Longyu discovered something important three days after the family dinner.
Ideas cost money.
A lot of money.
He was sitting in front of a table covered with sheets, reports, and small receipts when he reached that conclusion.
To his left was a list of materials used during the Whale Glue experiments.
To his right were the expenses from the five expeditions to obtain their first Soul Rings.
In the center lay a fresh sheet of paper.
At the top, he had written:
Costs Required for Continuous Research.
Underneath:
1.
Materials.
2.
Medicine.
3.
Soul Beasts.
4.
Transportation.
5.
Personnel.
6.
Equipment.
7.
Records.
8.
Facilities.
Longyu stared at the page.
Then he added:
9.
Mistakes.
He remained looking at that final word.
It was probably the most dangerous category of all.
Successes could be planned.
Mistakes could not.
“Why is there a category called ‘mistakes’?”
Longyu raised his head.
Renxue was standing behind him.
He had not heard her enter.
“Because they cost money.”
Renxue picked up one of the sheets.
“How much?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Then it isn’t a category.”
“It’s a future estimate.”
“That means you invented a number.”
“There isn’t a number yet.”
“Then you invented a space for a number.”
Longyu looked at her.
“You’ve spent too much time in administration.”
“Two days.”
“That was enough.”
Renxue smiled and sat across from him.
Ever since Qian Daoliu had sent her to study the administrative operations of Spirit Hall, she had started developing a dangerous habit.
Asking how much everything cost.
A team of twenty Soul Masters.
How much?
An expedition.
How much?
Maintaining a regional hall.
How much?
Moving supplies from one province to another.
How much?
Longyu had begun to suspect that Qian Daoliu had done it deliberately.
Renxue moved to the second sheet.
“These are our expedition expenses?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes moved across the figures.
“That much?”
“That was exactly my reaction.”
“But the Worships accompanied us.”
“I didn’t assign them a cost.”
Renxue looked up.
“That’s incorrect.”
“They aren’t paid for accompanying us.”
“Their time still has value.”
Longyu fell silent.
Renxue pointed at the page.
“If the Second Worship spends five days protecting an expedition, those are five days he isn’t doing something else.”
Longyu picked up his brush.
He added another line.
Opportunity cost of high-level personnel.
Renxue stared at him.
“You actually wrote that down.”
“It was a good observation.”
“You don’t have to record everything I say.”
Longyu raised an eyebrow.
“That is false.”
The door opened again.
Jin Yue entered.
She saw the papers.
She stopped.
“No.”
Longyu blinked.
“No what?”
“Numbers.”
“I haven’t even asked you for anything.”
“Yet.”
Renxue smiled.
“Come here.”
“No.”
“We need to calculate how much your training costs.”
Jin Yue took a step backward.
“My training doesn’t cost anything.”
Longyu pointed at her clothes.
“Equipment.”
Then her arms.
“Recovery medicine.”
Then her stomach.
“Food.”
Jin Yue frowned.
“That last one is necessary for survival.”
“You consume more than the others.”
“Because I train more!”
“That’s why it counts as a training expense.”
Jin Yue opened her mouth.
Then closed it.
Then opened it again.
“I hate this room.”
An hour later, Lingyu and Luoyue had arrived as well.
There was no longer enough room on the table.
Lingyu was reviewing medical expenses.
Luoyue was trying to estimate the cost of maintaining regular observation expeditions.
Jin Yue was bent over a sheet with an expression of profound suffering.
“Why do I need to record every ointment?”
Lingyu answered without looking up.
“Because you use them.”
“But they’re in the infirmary.”
“Someone buys them.”
Jin Yue looked toward Longyu.
“I don’t like what you’re doing.”
“Neither do I.”
That made her pause.
“Then why are we doing it?”
Longyu put down the brush.
The question was legitimate.
He looked at the sheets in front of him.
“Because until now, almost everything we’ve done has been paid for by our families or the Worship Hall.”
No one answered.
“The expeditions.
The doctors.
The materials.
The Whale Glue.
The Soul Beasts.
Even the books and records we use.”
Renxue nodded slowly.
Longyu continued.
“It seems normal to us because they’ve always been available.”
Lingyu understood first.
“But they aren’t free.”
“Exactly.”
Luoyue looked at her calculations.
“And if we want to continue for years…”
“The cost increases.”
Longyu lightly tapped the page with one finger.
