"These are genuinely excellent ideas," Noah said with sincere appreciation. "The partnership with King Aldric would provide imdiate stability and guaranteed revenue. The installnt plan would expand our custor base significantly. And the international expansion with proper marketing could tap into markets that actually have the wealth to absorb our production volu."
He looked at the king directly. "Your Majesty, would Esta’s treasury be interested in such a wholesale partnership? I could provide regular shipnts at the negotiated rates, and your administration would handle the distribution logistics."
Aldric didn’t hesitate. "Absolutely. This would benefit both of us trendously—guaranteed supply of transformative items for the kingdom, steady revenue for you, and simplified logistics for everyone involved. We should discuss specific terms and volus, but the concept is extrely attractive."
Valeria raised a practical question. "What about the instalnt paynt system? How would you enforce collection on the second paynt? People could theoretically take the item and simply not pay the remainder."
"Magical contracts," Lola answered imdiately. "Simple binding agreents that enforce paynt obligations. If soone defaults on the second instalnt, the contract could impose penalties—maybe a curse that prevents them from purchasing from Noah’s shop again, or even a debuff that persists until the debt is settled."
Noah nodded. "I can work with that to create purchase contracts that handle enforcent automatically. Anyone who tries to cheat the paynt plan would find themselves blacklisted and marked as untrustworthy."
Kipp spoke up enthusiastically. "Master Noah, this all sounds amazing! You’re going to beco the most successful rchant in the entire world!"
The young catboy’s tail was wagging with genuine excitent at his ntor’s prospects.
Noah smiled at his enthusiasm but remained grounded. "Let’s take this one step at a ti. First, we establish a partnership with Esta’s royal treasury. Then we test the installation with local custors. Once both of those are running smoothly, we start looking at expansion into neighboring kingdoms with proper marketing support."
He looked around at his assembled friends and allies. "With all of you helping implent these ideas, I think we actually have a realistic path to making this work at scale. Thank you—especially you, Lola. These suggestions are exactly what I needed."
Lola’s cheeks colored slightly at the praise, her tail swishing with pleasure. "You are overpraising ."
King Aldric stood, his expression showing both satisfaction and renewed energy. "Then let’s begin imdiately. Noah, I’ll have my treasury ministers draw up a formal partnership proposal within the hour. We can negotiate specific terms and volus after that."
"Sounds good," Noah nodded.
The future suddenly looked considerably brighter, with clear paths forward for both Noah’s business challenges and their longer-term goals of building strength for the conflicts ahead.
[Your Finance skill has reached Level 4!]
Noah’s mind was suddenly filled with an influx of sophisticated financial knowledge—complex concepts about risk managent, asset valuation, contract structuring, and operational efficiency that went far beyond basic comrce. The information integrated seamlessly with his existing understanding, elevating his business acun to genuinely professional levels.
Hearing Lola’s perspective on instalnt plans and strategic partnerships had apparently given him just the ntal edge needed to push his Finance skill over the threshold into the next tier of mastery.
New possibilities imdiately began forming in his mind. I could add additional constraints on buyers to ensure paynt compliance, Noah thought with newfound clarity.
Things like collateral requirents—their house deeds, business assets, or other valuable property they own could be held as security against the debt. This would virtually guarantee that paynts are received on schedule, since defaulting would an losing assets worth as much as the outstanding balance.
He could structure tiered paynt plans based on creditworthiness, offer freebies for early paynt, and create loyalty programs that rewarded consistent custors with preferential pricing. The strategic options available to him had expanded dramatically with this level-up.
Unfortunately, despite spending substantial money on the Idle Training Room to level up his swordsmanship skill through intensive practice, it still hadn’t advanced even after the system’s recent upgrade. The experience bar was filling, but the progress felt awfully slow compared to his earlier advancent.
It seems like it’s genuinely difficult to level up skills once they reach the master threshold, Noah reflected with resignation. Level 20 was apparently the ceiling for straightforward progression. Advancing beyond that into Level 21 through 25 requires exponentially more experience and refinent.
The realisation was sobering.
He might need several consecutive days of Idle Room usage—four hours daily at the million-dollar-per-hour rate—just to push a single skill from Level 20 to Level 21. And each subsequent level would likely require even more accumulated training ti.
This is going to be incredibly expensive, Noah thought, though his experience imdiately countered that concern with perspective.
His Idle daily revenue was over two million dollars currently, and his daily working revenue was projected to grow dramatically with the distribution strategies they’d just discussed. Spending a million or two daily on training was actually sustainable if it resulted in combat capabilities that would make him the peak of grandmaster rank.
Currently, at his master rank. Noah was able to fight grandmaster rank opponents with ease, without using any of his items. Once the items were used, he might be able to fight more interdiate grandmaster opponents.
But once he reached grandmaster rank? He might be able to fight peak grandmaster rank opponents without even using his items. Once Items were introduced, he would be able to fight a dozen of them at once.
It was an investnt in survival, which made it the most rational expenditure possible.
King Aldric rose from his seat, his expression showing determination mixed with excitent about their new partnership. "I should return to the palace imdiately and begin organising this proposal. I’ll have my treasury ministers and legal advisors draw up formal contracts, establish logistics for bulk purchasing and distribution, and create the administrative frawork we’ll need."
He clasped Noah’s hand firmly. "Expect docuntation within three hours at most. We’ll make this partnership official and beneficial for both Esta and your enterprise."
"I look forward to it, Your Majesty," Noah replied sincerely. "This is going to be the first step for a much bigger plan."
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