Volume 1 Chapter 83 - Hannas’ ambition
Volume 1 Chapter 83 Hannas’ ambition
The mysterious guest stood up and opened the cloak that even wrapped up her head, revealing a beautiful face with a heroic feel to it, as well as a pair of long and sharp ears.
It was the female elf Agnes Xu Yi had met in the Angola Tribe last time.
“I still don’t believe in humans now.” Agnes ignored the taunting tone in Xu Yi’s voice and her face was calm, “If it wasn’t for the fact that the elder said that the blueprint you gave us could help the problem of our tribe, I wouldn’t have been sent here.”
Xu Yi revealed a smile and didn’t waste more time on meaningless words. He asked Agnes to sit down and poured a cup of cold water for her according to her request. He then sat down across from her and took out the blueprint Alex had handed him from before.
That blueprint was the one Xu Yi had left with chief Monto when he left the Angola Tribe, having him give it to Agnes. So when he saw this blueprint and heard from Alex that this guest wouldn’t show her face at all, Xu Yi immediately knew that this guest was Agnes.
“Miss Agnes, based on what you said, not only have you seen these blueprints, you even showed them to the elders of your tribe?” Xu Yi asked.
“Yes. The elder looked at it and felt that there is a high chance of this method working, so he had me come looking for you. To implement this method, what do we need to do?” Agnes said with a nod.
Xu Yi looked over the blueprint. This was a method created by mixing many similar cases back on earth, so of course it was very likely this would work.
“I’m very sorry, miss Agnes, I’m afraid I can’t tell you what you need to do.” Xu Yi shook his head, “I had only heard a bit about your problem from chief Monto and only gave an approximate solution based on my own experiences, but because I don’t know the exact situation, I can’t give you a concrete method. Unless I could inspect the area in person, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what you need to do.”
Agnes considered this a bit before asking, “Your meaning is that you want to go to our tribe to look at the situation?”
“That’s right.” Xu Yi confidently said.
Agnes was silent for a bit before shaking her head.
“I’m afraid not. It’s been several hundred years since our tribe has hand any humans enter it and we don’t welcome humans either.”
“Then even if I want to help, I can’t do anything.” Xu Yi stretched out his hands and helplessly said, “Miss Agnes, I think you must admit that solving the problem with the river is a large project and I can’t give you a concrete solution with just my imagination. If you can’t let me inspect the area, I can only say I’m sorry.”
Agnes was silent for a bit before suddenly standing up. She placed the index and middle finger of her right hand on her chest and gave Xu Yi a slight bow, “Since it’s like this, I will be leaving first. I hope you receive Elune’s blessings in your dreams.”
After saying this, Agnes left without even turning back.
Xu Yi opened his mouth and wanted to call out to stop her, but he let go after thinking about it.
The elves had this kind of personality, so he couldn’t change Agnes’ thoughts even if he called out to stop her. It was better to let the elven tribe make their own decision.
Anyway, Xu Yi was not in a rush for this matter, the one in a rush were the elves.
After thinking about some things in the office, Xu Yi stood up to leave. He gave some more requirements for the new factory to manager Riley before getting onto a horse carriage and heading to a small yard to the north of Banta City.
When he walked into this yard, Xu Yi heard Baron Hannas roaring out.
“Millet, move faster! If can’t finish the drafts by dinner, we might not even get to sleep tonight!”
“McCovey, stop standing in a daze, why haven’t you taken the prepared drafts over to printing yet? What are you standing there like a fool for?”
“Meghan, are those fellows responsible for collecting news back yet? It’s almost time to finalize the draft! If you don’t come back, they should give up on their wages today!”
……
Hearing this voice that was a bit hoarse, Xu Yi never would have connected this voice to Baron Hannas who had seemed quite shy when he met him for the first time.
It seemed that being the chief editor for the «Banta Times», it had changed Baron Hannas quite a bit.
Looking around the small building in the yard, he found that it was quite busy.
There were over ten young men and women bent over desks, desperately writing something. There were people organizing documents and people running back and forth sending something……
Standing in the middle shouting and pointing while looking over the documents in his hand was Baron Hannas.
It was unknown if it was because he was too busy, but Baron Hannas’ face was currently covered in a large beard. He looked quite rough and his clothes were a bit disorderly, while many places were stained with black ink from who knows where. He was a completely different person from the person Xu Yi met the first time.