“A lot.”
It was not an immediate problem.
That was the strange part.
Longyu could have gone to Qianjun that very afternoon and asked for more money.
He probably would have received it.
Golden Crocodile would have financed Jin Yue’s training without thinking twice.
Blue Luan could obtain resources for Luoyue.
Qian Daoliu could allocate enormous resources from Spirit Hall to Renxue.
Lingyu also had the support of her family branch.
None of them were poor.
Not remotely.
But Longyu was not thinking about the next month.
He was thinking about ten years.
Twenty.
Hundreds of experiments.
Expeditions.
Mistakes.
Researchers.
Doctors.
Rare materials.
Training methods.
Maps.
Archives.
Perhaps laboratories one day.
All of that required infrastructure that did not yet exist.
And depending forever on the pockets of their elders did not seem like a solution.
“We can request more funding from the Worship Hall,” Renxue said.
Longyu nodded.
“Yes.”
“But you don’t want to.”
“Not as a permanent solution.”
Renxue rested her arms on the table.
“Why?”
Longyu thought before answering.
“Because if every research project requires one of our grandfathers to personally approve it, then we’ll never have a system.”
Luoyue looked up.
“We’ll have permission.”
“But not operational independence.”
Jin Yue frowned.
“That sounded like something Renxue would say.”
Renxue looked pleased. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Longyu continued:
“Besides, not every research project will produce immediate results.”
He picked up one of the Whale Glue records.
“Imagine we spend money for two years and discover that an idea doesn’t work.”
Jin Yue asked:
“Then those two years were wasted?”
Lingyu shook her head.
“Not necessarily.”
Longyu looked at her.
Lingyu continued:
“If we prove with enough certainty that a method doesn’t work, then we avoid repeating it.”
“Exactly.”
Longyu pointed at Lingyu.
“But try explaining that to someone who only wants to fund successful results.”
Renxue became thoughtful.
She had already seen that during her first days in administration.
Proposals with visible results were easy to defend.
A new building.
A new unit.
A new supply route.
Projects whose benefits might take years were different.
Someone had to believe in them.
And someone had to pay while they were still producing nothing.
That afternoon, Longyu brought his calculations to the Worship Hall.
Not to ask for money.
That was exactly what worried Qianjun.
“What do you want?”
Longyu placed several sheets in front of him.
“Information.”
Jiangmo, sitting nearby, raised his head.
“That’s worse.”
Qianjun began reviewing the documents.
“Research costs.”
“Yes.”
“Transportation.
Materials.
Medicine…”
He reached one line.
“Jin Yue’s food?”
Longyu remained serious.
“It’s a considerable expense.”
Jiangmo burst out laughing.
“I’m showing this to Golden Crocodile.”
“No.”
“I’m definitely showing it to him.”
Before he could take the page, a voice came from the entrance.
“Showing me what?”
Jiangmo stopped.
Golden Crocodile had just entered.
At his side were two other men.
The Fourth Worship, Lion Douluo.
And the Fifth Worship, Light Feather Douluo.
Longyu immediately greeted them.
The three approached.
Jiangmo smiled.
“Your granddaughter is financially destroying the Qiangu family.”
Golden Crocodile took the sheet.
He read.
His eyebrow twitched.
“‘Additional food consumption associated with physical training’?”
Longyu nodded.
“It’s a real category.”
Lion Douluo let out a deep laugh.
“That’s an elegant way of saying she eats too much.”
“Exactly!” Jiangmo said.
Light Feather took the paper from the side.
“The calculation is incomplete.”
Everyone looked at him.
The Fifth Worship pointed at one line.
“You didn’t include equipment damage.”
Longyu blinked.
Light Feather looked at him with a slight smile.
“I’ve seen Jin Yue train.”
Longyu immediately picked up his brush.
Equipment replacement and repair.
Golden Crocodile crossed his arms.
“I don’t like this meeting.”
Lion picked up another sheet.
Unlike Jiangmo, he quickly stopped joking.
“What are you actually trying to do?”
Longyu answered:
“Calculate how much it would cost to maintain our research without always depending on personal resources.”
Lion studied him for several seconds.
“Why are you worried about that now?”
“Because I want to know how large the problem is before the problem becomes large.”
The Fourth Worship smiled faintly.
“Good answer.”
Light Feather picked up the expedition documents.
