor. It was lunch, so a lot of people are currently in the tavern. So, they went to the second floor, where there are a lot of empty tables, and took a seat at one of them.

Clarice: "So, where will we go after lunch? Maybe in the Toxic Marsh? First Bastion? Ra Canyon?"

She wanted to ask where they would be going to the dungeon today; she was stating the dungeons they often go to these days.

Maria: "I think today will be the First Bastion again. Tomorrow is Toxic Marsh, and after that would be the Ra Canyon."

Nicholas: "Ahhh, now that I remember. Maria, remind me to go to the potion store tomorrow since we already run out of poison resist and abnormal resist."

They chatted for a while, waiting for their food to arrive. But they didn't have to wait long since right after a few minutes after they took their seat and started chatting, food was brought and served.

Nicholas: "That was quite fast." He was impressed by the pace of service here. He was expecting their food to arrive after a dozen minutes due to the sheer number of customers they have on the first floor.

Nicholas: "Let's eat!"