Ch 10. A Land for Lease

A horse carriage exits slowly from the Eastern gate of Stadtspire City, then slowly picks up speed, and speeds towards the outskirts.

In the carriage, Xuyi and Heinze sits facing each other. Heinze's holds up a crudely made map of the Stadtspire City, explaining something to Xuyi.

"Look here, this huge piece of land is the county of Viscount Lesley, nearly 1000 hectares, half of them is uncultivated land. Viscount Lesley has agreed, that we can select any lot of land for leasing."

After giving the map a glance through, he taps on the map, "No need to look at other landlots, I will lease this piece here."

"Here?" Heinze observed the area Xuyi pointed, and frowns: "This place is not the closest land from Stadtspire City, plus there is nothing near there, living there will be rather inconvenient."

Xuyi replies nonchalantly, "All the better. It will be easier to plan the layout of our factory on a blank slate."

"But wouldn't our expense will be higher?" says Heinze still worried.

"This initial investment will pay itself off later on." He then draws a bigger circle on the map. "As the matter of fact, I even want to lease this entire area of wasteland, if possible."

"The entire area?" Heinze smacks his tongue: "No way. Just one hectare will cost us 100 gold a year, if you lease this much land...our yearly rent will be a few thousand gold, maybe even nearing ten thousand gold. Moreover, we only need a small scale factory, why do you need so much land for?"

"Heinze, will you be satisfied with opening just a small magitech fan workshop?"

Heinze looks at Xuyi in shock. What wild schemes has Xuyi planned?

Yesterday, Xuyi came to his shop, and told him he don't need to find a workshop anymore, because Xuyi has found an empty land in the outskirts, and plans to build an entire factory from scratch to manufacture magitech fans on a large scale.

Xuyi has hired Alex, Heinze's nephew to conduct a market survey, and based on the survey findings, Xuyi's initial estimate of the demand for magitech fans are between 3000 and 5000 units. Up till now, they have sold less than 500 units, so they still have a market of a few thousand magitech fans.

Besides, this estimate is confined in Stadtspire City alone. Even when the many villages in the city outskirts have less demand, but the amount is still considerable.

If he further includes the neighbouring cities, Xuyi boldly estimates the total demand for magitech fans will exceed ten thousand units!

When he see the numbers, Xuyi is resolved to further expand his production capacity.

To ensure unhindered expansion, Xuyi decides to forgo renting a warehouse in the city and shifted his attention to the city outskirts, and build a factory there.

After some he finally set his eyes on the uncultivated land on Viscount Lesley's estate.

Of course, to expand production capacity, venue aside, the manpower is actually more important.

Xuyi looks down at the stack of documents in his hands. And bares a smile. Half of the documents are thirty personal biodata, the other half are thirty contracts. These are his yield after a trip to the Baron Victor's Wizardry Academy.

Through his hardwork of persuasion, Hilman finally permits Xuyi to recruit the students of the academy to work for him, but Hilman did say that he will not publicly support it, just will not disapprove.

After going around the school asking the students class after class, he finally manages to enlist thirty students who fit his requirements.

These students' wizardry prowess is not as high as Xuyi's. But as students of the prestigious Baron Victor's Wizardry Academy, their Sigils basic knowledge is still quite strong, and have a good grasp of Sigil drawing techniques.

While the sigil used in magitech fans are intricately designed, it is still a rudimentary Wind-type sigil, so the difficulty to reproduce it is not especially high.

And the students he has employed will solely be responsible for the reproduction of sigils. Although this work is repetitive and monotonous, but it still requires a wizard who is sufficiently proficient in sigil drawing techniques.

Previously, when producing the 500 magitech fans, he has gotten some temporary help from his colleagues. However, with his new target production of up to 10,000 units, it is impossible to accomplish with such little help.

As a comparison, the thirty wizardry students will suit the job better than his ten colleagues.

Firstly, the thrity students are not conservative wizards unlike his ten colleagues, and has signed employment contracts with Xuyi without the slightest hesitation. This establishes an employment relationship with the students, and will greatly reduce uncertainty in production.

Secondly, the labour cost of the first 500 magitech fans is 5 gold paid per colleague and a bonus of one magitech fan (equivalant to 2 gold). This totals to 70 gold, and averages at 14 silver per sigil (ignoring defects). As to these students, they have settled in advanced on the pay of 2 silver per sigil. This greatly lowers labour cost.

