Chapter 2176: Caravan Tours

The caravan entered the town, immediately ending up in a bustling, welcoming plaza. They were asked to store their beasts in specific areas, and they shifted to another mode of transport.

It was called a bike. They had seen this before, as Alterra had begun to export this item about a few months back, and it had already made an appearance (according to his companions) back when Otto was still a resident of Bleulle.

Their large group went to the Transport Terminal to rent a few cars for their own group. The others would do the same, possibly looking for other drivers in the terminal directly.

This caravan was composed of dozens of different groups, so they naturally had different destinations. The main party simply mentioned their return date.

Whether the other groups wanted to join or if they wanted to prolong their stay would be up to the groups themselves.

Laizon was with Ruto and a dozen other people, so they had to take the broat van so one car could fit all of them. Their driver was a middle-aged man with a friendly expression on his face.

Terrans generally adopted a hospitable service attitude practiced in Terran, which was another reason why foreigners loved spending money there.

"Is there a specific place or person you hope to see? If not, would you like to simply explore? We have a few routes you can choose from~"

Laizon did not speak, but Ruto did, indicating the route they wanted, which was to see as much of the town as possible in a short period of time. It so happened that there was indeed an ’overview route,’ but of course, it only covered areas accessible by bicycle.

As they traveled, many of them had to fight themselves to keep their cool.

They were from a city, so they did not act like country bumpkins. Rather, they refused to act like country bumpkins. They certainly didn’t imagine they would ever do so.

Along the way, they saw a lot of things that tickled their curiosity. They were from cities and should have ’seen the world’ but here, they realized that it wasn’t necessarily true.

Even the shops along the avenues and the streets were interesting to them.

One of the stops was the market street. Along the way, they saw various interesting shops, some with unique features or products. With the free market competition in Alterra, people strived to innovate continuously. Otherwise, they might get left behind by their competitors.

While the ’old’ products would still be very advanced in the eyes of aborigines, they lived in Alterra and had Alterran roots, so they naturally aim to excel in their home. Alterra, in many industries, had become a well-known gold standard, and rightfully so.

Other than competition, there were plenty of regulatory committees in place, making sure that subpar products wouldn’t sell for a premium.

Cheaper versions were allowed to circulate, but they had to be upfront and could not be sold at the same price as the decent ones. After all, many people were not rich or were frugal. They were perfectly fine with purchasing ’knock offs’ of lower quality—as long as they worked for a time, and as long as they paid their money’s worth.

Further, these knock-offs might still be considered good in the standard of other places, so many merchants opt to buy these in bulk instead. That said, they were not allowed to sell them as ’Alterran Goods’ and only those certified by the quality check departments were allowed to use the Alterran name.

The punishment could range from penalties to outright blacklisting.

Interestingly, some merchants were really sly and found a loophole: either saying the product was ’inspired by’ or ’copied from’ Alterra. With Alterra’s ever increasing prestige, this definitely helped spike up their sales regardless.

There were superior versions of fabrics, crystals, and so on that they had seen. Some of these items had been sold to them through middlemen for a large amount of gold, but here they were far more affordable.

It wasn’t cheap, but it certainly wasn’t as exorbitant as when they bought them back home.

Ahem.

The cityfolk thought they had seen the world, and many of them had been showing off similar items as treasures in their homes. Here, they were displayed casually and could be bought off by anyone who had some money.

There were also new products (new items per season were common practice in Alterra), and each one was fascinating!

The caravans were composed of many people, at least half of whom were merchants and self-proclaimed connoisseurs. Each one had at least one shop that tickled their fancy. One of the more popular ones was the glass stores.

By this time, while Ryan’s funded glass workshop was the ’territory owned’ factory, he wasn’t the only one who knew about glassmaking.

As the territory expanded and increased its influence, more and more migrants came in. A variety of expertise and the entry of various experts followed as well.

There were now two other glass factories other than the one Ryan was making, one was funded by Baron (unsurprisingly), and another was funded by Bart, who had partnered with a Terran they rescued while the Terran was traveling to Alterra.

The latter specialized in customized and intricate designs. Suffice it to say, the profit margin for such specialized items was large.

"This crystal bird is so intricate! How do they do it?"

"This transparent base is so colourful! How do they connect these?"

"So many colors! How does one get this color on that crystal? It’s so precise!!"

"This is someone’s face? Can we ask for our face to be sculpted in crystal?"

And so on.

Another popular item was beautiful paintings with realistic images and vibrant colors. There were different art mediums and different paints, and the art connoisseurs were enchanted!

In some of these art studios, they also sell (as middlemen) art supplies. They displayed the painting, and then the paint and colors used underneath. This gave the impression that they would also be able to make this art if they bought everything underneath it!

It was quite...capitalist. But it also made sense.

The point was that the prices were relatively affordable! Considering their quality, it was no wonder so many merchants were in a hurry to make deals!

The universally beloved industry, of course, was the catering industry. The food would forever be special to those who had never been to Alterra.

The variety made them go blind, and each food had special tastes. While they might not like everything, they were fond of most, and they ended up buying a bit of everything, acting a bit like country bumpkins who they had been looking down on.

At some point, they really forgot to keep their faces. They became very honest with their reactions and praise, and only few managed to keep a stern face for the purpose of negotiations at a later time.

The proud cityfolk were already like this, let alone those born and raised in a town.

For example, Cassandra’s siblings, who were now slaves from one of the merchants there.

They...didn’t know that a town could develop like this!