Chapter 117
One will search high and low only to find it when one least expects to
Hearing what Vivian said, Agnes doubtfully looked at her, but she didn’t say anything. Xu Yi asked in a curious voice with a trace of expectation, “Why isn’t it good? Vivian, can you tell which part isn’t good?”
Xu Yi was very expectant of Vivian because last time he accidentally found Vivian’s talent for product design, he had decided to send Vivian to Baron Rickto Magic Academy to learn drawing, wanting to unearth the talent inside her.
Now that he saw her actually agree to the beautiful Magic Lamp that Agnes drew, Xu Yi wasn’t a bit surprised at all, rather he was excited.
“This…..” Vivian looked at Anges and saw a pair of long ears. This big sister who looked like the legendary elf didn’t seem too happy, so she hesitantly pointed at the drawn Magic Lamp a few times before pointing at the beautifully drawn base and saying, “If the base is like this, there’s no way to draw the Magic Array onto it.”
Xu Yi looked at where Vivian was pointing and after thinking about it, he realized that Vivian wasn’t wrong at all.
Evita was the one who came up with this Magic Lamp, but because she didn’t learn anything about design at all, she just designed it based on requirements. So there were many things that she didn’t consider, or rather she didn’t have the related knowledge for at all…...
This Magic Lamp’s current appearance was formed from Evita’s many tests, so there weren’t any considerations for appearance changes at all. So as soon as it was changed by Agnes, there were immediately problems that appeared.
The most important problem was that the designed base couldn’t support a Magic Array, but Agnes had changed it anyway. The base was much smaller because of this, so there wasn’t a way to put a Magic Array on it.
In other words, this kind of design was a complete failure.
Xu Yi looked at Vivian and couldn’t help nodding in praise.
She actually noticed the most important problem with this design, showing that she really did have a talent for this.
“Very good, Vivian, you’re very correct.” Xu Yi said in a voice of praise, “Then according to your thoughts, how should this Magic Lamp be changed?”
“I feel it’s best if it’s changed like this……”
Perhaps it was because she gained courage from Xu Yi’s encouragement, but Vivian directly took the pen and drawing pad from Agnes’ hand and drew a new Magic Lamp design on another page.
One had to admit, the elves did have more talent when it came to art. Although Vivian was considered a genius at drawing and had studied drawing at Baron Rickto Magic Academy for a while, while her drawings were very clear and life like, the feeling it gave to people was inferior in comparison.
But compared to Agnes’ drawing that only cared about the design, Vivian didn’t just draw the design. She also included drawings that considered the internal design, making it look more realistic.
And this came from the usual guidance Xu Yi gave Vivian.
When Vivian finished, Xu Yi was filled with praise, “Good! Vivian, your drawing is great!”
Vivian’s drawing considered the overall design of the Magic Lamp. Not only did it leave enough space for the Magic Array, it also left some space for further changes.
Other than this, based on the design of the glass cover, Vivian had also considered the problem of light divergence. She had cleverly designed the glass cover to have a curved non transparent mirror.
Although it wasn’t clear what effect this would have on the design, it showed that she had already considered the light divergence problem. This was something that Xu Yi hadn’t taught her and was something Evita and Akali never considered, so it could be seen that she had thought of this herself.
Getting praise from Xu Yi, Vivian’s face couldn’t help revealing a proud look. When she looked at Agnes, she raised her head a bit.
Agnes didn’t notice Vivian’s little actions. Rather after looking at the design Vivian made for a while, she shook her head, “No, this isn’t beautiful enough.”
Xu Yi had a thought and gave the drawing to her.
“Then Agnes, based on this, make something that you think looks good.”
“Can I?” Agnes looked at Vivian.
Vivian hesitated a bit. Although her heart was a bit unwilling, she still obediently nodded.
So Agnes quickly finished a new drawing.
This time, she even made a few revisions to the inner design Vivian had made.
The drawing really looked much more refined and beautiful after it was modified. Even if Vivian wasn’t willing to submit, she still had to admit this point.
But Vivian found several more problems and pointed them out without any politeness before making another drawing.
Agnes gave her ideas on the design again and created another drawing.
Vivian also found more problems and made another drawing.
Agnes…...
…...
The next morning, Xu Yi woke up on time.
When he walked out, he saw the drawings scattered all over the living room and Agnes and Vivian sleeping sprawled over the table.
Seeing the tired look they had on their exhausted faces, they probably slept quite late.
Xu Yi couldn’t help shaking his head. When he saw Agnes and Vivian competing with each other last night, he smartly chose to retreat and sleep first.
And seeing them now, they might have gone all night.
Xu Yi’s looked at Agnes’ delicate and beautiful face and couldn’t help smiling.
Vivian was the same. Agnes called herself seventy four years old, but she had the same temper. She wasn’t embarrassed to say she wasn’t a little girl.
