Calculating Cultivation

Chapter 12: Hunting Up Profits

Yuan Niu, I greeted my brother as he entered my office.

Yuan Zhou, he replied and bowed deeply towards me. I will be in your care, he replied. I nodded at this and gestured at the seat in front of my desk.

I am looking to hire a manager to oversee all my operations.

Did father put you up to this? he asked me.

Yes, I replied honestly, and he let out a sigh.

So, what is it I am doing? he asked. I explained how he would audit my various businesses, provide me with monthly updates and written reports, and basically keep everything I had done running smoothly.

I would be the Director of Zhou Holding Company Limited? he asked with a confused expression.

Yes. Your job would be to oversee the managers of the various divisions. I went over to a wall in my office and pulled open a curtain. It showed the name of various people and their positions in an organizational chart.

I kept it here, in case I needed to remember who someone was exactly. Ting, Hong, Fang, and yourself would all hold Director level positions. Ting handles hiring as Director of Human Resources and Hong is Director of Security. You would be Director of Operations. Fang is the Director of Accounting. Instead of reporting to me, the senior managers of our four divisions would report to you. There was woodcarving, mining, hot sauce, and smelting.

Your job is to keep things running smoothly and being able to handle issues as they arise. That means regular audits and talking to the senior managers and managers to find out if there are problems, I explained.

He nodded slowly as he looked over the organizational board. Right now, my three directors reported to me with only a couple of people at the senior manager or manager rank under them. Then there were the four lines coming up to me from the right side of the board from the senior managers in charge of each division.

This is an actual job then, and not charity? Yuan Niu asked me.

Yes. If you want a charity position, I can set that up instead, but figured you enjoyed doing things. He nodded at that.

Yes. I am not like that useless Yuan Liang. If he was named heir, I would have slit my wrists in anger, Yuan Niu said. There was clearly some bad blood there, and I wanted no part of that.

Well, our company motto is, Keep the drama to a minimum, I said. Yuan Niu turned to stare at me. Things happen, but if you work hard, you will be paid fairly.

Dont keep me guessing. How much is the position? he asked.

I am curious what you think it would be? I asked.

Five tael a month? he asked.

Twenty, I replied. But if you steal or cause a major incident or scandal, you are out. Also, if you try to hide a mistake, you will be out. If you report things in a timely manner and you try your best, then there wont be issues.

Twenty teal. How much are you making, brother? he asked me.

About twenty, I replied with a cheeky grin.

Twenty Twenty thousand? he gasped.

Yearly. The mining and smelting division are quite profitable.

How? That is more than father makes. You could have been heir! he said.

I could have. He offered as much, but being the Yuan heir is a step down for me on the path I currently walk. Come, let us go meet the other directors so you can understand how I run things here at Zhou Holding Company Limited.

Yuan Niu accepted the position, and I introduced him around. I spent the next week dragging him around with me to show him what he needed to do. The reports I wanted and how to address minor issues.

Why did you give that worker that much face by bowing? He is a debt slave, Yuan Niu asked after I discovered an issue at the mine. The workers were being forced to sleep outside the shelter as punishment.

There are guidelines for punishments. Extra work hours and no meat or time off during the weekly celebration when they meet their quota. Not being forced to sleep outside. As the owner, it is my responsibility to set a good example. Criticize in private, compliment in public, I explained.

You told the manager and the foreman off in private and gave the worker twenty bronze coins off his debt.

He will also miss the next two meat dinners as punishment instead. The twenty bronze coins are minor, but a worker that is working hard is important. I keep the level of debt slaves at just enough they have to work 12-hour days for six days and 6 hour day to meet their quota. But I have a medical doctor that goes around once a month. Why? I asked Yuan Niu.

You want them to work harder. Do they really?

Yes. You can check the records, but they do. Making them sleep outside is a minor issue, which is why I only lightly chastised the foreman and manager for allowing it to happen. But I also have lunch breaks. A human can only work so long before their body gives out, and they get tired. Also, mining requires focus. Giving them a break and incentives to them and costs me very little.

You are feeding them scraps, but they love them, he muttered, and I nodded.

Exactly. Also, it takes time, money, and energy to train up new debt-slaves. If I whipped them and they worked half as hard, then I would have to hire more which would end up costing more than throwing them paltry rewards, I explained. Thank you western capitalism for teaching me. I had meat and not pizza, but it was all about adapting.

