Chapter 371 - 360: Money Is Not the Problem, the Problem Is How Much Money I Have
Chapter 371: Chapter 360: Money Is Not the Problem, the Problem Is How Much Money I Have
Factory Number One, Eastern Industrial Zone, Hub City.
The massive factory floor was no longer empty. Five production lines lay sprawled like great steel dragons, surrounded by all manner of equipment.
Six Advanced Apprentice operators, handpicked by Vera from the New West alumni network, were dressed in matching robes, working busily and methodically at their stations.
A taciturn First-level Alchemy Wizard with a sharp gaze was patrolling between the production lines.
This was the factory manager Victor had recommended—Rodney, a veteran with over eighty years of experience in Alchemy Factories.
When he reported for duty, he didn’t waste a single word. He spent two hours walking through the entire process of all five production lines from start to finish, then proposed three improvements, all of which Allen adopted.
Allen was inspecting several Golems that had just come off the line.
Model: Service Series-A1. Energy Core output: Standard. Joint flexibility: Standard. Rune Circuits integrity: Standard.
Model: Educational Golem-T2. Magic Detection module sensitivity: Standard. Feedback delay: 0.1 seconds.
All factory parameters were stable and within the standard range set by Allen.
This meant that the Hub City factory, a production line completely independent of Cybertron, was now officially up and running.
"Manager Rodney’s oversight is excellent."
Colin stood beside Allen, watching the smoothly operating factory with undisguised delight. "We’ve also secured the raw material channels. At this rate, we can even handle all of the Tieyan Clan’s orders."
Allen nodded. "Let’s go. Back to headquarters."
...
「That evening, in the office on the second floor of New West Headquarters.」
Vera, travel-worn from her journey across Planes, had just sat down when Colin handed her a cup of hot tea.
Allen, Vera, and Colin—the big three of Weisren Heavy Industry—were gathered once again.
Without any pleasantries, Allen got straight to the point.
"I’ve called you all here today for three things."
"First. The Golem Division will operate independently starting today, no longer under the New West framework. Colin, you’ll oversee it."
Colin nodded. They had already reached a consensus on this matter.
"The sales channels for the educational Golems will still go through New West, but all branding, client relations, and after-sales service for War Golems will be conducted under the name ’Weisren Heavy Industry.’ The financial statements for the two lines will be prepared separately and reported monthly."
"No problem," Colin said.
"Second thing." Allen glanced at Vera. "We need to expand production capacity."
Colin’s pen paused.
"Factory Number One has five lines: two for educational Golems, three for war. It’s enough for now. But you know better than I do how fast orders for educational Golems are growing. As for War Golems, follow-up orders from the Tieyan Clan are imminent, and miscellaneous purchases from within my Association are also increasing. Furthermore, I plan to talk to Eleanor soon about selling through the Association’s sales platform."
Colin was already frowning; he knew what Allen was going to say next.
"Therefore, we need to greenlight Factory Number Two and Factory Number Three as soon as possible and hire more staff."
’Just as I thought.’
"Boss," Colin said, putting down his pen and choosing his words carefully.
"If we expand this aggressively, our capital won’t keep up. After paying the recent factory rent, the final installments for equipment, and employee salaries, we have less than three million Low-Level Magic Stones left in liquid assets."
"The final payment from the Tieyan Clan hasn’t arrived yet, and the collection cycle for the educational Golem business is at least one quarter. With this little money, even maintaining the current factory’s operations will be tight."
"To build two more factories of the same scale—factoring in the sites, equipment, raw material down payments, and recruitment... we can’t even get started without twenty million Low-Level Magic Stones." Colin pushed up his glasses, his eyes behind the lenses filled with anxiety. "Our capital chain will snap on the spot!"
Vera frowned as well. While she didn’t understand the financial details, she knew Colin was speaking the truth.
Weisren Heavy Industry was like a war machine that had just started up, about to stall out from lack of fuel before it could even accelerate.
The office fell into a dead silence.
Allen listened quietly and didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he projected an image.
"Take a look at this."
Colin and Vera exchanged a look and focused their full attention on the projection.
The scene unfolded. Beneath a dark yellow sky and lead-gray clouds, hundreds, if not thousands, of workshop servitors were moving and cutting massive metal wrecks on a devastated landscape, working like an assembly line.
