The Labor Shortage

After a full day of travel yesterday, followed by the trouble with Stille that had kept him up late, Xu Yi slept in the next morning.

When he opened his eyes, sunlight filled the room. It was nearly noon.

"Master, you're awake?" Vivian's timid voice came from beside him. "It's almost lunchtime. What would you like to eat?"

Xu Yi sprang out of bed and looked around, but Stille was nowhere in sight.

"Sister Stille has gone back. She said that if you're going to the Magic Tower today, you should find her. She has something to discuss with you."

"Oh? What does she want to discuss? Why didn't she say something last night?" Xu Yi glanced out the window, then said to Vivian, "Don't cook today. We'll eat out and save some time."

"Master, I don't need to come, do I?" Vivian asked in surprise. "You can eat out. I can just have something at home."

"No arguing. That's an order," Xu Yi said bluntly.

After spending some time with Vivian, Xu Yi had realized that the girl had been a slave for so long that she habitually placed herself beneath everyone else. Changing the way she saw herself would take a long time.

"Oh." Sure enough, when Xu Yi took a firm tone, Vivian obediently agreed.

After they left home, Xu Yi first took Vivian to a clothing shop in Bunta City and bought her two outfits. Then they found a restaurant for lunch.

As he ate, Xu Yi sorted through his thoughts.

He had a great many things to deal with, and he needed to decide which came first.

Most important, of course, was keeping the Magic Fan in production and selling. Without funds, he could do nothing else.

Although sales of the Magic Fan were still booming, Xu Yi knew the market in and around Bunta City would soon be saturated. Sales would then fall rapidly and level off. They could not keep bringing in such enormous profits.

He believed that once the Second-Edition Variable-Speed Magic Fan entered production, it would spark another rush. People were always drawn to something new.

Second was expanding the market.

Besides Karma City, merchants had traveled from several other cities near Bunta City to place large orders.

According to them, the Magic Fan had caused a frenzy as soon as it reached their cities. The first batches they had taken back to test the market had sold out in no time, so on their second visit, they had placed orders several times larger.

But the Magic Fan factory could not increase its output yet, so Heinz had only accepted orders for five thousand units.

Heinz had been deeply frustrated by that. If he had known this would happen, he would have been bolder from the start, expanding the factory and multiplying its output. Then he could have taken every order.

Xu Yi was in no hurry. He had already settled the production process for the Second-Edition Variable-Speed Magic Fan in his mind.

If all went well, once production of the second edition moved to an assembly line, the factory's output would multiply. An order for a mere ten thousand units would be nothing. Even twenty thousand, thirty thousand, or more would be easy to handle.

Of course, there was still a great deal to prepare before an assembly line could become a reality.

That was what concerned Xu Yi most at the moment.

Master Ranu had already made a Magic Heading Machine and a Magic Thread-Rolling Machine, allowing Screws to be mass-produced. That made assembly-line production of the Variable-Speed Magic Fan possible, but it was far from enough.

To replace the first Magic Fan's outdated process of casting it as a whole with assembly-line production, every component had to be manufactured to a consistent standard.

And people working by hand clearly could not achieve that.

Even if every member of Master Ranu's clan was as skilled at forging as Ranu, they still could not meet that requirement.

The key was forging machinery.

Take the Magic Fan's casing. If it was forged by hand, a blacksmith shop in Bunta City could make no more than thirty a day.

To keep Magic Fan production going, Xu Yi had contracted nearly every blacksmith shop in Bunta City.

The steady work made the blacksmiths happy, but it had already begun to disrupt the city's normal business. It was no long-term solution.

Even so, the supply of Magic Fan casings could barely keep up with the factory's production. Increasing it further was almost impossible.

Besides, Xu Yi had never been satisfied with the craftsmen's work. Their fan casings varied too much. By the strict standards of factories on Earth, more than half would have been considered defective.

Those casings simply would not do for large-scale assembly-line production of the Variable-Speed Magic Fan.

"In the end, what we're really missing is a foundation in heavy industry," Xu Yi sighed.

