Chapter 31 Spokesperson
Xu Yi left Great Magician Camilla’s lab covered in dust.
When he saw the Magic Air Conditioner earlier, Xu Yi remembered that when he studied the Magic Air Conditioner, he had consulted Great Magician Camilla several times and obtained many modifications of the Frost Array from him. So he wanted to invite Great Magician Camilla to be his research adviser. With his excellency Great Magician’s powerful magic strength, there were many problems that could be easily solved.
When Xu Yi found Great Magician Camilla, their discussion at first was quite harmonious, with Great Magician Camilla even agreeing to Xu Yi’s request, temporarily giving some magic knowledge to solve some problem that he couldn’t solve. But when Xu Yi offered to pay him in gold coins for his services, Great Magician Camilla’s face instantly changed. He angrily slapped the table and pointed at the entrance to have Xu Yi scram, not giving him a chance to explain at all.
“This Great Magician Camilla, does he have some kind of grudge against money?” Xu Yi couldn’t help wondering about this.
Although he already knew that Great Magician Camilla didn’t mix magic research and business, he never thought that it would reach this kind of situation.
“Hey, uncle, what do you have a distressed look for? Does someone owe you money?” There was a beautiful voice that suddenly came from beside him.
“Nobody owes me money. Other than that, I’m only twenty seven years old, stop always calling me uncle, alright?” Xu Yi snappily looked at Still.
After a single night, Still’s face didn’t show any sign of the heartbreak from last night and she recovered her youthful appearance.
Of course, she was still obviously a bit thinner. This was something that couldn’t be recovered in a single night.
“Who told you to always regard me as a child?” Still gave a snort. Seeing the Great Magician’s exclusive laboratory behind Xu Yi, she asked in a low voice, “What? Did you make grandfather angry?”
Xu Yi told Still about the matter that made him depressed and it caused her to break out in laughter and teasing.
“Ha, ha, you deserve it! You already knew that my grandfather didn’t like these things, but you still propose paying him to him. Isn’t this just looking for trouble?”
“Ai, how could I have known he hated it this much.” Xu Yi gave a sigh and couldn’t help but ask, “Still, his excellency Great Magician, why is he so opposed to this? The other Great Magicians clearly wouldn’t reject this.”
“You want to know?” Still revealed a sly smile, “This won’t do if you don’t pay a little price.”
Xu Yi shrugged his shoulders and looked at the sky outside the window, “It’s not time to eat yet, so how about we get some afternoon tea?”
After ordering two cold drinks in a snack bar near the Magic Tower, still told Xu Yi the entire story.
In the beginning, Great Magician Camilla had several disciples and there were two who he placed high expectations on. He thought that as long as they were willing to put in effort, they would become powerful magicians eventually and could even surpass him.
But in the end, these disciples couldn’t resist the call of money. They were hired at a young age by large companies and became guards for those companies. They completely disregarded their magic research and didn’t advance at all after many years.
Great Magician Camilla was very hurt by what they did, while also abhorring the actions of those companies. It accumulated after several times and it turned into his current manner.
“After grandfather looked at your Magic Fan, he felt that your magic talent was outstanding and was filled with great expectations towards you. In the end, not only did you reject studying under him, you even made your own company, so naturally he was very disappointed. Let me tell you, if grandfather wasn’t filled with hope towards you and your magic power has indeed kept growing, he would have chased you out of the Magic Tower already. How could he let you see him whenever and even solve your questions about magic? Now that you are discussing a business agreement with him, will he not be angry? So I told you you deserved this, but you didn’t believe me.”
Towards Still’s final statement, Xu Yi could only open and close his lips without saying a thing.
“It really is a pity, I wanted to invite his excellency Great Magician to be our chief researcher and I even hoped that he could be the spokesperson for our company’s products. According to what you said, doesn’t that mean there is no hope?” Xu Yi helplessly said.
“Are you dreaming?” Still looked at Xu Yi before asking in a curious voice, “But what do you mean by chief researcher and spokesperson? Why haven’t I heard of this before?”
“Chief researcher…..Actually it’s just someone who helps me research the Magic Arrays needed inside the magic machinery that I make. Because your grandfather is a Great Magician and very strong, of course he could become the chief. Un, chief means number one, boss. You should understand that.”
“What about spokesperson? This is my first time hearing of this, what does it mean?”
