Recently, Ron had been quite busy.
Not to the extent of people like Lyle, Guy, or Kiel—but compared to when he had just transmigrated, his workload had increased many times over.
But this afternoon, he suddenly found himself… free.
The flower shop had always been managed by Guy's people when it came to negotiating with various factions.
All contract details were reviewed daily by Nora.
If anything seemed off, Nora would discuss it with both Ron and Guy.
As for the Magic Duel tournament and the Magic Duel halls, Nora was fully in charge.
Unless something major went wrong, Ron barely needed to step in.
The hot pot business had already expanded across the:
Northern Region
Eastern Region
Southern Region
And just yesterday afternoon, Lyle had taken a group of employees to the Western Region to conquer the final market.
After months of experience, he was now fully capable of handling things on his own.
Meanwhile, at the private experimental zone—
Illya, Harper, and Edith were completely absorbed in their experiments with the elemental sealed chambers.
They had no time to help Ron with new inventions.
Which left Puppet Ron there with nothing much to do—
Other than occasionally heading to the convent to play War of the Gods with the nuns to pass the time.
Oh right.
Sylvie had already begun organizing a War of the Gods tournament at the convent.
Registration had opened—and the response was overwhelming.
Looking at those enthusiastic nuns, Ron couldn't help but feel a bit speechless.
And from what he knew—
Sylvie had registered in both the City of Chaos and Tansen City.
Clearly aiming for double participation.
Hopefully, she wouldn't end up last place…
Otherwise, her "double happiness" might turn into double humiliation.
On another front—
Kiel had surpassed even Ron himself when it came to Element Card promotion and sales.
With Ron's guidance, Kiel had developed many marketing strategies suited to this world.
This not only saved Ron mental effort but also gave him new ideas.
After Kiel gained control of a trade caravan from his father, Ron signed a new agreement with him—
Granting Kiel a share of the Element Card profits.
With that funding, Kiel began expanding his workforce.
Not just caravans—
But also the marketing team, Ron had specifically emphasized.
Now that Element Cards were being distributed across the entire empire:
Many regions lie outside the Gemstone Trade Alliance's influence
Local magic academies helped open sales channels
But manpower for distribution was still somewhat lacking
However, Ron didn't recommend expanding the caravan too aggressively.
Because his private experimental zone could already produce Element Vehicles.
Freight transport would soon no longer be a bottleneck.
The real priority was the marketing team.
Specifically:
Copywriting
Campaign planning
Execution
Previously, the workflow was:
Ron provides an idea
Kiel refines it
Kiel and a few assistants execute everything
The results were good—
But far too thin for a full-scale national operation.
As Element Cards expanded across the empire, different regions would require:
Adjusted messaging
Localized strategies
Otherwise, the campaigns could fail due to cultural mismatch.
Ron knew his advantage came from "borrowed" marketing tricks from his previous world.
They worked—for now.
But he wasn't arrogant enough to think they would work forever.
The right approach was:
Let Kiel's team digest and adapt these ideas
Localize them properly
Anything else would be unsustainable.
With tools like Mimic Grass, if they only relied on repetitive "brainwashing-style ads"—
It might work for a year or two.
But after five or six years?
People would glance once and ignore it completely.
Worse—
In less developed regions where people had never even seen magic,
Suddenly encountering something like Mimic Grass—
Could lead to unpredictable consequences.
Ron needed a true marketing team to handle all this.
As he flipped through documents, letting his thoughts wander,
He occasionally grabbed Nora's small hand to play with absentmindedly.
Time passed quietly.
Soon, the afternoon matches ended.
Nora reviewed the results summary and looked surprised.
"Boss, Mia went three wins and one loss today. Combined with the previous two days, she's now at nine wins and three losses."
"She's temporarily ranked within the top 100 out of over 300 participants."
"That good?" Ron raised an eyebrow.
Earlier, after seeing Mia lose a match, he had assumed reality was finally catching up with her.
Turns out—that was her only loss today.
Could it be—
Without Soren André's "curse," she was actually quite decent?
"However," Nora added while checking the match records,
"Out of her opponents so far, only four were Gold-tier players."
"She only won one of those matches."
"She still has four more Gold-tier opponents ahead."
"If she loses all of them, that's seven losses total."
"It'll be uncertain whether she can make the top 128."
"And there's no guarantee she'll win all her remaining Silver-tier matches either."
Ron nodded thoughtfully.
"Even so, that's impressive. I thought she'd end up at the bottom."
Back when Mia first returned from the north,
She had struggled for an entire week just to climb out of Silver rank.
If around 100 Gold-tier players made it to the knockout stage,
Then the remaining ~200 players would be fighting for just 28 spots.
The competition was brutal.
Yet Mia had maintained a perfect record against Silver-tier players.
That was a mix of:
Skill
Luck
And… her unique advantage
Facing Mia meant dealing with:
The pressure of dueling the empire's princess
The overwhelming support of the audience
It was essentially an away game nightmare for her opponents.
Ron couldn't control that.
He couldn't exactly clear the audience just for Mia.
Could she actually make it to the knockout stage?
Ron felt both amused and helpless.
Betty was already unavailable as a commentator in the early stages.
And now—
If Mia also made it through…
Then among female commentators—
Only Leticia would remain.
Hopefully, she still gets eliminated early, Ron thought.
If Mia knew what he was thinking,
She'd probably storm over and punch him on the spot.