"Well..." Major Maikongli opened his mouth, then finally let out a long breath after a considerable pause. With a bitter smile, he said, "President Xu, this price... is simply too expensive..."
"Expensive?" Xu Yi shook his head. "Major, I thought you would understand how powerful this Magic-Powered Stone Thrower was after looking at the plans. With that much power, do you really think it could be cheap?"
"I understand that, but..." Maikongli's smile was full of helplessness. "The price is still too high. To tell you the truth, our logistics department's budget for this entire year is less than three hundred thousand gold coins, and less than a hundred thousand of that goes toward military equipment. If we hadn't built an arms factory in cooperation with your Xinfei Merchant Guild, cutting the cost of supplying armor and weapons severalfold, I wouldn't have even a single copper coin to spare."
Xu Yi could not help shaking his head. The Lampari Kingdom really was desperately poor. Its annual revenue was less than two million gold coins, and its military budget was a mere three hundred thousand. It was pitifully small.
With so little money, even covering the army's daily expenses was a struggle. No wonder Major Maikongli complained about his troubles every time they met.
Still, sympathy was one thing. Xu Yi had no intention of reducing the price by even a single copper coin.
"Major, I'd like to help you, but the cost of this Magic-Powered Stone Thrower is simply too high. Never mind anything else-manufacturing just one takes more than three tons of steel. Our guild sells this new type of steel for a hundred gold coins per ton. Besides materials, labor is another major expense, and most important of all is the cost of research and development. To develop