World Development System 291 222. Meeting Duke Fredric Part 1.

Josephine had a red face as she blushed and spoke with a stutter, "Who is vying... for his time, Don't speak nonsense. I am only training swordsmanship under him and not deliberately delaying up my learning. I... I... I... am going to eat before the banquet starts. Don't sto...p me, goodbye."

Josephine blushed as she hurried away immediately.

Sally laughed as she saw Josephine hurrying away.

Meanwhile, Eva coughed twice as she blushed as she spoke, "You are only imagining things."

Sally smiled and teased her a bit, "Really? Weren't you designing John's cape only to be found later by me and then it was me who made Blue Paradise as a whole to prepare for John's Crowning ceremony so that no one suspects you."

Eva snorted and spoke, "Hmph, you have your own intentions as well. If I remember correctly, you were quite startled when you saw me designing the cape."

Eva tickled her waist and spoke, "You think you can hide everything from me? I have known you for a long time. Don't think I don't know."

Sally meanwhile smiled and spoke mysteriously, "I wonder. Well, lets go ahead and see today's show anyway. Hahaha, please stop tickling."

Eva snorted as she muttered in a small voice, "Acting all cool and indifferent in front of me won't work. Of course, you wonder because you were afraid of your family previously if they targeted him for vying love from royal blood. It was only now after the start of the war that you exposed some of your feelings. I am sure you quite low-key wish for your father to use you as a political tool if it is marrying John or else you wouldn't even leave this domain if your father wishes to use you as a political tool."

Sally blushed as she didn't speak and pretended to not hear her and looked at the events that were taking place.

Quill meanwhile spoke of the 5 point discussion and plan for settling the matter of trade, cooperation and other problems that might have occurred.

In the big room, currently, John, Friedreich, Melanie and Vlad were present as John sighed and broke the silence and spoke first, "I guess you had a fine journey traveling here. I would again like to thank you for your help in the previous war where you resisted the schemes of Aelius as well as your ministers and elders internally. It would have been quite tough for us to root out the chaos spreading spies of Aelius during the war without the master's help."

Friedreich nodded and spoke, "No need to mention it. Looking at you, It seems you have personally experienced war. If I am not wrong, you should be strong enough to battle Vlad just looking at your battle senses. The only thing you lack is experience but you seem quite adaptable. What do you think about selling more of your weapons to us?"

John thought a bit and spoke, "That shouldn't be a problem. However, Cannons and Guns won't be sold for a while but we can sell you our best Ballistas with the use of Magic Metal. You can even buy our very best Ballista's technology if you want to build them on a massive scale. I am sure you will be satisfied with those weapons if you compare it with others."

Friedreich was quite surprised and spoke, "Okay, I will buy those as it is anyway better than the lousy cannons of Aelius. Previously, I saw those roads and looking at it I am quite impressed by the maintenance as well as those new things called tires used on carts which were replaced by one of the shops when we stopped to come here. However, the most I am impressed was by that Institution called Bank. I guess you financed the whole Railway and Road project or Electrification project with the help of Bank, correct?"

John nodded and spoke, "As expected from Lord Duke, Yeah, we did finance a lot of our projects from Banks. I wonder what you would want to know about them?"

John meanwhile thought, 'However, I don't think we took that much loans. Anyway, keeping everyone guessing is ok for now or else everyone will be red with envy.'

Friedreich smiled and spoke, "You have created quite a problem for everyone in the region with the formation of your banks. So I would at least want to know more about banks to run it efficiently as the formation of Banknotes is inevitable for the countries here or a ban of your currency in our domain. Or maybe we will go with Banks without Banknotes but only gold." 

John smiled and understood as he spoke, "Well, I only wanted to use the resources of Sky more efficiently and hence the creation of banks. No one is banned for transactions in other currencies you see."

Friedreich thought, 'That Tariff is the problem when people are asked to pay in Sky Dollars. And then there is a discount if people pay in Sky Dollars.'

Friedreich nodded without exposing and spoke, "I guess it can't be helped. Anyway, my official request would be that you allow fire-abyss to buy printers for the printing of Banknotes and Newspapers as well. I heard from Vlad that you are going to introduce a set of home appliance machines that would require common Magic crystals to run it. So I would like to know more on it and gain some advantage over others."

John thought a bit and spoke, "I guess it can't be hidden, yes we have done a lot of research and are able to convert Magic Energy into electricity for energy. However, there are other forms of energy like coal, oil, Hydropower, Petrol, Diesel, and others. Currently, we are preferring Magic energy because of its purity and better mobility as compared to the other liquid forms. At the same time, According to our recent research, these Common Magic Crystals can be recharged a few times and only become useless after 12 charges. As for other grades of Magic Crystals, we are still conducting our research and experiments. So they have a better value as compared to other forms of energy for now. However, Magic Crystal would become 2-3 times more expensive as compared to other forms of energy. I hope you can keep this information a secret for now. However, you can export them to us as we will need a lot of labor force to extract them. So I would like to save time and Labor workforce anyway."

