The new year started, and just as planned, Emmet took on the full role Maisy had left for him. Sure enough, he quickly got swept up in a hurricane of new responsibilities.

Contractors, employees, fees, meetings… all those blended together in Emmet’s new busy schedule. Although he had witnessed just how hectic it would be in his month of training with Maisy, he was still swept away by all the various things he had to do, especially since it was the beginning of the year, and every day, there would always be some new thing he had to sort out, whether it was a contractor agreement, registration issue, or lease negotiation with the school.

Complicating things further, this year, he also decided to institute some new changes within the company. In order to incentivize the current employees to come back and stay working at the depot, Emmet offered all of the debuggers still at the bottom tier (including all the new second years), promotions to higher 10 points/hour tier. Although Maisy had previously been a bit more conservative with her promotion offers, he found that all of the employees were qualified enough, and they had all worked hard, so there was no reason to be too stingy - thinking back to his discussions with Maisy, he felt that she would likely also agree with this sentiment. Further, this extra incentive could hopefully motivate them to work harder.

After that, he further established a new third tier of employee that would earn 15 points/hour, and then immediately offered a dozen of the highest performing upperclassmen promotions to that top tier. At the end of each year, Emmet planned to repeat this process, granting those highest performing gracious rewards. Perhaps with this hierarchical system, it would inspire greater competitivity between the workers, causing everyone to collectively improve.

Because of his efforts, nearly forty-five of the more than fifty original first year employees chose to accept the promotions and stay another year. Aside from the good pay, many had gained a lot from Emmet’s mentorship over the past year, and thus, had developed some loyalty to the company - even if not offered promotions, many would have still returned. Apart from that, almost two-thirds of the other upperclassman employees who had made their cuts also chose to stay, many of them motivated by the generous offers of promotion.

Overall, Emmet felt that this was a good rate of return. Although there was a greater rate of upperclassman employees leaving the company this year than had left previous years, with the reliable figurehead of Maisy gone, it was to be expected. To compensate for the large reduction in labor force, Emmet turned his hopes toward the rising wave of second years. As he had personally taught many of these employees in the past year, he had a first-hand knowledge of just how much they had improved, and thus, was confident that they could begin to carry the company forward as the year progressed.

Finally, in order to continue this tradition of nurturing the new employees, Emmet also established a new paired mentoring system within the company, inspired by what he had seen in Koriander Basics, called the ‘big sib little sib’ system. For some extra pay, Emmet offered upperclassman employees positions to become ‘big sibs,’ who would be mentors to the new wave of newbie workers, the ‘little sibs.’ Each ‘big sib’ served as a newbie’s personal advisor - within this relationship, the ‘little sibs’ could learn from the wealth of experience the upperclassmen had gathered and receive much needed assistance during their hectic first years.

Emmet was especially fond of this system. He himself had heavily relied on Maisy’s mentorship to rise to his current position, and likewise, many of the current second years at the company had relied on his help in order to dramatically improve over their first years. Thus, he hoped that this system would not only inspire a new generation of debuggers to improve quicker, but cause the workforce as a whole to become more connected, and thus more productive.

The system would only work if there were enough upperclassmen willing to take that time-consuming role, and thus, Emmet was at first a bit concerned that there wouldn’t be enough interest among the mentors. Luckily, upon introducing the system to the company, he quickly received a steady torrent of willing applications, more than enough to institute such a system. He carefully combed through and picked out the most qualified individuals to be ‘big sibs,’ putting them into a list in preparation for matching with the new employees.

On the other hand, these few days, there was an unfortunate matter - Emmet quickly became so busy with Maisy Debugging Depot matters that he again barely found enough time to pursue his own personal projects. Every day, not only did he have the details of his new system to organize, but also had to resolve a mountain of contractual issues. Not only were these issues tedious, they had nothing to do with formations theory or puzzles, so Emmet got virtually no enjoyment out of them. However, they were essential to the function of the company, so he had to go through with them properly.

At the end of this first hectic week, the annual worker recruitment meeting took place.

This time, Emmet assigned a second year (named Qiay) as his assistant, who took on the traditional role of standing next to him and passing out trial formations. In this past year, out of all of the recruits he had mentored, he felt that this Qiay was not only the brightest, but was also one of the hardest working. Any time Emmet explained something to him, if he didn’t immediately understand, he would dedicate all his effort to get to the bottom of it. His progress was also one of the quickest of the employees - by the end of the previous year, he had already moved on debugging formations in the middle pile.

