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Page 134
Victor Church is not the old man's full name. After all, a nobleman's full name would not be so short. Church is not even his surname. Church means church in Wehland. This legendary magician traveled around the western continent in his youth under the guise of pilgrimage, using churches as inns. After returning home in middle age, he called himself Victor Church and abandoned his noble surname.
Others might not be able to do it this way, but he can.
"At the time, I was even a little proud, because even though I did something that made the circle very unhappy, they still had to praise me in return." Victor recounted this story from sixty years ago with a calm demeanor, neither proud nor contemptuous.
Even at over 100 years old, he still firmly believes that some things are wrong, but he no longer experiences emotional fluctuations because of these things he disagrees with.
"You're not just going to tell those well-known stories about yourself, are you?"
Ronan asked.
The stories of this old man, Victor, are truly well-known in the magic community.
"Impatientness is something to be envied," Victor murmured. "I'm here simply hoping you can set your sights a little further."
Dinia remained silent.
Ronan guessed part of the other party's intention, so he asked cooperatively, "For example?"
"For example, changing the entire landscape of the magic world. Just talking about orthodox magicians, there are very few high-ranking ones, the vast majority are low-ranking, and their combat power is not very strong. In fact, some of them have no combat power at all. If they were willing to use their magic for technological research, production and construction, the benefits they might bring to this world would be far greater than if they used that little bit of power as a weapon."
“In fact, I think even someone like me should focus on changing the world, rather than using force as a long-term deterrent.”
Victor slowly finished explaining his views and aspirations.
“But magic has always been a means of violence,” Ronan said regretfully.
Before Victor could speak, Dinia turned to Ronan and said, "It's always been this way, so it's correct?"
“I’m not saying this is right, but that existence itself has its own rationale; these things have their own inherent laws,” Ronan explained, then went on to elaborate, “For example, I am the first order of destiny manifested, and I manifested a lathe. Yes, if I were in a relatively orderly environment and used this tool properly, I would become a very skilled technician, or even an excellent engineer.”
"I would earn more money than many of my peers, but my social status would be far inferior to that of a mage with stronger and more powerful magic."
"Would I be content with that? No."
"I will try my best to get promoted. Maybe if I get promoted, I will have combat power? At the same time, I will try my best to convert what I have into military power."
"In times of war, might makes right; in times of peace, the level of magic and the strength of power determine status."
"In the end, the only path left for magicians is to compete to see who has the greatest power."
"Of course, I admit that some magicians have become obsessed."
Ronan stated the facts.
Advising a mage not to focus on power is like telling a scholar in ancient Seris to stop thinking about taking the imperial examinations and do something else.
Have you heard the story of Fan Jin passing the imperial examination? Once you pass, you have everything.
“Clearly, you also believe that this phenomenon in the magical world has become abnormal,” Victor said. “So some changes should be made.”
Ronan nodded, then changed the subject, "May I ask, how many more magicians have followed you on Iceland in the last thirty years?"
"No one has increased; they've come and gone, but two are missing," Victor answered truthfully.
Ronan poured a cup of tea and handed it to Victor. "You are so famous that you can attract many idealistic young people. You also have top-notch martial arts skills, so they don't have to worry about anything. With your status and ability, your material conditions are probably not bad either. They are willing to go to Iceland, probably because they are not suitable for magicians who take the path of destruction. Even so, many people still went."
Ronan then stated another fact.
This is also something that Victor can't understand. He can't understand why so many young people come and go, and it's not that they don't want to stay in Iceland, but that they give up this path and return to the path of trying to strengthen their own combat power.
“Let me give you another example,” Ronan said, always using analogies. “There is a mountain, and on the mountain is a village. The village is inhabited by a group of savages who live a very tiring life in their competition with each other. The village chief is not only savage but also very strong in combat, and he uses so-called traditions and rules to rule them.”
“There is a village at the foot of the mountain. There are many people in the village who are better than the village chief of the village on the mountain. The other villagers do jobs that are more in line with their own characteristics. They are not barbaric and live a very easy life. The overall living environment is also slightly better. Now, you want to relocate the villagers from the mountain. How do you plan to do it?”
Both Victor and Dinia understood Ronan's metaphor: the village on the mountain represented the distorted part of the current magical world, while the village at the foot of the mountain represented the ideal state that Victor pursued.
For a moment, Victor fell into deep thought.
“Let the people on the mountain see what the villagers down below look like first,” Victor replied.
“Didn’t you already do that? The people from the mountain came down and then went back,” Ronan said. “Ultimately, magicians crave to be part of the privileged class. The villages down the mountain are more comfortable and have slightly better conditions, but that’s not enough for them. Unless they can see more clearly that it’s easier to achieve a decent status in the villages down the mountain, why would they give up their past way of life?”
"We can't just take care of the village chief in the mountain village, can we?" Dinia asked, giving Ronan a special look as she spoke. At this moment, she had already guessed his intention.
