After getting mocked by Scarlet, Dylan chased her and tickled her until she surrendered.
They freshened up and had a meal together before they went to their respective bed rooms.
As the exhaustion of the day took over, Dylan fell into a deep, dreamless slumber. The familiar warmth of the physical world melted away, replaced by the weightless, otherworldly stillness.
...
After sleeping, Dylan Vastocean opened his eyes and he had returned to the Cosmic God Mansion's Space.
Before him stood Dylan Ford who greeted him, "Great progress out there! You have secured a lot of necessary materials for us."
"I..." Vastocean had no words since he knew that Ford must have seen the things he has done the entire day. "I wanted to work on the tables, chairs and the ceiling you told me about but... I didn't have any talent for it..."
"Hahaha, are you embarrassed?" Ford simply laughed as he comforted his business partner, "That's perfectly normal. I never expected you to do all of that to be begin with. You already did more than enough gathering the materials and ingredients. Good thinking also including the bark and the tree branches since we can use it as firewood."
"Really?" Vastocean looked at him in surprise. He thought he would be reprimanded for failing to do something.
"Yes, haha. A business is fundamentally an organization." Ford began pacing slowly, raising a finger to emphasize his point. "You assign people in appropriate roles where they can execute their jobs and excel while doing it. You have already fulfilled your role as the hunter and the lumberjack. You are already doing two important jobs in one..." He paused, turning back with a beaming grin.
"...You are worth more than two people!" Ford praised him and patted his back.
"I'm worth more than two people..." Vastocean who had battled with his self-esteem hearing that made him feel giddy and flattered.
"That's why we need someone who can fulfill the role of being our craftsman..." Dylan said, tapping his fountain pen against his palm as he spoke. "...We need to hire a craftsman for the furniture, the wooden utensils and any other handicrafts that we want for the business. Don't worry, I can handle that tomorrow since its my turn and I have spent most of my time in here brainstorming on people and establishments to go through within the Cirrus Cloud Town based on your memories."
"But, wouldn't that mean we would need to hire people for that? That would mean that we would need to spend money..." Vastocean said out of concern
Ford elaborated the necessity of these expenses, "Indeed. Business expenses when you're just starting a business will always be quite costly. That's why it's necessary to have a capital to invest in your business. This is especially true for business models like restaurants. Fortunately, we don't have to worry about the overhead expenses since we're operating within our property."
He raised a second finger, leaning forward in enthusiasm. "Additionally, human resources is one of the cornerstones of any business. The quality by which you can select and take in employees directly correlates to the performance of your business..." He brought his hands together in a firm clasp. "...Thus, you need to always ensure that these employees are skilled and competent in their jobs. Eventually, we would need to hire highly skilled people so we can scale up our operations!"
"For example, craftsmanship. Both of us don't have any knowledge and expertise in this field..." Ford offered a sympathetic wince and an apologetic bow of his head. "...As you have demonstrated earlier, the finished products that you worked on was, apologies for my words, subpar and dysfunctional. If we want to be able to at least get this company operating, we need to be able to have our facilities to be efficient and functional. Thus, the need for a competent craftsman."
"Unfortunately, we don't have money to directly hire a craftsman, but we can still opt to hire a craftsman through crafting requests..." Ford held up his pen, pointing it toward Vastocean with a razor-sharp smile. "...So, I took the liberty to also go through your memories and calculate based on your savings, the industry rates of hiring craftsmen and other necessary expenses. Your savings of five thousand copper coins will be more than enough to cover that!"
"My savings?!" Vastocean exclaimed. He vehemently rejected the notion, "No, I worked too hard for that... I was working my ass off in order to save enough money to buy a pill that would help me unlock my cultivation someday!"
Every single copper coin in that pouch was stained with the memories of blistered hands, sleepless nights, and bitter humiliation. To hand it over meant gambling the only fragile hope he had clung to for ten long years.
It was because this was Vastocean's entire life savings after working for nearly a decade through his two jobs. It was something that he had expended his blood, sweat and tears for.
"I understand that. But you need to look at the bigger picture. If we invest your life savings in our business idea, the return of investment would be far more than five thousand copper coins."
"I don't believe you." Vastocean shot back.
"Allow me to enlighten you about our projected income. These are the things that I have been doing in the Cosmic God's Mansion Space." Dylan Ford reached down, picked up two neatly folded strips of ripped white t-shirt, and handed them to Vastocean.
He also had other uniformly cut pieces of clothing with some writings on the floor behind him
In Vastocean's hands, one seemed to have a lot of complex calculations and the other seemed to be a menu pricing.
"What are these? Are these pieces of clothing...?" Vastocean looked at the pieces of cloth that Ford handed to him.
"Oh, these." Ford stepped back, glancing down at his slightly tattered torso and chuckling as he held up a spare strip. "I tested a few things when I was here. It seems that I still have my fountain pen..."
