Chapter 165 Advantage of beastmen workers
After over two months of preparation, the preparations for the non-ferrous mine near the Voller Tribe was pretty much finished.
After Xu Yi and chairman Renersa brought the goods that chief Voller needed, they had fulfilled the agreement between them and now they could officially start mining the non-ferrous metal vein.
After meeting with chief Voller, the two sent the last batch of magic machines required to the mine. Then they held a small ceremony to announce that the non-ferrous mine jointly operated by the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, the Renekton Chamber of Commerce, and the Amrit Chamber of Commerce was officially open.
Since the non-ferrous metal smelting plant wasn’t open yet, the non-ferrous metal mined would be temporarily stored in the Voller Tribe. Once the smelting plant was open, they would begin smelting the ores.
They didn’t achieve much on the first day, they didn’t even mine one ton of non-ferrous metal ores.
But Xu Yi and chairman Renersa weren’t surprised by this, since the real part of the mineral deposit was hidden underground and they wouldn’t be able to mine it in the beginning.
Being able to mine ores on the first day was already enough to show how rich the mineral deposit was and that the vein was easy to open.
According to the investigations by the dwarves, this non-ferrous mine was rich in aluminum and copper. Of the less than one ton mined on the first day, most of it was copper ores.
Based on the copper ores that were mined, there was a large amount of copper ores in this mine.
According to the data from an Angola Tribe dwarf from the copper mines under the Falcao Chamber of Commerce, the percentage of copper in these ores were much greater than the Falcao Chamber of Commerce mines.
This was a result that Xu Yi was very satisfied with.
Right now, because there was a breakthrough with the Wind Generator, where the teams led by Bella and Camby had already stabilized a small Wind Generator, they needed a large amount of copper with stronger conductivity for the next part of their research.
Of course, since he was reminded by Still, Xu Yi wasn’t as rigid about developing electricity as he was before.
After thinking about it and comparing it, Xu Yi found that although electricity was widespread in the industrial system on earth and was very important, for the Sines Continent, because of the existence of magic, they could use magic to replace electricity in many things and it would even function better than electricity.
For example, the air conditioners. Air conditioners on earth ran on electricity, so to maintain a stable temperature, it ran at three or four kilowatts, which spent three or four kilowatts per hour.
With the most basic form of fossil fuel electricity, it meant that half a kilogram of coal was burned for an hour.
This was a very high energy consumption rate.
But when it came to the Frestech Brand Magic Air Conditioner, it would only cost a Magic Crystal that was smaller than their palm to keep it running for three days.
Averaging that, an hour of consumption was a Magic Crystal that wasn’t even the size of a fingernail.
With how there were Magic Crystal mines all over the Sines Continent and it contained rich magic energy, it could easily be seen that in this world, Magic Air Conditioners were more suited compared to electric air conditioners.
The most important thing was that Magic Crystals didn’t have any pollution, so it was much stronger than fossil fuels just based on this.
So although Xu Yi felt electricity being developed was important, it wasn’t that important.
For him, electric power was just a supplement for magic machines. 𝗯𝗲𝗱𝗻𝐨𝐯𝗲𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺
Because magic couldn’t solve all problems, so electric power could be used when it was needed.
Other than the copper ores, Xu Yi also felt that the aluminum in the mine was also very important.
Aluminum was also very widespread and important in the industrial system, all kinds of aluminum alloys were used on earth.
Although it didn’t have as many uses as iron, there were many places where iron couldn’t replace aluminum and aluminum alloys.
For example, in the important fields of aviation, buildings, and cars, the special characteristics of aluminum and aluminum alloys played an important role.
Although the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had developed many special steel alloys, they were limited to iron. No matter how they developed it, there were still some characteristics that they couldn’t develop.
Now that they had this non-ferrous metal mine, there was plenty of room to develop for chief Siluka and his dwarves.
In the future, there would be more and more magic machines with different uses from the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
While Xu Yi was watching the ores being mined, chairman Renersa had been watching the workers mining the ores.
After reaching the agreement with chief Voller, chief Voller had sent ten clansmen to enter the mine today, to let them test this work out. It also allowed Xu Yi and chairman Renersa to see if they were suited for this kind of job or not.
After watching them, chairman Renersa found that although these wolfmen were a bit clumsy since it was their first time having contact with magic machines, their efficiency was better than the skilled human workers.
But that was because of the wolfman’s natural physique, where they were stronger and more flexible than humans. As long as they didn’t need to use the magic machines, their efficiency was higher than the humans.