“Hey, your excellency Baron, are you still busy?” Xu Yi raised his hand to wave at Baron Hannas.
Hearing this voice, Baron Hannas looked over in a daze. After he saw Xu Yi, his brows jumped up and he revealed a look of joy.
“Chairman Xu, it’s great that you’re here, I was looking for you!”
“Oh? Looking for me? Do you need something?” Xu Yi was a bit surprised, “Could it be the Magic Printing Press is broken?”
“No, no, no, the Magic Printing Press is our treasure, how could it break? But me finding you is related to the Magic Printing Press. This…..Chairman Xu, look, the sales for our «Banta Times» keep increasing and just relying on a single Magic Printing Press, we’re already having trouble keeping up. Can you help me make another……No, it’s best if it’s two, oh, no, it’s best if it’s three! How about it? Three Magic Printing Presses? It should be that hard for you, right?”
“Are you certain you want three?” Xu Yi looked at Baron Hannas in surprise.
The Magic Printing Press he made was based on the movable font printing press from earth. Because the Sines Continent used a character language system, using the ancient Chinese movable font printing system was the simplest. Adding in a Wind Attributed Magic Array to power it, it could finish printing two thousand sheets in just one hour.
The «Banta Times» had ten pages and if you count both sides, it was only twenty pages.
This meant that if a Magic Printing Press was operating at full power, it could print one hundred copies of «Banta Times» in an hour.
Xu Yi knew that Baron Hannas decided the contents of tomorrow’s «Banta Times» by dinner time, so counting from 6:00 pm to 6:00 am, there was a full twelve hours of time to print «Banta Times».
Even if one removed the break times and some accidents in between, there was enough time to print a thousand «Banta Times».
Now Baron Hannas was all of sudden asking for three Magic Printing Presses from Xu Yi, this meant that the amount of «Banta Times» printed each day would be over three thousand copies!
This was a very shocking number. It had to be known that there were less than thirty thousand people in Banta City and if they were divided into households, that would only be five thousand households.
With the education level of Banta City’s people, it was impossible for each family to purchase a copy of «Banta Times». It was already good enough for a tenth to buy it, so a single Magic Printing Press was enough.
“That’s right, three machines.” Baron Hannas gave an assured nod, “Xu Yi, you haven’t been here lately, so you don’t know some things. Right now just in Banta City, the «Banta Times» can sell a thousand copies each day and I have sent people to establish selling points in the villages outside the city. Even if each village only buys one or two copies each day, that will gradually accumulate. I can guarantee that not long after, we can sell many «Banta Times» in the villages outside the cities. This is because there are many more people outside Banta City, so the sales for outside Banta City for the «Banta Times» will reach a thousand copies in the future.”
“This still isn’t enough for you to request three Magic Printing Presses at once, right?” Xu Yi said in a confused voice.
Baron Hannas laughed, “Xu Yi, do you know that outside of the «Banta Times», I have already set up two branches in Saltan City and Karma City?”
Xu Yi was stunned as he asked, “You moved this quickly?”
Baron Hannas gave a proud laugh, “It’s just this fast. If nothing unexpected happens, I can guarantee that in just a week, the «Saltan Times» and the «Karma Times» will be on sale! When that time comes, I will know everything about those two cities! Moreover, I will spread these newspapers to every part of the Lampuri Kingdom, even across the entire Sines Continent!”
Seeing Baron Hannas become even more proud and filled with zeal towards work, Xu Yi couldn’t help sighing in his heart.
When he saw Baron Hannas for the first time, Xu Yi thought he was a normal noble with a good family education. He never thought that after bringing out his gossip side and Xu Yi threw out a «Banta Times» for him, a large chance would occur with him. He became this passionate worker and this reporter with outstanding energy.
The reason why the «Banta Times» could develop so quickly was related to the enormous amount of energy Baron Hannas had placed into it.
Based on his family background and his relations, Baron Hannas didn’t encounter any unexpected hindrances when setting up the «Banta Times». This new thing was naturally welcomed by countless people, so it could develop to this state in a short period of time.
“Eh……Actually, Hannas, the names of newspapers don’t all need to be called times. You can call them things like «Saltan Morning News» or «Karma Herald» or things like that.” Xu Yi gave a small suggestion and saw a look of joy appear on Baron Hannas’ face, but he suddenly changed the topic, “But speaking of this, Hannas, are you really prepared to stay in Banta and not return to Anvilmar?”