I see. I saw the numbers, but I didnt believe it.

Slaves are an excellent source of labor, but they still need to be incentivized. That is why any time a slave pays off their debt in full, everyone gets a day off and cheap drinks to celebrate. What do you think they are thinking about?

Working hard to pay off their debts. Your understanding of human nature is quite impressive, brother, Yuan Niu told me.

Well, I expect you to keep it up in my place. The workers should smile when they see you. But if one steals, make an example and let everyone know. I have had to do it twice, but make it clear we reward hard work, stealing is punished, and we do not reward laziness. Yuan Niu nodded at this.

I have been thinking about a business idea, Yuan Niu said.

You want me to invest, I am guessing? I asked. He nodded. My directors got a 0.5% yearly profit bonus. While it was only 100 tael, it was a lot for people who had never seen that much wealth before. Most of them invested in nicer homes for their families and better prospects for their children. It also made them fiercely loyal. No other business paid out percentages to its workers.

I wanted less headache, which was something they all knew. That was a big reason I didnt have constant issues coming to me all the time.

I was thinking we should fund our own trade caravan, Yuan Niu explained.

How would that work, exactly? I asked.

Well, you pay for the carts, goods, and a caravan leader, which would be like a senior manager. They do a trade route between cities, where the caravan manager buys and sells goods.

That requires cultivator protection and isnt cheap, I replied.

It isnt. And there are risks. But if it works out, then there is a massive profit. Especially the further a caravan goes, Yuan Niu explained.

How far are you thinking? I asked.

A five-year loop, which would go all the way out to the Capital along the North route and come back along the South route, near the coast, Yuan Niu explained.

How much would funding something like this cost, and what is the return? I asked.

The cost would be about 50,000 tael, and the return would be about 150,000 tael, depending on the goods and the market, he replied.

Why so much? I asked.

Hiring a cultivator between each trip between cities. There would be twenty such legs between major cities that are trade hubs and have sects nearby, so about 40,000 tael. It would be better to hire a trustworthy one here for the entire trip. Then another 10,000 for the carts, salaries, and to purchase goods.

You want to be a caravan leader? I asked.

I always wanted to travel, and this is the only way if you arent a cultivator, he replied. I considered his request.

Sure, I replied, and he grinned. Lets say two years from now, since I dont have that much tael on hand, and it will show me you can manage things properly. I will want to know more details, of course, but the answer is yes.

Thank you, brother! He couldnt really bow in the carriage.

Dont die out there. I dont want to seek revenge on your behalf, I half joked.

The caravans that run into issues hire untrustworthy cultivators. But at 40,000 tael for a five-year trip, will convince a third stage cultivator to come along. They would probably sit in their carriage and be waited on hand and foot, but that was the cost of traveling.

The real danger was traveling outside of the caravan. The threat of beasts, bandits, and rogue cultivators was much higher. But these groups mostly knew to stay away from the caravans. If they were attacked, that was when the sects would take notice and cities would fund an extermination.

Trade was an important revenue stream for many cities. While it was mostly luxury goods, there were also critical supplies. Like the metals I was sending out.

Also, two years would allow Yuan Niu to build up a stockpile. I knew he was going to cart off all the hot pepper powder he could and squeeze all the money he could out of various distributors in the other cities.

Distributors were middle men between various businesses and caravans. Only a select few businesses would have a dedicated employee meet with caravans to sell their goods. My fathers cattle business was one example. Distributors only took a 1% transaction fee, but charged if goods were left overnight in their warehouse and would cut you off if you didnt deliver the goods requested within a day. They also had to be kept up to date about what stock you had and what you wanted.

They were lesser merchants, but many third or fourth sons took up this role. I heard Yuan Liang had taken up a position as a distributor. My father clearly helped him land a position outside the familys businesses.

Incoming! Hong suddenly shouted. There was a roar. I heard shattering wood and Hong shouting outside the carriage, along with my other guards. It was over quickly, and there was a knock on the carriage door.

I opened up the window and Hong was there looking beat up and tired. Young master, are you all right? he asked me.

Yes. Is it over? I asked.

