Chapter 9 Long term goal
His meeting with Great Magician Camilla was longer than Xu Yi had expected.
Great Magician Camilla had asked many questions about the Magic Array inside the Magic Fan and in order to make a good impression on Great Magician Camilla, Xu Yi had to extensively answer every question.
But most of Great Magician Camilla’s questions weren’t related to the Magic Array at all. After all, the Revolving Wind Array was only a low level Wind Magic Array. No matter how Xu Yi modified it, it was impossible that it would stump a Great Magician like Camilla.
Most of his questions were because he didn’t understand the design of the Magic Fan.
When it came to questions on design, most of them contained mechanical engineering knowledge.
It could be said that this knowledge had never appeared on the Sines Continent before. Xu Yi had quite a bit of trouble explaining these things to Great Magician Camilla, sometimes he even had to start with the most basic knowledge.
But because of this, when Xu Yi finished answering Great Magician Camilla’s questions, Great Magician Camilla gave him praise that surpassed Xu Yi’s expectations.
“I had thought that this Magic Fan was something you casually designed, but I never thought it contained such rich knowledge. Moreover, putting aside the things that I didn’t really understand when you explained them, just based on the Magic Array itself, it lets me see that you have quite a bit of talent for magic.” After saying this, Great Magician Camilla paused before looking at Xu Yi with a bit more expectation, “Xu Yi, I feel that you really aren’t bad. How about this? Are you interested in becoming my assistant for my magical research?”
Xu Yi was instantly stunned.
Assisting Great Magician Camilla’s magical research? According to the tradition of the Sines Continent, this was basically Great Magician Camilla wanting to take Xu Yi in as an apprentice!
If it was any other magician, they would be filled with wild joy and would accept without any hesitation.
Camilla was considered a top Three Star Great Magician even on the entire Sines Continent. Being able to become his apprentice, that was the dream of many young magicians!
If any other magicians in the Magic Tower knew about this, they would die from their jealousy of Xu Yi!
But Xu Yi thought about it and didn’t immediately reply. He just said that he would consider it.
Great Magician Camilla was clearly a bit surprised and disappointed, but he didn’t force Xu Yi to agree. He just waved his hand to let him leave.
When he left the top floor of the Magic Tower, he was hit by a heat wave that caused Xu Yi to be covered in sweat, while also calming him down.
Becoming Great Magician Camilla’s apprentice?
If it was two months ago, or even a month ago, he definitely would have agreed without any hesitation. But now he found that he wasn’t moved by this prospect at all.
“Why am I suddenly unmoved?” Xu Yi asked himself with a frown.
After the confusing thoughts circled his mind a few times, a familiar object appeared in his mind, the Magic Fan.
That’s right, it was the Magic Fan!
This fused magic with the mechanical engineering of earth, it was made after Xu Yi completely focused his mind on creating it. During this process of studying it, he frequently had the misconception that he was back in his lab on earth.
Xu Yi didn’t feel anything back then, but thinking about it now, he found that it was completely the effect of the mechanical engineer’s soul inside his body.
That’s right, he loved machines since he was young. In his previous world, he had completely thrown himself into the mechanical industry.
Even though he couldn’t use pursue his hobby and use his ability after coming to this magical world, forcing him to study magic, his heart had not changed.
Now that he had realized the joy of researching machines through the Magic Fan, how could he be willing to give it up?
“That’s right! I’ll study machines in this magical world! I want to perfectly combine magic and the mechanical industry together! Not only a fan, but also air conditioners and refrigerators! Even steam boats and airplanes! I want to create an industrial system on this continent! I want to create a magic industry empire!”
Thinking of this, Xu Yi suddenly felt like his entire body was filled with his epiphany and his body was completely filled with excitement.
He understood. This was because after wasting three years in this world in a daze, he had finally confirmed his goal.
His goal could be considered lofty and even unlikely, but it was still a goal, it had motivational power!
As for the difficulty? It would be overcome.
Xu Yi’s footsteps were faster when he returned to the lab. What welcomed him were gazes filled with envy, jealousy, and questioning.
His colleagues didn’t understand at all, why was a new person that had been in the Magic Tower for less than two months suddenly summoned by Great Magician Camilla. It had to be known, these people rarely saw Great Magician Camilla and there was no need to mention being summoned by him.
Xu Yi didn’t care about the strange gazes his colleagues were giving him at all. He now had a goal, he didn’t care about anything else now. He had a faint smile on his face as he casually returned to his spot.
Although he didn’t plan on being Great Magician Camilla’s apprentice, Xu Yi didn’t plan on leaving the Magic Tower.
