WHOOSH
Cool winds brushed past Cæ as he flew through Colohen City at high speeds with several magic circles flashing before him. The Sun hid behind thick, dark clouds that prohibited much of its light from reaching the country.
The faint omens of rain lingered in the air as he felt icy drops of water occasionally hitting his face as he passed above the moving cityscape, drawing curious and envious glances from pedestrians on the streets.
Once he had graduated as a certified apprentice mage, he had the license for magic travel in the form of flight, something that was prohibited without the necessary training in magicademies that had a whole slew of protocols to ensure that accidents and tragedies were prohibited.
However, he ultimately found it worth it to save money and time through this method of transport, especially when he had been traveling to and fro from the Elendir Institute of Magic and the factory headquarters across the city.
Colohen City was a vast city with too much traffic to be worth wasting so much time in. Naturally, that meant that the mana that is flying across the city at the speed that he did was much greater than the money it would have cost to simply book a cab.
This was because of a phenomenon known as temporal value.
According to Melin's Law of Magic, the amount of mana a spell consumed was directly proportional to the value of the unfolding magic.
This included the value of time.
Reaching his destination sooner was more valuable as a service than reaching it later.
And thus, it would cost more mana.
Not that he minded, of course. Having graduated from the Apprentice Program, his consumption of mana for magic practice had reduced, which allowed him to get away with expenditure of mana for the time being.
This was especially so when he was often traveling back and forth between the magicademy and their factory base multiple times a day.
He had already begun the planning stages for the Outer District task force committee, which had already fleshed out much of the planning for conducting the magic aptitude tests. Simultaneously, he was making the final preparations for their little promotion campaign and had spent quite a lot of time investing in hiring the machinery operators.
WHOOSH
A gust of wind behind him swept over his body, disheveling his gray hair, as he arrived before an equally gray factory.
STEP
He gracefully lowered himself to the ground with a soft step as the pedestrians around him watched with a hint of awe and amazement before continuing on about their day.
VMMM…!
His eyes lit up with a hint of delight as the sweet hum of the enchanted machinery could be heard from the production lines of the factory.
CLACK
The doors opened wide as he found himself confronted with a sight that was truly remarkable to him.
Each of the ten production lines was entirely in operation, with three workers per production line. Each of them donned a safety helmet and goggles as well as rubber gloves and a special suit as they operated the enchanted forges, the alchemizers, the welding and press machines, and numerous other enchanted production machinery.
Each production line was long and comprised of multiple sections, including the processing section, which took raw supplies from a conveyor belt and processed them into the needed state using a variety of magical and non-magical processes.
In particular, the alchemizer took in the raw materials and performed alchemical conversions on them to produce the artificial alchemical substances that they needed, some licensed, others developed by Seliphaz.
Then, the forge section would shape most of the processed substances into the individual components of the Haven-MHU-HS23 unit using heat and the magic of the Fundamental Form of Change.
The third section was comprised of the assembly line that would put together the housing unit structure from the shaped components with the help of magical welding and other enchanted machinery. It would also complete the final shaping procedures for certain processed substances that needed to be directly shaped on or in the forming unit.
The final section was comprised of the quality control procedures that would be used to make sure that there were no flaws or faults with the final product. It was comprised of a single large glass box with several instruments along the wall that would subject the prototype to different conditions and measure the response with high-precision sensors.
If it was flawed or faulty, then depending on the fault, it could be scrapped entirely or simply returned to the forge section.
And if the product was deemed to meet the documented quality standards, then, and only then, was the production process deemed complete.
Cæ watched with an expression uncharacteristically lit up with amazement as he watched the first set of haven products rolled out of the production lines in their protective casings.
"Cæ!" Seliphaz's eyes lit up with delight as she spotted him at the very entrance of the headquarters. "Look, the manufacturing operations are going all out!"
Cæ directed a fascinated gaze about the entirety of their factory headquarters, which was more lively than it had ever been in the past when it was limited to the three of them and Dlint and his men as they trained for the ad campaigns.
Now, however, everything that they had worked for up until now felt more real than it had felt before, with an operational factory and workers operating the enchanted machinery.