An industrial system could not be built without developing and refining heavy industry. Yet on the Sains Continent, even light industry was rare, let alone heavy industry. The foundation was far too weak.

"Hopefully, the Dwarves can improve things once they arrive."

Xu Yi took out a small notebook and began making preliminary plans.

Under his agreement with Chief Shluka, one hundred Dwarves skilled in forging would arrive in Bunta City in three days and begin working for him.

To house them, Xu Yi needed to build a residential area near the factory, along with two more workshops.

One would be the Machine-Tool Foundry, where the Dwarves would do most of their work. The other would serve as the Assembly Workshop for the Variable-Speed Magic Fan.

With only a little over a month left before summer ended, time was tight. The two workshops could be makeshift for now, built to the same standard as the existing Magic Fan Production Workshop.

But he could not cut corners on the Dwarves' living quarters. He had agreed to the terms with Chief Shluka and given Master Ranu his personal assurance.

What was more, these Dwarves were the most important machine-tool casters Xu Yi could hope for. It was no exaggeration to say that the foundations of the entire Sains Continent's industrial system rested in their hands. He had every reason to treat them well.

"There's too much to do, and nowhere near enough workers." Xu Yi frowned at the densely packed notes in his notebook. "Just building the workshops and Staff Dormitory will take a lot of people. I wonder if Heinz can handle it."

As he pondered this, Xu Yi caught sight of Vivian eating quietly across from him. His eyes lit up.

"I've got it!"

"You want to buy more slaves from me?" Viscount Leslie stared at Xu Yi in astonishment. He had never expected the man to show up at midday and make such a request the moment they met. "What for?"

"I need a lot of workers right now," Xu Yi said. "The factory is about to expand production, and I need a large workforce. I can't hire that many people on such short notice, so I came to see if you could help."

Viscount Leslie's expression darkened. "From the sound of it, you need quite a few. Tell me, how many?"

Xu Yi raised one finger and smiled. "A hundred to start with."

"A hundred?" Viscount Leslie's eyes widened slightly. "What do you think they are, pigs? You can't just ask for a hundred and expect me to have them! I only have around three hundred slaves altogether. If I give you a hundred, what am I supposed to do? Frankly, I've been thinking of buying more myself. Haven't you seen how much land on my estate is still uncultivated? If I had enough hands, none of it would be left idle, much less available to rent to you."

Xu Yi was unmoved. "So, my lord, you only need those slaves to farm the land?"

"Obviously. What else are they good for? They're just slaves." Viscount Leslie glanced at Vivian, who had been standing behind Xu Yi. "Speaking of which, isn't this the girl you took from Wenlai last time without my permission? What, did she give you a taste for slaves, so now you want to buy a few more?"

When Viscount Leslie looked at her, Vivian immediately lowered her head in fear.

To her, Viscount Leslie, her former master, was far above her. A lowly slave like her could not even meet his eyes.

Xu Yi frowned. "My lord, first, I did not take her by force. Butler Wenlai and I agreed on the terms, and I bought Vivian with his consent. You signed the documents afterward to approve it. Second, Vivian is with me now. Please watch your language and don't insult her."

Vivian was startled to hear Xu Yi stand up to Viscount Leslie for her sake. Frightened, she tugged at his clothes with one small hand.

Viscount Leslie paused. Rather than taking offense, he looked from Xu Yi to Vivian and laughed.

"Xu Yi, you really are a strange fellow. You dare talk back to me over a slave. You say this girl is yours... but she still looks like a virgin to me. She's been with you all this time and you haven't touched her? Are you actually a hopeless softhearted fool?"

Neither Xu Yi nor Vivian had expected Viscount Leslie to speak so bluntly, and both blushed.

"Ahem... My lord, that wasn't what I meant. I just... Never mind. There's no point arguing about it. I only want to point out that you greatly underestimate the value of slaves. They may be slaves, but as long as their hands and feet work and their minds are sound, they have the full potential of any worker. You simply haven't made use of it. To be frank, though you probably won't like hearing it, those three hundred slaves would produce far more value working for me than they do under you."

Viscount Leslie laughed in exasperation.

"Fine. Then tell me how you'd make use of them if I handed them over to you."