Chapter 83 Hannas’ ambition
The mysterious guest stood up and opened the cloak that even wrapped up her head, revealing a beautiful face with a heroic feel to it, as well as a pair of long and sharp ears.
It was the female elf Agnes Xu Yi had met in the Angola Tribe last time.
“I still don’t believe in humans now.” Agnes ignored the taunting tone in Xu Yi’s voice and her face was calm, “If it wasn’t for the fact that the elder said that the blueprint you gave us could help the problem of our tribe, I wouldn’t have been sent here.”
Xu Yi revealed a smile and didn’t waste more time on meaningless words. He asked Agnes to sit down and poured a cup of cold water for her according to her request. He then sat down across from her and took out the blueprint Alex had handed him from before.
That blueprint was the one Xu Yi had left with chief Monto when he left the Angola Tribe, having him give it to Agnes. So when he saw this blueprint and heard from Alex that this guest wouldn’t show her face at all, Xu Yi immediately knew that this guest was Agnes.
“Miss Agnes, based on what you said, not only have you seen these blueprints, you even showed them to the elders of your tribe?” Xu Yi asked.
“Yes. The elder looked at it and felt that there is a high chance of this method working, so he had me come looking for you. To implement this method, what do we need to do?” Agnes said with a nod.
Xu Yi looked over the blueprint. This was a method created by mixing many similar cases back on earth, so of course it was very likely this would work.
“I’m very sorry, miss Agnes, I’m afraid I can’t tell you what you need to do.” Xu Yi shook his head, “I had only heard a bit about your problem from chief Monto and only gave an approximate solution based on my own experiences, but because I don’t know the exact situation, I can’t give you a concrete method. Unless I could inspect the area in person, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what you need to do.”
Agnes considered this a bit before asking, “Your meaning is that you want to go to our tribe to look at the situation?”
“That’s right.” Xu Yi confidently said.
Agnes was silent for a bit before shaking her head.
“I’m afraid not. It’s been several hundred years since our tribe has hand any humans enter it and we don’t welcome humans either.”
“Then even if I want to help, I can’t do anything.” Xu Yi stretched out his hands and helplessly said, “Miss Agnes, I think you must admit that solving the problem with the river is a large project and I can’t give you a concrete solution with just my imagination. If you can’t let me inspect the area, I can only say I’m sorry.”
Agnes was silent for a bit before suddenly standing up. She placed the index and middle finger of her right hand on her chest and gave Xu Yi a slight bow, “Since it’s like this, I will be leaving first. I hope you receive Elune’s blessings in your dreams.”
After saying this, Agnes left without even turning back.
Xu Yi opened his mouth and wanted to call out to stop her, but he let go after thinking about it.
The elves had this kind of personality, so he couldn’t change Agnes’ thoughts even if he called out to stop her. It was better to let the elven tribe make their own decision.
Anyway, Xu Yi was not in a rush for this matter, the one in a rush were the elves.
After thinking about some things in the office, Xu Yi stood up to leave. He gave some more requirements for the new factory to manager Riley before getting onto a horse carriage and heading to a small yard to the north of Banta City.
When he walked into this yard, Xu Yi heard Baron Hannas roaring out.
“Millet, move faster! If can’t finish the drafts by dinner, we might not even get to sleep tonight!”
“McCovey, stop standing in a daze, why haven’t you taken the prepared drafts over to printing yet? What are you standing there like a fool for?”
“Meghan, are those fellows responsible for collecting news back yet? It’s almost time to finalize the draft! If you don’t come back, they should give up on their wages today!”
…...
Hearing this voice that was a bit hoarse, Xu Yi never would have connected this voice to Baron Hannas who had seemed quite shy when he met him for the first time.
It seemed that being the chief editor for the ?Banta Times?, it had changed Baron Hannas quite a bit.
Looking around the small building in the yard, he found that it was quite busy.
There were over ten young men and women bent over desks, desperately writing something. There were people organizing documents and people running back and forth sending something…...
Standing in the middle shouting and pointing while looking over the documents in his hand was Baron Hannas.
It was unknown if it was because he was too busy, but Baron Hannas’ face was currently covered in a large beard. He looked quite rough and his clothes were a bit disorderly, while many places were stained with black ink from who knows where. He was a completely different person from the person Xu Yi met the first time.
“Hey, your excellency Baron, are you still busy?” Xu Yi raised his hand to wave at Baron Hannas.