“Spokesperson…..It’s a bit complicated talking about this.” Xu Yi thought about the situation of the stars on earth and after thinking for a bit, he replied, “For the so-called spokesperson, it’s inviting someone to represent the company’s products. As for the specifics, it’s using someone to represent certain products and people will think of those products if they look at that person. Normally speaking, the representative has to have a good self image and it’s best if he has some fame. This way, everyone can indirectly learn about the product by knowing about this person, so it’s a kind of mutual advertising.”
“Then if the product they represent isn’t good, wouldn’t it also tarnish the image of the spokesperson?” Still immediately asked back.
Xu Yi was stunned, “Your reaction is quite fast. That’s right, this is a mutual relationship, so the product and the spokesperson will be mutually affected. Not only will the spokesperson’s image be affected if there is a problem with the product, if there is a problem with the spokesperson, it will also affect the product. So, whether it is the spokesperson or the company choosing the spokesperson, they have to carefully think this over.”
“You’re thinking is quite good to choose my grandfather as a representative.” Still gave a soft snort, “My grandfather is a Great Magician, he is very famous in the entire Lampuri Kingdom. If everyone knew that he was suddenly representing a product, everyone would ask what the product is. Then again, my grandfather has always been a serious person, so his image is incredibly good.”
“That’s why I wanted him as a spokesperson.” Xu Yi stretched his hands out before saying in a regretful voice, “But based on the attitude of his excellency Great Magician, there is no need to mention this spokesperson matter with him at all, he definitely wouldn’t agree.”
“It would be strange if he did agree.” Still nodded. She looked at Xu Yi before suddenly asking, “That’s right, Xu Yi, since you are asking someone to be your spokesperson, then there must be a pay for that spokesperson, right?”
“Of course, how could we let that person work for free?”
“Then can I ask how much you’re prepared to offer?”
“This is not certain, it depends mainly on who the spokesperson is. Normally speaking, the more famous a person is and the better their image, the higher they’re paid. If it was his excellency Great Magician, I wanted to pay him a thousand gold coins a year as a spokesperson fee……”
“One thousand gold coins?” Without waiting for Xu Yi to finish, Still’s eyes popped wide open and her mouth opened wide, “That much? It’s just to represent something?”
“That’s right, what about it?”
Still looked at Xu Yi with a strange gaze, “Hey, Xu Yi, you shouldn’t have sold that many Magic Fans, so how could you give my grandfather one thousand gold coins right away? You have that much money?”
Xu Yi revealed a faint smile, “You don’t understand this? This is called investing in advertisement and it is a very cost effective investment. This thousand gold coins doesn’t seem like much, but compared to the benefits brought by his excellency Great Magician, it can’t be considered anything.” Speaking of this, Xu Yi couldn’t help sighing, “It’s a pity his excellency Great Magician wouldn’t agree to this at all, so it’s a waste talking about this. That’s right, Still, are you familiar with any other Great Magicians? How about you introduce me to them?”
Still knit her delicate brows as she considered this before shaking her head, “I do know several Great Magicians through grandfather, but Xu Yi, I can honestly tell you that those Great Magicians will not care about a small company like yours. You can just give up on this.”
“I thought it would be like this.” Xu Yi revealed a self-deprecating smile, “My company doesn’t have anything right now, those venerable Great Magicians not caring about us is very normal.” Putting aside this matter, Xu Yi suddenly thought of something else, “That’s right, Still, Vivian said you wanted her to tell me that you wanted to see me when you left. You said you have something to discuss, what is it?”
“Un, I indeed have something, but now I’ve found this matter has already been solved.” Still said with a smile, “I wanted to ask if you could find something for me to do. I’m very bored right now staying with grandfather, it isn’t interesting at all. Moreover, you always seem like you’re very busy, so perhaps you could have found something for me to do.
Xu Yi honestly looked at Still. He thought that this fellow suddenly wanted him to find something for her to do, could it be that she wanted to use work to push through the pain in her heart?
“It’s not a problem if you want something to do. For example, I wanted to ask your grandfather to become the chief researcher, it’s actually because I’m planning to build a magic research laboratory exclusive to the company. If you’re interested, you can do magic research in the laboratory and help me finish next products.”
“I was indeed interested in this work and I was prepared to have you prepare this work for me. However, now that I’ve heard what you’ve said, I feel that another kind of work is more interesting.” Still narrowed her large eyes and spoke with a smile.
“What work?”
