Start With Contracting Sprites

Yunhua City, Huayang County, Su Hao's laboratory.

"Get me a set of detailed data on Eternal Night Glory Concubine and bring it to me before 8 p.m."

"Yes, teacher."

First assistant Kong Yun answered seriously.

Beside her were two sprites. One was her initial sprite, which had already evolved into a lotus flower bud. It was round and was floating gently in mid-air like a hydrogen balloon.

The other one looked like a mantis, but it wasn't lying on its stomach. Instead, it had its feet on the ground and its forearms raised high. Its dark green body became brighter and brighter after evolution, with a bit of sparkling white.

It was Prayer Mantis.

After Kong Yun contracted the Wood Mantis, under Su Hao's guidance and a lot of experimenting, she got lucky on her first try, allowing the Wood Mantis to successfully evolve.

The mantis was the first to achieve success in Su Hao's laboratory.

Su Hao expects Night Glory Concubine to follow in its footsteps.

Su Hao had definitely not stalled his thesis just because he wanted to wait until he had an assistant to help him collect the data.

"Teacher, these are the bills for our laboratory for August, September, and October. Our total income… is still negative."

She lowered her head and crossed her arms instinctively, feeling a little guilty.

Su Hao grabbed the checkbook from her and scanned it.

He didn't see anything wrong with it.

The maintenance of a laboratory was expected to be expensive as it included equipment maintenance fees, garden management fees, daily water and electricity expenses, and so on.

Many experiments were also in the early stages of development. The experimental sprites in the garden needed to be fed, and the salaries of employees and security guards cost a hefty sum of money.

It was quite natural for them to have a negative income.

Su Hao used to be frustrated over the several millions spent when the laboratory had just been built. However, nowadays, he no longer cared.

Su Hao suddenly made a sound of surprise, and saw Kong Yun looking up nervously.

"No, there isn't a problem."

Su Hao said that what surprised him was actually that they were losing very little money.

In August, the losses were still in the seven digits. By September, they were losing 500,000 yuan. And in October, the losses were only in the five digits.

Where was the income coming from?

Su Hao flipped through the checkbook.

The income came from two sources. The first was "Sprite Consultation". The model was similar to when Su Hao worked at the Sprite Care House. The income from this source was split 50-50 between Kong Yun and the laboratory.

But at the moment, apart from the first assistant, Kong Yun, Su Hao only had two more assistants who were hired from a recruiting app just ten days earlier.

The second assistant Chang Zhixue was in his thirties. He didn't have much potential, but he had a solid foundation. He was very suitable as an assistant.

The third assistant, Luo Kexin, was a fresh graduate. With the experience of taking care of sprites in the Free-Ranging Center, she might be promoted to a high-level assistant in the future.

But as of right now… Kong Yun and the others were only elementary-level Sprite Cultivators.

If they had just relied on Sprite Consultation Services alone without Su Hao holding the fort, they wouldn't make much money every month.

The second source of income was from something called "The Evolution Set Meal of Prayer Mantis". It included the care, cultivation, design plans, and evolution arrangements for the Wood Mantis. It was an end to end service that took care of the entire evolution of Prayer Mantis.

Originally, Su Hao hadn't expected to earn much money from this.

But…

"I didn't expect there to be so many dumb, rich customers…"

Su Hao was familiar with the set meal as he had it himself.

The cost of an evolution package was also different depending on the target and the sprite's cultivation time.

The packages started at 100,000 yuan. After deducting the miscellaneous costs, the profit rate was between 30% and 60%. For every successfully cultivated a Prayer Mantis, Su Hao could at least earn hundreds of thousands of yuan. The reason why the laboratory was still losing money was partially because the payment of the"Evolution Set Meal" was charged separately. The biggest sum could only be obtained after the evolution of the Prayer Mantis succeeded.

Currently, apart from Kong Yun's Prayer Mantis, the laboratory had only cultivated one other Prayer Mantis.

But with this momentum, the loss should turn into profits by next month, and the profits would basically be in the seven digits in the month after that.

"Well done."

"Really?!"

Kong Yun looked up in surprise, before her expression turned to one of pleasant surprise and a hint of disbelief.

It was clear that they were still losing money.

If Teacher Su were to do it, the name of the laboratory would have long spread far and wide.

"By the way, Teacher, there's a customer who made an appointment today. He probably has the intention of handing a Wood Mantis to us to nurture. Do you want to…"

"Just deal with it as you see fit."

At this moment, there was a knock on the door. A certain secretary in a light yellow dress walked in.

Su Hao remembered that her surname was Du.

Secretary Du said, "Boss, Miss Kong, the father and son pair we booked yesterday are here."

…

On the second floor of the laboratory, in the waiting area, a pair of father and son arrived.

They both had pancake faces and big bellies. In terms of figure, they were much wider than Fatty Ren.

From afar, Su Hao could feel the thick aura of a fat sheep from the father and son.

He didn't go forward, nor did he wear a white coat. He looked like an ordinary employee… a very handsome one.

Su Hao just stood in the distance and watched.

After listening for a while, he roughly understood.

It could be summarized like this: A certain fat young man who had just entered his third year of high school wanted a Prayer Mantis, but he didn't know how to nurture it, so he was looking for a "foster care agency". At this moment, his rich father was bringing him to the laboratory for an inspection before deciding whether to leave the Wood Mantis behind.

From the few sentences, Su Hao could tell that the middle-aged rich businessman was a rather knowledgeable person.

There was no reason for such a person to leave a sprite in a foster care agency, right?

Then, he heard…

"Not bad, not bad."

"Miss, you have a point."

"You said that sprites that haven't been contracted for a long time need a better relationship with their trainer… Yes, I understand. I have to pay more, right? Money isn't a problem."

"I've already carefully observed the whole laboratory. The facilities are very well-equipped. I would be very relieved to leave the Wood Mantis here…"

The middle-aged rich businessman gave his son a slap on the head. "What do you know? There's no way you would know more about cultivation than your old man…"

With a wave of his hand, he signed the contract and transferred the first sum of cultivation money to the laboratory account.

Only the young Wood Mantis was left, looking around blankly.

…

"You… did pretty well."

Su Hao patted Kong Yun's shoulder.

Although Su Hao might not understand the world of the fat sheep, Kong Yun had indeed exceeded his expectations.

The way she handled things was very mature. She had already grown from an assistant who lacked self-confidence to… an assistant who could take charge alone.

Indeed, at the end of the day, it was because Su Hao had nurtured her well.

There was no need to waste anymore time on the jade powder set meal.

The wood, earth, and water-element set meals could be handed over entirely to Su Hao's chief assistant, Kong Yun, to work out. Su Hao believed in her abilities.

…

Su Hao had stayed at the laboratory for a few days.

During this time, he had taught Kong Yun the formulas for the combination of wood, earth, and water elements.

He had also done a few small experiments with Butterfly

He also performed a full-body examination for Eternal Night Glory Concubine while Ehfu did the examination itself.

Then, he gave Brother Zhong and the others' sprites some slight adjustments to their cultivation strategy.

He also arranged for Ah Yan to continue cultivating.

On top of all this, Su Hao even squeezed out some time to read the time management book that he had just gotten.

"Today is another tiring and fulfilling day!"