Family Meeting
Mercury Avenue on Number Nine Floating City is home to the Silver-Scale Manor, where Fran often attends banquets, as well as the Felistin Family's mansion on Number Nine Floating City.
Inside the mansion, all the family members were gathered together.
A large amount of furnishings and decorations in the hall were removed, leaving only rows of soft chairs. Family members sat down according to seniority and power, looking at the temporary platform in the center.
At this moment, Oliver, the head of a branch of the Felistin Family, was not standing on the platform; he was sitting in the first row below, looking up nervously.
Unlike his tension, most of the family members actually looked relaxed, for a very simple reason.
Due to the Territory Mage's ban, all previous suppression against the Felistin Family has temporarily ceased. Although the family members have suffered some losses as a result, the duration was very short, and they have not been seriously harmed.
In addition, the Communication Device project that the family recently acquired has become extremely popular in the Floating City.
Furthermore, after deducting the material and labor costs for manufacturing the terminal, you only need to pay for maintenance, and you can make money passively.
Even though a large portion of the profits were taken by the Mana Communication System project, the family still made a considerable amount of money through this method.
A very few business-minded individuals even knew that, in addition to the agreement with Fran, they could offer those clients some extra services, such as on-site renovation services.
You can also purchase some basic magical items through the system. Simply tell the hotline staff your needs and prices, and they will come to your door to provide service.
These additional services were outside the scope of the contract they had agreed upon with Fran, and they themselves had done a lot of work to circumvent the contract's constraints.
For example, these dedicated lines that allow you to buy things are actually third-party partners. It's just that the family has some transactions with the other party, and can put the other party's promotional posters or advertisements on the back of the magic Communication Device.
Using this circumvention method, the family made a considerable amount of money through the magic Communication Device. So far, the family has already recouped its costs and made a profit of about one thousand Gold Coin.
In addition, the sale of Magic-Essence Communication Device also required a large number of people, so the family recruited many people to participate in the project.
According to the project's internal records, these personnel costs are the most basic labor costs. After deducting this amount, the profits will be shared with Fran.
This resulted in the family as a whole only earning about 1,000 Gold Coin, even including those extra services, but the labor costs he incurred largely ended up in the hands of the family members.
This resulted in many family members receiving a decent reward even though the family did not distribute dividends to those who participated in the project.
These days, because more and more apprentices are being promoted from the Mage Academy, it's easy for magicians to find jobs, but it's difficult for them to find suitable jobs with high pay.
Now, with the addition of the Magic Element Communication Project, the Felistin Family 'Felistin Family cohesion has reached a new level.
This explains why almost all the family members present had smiles on their faces.
You tell him that the Territory Mage thing is beneficial to the whole family and is an opportunity for the family to rise, but for the family members, nothing is as comfortable as getting a heavy Gold Coin.
Amidst the laughter and chatter of family members, a figure slowly appeared on a small ladder beside the platform, causing the noise to subside.
After Ruge walked onto the platform, the accompanying mage asked everyone to quiet down. The noise stopped immediately, plunging the hall into silence.
All eyes turned to Ruge, the mage who had won the All-Forms Mage Award.
According to family rules, this is a common practice in all Mage Family, and those who are more accomplished or of higher birth should be obeyed by lower-ranking members.
In terms of lineage, Ruge is a member of the main family, and is said to be a direct descendant of the current family line.
In terms of achievement, even within the current Felistin Family, there is no other member who can receive the highest award in this School.
Faced with such family members, even if none of the mages here knew Ruge, they would unconsciously bow down to Ruge based on their upbringing.
Therefore, no one objected to Oliver, the head of the divided family, being thrown down there, because if Oliver were still up there, the mages present would have raised questions.
When Ruge took the stage, he was expressionless, his face tense. He had arrived in Number Nine Floating City about a month ago, but only recently came to take over the Felistin Family here.
During that time, he was busy with a task given to him by Vernon, which he needed to complete with Xiya.
After completing this task, Ruge focused his efforts on the division of the family property here.
Frankly speaking, there's no need for Ruge to be in charge here, neither during the period of suppression nor now after the ban was issued.
Because Ruge has neither the ideas nor the influence to make the other mages stop suppressing him, and even if he could, he wouldn't give it to the branch family on Number Nine Floating City.