Still slowly sat up and she revealed a birght smile, revealing two rows of silver teeth. She said in a soft voice, “Xu Yi, what do you think about making me your company’s spokesperson?”
Chapter 32 Superior energy
“Watch properly, put this rough end here and carefully insert it into the hole.” Xu Yi took a half finished screw bolt and put it on the capping machine, “You have to pay attention to this next part. After you put it in, you must move away from the capping machine and you definitely cannot put your hand in. Otherwise, once the machine starts, it will destroy your entire hand, do you understand?”
Around Xu Yi were the hundred slaves Viscount Leslie had temporarily lent him. They were seriously listening to Xu Yi, nodding to signify they understood.
“Good, next you press down on this switch.” Xu Yi reached out to softly press the on button for the capping machine.
The flowing light green and scarlet red light signaling magic flowing lit up and the head of the capping machine fell down.
“Hong——”
The sudden explosive sound caused the surrounding slaves to jump back in fright. Some of the more timid slaves even squatted down as their bodies trembled.
“Don’t be afraid, it’s not an explosion! Get up and look!” Xu Yi reprimanded, trying his best to regain order among the slaves.
Under the gazes of the slaves, Xu Yi took out the half finished screw from the hole of the capping machine, raising it to show everyone.
“Do you see this? This side of the screw has a cross shaped groove on it, that means that the product is finished. What you need to do now is check to see if the cross shaped groove matches the requirements.” Xu Yi took out an iron stick with a cross shaped tip and placed it into the head of the screw bolt, which fit perfectly, “Do you see this? If this stick can fit inside, it means that it meets the requirements and it can be taken to the next part of the process.”
The slaves nodded like they understood and didn’t understand at the same time.
To people like them who had positions as slaves, magic was not something they could touch at all. Not to mention a machine that seemed this complicated and mysterious. If it were normal times, they wouldn’t even have the chance to touch this machine, not to mention operating it.
But since they came here, Heinz under Xu Yi’s orders had treated the slaves impartially and was very comprehensive about their living conditions. This filled the hearts of the slaves with gratitude towards Xu Yi and Heinz, therefore when Xu Yi had three slaves come forward to attempt controlling the machine, even if they had hearts filled with fear of the machine, they still obediently came forward to operate it.
Actually, the controls for the capping machine was very simple and these slaves had normal intelligence. Under Xu Yi’s personal guidance, they overcame their fear of the machine and quickly learned how to operate it.
Seeing the three slaves he picked out gradually become more proficient, Xu Yi nodded in satisfaction. He had the three of them keep working before bringing the rest of the slaves to another machine.
“Compared to the previous machine, this Magic Thread Rolling Machine is a bit more complicated, so you have to watch properly. You can’t make any small mistakes.”
Xu Yi picked out five slaves and demonstrated to them how to operate the Magic Thread Rolling Machine. He made sure that they didn’t have any problems.
After demonstrating how to use the Magic Thread Rolling Machine, Xu Yi brought the remaining slaves to one final machine.
This was made with a cooperation between Xu Yi and Master Lanus, it was the newly made Miniature Magic Punch Press.
“This machine is relatively simple to operate, but it is much more dangerous than the other two machines. If you don’t pay attention, there wouldn’t be a problem turning your entire body into a meat patty, so you have to be seriously careful.” Since these slaves didn’t have any knowledge of how dangerous these magic machines were, Xu Yi had to warn them first. He proposed a set of very strict work guidelines to ensure that nothing went wrong.
“Watch properly, place this iron sheet here first. You have to be careful, this iron sheet has to perfectly fit into the model, there can’t be any cracks at all. Next, you close the model and move back a bit before pressing the on switch.”
“Peng——”
The Miniature Magic Punch Press’s two giant sides crushed together and the lat iron sheet under the giant pressure turned into a half circular Magic Fan outer cover.
This Miniature Magic Punch Press was naturally used to create batches of Magic Fan outer covers.
In this new workshop that had only been built for two days, there were five different kinds of magic machines that were responsible for making the different parts of the second generation Magic Fan.
With the help of these machines, the requirement for human skill was lowered, so Xu Yi could finally give up on those blacksmiths in Banta City. Just based on the slaves Viscount Leslie gave him, he could produce the Magic Fans.
Of course, the Magic Array that was the core of the Magic Fan still required the students to finish.
After he finished teaching these slaves how to operate the machines, Xu Yi had the slaves scatter and he taught them how to assemble a single Magic Fan from the components.
