Energy Advantage

"Watch closely. Line up the thick end with this side, then carefully put it in this groove." Xu Yi picked up a Screw blank and placed it inside the heading machine. "Now remember this: once it's in, stand back from the machine. And never put your hand inside again. If you do, the moment the machine starts, it'll smash your whole hand. Understood?"

The hundred slaves Viscount Leslie had temporarily lent Xu Yi stood in a circle around him. At his solemn warning, they all nodded.

"Good. Next, press this switch." Xu Yi reached out and lightly pressed the heading machine's switch.

Pale cyan and deep red light flashed as magic power flowed, and the machine's punch came crashing down.

Boom!

The sudden noise made the slaves jump. A few of the more timid ones even crouched with their hands over their heads, trembling.

"Don't be afraid! Nothing exploded. Get up and watch!" Xu Yi barked, struggling to restore order.

With the slaves watching, Xu Yi took the blank from the machine's groove and held it up.

"See? There's now a cross-shaped slot in the thick end. That means this step is done. Next, you need to use this tool to check whether the slot meets the standard." Xu Yi took out an iron rod with a cross-shaped tip and inserted it into the head of the Screw. It fit perfectly. "See? If the tip fits exactly, it passes inspection and can go on to the next step."

The slaves nodded, though they only half understood.

For slaves of their standing, magic was something they would never normally encounter. The machine before them looked so complex and wondrous that they could hardly imagine being allowed to touch it, much less operate it.

Since their arrival, however, Heinz had treated them all equally on Xu Yi's instructions and seen carefully to their daily needs. They were deeply grateful to both men. So when Xu Yi called out three slaves to try operating the machine, they obeyed despite their fear of it.

The heading machine was actually simple to operate, and the slaves were of normal intelligence. With Xu Yi guiding them personally, they overcame their fear and soon mastered the process.

Seeing the three he had chosen grow steadily more practiced, Xu Yi nodded in satisfaction and told them to keep working. Then he led the remaining slaves to another machine.

"This Magic Thread-Rolling Machine is a little harder to operate than the last one, so watch carefully. You can't miss a single detail."

After demonstrating the Magic Thread-Rolling Machine, Xu Yi led the remaining slaves to the final machine.

It was a small magic-powered stamping press that Xu Yi and Master Ranu had recently developed together.

"This machine is fairly simple to operate, but it's much more dangerous than the other two. One careless move, and it could crush you flat. You must follow the rules strictly." The slaves had no understanding of the dangers of Magic Machinery, so Xu Yi had to warn them in advance and set strict requirements and standardized procedures to prevent accidents.

"Watch. First, put this thin iron plate here. Make sure it sits flush against the entire mold, with no gaps anywhere. Then close the mold, step back a little, and press the switch here."

Bang!

The two massive dies inside the small stamping press slammed together. Under the tremendous force, the flat iron plate instantly became a semicircular fan casing.

The small stamping press was, of course, meant for mass-producing fan casings.

This workshop, built only two days earlier, already housed five different kinds of Magic Machinery, each responsible for making components of the Second-Edition Variable-Speed Magic Fan.

With these machines, far less skill was required of the workers. Xu Yi could even bypass Bunta City's blacksmith shops and produce Magic Fans using only the slaves Viscount Leslie had sent him.

Of course, the students still had to make the Magic Array bases that powered the Magic Fans.

Once he had taught the slaves to operate the machines, Xu Yi divided them into groups and taught each group how to assemble the components into a complete Magic Fan.

Assembling a whole Magic Fan was a complex process, but broken down into dozens of steps, it became remarkably simple.

Some slaves only had to learn how to fit a few components together in a set pattern. Others merely threaded thin iron wires together to make a protective grille. Still others had an even simpler job: fastening Screws...

The slaves had received almost no education, so their comprehension was naturally limited. But anyone of normal intelligence could master these simple tasks.

After Xu Yi spent the whole morning teaching them, each slave knew their assigned step, and the entire workshop settled into a busy rhythm.

Xu Yi looked over what he had accomplished and nodded with satisfaction.

From here, they only needed to adjust the number of workers assigned to each step according to how quickly the slaves worked, making the whole assembly line run more smoothly.

That was a job for Heinz, the factory manager. Xu Yi would not have to handle it himself.

Watching the slaves grow more adept at operating the machines, Xu Yi suddenly realized he had overlooked an advantage the Sains Continent possessed.

Compared with Earth's highly developed industrial system, the Sains Continent might lag far behind in many respects.

But in one area, it had an advantage Earth could not match.

Energy.

Earth's major energy sources included oil, coal, hydropower, wind power, solar power, and nuclear power...

Among them, both the widely used oil and coal and the still-developing nuclear power had a fatal flaw: severe pollution.

Every industrialized country on Earth polluted and damaged its environment during industrialization, then had to spend enormous amounts of labor and resources cleaning it up.

Hydropower, wind power, and solar power caused less pollution, but their low energy utilization kept them far from becoming mainstream.

By contrast, the Magic Machinery Xu Yi had developed used Magic Arrays for power, and Magic Crystals kept those arrays running.

Regardless of the type of Magic Array, once a Magic Crystal's magic power was exhausted, it became an ordinary stone and caused no pollution.

The highest-grade Magic Crystals were formed entirely from condensed magic power. Once that power was spent, the whole crystal vanished without a trace, leaving nothing that could pollute the environment.

Magic Crystals had another major advantage: an extraordinarily high energy conversion rate.

Just one small, very low-quality Magic Crystal could keep a Magic Fan running for three full days. An ordinary desktop electric fan on Earth would consume at least three kilowatt-hours of electricity in that time.

By typical Earth standards, generating that much electricity required more than a kilogram of coal and produced nearly four kilograms of carbon dioxide.

In both energy conversion and pollution, Magic Crystals had an unmatched advantage.

What was more, because the Sains Continent's industrial base was so underdeveloped, Xu Yi's Magic Fan consumed far more energy than electric fans on Earth, which had benefited from repeated refinements in manufacturing.

If he could bring its manufacturing up to Earth's standards, it would consume even fewer Magic Crystals.

And Magic Crystals? They were found almost everywhere on the Sains Continent. There were three large Magic Crystal Mines just outside Bunta City.

Because Magic Crystals were so common, ordinary Magic Crystal Mines attracted no interest. Only mines that produced exceptionally high-quality crystals drew attention.

"Heinz, go buy a few Magic Crystal Mines," Xu Yi suddenly said to Heinz, who was observing the slaves at work nearby.

"Huh? Why do you suddenly want to buy Magic Crystal Mines?" Heinz was used to Xu Yi's wild leaps of thought, but this still caught him off guard. "If we need Magic Crystals, we can just buy them from other companies. Mining them ourselves might cost even more."

"No. We must buy a few mines—as many as we can afford." Xu Yi's expression turned serious. "Remember, energy only grows scarcer as it's used. Whatever happens, having control of it ourselves is the best choice."

Heinz frowned at Xu Yi, unsure why this idea had come to him so suddenly.

Still, he knew Xu Yi had far more foresight in such matters. If Xu Yi had made up his mind, he must have his reasons.

"All right. I'll take care of it."

Xu Yi gripped Heinz's shoulder and said gravely, "Remember, act quickly and keep it as quiet as possible. Understood?"

Heinz could not help wondering to himself.

Keep it quiet? Why would something so trivial need to be a secret?