Volume 1 Chapter 7 - No foundation

Volume 1 Chapter 7 No foundation
“One thousand?” Heinz’s voice instantly disappeared and he looked at Lewis in shock. He never expected that this fellow would actually give such a large number in a single breath.
Lewis revealed a faint smile, “What? You can’t do it?”
“Of course……” Heinz wanted to answer, but suddenly remembered that he didn’t have any decision in this matter. He quickly looked over at Xu Yi, signaling to him with his eyes, hoping that he would quickly agree to this.
What a joke! A thousand Magic Fans, based on the price of two gold coins, that was an entire two thousand gold coins!
Based on the 10% commission, he would earn two hundred gold coins just based on this one deal!
However, Heinz had another thought. If this Lewis directly looked for Xu Yi to make the order, he wasn’t involved in this matter at all, so of course he wouldn’t be able to take a commission.
Thinking of this, Heinz couldn’t help struggling between gains and losses.
Seeing Heinz’s reaction, Lewis instantly understood. The one with the power to make this decision was Xu Yi, this normal looking black haired youth, so he looked over at Xu Yi.
Xu Yi was thinking of something else. He slightly knit his brows and considered it for a bit before shaking his head in front of Heinz’s expectant eyes.
“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I can’t take this order.”
Lewis and Heinz were stunned. Lewis asked with a frown, “Why? Are you afraid that I can’t pay? If it’s like this, I can leave a deposit right now.” He took out a special looking light gold paper from his chest after saying this, “This is the Chimera Chamber of Commerce’s gold note, it can be used on the entire continent and it has a face value of one thousand gold coins. You can look it over.”
“Chimera Chamber of Commerce’s gold note!” Heinz couldn’t help calling out in shock.
The Chimera Chamber of Commerce was the Sines Continent’s largest chamber of commerce. It’s said that there are two large empires behind them, one of them being the Candra Empire’s royal family, who were incredibly strong. So, the gold notes they issued were common currency on the Sines Continent.
This middle aged man could actually casually take out a Chimera Chamber of Commerce’s gold note worth a thousand gold coins, it could be seen that he was quite rich. It was something that a trivial general store owner like Heinz was far from being able to compare to.
“That is not the reason.” Xu Yi was still unmoved, “I cannot accept your order mainly because of reasons with my side. This is because I cannot guarantee that I can manufacture one thousand Magic Fans in a short period of time and even if I force myself to finish, I can’t guarantee their quality.”
“Quality?” Lewis looked at Xu Yi with a bit of surprise, like he had found something interesting. His lips curled into a trace of a smile, “Then Mister Xu Yi, if I were to increase the price a bit, say two gold coins and ten silver coins per Magic Fan, what would you think?”
Heinz’s heart skipped a beat.
Adding ten gold coins per Magic Fan, although it didn’t seem like much, it was a full one hundred gold coins for a thousand fans!
Not to mention that according to the normal rules of business, when a large amount was ordered like Lewis was doing, it was normal to give a discount. Lewis right now was actually taking the initiative to increase the price, so his sincerity could be seen.
However, Xu Yi firmly shook his head, “Sorry, this is unrelated to price. The quality of the product is very important. If it can’t be ensured, a disaster could occur and I’m not willing to see that happen.”
“Disaster?” Lewis knit his brows, as if not understanding what Xu Yi meant.
Xu Yi revealed a smile, but he didn’t plan on replying.
It was not uncommon for problems caused by quality issues on earth, so he didn’t want to see this kind of problem appearing on the Sines Continent.
Perhaps it was impossible to avoid all the problems, but he would do his best.
This was a basic principle as a mechanical engineering master.
Seeing how firm Xu Yi was, Lewis let out a sigh. He took back the gold note, but took out another piece of paper of a different colour that also looked quite special to give to Xu Yi.
“Mister Xu Yi, meeting you is a happy occasion. This is my name card, please accept it.”
Xu Yi took the name card and looked over it. He noticed that there was only a name and a simple address on it, there was no other information on it at all.
This address was in the Lampuri Kingdom’s capital city, Anvilmar, but as for exactly where it was, Xu Yi didn’t know.
Although he had lived in the Lampuri Kingdom for three years now, he had never gone to Anvilmar once.
“If you ever change your mind, you can find me at that address at any time. Perhaps you will have something as novel as the Magic Fan in the future, I hope you can think of me first. I believe that we will definitely have a chance to cooperate in the future.”
Although this Lewis had an astute feeling coming from him that Xu Yi didn’t really like, whether it was his actions or his words, they made people unable to hate him. So, Xu Yi nodded, showing that he understood.
After Lewis left, Heinz took the name card from Xu Yi’s hand. After taking a glance, he called out in shock, “It’s actually Sloan Street! My god! He must be an incredible famous person!”
“Oh?” Xu Yi looked at Heinz with a curious gaze.
“You don’t know?” Heinz seemed to be very surprised with Xu Yi that he didn’t know about Sloan Street, “Sloan Street is where the large noble families of Anvilmar live. That Lewis wants you to go there to contact him, that means that he is definitely an important person who lives there!”
