Hearing this question, Xu Yi’s smile disappeared. After thinking for a bit, he replied, “It’s already been basically determined. Elder Illusia, have you taken care of choosing the people from your side?”
“Un, I’ve already picked a small team of ten people. They will set out with you when the time comes, I hope that you can make arrangements for them.”
“That’s easy, bring them over and I’ll take them to meet Narvil. Narvil is the commander in chief of this sea exploration, so he will take care of everything.”
“Alright.” Elder Illusia gave a nod before saying to Xu Yi with a smile, “Chairman Xu, our Night Song Tribe has received your help over all these years and we can’t repay you for everything, so it really is a bit embarrassing.”
Xu Yi was surprised before his eyes opened wide in disbelief. He looked at elder Illusia and then he carefully looked over her a few more times.
Elder Illusia felt weird being looked at like this by him and couldn’t help asking, “Chairman Xu, did I say something wrong?”
“No……It’s not wrong……Only……” Xu Yi’s expression became very strange, “Elder Illusia, this is only standard pleasantries among us humans, but when you say it, I really feel that it is a bit strange……”
“Pleasantries?” Elder Illusia shook her head, “This isn’t just pleasantries, but words that come from the bottom of my heart. Our elf race advocates balance and nature, so if we keep receiving someone’s kindness without being able to repay it, it will make me feel very awkward.”
Xu Yi was helpless as he put his hand to his face before waving his hand, “Alright, elder Illusia, it’s better if you’re not this serious. I have discussed this with you a long time ago, I chose to help your Night Song Tribe to integrate the elves into the magic machine industry. After all these years, you have developed so well and have become an irreplaceable part of the magic machine industry. To me, this is already enough. As for any other repayment…..do you think I’m lacking anything?”
Elder Illusia tilted her head to think before helplessly shaking it, “You don’t lack the things that we have, which is the main question of how we can’t repay you.”
“Alright, let’s not talk about this.” Xu Yi waved his hand with a smile, deciding to end this topic.
He was clear on the stubborn nature of the elves and if he really kept discussing this with elder Illusia, she might really have some kind of idea.
“If we really need to talk about it, I’m actually curious why you’re insisting on sending these elves to participate in the open sea exploration trip this time.” Xu Yi thought about it and said, “This is our company’s first exploration trip and there are many unknown dangers. If we send people rashly, they might be lost.”
This was indeed the question that Xu Yi had been pondering during this time.
After learning that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce was planning on sending out a deep sea exploration fleet, not only elder Illusia, but even elder Lisanya and elder Undine had said that they wanted to send people from the Moon Shadow Tribe and the Azshara Tribe respectively.
Xu Yi was very curious about this. He didn’t know why these three elf tribes were this passionate about the deep sea exploration.
If it was the halfling Lumi who was so excited that she couldn’t sleep for several days after hearing about Xu Yi deciding to organize this deep sea exploration fleet, that made sense since she had always been hoping to find her clansmen who were rumoured to have gone to another continent.
But the elves weren\\\'t a race that had left the Sines Continent, so why were they so passionate?”
“We just want to verify something.” Elder Illusia revealed a smile as she gave this vague answer, clearly not wanting to explain this further.
Xu Yi knitted his brows. He knew that if elder Illusia wasn’t willing to talk about this, he wouldn’t get an answer no matter how he asked, so he just gave up.
Anyway, the open sea exploration fleet had five large transport Magic Ships with fifteen guard ships, so having several dozen extra elves wouldn’t affect anything.
Compared to this, Xu Yi placed great importance on the open sea exploration trip itself.
There were many rumours on the Sines Continent and Xu Yi was certain that the planet underneath his feet wouldn’t only have a single continent, there should be other continents out there.
If he could find these continents, it would further develop Xu Yi’s understanding of this world.
Other than satisfying his demand for exploring, the more meaningful thing was more lands meant more resources, as well as more population that he could pull into his magic machine industry.
Building a complete magic machine industry didn’t just take time, it also took a lot of manpower.
If he could get more people involved, it would naturally develop even faster.
Other than that, considering it from a more realistic perspective, the Sines Continent was more or less stable and the land had been taken by the various countries, so the resources were being controlled by them.
Although the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had relied on their advantageous position in the magic machine industry to build good cooperation relationships with most of these countries, enabling them to gain large amounts of resources to support their own development.
If they couldn’t control these resources, they weren’t reliable in the end.
Although Xu Yi could do what Seveni had suggested before, constantly declaring war to get more resources and land for the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, while the Frestech Chamber of Commerce was strong enough that no country wanted to attack them, it wasn’t enough for them to attack other countries.
In the end, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce was only a company and not a country.
For the Frestech Chamber of Commerce guards, it wasn’t hard to rout the army of a country, but to completely occupy a country was something that was close to impossible.
So in this situation, exploring more lands and finding more resources was one of the best choices.
Actually, Xu Yi already had this idea when he first met Lumi and confirmed that there wasn’t just a single continent in this world, but it took several years of accumulation and preparation to prepare a fleet that could do this, to allow him to officially start exploring the open seas.
It wasn’t only Lumi who was so excited that she couldn’t control herself, Xu Yi was also excited.
Because this was simply the equivalent of opening the era of open sea exploration!
###
Half a month later, after half a year of preparations, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s fleet finally set sail.
For such a meaningful matter, all the major newspapers on the Sines Continent had written detailed reports.
All the newspapers had the same shocking view on this matter.
The Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s open sea exploration trip this time might be a large matter that would change the history of the Sines Continent.
Before this, the Sines Continent had made rumours that there was another continent, but it had never been confirmed.
If the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s open sea exploration fleet could really find another continent, not only would it prove this fact, it would change the world view of everyone on the Sines Continent.
Before this, the people of the Sines Continent all thought that there was only one continent in this world, as well as endless seas.
Even if there were some islands in the surrounding endless seas, they weren’t worth mentioning when compared to the Sines Continent, so the Sines Continent had been considered the center of this world.
But if the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s open sea exploration fleet found another continent, wouldn’t that mean that the Sines Continent wasn’t the only continent and not the center of this world?
Facing this possibility, people were expectant and worried.
They were expectant since they wanted to find another continent, finding legendary beings existing on that continent, as well as finding the halflings that had lived on this continent that had disappeared.
They were worried because if this Sines Continent wasn’t the center of the world, where would be the center of the world?
The Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s open sea exploration fleet left the harbour of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s main base with countless people’s attention, heading off towards the western endless seas.
According to Xu Yi’s years of observations and calculations, he could tell that the stars in the skies above the Sines Continent were the same as the ones on earth, so the radius of the planet was around the same, so the basic geographic knowledge from earth could apply here.
Then with the fleet’s speed of over five hundred kilometers a day, if everything went smoothly, they would only need three months to go around the planet.
Of course, the maiden voyage wouldn’t be that smooth, so Xu Yi gave them an estimate of a year.
But that didn’t mean that Xu Yi wasn’t confident in them, rather he was very confident that this voyage would be a success.
After all, when Magellan on earth set off on his first voyage, he was only on a worn down wooden boat, which was much worse than this open sea exploration fleet.
Magellan could do it with this boat, so it was impossible that this voyage wouldn’t go smoothly.
His only worry was that if they did find the other continent, there might be some accidents waiting there.
But Xu Yi threw these worries to the back of his mind as he watched the fleet disappear on the horizon.
The fleet had already set sail, so he couldn’t do anything about this.
Rather, what he should focus on was the Magic Machine Industry Standard Setting Conference that was coming up.
