Let's Build a University
Let's Build a University
The annual revenue report for Jaeseong Bio was released.
People looked at Jaeseong Bio with high expectations. They knew the company was raking in cash, but they didn't know exactly how much.
Jaeseong Bio made its revenue public.
A staggering 80 trillion won!
It would have been an impossible figure if they had only accepted Korean patients. However, people from overseas were also coming to get prescriptions for Neurogen, the world's only dementia treatment.
And the Middle East, overflowing with money, sent excessive love calls. They even offered various concessions just to get Neurogen prescribed in their region. Soyeon skillfully conducted the negotiations, securing a contract that was advantageous to Jaeseong Bio.
In any case, Jaeseong Bio was in the position of the absolute superior. Jaeseong Bio could just sell to someone else if they wanted. There were more than enough people looking for Neurogen. If anything, it was the Middle Eastern side that was anxious.
Naturally, there were members of the Arab royal families who suffered from dementia. For those royal families with dementia, money wasn't the issue. They had more money than they knew what to do with from selling oil.
It was just a hassle for them to have to travel from the Middle East to South Korea every three months.
Regardless, Jaeseong Bio diligently sent employees overseas to open up sales routes. Once approval was granted in the Middle East, approval in the US and Europe was only a matter of time. Once approved, national health insurance would subsidize the cost of Neurogen.
That meant that overseas dementia patients who couldn't afford the drug due to a lack of money would also be able to be saved.
Currently, they were purchasing the medicine without any national health insurance coverage at all.
And the factories being built in Gyeonggi and Daejeon were also completed. The factories bearing the Jaeseong Bio name were running hard, churning out medicine.
Perhaps because they had secured a spacious site from the start of construction, they were able to produce enough medicine for all the dementia patients in the world to take and still have some left over.
Although there had been some malicious rumors along the way, they were able to overcome the crisis with a thorough presentation of facts and a logical press conference. In fact, Neurogen's sales increased after that press conference aired.
Soyeon sat quietly in the CEO's office. The Jaeseong Bio headquarters building was a tall structure. One might call it a skyscraper in the middle of Seoul. If she had her way, she would have wanted to use future technology to build an incredibly tall building.
Even though it was a Medical Ship, it contained a certain amount of future technology. Even if it wasn't 9999-era technology, it contained construction technology used in the 5000s. Using that technology, they could easily build a skyscraper.
They could build a massive building that was over a kilometer in height. However, there was something more urgent than such worries right now.
On Soyeon's desk was the mock exam paper Jaeseong had taken.
He had gotten straight 1st grades in everything except English. However, there was a difference even within the 1st grades. They weren't all the same 1st grade. There was a difference in standard scores between a 100-point 1st grade and a 97-point 1st grade.
It wouldn't have made much difference for a student who wasn't planning on going to a prestigious university, but for Jaeseong, who was aiming for medical school, it was a massive difference. The competition for medical school was at an insane level. It was a place where heaven and hell were decided by a single point difference.
In a way, it was safe to consider South Korea a Republic of Medical Schools. If you were to ask top-tier students to name their preferred major, nine out of ten would pick medical school.
Whether you go to an engineering school and get ground down like a millstone, or go to medical school and get ground down, the result is the same, but medical school had a decisive difference from engineering school.
That was guaranteed retirement. Students attending engineering school had to tremble in fear of not knowing when they would be laid off once they got a job at a company later on. But doctors were different. No matter how much of a mess they made or if they lacked qualifications, guaranteed retirement was the default.
If they set their minds to it, they could continue practicing even past the retirement age. This difference in stability created huge results. It was the reason why the admission cutoffs for medical school were soaring sky-high.
With his current grades, Jaeseong couldn't get into medical school. First of all, the number '2' shouldn't be visible in the grades of students going to medical school. There was a chance you couldn't get in even with only '1's, so a '2'!
And the 1st grade Jaeseong received wasn't a 100-point 1st grade either. It was more like a 97-point 1st grade.
Of course, considering Jaeseong's previous grades, where he was outside the top 10 in his class, receiving grades like this in a year was an encouraging achievement. There was still nearly two years left until the CSAT.