If he wanted to do some things in Banta City, with some things related to magic, he had to maintain a good relation with Great Magician Camilla. Xu Yi was not dumb enough to cut off this relation on his own initiative.
Three miles to the west of Banta City, there was a small manor that occupied a space of less than ten thousand square meters.
Although this manor was not big, it was very famous in Banta City because it was the only magic academy in Banta City, the Baron Rickto Magic Academy.
As the only magic school in Banta City, the Baron Rickto Magic Academy gathered all the children with magical talent in Banta City and around Banta City.
To these children that wanted to become powerful Great Magicians, it was very important for them to study here. It was even to the point that they could give up eating and sleeping.
According to convention, other than studying basic magic knowledge each day, the students also had to learn some knowledge about Magic Arrays.
Only during the time set for discussing Magic Arrays today, the second grade fourth class professor surpassed all the students’ expectations and brought out an ugly clump of iron.
“Isn’t that a Magic Fan!” The sharp-eyed students instantly recognized it.
The Magic Fans had been a hot product in Banta City during these past few days. It was not especially expensive and had a low consumption, so something that let people cool down was welcomed by everyone.
Most students of the Baron Rickto Magic Academy had decent family backgrounds, with many of their families buying the Magic Fans immediately. So naturally they could easily recognize it.
But it wasn’t anything to recognize the Magic Fan, why did the teacher bring it out in the classroom?”
“Students, today’s main lecture will be studying this Magic Fan. Accurately speaking, it is the Magic Array inside the Magic Fan.” The teacher quickly gave an explanation to the students.
“Che, isn’t it a toy used by commoners? What value is there in us studying it? Teacher, are you sure you aren’t making a mistake?”
The one who spoke was a slightly chubby youth who was around sixteen-seventeen years old.
This youth was called Orin Zetaman, the second son of Banta City’s Viscount Zetaman. He was the one with the best family in the second grade fourth class. It’s said that every room in his house had a large scale Frost Array, so naturally he looked down on the Magic Fan.
Hearing Orin’s words, the teacher’s face sunk. He strictly said, “Orin, you can look down on the Magic Fan, but as a magician, you can’t look down on the Magic Array inside the Magic Fan. I can tell you that the Magic Array inside the Magic Fan is exquisite, it is something a normal magician cannot create. I can even make a bold analysis that the one who made this Magic Array was someone at the Great Magician level!”
“Ah?”
“It can’t be, right? Great Magician?”
“That’s right, why would a Great Magician do something like this?”
“Our Banta City only has his excellency Camilla, the only Great Magician, right? Doesn’t he dislike magicians working together with merchants?”
“Perhaps he has changed his views?”
…...
After a while of talking, the students began to understand their teacher’s thoughts.
Even if the Magic Array inside wasn’t created by a Great Magician, the level of magic contained in this Magic Array far surpassed their imaginations.
Since it was like this, it was natural for the teacher to want them to study it.
When the teacher opened the Magic Fan and revealed the Magic Array to the students, the students were even more shocked.
As second year students of Baron Rickto Magic Academy, they were not new students who knew nothing about magic. They could naturally see the astonishing level of magic contained within this Magic Array.
Although many students could tell this should be a variant of the Revolving Wind Array, there was not a single student that could understand every part of the array.
There were many students who couldn’t even understand how this Magic Array was activated and maintained, so there was no need to mention them understanding how the Magic Fans could run on his Magic Array.
It had to be known, there were many magical geniuses in the second year fourth class. They were even honoured as the most talented class in the Baron Rickto Magic Academy!
The more these proud young men and women studied this Magic Array, the more profound they found this Magic Array. They were filled with incomparable admiration for the magician who made this Magic Array.
Only they didn’t know that they magician they were secretly admiring was not that far from them right now.
In the student management office of the Baron Rickto Magic Academy, the director Shearer was looking at the unexpected guest with a frown on his face. Based on the symbol on the black robe he was wearing, he could confirm that he was Great Magician Camilla’s subordinate.
“Young man, are you here for something? Or did Great Magician Camilla send you here?”
“No, this is not related to Great Magician Camilla. This is my private matter.” Xu Yi shook his head with a smile.
“Private matter? What is it?”
“This is not anything troublesome. I am here because I want to hire some students.”
Shearer’s expression sunk, “We are a magic school, not a mercenary school! You’ve come to the wrong place!”
Xu Yi was not surprised, he just said with a faint smile, “Then Director Shearer, what if I said that this work would not only pay the students and also help them raise their magic level?”
Shearer was stunned, “Are you joking? How could there be such a good job?”
“Of course there is.” Xu Yi had a radiant smile, “If you don’t mind, I can slowly explain this to you…..”
