Chapter 39 Farming machinery
Late into the night, the banquet in Viscount Leslie’s manor had finally ended. The guests had already departed and the manor finally regained its tranquility.
In the main hall that was slightly messy after the banquet, Viscount Leslie was staring at Xu Yi who was currently talking to Still. There was a look of admiration that couldn’t he hidden on his face.
Like Still had guessed, he had held this banquet under Xu Yi’s request. The most important goal was to help Xu Yi sell the Magic Air Conditioner that he had just invented.
Xu Yi had set the Magic Air Conditioner as a middle to high class product, so naturally it targeted those with status and high positions in Banta City. the most important ones were those people with net worth.
At this banquet this time, because of some intentional interference from Viscount Leslie, it could be said that all the guests fulfilled this requirement.
Xu Yi’s request for Viscount Leslie had only been this, he did not request him to participate, so Viscount Leslie never knew what Xu Yi would actually do. However, he knew now that Xu Yi had made quite a bit of harvest at this banquet.
This was because during the banquet, there were quite a few people who would mention the somewhat conspicuous Magic Air Conditioner when they came to talk to Viscount Leslie. After they learned of the price and current consumption cost of the Magic Air Conditioner, not a single guest didn’t reveal their willingness to buy it.
Even the City Lord, Lord Count Sean Samo was an exception.
Therefore Viscount Leslie was certain that these Magic Air Conditioners would become all the rage among the Banta City nobles. The one that caused this trend, in the eyes of the nobles, it would be Viscount Leslie.
“If those fellows these matters had already been calculated by Xu Yi, I wonder what kind of thoughts they would have?” Viscount Leslie secretly thought in his heart.
At this time, Xu Yi had ended his conversation with Still and walked over.
“Lord Viscount, the banquet tonight has been quite the success. I really have to thank you.” Xu Yi said with a smile.
“There is no need to thank me, I could be considered a major shareholder of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.” Viscount Leslie shook his head, “There is a question that I have to ask you. Xu Yi, there are only those few rich people in Banta City, there is a limit to the number of Magic Air Conditioners you can sell in Banta City. The profit, wouldn’t it be less than the Magic Fan?”
“You don’t have to worry about this.” Xu Yi laughed, “Since this Magic Air Conditioner is considered a middle to high class product, then the sales plan for this is naturally different from the Magic Fan. I have already signed an agreement with the Farsak Chamber of Commerce in Saltan City, there will be a special store that will open in Saltan City soon that will specialize in selling our Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s products. When the time comes, our Frestech Brand Magic Air Conditioner will also enter Saltan City.”
“Saltan City?” Viscount Leslie suddenly thought of something, “That’s right, there were two young nobles that came from Saltan City to visit their relatives, you wouldn’t have made contact with them already, right?”
Xu Yi nodded with a faint smile, “The Lord Viscount’s reaction is quite fast.”
Viscount Leslie’s gaze looking at Xu Yi instantly became more serious.
This fellow, he had already calculated this point, he really was quite terrifying.
But changing this thought, Viscount Leslie really had to admire his own foresight.
Luckily he had seen through Xu Yi’s unusualness from the events from before and had decided to cooperate with him. Otherwise, once he missed this chance, he would have missed out on many opportunities.
Not mentioning the others, just based on the sale of the Magic Fans, in just a single month, Viscount Leslie had already earned over a thousand gold coins from this.
Even with Viscount Leslie’s net worth, one thousand gold coins already couldn’t be considered a small amount.
Moreover, Viscount Leslie deeply believed that after the Frestech Chamber of Commerce became even bigger, the income brought by his 30% share would also gradually increase. In the end, it would far exceed a thousand gold coins.
“Lord Viscount, other than the Magic Air Conditioner, there is another thing I want to discuss with you.” Xu Yi then said.
“Oh? What is it? Speak freely.”
Xu Yi considered it for a bit before saying, “Lord Viscount, it’s about to enter September and your territory should have reached its fall harvest stage, right?”
Viscount Leslie was stunned. He never thought that Xu Yi would suddenly jumped to this topic.
“Ah, that’s right, it’s almost harvest time. What are you asking this for?”
Xu Yi laughed, “Do you still remember the little slave I bought from you last time? The reason I bought her back then was because she had lost a cow, which would greatly affect the fall harvest. Because of this, the guards almost beat her to death.”
Viscount Leslie naturally had heard Butler Brunei report this matter before. He looked at Xu Yi and said with a cold snort, “What? Do you want to ask for justice for this little slave right now? Let me tell you, it is very hard to train a cow right now, a cow is worth more than a single slave. She actually lost a cow, beating her to death is actually taking it easy on her.”
