Chapter 105: Business Plan

After getting rights to the land for a half century, Sage contracted assistance in refurbishing the property to his specifications. The property used to be a large tea house and was quite popular until a competing tea house down the street was opened. Eventually both of them ended up closing as neither owner knew when to stop and were far too aggressive in trying to steal business from the other. Sage chose this land because of large size and existing landscape. While it was at the outskirts of the Servant District, that wouldn’t affect it too much as he didn’t plan on high volume sales, but on catering to the higher class.

Sage was getting into the high end entertainment business. With all the ridiculous and excessive methods of distraction that existed on Earth, Sage was going to outdo the other options for relaxation with things they’d never even heard of. Well, excepting of course the brothels. Sage wasn’t about to get into such an unsavory business, nor would he even know how to try and compete in such an area.

The current property had a huge garden and small lake, creating a beautiful courtyard view for the visitors to the previous teahouse. Most liked to sit and sip their tea while listening to relaxing music and viewing beautiful scenery. Sage was going to keep this feature in tact, leaving half of the tea house just as it used to be for those used to or looking for such things. The other half of the tea house was being replaced by a large multi-story building that would put to use his other ideas he’d been working on for so long.

The plan was to create a business and when successful open up more branches in other cities. As their popularity spread, so would the devices used in them, creating a market for his ideas. At that point, the Sect was bound to come to him. He wouldn’t be surprised even if they were to beg him for the rights to produce his devices.

He had already worked together with an Architect and a Construction Foreman to turn his rough plans and ideas into a formal blueprint, at least of the type they used around here, and now they just modified things to match the property. Things were edited to work with and around the features of the land he got and soon construction was underway.

The first floor had a lobby, the teahouse, and… a waterpark. It wasn’t that large, with only a single olympic sized pool, but it was surrounded by water slides, splashing fountains, pool chairs and a bar. Sage wanted to put it outside, but he didn’t want weather to affect the fun. Instead he used an artificial sunlight array to keep it bright and sunny along with a heat array to keep it warm. Of course the water heater was put to use here as well as water pumps to drive the waterslides and even some big water jets in the pool. The whole area was surrounded in simple panels that had sound dampening arrays to soundproof the room just like most of them in the building were going to be.

On the second floor was a Spa and Salon, with hot showers, hot tubs, massage artists, hairdressers, makeup artists, nail technicians, and even a large hot springs style room. He even hired a physician to do Acupuncture and similar related treatments. Most of these things weren’t really new to this world, but the main draw to Sage’s business was the comforts. Sage had hot running water and a full heating and cooling system, along with floor to ceiling tile, thick fluffy white bathrobes and hundreds of hot towels. One device he thought would be the most welcome was essentially central air. Instead of heating or cooling each room with windows or fireplaces he used the invention of the modern world and designed air ducts to each room to push air to the rooms with wind arrays. By having a input and output air duct to each room it took only one set of larger and more powerful heating, cooling, and air moving arrays to service the whole building.

The third floor was a casino. Games of chance were nothing new around here, but Sage introduced the style and games of Earth. Specifically, Las Vegas. Luxurious and gaudy at the same time, he added a device that cleaned the air, trying to replicate the pumping of oxygen into the big casinos in Vegas. It would help the gamblers stay up later and keep spending money. Big tables covered in green felt and dark leather, or at least as close as he could find as a replacement in this world. The leather of a monster on the edges and an unusual green moss covered the tables. Blackjack, Roulette, Texas Hold’em, Poker, Craps, and even a few Slot Machines made up the room. He made sure to keep the dress code matching the ones in the Casinos with crisp white shirts and black slacks. Drinks would be flowing round the clock and much of his money was spent here to finance the ‘house’.

The fourth floor was the real draw. A movie theater. While he knew nothing about the chemicals or sciences that created photo film, nor could he reproduce the digital versions, but Sage had a few clues before he started. The first was the Memory Sphere. Using one let you experience full on memories let alone a simple light and sound show like a movie. The issue was they were too expensive for widespread distribution, and also they were only usable by one person at a time(who had to be a cultivator!). The other lead was the Scroll Scout that Sage had found in the Soul Taming Abode. Later on he learned it was a device common in ancient times, but one that gradually fell out of use in the current age. Most no longer knew how to make it, and it also only showed a glimpse of the static text of a scroll.

With careful research, Sage found a way to incorporate the viewing function of a Scroll Scout into a Memory Altar. Instead of recording memories into the sphere, he reversed the function and drew the contents out. The arrays of the Scroll Scout had to be tweaked and a sound function added from a messaging talisman, and Sage could play a memory out into an illusory screen. A few more iterations later and the memory sphere no longer erased itself as it played, the screen was made bigger and it no longer looked like a cheap hologram show. Sage figured he could have a far more popular business with just using this one device to create movie theaters, but it was the most expensive device by leaps and bounds. The other devices only cost him gold coins, but the Movie Projector cost five thousand spirit stones to finally complete and that wasn’t even counting what was spent on research.

Just like movie theaters used their snack bars to make the real money, Sage was going to use the whole rest of the business to make him his money with the movies as the real draw that would get the rich coming back for an experience unlike anywhere else. Sure, Cultivators could use Memory Spheres to experience the memories of others practicing the martial arts, but who would use a hundred spirit stone memory sphere on frivolous things like a love story or an action adventure? After his business gained attention, he was sure others would use Memory Sphere for similar purposes, but without his projector they would be only for individual experiences. The fun of talking about the show with friends or colleagues would be gone. Adding on the steep cost of a sphere and producing the show, the market would surely be small. Better yet, if any of the competing memory spheres were good, he would just purchase them and play them in his theater!

From the viewpoint of an Earthling, this place was a huge mess. Each of the sections would be a separate business, but Sage was going for novelty. These were activities and styles that would be completely foreign to them and many of the rich loved that sort of thing. He planned to make other branches bigger or smaller depending on what was more popular along with adding a restaurant with Earth foods, but he’d need to practice and teach the recipes to cooks before he could do that.

After all the construction, devices, hiring of staff, and the property purchase, Sage’s once large wealth had been severely reduced. He’d spent over two hundred thousand gold coins, over twenty thousand spirit stones, and half his contribution points. That left him with a bit over sixteen thousand gold, eight thousand spirit stones, and ten thousand contribution points.

I sure hope this works out. Thankfully everything is paid up for a year in advance already.

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