Friedreich nodded and spoke, "There is no problem, we would anyway like to export common magic crystals and low-grade magic crystals as they are all over the place lying without any productivity and are in abundance in the Fire-Abyss Kingdom because of numerous Fire Volcanoes. What do you think about selling us the medicinal formulae's that you created." Friedreich hesitated a bit and spoke.

At this time Melanie spoke immediately, "Don't even think about it. I am previously agreeing to your requests because of your help to John in the previous war. Hmph."

Vlad also spoke at this time, "Master, I think we should focus more on the connection of all the Cities and Villages at Bluesea Duchy via the roads to improve trade as well as improve the security of remote places by connection."

Friedreich shook his head and spoke as he understood the weight of the request if he made it, "Nah, It would be quite excessive of me to request John to build roads for us. It is not a small affair."

Vlad thought, 'I don't think it cost us a lot here at Sky in the construction of roads. Maybe he doesn't know of the costs.'

Just as Vlad was about to speak, John smiled and spoke, "I think we can build the roads for you but there would be one condition. As for those medicines, we can sell it to you cheaply at marginal prices but we can't sell the formulas as those formulas are the foundation of those companies in return of Mining rights of Copper ore, Aluminum ores and Coal ores."

Friedreich nodded and spoke, "Ok, that shouldn't be a problem, we anyway have a lot of Copper ores, we can give you mining rights of one at our borders. As for roads Please speak, as long as it is an acceptable condition, It should be possible to move forward this project of constructing the roads."

John nodded and spoke, "We can fund and build all the roads for you in exchange for Toll rights, i.e. we will charge travelers using our roads on certain checkpoints or else they can use other roads for travel. In short, these roads would solely be commercial roads for commercial benefits."

Friedreich then frowned and furrowed his brows as he asked, "How much do you plan to charge at the toll points?"

John spoke, "It would depend on the weight and value of the carriage and also the number of people. However, it should range from 10 coppers to 1 gold coin depending on the number of carriages. The basic costs for a person would be 10 coppers each side."

Friedreich rose his brows up and spoke, "Vlad, what is the volume and number of merchants going to the Sky for the last 2 months after the roads were opened up."

Vlad spoke which surprised Duke Friedreich immediately.

Duke muttered in a slow voice, "It seems, we can easily get back the return on investment in 3 years and depending on the increase of volume of trade it will only be faster. The only thing is the public anger when we charge them for using our roads. But this seems quite a profitable venture for both me and the merchants as they can save time as well as maintenance costs. Those Tire companies from John's domain would also earn a fortune but cart maintenance companies would enter a slump. Maybe I should promote those things called bicycles for travel. It seems a lot needs to be done."

Friedreich smiled a bit and finally spoke after some thinking, "John, you are quite cunning. No wonder you are quite successful in business. Okay, I will allow you to get the toll rights but you will only get the toll rights for 8 years and that too 50 Percent of the rights only as I will invest 50% from my side for building the roads and take the other 50% of toll taxes.

John nodded and spoke, "It's ok, it is still quite a profitable business for both of us. As for calming the public anger when we charge a toll. You can simply say to the people that Sky had built this road with Bluesea Duchy for commercial purposes and to recoup the investment we are charging toll taxes so that people involved in the project can't complain. Tell them that this road wouldn't have been built in the first place if Investment for constructing the road was not there from the investors. I have one request from you and that is to lend me, Master Vlad, as he is continuously rejecting me to accept the position of Defence Minister. After all, he is one who taught me how to fight."

Melanie and Vlad were quite stunned after hearing the talks between John and Friedreich.

Melanie thought deeply and nodded satisfactorily, 'I never thought, John would come up with something called Toll taxes. I guess the investment in all the roads would require about 10-20 million gold coins even with the new tech. But it is quite easily possible to get back the investment in 2 years after watching the volume in the last 2 months. The most probable reason that Merchants are using this road is because of the requirement of low maintenance of their Beast carts and being able to move at faster speeds on the roads and not to mention the safety and patrols of the local guards to keep the roads safer. Previously, the royal family didn't try to build roads because the time required was stretched from 1 year to 3 years and hence a loss of time, money and labor even with the use of magicians. It was only during the wars that Roads were built at a very fast pace. However, John requesting something so valuable from Friedreich is definitely a pit for him. However, Vlad himself has a very high value.'

Friedreich smiled and thought as John finally requested something valuable from him, 'I should try out our plan now. I should go according to the plan and gauge his reactions.' 

Friedreich nodded only a bit and spoke, "Ok, we will talk about this business another time. I wanted to first know about your thoughts on the current situation in the region. What do you think about the views of Fire-abyss kingdom, Bryndyll Kingdom and Aelius towards you and Sky?"

John thought a bit and spoke, "I guess they view me cautiously after watching the fire prowess of my weapons. But they might think that I am naive since I have decided to give back Dolores to Aelius. I think some might be plotting against me by making some alliances. Well, I am quite aware of their understanding towards other countries so I wouldn't be surprised by that evaluation."

Chapter end