Volume 2 Chapter 135: Magic Car
The horse carriage was quickly moving across the Falling Rain Road, carrying Xu Yi and chairman Cruise off to the Falling Rain Valley.
There was another horse carriage with large amounts of cargo following them. Chairman Cruise looked at the horse carriage to the side and looked at the wheels on the road before suddenly saying to Xu Yi, "This road should be expanded."
Xu Yi gave a nod, "That's right, I already considered this matter. When building this road at first, one reason was because there wasn't enough money and two, it was because you didn't have enough experience, so this road was only four meters wide. Looking at it now, it really isn't wide enough. It's best if we widen it again."
"There's no need to widen it that much, I think that just another two meters is enough." Chairman Cruise said.
"No, since it has to be widened, then it should be widened by a bit. After all, it wouldn't just be horse carriages on this road, there will be other kinds of vehicles....."
"Other kinds of vehicles?" Chairman Cruise realized something, "Chairman Xu, I've heard chairman Pompeii say that you would develop a new Magic Car for him within the year that can replace horse carriages and could drastically reduce the cost?"
"I was just comforting him." Xu Yi said in a somewhat helpless voice, "Actually the main part of the Magic Car hasn't been developed yet, so I'm not certain if the Magic Car can be developed in the year. If it wasn't for chairman Pompeii rushing me, I wouldn't have lied to him like this."
Chairman Cruise didn't care if Xu Yi was comforting chairman Pompeii or not, he just cared about the most important thing in Xu Yi's words.
"That means that the Magic Cars are real?"
Xu Yi looked at him, "What do you care about this thing for?"
"Why can't I care about it?" Chairman Cruise immediately asked back, "If that Magic Car can be as good as you described to chairman Pompeii, being able to go forty kilometers an hour, it will definitely replace horse carriages. Moreover, this thing runs so fast, it definitely can't run on those normal broken roads. Since it's like this, it means that the demand for public roads will increase by several times, so it is greatly related to me as the Amrit Chamber of Commerce's chairman."
Xu Yi couldn't help smiling, "You react quite fast. That's right, this Magic Car has a high demand when it comes to road quality, so public roads must become popular for Magic Cars. Your Amrit Chamber of Commerce's road construction business will become even more important."
"Can you tell me when this Magic Car will be developed? Give me an accurate guess so I can expand our road building team ahead of time, so I won't be caught off guard." Chairman Cruise asked.
Xu Yi thought about it before shaking his head, "I can't give you an accurate guess. Doing experiments is something without certainty. For example, there is a researcher called Sancheli in our company who I gave a task to and he hasn't given me any results even after more than a year. But I can only wait patiently because there's no help even if you try to urge these things forward."
"No achievements even after a year?" Chairman Cruise was a bit surprised, "Xu Yi, you really are patient. I think that this fellow is just playing around in your company, right? No matter how hard the research, how could he not have any success even after a whole year."
"No, the thing he's researching isn't normal, it indeed is this difficult." Xu Yi said with a smile, "As long as he can develop this thing, it doesn't matter if I feed him for ten or twenty years. Anyway, my company can afford to raise him."
Chairman Cruise couldn't help shaking his head, "This fellow, I can't not call you a wastrel. But speaking of this, you can't give me an accurate guess, then can you give me a general time? For example, even if you can't do it this year, what about next year? If you can't next year, what about the year after?"
"Eh.....Let me think....." Xu Yi stroked his chin as he considered this. He slightly knit his brows and said with a bitter smile, "Actually I don't even dare say that it can be made this year, so I can't tell you if it will be this year or next year. But I'm certain that even if it isn't developed this year, with the progress they've made, it will definitely be developed next year."
"This means that it should be two years time?"
After receiving Xu Yi's confirmation, chairman Cruise began to quickly calculate.
"Even if it is developed at the end of next year, that is two years time. Adding in the year that it would take to become popular, that is three years. This means that the most time I have is around three years and if it's fast, it should be around a year and a half. Like this....."
Seeing chairman Cruise reach a conclusion, Xu Yi thought about it and said, "Actually before the Magic Cars are developed, don't you still need to quickly expand your road building team? There is demand for roads all over the kingdom and you're severely lacking people, so why do you need to wait for the Magic Cars to come out?"
"That's different." Chairman Cruise shook his head and said, "Before the Magic Cars come out, our company can invest a bit less in building roads, but once the Magic Cars come out, we definitely need to increase our investment. So once this thing appears, it will decide the business plan of our company."
"Then there's no other way, I can only give you a general time and can't give you an accurate time." Xu Yi gave a shrug.
"That is enough. Actually, it's fine as long as you're certain that your company can develop this thing." Chairman Cruise said with a smile, "Many times, just a certain piece of news can affect many things."