Xu Yi revealed a smile, not caring at all. It didn’t matter if this Lewis was an important character, he didn’t have a relationship with him right now.
What he needed to care about right now was not this. Although he had earned a profit of over four hundred gold coins from this first batch of Magic Fans and could be considered rich, that was only the first step. If he wanted to continue earning more profit, there were still many things he needed to do.
He didn’t accept Lewis’ order just now was because of the reason he mentioned. He couldn’t guarantee the production line of the Magic Fans.
The entire Magic Fan production line was him connecting the blacksmith and his coworkers together, it was in fact a non-standard production line. Because of this, any problem that occurred could affect production.
The biggest problem was the ten coworkers who were in charge of the Magic Array at the core of the Magic Fan.
The ten coworkers who had received the benefits of working with Xu Yi for a week, as long as Xu Yi continued to give them the same rewards, they would happily draw more Magic Arrays for him. However, this kind of cooperation was not stable, it could be cut off at any time by any sudden reasons that occur.
But when Xu Yi took out a contract in hopes of employing them, all of the coworkers rejected him without any exception.
Although they didn’t say anything, Xu Yi was very clear on the reason why they rejected him. It was completely because of their modesty and pride as magicians.
They didn’t have any problem helping Xu Yi draw a few Magic Arrays, it could be considered some extra income in their spare time.
But if it was signing a contract, to them, that meant becoming Xu Yi’s employee. To these magicians that were normally filled with pride, this was a very hard thing for them to accept.
Although Magic Fans had the word magic in their name and was related to magic, the Sines Continent didn’t focus on the application of magic. This work was no different from being a normal artisan, so naturally magicians would look down on it.
Other than that, the blacksmith shop’s side didn’t let Xu Yi feel assured.
Even if Xu Yi drew extensive blueprints when ordering the Magic Fan outer covers and labeled each part with careful details, there were still many parts of the outer cover that did not meet Xu Yi’s requirements.
If it wasn’t for the fact the technological requirement of the Magic Fan was not too serious, Xu Yi would have returned all these defective products and had them remake them.
Of course Xu Yi was very clear that this was him making excessive demands.
As a high level mechanical engineer from earth, Xu Yi was used to high tech machines from earth that didn’t differ from the requirements by even a single millimeter. But this was the Sines Continent, a mechanical world that had no foundations in technology at all. If he wanted to reach the same level of technology as on earth, that was of course a fool’s dream.
“Ai, such serious responsibilities.” Thinking of the problems that he faced, Xu Yi couldn’t help letting out a long sigh.
The next day, Xu YI went to the Magic Tower for work like normal.
Xu Yi’s status in the research laboratory was different compared to before. Although his magical power wasn’t any stronger, at least the ten coworkers that had worked with him and gained quite a bit of benefit from him were much more friendly to him compared to before.
When he walked into the lab, there were more people that greeted him.
Xu Yi responded to them with a smile. When he sat down in his spot, Wella suddenly came up from beside him and slapped the Magic Array blueprint in front of Xu Yi.
“Xu Yi, I have already thoroughly studied your Magic Array!”
Xu Yi looked up in a surprised manner, seeing that there was a very proud look on Wella’s face. He looked back down at the Magic Array blueprint on the table and noticed that it was the core Magic Array of the Magic Fans, the Revolving Wind Array.
But Wella had made put several notes on the blueprint, commenting on almost every node.
It was like Wella had said, based on the blueprint, she had thoroughly studied this Magic Array. Each annotation was very detailed and very easy to understand.
Even if it was someone who had just come in contact with magic, if they looked at this blueprint, they would completely understand all the changes Xu Yi had made to this Revolving Wind Array.
Xu Yi looked over it and felt his eyes cross. He suddenly looked up at Wella, “Hei, Wella, you really are good!”
Wella gave a soft snort and revealed a look of pride.
“But this is just a low level array, it’s not that hard to study it.”
Xu Yi laughed, obviously he wouldn’t fall for the obvious hole in Wella’s words. He raised the blueprint and asked, “Can you sell this blueprint to me?”
Wella was stunned, “What are you buying it for? Didn’t you make this array?”
Xu Yi gave a shrug, “I was just honoured that someone would make such detailed annotations to this array, so I wanted to take back this blueprint. How about it? Will you sell it to me? Give me a price.”
Wella looked at Xu Yi in surprise before casually waving her hand, “At least you know quality. Forget it, I’m not as blinded by money as you, a broken fan actually costs two gold coins. This blueprint isn’t worth anything, I’ll give it to you.”
Xu Yi laughed, “Then I’ll have to thank you.”
After saying this, he didn’t hesitate to put away the blueprint.
He really wanted to thank Wella. With this blueprint, it helped him solve a large problem.
If he wanted to teach people how to make this Magic Array in the future, he didn’t need to guide them that closely. He just needed to let them see this blueprint and they would understand most of it. It really saved him quite a bit of effort.
When he was about to focus on his work, the doors to the lab suddenly opened. Still quickly walked in and looked around the lab before her gaze locked onto Xu Yu.
“Xu Yi, come with me. Grandfather wants to see you.”