Chapter 555: Little Fireball Second-hand Platform (2)

“Er, but I promised my uncle…”

“No, that’s not right. This isn’t a loan, it’s an investment! Uffie, don’t you want to be an original shareholder in our… um, Little Fireball second-hand platform? Once our platform takes off, will you still need to work under Zog’s thumb? You could make whatever games you want!”

“Actually, I already have a lot of freedom in green-lighting projects…”

Though she said that, Uffie had to admit she was a little tempted.

Besides, the server space for a college campus really wasn’t that expensive.

So, Uffie gave a slight nod.

“Great! I’ll go find my grandpa’s student right now. Wait for my good news!”

* * *

Zog took a bottle of cola from the refrigerator.

It was the latest model from Igor, now with an added defrost function, though Zog himself didn’t put things with a lot of moisture in the fridge anyway.

He kept one in his office purely for drinking cola.

It was more convenient than using pure Magic. Deepwater City had Magic Energy lines laid throughout, so you could just plug the refrigerator in and it would work.

Zog popped the cap and chugged the entire bottle in one go. It was so refreshing.

As expected, the ice-cold version was in a completely different league from the room-temperature one.

His short break over, Zog went back to the documents on his desk: the candidate projects for the first-ever Zog Entrepreneurship Award.

This was a new award Zog had created. Its purpose was to identify promising but underfunded entrepreneurs from the past year, encourage them with an award, and provide varying amounts of angel investment based on their prize level.

‘Wait, Feilin doesn’t have angels,’ he thought. ‘From now on, this term should be called Red Dragon investment.’

Igor’s team had, of course, already secured one of the top prize slots.

Ten top prizes were planned, and more than half had already been chosen.

These included a magic oven for rapidly heating food, which in practice was very similar to a microwave.

There was also a magic-assisted bicycle powered by Magic Energy. It wasn’t completely pedal-free, but it made riding much easier.

And there was a system that completely exceeded Zog’s expectations: a navigation system that worked by engraving magic guide paths on the ground.

In short, most of the selected projects were applications of Magic Energy. After all, over half of all new patent applications were in this field.

Of course, not all the submitted projects were so serious. Many were, in fact, rather abstract concepts.

For example, one on maggot farming.

‘Seriously? Is this something a Human could come up with?’

‘Researching how to farm Little White Mice could at least be considered a contribution to scientific development, but what the hell are maggots for?’

Zog stared at the report in his claws, unable to believe his eyes.

Oh, it really wasn’t thought up by a Human. It was a project from a Beastman Tribe.

‘To think the Beastmen were also starting to try their hand at entrepreneurship.’

And surprisingly, the project was quite serious. These Beastmen believed maggots were an excellent source of meat, were very easy to breed, consumed few resources, and were even quite clean.

It was just that the Beastmen didn’t know about the concept of protein. Otherwise, they would have definitely mentioned that the protein content was many times that of other meats.

The only drawback was that most people couldn’t stomach the idea.

‘Whatever, I’ll give it a third-place prize. Maybe Beastmen have a taste for this sort of thing.’

“Little Fireball Second-hand Shopping Platform.”

Zog’s eyes lit up. This one looked much more reliable.

He read the entire report carefully. It was quite well-put-together. The platform was currently popular only among a few universities in Twin Tower City and was well-loved by the local students.

It was created by Galina, of all people.

‘I didn’t expect her to have this in her.’

‘Then again, “Little Fireball” is definitely the kind of name she’d come up with.’

To resolve potential disputes in second-hand transactions, Galina had also creatively designed a jury system.

It allowed both parties in a disputed transaction to post their claims and transaction details, which were then pushed to other users on the platform, letting the community decide who was right and who was wrong.

It was hard to say how fair it was, but it was certainly a good idea.

Zog made a point to check out the Little Fireball platform. The design of the web page was visibly impoverished.

It also exuded a certain student-like innocence.

Meaning, it was full of people genuinely selling their unwanted second-hand goods, and it hadn’t turned into a paradise for resellers.

‘Worth investing in.’

‘However, after my investment and a full-scale rollout, Little Fireball will probably become a scalper’s paradise.’

‘It can’t be helped. As long as there’s a profit to be made, merchants specializing in this will emerge.’

‘That’s Hayek’s big hand for you.’

He placed Galina’s Little Fireball in the first-prize category, selected a few more reliable projects, and completed the list of all the winners for the first Zog Entrepreneurship Award.

“This should do it,” Zog said, handing the list to Elsa.

Elsa took the list but didn’t open it. Instead, she asked curiously, “I’ve been wanting to ask since you decided to create this award—are you sure all these projects you’re investing in will succeed?”

She, for one, couldn’t tell which of the submitted projects would actually make money.

The only investments she could make were putting money in the bank to earn interest, or at most, buying some gold to hoard. Gold was, after all, always useful.

“Of course not. If all these projects succeeded, then starting a business would be far too easy,” Zog replied.

“Even if their ideas are great and they themselves are competent enough, they could still fail for some ridiculous reason, or even just due to bad luck. That’s very common.”

“Then won’t you lose money?” Elsa asked.

In her eyes—no, in everyone’s eyes—Zog was not someone who did things that lost money.

“Perhaps. But this stimulates market prosperity, and I need the market to be prosperous. If all the money eventually flows into my claws, the economy will run into problems sooner or later. So I have to keep the money circulating, and…”

Zog gave a wicked smile.

“All the money that flows out from me doesn’t necessarily mean it’s truly gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you ever seen *Batman*?”

“A little. Is that the comic about the rich guy who gives up a life of luxury to go out and fight in a weird costume?”

Zog ignored Elsa’s strange description of Batman.

“If I become the ‘Vine Group’ of all Feilin, then it makes no difference whether the money is with me or not. Because in essence, no matter where it’s spent, it’s all still mine. That’s what you call wealth! Mwahahaha…”

Zog’s sinister, wicked laughter made Elsa’s skin crawl.

‘As I thought, I’ve been underestimating Zog.’

Elsa took the list and left the office, leaving Zog alone to revel in his dream of the Zog Group becoming the Vine Group of the entire Continent.

Judging from that unsettling laughter, this dream clearly brought Zog great joy.

Just as she reached the door, Elsa remembered something else and turned back.

“Boss, the elder of the Deer Spirit Tribe sent a prophecy and told me I absolutely had to give it to you.”

“A prophecy?”

Zog had never been one to believe in such things, but considering the elder of the Deer Spirit Tribe was actually into “big data,” it was worth paying attention to.

“Let me see it.”

He had to admit, the “big data” elder’s prophecy was presented in a very “God Stick” fashion.

She had carved it onto a deer antler.

There couldn’t be a prophecy that fit the stereotype any better.

The content of the prophecy was very brief.

“Probability of war breaking out in Sutton: 67%. Probability of Loman initiating war: 92%. Probability of war engulfing all of Feilin: 78%. War is coming.”

Zog put down the deer antler and sighed.

It was the same as Gelda’s assessment—war was deemed inevitable. It was just that the “big data” elder’s prophecy was more direct and on a grander scale.

‘Engulfing all of Feilin.’

Zog sighed helplessly.

He couldn’t gamble on the twenty-something percent chance that a continent-wide war wouldn’t happen and make no preparations.

‘We need more advanced weapons.’

‘The weapons the Deep Research Institute is currently developing are all designed for policing actions. They’re useful, but not enough to handle a large-scale war.’

‘We also need an intelligence agency.’

‘An intelligence network that can cover the entire Continent. I can’t let a war break out without my knowledge.’