This year, about a hundred new interested recruits showed up to attend the trial. This wasn’t as many as the previous year - clearly, without Maisy at the helm, the service was significantly less popular. But still, many more people had arrived than the few that had in Emmet’s freshman year, so Emmet was satisfied.

During the orientation, Emmet gave a long-winded speech to the new recruits, making sure to explain new benefits like the ‘big sib little sib’ system and the newly open possibilities of promotion. Having practiced what he was going to say dozens of times in the mirror, the speech went smoothly, and soon after, the testing trial commenced. Two hours later, Qiay collected back all of the formations, and Emmet proceeded to inspect through all of them one by one. In the end, only a few of the new recruits passed, most of them having failed to complete the debuggings in time. However, Emmet didn’t seem to perturbed, merely giving some final words of encouragement and welcoming them all to come back the following day.

The next day, out of the hundred interested newcomers, a bit over twenty showed for their first day of work. Although this didn’t seem great, Emmet was satisfied with this turnout. Honestly, for him, this rate of recruitment was already pretty good - it was only a bit less than the rate from when Maisy was the head, so he figured it meant that he was doing something right - clearly, people had been attracted to the job in some way.

The very same day, the ‘big sib little sib’ system went into effect. Emmet drew lots and paired up the two groups, posting them publicly up on a board, and soon after, the pairs all met up with each other to get acquainted. Within a few days, frequent pairs of discussing mentor-student pairs could be seen all throughout the company, livening up the space.

Within days, schoolwork began to ramp up, and the school year officially began.

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In the next few weeks, the workers of the Maisy Debugging Depot began to settle into a routine, all of Emmet’s new changes having been implemented smoothly. Although many of the new recruits were new to the business and at first struggled to complete their debuggings, with the help of their mentors, they were eventually able to adapt. It also helped that it was still the beginning of the year, and there weren’t that many orders.

In this time, Emmet was finally freed from most of his torturous administrative duties. Although he still had the responsibilities of overseeing the running of the company, he left much of the day-to-day management up to the employees up on the third tier, and thus, finally found time to fall back on his previous routine - ravenously reading in the library and tackling interesting tasks posted on the bulletins.

About a month into the semester, he randomly received a message from a previous employer he had worked for, asking for him to fulfill yet another task. Emmet agreed and the two met up in one of the school buildings.

To his surprise, when the employer - a wild-eyed middle-aged man - walked into the room, he carried with him a small cage, containing a small, colorful creature. Inside the cage was a unique, feral-looking bird, colored scarlet red with dark blue stripes, and with a long and powerful beak and large and penetrating eyes - by the eyes’ anatomy, they would probably grant clear and far-seeing vision. However, what was most fascinating was that unlike ordinary birds, who universally had either a set of two wings or four wings, this bird had six large wings, clearly some kind of special breed.

The client haphazardly set the bird down on top of the table, and in response, it chirped miserably, drooping its body down sadly. Noticing Emmet in the corner of its vision, it raised its head and stared out toward him with big eyes, as if pleading for him to do something.

Making eye contact with the bird, Emmet briefly felt chills crawl down his spine. It was only a bird… but why did he feel like it was actually trying to tell him something?

“What’s that?” Emmet asked a bit apprehensively. He had read quite a few books on wildlife breeds from the library, and he was positive that he had never seen anything resembling such a creature before.

“Hehe, this?” The employer smirked, tapping the top of the cage without care. “It’s a creature I caught from Silva. Heh, impressed? As you can probably tell, it’s not like the others. No idea of the species.”

“Silva?” Emmet couldn’t help but gulp.

Of course, Silva - the evergreen thicket. Only there could such a wild-looking creature be found. As a forest that received non-stop sunlight, it contained an overflow of wild and mysterious creatures, causing a popular market to form of capturing these animals, either for their valuable body parts or to keep as pets.

Still, he asked: “What were you doing in Silva?”

“I’m a rare breeds hunter,” the employer explained, smiling giddily at the unique-looking bird within the cage. “It’s quite the time to be one. Currently, Silva is rimming with wealth! The rate of people finding crazy, unique breeds has recently shot up, and likewise, the demand has risen along with it. This bird is one such creature - I just recently caught him, and immediately had to bring him back here. Just look at it! The size, wings, beak shape… I’ve never quite seen anything like it!”

