After a few hours, Philip and Arc came out of the meeting room and the latter has an extremely dejected expression on his face.
Arc wanted to ask why Sam is taking such drastic measures, but he got no answers, all Philip did is to dodge questions with superficial answers.
All he could do is wait in the city.
For the following days, the city was being flooded with the tower heads from all over the empire.
At the end of the week, Sam finally came out of the tower. But he didn't look normal. His body was slumped a bit as it he was exhausted and his eyes showed his immense lack of sleep.
He did many things in the past week. He reached a bottleneck in designing the first puppet and it is in its final stage. If he can finish this last step all that left is finishing the production unit, he is building.
After he came out, he took a long nap and woke up at night.
Sam had a meal and stretched lazily.
He looked at Philip and said.
"Are all of them here?"
"Yeah."
"Then call for a meeting now."
Philip was stunned.
"It is the middle of the night."
"So what? Are you worried about disturbing their rest?"
Sam replied and walked away.
Philip definitely smelled trouble. Sam is deliberately making it hard for these people.
After a few minutes, everyone has gathered in front of the dais again. But this time, Sam sat behind a table which was placed on the table and there is a stack of small booklets on it.
These booklets are the information they got from the tower and park spirits.
Philip and Jack are standing beside him. Philip is managing the booklets and Jack has a list in his hands.
"Southern Star city and all the subordinate cities under them, line up and come on to the stage one by one. Submit your reports." Jack called out and the southern star city people shuddered.
They are the ones with the longest partnership with Sam. And the artisan tower of that city is still not involved in the project.
The three tower heads nervously walked forward and started handing over the documents one by one. Sam glanced at the documents and looked through the booklets one by one.
After tallying the data, he said.
"There is not much problem with the money, but why is the shop in the park lent to someone from the Artisan tower?"
His voice was cold befitting the night time. The three-tower heads didn't know what to say. They do have some relationship with the Artisan tower and the shop was rented to him by an alias. They thought that since Sam is high and mighty at the moment and felt like he wouldn't care about these trivial matters. But it turned out they guessed wrong.
He is as petty as ever.
"I clearly mentioned that Artisan tower of that city wouldn't be participating and we are not going to do any form of deals with them. But why was shop leased to them?" Sam asked once more and his voice turned colder.
As he spoke, Sam is already checking the documents and revenue details from the subordinate cities and the communication networks.
The tower heads didn't dare to reply.
"I am terminating the partnership between the three towers and the park. All the employees belonging to the three towers can resign if they want to stay in the three towers, they cannot work in the Park. But if they want to work in the park, they have to let go of their duties in the towers."
Sam's words stunned everyone. They didn't expect that he would give such a harsh punishment to them just for lending a single shop.
"Sam, this is outrageous." The formation head finally spoke.
Sam coldly looked at him and said.
"Partnership is only based on trust. You betrayed my trust by doing what I told you not to do. I didn't place many restrictions in the first place, but you cannot follow such a simple thing. Do you think I am an Idiot?"
"But this is too big of a punishment."
"Yes. It is too harsh." The other people below the stage started speaking.
Sam glanced at them and spoke. "Is it your place to speak? Shut the fuck up and wait for your turn."
The crowd was silenced.
He then addressed the employees.
"All the employees of the towers working for the park. There is no concession. If you want to work at the park, you have to cut your ties with the towers.
Of course, you guys might think that towers are giving you benefits. But I don't see what the organization can offer and the towers can't. Anyway, the Organization will be opening access to the new knowledge to the full-fledged employees.
The knowledge contains all kinds of aspects including artisan techniques, knowledge of formations, inscriptions, and even pharmaceutical methods. Methods that are unique and unorthodox and I guarantee that no tower can provide you that.
You have seen the park. Everything there is my creation and if you want to be able to gain the knowledge of that level, you can join the organization.
Of course, it is not free. You have to gain trust and merits."
He then turned towards Philip and said.
"Post a recruitment notice. For the four major professions. They can join the organization irrespective of their levels. The only requirement being them not being affiliated with any organization."
"Sam, this is too audacious of you. You might be a genius, but don't forget the recognition of the associations is the only way for you to gain the approval of your methods. Now, you are trying to poach them belittling the four associations.
What do you take us for? On what basis are you doing this?"
As soon as he spoke, Sam took out a handgun and shot at him.
The other party is a Nascent, but the bullet being an energy cell, he received some damage.
"One more word and I will take your life." Sam coldly replied and then turned towards the rest of them.
"Listen carefully. I don't care for your approval nor your recognition. If you piss me off, then it would be a massacre that is happening.
You neither have the right or authority to be the approver of my methods. The business was proposed by me, created by me, and run by me. I only gave you a part in this because I don't like to do anything by myself. If you are ungrateful and betrayed my trust and still expect me to bear your nonsense, you will be truly testing my patience.
Trust me that never ends well for those who do it.
So, until I ask you to speak, shut your damn mouth."
After that, no one dared to speak. Although they are grumbling, they didn't dare to speak up.
As for the emperor and the four tower heads of the imperial capital, they are not at the scene, but they are observing the situation. The four of them didn't speak up because all Sam did was terminate the contract with one city. They cannot have a say in any of this, because, that city was the first partnership Sam made with those people and they did betray Sam's trust.
Particularly, aiding Sam's enemy. They shouldn't have done that.
Sam finished the southern star city and the subordinate cities and terminated contracts in all the Dukedom.
Then only they frowned. Sam didn't tolerate a small mistake. He even fired many people and only kept a little more than half of the employees and even they have to resign from the towers.
They are feeling that he is going overboard. But they are a bit fearful to make a direct move.
They met the emperor a day before and learned somethings. Emperor doesn't want them to be reckless. He doesn't want to face the heads of the associations who might get pissed off if something happened to them.
Sam went on to the next city and this time, there are some revenue mistakes.
There is some corruption in this place. Sam didn't even ask the reasons and just terminated the contract and the rest of the subordinate cities followed suit.
All the shops that are jointly managed by Organization and towers are being terminated of the partnership.
The remaining people turned incredibly nervous.
The tower head, sweated bullets and out of nervousness, he made a big mistake, he made a move on Sam and what he received is a head shot.
He is just a Nascent that too someone at an early stage. Sam doesn't fear anyone.
The Spree continued.
Sam continued and when he didn't find some big differences, he told the employees and the tower heads.
"The association doesn't deserve you and in the near future, they might lose their worth. There is a reason for the other places to be this corrupted. When a system is corrupted, there is no growth. I advise you to join the organization. We will groom you with the way ought to be groomed."
Simply put, he didn't terminate the contract yet. But he is extremely willing to terminate it.