Chapter 10 Renting land
A horse carriage was slowly heading out Banta City’s western gate. It gradually accelerated and quickly headed to Banta City’s western suburbs.
Xu Yi and Heinz were sitting across each other inside the carriage. Heinz was holding a rough map of Banta City in his hands and was explaining something to Xu Yi.
“Look, this is Viscount Leslie’s territory, with a total area of close to a thousand hectares and over half of it is undeveloped land. Viscount Leslie has promised us that we can casually pick a piece of land to rent from this undeveloped land.”
Xu Yi looked over the map and pointed at the map with his finger, “No need to pick, here is fine.”
“This place?” Heinz looked at where Xu Yi was pointing and thought about it . He said with a frown, “This place is not close to Banta City and it isn’t close to anything else, I’m afraid it won’t be convenient living there.”
Xu Yi gave a shrug before saying with a faint smile, “It’s good if there is nothing there, it’s more convenient for us to plan things. It has to be known, it’s easier to draw on an empty piece of paper than a covered piece of paper.”
“But like this, our expenditures will be higher than estimated.” Heinz still had a frown on his face.
“This initial investment is necessary.” Xu Yi nodded before drawing another circle on the map, “If it’s possible, I even want to rent this large part of undeveloped land to use.”
“This large part?” Heinz said in a stunned voice, “We can’t do that. Just to rent a hectare of land, we need to pay Viscount Leslie one hundred gold coins every year. I we rent such a large piece…..It wouldn’t be ten thousand, but it would be several thousand gold coins each year. Then again, we don’t need such a large workshop, why do we need such a large piece of land?”
Xu Yi revealed a faint smile, “Heinz, could it be that you are only satisfied with a little Magic Fan factory?”
Heinz looked at Xu Yi in a daze. Could it be this fellow has even bigger ambitions?
Just yesterday, Xu Yi had found Heinz to tell him not to waste time finding a suitable place in Banta City because Xu Yi wanted to find an empty space outside Banta City. He was planning to build a factory on empty land and focus on producing Magic Fans.
During this time Xu Yi also had Heinz’s nephew Alex perform a small survey of the city. According to their results, Xu Yi could estimate that the consumption for Magic Fans in Banta City was around three to five thousand and right now they had only sold less than five hundred. This meant they had a market of over several thousand people.
Moreover, this number was only limited to Banta City. The living conditions of families in the rural areas outside Banta City was not as good as Banta City, but there was still a certain demand for Magic Fans.
If the area around Banta City was included, Xu Yi could make a bold estimate that the demand for Magic Fans was over ten thousand units!
Because of this number, Xu Yi had made the decision to increase his production line.
If he wanted to greatly increase his production, there were limits to the warehouses he rented in Banta City. So, Xu Yi directly headed outside the city, preparing to build a Magic Fan factory.
After all his research, he finally decided on a piece of land that belonged to Viscount Leslie.
Of course, if he wanted to increase production, other than land, the more important thing was people.
Xu Yi looked at the stack of things in his hand and his lips curled into a smile.
Of this stack, half was information on thirty people and the other half was thirty contracts.
These things were his harvest after his trip to Baron Rickto Magic Academy.
With his hard work at convincing him, Director Shearer finally allowed Xu Yi to recruit Baron Rickto Magic Academy students to work for him. However, Shearer had said that he would not openly support him, he would just not oppose him.
However, after Xu Yi put in effort all around the campus and finally succeeded in recruiting thirty students that met the requirement.
The magic level of the students were not high, at least there wasn’t a single one that could compare to Xu Yi.
But as Baron Rickto Magic Academy students, they had a solid foundation on the basics of Magic Array, as well as some experience drawing Magic Arrays.
Even though the Revolving Wind Magic Array of the Magic Fan had been changed by Xu Yi, making it more complicated, it was still only a low level Wind Magic Array. It wasn’t that difficult to inscribe it.
Xu Yi recruited these students and the only thing they had to do was inscribe the Magic Arrays.
Although this was a very simple task, they needed a certain amount of magical power to do this.
When he was manufacturing the five hundred Magic Fans, Xu Yi had asked his ten coworkers to help him complete them. However, in order to produce over ten thousand Magic Fans, it was impossible just to rely on his ten coworkers.
Compared to this, it was more suitable for him to hire thirty students than to rely on his ten coworkers.
First, these thirty students wouldn’t be as constrained as his ten coworkers, they wouldn’t hesitate to sign a contract with Xu Yi. With them establishing a clear employment relationship with Xu Yi, Xu Yi wouldn’t need to worry about them affecting production.