After watching for a bit, chairman Renersa couldn’t help saying to Xu Yi who had been observing the quality of the ores mined, “I’ve suddenly found that your idea of hiring beastmen workers is quite good.”
“Oh?” Xu Yi looked at him in surprise. Although chairman Renersa had never rejected his idea, he had never been that supportive either, “What? Did you see something?”
“Un.” Chairman Renersa nodded, “I can tell that these beastmen have better physiques. Although they are a bit dumb, they are very suited for physical labour. A mine is a place where plenty of physical labour is required, so it’s faster to let the beastmen workers do it compared to our human workers.”
“So that means that any race has advantages and it’s all good as long as they use their advantage.” Xu Yi revealed a faint smile, “Moreover, you’ve forgotten an important thing, which is that the beastmen workers have much lower wages compared to the human workers.”
Chairman Renersa gave a bitter laugh.
Xi was right. Because this non-ferrous metal mine was in the Black Rice Wasteland, on the territory of the beastmen, the three companies could only give a higher wage to attract human workers.
In the end, each human worker in this mine was earning over thirty gold coins a month!
This far surpassed the average wage in Banta City.
Moreover, because it was far from Banta City, it wasn’t easy for these human workers to get supplies.
So calculating it all, they needed to spend close to ten gold coins a month for each worker to ensure that they could live a normal life.
This meant that for each human worker in the mine, they had to spend over forty gold coins a month on them!
This cost was close to double what the cost of workers were in Banta City.
Right now there were two hundred human workers at the mine, so the three companies spent close to ten thousand gold coins each month on them alone!
Comparing it, when Xu Yi and chairman Renersa talked to chief Voller, Xu Yi only gave the wolfman workers a wage of five gold coins a month which made chief Voller’s eyes light up as his face was covered in joy.
And these wolfmen lived right by the mine, so there were no living costs at all.
Comparing it all, for a worker in the same mine, a single human worker cost as much as eight wolfman workers, this really was a large gap.
“It seems like your idea of hiring beastmen workers in the beginning was quite good.” Chairman Renersa said with a sigh, “If the beastmen workers weren’t that dumb and had difficulty working the magic machines, I feel that we wouldn’t need human workers at all in this mine.”
“No, that is definitely impossible.” Xu Yi shook his head, “This mine needs to be mainly humans. We can hire beastmen workers, but humans have to make up the majority. Otherwise if it is completely controlled by the beastmen, it is likely we’ll lose control.”
“Un, your worries are correct.” Chairman Renersa nodded in agreement, “The beastmen are mostly unruly and savage by nature, so if there were all beastmen workers here, they might want to take everything for themselves.” After pausing, chairman Renersa then asked, “That’s right, did you tell chief Voller that each beastman family can only get a single labour card because you considered this?”
“That is only a part.” Xu Yi laughed, “The real goal is to use this limitation to make each family in the beastman tribe think about their family member working in our human factories and their tribe’s right to obtain labour cards, so they will never dare have bad ideas towards us humans. Think about it, if those beastmen dare do anything to us humans, not only will the highest ranked member in their family lose their job, they might even implicate their entire tribe. Do you think they would dare do anything?”
Chairman Renersa took a cold breath and looked at Xu Yi in surprise.
“Chairman Xu, when you wanted to hire beastmen back then, did you already think of this?”
Xu Yi revealed a faint smile, “Didn’t I tell you before, there are methods to control the beastmen.”
Chairman Renersa looked at Xu Yi in surprise for a bit before he couldn’t help shaking his head and saying with a sigh, “Chairman Xu, you really have considered everything, I’m even a bit afraid of you. But how are you certain that the beastmen will have these kinds of worries? Isn’t it just a single job? The beastmen didn’t even have jobs before, but didn’t they live normal lives?”
“That is because they’ve never enjoyed a comfortable life before.” Xu Yi said with a faint smile, “Believe me, when they can have stable jobs and bring good lives to their family with these jobs, they definitely will not give up this kind of lifestyle. Before the beastmen didn’t fear not walking shoes, but after they’ve put on shoes and have experienced how comfortable they are, they definitely wouldn’t be willing to take them off and walk barefooted anymore.”
Chapter 166 New goddess
It was unknown if the other beastmen wore shoes, but at least in the Voller Tribe, they had never worn shoes before.
It wasn’t just not wearing shoes, based on what chairman Vincent saw, they had never even worn clothes before.
So when Xu Yi left the Voller Tribe, chairman Vincent stayed behind with chairman Renersa.
According to what chairman Vincent said, the Voller Tribe’s wolfmen were interested in the cotton clothes that humans wore, so he would definitely have every wolfman here wear clothes from his Armani Chamber of Commerce.
