Chapter 5

"Totally one hundred and thirty-seven units?" Xu Yi looked at Heinze's pre-order list with a headache, unsure whether to be happy or troubled.

The popularity of the magic fans was not unexpected. In such scorching weather, everyone hoped for something to bring them a bit of coolness. However, setting up a large ice frost array was too expensive for most people. The appearance of the magic fan perfectly met their needs.

Just think, compared to the thirty gold coins required to set up a large ice frost array and the maintenance cost of over a hundred gold coins per month, the magic fan, which only costs two gold coins to purchase and no more than one gold coin per month for the magic crystal, is undoubtedly much cheaper.

Although the effect of the magic fan cannot be compared to a large ice frost array, as long as it can provide some coolness and slightly alleviate the heat, it is enough.

However, Xu Yi never expected that in just one day, Heinze had received one hundred and thirty-seven pre-orders for the magic fans.

And according to Heinze, even more people had not decided to buy because they had not seen the actual product. Once the supply of magic fans was sufficient, the sales volume would likely far exceed one hundred and thirty-seven.

"Dear Xu, no matter what, please try to make these one hundred and thirty-seven magic fans as soon as possible. This is about our future reputation!" If Heinze's attitude towards Xu Yi was previously just polite, now he looked at Xu Yi as if he were a gold mine, his voice filled with intense anticipation and even a hint of flattery. "Of course, if possible, make as many magic fans as you can! Believe me, there are many people in Bonta City who need these magic fans! Even if no one in Bonta City wants them, I believe there will be demand in other cities!"

Xu Yi was a bit overwhelmed by Heinze's enthusiasm, but thinking about the seven gold coins and a handful of silver coins Heinze had just given him, he felt a surge of passion.

"Alright, I'll do my best!"

But it was easy to promise, but difficult to implement.

To complete the pre-order of one hundred and thirty-seven magic fans, relying solely on Xu Yi would definitely not be enough.

Although he was already very skilled at making magic fans, it took him at least three hours of continuous work to complete one. Multiplied by one hundred and thirty-seven, that was a total of four hundred and eleven hours, which would take over half a month!

After sending Heinze away, Xu Yi carefully considered the situation. He first went to the blacksmith shop where he had previously ordered the magic fan casings and placed an order for two hundred fan casings. Then he hurried back to Camilla's magic tower.

He had met Heinze during his lunch break, and when he returned to the laboratory, his colleagues were all there.

Under the surprised gazes of his colleagues, Xu Yi distributed a large bag of frozen wheat beer he had brought back. When he reached Rem, Rem did not reach out to take it but frowned and asked, "Hey, Xu Yi, if you have something to say, just say it. My mother taught me that after eating something from someone, your mouth gets soft. If you don't tell me what you want, I won't drink your wheat beer."

Hearing Rem's words, the colleagues who had just taken the wheat beer and were about to drink it also put it down, all looking curiously at Xu Yi.

Rem's reaction surprised Xu Yi a bit. He glanced at Rem, smiled, and seeing that everyone's attention was on him, he raised his voice, "Everyone, I do have something I need your help with. Of course, this wheat beer is just a small token, it doesn't mean anything, so feel free to drink it. I didn't put any poison in it."

Xu Yi's light-hearted words caused a light laugh, and he immediately continued, "As for asking for your help, of course, there will be a reward. This can also be considered extra income. I wonder if anyone is interested?"

"How much is the reward?"

"What exactly do we need to do?"

"How long will it take? Will it be busy?"

...

Everyone's concerns were slightly different, but they were all very interested in the reward.

Working under the Great Mage Camilla, although they received a monthly salary, it was fixed and not particularly high. So when they heard there would be a reward, they were all quite concerned.

"This job shouldn't be too difficult for any of you, and it won't take much time. As for the reward, it will depend on how much you complete. The more you complete, the more you get. Specifically, it's like this..."

When they heard Xu Yi explain that they only needed to draw a simple wind vortex array, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. For them, drawing a low-level wind vortex array wouldn't take much time and was not difficult at all.

