Financial Problems

With only thirty years to develop his military forces, many things had become urgently pressing.

But Chen Xi had no way to speed things up. At least for now, he could only patiently wait for everything to proceed through the proper channels.

After all, even though Ovilia was a Bio-Sage of the Adeptus Mechanicus, she could not instantly make grapes ripen, turn them all into wine, and then immediately turn that wine into money.

For at least the next year, Chen Xi could not expect any income from the wine industry.

If Ovilia could cultivate enough grapevines within a year and brew the first batch of wine in that first year, that would already be incredibly impressive.

Moreover, newly made wine generally could not be drunk right away. It needed to age in oak barrels for at least nine months.

So if Chen Xi wanted to make money from wine, he needed at least two years for the initial preparations and construction. Considering all the potential problems, it would be best to stretch that timeline to three years.

The Sisters of Battle were no different. Building a convent, recruiting Sisters, training personnel... completing all the preliminary preparations before the Order of Sisters could steadily produce Sisters of Battle would also take at least three years.

The Planetary Defense Force, on the other hand, could train as much as they liked, provided Chen Xi could supply sufficient military funding.

But at present, he truly did not have that kind of money.

He had already reviewed the planetary financial report submitted by the finance officer. Overall, Rostov II's economy was in good shape, provided he did not start meddling with it.

The ten regiments of the Planetary Defense Force had a total strength of nearly seventy thousand. Their annual wages alone came to nearly five million Throne Gelt, enough to buy a Lunar-class Cruiser.

Fortunately, they currently had no combat missions. Their main expenses were daily training losses and food, and even with wages included, annual costs could be kept below ten million Throne Gelt.

The price of two Lunar-class Cruisers.

But that money had to be spent. Leaving aside the agreement between the former governor and Magos Ovilia, planetary defense alone required Chen Xi to maintain a force of this size, and perhaps even expand it if necessary.

Fortunately, Rostov II's annual fiscal revenue was currently around twenty million Throne Gelt. Maintaining the military was manageable, and although the remaining money all had its own uses, there was still a surplus of nearly two million Throne Gelt at the end of each year.

However, Chen Xi would not be able to use that money, at least not for the next few years.

The former governor had traded that surplus for a protein factory to solve the planet's food problem, paying in installments over ten years.

The project was already more than halfway complete, and the former governor had paid for six years. Chen Xi still had at least four more years to pay.

In other words, for the next four years, all Chen Xi could do was plan ahead and wait for the vineyard to start shipping wine. Then he could sell it for money and see whether it might improve the planet's economic condition.

If he could secure a stable source of income worth no less than two million Throne Gelt per year, Chen Xi could expand the Planetary Defense Force or train more Sisters of Battle.

A full set of Sisters of Battle equipment cost sixteen thousand Throne Gelt, and a slight upgrade pushed that close to twenty thousand. Two million a year was barely enough to equip a hundred Bolter Babes, not even counting training costs.

"Damn it, everyone else who gets transported into Warhammer either massacres enemies on the battlefield or bangs away in a harem. Why did my story turn into reviewing financial reports first?" The Inquisitor whose consciousness had possessed this body irritably tossed the financial report onto the desk before him, only to reveal a helpless expression a moment later.

These were all problems that urgently needed solving. The Great Rift, which would open in thirty years, hung over his head like the Sword of Damocles.

Although Rostov II was a frontier world located within the Sol System, it could be said to enjoy peaceful days before the Great Rift opened.

But once the Great Rift opened, Chaos would come for them too. Chen Xi had to find a way to raise the planet's military strength and complete its defensive construction to withstand any problems that might arise.

Rostov II had no Hive City. If anything really happened, the cities in their current state did not even have walls to defend from.

"So I also need to set aside funds for city defenses... Aaargh, everything costs money! If only I could conjure up a million or two Throne Gelt right now!" Chen Xi could not help frantically scratching his head.

Fortunately, he was scratching the pawn's head, not his own, so he would not lose any of his actual hair.

At the moment, Rostov II had no output that could be readily turned into money. All of its income mainly came from taxes paid by the more than one billion residents of its two cities, as well as some income brought by Ecclesiarchy pilgrims arriving on the planet.

The former made up the bulk of fiscal revenue, while the latter was only a tiny fraction.

If Rostov II had anything valuable, the blackstone resources that the Adeptus Mechanicus had already designated as private property counted as one.

However, that portion had been claimed by the Forge World of the sector. The official explanation for Ovilia's presence on this planet was that the Forge World had sent her to oversee the mining of blackstone.

That blackstone belonged to the Adeptus Mechanicus, and only the Tech-priests and the Inquisition wanted the stuff. Even if Chen Xi secretly organized people to mine it himself, he would ultimately have to sell the blackstone to the Adeptus Mechanicus.

That would basically be delivering himself into their hands.

Besides, blackstone usually meant Necron tombs underneath. If they dug too aggressively and woke those skeletons up, Rostov II's current military strength probably could not defeat even the weakest trash Lord.

"Wait... Necron tombs..." Chen Xi suddenly had an idea. Other things might not be of any use in the short term, but what if he sent a small team into a Necron tomb to loot some treasure?

As long as they were careful and did not wake the skeletons inside, they could bring back something from the outer perimeter. Even a Stasis Field Coffin could be traded with the local Adeptus Mechanicus for something useful.

It would also count as preliminary reconnaissance of this Necron tomb. Chen Xi needed to investigate its scale so that he would not be caught unprepared when dealing with it later.

However, Chen Xi was deeply wary of and resistant to exploring a Necron tomb itself. After all, if it was an intact Necron tomb, there was no telling what might be inside.

At the weak end, there might only be a Cryptek and a few Necron Warriors, perhaps not even capable of waking up after having simply slept themselves to death during sixty million years of slumber.

At the stronger end... they might even dig up a Shard of the Star Gods. There was no such thing as too absurd, only more absurd.

"Forget it. I'll discuss it with Magos Ovilia first and see how much she knows about that Necron tomb!" Unable to make up his mind for the moment, Chen Xi decided to speak with Ovilia first and see what leads or intelligence she might have.