Chapter 21: Contract

Now that he thought about it, he realized he could create such a manufacturing company on his own.

He didn't need to buy the machines and other equipment when he could order them to be made right here in Nigeria.

It would be much cheaper, and he would be able to produce as much as he wanted.

"Let's see," he said as he quickly sat up and picked up his laptop.

Pulling up the Research bot, Richard immediately instructed it to research or create a blueprint for the machines he would need.

There were about six machines he would need in total if he ever intended to produce what he wanted.

Twenty minutes later, he was looking at a good blueprint for all six machines. Now he just needed to figure out the appropriate place to submit these so that they could be manufactured.

It didn't take him long to find a list of companies that could do that for him.

All he had to do was email them, which he did immediately. The email explained his purpose, asked for the price, and stated when he would need them while highlighting that he was willing to pay extra for speedy delivery.

Of course, he didn't attach his blueprint yet; he needed their reply before he would do that.

The next day, Richard got dressed and ready for school. The weekend was over, which meant it was time for him to face the nonsense he called school.

"Gabriel, I'm going, oo!!," Richard shouted after putting on his boxers.

He knew his friend well enough to know that he was probably awake but sitting and fiddling with his phone. This was Nigeria; not everyone was as interested in school as he was.

Even he was only interested because he was an Akashic Librarian. It turned out the course he was studying happened to be Library and Information Science. It was a course to teach people how to become librarians.

"Bro, wait, I'm coming," Gabriel replied.

Hearing that, Richard immediately went back in and finished his preparation. Putting all he needed into his bag, he stepped out, ready to face the world. Unlike him, his friend could be seen empty-handed, carrying just his phone and his charger.

"Put this thing inside your bag," Gabriel said, holding out the charger.

Richard did as he asked before they both began walking to school. They lived very close to the school, so there was no need to take any vehicles.

Arriving at school, they heard that the lecturer in charge of the lectures was not available, so the class had been postponed until the next time.

Richard didn't even know whether to laugh or cry; this had been the routine since they joined the school. This was the second semester, and yet it had persisted.

Moments like this made him question all the stories he had heard about university life.

This place was no different from a secondary school boarding house. The same behaviour was seen in the teachers as well.

Richard wasn't the social type, but it was always good to make it a point in one's life to at least know more than ten people in their environment.

Hearing the news, many went back home, including Gabriel. He didn't follow simply because he had other plans for now.

Walking straight to his bank, the plan for today was to successfully set up his account properly. The customer service may have gone above and beyond, but he still couldn't spend the money in his account without converting the currency first. His Naira account had its limits, which he knew and hadn't upgraded because he saw no need to do so.

Twenty minutes after entering the bank, he was out and ready to use his money. It wasn't that the service was fast—it wasn't—but he was just given special treatment.

With both accounts set up properly, he didn't need to return to the bank to change his money. He could do that automatically on his phone now.

With that done, Richard found his way home. There was nothing else for him to do at school, and besides, he had a meeting to attend.

Rushing home, he immediately turned on his PC and opened his Discord. Yesterday, he had skimmed through most of the contracts Larry had sent.

Today, he planned to review them properly. The first few documents he saw were all company registration documents, which he filled out as quickly as possible, listing his current address as the company's address.

That part was easy to do. However, upon reviewing the main contract, Richard's jaw nearly hit the ground. He understood that this was an acquisition of one of his company's products.

Essentially, it was a payment to use his product as though it was their own, but Larry was offering a total of five hundred million dollars. That was about 500 billion naira!

Looking at the price, Richard began to question if he was the one who didn't know how things worked in their world.

The money was way more than he expected, but at the same time, he also knew that if he intended to build Oasis as he had planned, he would need way more than that.

He may not be ordering the servers anymore since he planned to make them himself, but even with that, he would still have to buy a warehouse, pay for the machines to be built, install them, buy the raw materials needed, and still hire workers.

Since he now had a company under his name, he might as well create devices for sale using the machines he would build. To do that, he would need to create a name around the devices—a brand, which meant advertising, sponsorships, etc.

Five hundred billion naira sounded big now, but considering all he would use the money for, it was small.

After reviewing the rest of the contract, he noticed a second source of income. Constellation would provide him with ten percent of every profit made from the product.

This part of the contract, Richard didn't understand much. How else did they plan to use his code? It was created purely to make their AI model much smarter than it already was.

"It's an AI model. They have paid versions," Richard said to himself.