Ronan immediately responded, "Of course not, we can only wait. When the village at the foot of the mountain becomes very attractive and the villagers on the mountain can no longer stand their village chief, everything will naturally change."
Victor, who was about to lower his head to drink his tea, suddenly looked up, put down his teacup, and asked, "What kind of village down the mountain would be considered attractive?" He was looking forward to Ronan's answer.
"It's very simple. As long as a weapon that can be used by novice mages and can cause enough damage to first-tier mages appears, and at the same time, more talented people can learn magic, that will be enough."
Ronan said.
Then Dinia asked, "Why?"
Chapter 304 Reform should be "voluntary," development should be "supportive," and consultation should be "friendly."
Ronan calmly took a sip of tea and then explained, "To facilitate reform, the key lies in two aspects. On the one hand, it is necessary to make the originally dynamic middle managers feel a sense of crisis. On the other hand, it is necessary to make these dynamic middle managers see the possibility that if they take a gamble, they may be able to achieve a higher position than before."
“Once these two aspects are accomplished, energetic middle managers will naturally and voluntarily devote themselves to the reform cause. Conversely, without these two points, if you try to force them, it will only lead to fierce resistance.”
"Back to reality, once there are powerful weapons that novice mages can use, the value of the already relatively weak combat power of some first-tier and even second-tier mages will be very low. Unless they are fools, they will have to consider transforming themselves."
"As the overall number of mages increases, these lower-ranking mages who are considering transitioning to higher ranks also have a sufficient source of assistants. Although they do not have a sufficient advantage in combat against these novice mages, their research capabilities are absolutely superior, because their magic is a research tool that novice mages cannot possess. Under such circumstances, they are actually superior to others."
"To make such a weapon, more time and resources are needed, as well as a mage with high expertise in magical artifacts."
"As for increasing the number of magicians, that's even more difficult. It requires improving the overall productivity of the country and changing the country's system to some extent."
“However, Mr. Victor, you don’t need to worry. Ms. Dinia and I are working on both of these things.”
Ronan gave a long speech.
I feel I've said enough; this old gentleman should understand now.
In short, Ronan and Dinah have achieved their goals, and your ideal is not far away.
Got it? If you do, then hurry up and contribute money and manpower to support us, and stop blabbering.
"I see. You two young people should work hard. I hope I can live to see the day you succeed." With that, Victor stood up, as if to leave.
Ronan fell silent, suddenly finding himself unable to guess what the old man meant.
“Haha.” Victor laughed, then suddenly stopped. “Actually, you don’t need to play any rhetoric.”
“We didn’t expect to fool someone as important as you with such a petty trick,” Ronan said. This old man was, after all, a former politician. Ronan and Dinia’s back-and-forth wasn’t meant to intimidate him, but rather to express their stance in this way.
“That’s true.” Victor nodded and sat back down. “I would be willing to offer five thousand gold pounds, plus ten fine young men, but how will you allocate this money and these people?”
Is this old man really that rich?
One gold pound was roughly equivalent to three large gold eagles. One large gold eagle was worth 2,304 bronze muskets. One gold eagle was enough for an average family of five to live comfortably for a year, enough to eat meat, buy new clothes, and repair their house.
Five thousand gold pounds is the annual living expenses for fifteen thousand families.
Stop talking. He's taking the money, and he's not leaving.
Ronan said, "That's too simple. The Ministry of the Interior can just set up a Magic Research Division under the National Security Bureau, and put these talents there. The National Security Bureau is a special agency that catches spies, so why would I catch myself?"
"As for the money, we can just use the church to manage it."
International currency exchange is the church's traditional business. Even though the church has split over the past few centuries, almost every dutiful son has found a new, obedient "father." And these new "fathers" all regard other "fathers" as heretics.
It is common knowledge that heretics deserve to be killed more than heretics.
But killing is just that—killing. It doesn't affect business dealings. Of course, this business isn't handled by clergy. Clergy are for show; they can't get their hands on money, much less have any connections with heretics. But aren't there all sorts of assistants? The assistants are the substance; the substance exists to do these things.
Victor nodded, then suddenly opened his palm, and a ball of fire appeared in the center of his palm. In the blink of an eye, the flame turned into a notebook. "This notebook records some of the ideas I used when researching various elemental magic. I can't give you the results of my research, and you wouldn't understand them anyway, but these ideas and insights are somewhat valuable. I'm giving them to you."
"Alright, that's settled then." Victor stood up again.
“You could actually consider coming to France,” Ronan extended an invitation.
Victor shook his head. "I was instrumental in the revival of constitutionalism. My departure wasn't just due to disillusionment, but because if I stayed, the political situation would be unbalanced, and there was no country in the Western Continent that could accommodate me."
"Does Iceland still hold any meaning for you?" Ronan asked.
“I’m going to Seris to see that legendary country ruled by wise men,” Victor said.
Ronan thought to himself, "You're going to be disappointed."
"I hope I live to see you again." With that, Victor disappeared.
