Volume 2 Chapter 100 Vanilla Orchid Suburb
Seveni had come to Banta City many times this year, but other than the first time, she had only stayed a few days each time before leaving.
This time wasn’t an exception.
After discussing this issue with Xu Yi with MacConley and Sah’rhee for three days, Seveni and the two left Banta City together.
There was no official conclusion to the discussion this time because for Xu Yi’s proposed conditions, although Seveni had never directly rejected again, she had never shown that she would agree.
But Xu Yi was actually very generous. Although Seveni hadn’t agreed to the condition he put forth, he still guaranteed Seveni that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce would follow the contract they signed before and deliver the magic production machines the army headquarter factory would need. At the same time, on the day before Seveni’s group left, he had prepared the slave contracts and signed the contract to transfer them to Seveni.
After the contract was signed, the slaves that would work at the weapon factory would be the property of Seveni.
Xu Yi had done this so quickly that it made Seveni and MacConley feel a bit embarrassed.
If it wasn’t for the fact that they really couldn’t agree to Xu Yi’s condition, Seveni and MacConley wouldn’t have hesitated a bit to sign the contract.
Actually, what Seveni and MacConley didn’t know was that Xu Yi had never expected them to agree to this to begin with.
Based on what Xu Yi knew, not only was all the iron ore in the Lampuri Kingdom controlled by the Jole Family, according to the contract between the first king and the Jole Family, even when the royal army expanded the territory of the Lampuri Kingdom, the mining rights of the domain that they obtained for the kingdom would belong to the Jole Family.
So even if Seveni and MacConley wanted to accept Xu YI’s conditions, they couldn’t avoid the Jole Family.
But Xu Yi had proposed this condition that he knew was impossible for them to accept. To put it bluntly, he was asking a high price to make it easier to negotiate.
Seveni and MacConley didn’t agree to Xu Yi’s condition because the condition included the iron ore, which meant that the Jole family would interfere.
But Xu Yi had mentioned all ores and all ores was not just iron ores, but also non-ferrous metal ores.
Although the Jole Family controlled all the iron mines and under the tacit understanding of the king, controlling all the copper mines, the other non-ferrous metals weren’t important on the Sines Continent, so naturally the Jole Family didn’t care about them.
If Xu Yi wanted the non-ferrous metal mining rights or even the right to control them, he wouldn’t be met with that much resistance.
Of course, to mine ores under the Jole Family’s eyes in the Lampuri Kingdom, naturally they would be met with all kinds of trouble. So even if Xu Yi had the ore distribution map that the five dwarves had made, his first goal was still the non-ferrous veins in the Black Rice Wasteland.
His second goal was placed on the veins outside the country.
Actually the Lampuri Kingdom and the Sack Kingdom had been disputing over the northern border the entire time, with both sides pushing and retreating. After all these years, neither side had really controlled that area, so there was no need to mention either side turning it into their territory.
So for the condition that Xu Yi raised, Seveni’s group carefully considered it and found that it was no different from empty talk.
So while the three of them were strongly opposed to Xu Yi’s suggestion in the beginning, they showed that there was room for discussion, but they needed to head back and carefully consider it first.
This result was what Xu Yi expected and also what he had already planned for.
His goal wasn’t to reach a decision at once, rather it was to use these conditions to make the royal army place the Frestech Chamber of Commerce into their consideration. If there was anything like this in the future, they would consider Xu Yi and the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
So when he sent off Seveni’s group, Seveni’s group all had smiles from Xu Yi’s quick response. Xu Yi also didn’t feel a bit of loss and revealed a bright smile.
Watching Seveni’s group leave, Kennard who had come to send them off whispered to Xu Yi, “Chairman, what do you think of her highness?”
Xu Yi was a bit surprised, “What do you mean?”
“Just that…..do you feel her highness……Un, is a person worth following?” Kennard said in broken words.
Xu Yi looked at Kennard’s unnatural expression and revealed a faint smile, “I don’t know if she is worth following, but with my current understanding of her highness, she is a person with the same ideals as me. We want to improve the lives of the kingdom’s people with our abilities, so we move forward in the same direction. I think that as long as her highness doesn’t change her ideals, I will support her.”
Kennard didn’t think that Xu Yi would answer so clearly, so he looked at Xu Yi in shock for a bit. He nodded with a serious expression and said, “I also have the same pursuits, so I will work hard to help you, chairman.”
Xu Yi laughed and waved his hand, “Alright, we are people who prove ourselves with deeds, let’s not talk empty words. You said that you will work hard to help me, but what about the wage structure plan? It’s been more than half a month, it’s almost three half months and I still haven’t seen the plan yet. You’re still saying you’re working hard?”
Kennard immediately said with a bitter look, “Chairman, you can’t blame me. I was almost done and had prepared the plan, but I never thought that Great Magician Camilla would make such a shocking decision. It caused the employees of our company to greatly change and wasted all the data I had collected.”
“Then when will you be able to hand the plan to me?” Xu Yi asked without giving up.
“That…..” Kennard thought for a bit before saying with a sigh, “Because the company has recruited large amounts of magicians that can draw Magic Arrays and with the increase in orders, we have also recruited more workers to increase production, it will take some time to complete the wage data. As for when exactly…..I can’t say right now.”