He didn't have the ability to rebuild the family business after the ban was issued; he focused most of his energy on research, which is why he received the All-Forms Mage Award.
Therefore, he lacked the ability and experience to manage the family, allocate resources, and meet the needs of all members.
But he still had to come and take over here.
This branch family has developed a project that even the main family considers to have great potential— Magic-Essence Communication Device.
This device is now ready to be rolled out in other Floating City. According to the mages of the main family, the project has not even reached its rapid growth phase yet.
The scale of the future development could be a hundred times larger than the current one on Number Nine Floating City, because the Alliance has too many other mage gathering places besides Floating City.
The areas of the first few Floating City are much larger than those of the Number Nine Floating City, and the Number Three Floating City is nine times the size of the Number Nine Floating City, so there will be more mages there as well.
This highly promising project has fallen into the hands of a branch family, and many members of the main family are eager to take control of the gold mine themselves.
Ruge was reminded many times by his family through Communication Device, so that he could take control of the branch family before the news spread to the main family.
He looked down at his family members and felt a headache coming on, because he was completely unprepared for what to do.
The reason this place was taken over was simply because the growth rate of the magic Communication Device exceeded the main family's expectations, drawing their attention to this place.
He had no prior knowledge of the problems the family was facing after the division, what issues needed to be resolved, or where the family needed to expand.
Having no other choice, he could only speak about the familiar Magic-Essence Communication Device project. This was the only project he was somewhat familiar with, and he had learned about it from his family through Communication Device.
He cleared his throat and then asked.
"May I ask why you haven't finalized an agreement with them regarding the new project for the Champion Mage Challenge yet?"
The monks below the stage stopped smiling and turned their gaze to the monks sitting in the front row.
They didn't have the authority to decide this matter; it was discussed by the family members sitting in the front row.
They had already heard about this, and knew that if their Communication Device could actually broadcast the entire match, it would be a tremendous boon for the whole family.
However, for some reason, even though so much time has passed since this information came out, there has been no news of a new agreement being signed with that side.
They had already agreed to even deeper cooperation, such as promoting Communication Device in other Floating City.
Oliver stood up and explained to Ruge.
"I'm sorry, Master Ruge, we don't know why this is happening either. We were even prepared to fully fund this publicity campaign, but so far the other party hasn't given an answer."
Oliver recounted the details of his discussions with Fran. Because the initial negotiations were progressing very slowly, he simply resorted to his trump card, thinking that if he offered to pay the full amount, the other party would surely agree, right?
But to Oliver's surprise, Fran still wouldn't budge even with these conditions, and there were only a few days left until the deadline for reaching an agreement with the Burns Family.
After listening to Oliver's story, Ruge felt his headache get even worse.
Because even Oliver couldn't understand it, he, who had just temporarily taken up his position, had no idea what to do.
If things don't go well, it will give the rest of the family an excuse to take over the project, which is something Ruge and his family don't want to see.
Ruge now realizes that the problem is actually quite difficult to solve.
This project was never in their hands; it was their collaboration with the Mana Telecommunications System that brought it to its current scale.
The project team held absolute control; the approved documents and magic element-related technologies were all in their hands. They were merely expanding the scale of the project.
Moreover, judging from the initial agreement, Fran was prepared to take the lion's share of the profits, leaving some smaller portions for Felistin.
So the question is, are the Mana Telecommunications System users satisfied with the current revenue, and do they have any objections to the various additional services that their family is now offering in a wildly expanding manner?
If they suddenly decide not to cooperate with the Felistin Family, there's nothing they can do.
If they want Fran to keep her partner from changing, it becomes a matter of profit distribution, which in turn requires taking action against the family members here...
Don't be fooled by how well these family members behave in front of him; once their profits are threatened, very few of them will listen to him.
After an eerie silence fell over the scene, Camilla suddenly stood up.
"Lord Ruge, I have a message I would like to share with you."
Ruge was more than happy to do so, because he didn't know what to say next and wanted to hear if Camilla could say anything insightful.
As Camilla stood up, Oliver and the other family members raised their eyebrows slightly, thinking it was undignified for Camilla to bring her own wild guesses here.