Spring was a season when all things grew.
Within Marquis Southgate's private fief, what flourished with the spring breeze was not only the wildflowers and grasses everywhere and the lush green wheat seedlings in the fields, but also one spacious, towering factory building after another.
A little under half of this brand-new magic industry base should originally have been completed by the end of last year. According to the schedule, it should have been almost entirely finished and fully operational early this year.
However, when drawing up the plans, the Amli Merchant Guild had underestimated the construction conditions. Although they had expected winter to arrive earlier in the Malo Empire than in countries such as the Lampari Kingdom, deep in the continent's south, they had not expected it to come so early. Nor had they expected the winter cold to be several times harsher than in the Lampari Kingdom. Least of all had they anticipated how severely the Malo Empire's winter would affect construction progress, leaving them unable to meet their targets before the year ended.
Fortunately, neither the Xinfei Merchant Guild nor the other magic machinery merchant guilds that had come to invest in factories in the Malo Empire had counted on formally beginning production in the first year. Although the schedule had slipped somewhat, the impact was not particularly significant. Instead, it gave them more time to prepare.
Then, as soon as spring began this year, vast quantities of supplies poured into Marquis Southgate's private fief aboard the various merchant guilds' fleets of Cargo Magic Locomotives. The construction sites forced to shut down by the bitter winter immediately resumed work.
With ample preparations in place, construction of the factory buildings in this magic industry base proceeded considerably faster after work resumed than it had before the new year.