Xu Yi secretly let out a sigh in his heart. Even if he was considered quite close to Viscount Leslie right now, he still couldn’t change the indifferent tone Viscount Leslie had towards slaves.
Of course, Viscount Leslie’s manner of treating slaves was the norm on the Sines Continent. Xu Yi didn’t have the ability nor did he have the mind to change this attitude, naturally he had something else planned when he mentioned this thing.
“The Lord Viscount’s meaning is that cattle is very hard to obtain and is very important to farming, so it has a very high value, right?” Xu Yi asked.
“Of course it’s like this. I say, Xu Yi, what did you say all this for?” Viscount Leslie became a bit impatient.
Xu Yi laughed, “Then Lord Viscount, if I can make a tool to replace the cattle, how much money are you willing to spend to buy it?”
Viscount Leslie doubtfully looked at Xu Yi, “Could it be that you have invented some magic machine that can work the land? This can’t be the truth, right? Farm work is that complex, what kind of machine is strong enough to replace the use of cattle?”
“Just treat it as me giving an analogy. Lord Viscount, if this machine could replace the work of cattle, even being far more effective than the cattle, what kind of price could you accept?”
Viscount Leslie thought it over and raised a hand, “Fifty gold coins for each one, give me as many as you have.”
Xu Yi’s eyes lit up, “Lord Viscount, are these words true?”
“Nonsense!” Viscount Leslie snappily said, “It isn’t like you don’t know, over half of my territory hasn’t been developed yet, that is because I don’t have enough manpower to cultivate it. I have no choice, so it became desolate. If there was the kind of magic machine you mentioned, then of course I want as many as you have, it’s best if I could finish cultivating all my land. Other than this, I dare affirm that not only me, in Banta City, the entire Lampuri Kingdom, and the entire Sines Continent, there are many nobles who need something like this. If you can really develop this kind of magic machine, I can guarantee that it will cause people to go wild snatching for it.”
After saying this, Viscount Leslie couldn’t help asking, “Hey, Xu Yi, you wouldn’t have already invented this thing already, right? This is not something you can joke about.”
Xu Yi revealed a faint smile and shook his head, “Of course not, it is only an idea right now. But with such an exciting response from the Lord Viscount, I’m even more interested to go back and invent this thing.”
Seeing the mysterious smile on Xu Yi’s face, Viscount Leslie’s heart lit up.
“This kid, perhaps he had already invented this thing.”
Actually, Viscount Leslie had overestimated Xu Yi.
After seeing Vivian almost being beaten to death after losing the cow, Xu Yi had already made up his mind to research farming machinery. But up to this point, not only did he not have the time, he also didn’t have the funds and the manpower to research this thing. So this had always been an idea in his mind and hadn’t become reality at all.
But now it was different. Although Xu Yi still didn’t have enough time right now, the manpower he had now was not small, not to mention the most important hundred dwarves that came from Master Lanus’ tribe.
With the help of these dwarves who had craftsmanship not below Master Lanus, Xu Yi could make the promise with chairman Farsak and provide him the corresponding machines to make the second generation Magic Fans.
But the work for these machines wasn’t much, so these dwarves finished it all without spending that much time. They were studying some mechanical knowledge that Xu Yi had given them and most of the time, they were free, so Xu Yi thought about this farming machinery.
Actually to someone like Xu Yi, for the Sines Continent that had a technological level and standard of living that was below that of earth, farming technology was the most important thing right now.
It was like Viscount Leslie said, a large part of his territory remained desolate because he didn’t have enough people to cultivate it.
If this was raised to the level of the Sines Continent, one could imagine just how much desolate land there was on the continent.
Corresponding with this, the Sines Continent had always had a low standard for harvests, so this has lead to a low standard of living for the people of the continent. At least in a small city like Banta City, there would be news of people starving to death each year.
From chatting with Heinz, Xu YI learned that eleven years ago, the Sines Continent had a large famine because of strange climate changes. Locusts roamed the land back then and caused quite a bit of trouble on the continent, with several small countries being destroyed in a single night.
As for the frightened look Heinz had back then, Xu Yi remembered it vividly.
For Xu Yi who had transmigrated from a highly advanced society like earth, when had he ever seen this scene?
But just based on his imagination, he knew how terrifying this scene was.
So he was even more determined on studying farming machinery.
“If this could be enough to increase the living standard of the people of the continent, perhaps there could be some meaning to my transmigrating into this world.”
