A couple of days after Michael and his family left the Vanderbilt Kingdom, a welcoming celebration commenced in the entire estate.
Horns blared with the sounds of thousands of soldiers marching towards the Kingdom walls.
Today was the day that Yze Vanderbilt would return to his Kingdom.
The whole lineage inside the Kingdom celebrated, treating it as if he had returned from a victorious war against another country.
But the truth was nothing as grandiose as that.
Sure, Yze Vanderbilt was accompanied by a ten-thousand-man army wherever he went, but that didn’t mean he went off to fight in a war. That was just because his safety was vitally important to the Vanderbilt family and the country itself.
His children and his grandchildren all gathered at the large plaza square, waving their handkerchiefs as a sign of respect for the Vanderbilt founding father.
But despite the celebrations and fanfare, when the grand chariot and carriage entered the plaza, it simply continued on its way and ignored all the people trying to catch Yze’s attention.
It didn’t stop for a single second.
This was quite unusual. Grandfather Vanderbilt enjoyed festivities and welcoming parties like this, usually lasting for many days up to a week. He would spend lavish amounts of money for performances, drinking, eating, and many such celebrations.
Many wondered what was wrong, but they could only speculate to themselves.
Yze wasted no time and went directly to his mansion and entered his chambers. He sat on his throne, his hands on his forehead.
Silence filled the throne room.
Yze Vanderbilt was a man who had gray-white hair, sagging eyebags, a face full of wrinkles, and a stooping posture. But even then, his presence was still as wild as a lion about to pounce.
The Board of Directors next to him was nervous. It was never good when Yze was this silent.
Finally, one of them dared to speak up.
“How was the trip, Sire?” the old man next to him asked awkwardly, trying not to offend him. “Have you done what you wanted with that new company called Reborn?”
The reason why Yze Vanderbilt left his estate in his great old age was because he heard a little rumor.
There seemed to be an up-and-coming new company called Reborn, who had been sweeping the Cities and disrupting the local market with their new and innovative products.
There was even a rumor that the Vanderbilt business in Kingsbridge City was starting to fall behind this upstart company after only five years.
Some of his Wizard friends even became addicted to a strange board game called ‘Reborn Chess’.
Naturally, Yze had his men investigate the Reborn company and their products.
Yze thought that they were using underhanded schemes to topple the Vanderbilt business, but once he held the Reborn soap and shampoo in his hands, he finally realized the genius and innovation this company had.
Not only that, but the techniques and marketing strategy they employed were something that made even him impressed.
Yze felt that whoever was at the helms of Reborn was someone who could someday try to contend with the big leagues like him.
This sparked a competitive fire within the old man, a fire that had not been lit in such a long time.
Even though Kingsbridge was a small little City on the outskirts of the province, Yze felt that no Vanderbilt business should ever be outdone by some new company that was wet behind the ears.
So, he and a few of his most trusted people spent a year planning and experimenting with products that were better or at least at the same level as the products that Reborn was putting out into the market.
And they found it. They were able to create a soap that was much more fragrant than Reborn soap, it lasted much longer, and most of all, it cost less to produce.
They did the same with the shampoo and the revolutionary matchstick.
And using the help of his friends from the Guild of Arcana, they were able to create an even more complicated board game called Battlefield Strike.
Yze wanted to destroy Reborn in Kingsbridge before they could even try to expand to other Cities.
He was so sure that his products would prevail against Reborn. So sure, in fact, that Yze traveled all the way to Kingsbridge just to observe how the whole thing unfolded.
This led him to miss the meeting with Michael.
When he arrived at Kingsbridge, the impossible happened.
When they put out their superior products into the Kingsbridge market, there was no one buying their products! Even though they were objectively better and much cheaper than Reborn products, barely anyone was buying from them.
When they investigated this further, it turned out that Reborn had just come out with another revolutionary product called the ‘plumbing system’. Not only that, they were even solving the polluted river water problem in their City with something called a sewer system.
This pushed the popularity of Reborn into the skies, with every citizen in Kingsbridge becoming loyal to the Reborn company.
Yze was impressed by the plumbing system, but that could be replicated by anyone else. However, what truly made a mark on the old man was how Reborn was able to completely make an entire City loyal to their products.
He had never seen this before. It was truly mind-blowing.
So, he could only return to his Kingdom and brood about his loss.
“A formidable opponent has come,” Yze muttered to himself, his voice low and commanding.
The future would be an exciting time. Even though he lost, Yze was itching for a fight with Reborn. However, he didn’t have much time. He was already quite old.
Yze could only hope that his inheritor would be able to fight against the eventual rise of Reborn and still keep the Vanderbilt name at the top of the world.
He shook his head. “If only my descendants were just a fraction as talented as the mastermind from Reborn, I would die happily.
But no. They’re all naive and idiotic. It’s my fault, really. I pampered them so much that they didn’t have the killer instincts to survive in this world. They’ll sink the ship I built by hand.
If it was possible, I would rather entrust the entire Vanderbilt business to that Reborn mastermind. At least then, I would know that my business is in good hands.”
Yze sighed. He must have been lacking so much sleep to think about stuff like that.
It was no use thinking about stuff that he could not control. He decided to go to sleep for now.
But before he could stand up, a bell resounded in the throne room.
DING! DONG!
Yze’s eyes were led to a strange new contraption in the corner of the room. It looked like a cabinet with a circular face that had lines near its circumference.
And once he listened closely, he heard the rhythmic tik tok sound coming from the object.
“What is that?” he asked his advisors.
The old man next to him bowed. “That is a gift from Bart Vanderbilt, Sire. It’s called a clock, which seemed to have been made by his youngest son, Michael.”