It wasn't a visual disappearance, but rather that Ronan couldn't detect his magical aura at all.
“In the soil,” Dinia said. “I only caught a glimpse of where he went for a moment; once he became completely elemental, I couldn’t sense him anymore.”
"Truly worthy of being called the number one elemental mage." Ronan could only offer this praise.
"I am leaving."
After saying that, Dinia threw out a mushroom and teleported away from the balcony.
Ronan poured himself a cup of tea.
I wonder when he will reach the level of those two.
The following day, Alger and Isaiah met Ronan through Ambrina's introduction.
Ronan knew in advance why the two men had come.
The negotiation process went very smoothly; there were no tests, threats, inducements, or traps whatsoever.
Alger, on behalf of several companies in Wieland, pledged a research donation of one thousand pounds to Ronan.
Then Ronan promised that after returning to his country and establishing a ceramics factory, he would formally sign a contract with the other party, starting from the second year, to sell them no less than a certain number of ceramics each year. If the quantity exceeded this, the price would increase. If the other party did not buy, he would still have to pay the minimum amount.
Assuming there are 10,000 pieces of porcelain, if Ronan cannot produce that many pieces, he will lose money according to the selling price, and he will compensate for the amount he does not have. If Wieland can purchase more than 10,000 pieces, he will pay extra for the extra pieces. However, if they suddenly stop buying, he will still have to pay for 10,000 pieces of porcelain.
This deal is for five years.
Willand believed that five years would be enough for him to crack Ronan's porcelain technology, and Ronan had a similar idea. He even thought that Ronan could make it himself in about three years.
A preliminary verbal agreement was thus reached.
Before leaving, Alger suddenly extended an invitation, "Mr. Ronan, would you be interested in developing your career in our Weyland? In our country, you won't be subject to the king and nobles." He wasn't considering Dinia, having come from the Igis orphanage.
Dinia tried her best to maintain a smile. Ronan was controlled by the king? That's probably backwards.
"I'm sorry," Ronan said apologetically.
"Well then, goodbye." With that, Alger and Isaiah left.
Chapter 305 Progress Report, Time to Get Down to Business
After a month and a half, Ambrina, on behalf of Ronan, finally finalized the buyers for five factories: a food factory, a leather goods factory, a glass factory, a pottery factory, and a textile factory.
All that's left is to go through a so-called fair, just, and transparent formality.
No factory was ever bought by a single person, and with Elena and Alice's advice, Ambrina would not allow any single person to buy a factory.
The food factory was jointly purchased by a plantation owner, a timber processing factory owner, and a glass factory. Yes, the glass factory, because Ronan had come up with a new technology: the technology of glass cork canning.
They could have easily made tin cans, but Ronan didn't have any tin mines or tinplate factories.
This is similar to why he shelved the steam engine before he got his hands on rubber.
The leather goods factory was jointly acquired by two ranchers and a tannery owner, which unified the three stages of raw material production, preliminary processing, and finished product production.
The glass factory was more complicated. The three people who bought it were all cotton merchants. It was a deal that they could buy the glass factory at a relatively good price, with the fine glass products sold to the royal family, while Princess Ambrina paid for the textile factory.
This sum of money was nothing to Ambrina. With wheat and soybean seed companies in hand, she directly treated the domestic landlords like leeks and ruthlessly harvested them. Even so, many landlords in the kingdom wanted to kneel down and had to spend money to find connections.
The grain and oil big stick—if you swing it around like that, all the landlords in the country will have to submit.
There weren't many buyers for the pottery factory because it was difficult to export pottery. They mainly sold to the locals, and doing business with the locals was quite risky. In the end, a mixed-race wine merchant won the deal. He was nominally a single person, but he pooled his money with several other mixed-race businessmen. The other party didn't want shares in the pottery factory, but instead took shares in his winery.
Another half month passed, and the procedure was completed.
It's already mid-September.
Ronan has completed the first chapter of his two books, *A Short History of Democracy* and *Communitarianism*.
Writing the first chapter was truly exhausting. Not only did I have to present various "objective" historical materials, but I also had to discuss the production models and organizational forms of different periods.
In many places, Ronan borrowed some of the logic used by Engels in describing problems in his book "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State," and then used his own words to explain the role of "democracy" in the process of civilization, laying the groundwork for his later proposal of democracy in the new era and his elevation of it to a pedestal.
In the book "Communitarianism," the same historical materials and ideas are used, but the focus is on the impact of the transition from primitive public ownership to private ownership on the entire social organization. The book also subtly criticizes "democracy," which serves as a prelude.
When writing the first chapter, Ronan truly poured out all his "half-bottle water".
Fortunately, he's only a dabbler; otherwise, many people probably wouldn't understand what he writes.
The second chapter is much better and should be finished soon, since the content of the second chapter in both books is basically the same, both discussing the current international situation. There's no need to look up any information; just praise or criticize.
The object of their praise is Wieland.
The target of the criticism is Villa.