Chapter 128 - That Is Cheap!
"A medium categorized weapon?!" Robin was extremely surprised by the patriarch's words and returned to examine the sword more carefully
Billy laughed at Robin's reaction, "During this Last period we have been busy distributing workers, finding new mines, and so on... and these similar swords are the first batch of the factory products...
As for that medium categorized, it is another story... When we started to melt the needed metals for the low categorized weapons for the first time, we found that the time it took to melt them was much less than you expected, so I ordered an experiment to put metals that can produce medium categorized weapons in furnaces to see what happens..
and that piece of metal is in your hand now, took the furnace a few hours to melt that small piece completely, but in the end, it melted and was easily formed by an ordinary mold to get this sword!!"
"No, no no.. no! that doesn't make sense. I've set up the heat generation pattern to produce enough heat to melt the low-grade metals. What's going on here?" Robin turned the sword up and down in shock,
he definitely didn't seem very happy as Billy and the Patriarch expected...
Two minutes later, his features suddenly changed and he shouted, "total reflection pattern, It must be it!!"
The Total Reflection pattern was made to take the extreme heat threat away from the walls of the furnace, its idea is to make an invisible wall in front of the furnaces' walls and continuously reflect the heat waves back towards the inside of the furnace.
But thinking about it... The heat generation pattern would keep on pumping more heat power, and the total reflection pattern would compress that heat power inside the furnace... Is it possible that is what raised the temperature inside to several times what it was supposed to be?
Robin couldn't believe what was going on...
Among the items he set for his future after building the knighthood pillars was to find a way to enhance the heat generation pattern to raise the productivity of the furnaces, he never thought that he actually did it unintentionally...
"Hahahaha" Robin slapped his forehead and laughed hysterically, causing Patriarch and Billy to exchange looks...
"Excellent, great!! The heaves themselves are helping me... Hey Billy, how much is this sword in the market?" Robin asked with a big smile on his face
"Hmm.. a new sword with this specification... a medium categorized sword that has never been used before can cost up to… I think 400 gold coins." Patriarch's reply
"Wh-?! medium categorized sword can only be sold for this much? then what about those low-level swords?" Robin quickly asked
"I think 100 gold coins would be a good price for them..." This time Billy replied
"that is.. cheap!!" Robin threw the sword aside and shouted
Billy replied, "What is so cheap?! if these weapons had been offered to us in the past when we were still an Earl family, we would have struggled to arm a small battalion of a thousand soldiers with only ordinary swords, regardless of body armor, shields, spears, battle halberds, bows, etc...
You became too used to hearing big numbers that gold lost its value in your eyes... Don't be fooled by the fact that The Bradleys and the Royal Family are trying to get close to you by throwing millions of gold coins under your feet, it breaks their spines every time they do so!"
"Argh.. you might be right, But this is still too cheap! I can make a lot more with a few 3rd level Pills or a couple of Oath Tablets every now and then, isn't there a way to raise our weapons prices?!" Robin's replied
The patriarch shook his head, "....it seems that you are still a dreamer, but leave the rest of your inventions aside, for now, we will talk about it later...
As for weapons, there is no way to raise the value of these traditional weapons any more because in this way we will not be able to sell them in large patches and we would be only be selling them to the Royal family or the Dukes... after they get enough or decide not to deal with us anymore what we would do then? But...."
"but what?" Some hope appeared in Robin's eye, his accustomed to hearing the large numbers made him disgusted at the prices of these weapons...
"I think we can allocate one of the furnaces to produce unique armaments that aren't made in molds for sale in the auctions at higher prices..." the patriarch replied
"Great idea!" Billy said, "But these exceptional weapons need exceptional blacksmiths to make, and we don't have contacts with any of them..."
Robin interfered, "Speak to Duke Galan about this matter, He certainly can get us in touch with a few... They will not resist the idea of working in a place where they can increase their production.
Give them a big salary or percentage on every weapon they make, just find a way to lure them in... A few high-quality weapons a month being sold at a good price will be enough to satisfy me."
The Patriarch nodded, patting his chin, "It's fine then... I was going to speak to the Duke anyway so that I might discuss with him the sale of our weapons to the Bradleys for the incoming period... I will also speak to him on the subject of blacksmiths and begin to coordinate with him seriously about this matter, and I will also put a few men of the Burton family as assistants to these professional blacksmiths to learn the craft from them..."
"Haha, now you are thinking well, Uncle Brian! Ha, is there anything else you want from me?" Robin liked the last part of the patriarch's words very much.
He hates that others control his fate or his choices... It would be better if the family members had this craft.
"Yeah, there's something we want to talk about... money!" The patriarch replied in a serious voice
The smile on Robin's face disappeared, "...hah?"
"After overseeing the situation in the new lands so far we found out that The method of governing with money that you chose to calm the situation in the new lands was excellent but flawed…
The situation there changed like night and day after the opening of those factories, the 50,000 citizens we had appointed support more than 200,000 others of their households and they greatly improved our image,
Many have accepted our role and began to talk good in the streets about us, the number of people who want to throw us out of their lands has decreased significantly, but they have not disappeared, they are just waiting for the right moment...
The bad part is, Compared to the 50 thousand we selected to work, there are more than half a million who have filled out job applications and are still waiting, as we are speaking now there are new work applications still reaching us!
According to Billy, there was a big riot a few days ago in the applications filling area due to the lack of new jobs, and frankly, the money in the family is almost running out,
Most of the weapons that the factories will produce will go to our army so we won't really make a profit from it, and about 20% will be sold to the Bradleys and maybe the Royal family to cover the factories' expenses and pay for the 50,000 workers wages... but what about the rest of all these hundreds of thousands?
We can stop receiving new applications and say that's it we won't be wiring anymore, but that would throw us back to square one, and honestly, too many men that beers the last name *Burton* have died in the last two decades, Robin, too many that we HAVE to close that war front... I'm afraid we will have to carry on this path we have chosen to the end and spend more and more coins in the new lands..."
"..." Robin went silent... he could now predict the course of this long speech, and didn't like it at all, after a few seconds he asked anyway, "And what do you want to do?"
The patriarch replied, "We plan to build new factories and mines, plant new fields, open many stores and schools to train martial arts up to the tenth level, and war training academies to join our army as mercenaries, but this needs a lot of money.
These lands are vast, fertile, and full of rewards... but they are also a deep well that needs to be filled with gold first... "
"And what is required of me?!" Robin frowned
the Patriarch responded with a series voice, "We need you to stop all your researches for now and get back to make Sound Rings, level 16 fire explosion talismans, 50 seconds darkness talismans, Level 3 Soul Revitalizing Pills, and even some Oath Tablets to sell the auctions… Only you can make them, and with their profits we can make all those projects come to be."