Hearing this voice, Baron Hannas looked over in a daze. After he saw Xu Yi, his brows jumped up and he revealed a look of joy.
“Chairman Xu, it’s great that you’re here, I was looking for you!”
“Oh? Looking for me? Do you need something?” Xu Yi was a bit surprised, “Could it be the Magic Printing Press is broken?”
“No, no, no, the Magic Printing Press is our treasure, how could it break? But me finding you is related to the Magic Printing Press. This…..Chairman Xu, look, the sales for our ?Banta Times? keep increasing and just relying on a single Magic Printing Press, we’re already having trouble keeping up. Can you help me make another…...No, it’s best if it’s two, oh, no, it’s best if it’s three! How about it? Three Magic Printing Presses? It should be that hard for you, right?”
“Are you certain you want three?” Xu Yi looked at Baron Hannas in surprise.
The Magic Printing Press he made was based on the movable font printing press from earth. Because the Sines Continent used a character language system, using the ancient Chinese movable font printing system was the simplest. Adding in a Wind Attributed Magic Array to power it, it could finish printing two thousand sheets in just one hour.
The ?Banta Times? had ten pages and if you count both sides, it was only twenty pages.
This meant that if a Magic Printing Press was operating at full power, it could print one hundred copies of ?Banta Times? in an hour.
Xu Yi knew that Baron Hannas decided the contents of tomorrow’s ?Banta Times? by dinner time, so counting from 6:00 pm to 6:00 am, there was a full twelve hours of time to print ?Banta Times?.
Even if one removed the break times and some accidents in between, there was enough time to print a thousand ?Banta Times?.
Now Baron Hannas was all of sudden asking for three Magic Printing Presses from Xu Yi, this meant that the amount of ?Banta Times? printed each day would be over three thousand copies!
This was a very shocking number. It had to be known that there were less than thirty thousand people in Banta City and if they were divided into households, that would only be five thousand households.
With the education level of Banta City’s people, it was impossible for each family to purchase a copy of ?Banta Times?. It was already good enough for a tenth to buy it, so a single Magic Printing Press was enough.
“That’s right, three machines.” Baron Hannas gave an assured nod, “Xu Yi, you haven’t been here lately, so you don’t know some things. Right now just in Banta City, the ?Banta Times? can sell a thousand copies each day and I have sent people to establish selling points in the villages outside the city. Even if each village only buys one or two copies each day, that will gradually accumulate. I can guarantee that not long after, we can sell many ?Banta Times? in the villages outside the cities. This is because there are many more people outside Banta City, so the sales for outside Banta City for the ?Banta Times? will reach a thousand copies in the future.”
“This still isn’t enough for you to request three Magic Printing Presses at once, right?” Xu Yi said in a confused voice.
Baron Hannas laughed, “Xu Yi, do you know that outside of the ?Banta Times?, I have already set up two branches in Saltan City and Karma City?”
Xu Yi was stunned as he asked, “You moved this quickly?”
Baron Hannas gave a proud laugh, “It’s just this fast. If nothing unexpected happens, I can guarantee that in just a week, the ?Saltan Times? and the ?Karma Times? will be on sale! When that time comes, I will know everything about those two cities! Moreover, I will spread these newspapers to every part of the Lampuri Kingdom, even across the entire Sines Continent!”
Seeing Baron Hannas become even more proud and filled with zeal towards work, Xu Yi couldn’t help sighing in his heart.
When he saw Baron Hannas for the first time, Xu Yi thought he was a normal noble with a good family education. He never thought that after bringing out his gossip side and Xu Yi threw out a ?Banta Times? for him, a large chance would occur with him. He became this passionate worker and this reporter with outstanding energy.
The reason why the ?Banta Times? could develop so quickly was related to the enormous amount of energy Baron Hannas had placed into it.
Based on his family background and his relations, Baron Hannas didn’t encounter any unexpected hindrances when setting up the ?Banta Times?. This new thing was naturally welcomed by countless people, so it could develop to this state in a short period of time.
“Eh…...Actually, Hannas, the names of newspapers don’t all need to be called times. You can call them things like ?Saltan Morning News? or ?Karma Herald? or things like that.” Xu Yi gave a small suggestion and saw a look of joy appear on Baron Hannas’ face, but he suddenly changed the topic, “But speaking of this, Hannas, are you really prepared to stay in Banta and not return to Anvilmar?”