He clicked the pen cap with a sharp snap. "...I didn't have any paper so I simply ripped my white undershirt and then used my fountain pen which I could turn into a pocket knife to cut my shirt into pieces of clothing. I had to write very sparingly and with certainty since I cannot erase what I will write with the fountain pen."
"Anyways, I was able to draft out the necessary things for our business." Ford crouched down, tapping his pen against the remaining strips laid out on the floor like blueprint sheets. "I have made the costing for our food. To cost a product, you simply need to calculate your direct costs like materials and labor, add a share of your indirect costs like overhead expenses, and divide by the number of units made."
"Huh?" Vastocean did not understand what Ford was referring to so he could only look at him with obvious ignorance.
He stood back up, rubbing his hands together with a spark in his eyes. "Fortunately, we realistically don't have any indirect costs and our materials is essentially free! Thus, no matter what we price it, we will be profiting..."
He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "...but of course, we need to benchmark the prices through competitors so we will not undersell ourselves. Based on your memories of the prices of the diners around us that you've eaten at over the years, it seems that comfortably the industry standard price is around 5-10 copper coins for a meal."
He leaned over Vastocean's shoulder, pointing directly at the inked text on the cloth strip in the man's hands. "Based on the menu, a full course meal would be 20-30 copper coins and a regular meal would be around 5-10 copper coins. Let's say a customer spends around 5-10 copper coins per visit—let's call that our Average Order Value or AOV. But if they keep coming back over time, that single customer's total spending their Customer Lifetime Value, or CLV will easily shoot into hundreds of copper coins!"
Ford began tracing imaginary numbers in the air with his pen, his voice picking up speed as the math clicked together. "The Cirrus Cloud Town has an estimate of a population of twenty thousand. Let's say that we can only attract a tenth of that population as people who pass by and look at our menu. That's already two thousand potential visitors. Within those two thousand, even if only half of them actually decide to order food, that gives us a pool of one thousand customers!"
He slapped his hand flat against his thigh for emphasis. "...I think it would be reasonable to serve 30-35 customers a day, roughly hitting a thousand orders over the course of a month. If those customers buy a meal based on our initial benchmark of 5-10 copper coins, we would get five thousand to ten thousand copper coins in a month!"
"F-five thousand copper coins in a month!" Vastocean could not fathom that in his head. It took him nearly a decade to save five thousand copper coins. Yet, Ford had just presented him a scenario in which they can earn all of that within a month!
Ford flashed a sharp, confident smirk, leaning in closer to capitalize on Vastocean's amazement. "I am even severely underestimating what we could make in a month, since I am certain that there will be repeat customers due to the quality and novelty of the food that we will be serving. We could make far more than ten thousand coins in a month!"
"Even more t-than t-ten thousand?!" This left Vastocean completely flabbergasted.
The math was cold and unyielding, yet it burned brighter than any promise he had ever heard. For the first time, the invisible ceiling that had kept him trapped at the bottom of the world felt like something he could shatter.
Listening to all of this is calculations made his blood boil and a renewed motivation to continue working hard for this goal arose in his heart.
"Just imagine earning your entire life savings in a month or less!" Ford threw his arms wide, looking up into the grand expanse of the mansion as if already seeing their future empire.
"If my plans for expansions are implemented even at a decent execution, I estimate that we can earn not only thousands of silver coins, but thousands of gold coins in three to five years!" Ford said with unshakeable belief in himself.
"T-thousands of gold coins..." Vastocean shuddered in the potential of the company that Ford was promising.
A gold coin is worth a thousand silver coins. Similarly, a silver coin is worth a thousand copper coins. Vastocean had only ever held a copper coin so the prospect of having such incredulous amount of wealth to him is unthinkable!
'If everything he says is true, then... his ambition of creating a sect that would control cultivators despite being a cripple might just be plausible...' The crazy and absurd ambition that Ford had might just happen.
Ford stepped forward, extending a hand. The quiet confidence in his eyes bore no trace of hesitation. There was nothing but the fierce glow of a man who looked at an insurmountable mountain and saw nothing more than raw materials waiting to be harvested.
"Trust me! This will definitely work! Risks and Profits always come hand in hand in business. But this is a calculated risk, partner! We will definitely succeed!" Ford reassured him with a confident smile. The charisma he exuded would make anyone give their vote of confidence!
"Damn it!, you're way too convincing! I'll bet on this with you, Sir Ford. We'll use my saving as capital!" Vastocean said in frustration but Ford's speech had already sold him.
Yes, he was being driven by greed. But, faced with the prospect of earning his entire savings in a month and possibly even more, he had to take the risk.
"Perfect, you will not regret this. Hahaha." Ford shook Vastocean's hands firmly as he said, "I want to share a few things with you as well. I have some more theories on the possible functions."