The table was silent again, but Sage could see the questioning looks. He quickly continued to keep from losing momentum.
“I know there’s bound to be plenty of questions. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to make you all into silent investors and let you worry about whether or not you’ll ever get your money back let alone make a profit. We’re far too good of friends for that.”
Geng He actually let out an audible sigh and relaxed somewhat. It seems he had been tense about not wanting to let his friend down. Wan Yuhan started to laugh, “Good, good! I was worried you needed money, this Big Brother just spent all his money on a new beast!”
Qiu Hou slapped his back, “Wow, what a man! Boasting about being broke. I wish I could be that brave!”
Sage nearly snorted to keep his laughter in, but Yuan Hu didn’t care and just broke into raucous laughter. Slapping his thigh and clapping his hands. Wan Yuhan realized what he’d said and looked annoyed for one second before he also started laughing. The whole group broke into chuckles for a while before they all calmed down again.
“We’re not here to beg for money. We want you all to join the company. I invented some magical devices and had some business ideas. Wan Ling has helped me refine the ideas and is managing the business side of things. We’re opening branches in many cities already. The problem is that I want to go into seclusion. I’m worried that Wan Ling will run into problems and I won’t be able to help.”
Sage let his worry show on his face and looked to each of his friends, “For this reason I thought this would be a good solution. I can gain more support, and also give benefits to my closest friends!”
From this point on, everyone seemed interested and it turned into a discussion about the details. This is where Wan Ling stepped in and took over the debate. After some time there were even contracts drawn up for a rough look over. Sage and Wan Ling were guaranteed ten percent of the profits while the other four would be guaranteed five percent. The other sixty percent of the profits from the company would be allocated based on contributions or could be divided out to future business partners. There was some complicated ways to determine contributions and allocations, but Sage let Wan Ling handle that.
Everyone seemed pretty satisfied at this point, especially when they took the party over to the Palace of Prosperity. None of the contracts had been signed, but it would be good to show them just what it was they were getting into. Suffice it to say, they all thought the place was interesting to varying degrees. Qiu Hou really seemed to love the waterpark, Geng He was a fan of the sauna, while Yuan Hu and Wan Yuhan both had far too much fun getting pampered with massages, manicures, pedicures, and hair styling. So much for being manly and ferocious men.
A few days later they finally hammered out the contracts and all six signed. Wan Ling was very thorough and there was plenty of room to change things later while also ensuring that none of them could be taken advantage of. After input from everyone, they decided against naming it ‘Golden Monkey Company’, like Qiu Hou suggested and instead went with something simple. Fanrong Gongsi, or the Prosperity Company. It was already part of the name of their first business, the ‘Palace of Prosperity’, so it was simple enough to use it as a company name. Especially after all the crazy names that Qiu Hou and Wan Yuhan came up with.
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Who would want a company named ‘Bulging Ox Shoulders’ or ‘Million Treasures from Heaven on a River’?
Having dodged the bullet of a crazy business name, they moved on to the details. For the most part, he didn’t have anything planned from the group. Instead, Sage explained that if there was trouble he would have called upon his friends to help. With this agreement, it was to benefit them all. Instead of being a favor for a friend in need, it became helping their own interests. If he called upon them too often he would feel obligated to repay their favors. If they were all business partners it would remove that awkwardness as it would benefit them all if the business succeeds. At this point, all his friends had to do was help out if they ran into trouble.
Wan Ling was efficient. She established lines of communication among everyone involved and after getting a handle on everyone’s skill set she first asked for them to volunteer any methods in which they might be able to assist the company before coming up with her own ideas and putting them to work. Sage had returned from his trip, so he had a list of things to build in the Smithy. He also had a few ideas to work out with the others.
For Qiu Hou, he asked to create some Talisman that could be used for security purposes. While he could train beasts himself, he asked Wan Yuhan whether there were any creatures he knew of that could be used for luxury. Just like the Paradise Fantail that Sage saw at Strange Creatures were used to change the climate, he was sure other unusual beasts existed. If they could find a few they could start breeding and training them to use as ‘mascots’. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any ideas for Yuan Hu at the moment, but for Geng He he had the most.
Even in this world, women quite enjoyed cosmetics and Sage knew of far more of them than existed here. Geng He was a Doctor and an Alchemist, a combination that let him diagnose problems and create his own prescriptions. Sage called upon his help to start developing some cosmetic products. While he didn’t know much about chemistry or the makeup industry and their creations, Sage at least caught a few tidbits. From what he saw, most of the ladies used powder, eyebrow darkening, lipstick and nail painting. Sage gave Geng He ideas on how to create a concealer or foundation, along with coloring the standard powder they already used. A concealer could be made by just adding powder to beeswax, cocoa butter, or other similar materials. The colored powders could be used to create eyeshadow or blush and they could use the Palace of Prosperity to introduce their products to the populace.
Wan Ling was skeptical, wondering who would want to color their face entirely pink, blue or purple. It was only after a few were created and Sage directed her to add just a tint of different colors to her eyelids that she changed her tune. He had no idea what sorts of styles would crop up, and there was no doubt that others would copy their idea, but it could cause a boost in popularity at least for a short while.
Sage spent the next few weeks in the Smithy, creating the dozens of devices that would be needed to open the Palace of Prosperity in a dozen more locations. They were all quite simple and inexpensive, in fact the most expensive part of them were the arrays that would make them self destruct if they were tampered with. While he was at it, Sage experimented on a few more money making ideas. What he knew about makeup was limited, but he knew of a few devices that women loved. Hair curlers and hair dryers. For these two devices he didn’t bother with concealing arrays, they were just too simple. The hair curler only required a single heating array and a single spirit stone mounted on the handle.
The hair dryer ended up a little more expensive than he wanted. At first, he thought of using different sorts of bellows and fan type systems to move heated air, but eventually he gave up. In the end he realized that the mundane technology of this sort was really lacking and it was actually easier to just create a small tornado creating array and add heat to it. The plan to create a hand-held blow dryer turned into the salon style hair dresser mounted to the back of a chair.
Eh, not like it matters to me. Still works!
He made detailed designs of all the unique devices and prepared them for later. Once the company was a little more popular he planned on bringing them to the Holy Flame Sect to shop out the low level labor. He also thought of having them practice their skills on bricks, which could then be used to create walls, but the Blacksmithing apprentices were far more focused on practicing their forging skills more than they practiced their array inscribing. That was also the reason why Sage was only a Rank 1 Blacksmith, they needed to shape and forge high level materials far more than they needed to inscribe arrays. If they needed an unusual array they could always hire a Formation Master to assist them, the Smith was mainly needed to do the forging.
I can finally go into seclusion again!