Alex smiled slightly as he observed Elise and Daniel's eyes and noticed that they were getting a little nervous.
"Don't worry, I don't actually think that somebody here will truly betray me."
He continued after a short pause, "Anyways. I also wanted today to talk about the underground side of the Sky Merchant Guild so, let's start with it."
"The underground side of the Sky Merchant Guild will not accept new members in the first year and will also continue to focus on quality instead of quantity in the future."
Alex had a perfect example of building a successful criminal organization in Giovanni's Team Rocket but he felt that this way of doing things is sub-optimal and even extremely risky to replicate it here one-to-one in Hoenn.
Apart from the fact that he would prefer to take the elite route here, in the Pokemon world anyway.
In its old world, the number of subordinates was very important for a criminal organization, and usually, the most powerful criminal organization had many members.
But in the world Alex is in right now, quantity isn't extraordinarily important or necessary to build a powerful organization.
Especially if this organization is leaning towards fighting.
Alex personally would rather have 10 Mid-Elite level trainers than 50 Rookie trainers and 10 Low-Elite level trainers.
Maria, who heard Alex's words, put on a puzzled expression as she asked, "Alex, what do you mean by that? Shouldn't we recruit aggressively, in the beginning, to quickly gain strength?"
Elise and Daniel also wore puzzled expressions upon hearing Alex's words. None of the three understood why Alex would say something like that.
Alex replied in a calm tone, "As I said before, we will be putting quality over quantity. This means that I intend to use the first year to test the loyalty and talent of future members before allowing them to become real members ."
"I want this organization to remain hidden from the Alliance for as long as possible so that I value the loyalty of the members to the organization the most."
Maria's confused expression didn't change when she heard that. "...But Alex, how are you going to test the loyalty and talent of prospective members?. and how are you going to build loyalty in the first place?"
Alex answers that question with a question. "Maria, where are we now?"
Maria looked at Alex's playful eyes, and she suppressed her impulse to smack him.
She just looked at Alex without a word and after every second that Alex kept that playful expression, her expression got colder.
Alex, long accustomed to the character of Maria, continued to show a playful expression.
After a few seconds, Maria said in a low voice, "Hoenn, Dawn Hurst Town, in the mansion of a toddler."
Alex ignored the insult and flashed a victorious smile as he replied, "Dawn Hurst Tow, the town that had the worst living conditions for children in all of Hoenn. If someone suddenly set up an orphanage here and gave many children a happy home, what would happen?"
Maria, Elise, and Daniel finally understand why Alex wanted to set up his organization in this town.
Elise then asked, "But boss, if that's the case and you truthfully want to set up an orphanage, why do you want to wait a year before you want to start recruiting members? didn't you just say yourself that these children would become very loyal to the organization ?"
Alex replied, "There are several reasons for this, but these three main reasons are the most important. First of all, true loyalty is not something that can be built up quickly in most cases. 1 year per child in "the Paradise" is already absolutely the minimum and I expect that most children will stay longer in the orphanage before they are evaluated."
"Secondly, I intend to test these children in terms of personality, loyalty, and intelligence to determine the best of these children. I do not intend to include most of these children in the organization from the start. Only the absolute elite is good enough to serve with us as the core of this organization ."
"The third and last reason is relatively simple. Because I want to set up and run an orphanage, I can't make all the children disappear or the Alliacne will quickly notice this anomaly."
Elise suddenly understood why Alex wanted to wait a year and she had to admit that this plan was a very good one.
But she had one more question, "Boss, what are you going to do with the other kids who weren't good enough? Isn't it a waste to just send them away when they're old enough?"
Alex showed a small smile when he heard this good question. "I already have a plan for these kids. I intend to hire most of these kids as workers for Sky Merchant Guild. Especially after Elite Entertainment is bought, we will use these kids to slowly swap out these workers with these loyal kids."
"I'm fairly certain that most of these kids will become very loyal to the Sky Merchant Guild. It would be a waste not to use them."
Elise tilted her head slightly, a playful smile forming on her lips.
"Ohh, Boss… how cold-hearted." She clasped her hands behind her back. "Judging from your words, you don't see these kids as anything more than tools."
Alex didn't react immediately. His expression remained calm—almost bored.
When he finally spoke, his tone was layered with irony.
"Yes. You're absolutely right." He gave her a flat look. "Unlike you, who certainly had no intention whatsoever of doing exactly the same thing."
He folded his arms.
"If I had no use for these children—if I invested resources into feeding, training, and protecting them purely out of charity—then yes. I would be a cold-blooded monster."
Elise gave a slightly bashful expression as if she had heard praise from Alex. "Ohh boss, you truly like to use so many words just to flirt with me. hehe..."
Alex, Daniel, and Maria all showed surprised expressions upon hearing this.
'Is she serious? .. I'm really not sure. ...I'll just ignore it.' thought Alex
"Anyways. I intend to let you three participate in this orphanage operation and I hope that you will visit it regularly. For your own benefit."
Elise, Daniel, and Maria looked at Alex with strange expressions as he just ignored Eilse's words.
"I expect each of you to report on the Character of each child in the orphanage at a time so that you will need to devote some of your time to communicating with those children. But I have no intention of letting you work without reward."
"Each of you can mark up to three children as your favorites and later have them as direct subordinates as soon as you get the ok from me.
But be warned that as long as they pass all the tests at the end, the child can choose who they want to work under if multiple people use their favorites for the same child."
Alex used such a way to motivate the three to really test each child's loyalty and character.
Although in this way he gave direct power to these three, he was not concerned that he would lose control of this organization.
As long as his individual strength is higher than that of Daniel and Elise, these two will not try to cause problems for him.
Apart from the fact that he was planning to bring a couple of children under himself.
Maria wore a relatively indifferent expression upon hearing this. She already owns 5% of this organization and would remain the second most powerful person in this organization even if she did not accept any of these children as her subordinates.
Although she planned to take one or two children as long as they had a "pleasant" character.
Daniel and Elise, on the other hand, showed satisfied expressions when they heard Alex's words.
Alex ignored the pleased expressions of these two as he continued, " You can also take as many subordinates as you like from outside, but if they betray the organization I will hold you responsible. my recommendation is to only do this if you are very sure of the loyalty of these people."
Daniel and Elise, who were not planning on hiring outside subordinates anyway, both showed an indifferent expression to Alex's warning.
*******
More Powerstones, More Powerstones, Powerstonesssss. I will upload a chapter tomorrow.
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