If assembling the complete Magic Fan was a very complicated process, then after separating them into several parts, it became incomparably simple.
One group of slaves only needed to learn how to put together a few pieces, another group needed to learn how to thread iron wire into the same place and form a protective net, and another group had an even more simple job which was to put in the screw bolts…..
These slaves hadn’t undergone any learning at all, so their understanding abilities weren’t too high, but as long as their intelligence was normal, they could grasp this simple work without any problems.
Xu Yi worked all morning and these slaves began to familiarize themselves with their work. The entire workshop was filled with an intense working environment.
Xu Yi happily looked at his achievement and gave a satisfied nod.
Next, as long as the number of workers were adjusted based on their efficiency, the entire line would proceed much more smoothly.
As for this work, of course it was given to Heinz as the plant manager to handle, it didn’t need Xu Yi to personally care about this.
Seeing the slaves become more and more familiar with the controls of the machines, Xu Yi suddenly realized that he seemed to have neglected a superiority he had on the Sines Continent.
Compared to the highly developed industrial system on earth, perhaps there were many things the Sines Continent couldn’t compare to.
But there was one superiority where earth lacked far behind the Sines Continent.
That was energy.
Earth’s main energy sources are petroleum, coal, water, wind, solar, nuclear energy, and etc…...
Of these energy sources, whether it was using petroleum, coal, or the developing nuclear energy technology, they all had one fatal flaw. That was the fact that they were serious pollutants.
In any industrialized country on earth, the environment would suffer from the pollution and destruction caused by this industrialization. Finally, they would have to spend a large amount of manpower and effort to restore the environment.
As for hydro, wind, and solar power that had few pollutants, because their energy efficiency was low, they couldn’t be brought into the mainstream.
Compared to this, the magic machines that Xu Yi was currently researching used Magic Arrays as their driving source. To keep these Magic Arrays working, one needed to use Magic Crystals.
No matter what kind of Magic Array it was, after the Magic Crystal consumed the magic inside, it would become a normal piece of stone. It wouldn’t create any pollution at all.
Even the High Grade Magic Crystal, it was completely condensed from magic. So if all the magic inside was consumed, the Magic Crystal would then disappear and wouldn’t leave a single trace, so naturally there also wouldn’t be any pollution at all.
Other than that, Magic Crystals also had a bigger advantage which was that there was a higher energy efficiency.
Just a very small piece of Magic Crystal was enough to support the Magic Fan for three entire days. If one were to switch it out for a normal electric fan on earth, it would take at least three kilowatts of electricity.
Converting this three kilowatts of energy, according to the standard on earth, one would need to burn one kilogram of coal. At the same time, one would release as high as four kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions.
Based on the energy conversion and the scale of pollution, the Magic Crystal had an unparalleled advantage.
Not to mention that because of the low industrial base of the Sines Continent, the consumption of the Magic Fan Xu Yi made far surpassed the electric fans of earth that had been improved many times.
If this aspect could match the standard of earth, then the Magic Crystal consumption would be even lower.
As for the Magic Crystal? It could be found almost everywhere on the Sines Continent. Just Banta City alone had three large scale Magic Crystal Mines.
Moreover, since the Magic Crystals were very common, other than those high quality Magic Crystal Ores, the normal Magic Crystal Ores were basically ignored by everyone.
“Heinz, go buy some more Magic Crystal Mines.” Xu Yi suddenly said to Heinz beside him who had been watching the slaves work.
“Ha? Why are you suddenly buying more Magic Crystal Mines?” Even if he was already accustomed to Xu Yi’s sudden and random thought process, Heinz was still stunned, “If you want Magic Crystals, we can just buy them from other companies. If we were mine it ourselves, the cost will probably be even higher.”
“No, we must buy some mines. We need to do our best to buy more and more.” Xu Yi seriously said, “Remember, for things like energy, there will be less the more we use. No matter what, it’s best if we can control it ourselves.”
Heinz looked at Xu Yi with narrowed brows, not knowing why he suddenly had this kind of thought.
But he also understood that his foresight couldn’t compare to Xu Yi. Since he already made this decision, he must have his own reasoning.
“Alright, I’ll go take care of it.”
Xu Yi grabbed Heinz’s shoulder and urged in a deep voice, “Remember, this matter must be handled quickly and as secretly as possible, understood?”
Heinz couldn’t help muttering in his heart.
Secretly? This was something that wasn’t worth mentioning, was there a need to keep it a secret?