It is. Just a level 1 beast. I opened my door, and he gave me a look when I exited, but said nothing. The beast appeared to be a giant wolverine about the size of an enormous dog, or a small car children could drive in on their lawn. It had several slash marks and a spear through its eye. One of my guards had the front of their armor slashed with huge rents in it, but was alive and only bleeding lightly, thankfully.

A knife, I said to Hong. I rolled up my sleeves. He pulled one out and handed it to me. I approached the beast.

Careful, master, they sometimes like to pretend they are dead.

It is still alive, but crippled. I made my way to its side. Hong had his sword out, looking at the beast nervously. The hide was very tough, but I got the knife in. I then plunged my arm into the monsters gut as the qi I saw inside of it flickered, where I felt the spirit core. I pulled it out with a yank. It glimmered a soft blue.

The meat, while valuable, was something we werent equipped to harvest or handle. Also waiting around would draw attention from more beasts. Hong handed me a cloth and I wiped off my bloody arm and the spirit stone, leaving the cloth behind.

I want everyone to keep quiet about this. I am quite serious about this. There will be a ten tael combat bonus for everyone once we return. There were cheers at that. I tucked the spirit stone into my robe and got into the carriage and we set off.

My brother was looking at me with wide eyes. Did you just extract a beast core by hand? He asked.

Something like that. I expect you to keep quiet. I mean it, I replied.

Yes, of course. I wont mention it at all. I nodded. Even if rumors did spread, I was a heaven-sent genius and an inner disciple of the Cloudy Moon Sect.

I would add this spirit stone to my collection that was stored inside the vault at the Coinage Guild. For a fee of ten taels a month, they offered vault services and would arrange promissory notes for cultivators traveling to other cities if they wanted to move some of their wealth.

Not everyone had a spatial storage ring and promissory notes had some energy shenanigans going on, which made them impossible to steal. But they were only available to cultivators. My sponsorship for my hunting team was going well.

I was slowly converting my tael into spirit stones. They couldnt directly be used in cultivation but supporting arrays, pills, and other items. The qi of the beast inside the core had to be processed before humans could use it.

An idiot would think they could swallow a core and cultivate like that. That was a good way to get cultivation deviation and mess everything up. It was a rumor and piece of stupidity that was spread about. Even in cultivation land, there was fake news.

What I really wanted was to build up my war chest as much as possible before joining the sect. Just as bronze coins had become useless to me, eventually tael would as well. Since tael was a metal-based currency, there was only so much circulating. That was one reason the Coinage Guild helped move high level transactions into spirit coins.

Otherwise, the entire economy would experience a massive wealth drain, as all the old cultivators kept piles of silver coins locked up in their homes. Also, moving that much metal around was a nightmare.

Technically, I should report this to the Hunting Guild, but that would raise questions. Well, I just wouldnt say anything and none of my people would say anything either. No one wanted to upset the boss that handed out large bonuses. I would make sure that even the carriage driver was included as well.

What I really needed to do was to work on my cultivation even more. Even with all the traveling I was doing, I was still lagging behind my target. I was ten years old and had only collected 450,000 motes. I was only collecting about 300 motes per day.

Anyone else would have puked out blood and cried at my progress, but I wanted to hit my target of 1,320,000 before I turned 20. That was one thing all humans were bad at, mortals and cultivators both. They lacked a sense of immediate urgency.

It was no good to cry and panic when I was Yi Rongs age, taking my last breath. I needed to go faster right now in order to have more time later. I wanted to get the remaining 870,000 motes by the time I was sixteen.

Unfortunately, I would hit my target around nineteen instead. I would need to up my collection of motes to 400 per day, but I just didnt run across enough. My larger body helped in reaching the ones overhead, but I needed to go faster.

It was time to pay a visit to the cultivation store once more. I had gone when I was a child but didnt have the money. Now I had money and wanted to speed up my cultivation and ask some more questions. I arrived at the store in the commercial district in the center of Half Moon City.

A smiling clerk greeted me. They showed me their items, which refreshed my memory. Qi Candle for 10 tael to see motes. A Qi Pill that gave 100 motes for 50 tael. Only one pill per day. Incense stick to attract Qi for 8 hours, 100 tael for one use. Qi Sensing Rod, 1,000 Tael. Would vibrate near a source of qi. Qi Sensing Pill that increased a persons ability to sense qi.