Chapter 84 Choice
Hearing this question, the excited expression on Hannas’ face suddenly froze. After a while, he slumped down as he ran out of energy.
“Xu Yi, I thought that you were here to cheer me on, I never thought that you would run here to propose this kind of boring topic.” Baron Hannas suddenly seemed exhausted and he found a chair to sit in, as he waved his hand with an annoyed look, “Leslie and Lord Count has discussed this matter with me and have urged me to immediately return to Anvilmar. The people from my family has urged me to do the same, but when I think about returning to that boring Anvilmar City, breathing that depressing air and facing those spiritless people, I never had a thought of going back.”
After saying this, Baron Hannas paused before taking a deep breath. He looked out the window with a sunken look on his face.
“Think about it, the life here is this beautiful. Although I sleep a bit less each day and the food isn’t as good as back in the family, I am filled with energy each day and I’m always filled with energy. Since I was young, I had never found anything this exciting before, making me invest everything into it. I even feel that the thing I’m doing now is the great business I should invest my life into. Compared to this, whether it is being a fake noble or a rotten merchant, I feel like it would be better for me to die instead.”
“Xu Yi, do you know that just the day before yesterday, our ?Banta Times? reported on a piece of news outside of Banta City. It was a small noble who raped a normal farmer’s daughter, so in the end the daughter drowned herself in the river. According to normal conventions, this kind of matter would be suppressed and nothing would have happened to the small noble, so the pitiful girl would have died in vain. But this matter was reported on by our ?Banta Times? and the Lord Count flew into a rage after seeing it. He directly caught that small noble and whipped him twenty times in front of everyone according to the Royal Parliament’s laws, as well as making him compensate that farmer thirty gold coins. I can say that if it wasn’t for our ?Banta Times? upholding justice, this matter wouldn’t have this kind of good ending.”
Looking at Baron Hannas’ face filled with righteousness, Xu Yi could only give a bitter smile.
Twenty whips and paying thirty gold coins was considered upholding justice? This was a good ending?
This was a person’s life!
But Xu Yi was very clear that Baron Hannas wasn’t wrong at all, this was the reality on the Sines Continent.
Nobles had a higher status than normal citizens, so even if nobles raped citizens, they would only receive this kind of punishment.
If the ?Banta Times? didn’t report on this, attracting the attention of City Lord Count Sean’s attention, this small noble wouldn’t have been punished at all.
Xu Yi couldn’t change this fact, so he could only remain silent.
Compared to Xu Yi’s silence, Baron Hannas became even more excited as he told Xu Yi about all the things that the ?Banta Times? had already done. Among them included exposing small nobles, reporting on the filial deity of commoners towards their disabled parents, and even revealing some news in the ?Banta Times? through the Lord City Lord…….
Xu Yi patiently listened to him and when he finally took a small rest, he said in a thoughtful voice, “Hannas, I admit that you are right. The ?Banta Times? is indeed the greatest business in your life and it is even greater than you can imagine. However, I must remind you that if you want to continue in this business, you will meet all kinds of difficulties and with just your strength alone, you won’t be able to continue.”
Hannas’ face sunk, “What? You are just like Leslie, urging me to cooperate with those fellows back in the family? Do you believe that if they were allowed to participate, the entire flavour of the newspaper would instantly change?”
“Of course I believe it.” Xu Yi said with a faint smile, “Actually, Hannas, even if they don’t join now, there are many people that don’t believe that the ?Banta Times? is a pure thing because…..” Xu Yi pointed at himself, “It involves a dirty merchant like me.”
Hannas was stunned. Thinking about what he had said just now, he gave Xu Yi an embarrassed smile.
“Don’t misunderstand, I was not talking about you. Compared to those fellows, Xu Yi, you are a very conscientious merchant. The farmer support plan of your Frestech Chamber of Commerce allowed those twenty three farmers who participated change their lives and also greatly increase the efficiency of this autumn’s planting season, this can be considered a great thing. If it wasn’t for you basically giving those magic machines to those twenty three farmers, they definitely couldn’t buy them.”
“Don’t think that I’m so noble. If we look at the farmer support plan from a business perspective, I actually earned quite a bit. Although those twenty three farmers don’t need to pay any money, they will have to pay for it later. Moreover, I’ve used their hands to help my advertise the magic machines and the effects are quite good. I dare confirm that by next year’s spring harvest, our Frestech Chamber of Commerce will definitely sell a large amount of agricultural magic machines.” Xu Yi said with a smile.