Chairman Vincent even secretly told Xu Yi that he was planning on opening a textile mill in this Voller Tribe that specialized in manufacturing clothes for beastmen.
Xu Yi expressed his admiration towards his bold thoughts and showed that he would support him.
But this support was only oral because Xu Yi was only staying in the Voller Tribe for a few days. Then he would leave the elf and dwarf warriors behind to guard the mine while he would be heading to the Stantine Duchy to the south of the Black Rice Wasteland in a horse carriage alone.
On his trip to the Stantine Duchy this time, he was just identifying a few more investments and wouldn’t actually be doing anything, so he just went along the same route as last time with Anklo.
First he met head Wein and confirmed that he would be investing in a canned fruit factory and a rubber processing factory near Wein City. Then he signed an official contract with Duke Stantine, officially giving the three mines to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce as their property.
As for when he would be opening the canned fruit factory and the three mines, Xu Yi decided to wait until the canned fruit factory in Koror Village and the mine at the Voller Tribe to officially begin and to accumulate experience before he would make a move.
This time, Xu Yi’s spent a few days less on traveling and in just a week’s worth of time, he left the Stantine Duchy again.
Compared to when he entered the Stantine Duchy, he had two more contracts and had four hundred and thirty thousand less gold coins.
Why was it that although it was only a deposit of three hundred thousand, it reached four hundred and thirty thousand gold coins?
It was very clear, the extra hundred and thirty thousand gold coins was to deal with the greed of Duke Stantine, his ministers, and head Wein.
After experiencing the greed of the fellows from the Stantine Duchy, when Xu Yi returned to Banta City, he felt that the air in Banta City was much more refreshing compared to the Stantine Duchy.
What made him happier was that when he returned to Banta City, Agnes finally came back.
After he went to the Stantine Duchy last time, Xu Yi had Agnes bring the three female elves from the Moon Shadow Tribe to see elder Illusia, but without knowing why, after two whole months passed, Agnes and the three Moon Shadow Tribe elves never came to Banta City to find Xu Yi.
When Xu Yi went to the Night Song Tribe a few days ago to see elder Illusia, he had mentioned this matter to her. Elder Illusia told him not to worry, the three Moon Shadow Tribe girls were currently understanding the Night Song Tribe’s situation.
Now that Agnes was back, Xu Yi had to ask her what had happened. Why was it that for two months, they stayed in the Night Song Tribe without moving.
“It’s only two months.” Agnes looked at Xu Yi with a perplexed look, “Chairman, it’s such a short time, they definitely won’t be able to understand the cooperation between our Night Song Tribe and the company.”
“They can’t understand even in two months?” Xu Yi was in a bit of disbelief, “It’s a simple matter of how our company cooperates with your Night Song Tribe, they can understand in just a few days. Why did it take them this long? It can’t be that those three fellows have such a low efficiency, right?”
Agnes looked at Xu Yi in surprise, “Chairman, two months isn’t that long, right? We elves don’t have as short of a lifespan as you humans, so we don’t think of time as being that important like you.”
Seeing Agnes’ natural expression, Xu Yi was speechless.
Thinking about it, he could only helplessly accept Agnes’ words as fact.
The elves had a minimum lifespan of over five hundred years and it could be over a thousand years at most.
The humans of the Sines Continent only had lifespans of several decades. To the elves, two months was like a week for humans, of course it wasn’t considered long.
The long lifespan made the elves quite indifferent, so they didn’t care about solving things efficiently like humans.
Now to mention that the three elven girls came from the Moon Shadow Tribe which was in the Stantine Duchy, so they might have been infected by the laziness of the Stantine Duchy humans.
Thinking of this, the three elven girls not being able to finish inspecting the Night Song Tribe in two months wasn’t that strange.
To be honest, it was rather that elder Illusia who was quite decisive that was different from traditional elves.
Not only did she make contact with a human like Xu Yi, she was very decisive in doing things and had a high efficiency.
For example, when Xu Yi talked to her about chairman Vincent hoping to recruit a few elves, in just a few days, she had sent five Night Song Tribe elves to come to Banta City with Xu Yi.
Xu Yi turned to look at the five elves behind Agnes. He found that these three female and two male elves were exceptionally beautiful even among elves who had beautiful appearances.
Especially the three female elves, they had even better figures than Agnes. Their figures were close to perfection and adding in the mysterious elegance of elves, just by wearing the simple leather clothes that the Night Song Tribe produced and naturally standing there, it made people unable to not look at them.
