"Do you know how hard that would be?"
Olmedo looked at him as if he were a boy charging a windmill with a wooden stick.
"People won't waste precious time learning to read."
"But it would help them earn more money in the future."
"Give a commoner one Silver Coin now, or promise him one Gold Coin this time next year. Which do you think he'd choose?"
"One Silver Coin..."
The reality of life in the Northern Frontier was as harsh as Deepwinter itself.
Unless Annan recruited them to study for ten Copper Coins a day, but that would defeat his original purpose of making money from Newspapers. He could do that in Star-Moon Bay because its people were his subjects, and perhaps in Breeze City too. But what about Betar City, Bountiful City, and the City-States farther away?
If the masses couldn't read, Newspapers would lose much of their value as a tool for publicity and shaping opinion.
Then Annan thought of giving everyone Common Tongue Language Proficiency—
As a First-Circle Spell, Common Tongue Language Proficiency could be cast five to fifteen times a day by an Elite Mage, or thirty times by a Master Level Mage. An Epic Mage could just about cover a small town with some effort. But Epic Mages were either preparing to become Legendary or traveling the world in search of ancient ruins.
As for where he would find that many Elite Mages... emptying the Mage Tower would do it.
Common Tongue Language Proficiency cost two Gold Narls per casting. Given Annan's relationship with the Mage Tower and the prospect of bulk business, he could probably negotiate it down to one Gold Coin per person. The whole of Star-Moon Bay would cost "only" around two thousand Gold Coins.
Breeze City had a population of