“It seems to understand what we’re saying,” Emmet couldn’t help but say, staring down at the pitiful-looking bird with a bit of unease - it was still looking straight back at him. He was positive that normal birds wouldn’t hold eye contact for that long.

“Haha, you’ve noticed, eh?” The client laughed, casually pounding the back of the cage as he chortled. “I wouldn’t say that it understands us… but let me tell you, this one’s a rare one. I’ve never quite seen a bird with such mannerisms. It’s almost human-like.” He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “After this, I’m heading toward the markets to put it on bid - hopefully, it’ll fetch a handsome price.”

Emmet nodded in agreement with his assessment. Even now, the bird was swaying back and forth, still staring out toward Emmet, as if beseeching him to take action. Occasionally, it let out low chirps.

“Anyway, I came here today for a simple request,” the client crossed his arms and explained. “I would like you to build another barrier entrapment formations for me. The one you built last time was great, and allowed me to catch some exceedingly quick creatures! I want another one. Name a price, and I can pay it.”

“Another barrier entrapment formation?”

In a flash, Emmet recalled his previous interaction this employer. He had been commissioned to produce a fast-reacting barrier cage activation device for him, similar to the one Torhah had used to take care of the saber-toothed bear when they had first met. At the time, he had not thought about for what purpose this device was for, but now, it was clear.

Instantly, Emmet couldn’t help but have a sinking feeling. It wasn’t his intention to be a participating factor in the capture of these fascinating-looking Silva creatures. Just looking at the tiny cage it was housed in, it clearly did not have an enjoyable life. Was this a commonplace practice?

“Hm…” Emmet pretended to ponder for a moment. “I’m actually quite busy at the moment. Barrier entrapment formations are quite complicated, and I’m currently running my own on-campus business, so time is tight…”

“Oh…” The client responded calmly, but clearly, he was disappointed, sagging a bit in his seat. “So it’s not possible?”

“I’m sorry,” Emmet quickly nodded. “I just don’t have enough time.”

In reality, he wasn’t lying. In this moment, where he had to manage all the affairs of the debugging depot, he truly was busy. However, barrier entrapment formations were really not that time-intensive to construct, so the real reason was that he wasn’t really willing.

Once again, he couldn’t help but glance once again toward the caged bird displayed out in front of him, noting how drooping and malnourished it was. As his glance panned upward, he once again made eye contact with the bird - he suddenly had another thought. The bird’s fate - no matter what the client planned, it couldn’t be good.

Suddenly, a wild impulse overcame him, and he leaned over toward employer, alerting his attention. “I’ll buy the bird.”

“Uh… huh?” The employer was thrown for a loop, clearly not having expected such a turn in the discussion.

“I’ll buy the bird,” Emmet repeated, purposely using non-glamorous language to make it seem that the ‘bird’ really wasn’t anything much. “How much? I can pay it.”

“The bird...” The employer was surprised, looking down at the creature and furrowing his brows. “I was planning on auctioning it off downtown…”

“I’m pretty rich,” Emmet further pressed, sitting up straighter as if to convey a sense of prominence. “As I said, I run an on-campus business. It’s quite a successful one. I know that Gemini Academy points aren’t equivalent to real currency, but still, they can be used to hire all sorts of genius students at the school for various tasks - they’re very valuable.”

“Hm…” The employer paused in his movement, staring up toward Emmet, as if sizing him up. For a few moments, he just sat there and strummed his fingers onto the table. “Alright,” he finally stated. “Thirty thousand points.”

“Deal,” Emmet immediately consented, throwing down a piece of parchment and pen. In the next few moments, he wrote out a brief and simple contract - essentially, the wording guaranteed that Emmet would fulfill his end of the bargain later on and transfer the money over. Otherwise, the employer could take legal action against him through the school.

“Haha, ok!” The employer was suddenly all smiles, quickly looking over contract, signing it, and then enthusiastically shaking Emmet’s hand. He glanced to the side and casually pushed the caged bird over toward Emmet’s side of the table. “It’s all yours!”

Thirty thousand points… that was an incredibly large amount! Even for something like Gemini Academy currency - although they weren’t interchangeable with real currency, they were still heavily sought after. In reality, thirty thousand points was exorbitant - he had truly wildly overcharged. Luckily, it seemed that this student really was rich - he even regretted not charging more.

He quickly gave Emmet a few tips about keeping the bird and then got up to leave, as if he had gotten away with robbery.