Alexander Smith
Sales of close beta player slots will only provide a one time windfall. Given
Alex talent test has shown he can cultivate either his spiritual root or immortal bone. Since he has no intention of losing even a single gaming days, not dying is high on his priority list. With combat not being a priority, he chose cultivation pathways that are more versatile and offer greater flexibility sacrificing advantages for combat brought about by specialization. Looking back, Alex has been rather mercenary since starting the game. Excluding all combat related jobs, he picked whichever task that offers the highest sect merits. He ended up being a jack of trade but master of none. It's time for him to start specializing and plan for the future.
It can be said that when a person has too many options, selecting one becomes much more challenging. Unlike the real world, there are no established business conglomerates here that has pretty much captured most of the market shares. Any business that he chooses to venture into will be an almost even playing field. He has to say almost because money still talks even within the game. It maybe true that at this point in time all players have limited resources and there are not much they can entice other players to help them with in-game resources, but some of those players with money has been paying other players with real world money for their labour. Personally, Alex believes those who have been selling their labour for real world money at this point in time is too short-sighted and are pretty much limiting their future prospect. Oh well, everyone has their own aspiration. Some people are just geared toward being risk averse and are happy being an employee as long as they are fairly compensated.
Since an elimination process will not work in this scenario, Alex will have to play to his strength. Given how much he had spent on his university degree, he should make sure it was worth the fortune he had to pay for it. Thankfully, Alex has discovered that programming language share something similar to the runic script used in magic arrays, equipment enchanting, talisman and scroll scribing. Runic script is highly flexible and it can be designed to produce almost any result imaginable as long as someone knows exactly what they are doing. It is just like programming a software. Any software can be produced as long as sufficient resources are being poured into it.
A second point to consider is the fact that he will soon have his two brothers to assist him. Both of them work for a company that manufactures precision production machineries. It is this second point that Alex soon decided his family's future direction. The family will specialise in the production and sales of magic machineries. Once both his brothers enter the game, they will have to put their brains together on how to assemble magic lathe and milling machine. One can say that these two machineries form the backbone of modern manufacturing enabling the production of almost all other forms of modern machineries. One can argue Alex choice since both machines can be produced even without resorting to magical means. To that, Alex wishes them all the best trying to replicate those machineries in a world without a complex modern supply chain and infrastructure.
Producing these two types of magic machineries will be the first step in laying the family's foundation. The two magic machineries will have a niche demand catering to the needs of the production classes. To make a fortune though, Alex will need to product what the mass market needs. For that, he will need to find out the sect's future direction after the base has been upgraded.
Alex can probably make an educated guess on some of the sect's future direction. For one, the spirit gathering will need further upgrading to level three. Based on the game setting, the spirit gathering array determines the milestone when the game will enter the third phase. So, manufacturing mining machineries and equipment will be a good option. The expansion of the base will also means increasing demand for all type of minerals and ores.
Nonetheless, manufacturing something that has a market and something that is in short supply makes a big difference in sales and profitability. Seems like it is time for Alex to butter up to all those sect's supervisors and managers for some insider information.
*****
Acting Sect Leader Maximus Radcliffe
With everything in place, the final touch upgrading the spirit gathering array will be completed tomorrow. With nine thousand new disciples set to join the sect, Maximus needs to start planning for the long term. The resources needed by the base up to this point in time has been smuggled in from all across the lower realms. This approach is not be feasible nor sustainable for the long term especially when the population in Eldorin will only continue to grow. At the very least, Maximus needs to transform Eldorin huge trade deficit into a small trade surplus. Anything less than that would be an embarrassment to the sect's mantra. A merchant who can't turn in a profit is a failure and unworthy of being promoted to leadership roles in the sect. That means Alex will have to develop a whole long list of economic sectors.
For starter, Maximus will need to lay down the roadmap for developing the primary economic sectors to produce all the needed raw materials. Since the sect's grand elder has force upon him the twelve pavilion masters, he might as well he make full use of them. He will make each pavilion master in-charge of a resource producing base. Maximus is cautiously optimistic the competitive nature of the pavilion masters will be a positive boon greatly accelerating the bases development. Hopefully it doesn't turn into a disaster since he has no way of keeping any of the pavilion master inline.
Now that Maximus has an initial plan in mind, he will need to translate it into gaming jargon for his disciples. First, the goal for phase three is to turn the so-called beginner town into a city for veteran players. Next, twelve new settlements will be established to facilitate the production of raw materials that is needed to support a thriving city. These twelve new settlements will also become the beginner towns for new players in phase three.
Over time, Maximus has discovered Earthlings being highly educated is to his advantage. He can be a big picture planner and leave out all the nitty gritty details. His disciples will then easily fill up all the missing blanks. As a matter of fact, leaving things open ended produced a much better results than Maximus expectation in most cases as his disciples have a knack for improvising things whenever they have the chance to do so. With that in mind, Maximus just need to list down all the secondary sectors that needs to be supported in the city and his players will naturally plan out the crops that need to be grown, livestock to be raised and minerals and ores to be mined to achieved the desired objectives.
To wrap things up, Maximus intents to share the end goal for phase three as well. This will help all his disciples to plan better for the future. By the end of phase three, all twelve new settlements should reach city status as well. The starting city will become the world's capital while the other twelve settlements will become the regional capital. Fingers crossed, there will be nice surprises for him with the whole roadmap laid out to all the disciples.