"Fine." Tim didn't complain overmuch. 500 million was steep, even for him, but manageable.

With a billion lir of pledges in capital, the new Templars Bank started out as a poor knights' support with intention to introduce the new Clira currency at the end of the year. The main reason for that was to give the Knight Captains (Earth Qi stage) time to make Clira. They weren't told what it was they were making, and were currently paid in Lir for their efforts at a ratio of 10 lir for a Clira.

"Aren't we overvaluing the Clira a bit? Or overpaying the Knight Captains and above?" George asked.

Remian shook his head. "No, because the value of the lir is plummeting. Using the price of an adult's meal as a measure, the purchasing power of the lir worldwide has already dropped to a tenth of what it was.

"Isn't that just the price of food going up? Other things have become cheaper than normal." Mindy queried.

"That's because manbased items are soon going to be useless, so everything that uses mana is worth only a few months of usage, at most. The prices of airs.h.i.+ps now are rock-bottom, if you want to buy them."

"Why would we want to buy almost-useless airs.h.i.+ps?" Mindy hesitated.

"So we can adapt them to electricity and use them ourselves, or sell them off at much higher prices?"

Mindy suddenly grinned. Electric adaptation was Jim's and Arnold's current main project, using Remian's Hauler designs as reference to adapt Armored Frames. Their second would be the Steam Engine Train currently being a.s.sembled with parts imported from Libertaria.

Speaking of that Steam Engine Train, the tracks were laid halfway to the Mining Towns by now, having already reached the village stops, but the parts for the Steam Engine itself were late and overpriced, likely due to the sudden worldwide demand. Some of those parts even got stolen by pirates during s.h.i.+pment and had to be replaced by the s.h.i.+pping companies. In two instances, the s.h.i.+pping companies went bankrupt and couldn't afford to replace them, forcing George to fork out more money.

"Next time, use Deutero s.h.i.+pping." Charlie counseled them, when he heard about it. "Even if we lose the cargo, we won't go bankrupt so easily. Plus, we have much better security."

True enough, every s.h.i.+pment coming in through Deutero arrived safely, even if they were sometimes late.

Remian shook his head. The train was taking far too long to put together. By the time it was finished, and Arnold's electric adaptation system was installed, the E-Train might be ready.

Oh, right. About that. Arnold's grand electric-adaptation design was basically just replacing the coal furnace with an electric boiler. In the end, the steam engine would still run on steam.

Remian's E-train, however, used an electric motor.

The ideas were simple enough. The problem was the battery. Right now, Arnold was using a gigantic version of the salt water battery Remian demonstrated to him earlier, the kind that looked like an ice tray with nails and copper wiring. Lemon juice was his ultimate plan, but importing lemons was expensive, the farms had only produced a limited amount of lemons, and it would take time to grow them in the numbers he wanted.

Actually, they could make rechargeable wet cell batteries. For that, they needed sulfuric acid, but they were already going to make that for wastewater treatment. Adventurers were sent into the Misty Valley and the Bog Marshes to look for fumaroles to get vanadium oxide. They also needed sulfur but considering that Mal'thor, Kor'ag and Khar'al-dras all slept on volcanic beds, that was hardly a problem.

Of course, Remian wasn't content with wet cell batteries. He wanted hydrogen fuel cells, or at least lithium-ion batteries.

Until then, they would have to use Jim's best idea; stick one of Deepsilver's children in a tank and have the electric eel zap away whenever they needed power. Tim, on the other hand, thought it should be possible to stick a dozen lynxmice in running wheels connected to dynamos.

Darian's idea was even more direct; have a dragonling directly breathe fire into the furnace.

What really held Remian's thoughts was Xiao Yan's gas containment formation. If it could contain hydrogen in a balloon… couldn't that hydrogen be used in a fuel cell? Hydrogen containment had been the biggest headache in fuel-cell usage.

In which case… Xiao Yan's Qi formations could be a direct shortcut to the hydrogen age, bypa.s.sing all fossil fuel usage entirely. Hydrogen powered airs.h.i.+ps, cars, marine craft, even…

Remian paused at that thought and looked upward, at the starry sky.

But then, he shook his head with a sigh. Xiao Yan's Qi formations required ambient Qi. There wasn't any of that in s.p.a.ce. The sky was the limit; no farther.

Anyway. Back to the train. Using hydrogen would turn the E-Train into a HE-Train (Hydrogen Electric). Directly skipping ahead to the hydrogen age would save them decades. From there to the electro-magnetic age, it was just a matter of generating lots of power and using it efficiently. If they could manage vacuum tubes and magnetic levitation trains within the next twenty years, they should very well be able to reach s.p.a.ce within a hundred years. That should give their s.p.a.ce colonists plenty of time to build a warp gate.

This was the technology route, but aided with a huge boost from the addition of Qi formations. What else did Xiao Yan learn from the Conglomerate education system? Remian suddenly realized that he didn't know. He only knew a bit of what Xiao Yan's formations were capable of. Thinking back, Xiao Yan's homeworld didn't have such formations. For all he knew, that formation was something from a Cla.s.s-7 interstellar civilization. If so, using such formations was cheating outrageously.

Remian shrugged. "We'll take it! We'll take everything we can get!"

***

The concept of adapting airs.h.i.+ps from mana to electricity had a huge potential for quick profit. Mindy leapt at the opportunity and immediately asked for Remian's a.s.sistance.

Remian, in turn, brought Xiao Yan along. They boarded Mindy's Red Fang and sailed to her s.h.i.+pyards at Fal'Herim.

Unexpectedly, Tim met them there.

"Hi, guys. I want in on this too." Tim said straight out as he greeted them.

"That's great, but, Tim… what is SHE doing here?" Mindy almost spat out the words.

Next to Tim was Asda and a squad of royal guards.

"Oh, I'm thinking we could really maximize our profits on this limited opportunity." Tim said. "I think we can get all of Fal'Herim working together on this. We can extend the scope of our enterprises by a few hundred times or more if you'll allow it."

"Why fix up a dozen airs.h.i.+ps when you can fix up a thousand, huh…" Remian mused. "I like it."

"But it's Asda!" Mindy protested. "We can't trust her!"

"No, she���s just doling out the money and signing the cheques." Tim a.s.sured Mindy. "The person in charge here is me."

"Oh, yeah? Prove it!" Mindy snorted.

Tim's eyes narrowed. He turned to the royal guards. "Capture Queen Asda and hold her at gunpoint."

"Yes, general!" all six of them instantly drew weapons and pointed them at Asda.

"T-Tim?" Asda spluttered. Tears filled her eyes. "W-why? I didn't even do anything!"

Tim turned to Mindy with a shockingly cold glint in his eye. "Is that enough for you?"

Mindy gaped. She suddenly felt like Tim was becoming almost hostile to her. "Uh… yeah. Sorry."

She wasn't sure what she was apologizing for, only that she felt like she should.

"Stand down." Tim called off the royal guards. Then, he went over to Asda. "I'm sorry. I was just making a point."

Mindy almost stared. The way he spoke to Asda was remarkably… gentle.

"It's okay. I get it." Asda half-whispered.

Mindy's hair almost stood on end. A whole bunch of mixed feelings erupted in her at that point, almost causing her to yell, blush and hide all at the same time.

"W-what happened? What just happened?!" Mindy asked Remian, completely befuddled.

Remian just sighed. "I think it's safe to say that Fal'Herim is changed. Fal'Herim has totally changed."