Xu Yi looked into the bright starry night as he was lost in thought.
Chapter 40 Strange chairman Xu Yi
A horse carriage quickly moved across the road to the north of Banta City, very quickly approaching Banta City.
The window of the horse carriage suddenly opened and a round young girl’s face was stuck out of the horse carriage. She saw the city wall of Banta City wasn’t considered tall and loudly shouted, “Look, that is Banta City! We’re almost there!”
Another girl’s face appeared behind the glass and looked at the distant Banta City, but her eyes fell somewhere else.
“Yi? What is that?” A delicate looking girl pointed at a high building outside Banta City and asked this question.
The round faced girl pointed in a direction and found that not far outside Banta City, there was a thick pole sticking out of the ground. It was supporting a strange giant rectangular thing high up above the city walls.
The side of the sign facing the road seemed to have something drawn on it. They couldn’t see it clearly at first, but when the horse carriage approached it, the two girls found that there was an iron foundation that was turning left and right.
The center part of this drawing was being turned at high speed by this strange machine, so they could only see a blurry image. They couldn’t see what was inside it at all.
“Is this that Magic Fan thing?” The round faced girl’s large eyes looked at this strange looking machine as she spoke.
“It should be. Look, it’s clearly blowing out wind.” The delicate looking girl replied before she looked to the right of the image. She called out in a surprised voice, “Ya, isn’t that Still?”
“Still? Where?” The round face girl looked over and found that there was a beautiful golden haired girl on the right side of the image.
Although it was only from the side, the golden hair girl’s fine features, incomparably smooth skin, as well as the slightly floating white dress, it made people unwilling to look away.
“It really is Still!” The round face girl quickly recognized her, “Her image is actually on this? Isn’t this too conspicuous?”
“It should be related to the Magic Fan.” The delicate girl said in a thoughtful voice, “Look, there is a name on this sign. It seems say……”
“Frestech Brand Magic Fan, bringing a bit of cold to you in the summer heat. What does that mean?” The round face girl rushed to read it first, but she didn’t understand it.
“I don’t know. But last time Still said that she became the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s spokesperson, could it be that this is a representation of her?” The delicate girl said.
The round face girl tilted her head to think for a bit before shaking her head, “I don’t get it. Forget it, we’ll see her in a bit, we can just ask her then.”
“Un, it seems like we can only do this.” The delicate girl nodded. She said to the horse carriage driver, “Uncle, can you take us to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce?”
The horse carriage driver was a middle aged man of around forty. When he heard this, he asked back, “Frestech Chamber of Commerce? There are two places. One is the exclusive store they’ve opened and the other is the factory outside the city, which one do you want to go to?”
“There is a difference?” The two girls looked at each other in a daze. The delicate looking girl thought about it before asking, “Do you know where their chairman normally is?”
“I don’t know that. But I’ve heard that their exclusive store only has a fellow inside selling things, normally there isn’t anyone else. I think the chairman should normally be in the factory.” The driver guessed.
“That’s good, can you send us directly to the factory?” The delicate looking girl said.
“I can, but they are building roads near the factory during this time, so I can only send you near there. You’ll have to walk the rest of the way yourself.”
“Alright, we’ll do that.”
The delicate looking girl said this and the driver flicked the whip in his hand, making the horse carriage turn right. It directly headed out Banta City in a westward direction.
The small road outside the city was not flat, so the horse carriage kept shaking. The two girls inside the carriage couldn’t help feeling dizzy.
But this kind of situation didn’t last long. After a while, the horse carriage only shook slightly before it became very stable, as if there wasn’t the slightest bit of trembling at all.
The round face girl couldn’t suppress her curiosity and poked her head out the carriage’s window. She found that the path the horse carriage was currently on was very smooth, there wasn’t a single hole to be seen. This road was much better compared to the one from before.
The round face girl’s heart was filled with curiosity and she couldn’t help asking the driver, “Uncle, why is this road so smooth? It would be great if the road we traveled on before was as smooth as this.”
The driver laughed, “This road has been specially paved by the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, it wasn’t easy to travel at all before. I’ve heard that in order to pave this road, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce has spent quite a bit of money.”
“Oh? Their company is even responsible for paving the road? Isn’t this supposed to be managed by the City Lord?”
“Properly speaking, it should be the City Lord who is responsible for this, but the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s what…...That’s right, the chairman named Xu Yi wasn’t satisfied, so he was happy to take out his own money to fix the road. The Lord City Lord couldn’t stop him from doing that, right? So the current road you see now is the newly fixed road.”
