Building A Business Empire From Scratch In Another World-Chapter 197 :Breakdown

Nixie snatched the bundle of notes from Clair's hands with the quickness of a thief, her movements sharp and precise.

The quill nearly slipped from Clair's grip as she shot Nixie a glare, ink still dripping ominously from its tip.

"Hey!" Clair protested, rolling her eyes dramatically. "I worked hours straight on those!"

"You take notes," Nixie replied, waving the papers like a flag of victory, "but you don't do anything with them. Watch and learn."

With an exaggerated groan, Clair slumped back in her chair. Felix raised an eyebrow, intrigued by the unfolding drama.

Leaning against the obsidian table with arms crossed, he watched as Nixie strutted toward the crystal board mounted on the far wall.

Seizing the chalk crystal, she gave it a twirl before scratching bold numbers and names across the surface.

The artisans in the room,blacksmiths, runesmiths, glassmiths,fell silent.

They had previously marveled at Felix's designs, but now they were captivated by this young woman scrawling figures as if she held their realm's fate in her hands.

"Alright," Nixie declared, smacking the chalk crystal against the board for emphasis.

"We're making four devices: the Stormheart Blender, Emberheart Stove, Frostborne Vault, and Arcane Whirlpool. You've all argued over vortexes and exploding laundry but haven't asked the most crucial question."

She turned to face them directly, eyes sparkling with mischief. "How much will it cost?"

Felix blinked in surprise and said with a smirk. " I didn't know that you've been paying attention."

"Of course I've been payingattention," Nixie corrected him with a playful smirk. "Did you think all those lessons you taught me went in one ear and out the other?"

Clair muttered under her breath, "Yes."

Nixie ignored her entirely and drew a sharp line down the middle of the board to begin listing materials.

---

"Stormheart Blender," she began confidently. "Let's break it down."

In big letters across the board:Stormheart Blender.

"First up: blades and housing made from Starfall Steel." She paused for effect before continuing.

"Price? 500 gold coins per pound! Each blender needs three pounds,that's fifteen hundred gold just for steel alone! Multiply that by our production scale,two thousand units a month and we're looking at 3 Million Gold coins for steel just for blenders!"

Clair scratched furiously in her book while Felix narrowed his eyes in amusement.

"Next up the Phoenix Feather Filaments for precision mana regulators."

She let that sink in before adding dramatically, "10,000 Gold Coins per strand! Each blender needs five strands, that's 50,000 per unit."

A hush fell over the room as she continued with flair: "Total monthly cost at 2,000 units? 100 Million Gold Coins!"

Felix let out a low whistle, his eyes flashing with intrigue. Even he hadn't anticipated those numbers being laid out so starkly.

Nixie couldn't help but grin, relishing the stunned silence that enveloped the room.

"Let's continue," she said, her voice brimming with enthusiasm.

"First up: assembly labor. We're talking fifty blacksmiths forging blades and housings, plus thirty runesmiths etching vortex and kinetic runes. That's a total of eighty craftsmen per production cycle! And with six hours per unit? If we run continuous shifts, we can absolutely make this happen!"

She underlined the final figure with flair: ~200 Million Gold Coins per month.

---

With a confident flick of her wrist, she slid the chalk crystal to the next section and wrote: Emberheart Stove.

"Now for the details," Nixie continued, her excitement palpable. "We'll need sunsteel for the body,eighty master blacksmiths on deck for this one! Sunsteel isn't cheap; at twenty pounds per stove and 500 Gold Coins per pound, we're looking at 10,000 Gold Coins in raw metal alone."

She tapped the board emphatically. "And don't forget about the runes! Hexfire Matrix and thermal dampeners require fifty master runesmiths per cycle. Plus, we'll need Dragonfang Shards for temperature control, 15,000 Gold Coins each! Two shards minimum means another thirty thousand right there."

The chalk screeched as she wrote: Cost per unit: ~175,000 gold.

"Multiply that by two thousand units," she declared confidently. "That brings us to 350 Million Gold Coins monthly!"

Felix muttered under his breath, "You sound like you're enjoying this."

"Oh, I am!" Nixie replied unabashedly. "Just think about how rich we're going to be when these hit the market!"

Clair groaned dramatically from across the table. "Assuming anyone survives cooking with Dragonfang Shards in their kitchen."

Nixie pivoted to face the largest section of the board and etched boldly: Frostborne Vault.

"This one's a real game-changer," she announced enthusiastically. "We're using voidglass for the interior, twelve hundred gold coins per square foot! Each vault needs at least fifty square feet for proper lining that's sixty thousand just in glass!"

