Inheritor Of Magic: The Magi King

Chapter 1002: 1002 Helping Gormana

Khalifa gave the Finance Minister an odd look. “I was under the impression that you were supposed to lie and make things sound less urgent from your side. Is that not how you negotiate in your country?”

The Minister’s face went blank, and Wolfe laughed. “What he’s not saying is that the Capital Nuclear Facility is the last full-scale power plant that they have online. A few small facilities are being operated on magically created coal, but that won’t work for long because it enrages the Fae with the level of pollution.”

Khalifa nodded, making her long Elven ears bounce. “I see now. Excellent politics, Minister.”

The aging human Minister smiled back at the Elf, unsure how to answer that when his attempt had been so easily seen through by Wolfe, who got updates from the Guardians on the state of the nations.

Wolfe thought about it for a moment. “How about instead of a loan, I offer you a business deal? I will create a group of power plants to run your nation’s infrastructure, and the government will pay me a monthly commission for the operation of the facilities?

Think of it like a private corporate investment in the nation’s power grid. I put up the money, or in this case, the magical labour at your shuttered power plants, and you do the distribution, while paying me a simple ten percent commission.”

“Ten percent, and we still need to have the Guardians charge the grid? That will bankrupt many of our people. Power is already prohibitively expensive, and people are turning to outdoor wood fires for cooking, which is depleting our forests at an alarming rate.”

Wolfe shook his head. “I will make the power plants self-sustaining. Then you charge a reasonable market rate, after my approval, and I take ten percent of the revenue generated. We will naturally need to have a set aside for growth, maintenance of the lines and future expansions of the grid in addition to that ten percent, but I am certain we can come to a reasonable accommodation.”

The Finance Minister seemed to be showing a bit of hope, but Beth had a sly look on her face that spoke of a newfound appreciation for Wolfe’s business sense. He hadn’t put a time limit or a payment cap on the assistance, like there would be with a loan. Instead, he offered to take a percentage of all power sales, which meant if there were excess, they could theoretically sell it to their neighbouring nations for a profit, of which he would also get a cut.

It would be a massive windfall for Forest Grove, and it would require nothing from them, other than occasionally going to upgrade the power plants when the capacity needed expansion. She might not have been her father’s most prized child when it came to business sense, but he hadn’t inherited his wealth, and she had learned much of what he had to teach.

The Finance Minister sighed in relief and motioned for his assistant to come forward. “This is a map of our power grid. What facilities would you be willing to bring back online so that I can inform the industrial minister of where we can start preparing to have factories come online again once our shipments of materials begin to arrive.”

“Shipments of materials?” Wolfe asked.

“The Earth Element Guardians are willing to sell us raw materials that they create at cost. So, we just need factories working to send them to, and we can keep the economy moving.” The Minister explained.

“Wonderful. It sounds like you’re on your way to a sustainable future. Alright, I see a total of seven power plants in Gormana, along with their rated outputs. I can bring all of them back online for you, and get the grid back to the state it was in before the first one was shuttered.

How much work do the lines need before they will be ready to transmit power?” Wolfe asked.

The Minister was shocked for a moment, before he realized Wolfe’s plan the same way that Beth had.

“The lines are still usable. We had them tested to determine which plants could be brought online using coal, and then went with the ones furthest from forests and populations, at the request of our guardians.” He explained.

“I will have to alter the schedule for my trainees, as I will be gone for a few days and changing at lunch isn’t practical. However, if we can get a deal finalized, I believe that I can start tomorrow.”

Beth hid her pleasure at Wolfe’s pressure tactic. Saying that he can start tomorrow if there is a deal put all the pressure on Gormana to agree to whatever terms he came up with, as any delay would only be hurting their own people and would cost Wolfe nothing.

It seemed so innocent and innocuous, but she was beginning to suspect that Wolfe had some experience with the ruthless sort of businessmen in the past.

Wolfe gestured back to Risa, who took her followers to gather a group of assistants to write up a formal deal for the power distribution agreement, while the Finance Minister brought out a stack of documents for Wolfe to go over.

“These are the budgeting numbers, both where they are, and where we believe that they need to be in order for our people to adapt their inflated cost of living to something close to the standard based on the currency units that everyone is adopting.

We have largely switched over, so that isn’t the largest problem. The real issue is scarcity. Everything is hard to get, so the markup is huge. Once that starts to normalize, then we can start bringing the cost of living in line with reality.

Having reliable power will help with that. We already have enough facilities to convert our major transport network to electricity, other than the Mana Crystals for fuel storage.

That will likely be done by the Guardians, or at least one of them with a mind for business.

Empty crystal is cheap and easy to make, but it can be profitable, as it is reusable.

But while we are here, I have a second proposal for more Garden Charms, large-scale ones for entire farms. The Government would like to purchase them as a farm aid subsidy, to bring down the cost of food.

I hadn’t intended to discuss it with you, but with one of the witches later, as I didn’t expect this to be an easy deal when I came begging for money.”

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!