Castelle looked at the ’brick’ in her hands and saw the words, {Incoming call from 0002. Press any button to accept.}
Confused, Castelle had no choice but to follow the strange letters on the screen by pressing a key on the keyboard.
And immediately, the call connected.
{...ello...}
A muted voice echoed from the phone. Castelle seemed to recognize the tone it came from. That was from her Young Master!
She put the phone closer to her ears and finally heard the call loud and clear.
{Hello, Castelle? Can you hear me?}
"Young Master?! Are you speaking to me?"
{That’s right. Now, can you please press the trackpad button on top of the keyboard?}
Castelle squinted her eyes as she navigated the strange and alien keys in the phone. Finally, after a minute of fumbling through the keys, she was able to push the button as Michael suggested.
And suddenly, the image on the screen changed, followed by a notification.
{Video Call accepted}
Castelle saw Michael appear on the screen, startling her. "Young Master! That’s you!" she exclaimed.
Michael waved back at her. He was in the pocket dimension of his Drone, looking at the front camera of the phone and seeing Castelle’s confused face reflected on the screen.
The phone was working exactly as he intended. Even though the phones were separated through a different dimensional space, they still worked properly without being laggy or choppy. The image and sound were crystal clear.
{Young Master, what is this? How can I see you in this brick?!}\
"This is called a phone, Castelle. I’ll teach you how to use it..."
He began to instruct her on the uses of the phone, such as its capability to call, text, and take pictures.
{I see! This is amazing, Young Master! This doesn’t use magic?! I can already see it becoming extremely popular to the masses!}
As expected, as soon as Castelle got the gist of the phone, she immediately thought about its potential in the markets. The fact that it was self-sustained, needing no battery nor magic, meant that anyone could use it and could cater to a wider market.
"Can you use the phone properly now?" he asked Castelle.
He saw her squint at the phone a few times, a habit she had whenever she had trouble trying to understand something.
{It was a bit overwhelming at first, Young Master, especially with the numerous keys on the keyboard. But once you explained it, I think I could handle it myself.}
This was one of his concerns. The phone wasn’t intuitive to the people of this world. This was essentially their first interaction with technology that advanced, unlike the people from his previous world who were able to go from rotary telephone, to wireless telephone, and finally to a smartphone.
Castelle was very smart, but even she took a little bit more fumbling around before she got used to the controls. And she had the benefit of him guiding her throughout the entire time.
The average person won’t have those advantages.
I’m glad I didn’t add too many features on the phone.
Being too complex would hinder the phone’s assimilation to society. It was good that it only had three features for now. There was always time to add more in the future once people got used to the controls.
After testing the signal, Michael returned back to Castelle’s office and asked about her opinion on the phone.
"What do you think? Can I sell this?"
Castelle fervently nodded her head. "Yes, Young Master! I have already thought of a marketing strategy to ensure the phone’s success."
She then moved towards the blackboard on her wall and removed the satin sheet covering it.
A complex powerpoint presentation held up by pins and strings connected to each other was revealed. It showed graphs, market research data, distribution channels, and other such things that detailed an almost 10-year plan to produce and sell phones.
"When did you do this?!"
"Forgive me, Young Master. I was only able to cobble up something basic since I only had a few minutes while you were gone."
Michael was once again reminded why Castelle was the CEO of the Reborn company. Her talents in business were next to no one.
While they were talking on a call earlier, she asked him questions about the phone’s manufacturing materials offhandedly. He thought she was just making conversation, but he didn’t think she was actually already trying to calculate everything about its production.
In her presentation, he saw a bunch of numbers tallying up the expenses that the phone would need to be produced. This included the ores and materials, the labor for the production, as well as the Mithril needed.
"Mithril is the biggest cost of our production," Castelle said, pointing at her calculations.
"If we were to base the price through the black market, then each phone would need 800 Sand Dollars worth of Mithril for production. And if we were to add the materials, the labor, etc., then we can safely assume that the total expense for a single phone would be at a 1000 Sand Dollars each.
But because of its rarity and commercial value, I think we can price it at 10,000 Sand Dollars a piece."
That was an insane profit margin!
"Are you sure we can price it that high?"
Castelle nodded confidently. "Of course! In truth, we could have priced it at 20,000 or even 30,000! The Mithril and the unlimited battery alone would make it extremely valuable to the market.
But if we price it that high, only a select few can purchase our phones. In the short term, this is good for profit. But in the long term, it will kill our progress. We need a lot of people to become used to our phones. It should be an everyday necessity."
Once she put it that way, Michael was convinced. After all, he was planning on copying the tactics of phone companies from his previous life.
He was going to release a new phone with updated specs every so often. That way, those that were already used to the phones will be more inclined to buy another, making the previous version of the phone a lot cheaper and more affordable for others.
"That price looks good," he said. "It’s the same as a single drop of Soo or one kilogram of GodForge piece."
In his opinion, the price was expensive, but not to the point where it was unaffordable.
Still, he had to get a second opinion. And who better to ask that than a royal who was deeply intertwined with the tastes and opinions of the masses?
...
...
...
Meanwhile, back in Metropolis, a royal motorized carriage finally reached its destination atop a plateau.
"We’re back at the castle, milady," said a butler. Yet even after announcing that they were finally home after months and months of being away, the person inside refused to go out.
This was none other than Duchess Regina, the royal in charge of Metropolis in its entirety.
Despite that title, the Duchess hadn’t been performing the duties of someone befitting of her title. She was too busy enjoying her life back in the Nation of Reborn.
But now, she’s back. She was away from that paradise, and back to this backwards territory without any electricity or plumbing.