This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Thankfully, after calming down Lady's evolution was also a huge success.

When Kain had first helped Bridge decide on his initial contract, one of the pros that they'd discussed was the multiple evolutionary pathways available to Huricanine Pups. Although the evolutionary plans for all forms weren't readily available in their small city, at Dark Moon Bridge and Kain got access to the full catalog of possible evolutions.

And one of the first things they did upon entering the college was to settle on which evolutionary route Lady would take, especially since she was of a species that would need to be primed over a long period of time through her diet in a certain evolutionary direction.

After weighing all of the pros and cons of each form, and how well each would match with Bridge's and Princess' combat styles, they finally settled on one form—the gold-quality Tempest Wolf.

It wouldn't require major changes to Lady's combat style and would provide an all-around enhancement to her physical attributes, particularly her speed. However, this evolution would also make up for one of Lady's biggest weaknesses—her lack of long-distance attack abilities.

This form presents a drastic increase in her ability to manipulate the wind for both offensive and defensive purposes.

Additionally, the Tempest Hound also has a weak affinity to the lightning attribute. Although its control over the element is very weak and at most effective for giving a strong static shock to those in direct contact with it, the strength of this additional attribute will truly show itself when it is time for its third evolution.

After briefly celebrating the success of both of their contracts with a quick meal, Kain and Bridge separated. Bridge to familiarize himself with Lady's new abilities. Kain to meet with. Barret who finally conceded to starting a company with him after there was still no decline in the spiritual power and quality of the beer after over a week since opening the barrel.

They were going to be meeting up with a lawyer to establish the rules of their business relationship and also with a businessman that Barret highly recommended to assist in the logistics of their business.

After meeting with the lawyer and drawing up the paperwork, it was established that Kain would receive a 70% share in the business for providing the preservation method to actually allow the large-scale exportation of spiritual beer and investing more funds, while Barrett would receive 30% for managing the creation of the beer and the development of future beer recipes.

Additionally, while with the lawyer they settled on the trademarked name for the company. After numerous discussions, they finally settled on Aetherbrew, which Kain convinced Barett would hint at the fact that it was a beer rich in spiritual power, considering that it used the ancient term for spiritual power. But really it was a nod to Kain's secret ingredient—Aetherbrew Yeast.

Afterwards, they headed to a massive property on the outskirts of the city—it was a farm that the owners with money-problems had hastily sold in order to receive a large influx of cash after the land had been ravaged by spiritual creatures during the beast tide. They met their future operations manager there—Collin.

The plan was to grow their own large supply Brewer's Barley. However, It would take a while for the barley to fully grow, so they will begin on a smaller scale testing out their marketing strategies and setting up shipments to nearby cities using the Brewer's Barley the Kain currently had growing on his personal property.

In their free time, the Eve and the wasps will come here to speed up the development of these barley fields.

Additionally, on this land they planned to set up the factory where not only will the beer be brewed on a large-scale, overseen by Barret, and then bottled and shipped out, overseen by Collin.

"Did you already get an estimate of the cost for setting up the factory with all of the machinery we'd need?" Kain asked.

Collin nodded, "The costs of construction, machinery, workers, and transportation are outlined in this document here. I met with some of our potential future partners for the shipment of the bottles this morning." He handed over a document with a long string of numbers at the bottom.

Kain's heart skipped a beat at the astonishing figure. 'What they say is true, it takes money to make money…and that is A LOT of money.' However, he made sure to keep his face unperturbed, as the one primarily responsible for the company's finances.

Although looking at the number on the paper he was quite a bit short of all the money he needed in order to get the company up and running, even after selling all the materials he got in the beast tide that he hadn't exchanged for school credits.

'I'm gonna have to take on more of those evolutionary planner requests than I anticipated. And I'm also going to have to increase my fee…'

"I brought my personal stock of barley that I'd grown. Barret, you use it to create the first few batches that we will send out on a smaller scale to some influential individuals to get the name out there." Kain handed a small space ring filled with barley he'd already prepared.

He couldn't help but think back to the days when a small space ring would be way too expensive for him, and now he can give one away at his convenience.

"Leave the marketing to me," Collin said. "We can even set up a meeting with a marketing firm. I went to college with someone who now works at one of the top firms in the empire. I can get us a cost estimate for their services."

Kain's eyebrow couldn't help but twitch at the prospect of spending even more money.

"Leave that for now…let's first focus on getting the business up and running."

Before Collin could come up with any more expensive ideas, Kain excused himself.

'There's one more day before classes start on Monday. Let's see how many of the simpler planner requests I can complete by tomorrow. I only have a few hundred GP left, maybe in addition to the increased cost I should also include providing living orange-grade spiritual creatures as part of my fee?'