On Cybertron, two matter recycling furnaces roared day and night. Their intake ports swallowed huge chunks of scrap metal, and their output ports spat out ingot after ingot of silver-gray, high-purity Black Patterned Magic Steel.
At the end of the footage, the final figures appeared.
[Total high-purity Black Patterned Magic Steel and equivalent metals recovered: 234,000 tons.]
[Net profit estimate after deducting all costs: 81.5 million Low-Level Magic Stones.]
The office was silent for three seconds.
"Th-This is..." Both of them were stunned.
"This Black Patterned Magic Steel came from an abandoned battlefield on Plane 1143."
Allen’s tone remained perfectly calm. "It was a waste disposal mission posted by the Association that went unclaimed for three months. I cleared it in eleven days."
Colin finally found his voice. "Eigh... Eighty million?"
"I’ll sell most of the Black Patterned Magic Steel in batches on the Association’s market to liquidate fifty million Low-Level Magic Stones."
Allen held up three fingers. "Thirty million of that will be transferred directly to the company account for the construction of Factory Number Two and Factory Number Three. The remaining twenty million and a portion of the Black Patterned Magic Steel will be kept on Cybertron for our own use."
Colin took a deep breath and ran the numbers through his head three times to make sure he hadn’t misheard.
The funding problem was solved.
"And that brings me to my third point," Allen said, not waiting for them to fully digest the news.
"Weisren Heavy Industry is adding a new business division."
"The Environmental Protection Division."
Vera’s eyebrows arched slightly. She hadn’t heard a single word about this.
"To put it bluntly, we’re collecting scrap."
Allen was direct. "We will offer above-market rates to take on metal scrap processing for various Alchemy companies and workshops. At the same time, we’ll proactively take on battlefield cleanup missions. People will pay us to haul away their ’trash,’ and we’ll turn that trash into raw materials."
"Furthermore, we can open a scrapyard that only accepts metal. The core competency of this business is the combination of technology I just showed you: the matter recycling furnace and dissolution spells."
Allen tapped the table. "As it stands, these two technologies have only ever been demonstrated by Advanced Wizards, but I am the only one on the market who can commercialize, scale, and simplify them. We’ll have very few competitors, an enormous profit margin, and a technological barrier that gives us complete control over pricing."
"Battlefield wrecks and metal scrap go into the matter recycling furnace and come out as high-purity metal. Some of this metal will be sold on the bulk market for cash, and the rest will directly supply our own Golem production lines, cutting down our procurement costs."
Colin’s breathing grew rapid.
This meant Weisren Heavy Industry’s raw material costs would be compressed to a ridiculous degree, making it impossible for their competitors to keep up.
Vera had been silent until now. "That’s all assuming the technology doesn’t leak," she said.
"Correct."
Allen looked at her. "The core principles of the matter recycling furnace must be kept highly confidential. I am the only one who knows the complete technical details. The factory operators will only interact with standardized operating procedures, not the core equipment."
"Understood." Vera nodded crisply. "As the company grows, I’ll start drafting a confidentiality policy tonight."
Colin was already typing furiously on his terminal, his expression shifting from shock to excitement, and then from excitement to greed.
He looked up, his eyes burning brightly behind his lenses.
"Boss, let me confirm—you’re saying we’ll not only make money manufacturing Golems, but we’ll also make money processing waste, and then use the raw materials from that waste to feed our Golem production lines? We’re triple-dipping?"
"That’s the idea." Allen leaned back in his chair.
Colin slowly closed his terminal, took off his glasses to wipe them, and put them back on.
"Boss," Colin said, his voice soft with a sense of genuine awe.
"Hm?"
"I used to think I was pretty good at business."
Allen didn’t reply.
"Now I feel like I’m not even qualified to work for you."
Vera couldn’t help but smile for a moment before regaining her composure. "Should the site selection for the recycling division be planned along with Factory Number Two?"
"Yes. Rent another workshop and set up the first production line for recycling and dismantling scrap Golems. We’ll start the business here in Hub City."
If the Golem arms business was Weisren Heavy Industry’s future spear and the educational business was its infiltrating web, then this new "waste recycling" business was the inexhaustible golden lifeblood that would support the entire empire!
Allen stood up. "We can study the specific plans in more detail. There’s no rush."
He walked to the window. The artificial daylight of Hub City was at its dimmest.
The square below was bustling with people, none of whom knew that a deal had just been struck in this unremarkable little building—a deal big enough to shake up the raw materials market across multiple Planes.