The Industrialist

Omnexus Market

***

George and Joe stood behind the counter, both in attendance for their soft store opening. On their counters were rare-level scrap materials, and very few Masterwork-levels. They kept the Zelkians behind the counters and some multi-colored gem necklaces that the Outsiders made, hung on the right side of the store's facade. On the opposite end hung wild Celestial Snapdragon Flowers found along the riverbanks of Asphodel mountains.

What made these flowers expensive was their petal colors like that of a dragon skin, with the reddish-yellow combination. Even the petal texture emulated like that of a reptile species.

Lance had planned out the type of materials to be sold in his store. They were unique from the others. With his available merchandise, Lance was hopeful to gain fifty thousand units in one day.

Although the store looked bare at first, it cost him around 10,000 units of investment and the gross sales for everything would give them around 40,000 units.

Joe and George's faces seemed ecstatic. They greeted passersby with obvious effort.

Lance was in front, trying to invite customers. Some of the potential clients knew him in the news, about his stunt during the Abominant attack, and others approached him about the RoFlo project, probably, the WWMD Executive Directors, from the looks of them.

They approached the store, the ones who knew him.

"What do you call these flowers?" One potential customer asked.

"Celestial Snapdragons, good sir," Joe answered after he greeted with a smile.

Although these undercover rebels hated much about the high-classers, what they participated in greatly contributed to the cause.

"How much per flower?"

"500 units each, good sir," Joe answered. Lance knew that the prices were preposterously high. They only bought the flowers from the Outsiders 100 units each.

"I'll take ten flowers," the man said.

"Got it, sir." Joe took ten flowers from a hanging rack and bundled ten flowers together beautifully with a tie wire.

'That's five thousand units easy,' Lance thought.

The other bought flowers, too, twenty of them. The remaining of them.

'Another ten thousand units.' Lance thought, his smile was uncontrollable. Fifteen thousand units in an instant. Now, he understood that these High-Classers buy various unnecessary things while the Commoners only buy necessities. A clear mocking truth about the world.

After a few hours, he found Grebert from the WWMD sauntering from stall to stall. His path crossed upon Lance's store.

"Hey, you. Mister Famous already!" Grebert said with a surprised expression. "What are you doing here?"

"I have a store now. A merchant if you must say." Lance proudly pointed to his side where his store stood.

"Wow! You are doing everything, huh? What is your rank now? I have heard talks in the halls of SARS, Electric Tier 2?" Grebert asked excitedly.

"That's too much. Tier 1." Lance answered.

"Wow! You have been scrapping for me for about a few months. Now, you surpassed me. However, I augmented one rank up by exemplary tenure in WWMD, Mechanic Tier 4. Not much." Grebert boasted.

"Hey, congrats. Mister Grebert."

"You, too, kid. What are your merch there? Salt? Tylls?" he asked, sauntering close to the store's counter.

Lance expected Grebert to look for Tylls. He had been requesting such components for his Wastewater Treatment Facilities for microorganism elimination in water. Then the appalling memory of wastewater being recycled into drinking water struck him.

"I have Tylls. Only a few. You want? I raised the prices a little bit because of overhead, you understand, right?" Lance explained.

"Of course...How much per piece?"

"110 units each. Are you good with it?"

"It's still lower than where I got them. Ok, how many do you have?" He said enthusiastically.

"I have fifty Tyll tubes."

"Give me fifty," Grebert said.

"George accommodated Grebert for the fifty Tylls. George wrapped it after Grebert transferred units via Holosync."

'Five thousand five hundred units for Tylls. Sold out,' Lance thought.

For only half a day, the store only gained twenty thousand units. It shocked him, such an amount of money in a very short time.

Most of the High-classer went to Omnexus Market to pleasure them with Jewelry. Omnexus was the center of Gold trade from legal Government reserves.

However, what they had were gemstones, dug from the mines in Broadridge, Asphodel, and other nearby Mountains. Fortunately, only a very few stalls had displayed such merchandise because of their limited reach of illegal traders.

They, on the other hand, were direct illegal traders from the outside walls to the inside.

In the afternoon, all of their gemstone necklaces were sold for fifteen thousand units and a High-classer scientist bought a rare-level Aetherium Hard drive for their large equipment project, which gained them four thousand units.

At the end of the day, they fell short of their target of fifty thousand units in gross sales and only gained forty thousand units.

Even so, the business boomed on its first day. Lance had to make replenishments. Flowers, gemstone necklaces, and some rare-level tech.

Jasper displayed their progress via Lance's retinal screen.

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[Available Currency] 71,000 units

[Previous transactions]
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[Total material investment] 10,000 units

[Total gross sales] 40,000 units

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Lance was sure that Damian would grumble in annoyance for another material replenishment. The latter could not just deliver materials every day for bulk replenishments.

He heard of this method called Demand Planning. It's a skill that a business owner should possess – forecasting material movement, shelf life, supplier lead times, and storage capacity.

It was an acumen that Lance should possess. However, he only had his stock knowledge taught by common sense and a little from his father, and of course from his observations during business transactions as a scrapper.

"George, tell Damian to double the replenishments tomorrow. I will invest 20,000 units."

"What about the delivery payments?" George said.

"Of course, here's 1000 units for Damian's delivery." Lance transferred units via Holosync.

After they closed early at 2030 H, Lance told them about the plans for procuring Quantum Flux Capacitors. And they needed guns. Hence, a message should be relayed to the Council.

"Joe, tell the council that I need 100 units of QuasarFlare Blasters. Maybe they could ransack one factory."

Joe nodded.