“Bad estimate.”
Longyu looked at him.
“Where?”
“Here.”
He pointed at transportation.
“You calculated a normal expedition.”
“Yes.”
“But your research looks for specific things.”
Longyu waited.
“A normal expedition changes its target if it cannot find a suitable Soul Beast.
You can’t.”
Longyu understood.
Light Feather continued:
“If you’re looking for a specific species, you may spend weeks without finding it.
Perhaps months.
You’ll need advance scouts, local information, and people capable of confirming the species before mobilizing the main group.”
Luoyue, who had accompanied Longyu, began writing rapidly.
Light Feather saw her.
“And even then, you’ll fail.”
Luoyue stopped writing.
“Why?”
“Because Soul Beasts move.”
The Fifth Worship smiled.
“Maps don’t.”
Luoyue wrote that down too.
Lion spoke next.
“And security is missing.”
Longyu pointed toward Qianjun.
“The Worships—”
“No.”
Lion interrupted him.
“That is precisely the mistake.”
He leaned over the table.
“If your system only works when a Titled Douluo personally protects every trip, then you don’t have a system.”
Longyu went still.
The sentence struck him harder than expected.
Lion continued:
“Think about what would happen if you wanted to conduct fifty expeditions a year.”
“It would be impossible to use Worships for all of them.”
“Exactly.”
“I’d need teams capable of operating independently.”
“With protocols.”
Light Feather added:
“And retreat routes.”
Lion:
“Team leaders.”
Light Feather:
“Advance scouting.”
Lion:
“Defensive capability.”
Light Feather:
“And clear criteria for cancelling a mission.”
Jiangmo leaned back.
“You’re turning a question about money into a military academy.”
Lion looked at him.
“Because the kid forgot that sending people into the forest costs more than coins.”
Longyu’s expression changed.
Lion tapped a sheet with one finger.
“It costs risk.”
Silence.
“If you’re going to calculate the price of an idea,” he continued, “then calculate how much you’re willing to lose for it as well.”
Longyu did not write immediately.
For once.
He thought.
Then he added a new line.
Human risk.
He did not put a number beside it.
“Now,” Qianjun said, “what do you want to do?”
Longyu looked over all the documents.
“Create an independent source of income.”
Silence.
Jiangmo blinked.
“What?”
“Not right now.”
“That does not improve what you just said.”
Lion started laughing.
Light Feather looked far more interested.
Qianjun slowly massaged his forehead.
“You’re six.”
“I know.”
“You just obtained your first Soul Ring.”
“I know that too.”
“And now you want to make money.”
“I want to build a structure that can someday fund research.”
Jiangmo looked at Qianjun.
“I told you he was insane.”
Qianjun ignored the Seventh Worship.
“Your family can pay for your research.”
“For now.”
“For many years.”
“Probably.”
“Then what is the problem?”
Longyu answered without hesitation:
“I want it to continue even when I’m not asking you for money.”
Qianjun stopped speaking.
Longyu continued:
“If everything depends on me, then it isn’t an institution.
If everything depends on you, it isn’t one either.”
Light Feather narrowed his eyes slightly.
Lion lost his smile.
Longyu looked at his documents.
“I want something capable of buying materials, hiring people, paying for expeditions, maintaining records, and funding experiments without having to ask permission for every small decision.”
Golden Crocodile snorted.
“That sounds expensive.”
“That is exactly the problem.”
Qianjun remained silent for a long while.
Finally, he asked:
Longyu hesitated.
“Maybe someday.”
Jiangmo spread his arms.
“He wants a company!”
“I said someday.”
“He’s six years old and already talking about companies.”
Lion smiled.
“I’ve heard worse ideas from adults.”
Light Feather added:
“Many.”
Qianjun ignored the comments.
“And what would you sell?”
That was the difficult question.
Longyu did not want to answer with memories from Earth as though every piece of modern knowledge could instantly become a product.
Knowing something existed did not mean knowing how to manufacture it.
Whale Glue had already taught him that.
A principle was not a method.
An idea was not an industry.
“I don’t know yet.”
Jiangmo blinked.
“Excellent company.”
Longyu ignored him.
“But Spirit Hall consumes materials every day.
Medicine.
Food.
Paper.
Tools.
Soul Beast materials.
Metals.
Crystals.
Travel supplies.”