Gasps rippled through the artisans present; they were clearly taken aback by her figures.

"Next up is frostforged silver for lining: eight hundred gold coins per pound, with a minimum of fifty pounds required,that adds another forty thousand per unit!"

Her chalk flew across the board as she filled it with layered calculations.

"Let's continue " Nixie said, her eyes sparkling with excitement as she approached the board.

"First up: rune costs! We need sixty runesmiths for frostbloom inversion and thermal cycling. Plus, forty glassmiths to shape voidglass. That brings our total craftsmen per cycle to a whopping one hundred!"

She turned to face her audience, a mischievous grin spreading across her face. "Now, time per unit? Just ten hours! With a monthly output of two thousand units… we're talking about 500 Million Gold Coins!"

Clair leaned in closer, her expression pale with disbelief. "That's… absolutely insane."

Felix chuckled softly from the sidelines. "Welcome to the world of refrigeration."

Nixie moved on to the next topic: Arcane Whirlpool.

"The washing drum requires void-tempered steel," she explained confidently.

"It's pricier than regular steel,seven hundred gold coins per pound,but trust me, it's worth every coin! Each drum weighs fifteen pounds even with gravitic reduction runes, which means we're looking at about ten thousand five hundred gold coins just for steel per unit."

With a quick tap of her chalk against her palm, she continued, "We'll need seventy blacksmiths for forging those drums and forty runesmiths for aqua pulse glyphs and purification matrices. Each unit takes seven hours of work."

After calculating silently for a moment, she scrawled the final number on the board: ~150,000 gold coins per unit.

"Now multiply that by two thousand units,that gives us 300 Million Gold Coins monthly."

The board was now filled with staggering numbers,a testament to both immense wealth and formidable costs.

Nixie dropped the chalk crystal onto the ledge and clapped her hands together enthusiastically. "Alright everyone, let's wrap this up!"

Drawing one massive box at the bottom of the board, she wrote out each figure in bold:

Stormheart Blender: ~200 million

Emberheart Stove: ~350 million

Frostborne Vault: ~500 million

Arcane Whirlpool: ~300 million

With a flourish, she underlined the grand total: 1.35 billion gold coins per month.

A heavy silence fell over the room.

---

Nixie brushed chalk dust from her fingers and smiled knowingly. "But remember, materials aren't our only expense. Let's talk labor costs!"

Felix raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You've considered wages too?"

"Of course!" Nixie replied matter-of-factly. "We need our craftsmen loyal; otherwise they might jump ship to competitors as soon as they catch sight of our designs."

Returning to the board with renewed energy, she began listing figures:Blacksmiths, Runesmiths, and Glassmiths.

"Alright, let's break this down," Nixie said, tapping the board with a flourish.

"We've got two hundred blacksmith masters at fifty thousand gold coins each per month. That adds up to a whopping ten million gold coins monthly!"

She paused for effect, letting the numbers sink in before continuing. "Next up, we have one hundred eighty runesmith masters making seventy thousand each. That's twelve point six million every month!"

"And don't forget our forty glassmith specialists earning sixty thousand apiece," she added with a wink. "That totals two point four million monthly."

With a flourish of her hand, she concluded, "So, what does that all mean? Total wages per month: twenty-six point two million gold coins!"

Clair rubbed her temples in disbelief. "That's… more than what the royal treasury spends on an entire army division!"

Nixie shot back with a smirk, "Good thing we're not broke!"

She glanced at Felix, who was watching her intently.

Felix studied Nixie in silence. Yes, she was brimming with confidence and cockiness, but there was also a sharp glint of calculation in her eyes.

Just a few months aho he'd been teaching her about balance sheets and projections; now here she was, commanding the room full of Astheria's finest craftsmen like it was second nature.

"You've learned fast," he finally remarked.

Nixie shrugged nonchalantly, though a small smile danced on her lips.

"I like numbers,they tell me how much gold I get to swim in."

Clair groaned dramatically. "She's going to turn into a dragon at this rate!"

Felix chuckled softly as he leaned back in his chair. "Maybe so... But she's my dragon."

The atmosphere shifted as the masters murmured among themselves,some pale and shaken by the staggering figures laid out before them,none daring to interrupt the siblings' confident discussion.

The sheer scale of investment and labor required felt overwhelming to many present; yet Nixie and Felix remained unfazed as if they were already charting their course through the future.

Dusting off her hands like a true boss, Nixie turned towards them all with renewed determination.

"So! We've established costs and workforce, what's next?"