STEP
He arrived at the docked cases of haven units, studying them with admiration as he appreciated their classy light blue and white color scheme. Their gable roofs and their structure made them more spacious than a tent, but still significantly smaller than even the smallest of conventional fixed housing.
The prominent logo of Trinity Housings was plastered on the side of the housing unit; a simple line-figure of a roof atop three lines holding it up, representing the three pillars of Trinity Housings: Cæ, Feidin, and Seliphaz. It had a simple, modern feel to it while being contradictory.
The very moment he saw the final product, he became profoundly convinced that these were products that the people of the slums needed.
STEP
"Ah, you came, Cæ," Feidin descended from the staircase leading to the second floor with an enthused smile. "Just in time for the first production test run with all ten production lines fully operational. So far, everything has been flowing perfectly well. The production flow process that we developed was optimally suited for maximum productivity."
Cæ nodded, turning back to the array of workers seamlessly operating on the enchanted machinery.
"It's perfect."
Having thought about how far they had come since he first conceived of the idea eighteen months ago after a hut crashed down on him, it was truly surreal for Cæ to be standing in his own company headquarters, with his fellow business partners overseeing their workers produce their havens.
"The line of credit you got was quite helpful," Feidin told him with an appreciative expression, "it has allowed us to hire these workers even before we have generated revenue. However, it also means that we need to succeed, or else we will be in trouble."
Cæ nodded with a determined expression. "Rest assured, I will make sure we will. I have no intention of faltering after how far we have come. How far are we with the advertisement team training?"
"Dlint has informed me that he has almost finished training our advertisement team on the protocols for advertisement in the slums," Feidin remarked. "This means that we will be able to begin our advertisement operations in a few days once we have produced forty-eight units of havens."
"Great, just a few days more for everything to start," Cæ nodded with an excited expression.
"When is the Elendir Institute of Magic commencing its Outer District Talent Acquisition Program?" Feidin raised an eyebrow. "Because we definitely cannot head deeper into the slums until the Institute commences its plans with the slums. So, if you can give me a timeframe for when it will commence, then I will be able to manage our operations much better."
Cæ stirred where he stood, compelled by the point that Feidin brought up. It was indeed true that managing the expansion of Trinity Housing from the forty-eight districts of the inner circles of the slums to the entirety of the slums would be much easier to manage if Feidin had a date to work with.
"I have not finalized a date, but it will definitely not be happening within a month," Cæ shook his head. "No matter how much we try to rush it, we will need at least a month to plan everything out and have everything in place before the task force that I'm leading will be ready to acquire magic talent."
Feidin nodded. "That's fair. Actually, one month feels too rushed, but I can understand, given that this needs to be completed before the academic year. Personally, I think a longer timeframe for this is good because it will allow us to iron out the final unseen flaws in our operations that will be revealed when we start manufacturing for sales. I will immediately look for another factory to eventually purchase to expand our sales for when the Elendir Institute of Magic does begin its talent acquisition."
Cæ nodded. "Then I'll entrust that to you. We will need to eventually expand our production capacity for when we expand deeper into the slums. When our product starts picking up steam, we will definitely need to increase our production when the time comes. I will give you a more precise date for the commencement of the talent acquisition program soon."
The matters with Trinity Housings were flowing smoothly and flawlessly. Within ten days, they had solved their credit problem, had hired thirty production operators, and were days away from commencing their commercial operations.
In comparison, the talent acquisition program of the Elendir Institute of Magic was under intense time pressure. Despite having long decided to rely on a strategy of simple incentives to draw the people of the slums, the sheer logistics for even a plan as simple as this were proving to be extremely difficult.
Worst of all, he couldn't offload the boring details to Feidin like he had with much of the nitty gritty management of Trinity Housings. He needed to handle all of it by himself, giving him a sore reminder that his greatest strengths were his divergent thinking, more than his management skills.
It helped him understand what kind of leader he wasn't, at the very least, even as he pushed himself to oversee the commercial debut of Trinity Housings and the preparations for the talent acquisition program of the Elendir Institute of Magic.