"This is something I deeply agree with." Xu Yi nodded as he said with a bitter smile, "For example, chairman Renersa has determined that there are three beastmen tribes that have ideas towards us, so I have no choice but to consider creating a group of guards."
Chairman Cruise looked at Xu Yi and gave up the idea of investing in the non-ferrous metal smelting plant with him. He thought about it before saying, "Actually if you can't do it, I know the leaders of some mercenary groups, so you can hire some mercenaries to be your guards for now."
"That is a last resort. Mercenaries cost too much to hire and they are not people on our side, so it isn't assuring." Xu Yi shook his head.
"Un, that is right. For something easy to use and assuring, it's best to use your company's guards." Chairman Cruise said with an emotional sigh, "Actually I envy your company very much, you can hire dwarves and elves to be your company's guards. They are much stronger compared to normal human guards."
"I don't know if I can even convince them yet." Xu Yi shook his head, "The dwarves and elves can accept working for our company, but that doesn't mean they will be guards for us. This is because that is equal to them coming over to protect humans, so I'm worried that they will not accept it."
Facts proved that Xu Yi's worries weren't groundless.
When the horse carriage carrying the two arrived at the Falling Rain Valley, Xu Yi and chairman Cruise went their separate ways. Chairman Cruise went ahead to Samara to meet with chairman Renersa and Xu Yi went to find chief Siluka and chief Monto in the steel mill who were sweating profusely.
Of course, when he mentioned to the two chiefs that he wanted to create a guard group for the company and he wanted to hire some dwarves to be guards, the two chiefs revealed awkward expressions.
"Sir chairman, this.....Although our brothers are all very willing to work for the company, they are just working for money and being a guard is selling one's life. To sell their lives to humans, I'm afraid many of our brothers aren't willing to do that....." Chief Siluka said in an awkward manner.
Xu Yi turned to chief Monto and chief Monto also shook his head as he said with an awkward look, "Chief Siluka is right. It's fine to work for money, but there are many problems with selling their lives. In the end.....we're different races."
Seeing that Xu Yi's expression was a bit ugly, chief Monto quickly waved his hands and said, "Chairman Xu, chief Siluka and I don't have any other meanings, it's just.....It's just that to have us dwarves sell our lives to you humans, it really sounds quite strange."
Chief Siluka kept nodding, "That's right. When we fought against the reign of the elves thousands of years ago, we dwarves worked together with humans. But us dwarves weren't willing to accept the commands of you humans and weren't willing to sell our lives to the humans, so it'll be hard to tell just based on history."
Xu Yi thought about it before saying with a frown, "Can't you treat being a guard as normal work? I can give the dwarven brothers a wage and I guarantee that it will be higher than the normal workers."
Seeing that Xu Yi wasn't willing to give up, chief Siluka and chief Monto looked at each other before helplessly saying, "Alright then, we will discuss it with the brothers. But chairman, I can't guarantee the brothers will agree. Of course, we will do our best since we've received your care for this long, so we will definitely help you now that you're in trouble."
Xu Yi could only helplessly say, "Alright then, just do your best. Tell the dwarven brothers that this is just normal work and everyone can participate at will, I'm not forcing anyone."
Compared to the dwarves, the elves were famous for being arrogant and looking down on humans.
Xu Yi thought that since he was given the cold shoulder by the dwarves, it would be even more impossible with the elves.
But when he came to the Night Song Tribe with a bit of hope and raised this request to elder Illusia, he was very surprised to receive a positive response.
"Why not?" Elder Illusia looked at Xu Yi's look of disbelief and said with a faint smile, "Although we elves are arrogant, we will always acknowledge facts. When we lost to you humans several thousand years ago, it means that you humans have aspects that are better than us elves. Not to mention that after the clansmen have received the special training from your company, raising their sense of discipline, it's given me hope for a new life. Even if you want them to be guards now, I also feel it would be helpful to them."
Hearing the appraisal of a "new life", Xu Yi became a bit vigilant.
Could it be that the elves want to fight back against the humans and regain control of the continent?
But thinking this, Xu Yi felt that this idea was a bit funny.
The elves couldn't beat the humans when they were at their strongest and now that there were so few of them, it was more impossible for them to fight the humans.
The most important thing was that the elves had a low fertility rate. It was impossible for them to greatly increase their population, so it was impossible for them to threaten the humans.
Thinking of this, Xu Yi relaxed and asked elder Illusia, "Then that means you're willing to let your clansmen become guards for the company?"
Elder Illusia revealed a faint smile, "Of course. Since I decided to let the clansmen put down their useless pride and have them enter your company as workers, denying this new work would be the same as denying everything from before, right? Chairman Xu, the greatest advantage of us elves is that we will finish everything that we've accepted and won't give up halfway."
Seeing elder Illusia's face that seemed to be glowing, Xu Yi silently said a few words in his heart.
"This advantage, if the view was changed could be considered stubborn."