As for the two male elves, even with Xu Yi looking at them with male eyes, he had to admit that they were outstanding whether it was their figure or their appearance. Based just on their outer appearance, they could instantly kill all the handsome men in Banta City.
Xu Yi looked at them for a while before asking Agnes in a confused voice, “Other than models, chairman Vincent also wants to recruit designers. Why didn’t elder Illusia send anyone?”
“It’s them.” Agnes pointed at the five elves, “The elder said we elves have a natural talent for beauty. Since I could be the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s designer, then anyone can be clothing designers for chairman Vincent.”
“A designer can’t just be someone that is sensitive to beauty……” Xu Yi muttered before shaking his head, “But forget it. Since chairman Vincent just wants to use the elves, with their figure and faces, chairman Vincent will definitely be satisfied with this.”
Hearing what Xu Yi said, Agnes suddenly looked down at herself before asking Xu Yi, “Chairman, do you think that my figure isn’t good? I’m not beautiful?”
Xu YI was stunned. Turning to see Agnes’ serious expression, he couldn’t help smiling, “Why are you suddenly asking this question?”
“Because chairman Vincent wants to hire us elves as models to create advertisements for their company, but you only have Still do advertisements and never me. So I think that you must think that my figure isn’t good enough and I’m not pretty enough, so you never had me do advertisements, right?”
Xu Yi didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, “What nonsense are you saying? You’re very beautiful and have a very good figure, you aren’t worse than the five of them. The reason why I didn’t have you do advertisements was because there was no need. What is important to me is your talent for design, not your figure or your appearance, understood?”
“Oh.” Agnes nodded, like she didn’t really understand what he meant.
Xu Yi didn’t plan on explaining this to her. He looked at the five elves curiously looking around them and thought that elder Illusia really was a bold elven elder. She actually accepted having her clansmen work for another human company this quickly.
When the Night Song Tribe elves worked in the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, just by being normal workers, they had suffered quite a bit interacting with the people around them.
Now that these five elves would be hired by the Armani Chamber of Commerce, whether it was as models or clothing designers, they would be people who many people would pay attention to.
These five elves, were they prepared to be surrounded by humans all day long?
###
Facts proved that Xu Yi had completely underestimated the obsession of humans with elves.
Even if the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had hired many elves, so that people could see elves appearing in Banta City frequently and they didn’t react as strongly as when Agnes had first appeared, once the Armani Chamber of Commerce announced that they had hired five elves as clothing designers and models, Banta City and the surrounding city exploded.
The Armani Chamber of Commerce held a special press conference for the five elves, having the five elves wear the special clothes the Armani Chamber of Commerce had designed for them at the press conference.
With the appearance and figures of the five elves, adding in the carefully designed clothes, it attracted everyone’s gazes.
In just a few days, the five elves had become stars in Banta City and the surrounding cities.
There were many noble ladies who when they saw the two male elves, immediately fell for their appearance and called them the gods of their heart.
As for the three female elves, they became the new goddesses of the men in Banta City and the surrounding cities thanks to the Armani Chamber of Commerce’s strong advertising.
“Why do I suddenly feel that I’ve been forgotten by people?” Still looked at the portraits of the elves on the street and said in a voice that seemed like she found it funny, “Seems like the title of ‘Banta Goddess’ will be given to someone else soon.”
Xu Yi on the side laughed. He held Still’s hand and said with a smile, “It’s fine, it’s good if other people forget you. That way, you can just be the goddess of my heart.”
Still rolled her eyes at Xu Yi, “Did you have this idea since last year when you didn’t let me go to other companies to do advertisements?”
Xu Yi laughed, “Wasn’t it because I was afraid you would be tired? Anyway, didn’t you want to give up being in the public?”
“Un, I was indeed already tired of being stared at by people when going out shopping.” Still looked around and said with a frown, “But now I’m finding that it feels worse without it.”
“Don’t forget, you are a researcher of our Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s magic research facility. If you want something to do, go find Evita and Akali to research some magic.” Xu Yi said.
Still shook her head and said with a bitter smile, “The problem is that when I went to the magic research facility a few days ago, I found that I couldn’t understand what Evita and Akali were researching at all.” After pausing, she tightly held Xu Yi’s hand and a wistful look appeared in her face, “Xu Yi, am I already useless?”
Xu Yi was a bit stunned. He knit his brows as he looked at Still’s wistful appearance and knew that comforting her had no use right now.
Countless thoughts quickly passed in his head and Xu Yi suddenly had an idea.
“I’ve thought of a job that you’ll like doing very much.”