Light Feather nodded slowly.
“And it has routes covering almost the entire continent.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t mean you can use them freely.”
“I know.”
Light Feather smiled.
“Good.”
Lion asked:
“And if you lose money?”
Longyu looked at him.
“I’ll learn why.”
“And if you lose it again?”
“I hope I won’t make exactly the same mistake.”
Lion let out a laugh.
“I like that answer better than ‘I won’t lose.'”
Golden Crocodile placed one hand on the table.
“You don’t need to do this yet.”
Longyu nodded.
“I know.”
“Then wait.”
Longyu was about to respond.
But stopped.
The Second Worship had a point.
Not every idea needed to be executed immediately.
Longyu had spent much of his new life trying to get ahead of the future.
Sometimes that was useful.
Other times, it could become impatience.
“I’m not going to create anything yet,” he finally said.
Qianjun seemed to relax slightly.
“I’m going to learn.”
That made him tense again.
Jiangmo started laughing.
“You almost had him.”
Longyu continued:
“How materials are purchased.
How trade routes work.
Margins.
Warehouses.
Personnel.
Contracts.
Taxes.
Losses.”
Renxue would have been proud.
Qianjun did not look proud.
“And when are you going to cultivate?”
“Every day.”
“Train the staff?”
“Every day.”
“Study Soul Beasts?”
Longyu looked at Luoyue.
“I can delegate part of that.”
Luoyue nodded.
“Medicine?”
“Lingyu.”
“Physical training?”
“Jin Yue.”
Jiangmo raised an eyebrow.
“And what exactly are you going to do?”
Longyu thought.
A simple answer appeared.
“Connect it.”
The room became slightly quieter.
Longyu was not yet certain of everything that word implied.
But it felt right.
That night, he returned home with far more sheets than he had brought.
His mother found him writing.
“Another experiment?”
“No.”
Lanyue looked over his shoulder.
There was a list on the page.
Materials.
Transportation.
Personnel.
Security.
Information.
Facilities.
Mistakes.
Risk.
And underneath, one final question:
How can research fund itself without becoming a slave to immediate profit?
Lanyue read it twice.
“That looks complicated.”
“It is.”
“Does your grandfather know you’re thinking about this?”
“Yes.”
“Did he survive?”
Longyu smiled.
“So far.”
Lanyue sat beside him.
“Do you want money?”
Longyu shook his head.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“We can help you.”
Longyu looked at her.
“I know.”
And that was precisely why he could think calmly.
He was not trying to escape poverty.
He did not need to build anything tomorrow.
He had time.
Years.
He could observe.
Learn.
Make small mistakes.
Before making large ones.
Lanyue looked at the page again.
“Then what do you need?”
Longyu thought.
“To understand how money works before trying to obtain more of it.”
His mother smiled.
“That may be the first intelligent thing you’ve said about money.”
“I’ve said many intelligent things.”
“You’re six.”
“That doesn’t make them less intelligent.”
Lanyue lightly tapped him on the head.
Longyu smiled.
Later, when he was alone, he opened a different notebook.
Not the Soul Ring notebook.
Not the Whale Glue notebook.
A new one.
On the first page, he wrote:
Provisional Project: Independent Research Infrastructure.
He paused.
The name was terrible.
He crossed it out.
He tried again.
Commercial and Resource Network.
Still no.
He crossed that out too.
Longyu set down the brush.
It did not need a name yet.
He needed to understand the problem.
He remembered Lion Douluo’s words.
If you’re going to calculate the price of an idea, calculate how much you’re willing to lose for it as well.
Then Light Feather’s.
Soul Beasts move.
Maps don’t.
Information.
Mobility.
People.
Resources.
Risk.
Money.
Everything was connected.
Longyu stared at the empty page.
In his previous life, he had known great companies.
Markets.
Trade networks.
Organizations capable of moving products across continents.
But knowing they existed did not mean knowing how to build them.
Once again, the same lesson.
Knowing the result…
was not the same as possessing the method.
He smiled faintly.
It seemed that phrase was going to follow him for a long time.
Finally, he wrote a single line.
Before building an organization, I must understand what problem I want it to solve.
He closed the notebook.
There was no company yet.
No network.
No Dragon Pavilion.
Only a six-year-old boy sitting at a table, discovering that changing the world required more than good theories.
Someone also had to pay for them.