“Why was chairman Xu Yi not satisfied? Could it be that people couldn’t walk on it?” The round face girl asked in a curious voice.
“How could that be? No matter what, this road is still the main road outside of our Banta City, how could people not walk on it? Although the road before wasn’t that flat, it wasn’t that bad, there was no need to fix it at all. But chairman Xu Yi wasn’t satisfied, so what could he do? I’ve also heard that he’s still not satisfied with this road right now, he said that he would fix it again when the conditions were right…..What…...That’s right, he would fix it with concrete. I don’t know what this concrete thing is, but to satisfy chairman Xu Yi, it should be better than this road, right?”
“Even better than this road? How flat would that be?” The round face girl said in a stunned voice, “That chairman Xu Yi wouldn’t be boasting, right? How could there be such a smooth road?”
The driver laughed, “That I don’t know. What those big people are thinking, that is not something a small driver like myself could imagine.”
The round face girl muttered in a low voice before heading back into the carriage. She said to the delicate girl with knit brows, “Hey, Evita, do you think that chairman Xu Yi will make us research how to repair roads?”
The delicate girl laughed and reached out a finger to tap the round face girl’s forehead, “Akali, you only know how to speak nonsense! We are magicians, even if we agree to stay with chairman Xu Yi, we would be researching Magic Arrays! How is this related to fixing roads?”
The round face girl named Akali shook her head in a confused manner, “I don’t know. But I feel that this chairman Xu Yi is a strange person. He’s not satisfied with this road that is clearly smooth and has to fix it again. Do you think he has too much money?”
Evita helplessly shook her head. Akali really liked to guess randomly, when will she be able to fix this problem.
Although she didn’t randomly guess like Akali, her heart was also filled with curiosity towards this chairman Xu Yi.
Why was the road this important to him? Clearly how good this road was was completely unrelated to him.
Could it be that this road had some relationship with the things their company produced? But this also wasn’t convincing.
Could it be that this chairman Xu Yi had very strict requirements, not letting any problems appear in the road near his factory?
If it was like this, this chairman Xu Yi might not be easy to get along with. When they see him later, she should be a bit more careful.
While Evita and Akali’s minds were filled with random thoughts, the horse carriage had already traveled a bit. It suddenly slowed down before stopping.
“Two young misses, the road ahead is being fixed, so no horse carriages other than the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s horse carriages are allowed over. So, I’ll have to trouble the two misses to walk the rest of the way.” The driver’s voice rang out.
Evita and Akali looked at each other before opening the curtain to the horse carriage. Akali directly jumped out while Evita slowly came down while holding the reins of the carriage.
The two looked up and found that the path in front of them really was being fixed. There was only a less than three meter wide path left for people to travel on.
Based on the scale of the construction, after this road was finished, it would be over ten meters wide which was very shocking.
It had to be known that in the Lampuri Kingdom, only the two main roads of the Lampuri Kingdom were only around ten meters wide.
Looking into the distance, there was a river flowing by and beside the river on a large piece of empty land, there were several buildings put together. From time to time, one could see people moving between the buildings.
Whether it was the buildings or the road work, it was a very lively scene. It was like they weren’t affected by the blistering heat at all.
Seeing this kind of bustling scene, the two girls couldn’t help looking at it for a while. After a while, they finally remembered their goal in coming here.
Akali looked over and walked over to the people fixing the road. She was about to pat the person to get their attention, but seeing that that person was covered in dirt, she put her hand down and raised her voice, “Hey, hello. Can I ask you if this is the Frestech Chamber of Commerce?”
That person looked over and scared Akali.
That person’s face was also covered in dirt and there were several lines left by his sweat dripping down, which made him look quite fierce.
But after seeing the little girl in front of him, that person revealed a smile and that fierce look disappeared without a trace.
“That’s right, this is the Frestech Chamber of Commerce. Are you looking for someone?”
That person’s smile was very bright and his was quite refreshing, instantly melting the nervousness in Akali’s heart.
“That’s right, we are looking for chairman Xu Yi. Can you help us inform him? Just say that we were called over by Still.” Akali said in a loud voice.
Hearing this, that person was a bit surprised. He looked over Akali before looking at Evita not far to the side and saying in a dazed voice, “You are Still’s classmates?”
This response stunned Akali and Evita. Akali couldn’t help asking, “How do you know that we are Still’s classmates? Could it be that you are close to chairman Xu Yi? Did he tell you?”
That person revealed a grin that showed his white teeth.
“That’s right, I am very close to Xu Yi. I dare promise that there is no one closer to him than me. That is because…...I am Xu Yi.”