Xu Yi carefully looked over the drawings on the table and couldn’t help praising it in his heart.
Based on these drawings, their ideas gradually came together. In the end, not only was the Magic Lamps beautifully designed, the structure was also perfect, where even Xu Yi couldn’t see a problem.
A Magic Lamp of this design, it could definitely be considered a success or it could be called an outstanding design.
Xu Yi casually took out a page and thought that if the drawn Magic Lamp could be made, it would definitely attract the interest of many people.
Not mentioning anything else, just based on this outstanding design, it was worth buying.
Taking another look at the sleeping Agnes and Vivian, Xu Yi revealed a faint smile.
It really was one will search high and low only to find it when one least expects to.
When Xu Yi entered the household magic machine workshop, he found that the magicians he hired yesterday were already working.
This was the first time magicians were drawing Magic Arrays in the morning, so when Xu Yi saw this, he wasn’t used to it.
The students hired from the Baron Rickto Magic Academy only came when they didn’t have classes in the afternoon or when they were on vacation, their work times were incomparable to full time magicians.
After Xu Yi watched on the side for a while, he found that the magicians had deeper understanding of Magic Arrays compared to the students.
For the students to complete the small Frost Array and small Flame Array for the Variable Temperature Magic Air Conditioner, it would take them around half an hour. Although these magicians had low grades, each person only took around twenty minutes to finish this work.
This was also their first day at work, so they weren’t as skilled yet. Once they became more skilled, perhaps they could cut that down to ten minutes.
Higher efficiency and more work time, when comparing this, the results of these magicians far surpassed that of the students.
To this change, the happiest person was of course Heinz.
The limiting factor for the household magic machine workshop was the efficiency of the Magic Arrays. However, since the workers were all students from Baron Rickto Magic Academy, he couldn’t request the students to ignore their studies to increase their efficiency.
Even if Xu Yi recruited more of them, there wouldn’t be enough students working here, causing the household magic machine workshop to never increase their productivity. This was something that always caused Heinz to break out in a sigh over.
And the bigger problem was that Xu Yi kept having the magic machine workshop create new production magic machines and improve the current ones. This gradually increased the efficiency of the normal workers in the household magic machine workshop, even reaching two-three times the normal efficiency in the beginning.
Compared to this, the efficiency of drawing Magic Arrays was limited to the magic power of the students which couldn’t be increased. So like this, it gradually became a situation that Heinz felt helpless over.
It was that after the workers finished the components for the Magic Rice Cookers and Magic Air Conditioners, they still had to wait for the students to draw the Magic Arrays on before finishing them. This greatly affected their production efficiency.
Now that these magicians had been hired, although it was just nine people, based on their work efficiency, they were not lower than thirty students. This instantly solved Heinz’s urgent problem and made the entire workshop work more smoothly, while increasing its efficiency. It was no wonder that when Xu Yi saw him, he had a smile blooming on his face.
“Ha, ha, Xu Yi, I think you don’t need to recruit that many magicians. After these people become more familiar with their work, we might not even need those students anymore.”
Xu Yi looked at Heinz who let the success go to his head and felt that this fellow would never change how petty he was.
Not to mention that these nine magicians could leave whenever, even if it was for the company’s future development, they would need to recruit large amounts of magicians.
Other than completing the simple Magic Arrays, the more important job was researching Magic Arrays that would be used to run the magic machines.
Not mentioning anything else, just based on the changes Great Magician Camilla and Still’s group of three did to the two Magic Arrays inside the Magic Air Conditioner, it decreased the size of the Variable Temperature Magic Air Conditioner by half. This allowed them to cut down a third of the Magic Air Conditioner’s cost.
If there wasn’t this change, Xu Yi estimated that the profit from each Magic Air Conditioner was around thirteen to fifteen gold coins. Now with this change, the profit had exploded to close to twenty gold coins!
As the Magic Air Conditioner became popular with the nobles of Banta City and the surrounding cities, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had received an order of over a thousand units.
Putting it together, just based on the Magic Air Conditioner alone, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce could receive a large profit of close to twenty thousand gold coins this winter!
And this one third change in profit came from a small change.
This was the power of scientific research!
Chapter 118 Splitting research
After he left the household magic machine workshop, Xu Yi came to the magic machine workshop. After discussing a few things with Camby and the other dwarves, he took several blueprints before heading back to his office.
The office had already been expanded and other than the office that Xu Yi used occasionally, there was another room that was specially put aside as Wella’s research lab.
When Xu Yi came in, he found Wella was immersed in some material, looking through them with complete focus.
These materials were related to the magic machines the Frestech Chamber of Commerce currently produces. After Wella was employed by Xu Yi, Xu Yi didn’t immediately have her work on researching, but rather gave her some material for her to study first.