“Shouldn’t you give me a general time at least?” Xu Yi said, “Moreover, we don’t need to wait until after the workers are recruited to make the wage adjustment. We should determine the standard wage before recruiting workers and use the standard right away after hiring the workers.”
“Un, I was thinking the same, so I’ve been taking care of this during the past few days.” Kennard took a breath before confidently saying, “Give me ten days, I will definitely have the plan prepared.”
“That’s more like it.” Xu Yi gave a satisfied nod.
“But chairman, I can take care of the wages of others, but there is one person I can’t take care of.” Kennard added.
“Un? Can’t take care of? Are you talking about yourself?” Xu Yi asked in a surprised voice.
“How could I match the old man, I’m talking about Great Magician Camilla.” Kennard said, “Chairman, you said that he would be a top grade researcher, so how should I set the standard wage for him?”
Xu Yi knit his brows and said with a bitter smile, “I don’t know the answer either. Last time I asked the old man how he should be paid and he just said that I should take care of it, he didn’t care. After carefully considering it, I found that it is a very serious problem. It wouldn’t be good to make it too low and it would be off to put it too high, which would destroy the confidence of the other researchers.”
“How about this, we won’t set Great Magician Camilla’s salary too high, but with the reward system of the magic research facility, his excellency Great Magician will definitely earn quite a bit of rewards. How about we increase the reward amount, which not only indirectly raises his excellency Great Magician’s salary, but also increases enthusiasm for the other researchers?” Kennard suggested.
“This is a good idea. Alright, carefully look this over when you head back and decide what is the most appropriate amount.” Xu YI waved his hand, ending this conversation.
Seeing Kennard writing things down in his little book, Xu Yi couldn’t help feeling a bit pleased.
Before Kennard came, he had to personally take care of many things for the Frestech Chamber of Commerce. Now that Kennard was his general manager, he just had to take care of the large things and give Kennard his thoughts to let him take care of it.
Although he had only been in the Frestech Chamber of Commerce for less than two months, Kennard had already displayed his excellent skills.
With the Frestech Chamber of Commerce being managed by him, everything was running much more smoothly and efficiency had increased compared to before.
Xu Yi even felt that he was a treasure that fell from the heavens, often worrying that he would suddenly leave. The Frestech Chamber of Commerce would have no one to take over and might collapse from this.
Kennard didn’t know that while he was writing, quite a few thoughts had passed through Xu Yi’s head. After writing down everything, he looked at the sky and said to Xu Yi, “Chairman, the opening ceremony for the Vanilla Orchid Suburb is about to begin, we should head over.”
Xu Yi looked up to see the sun at a slight angle over his head and gave a nod. He called the prepared horse carriage and headed to the southwest of Banta City.
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The so-called Vanilla Orchid Suburb was the living area that contained the apartments that Great Magician Camilla mentioned before.
To be simple, it was a suburb.
According to the Banta City renovation plan that Xu Yi discussed with Count Sean, the first step was renovating the outskirts of Banta City.
In the first phase of the plan, Mildan Village that Great Magician Camilla and Still came from was included in the three villages that would be demolished.
This Vanilla Orchid Suburb was the prepared housing for the villagers of those three villages.
Speaking of apartments, it made people think of the apartments that were all over China back on earth.
They gave people the impression that they were of bad quality and had bad environments, with all kinds of shortcomings, making the villagers who were forced to move very unwilling.
But this Vanilla Orchid Residential Area’s apartments were completely different.
The quality of life for the people of the Sines Continent wasn’t high and it was even lower for the people of the Lampuri Kingdom who had just recovered from the kingdom’s turmoil.
For a normal village outside Banta City like Mildan Village, the villagers all lived in small log houses that were made from rotten wood, or stone houses that were made from soil mixed with stone.
There was no need to mention the quality of those two kinds of houses, they couldn’t even achieve the most basic function of keeping out the cold. If there was a slightly large rain storm, the houses would leak all over.
Living in these kinds of houses, the living standards of these villagers could be considered miserable for Xu Yi.
This Vanilla Orchid Residential Area was built by the Amrit Chamber of Commerce with financial support from Xu Yi. All the houses in the community were built with reinforced concrete beams and walls made from a mix of cement, so it was very firm and steady.
After it was built, the outside of the houses were coated in a layer of white lime that made the houses look pure white. The houses were designed by a specialist of the Amrit Chamber of Commerce, so they looked very elegant. It was simply the best quality housing.
Not to mention that outside the buildings, Xu Yi had the elves of his company help out, spending some time planting around the neighbourhood.
After it was built, the neighbourhood had beautiful rows of two story buildings lined together with all kinds of strange plants that people of Banta City didn’t recognize. The greenery provided shade and there was even a slight fragrance in the air, making it seem like a paradise on earth.
After seeing these apartments, all the worries that the villagers from the three villages had about moving were completely wiped away.
After seeing the apartments, there were some villagers who weren’t scheduled to move that asked to be moved.
Faced with this, Xu Yi could only sigh in his heart.
The poor had the advantages of being poor.