Next, when Xu Yi invited his ten coworkers to complete the five hundred Magic Fans, he had paid each coworker five gold coins and given them a bonus of a Magic Fan. Compared to this, he had already discussed this with the thirty students and each one would be earning two silver coins per Magic Array drawn, so he could greatly cut down on costs.
Actually when Xu Yi mentioned this pay, he was a bit worried that the students would find it too low. However, he never thought that after hearing the pay, the students would all look very excited, even praising Xu Yi for being so generous.
The last thing was the most important point. Compared to his coworkers in the lab, these magic academy students still had not formed their own thinking, so they didn’t have that much prejudice towards magical application.
Xu Yi could instill them with his mechanical engineering knowledge from earth, letting them learn from the beginning.
If a few of them showed talents in magical engineering, that would be a very valuable resource.
If more and more of these magicians appeared, Xu Yi’s dream of creating an industrial system on the Sines Continent would no longer just be a dream…..
The horse carriage suddenly jolted and Xu Yi was thrown out of his seat, instantly bring him out of his daydream about the future.
“We’re almost there.” Heinz on the side reminded him.
Xu Yi opened the window and looked out. He found that the horse carriage had already left the large road to Banta City’s west and was now on a rocky and unsmooth small village road.
Feeling the shaking coming from the carriage, Xu Yi couldn’t help knitting his brows.
“This situation of this road is too lacking.”
Heinz said with a bitter smile, “Of course, this place is a piece of undeveloped land. For it to have a small road that can let a horse carriage pass is already pretty good.”
“This won’t do. Heinz, if I wanted to make a smooth path from our place to the large road just now, around how much money would that cost?”
“Building a road?” Heinz was stunned. He looked down and pointed at the map a few times before replying with a bitter smile, “That is not cheap. Even if it is the most simple road, it would cost several hundred gold coins.” After pausing for a bit, he couldn’t help adding, “Actually, although this road is a bit bumpy, it can let a horse carriage pass, so we don’t need to spend all that money on repaving the road, right?”
Xu Yi shook his head, “No, we have to repave this road. The Magic Fans aren’t that well made, so perhaps their transport requirements aren’t high, but we will be making more and more precise products in the future. With the situation of this road, it’s very easy for products to occur during transport.”
Heinz curled his lips. He found that he didn’t understand what Xu Yi meant by “well made”, “future products”, and “precise”, so he couldn’t help trying to convince him otherwise.
But right now, Xu Yi was the one in charge and he didn’t have any decision making rights, so he gave up on trying to convince him in the end.
The horse carriage continued jolting down this road for a bit before it finally slowly stopped.
Xu Yi and Heinz jumped out of the horse carriage and looked around, seeing a true expansive wasteland. The surrounding area was filled with weeds and they couldn’t see anything.
Seeing how run down the land was, Heinz couldn’t help being a bit disappointed, but Xu Yi wasn’t surprised at all.
He had gone to several areas on earth that were being developed, the land there was even more desolate than this. After it was developed, it wouldn’t be long before it became much more lively.
Although this area was very desolate right now, he believed that if he kept investing in it, this place would become much more luxurious.
“Are you Mister Xu Yi and Mister Heinz?” A small and thin old man had appeared at an unknown time.
“Hello Butler Brunei, I am Heinz and this is my partner Xu Yi.” Heinz quickly came forward to greet him, “Xu Yi, this is Viscount Leslie’s butler, Mister Brunei.”
Xu Yi looked over this ordinary looking old man and gave him a bow.
Brunei looked over with his small eyes and looked over Xu Yi. He said with a nod, “Alright, since you are here, then have a proper look. The Lord Viscount has said that although this place is undeveloped land, since it is in his territory, he can’t just give it to people to use. No matter what you want to do in the future, if it’s on this land, you have to tell the Lord Viscount first, understood?”
Looking at this arrogant Brunei, Xu Yi couldn’t help feeling angry and finding this funny.
If this was earth, if someone like him was willing to pay money to rent this undeveloped land, the owner would go wild with happiness.
But on the Sines Continent, Viscount Leslie not only took his money, his butler Brunei was acting this arrogantly. It was like this land wasn’t being rented by Xu Yi, rather it was Viscount Leslie who was gracious enough to let him use it.
Xu Yi naturally couldn’t reveal anything on his face, so he just nodded in agreement. Then he turned to look around the area.
Xu Yi was very satisfied with his inspection. This geological conditions of this land was good and the terrain was rather flat, it was very suitable for building a factory.
The more important thing was that there was a ten meter wide river by this land and there was a small forest on the other side, so it was easy to gather resources and to gather water.
The only problem was that transportation wasn’t too convenient, but Xu Yi had already considered this problem.
Renovating the road to ensure connection was the first thing to do when building a factory or a mine.