Hearing the sound of the door opening, Wella looked up and saw Xu Yi. She gave him a simple nod and didn’t greet him.
Xu Yi was already used to her indifference and this had become more clear after he had her sign the confidentiality contract.
“Wella, what do you think? Do you have an approximate idea of the design of our Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s products?” Xu Yi didn’t care about her attitude and saw down in front of her as he asked this.
Wella thought for a bit before giving a slight nod, “I have some ideas. Xu…..Chairman, after seeing these materials, I’ve found that it isn’t strange at Rem and I lost at the Leo Chamber of Commerce at all.”
“Oh? Why did you suddenly say this?”
“Because after I studied the material you gave me, I’ve found that in these magic machines, the magic actually isn’t the main factor. What decides its use is actually the design and structure of the magic machine itself. If it was just in terms of Magic Array, the ones that me and Rem created wouldn’t lose to your Magic Arrays in terms of power. But if these Magic Arrays were used in magic machines, because there is a big disparity in terms of design, there would be a large contrast.”
Xu Yi looked at Wella in surprise as he couldn’t help revealing a look of appreciation.
Although this logic was simple, other than Great Magician Camilla and Still’s group who researched with him, the other magicians didn’t seem to understand this point.
In everyone’s thoughts, they felt that the power of the magic machines is because of the power of magic. They completely ignored the powerful mechanical engineering knowledge Xu Yi had brought from earth.
Wella was the first person who recognized this in front of Xu Yi. Even with Still and the others, they recognized this, but they didn’t openly accept it like Wella.
“Congratulations, Wella. Recognizing this point, it means you have taken a step closer to becoming a magic machine designer.” Xu Yi said with a faint smile, “Since you have this understanding, I feel like I can now give you some real work to do.”
Xu Yi took out a blueprint and handed it to Wella.
“This is the blueprint for the Rolling Forge Magic Punch Press that I’m planning to develop and I need you to study something, which is this Magic Array that provides the power. Because there needs to be explosive power in this driving force, I feel that it is most suitable to use a burst type Flame Magic Array. Wella, you are more skilled with Fire Magic Arrays, so I decided to give this part to you to study. I have already written down the specific requirements for this Magic Array on the blueprint, so you can just properly study the patterns and details on the design.”
Wella took the blueprint and was shocked by the dense amount of details written on the design. After she looked it over, she looked up to ask Xu Yi, “Chairman, when you designed the Magic Fan, you didn’t use such a complicated blueprint, right?”
“Of course.” Xu Yi replied in a natural manner, “The Magic Fan technology is so low leveled, how could it compare to this Rolling Forge Magic Punch Press? You should know that the Magic Fan only used a simple Revolving Wind Array and this Rolling Forge Magic Punch Press, my initial plans has it using eleven Magic Arrays of different grades and three different elements! Do you think it would be the same?”
Wella looked at the blueprint in a daze before suddenly giving a bitter smile, “Chairman, now I’m willing to admit my defeat.”
Xu Yi revealed a smile. He pointed at a few places on the blueprint before saying with a serious expression, “I don’t care if you admit it or not, but you have to do well with this Magic Array. You are now an employee of our company, Wella, I hope you will not mess it up.”
Well glared at Xu Yi and gave a soft snort. Her expression was filled with confidence again, “Who do you think I am?”
In order to complete the three thousand agricultural magic machines before the spring harvest, Xu Yi was incredibly busy.
After taking care of the research Wella was responsible for, Xu Yi immediately left the factory and headed back to Banta City.
When first went to see Sancheli who had been thinking about the Magic Array problem in a room by himself. After giving him a few words of instruction, he immediately went to Evita and Akali’s little house.
After they saw the new Magic Lamp design that Agnes and Vivian made together, Evita and Akali couldn’t help gasping in shock.
“Sir chairman, who drew this? This is simple…..too beautiful!” Feeling excited, Akali even forgot about how she was deliberately acting cold towards Xu Yi. She grabbed Xu Yi’s arm in pleasant surprise as she cried out in shock.
Although Evita was more reserved compared to Akali, she also couldn’t help revealing a look of excitement.
“That’s right, chairman, this Magic Lamp is too beautiful! If there really was this kind of Magic Lamp, I don’t care how much it costs, I would definitely buy one!” Evita said in a certain voice.
“Are you both very interested in this Magic Lamp? You both want to buy it?” Xu Yi asked.
“Of course!” The two both nodded as they replied in a very certain voice, “This is simply a work of art!”