If he received tutoring while utilizing the functions of the Medical Ship during that time, getting into medical school was practically guaranteed. If he had shown this much progress in just one year, there was no telling what kind of results he would show over the course of two years.
According to their own statistical analysis, the probability of Jaeseong failing to get into medical school was 1%.
However, Soyeon couldn't ignore even a 1% chance.
In gacha games, a 1% rate was rumored to be quite generous. She had to think about the possibility that Jaeseong might not get into medical school.
Soyeon closed her eyes and pondered various methods. Soyeon opened her eyes.
Soyeon decided that she would build a university.
The name would be Jaeseong University.
If it had the name 'Jaeseong' attached to it, it had to be #1, no matter what. She planned to make it the most successful university in Korea.
It was to prepare for any "just in case" situations. And it would be much better for Jaeseong to be active at a university that Soyeon had built rather than going to another university.
And so, Jaeseong Bio set out to build a university.
I set out after receiving a call from Soyeon.
One of the Cultured Humans Soyeon had sent came to pick me up. One of the incredibly convenient and good functions of the Medical Ship was none other than the Cultured Humans.
To think that these were humans who only looked at me and worked for me! If I had my way, I would have wanted to create a thousand, ten thousand of them. It was practically creating a secret organization operating in the shadows.
Furthermore, unlike other organizations, there were no operating costs, and there was no fear of betrayal. It was practically the same as being able to create the perfect secret organization that one only implemented in theory.
However, it cost an astronomical amount to create a single Cultured Human. According to Soyeon, it was a function that didn't originally require much energy.
But there were no materials to create Cultured Humans on the Medical Ship. She said that while they were materials that could be easily obtained in the future, they were materials that couldn't be easily created on Earth, which only possessed modern technology.
They could make them if they really wanted to, but it wasn't exactly cost-effective. She said that if it were for simple labor, it would be thousands of times better to just hire people than to use Cultured Humans.
Anyway, I was able to arrive at the Jaeseong Bio building riding in the car of such a Cultured Human. The wealth Jaeseong Bio had accumulated over the past year was at an unbelievable level. To begin with, just entering the top 50 of the KOSPI right now was an incredible growth rate.
The problem was that this was a company that had only been founded a year ago. Other companies had histories of 50 or 100 years, but our Jaeseong Bio didn't have the history that those companies had.
In a way, you could call us a fresh rookie barging in among the old-timers.
I stood still in front of the building. The expressions of the people entering the building were bright. Was it the pride of working at a major corporation?
Perhaps because I lived in poverty and didn't spend much time with my parents, I just wanted the employees in our organization to be happy. I had said something like that to Soyeon once.
Soyeon had said she understood. Maybe that's why I heard that Jaeseong Bio's employee welfare and salary were among the top tier of major corporations.
"Shall we go?"
As I stood there blankly, the Cultured Human looked at me and said. I nodded and entered the building.
It wasn't exactly dazzling, but it was still a pretty neat building. The security guards looked at us, but they just bowed their heads, perhaps because they had been notified in advance.
You could say it had a security system that kept out unauthorized solicitors. Isn't that one of the ways to distinguish between a small-to-medium enterprise and a major corporation?
While small-to-medium enterprises are places where outsiders can easily come and go, in the case of major corporations, you have to go through strict and serious security checks from the entrance.
When I went up to the top floor, I saw the CEO's office. I suppose that was where Soyeon was working. I hid my pounding heart and opened the door. Soyeon was sitting inside the CEO's office.
I spoke after the door closed.
"Why did you call?"
"It's because it's a matter that requires Jaeseong-nim's permission, as I'm planning to undertake a large project."
"Huh? What kind of project?"
Was she doing some kind of massive project? By the way, even though I paid attention to company affairs, I was the type not to interfere with every little detail.
To begin with, I had never worked at a company before, and I had no management skills. I had heard somewhere that the best ruler is one who places talent in the right positions and doesn't interfere at all.
"It's about a university."
"A university?"
Soyeon's eyes seemed to be burning with fire.