“For this kind of good thing, of course it’s good that more of them are sold.” Baron Hannas said while laughing, “I even look forward to your agricultural magic machines being used on every farm in our Lampuri Kingdom. Like this, our Lampuri Kingdom’s people wouldn’t need to worry about not having enough to eat.”
Seeing Baron Hannas falling into his youthful fantasies, Xu Yi helplessly shook his head and decided to pull him back.
“Let’s return to the previous issue. You say that I’m not like other merchants, but other people don’t think this. Everyone who reads the ?Banta Times? has noticed that the ?Banta Times? always reported on our Frestech Chamber of Commerce. Based on what they can see, they think that it is helping our Frestech Chamber of Commerce to advertise, meaning that the ?Banta Times? was opened by our Frestech Chamber of Commerce……”
“Who is speaking nonsense?” Baron Hannas angrily said, “Is it the other companies in Banta City? Those disgusting fellows, they don’t know at all. If it wasn’t for you stopping me, I would have reported even more on your Frestech Chamber of Commerce. This is because in my eyes, your Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s magic machines are epoch creating things that will completely change people’s lives! Those fellows are just jealous of your success and can’t even see the true value of your Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s products, they are simply shortsighted fools!”
Xu Yi stopped Baron Hannas from storming off with a bitter smile before saying with a serious face, “First let’s not care about what they are saying, but this is a fact. Hannas, even if I appreciate the ?Banta Times? insisting on remaining self sufficient, you have to admit that it is impossible for you not to be influenced by anyone. Then do you think that when you have to make a decision, would you be willing to let the newspaper be controlled by you or let it be controlled by no one?”
Baron Hannas came from a large noble family, so although he had some ideals, it didn’t mean that he was naive. After hearing Xu Yi’s question, his face sunk as he thought about it before he gave a slight nod.
“Xu Yi, I understand what you mean, but how is this related to you urging me to head back to Anvilmar?”
Xu Yi said with a laugh, “Of course it’s related. Hannas, have you considered that if you don’t go back to Anvilmar, how long will it be before Anvilmar will have a ?Anvilmar Times??”
Hannas gave a cold snort, “Although those fellows are always slow in deciding things, they definitely will not give up this chance. Even if I don’t go back, I dare to guarantee that within a year, they will create an ?Anvilmar Times?.”
“That’s right. Since it’s like this, why not head back earlier and use your experience with the newspaper to steal this chance?” Xu Yi seriously said, “I think you should be very clear on this, but newspapers are like the news itself, the one who strikes first always has the advantage. You can’t control the situation in Anvilmar, but you can try to affect it with your initiative. Even if you aren’t willing to depend on your family’s power, you have to admit that your family’s power is much stronger than you alone. If the ?Anvilmar Times? is controlled by your family, isn’t it better than it being controlled by another family?”
Hannas lowered his head to consider this before looking at Xu Yi with strange gaze, “Why do you care about this matter so much? To be honest, you are just a small merchant and no matter what, this matter isn’t related to you at all, right?”
“Why is it not related to me?” Xu Yi opened his eyes in an exaggerated manner, “Hannas, did you forget? The Magic Printing Press is made by our Frestech Chamber of Commerce. As the chairman, of course I must create more sales for the product of my company. Think about it, if a newspaper appeared in Anvilmar, there would be newspapers that appear all across the Lampuri Kingdom and even across the Sines Continent. At that time, we’ll be able to sell countless Frestech Brand Magic Printing Presses! How much money would I earn!”
Hannas rolled his eyes at Xu Yi, “It seems like I was wrong, you’re not different from those fellows. You also have the same lust for money that those disgusting fellows have.”
Xu Yi laughed and didn’t care about this at all as he asked, “Then your excellency Baron Hannas filled with righteous nobleness, are you willing to return to Anvilmar City and use the ?Anvilmar Times? to change that disgusting city?”
Hannas looked around the room and gave a deep sigh.
“I’ll go back, but I will still return to this place. This is where my foundations are, so even if I return to Anvilmar, it is only as a guest.” After pausing, he asked Xu Yi, “I’ve heard that you will be going to Anvilmar to take part in the Magicians Guild’s certification test in a while, is that right?”
“Un.” Xu YI nodded.
“Good, we’ll go together when the time comes. I can use this time to plan out everything here.”
Xu Yi shrugged his shoulder, showing no objections.