A Boss with His Head in the Clouds
"Excuse my bluntness, boss, you'll go bankrupt very quickly if you do this."
Marge, the business manager hired by Manus, gasped after seeing the ideas Manus had put forward:
"Although our company can provide a large quantity of agricultural and sideline products, giving us an advantage in food procurement, this still can't withstand such high consumption—food costs remain, and processing food also incurs costs. Perhaps you recall that the company also has a bunch of laboratories to support?"
Marge understood that this young and wealthy boss had great ambitions, and that the areas he was investing in were indeed research fields that were currently highly regarded and generally considered to have a promising future.
But Marge really wanted to remind this boss that taking too big a step can easily lead to getting stuck, especially taking so many steps in so many directions at once.
Other companies are far larger than them, and they have to proceed with extreme caution even when taking a single step in one direction. How could their fledgling company dare to invest and develop in so many fields simultaneously?
The company hasn't collapsed yet mainly because the boss has paid for almost all of these investments out of his own pocket. Marge is really worried that her hard-won first job after switching jobs will slip away.
In this respect, it was one of the few things that made Marge feel relieved; her previous boss was just too disgusting... never mind.
In short, after losing this job, she will likely find it difficult to find work in the industry due to her previous employer.
But today, Marge discovered, to her dismay, that her boss was even more outlandish than she had imagined.
After pointing out this problem, Marge didn't stop there:
"Furthermore, I don't know if you've noticed, but what you're doing is genuinely supplying society with talent. These people are easily poached by other companies after they've been trained, and it's very difficult for us to restrict that unless you're willing to use some means outside the law."
The effectiveness of non-compete agreements is limited. Courts can only support them between companies in the same field at most. However, these companies primarily train employees and do not have R&D professionals. In theory, most companies can use them.
Of course, Marge also knew that she couldn't directly offend her boss, especially the top boss who could decide her fate.
"Of course, I also understand your desire to discover talents whose families may not be able to afford further education, and your precious, golden heart."
Marge's mind raced through her pay stubs, and she swallowed back any words like "foolish," "cough," or "naive."
"After careful consideration, I would suggest that you reconsider the previously proposed Fawley such as tuition reduction, free meals, etc."
Marge used a blue pen to sketch out almost all of Manus's ingenious ideas, then wrote "LOAN" in all capital letters next to it, and drew two lines below it.
"We'll convert everything into student loans—after you join our company, you'll repay them with your salary, plus a certain percentage of additional subsidies, thus achieving your desired goal."
"You're right."
Manus nodded, nearly causing Marge, who was poised to pounce, to twist her back.
She had prepared for a long battle to persuade her boss to abandon the decision that would bankrupt the company within six months and save her hard-won job.
So, they just agreed like that?
Manus was satisfied. Although he had studied law and business management, the real-world application of these fields was clearly not something that could be mastered simply by memorizing the textbook material.
Marge's proposed solution was very suitable, achieving Manus's goal under a premise that better protected her and was legal.
"In fact, these decisions can be further adjusted; the current plan cannot solve the company's low profitability problem..."
Finding Manus to be more approachable than expected, Marge's eyes lit up as she tried to take things a step further.
Manus took this advice, which Marge saw as merely changing the company's fate from being on the verge of collapse to not collapsing so quickly.
The so-called conversion to a loan does not actually increase the company's revenue; in the early stages, it remains a pure expense, and the company may even have to subsidize the raw materials for its meals.
Although the raw materials are produced in-house and are inexpensive, they could have generated much more profit if sold, but now there are only expenses and no return on investment.
The company currently only has this one profitable business; everything else is pure investment!
"This doesn't need to be adjusted. Food consumption isn't a problem, and you don't need to worry about the company's profits."
Manus did not adopt Marge's advice this time because these adjustments were unnecessary for the company—the company's actual profits were far higher than Marge had imagined.
The company's projects include not only selling fruits and vegetables, but also recycling waste, and at a price lower than the market price, making it seem like they are not making any money, since waste disposal also has costs.
But in reality, the company doesn't have that much cost to recycle waste. Manus recycled it all and turned it into Blackening Dead Matter. This Dead Matter can be any kind of resource that can be completely analyzed by Manus.
This approach is clearly unhealthy for the company, and Manus will Manus try to find ways within the realm of Muggle technology to dispose of the waste at a low cost. For now, he's doing this mainly because he does need a batch of Dead Matter.
"I've finally achieved a breakthrough in refining magical materials!"
Manus stared intently at the Mage Tower before him.
The Mage Tower, which had only had some important areas repaired and no floor had reached 10% of its original repair progress, now has an overall repair progress that has exceeded 20%!
The plan is to use Alchemy to maintain this pace of repairing the Mage Tower until the repair progress exceeds 70%!
Although this 70% is basically composed of basic magical materials and constitutes the rough form of the Mage Tower, its overall value accounts for less than 10% of the total cost of the Mage Tower.
But after these repairs, the entire Mage Tower looks very complete, and it's a pleasure to look at!
Moreover, the restoration of the Mental World is not entirely positively correlated with the rarity of materials for the Mage Tower. Compared to using souls to materialize, using Dead Matter to refine is clearly a much more cost-effective deal.
Manus was helpless before, because the materials were simply not available in this world, and there were no substitutes with similar properties. He could only use his soul to materialize them.
Fortunately, Manus also felt that doing so was not cost-effective, because the Mage Tower never collapsed in the Mental World and therefore did not materialize these parts.
Looking back now, it was such a wise decision!