I would like to speak to someone about bulk purchases and the risks associated with each item, I told the clerk.

I am trained to answer all your questions.

I have read about pill toxicity. What about these pills? I asked.

The Qi Pill are just captured motes contained in pill form. The risk is from the binding agent the pill uses. Taking too many pills can cause severe stomach and digestion issues, but they will not harm your cultivation unless you are beyond the first stage. That is why it is recommended taking only one a day. I nodded at this.

What is the incense lighters range? Could I use it outdoors? I asked.

We recommend using with a Qi Candle, but it can be used outdoors. The effect is slightly more pronounced than indoors, but the Qi Candle wont work nearly as well unless used indoors. I nodded at this.

I dont really understand the use of the sensing rod.

Some people like to hunt down Qi motes and to save money. So, they use a rod. It vibrates when touching a mote of Qi. I nodded at this. That was a long-term investment for poor people.

Are there issues with taking a lot of sensing pills? I asked.

We only recommend one at most. After that, their effects are limited and any more might damage your energy.

How does it work and how good is it? I asked.

The Qi Sensing Pill would heighten your sensitivity to qi across your entire body by aligning it more with the Qi of the world. I would not risk that. I did not know how my sight worked, but I would not risk messing it up.

I will purchase 20 Qi Pills and 10 sticks of incense. Also, the Qi Sensing Rod. That would be 7,000 tael. The clerk smiled, and I quickly arranged the transaction since I had brought money with me. Two servants were carrying the chest and there were four guards.

The tael was counted, and they gave me thirty glass bottles, each containing a single pill or incense stick. I also got a complimentary wooden incense holder as well. They gave me a small case with the sensing rod. With my purchases done, I returned to my warehouse and popped a pill into my mouth.

I could feel the motes enter me. There was nothing different about them compared to other motes. I had been worried about that, but I could literally pay my way to success with pills. The reason people didnt do this was the sheer cost and the lack of drive it showed. If someone was willing to use pills for the first stage, then what would they do in the second stage where they couldnt use pills?

That was why even parents and other people did not just gobble down Qi Pills even if they were rich and could spend that money on their kid. They purchased them candles instead. Or a Qi Sensing Rod. The really rich might purchase incense sticks to go with the candles.

The next thing I did was light an incense stick to test it out. I pulled out the sensing rod and pointed it at the motes. It had a very subtle vibration and had to get incredibly close to do anything. The incense stick was also mediocre, but did its job. It drew in 20 motes per hour. After the first hour, I lit a second stick in the warehouse.

The mote draw increased to 22 motes per hour, a minor increase. Still, with these items, I wouldnt need to run everywhere. The annoying thing was I needed to collect the motes for more motes to show up. They had some sort of repulsion field towards each other, and the incense stick reduced that repulsion. So, the motes bumped into each other outside and then drifted inside the warehouse more.

The base rate would have been about 5 motes an hour in the warehouse, so it was a fourfold increase. Just nowhere near what I was hoping for. Still, an incense stick was worth about one and a half pills but cost twice as much.

But I could only take a pill a day. Two incense sticks a day, and a pill would net me only 420 motes. If I traveled and only came back once every hour, I could probably up that number to 500 motes. It would take about 5 years to hit my target instead of 9. But the cost would be astronomical.

That was 1,740 days I would need a pill and two incense sticks at 250 tael a day. That was 435,000 tael total, which would not happen. Just buying what I had put pressure on my finances, and I needed to fund the caravan in two years time.

My daily income came out to around 80 tael per day. I put my mind to work as motes came into the warehouse as I thought over the best way to go about dealing with how poor I truly was. It seemed odd. The richer I became, the poorer I felt.

That was the problem when I wanted to buy super expensive things. The rod had been an impulse buy, but I was interested in trying to figure out how it worked. It also seemed useful for keeping people off my case about cultivation if they ever asked.

What I needed was a new business idea that brought in the money. I had a lot of metal I could use. The problem was no one wanted to ship finished goods, only bars. Bars were universal, and each city had their own way of making things. A slightly curved sword, a single-sided knife, and so on. No one would buy outside goods like that in bulk.

I could turn iron into steel, but that would draw way too much attention. That was the kind of material the sects would purchase for gear and weapons. I considered that. The problem was, I would need some large facilities and supplies to make it happen.