And when they heard that they would receive ten silver coins for each wind vortex array completed, everyone's enthusiasm soared, even the usually unemotional Vena showed some interest.

According to Xu Yi, this job was so simple that drawing a few dozen wind vortex arrays would earn them a few gold coins, which was indeed easy and pleasant.

After Xu Yi finished explaining, out of the sixteen people in the laboratory, ten of them agreed to take on the job.

The remaining few who did not agree included Rem, Vena, and a few colleagues who ranked high in magical strength in the laboratory.

Xu Yi just smiled lightly and didn't say much.

He understood that these few people probably looked down on the job, or even on him personally.

However, this didn't matter. Being able to convince ten colleagues to help was already beyond his expectations.

With the help of these ten colleagues, not only would completing the pre-order of one hundred and thirty-seven magic fans be no problem, but they could even produce a higher volume as Heinze had suggested.

###

In the following week, Xu Yi was completely busy.

On one hand, he had to strictly monitor the quality of the fan casings being produced at the blacksmith shop.

As a senior mechanical engineer from Earth, Xu Yi knew that when mass-producing, the most important thing was to ensure uniform product specifications.

However, on the Sains continent, blacksmiths relied entirely on their experience and skills, with no particularly strict and precise specifications, so it was impossible to make all products uniform.

Xu Yi had no immediate solution for this, so he could only clearly mark the specifications on the drawings and strictly require the blacksmiths to follow them.

On the other hand, he had to teach the ten colleagues how to draw the wind vortex array.

Initially, the ten colleagues were dismissive, thinking that drawing a simple wind vortex array didn't need Xu Yi's instruction; they could do it easily.

But when Xu Yi showed them the wind vortex array he had modified, they realized it was much more complex than they had imagined, with many nodes and array lines they couldn't understand.

One of the colleagues even roughly drew it out, but when Xu Yi combined this array with the fan casing, everyone found that the magic fan produced a very weak wind, almost none at all.

At this point, they obediently followed Xu Yi's instructions and began to learn and draw the array seriously.

In addition to focusing on these two aspects, Xu Yi could not abandon his work in Camilla's magic tower.

Heinze had once advised Xu Yi that given the sales prospects of the magic fans, he could quit his job in the magic tower. Just by cooperating with Heinze to sell the magic fans, he could ensure a comfortable life without having to be so busy.

Xu Yi just smiled and didn't explain why he chose to continue working in the magic tower, but he still insisted on going to work there every day.

After a busy week, the work on two hundred magic fans was finally completed. Excluding the thirteen defective units due to various reasons, the remaining complete magic fans numbered four hundred and eighty-seven, not only completing the pre-order of one hundred and thirty-seven but also producing an additional three hundred and fifty.

Xu Yi's rented small house temporarily became a workshop. After completing his work in the magic tower each day, Xu Yi and the ten colleagues would come here to continue their hard work on the magic arrays for the magic fans.

The atmosphere in the workshop today was different from usual, filled with joy and excitement, as Xu Yi had promised to pay the colleagues their rewards after completing the five hundred magic fans.

On average, each of the ten colleagues completed fifty magic arrays, earning them five gold coins each, as agreed upon with Xu Yi.

While this reward was not particularly high, for these low-level mages who usually had few opportunities to earn money, it was a substantial income.

Additionally, Xu Yi gave each of them a magic fan as a token of appreciation.

It was worth noting that the magic fan had become a hot-selling product in Bonta City, and it was not easy for ordinary people to buy one.

Privately, the originally priced two gold coins per magic fan had been hyped up to three gold coins, a fifty percent increase!

If they sold the magic fans given by Xu Yi, they would earn an additional three gold coins each!

Seeing the excited yet restrained faces of his young colleagues, Xu Yi smiled and turned to look in the direction of Heinze's small shop.

Tomorrow was the day Heinze had set for the large-scale sale of the magic fans. He had used the pre-order money from the one hundred and thirty-seven magic fans to produce five hundred magic fans. If the sales were good tomorrow, he would surely make a substantial profit.

But if something went wrong and the magic fans didn't sell, he would lose everything.

Success or failure? Only time would tell.