An embarrassed look suddenly appeared on Evita’s face, “Sir chairman, since you had just a good Magic Lamp design, why didn’t you tell me earlier? You caused me to give you such an ugly Magic Lamp……”
“No, no, that Magic Lamp isn’t ugly at all. Moreover, the Magic Lamp drawn here was modified from that Magic Lamp.” Xu Yi quickly comforted her, “This design has just entered my hands, I didn’t know about it at all before. Un…..Since you two are very satisfied with the design of this Magic Lamp, then there should be no worries in terms of selling it. Very good, this has been decided. The next product our Frestech Chamber of Commerce will be selling is this Magic Lamp!”
“Great! I support you sir chairman!” Akali gave an excited clap, “When this Magic Lamp is made, I will definitely buy one!”
Xu Yi rolled his eyes at her, “You are one of the designers of this Magic Lamp and you’re still thinking of buying it? Relax, when it is made, I’ll give you one.”
Akali cheered in happiness, even swinging as she hugged Xu Yi’s arm, not acting depressed like before after suffering a blow from Xu Yi.
Seeing Akali’s exaggerated appearance and Evita’s happy appearance, Xu Yi couldn’t help revealing a smile.
The powerful magic machines that he worked hard to make, in the eyes of these little girls, they couldn’t compare to a single Magic Lamp.
After saying goodbye to Akali and Evita, Xu Yi headed to Great Magician Camilla’s Magic Tower.
Although the Frestech Chamber of Commerce already had Still, Evita, Akali, Wella, and Sancheli researching Magic Arrays for them, which was completely enough to finish researching the Magic Arrays needed for magic machines, in order to complete the mass produce the agricultural magic machines, Xu Yi had to invent a series of Magic Punch Presses for them.
Compared to the previous simple Magic Fans, Magic Rice Cookers, Magic Air Conditioners, and small Magic Punch Press, the Rolling Forge Magic Punch Press used to make agricultural magic machines was much more complicated. Naturally there were several times more Magic Arrays that needed to be researched.
To complete this large amount of Magic Array research in a short period of time, it was naturally impossible to just depend on Still and the others. So after discussing it with Camby and the others, Xu Yi decided to ask for Great Magician Camilla’s help.
Not mentioning the large amount of Magic Array research, the core driving part of the Magic Punch Presses had high requirements, so naturally the Magic Array also had to be of the same level. Although Xu Yi theorized that Fifth Grade or Sixth Grade Magic Arrays should be enough, to be sure, Xu Yi planned to give this core research to Great Magician Camilla to finish.
If Xu Yi gave all these research projects to Great Magician Camilla before, he would have definitely been reprimanded by Great Magician Camilla. But after receiving the gold coin subsidization from the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and receiving some extra rewards from helping with the research, Great Magician Camilla had seen the benefits of helping Xu Yi complete this research and also gradually lost his resistance to the work Xu Yi gave him.
Not to mention that helping Xu Yi complete this research also helped Great Magician Camilla gain new understanding of magic and Magic Arrays, which was quite a large help to increasing his magic power.
So each time he saw Xu Yi, Great Magician Camilla was not filled with regret like before. It was more like he was expecting something, as he always had a smile, looking very friendly.
But seeing Xu Yi this time, Great Magician Camilla had a different expression. When he saw Xu Yi come in, he gave a cold snort.
Xu Yi was a bit surprised. He had already left Banta City for over ten days and this was his first time seeing Great Magician Camilla, so he shouldn’t have done anything to make him made, right?
Great Magician Camilla looked at the stunned Xu Yi and gave another snort. He said in a deep voice, “I thought that after you became a Fifth Grade Magician, you would ascend into the heavens. You wouldn’t be willing to see me, but you still know to come.”
Xu Yi was even more surprised. What did Great Magician Camilla mean by that?
He had just come back yesterday afternoon and came to see him the next morning, but he was actually dissatisfied?
Great Magician Camilla suddenly changed the topic, “Kid, do you know that after Still knew that you would come back yesterday, she was happy for several days. It was rare for her to even make several dishes and she waited to invite you to my house for a meal. Kid, in the end, you ran to the little girls Evita and Akali’s place. What? Are those two little girls more beautiful than Still?”
Xu Yi didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So Great Magician Camilla wasn’t saying something about himself, rather he was saying something for Still.
But Still was even more strange. The reason why he went to Evita and Akali’s place was to bring home Vivian who had been there for several days. It wasn’t like Still didn’t know what was going on, so why was she so angry?
“This…...Your excellency Great Magician, you don’t mean that right? Still’s charm is not only something everyone in the city knows, even in the surrounding cities, she is considered the goddess of Banta City. If you say that she isn’t beautiful, isn’t this speaking nonsense with your eyes wide open?” Xu Yi thought about it before replying like this with a dry smile. Then he quickly changed the topic and asked, “That’s right, how did you know I became a Fifth Grade Magician?”
Great Magician Camilla gave another cold snort and pointed at the thick book on the table as he said, “Kid, you’ve become famous!”