For the next hour, everyone talked about the tax change.
This was the only topic of discussion for this meeting, and Aria shut down any other topics.
The other topics could be talked about separately or during the next meeting.
The Manufacturers had no issues with that since the tax change already required them to completely change the way their businesses operated.
The direction was clear.
All-around and big Manufacturers would suffer tremendously under this new policy.
However, specialized Manufacturers profited.
Having Extractors and Specters of all levels in a Manufacturer was a horrible idea now, favoring a small number of very powerful Extractors.
Kugelblitz started to adapt very quickly.
They could smell the increased profits of this policy.
90% of the old profits while paying over 10% less in taxes!
People bad in math would believe that the revenue wouldn't change.
After all, both parts only got changed by 10%.
But that was actually not true.
If a hypothetical Manufacturer earned 1,000 credits in profits, they would need to pay 500 credits to the city, leaving them with 500 credits of actual profit.
With the new change, the hypothetical Manufacturer would earn 900 credits in profits.
However, they only needed to pay 40% of the 900 credits in taxes. This meant that they needed to pay only 360 credits as taxes, leaving them with 540 credits.
500 credits compared to 540 credits.
That was an increase of almost 10% of actual profits.
While Kugelblitz's first impression of this new policy had been horrible, after further consideration, they loved it.
10% more profits!
They would be earning even more money now!
And, even better, they didn't even need to hide it since it was all legal!
Kugelblitz absolutely loved that change, and the secretive Mr. Zero in the shady group of upper-layer businessmen became surprisingly passive.
The other members of the groups wanted to do something against the government, but Mr. Zero just didn't seem interested anymore.
This made it much more difficult for the businessmen of the upper layer to find a good way of dealing with the government.
Mr. Zero had created and led these groups, and now, Mr. Zero was basically gone.
Mr. Zero seemed so frustrated with the government just one week ago, and suddenly, he seemed to like it!
Kugelblitz rapidly changed the way it operated.
The first thing it did was to gather a group of their most competent Johns and Veterans.
Kugelblitz's management told them about the tax change and gave them an "opportunity".
"Why are you still here? A new age is beginning! Tens of Manufacturers will be popping out of the ground within the next couple of years! Being an employee is nice, but you only get the real money if you have a business on your own! We paid you very well, and we know that you have considerable finances. Why don't you buy a couple of our Hatchlings and Adolescents to get a head start over other entrepreneurs?"
Within a month, Kugelblitz had sold most of their weak Specters to new entrepreneurs who used to work for them.
Then, Kugelblitz publicly announced that it supported the growth of new Manufacturers and that they were willing to give loans and sell Specters.
Selling Specters was also quite profitable in the short term.
There was not a single Specter in the entire city that went for less than a million credits.
Naturally, many businessmen in the middle and upper layers were interested in having a Manufacturer of their own, and they invested in Extractors to build a business.
They hadn't done so until now since the business of Manufacturers was so cut-throat and brutal to get into.
But now, that was no longer an issue.
New Manufacturers popped up every week.
Since a lot of weak Extractors were now out of a job, these new Manufacturers also weren't weak.
Many of them even had Veterans leading the company.
As for the couple of Newbies and Johns that still worked for Kugelblitz…
They were let go.
However, that was nothing compared to the following weeks, when Sky Dream started to reduce the number of their Newbies and Johns.
Sky Dream had the most Hatchlings and Adolescents, except for the city itself.
Sky Dream alone created over ten new Manufacturers, each with at least five Johns and one Adolescent.
After three months, the creation of new Manufacturers slowed down.
Crimson City now had over 30 Manufacturers.
Yet, Kugelblitz wasn't done.
Kugelblitz's revenue came from their Fanatics and the Crimson Fungus.
This meant that they also needed to get rid of their Adults and Elders.
Naturally, Kugelblitz knew the worth of these Specters and decided to hold a public auction.
Of course, everyone knew exactly which two parties would have a bidding war in this auction.
Gemini and Sky Dream.
Both of them had similar numbers of Veterans and Experts, and they wanted to use this opportunity to make a big leap forward.
However, their stomachs were only so big.
Sky Dream had five Experts, and Gemini had six.
This meant that they could only have five or six Elders before breaking the security rule.
Meanwhile, Kugelblitz had about 20 Elders.
Gemini and Sky Dream got their fill, each buying as many Elders as they were allowed to own.
But that still left over half of the Elders open for the public to buy.
That was when the rich people of the upper layer jumped in.
They invested a huge sum of money to hire Veterans and Experts who left Kugelblitz to lead their businesses.
This led to a rude awakening for Gemini and Sky Dream.
Kugelblitz had always seemed so far away, but now that Kugelblitz was actually splitting up, they felt the true brunt of its power.
Gemini was no longer the second most powerful Manufacturer in the city.
In fact, it wasn't even the third.
Gemini fell to fourth place, and Sky Dream had to contest with someone else for fifth place.
Kugelblitz used to employ around 40 Experts, and all of them were now making their own businesses!
40 Experts!
The biggest of the new Manufacturers had 15 Experts, and they bought five Elders!
While their number of Elders was similar to Gemini and Sky Dream, they had thrice the number of Experts, making them far more profitable.
It would take a long while for Sky Dream and Gemini to become powerful enough to contend with them.
The second biggest newcomer had ten Experts and ten Veterans. They focused on Elders, but they also wanted a couple of profitable Peak Adults.
The last of the newcomers had three Experts and 30 Veterans. They only wanted a single Elder and many strong Adults.
Gemini and Sky Dream suddenly had three powerful new competitors.
Things were becoming brutal.
The competition for Adults and Experts was tough.
However, despite that, things still improved.
After all, Kugelblitz was no longer interested in any Specter weaker than a Fanatic.
This meant all the Specialists that searched for weak Specters vanished from the competition.
Now, only Experts were interested in Elders.
This made the playing field more level, allowing the weaker Extractors to actually find Specters they could use.
But things were even worse for the weaker Manufacturers.
Each of them had to contend with over ten other Manufacturers.
When it was finally time for the new tax policy to take effect, the city had become unrecognizable.
Kugelblitz went from 50 Specters to just 13.
They also only had 20 Extractors. 18 Specialists and two Heroes.
Gemini and Sky Dream had 20 Specters, respectively. They still had all their Veterans and Experts, but the Newbies and Johns were dispersed into the smaller Manufacturers.
The strongest new Manufacturer had five Elders.
The second strongest new Manufacturer had two Elders and three Peak Adults.
The third strongest new Manufacturer had ten Adults.
Due to the drastic change in number of the Manufacturers, the requirements to attend the yearly meeting were raised to having at least one Expert in the company.
Naturally, as soon as the tax change took effect, the city took a heavy hit.
After the new policy, everyone was essentially paying far fewer taxes.
Instead of increasing the amount Crimson City could pay Aegis, it decreased.
However, this was only the first part of Nick's plan.
Now that the city was earning less money, it was time to implement the second change, which would put the city's income to the same level as before.
The tax change was important for one reason.
It divided the opposition.
The Manufacturers liked the way the new tax system worked.
Most of them got more money than before, and money was all they were interested in.
In essence, the Manufacturers would not want to get rid of Nick for the time being.
'Big groups of humans are selfish,' Nick thought. 'If their interests align, they will work together, but if helping others requires lowering your profits, they will no longer work together.'
All the Manufacturers were gone from the opposition for now.
So, Nick's eyes went to somewhere else.
His next target.
The people living in the upper layer.