Bruce relented to Zach’s idea of handing over the business to the Windsor family but he still wasn’t willing to give up the project completely. He figured that the Smith family should at least get the maximum benefit out of the deal even if Zach had already committed the business to Windsor family.

“I can bear letting go of this business opportunity since you are advocating it but I insist that you let me go to negotiate with the Windsor family on your behalf. I know that you will simply give it away like chump change if I am not there.”

Zach opened his mouth to say something but before he could make a sound, Bruce interrupted him.

“Since you already consider this to be a trivial matter, don’t involve yourself in it. Let me handle it. In return, I assure you that I will carry out your will sincerely and the Windsor family won’t feel wronged even after the conclusion of the deal. They will still be grateful to you for giving them the opportunity. You can’t seem to comprehend how big of an opportunity it will be for them.”

Zach took a moment to take in everything he heard from Bruce and let it simmer in his mind. Since Bruce had already put it in such a manner, Zach didn’t think there was anything he to retort about in Bruce’s way of handling the deal. Therefore, he nodded and gave him a thumbs up to indicate his agreement.

It was therefore decided that Bruce would be the negotiator and Zach wouldn’t interfere in the matter.

Zach forgot about the matter as soon as he made a decision. To him, the sugar business really wasn’t as important as it was to Zach. He had neither put in much thought about it and to some extent he felt that Bruce might have been right about him giving it away to the Windsor family without any compensation. The only benefit he was thinking of receiving through this arrangement was the availability of his favorite coffee instead of the local bitter coffee that he couldn’t get used to no matter what.

Although it appeared that Zach hadn’t put much thought into the matter and was lazy while Bruce was working hard for the Smith family. The truth was that Zach was thinking of the bigger picture. He had to take several factors into account in order to determine the development direction of this new Smith family. 𝐞𝗻𝐨𝘃𝗹.𝐜𝐨𝗺

Zach had learnt a crucial lesson from the attack of Prince Kolt at the previous Luther residence. Without power and sufficient influence, he would always be at the mercy of someone else no matter how much he tried to improve this society. There would always be some greedy sharks waiting to bite off a pound of flesh from his bleeding body no matter how well fed he kept those sharks.

Even money was far from keeping him safe. Therefore a purely business family had no means of survival unless they relied on someone else or the government like the Elizabeth family that was weak in terms of battle capability but had the support of the government now. But what if the temptation in your possession was big enough to tempt the government? Who would save you from you own backer then?

Therefore, Zach had set a direction for his people to develop based on several important reasons. These were also the reasons why he had not involved the Luther family people in the sugar business despite the obvious resistance and hesitation of Bruce to comply with his orders.

First reason was that money wasn’t as important for Zach at the moment. A project, as big as the sugar production business, was bound to shine a light on the pioneers who managed to develop such a useful household item. Zach couldn’t afford to be in the limelight during this period where the whole family would be in the development phase.

The second reason was the lacking manpower. The total number of people under him at the moment was close to five hundred approximately. It was far from enough to take on such a huge project so as to keep the production method a secret. Therefore, it was better to give the project away for sufficient benefits.

The third reason was that Zach intended for the family to become powerful not in terms of riches or political influence but in terms of strength and battle power. With the current number of personnel at his beck and call, Zach didn’t think the emergence of a fighting force was feasible even with the support of the latest technology and equipment. Therefore, in a situation where he needed to make efficient use of every last man at his disposal, it was almost impossible for Zach to spare someone to manage the production process of sugar.

Zach still remembered the scale of the battle that took place when they left Elizabeth city behind. The forces that Prince Kolt had brought with him had covered the ground completely in an area encompassing several hundreds of meters around the Luther family estate.

If a single Prince could muster such strength without the support of the royal family, Zach could not bring himself to imagine the true force of the royal family that had yet to show itself. Zach could only hope that the royal family would not make a move against him until Zach developed his force sufficiently. Although the royal family was trying to make a good relationship with him, Zach had read enough history to know that the interest of a single individual could never outweigh the interest of the state. The moment the royal family found themselves in a situation where taking over Zach’s technology appeared to be beneficial to the state, they would not hesitate to order to Zach to comply with their unjustified demands in the name of righteousness and self sacrifice for the nation.

In order to not be in a passive situation in front of such powers of the empire, Zach needed the Smith family to absorb more members into its fold. He wanted to raise the power of the Luther family to the point that even the top class forces of the country would hesitate to clash with it.

Although money was the greatest motivator in a generic sense, not everyone was interested in earning loads of money when they already had enough to support them for a lifetime. To such people, the amount of money you waved in front of them didn’t matter. They were more interested in things that could hold their interest.

For example, an experienced craftsmen dealing in luxury goods wouldn’t be lacking in money but might be tempted towards rare wood materials to practice his craft on.

Thinking along the same lines, Zach felt the need to gather precious and rare resources in order to attract capable people and to tempt them to join his faction. The ideology could work wonders provided that there were enough people who had yet to join a faction despite being capable.

After all, he wasn’t the only person interested in talents. Every large and medium sized family usually had talent brokers who head hunted such capable people on a regular basis for their group.

After putting in some further thought, Zach found that this kind of recruitment could produce faster results and could build a large force quite quickly but couldn’t be reliable. There was no way to keep the loyalty of the people who joined Zach’s faction only for resources. If one day they found more resources from somewhere else, wouldn’t they switchover once more?

Therefore, Zach couldn’t trust outsiders with the management and key positions in his force. He needed to ensure the loyalty of the management in his faction so as to keep the faction from getting out of his sphere of influence. He could settle for a weaker but reliable and cohesive force rather than a powerful but scattered force that was only good for show of power.

In a land so foreign, he didn’t have a lot of options in to choose from that Zach could rely on. The only sure method was to choose from a group of people he could trust unconditionally. From that perspective, there were only two groups that fell into this range. One was the Luther family that had arrived with him to Byzantium city and the other was to ask the Windsor family to contribute some manpower. Zach believed that the old master of the Windsor family wouldn’t cheat him after receiving life saving grace from Zach.

Although, Zach didn’t doubt the Windsor family people, he still wasn’t willing to build the foundation of his faction relying on the strength of the Windsor family. Therefore, he had to build up the strength of his people in order to proceed further with his plans.

The Luther family people would become his hands and feet in the new organizational structure. They would not only become the highest level combatants of the group after being armed with the latest technology and trained according to his special forces standards but would also hold the most important management positions in the family. In this way, there won’t be any loophole for the other families or powers to exploit when targeting the Smith family; which they would eventually after the meteoric rise of Zach’s force became imminent and threatened to divide their piece of pie.

The servants of the Luther family were unaware of the plans being hatched by Zach to turn them into capable fighters, assistants and managers who would lead the future fighting force and the business empire of the Luther family on Zach’s behalf.