Actually when Xuyi offered this pay, he was worried that the student will find it too low. But on the contrary, when they heard the pay, the students were very excited, and even praised Xuyi for being generous.

And last but not least, these students' have not formed their prejudice towards nondestructive wizardry, unlike his colleagues who hold firmly to the traditional views of wizardry.

Xuyi can also teach them his mechanical knowledge from scratch. And if any of them has talent for machinery, then that student will be his most valuable wealth.

If more and more wizards are gets onto the magitech industry, then Xuyi's dream of a complete industrial system will be realised.

The carriage jolts abruptly, and jolts Xuyi off his seat, waking him from his daydream of his future.

"We're almost there." Heinze reminds Xuyi.

Xuyi draws back the curtains and looks out the window to find that the carriage has left behind the main road onto a countryside dirt road, which is very uneven and is covered with potholes.

"This road is in terrible condition."

Heinze answers with a wry smile: "As it should be, this road leads to an uninhabited area, even having this wide enough road for a horse-carriage is already very unusual.

"This will not do. Heinze, suppose I want to pave a road extending from the main road to  the land we are about to lease, how much would it cost?"

"Pave a road?" Heinze looks down at the map and after estimating the distance, he replied: "It is not going to be cheap. Just leveling off the road will cost us a few hundred gold." After a pause he can't help adding: "Even when the road is uneven, but it is still good enough for a carriage, why do we need to waste our funds on building roads?"

Xuyi shakes his head: "No, we must pave this road. Magitech fans do not contain much fragile components, so do not have high shipping requirements. But our following product line will contain more precision components, with the current road condition, it will easily get broken while being transported."

Heinze finds that he could not understand what Xuyi said, with all the "fragile components", "product line", and "precision components". He knows the words individually but he never heard them being paired up. So while he wants to go on debating with Xuyi, but finds himself stuttering.

But when he realises that Xuyi is taking the lead of their partnership, and Heinze has little say in this venture, he chooses to just stay silent.

After a short bumpy ride, the carriage gradually slows down to a halt.

Xuyi and Heinze board down the carriage, while surveying their surroundings, they find that it is indeed a wasteland, the surrounding land has nothing except unsightly patches of weed.

Seeing what a desolate place this is, Heinze couldn't help feeling disappointed, but Xuyi sees nothing unexpected.

Back on Earth he had been to countless industrial areas under construction for inpections, and the industrial sites are much more barren than what he sees now. But after construction and some landscaping, it transformed into a bustling industrial park.

Although this place looks barren now, with continual developing and investment, sooner or later this place will turn into a prosperous town.

"May I know if you are Mr Xuyi and Mr Heinze?" a thin and small built man comes out of no where.

"Good day to you Mr. Wensley, I am Heinze and this is my business partner Xuyi." Heinze promptly steps forward to greet him. "Xuyi, this is Lord Lesley's personal steward, Mr. Wensley."

Xuyi looks at this old man, and perform a salutations towards him.

Wensley rolls his eyes, sizes Xuyi up, and nodded his head. "Since you have come, you should take a good look. The Lord Lesley has spoken, although His Lordship has not decided to cultivate the land, but it is still within the rule of His Lordship's county, so any plans you have you must be carried out only with His Lordship's consent, is it understood?"

Seeing the butler assuming an air of superiority, Xuyi couldn't help feeling annoyed and amused at the same tine.

If this were back at Earth, when a developer like himself is willing to invest on a barren land like this one, the land owner would be thrilled to bits.

But here, even if Xuyi is a paying leasee, yet His Lordship's butler still assumes such a lofty air, as if the land is lent in benovelence to some needy beggar.

Xuyi does not let his thoughts show, and just nodded his acknowledgement, and goes about surveying this land he has prospected.

The surveyance results is highly satisfactory: the land is in good condition, the terrain is level; suitable for building his factory.

More importantly, the land is next to a river, and beyond the river is a small woods, convenient for supply of both wood and water.

The only inadequacy is that the road condition is inconvenient for transportation, which requires Xuyi's careful considerations.

Ensuring smooth and unobstructed transportation is top priority when selecting the location of an industrial site.