Shaking my head at the idea which would be an enormous investment and the Smithing Guild would make drama. The Sect might even make a drama about large-scale steel production. That was unfortunately off the table.

Hunting was where the money was at, but I didnt like the thought of risking myself personally. I was an educated person, not some brute. On the other hand, Master Yi Rongs warning echoed in my head. Cultivation was a path of conflict.

I frowned at this. With the number of sums that were being thrown about, it was getting quite scary. I had equated a bronze coin to a dollar in my mind. A tael was worth a thousand dollars. A rank 1 spirit coin was a million. The spatial ring in my possession was worth ten billion, and that was a low ranked ring.

To be a successful cultivator, a person needs to be incredibly wealthy or incredibly lucky. But there was a difference between winning a billion-dollar lotto jackpot and owning a billion-dollar company. The first was pure chance. The second required a person to be competent to grow it that much.

Everything I had done so far was simple and fairly small. The mining management agreement was a risk, but I had agreed to shoulder most of it, and it was growing an area of business, and not stepping on anyones toes or cutting into their business.

The hot sauce was its own market and a food specialty product. Other people were trying to emulate my success, but they didnt have the capital and knowledge I had. So, they cut corners and made less tasty and weaker versions, which I was fine with.

The woodcarving competition issues had been sidestepped by taking in grandmaster Kangs mentally ill grandson and making him successful. Last I heard, he was able to visit home and got along with his family decently.

Smelting ore side stepped issues by shipping a lot of the bars out of the city. No one here cared that much if other markets were hit and there was always a demand for metal. But I was straining to come up with more ideas for markets that werent stagnant, wouldnt get anyone that upset, and I could make a lot of money off of.

It wasnt easy thinking of my next project to make money. I had thought about slowing down on the business side, but to speed up my cultivation, I needed more money. I had a feeling this issue would plague me my entire life in my chosen profession. No wonder why regular people had no chance at success and even the rich people hesitated to invest in a kid to make them a cultivator.

You pick the wrong kid, you just lost a lot of money. Nation defense budget kind of money. It would be a black hole and very difficult to get returns out of. Sure, some families did fund cultivators, but that was once a generation and they had senior cultivators to ease the path for their juniors.

I wasnt flashy with my money, either. While certain people knew I was rich, I dont think they realized how rich I was. I told my father, who was always smiling when he saw me. What father didnt want their son to be supremely talented, incredibly wealthy, and was going into the most prestigious profession possible?

This culture seemed to have very Asian tendencies, so I could see parents looking at their kids and going, Look at Yuan Zhou, he made ten thousand taels a year by the time he was ten. He is going to be a cultivator and become immortal. What are you doing? All the kids probably hated me from the looks their parents were giving them and getting annoyed at this Yuan Zhou they have never met.

It was an amusing thought, and also humbling to think about the expectations I had placed on myself. I also had three major advantages, which were immense. Being able to see motes, my knowledge from Earth, and being aware at birth.

These combined made me a genius blessed by the heavens and earth. But that was as far as advantages went. I still needed to sort out my future cultivation and figure out how to rapidly progress through the third and fourth stages. It would take a lot of money, which brought me back to my original thought of trying to figure out how to earn more money.

I could bully my way into a market, like food stands, but then people would get annoyed. Targeting successful and stable businesses was not taboo, but it was looked down on by the people in power. They liked stable and incremental improvements.

While no one had spoken directly to me, I had visited the Coinage Guild to gain this understanding. Cultivators lived for a long time. So, while they wouldnt say no to some change, they didnt want turmoil and businesses being crushed, forcing them to get involved. That made it all the harder to figure out what I could do.

There were no major market imbalances, either. When your civilization has been running for millennia, things get sorted out. So, while there were specialty goods like my hot sauce and spice that were shipped around, over time, people in other cities worked these things out if there were no guilds to protect the patents.

In a hundred years, there would probably be one local hot sauce maker in every city peddling their local version of hot sauce. Again, it wasnt a big problem in my mind. The issue was how static the market was. Business failures werent common, and the Coinage Guild preferred to let things play out before stepping in. There was nothing more I could easily scoop up at a bargain. What this place needed was some entertainment to take peoples minds off these issues. Oh, I was such an idiot.

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