Chapter 1950: Magic Society

Xia Duo admitted that Laidun's words made a lot of sense, but the other party was not a Mage after all, and did not understand the ins and outs of Magic Items as clearly as a true insider.

Take cost, for example.

Taking the first generation of Communication Magic Tools from the Tower of Time as an example, the cost, including labor, was less than 200 Gold Coins, while in a typical Netheril territory like Savile Territory, the annual income of an average craftsman was about one to five times that amount.

Merchants would be higher, and farmers would be lower, but as long as they gritted their teeth, taking out a few hundred Gold Coins to buy a Magic Item was still achievable.

In Daxia Territory, an annual income of 300 Gold Coins was already the legally guaranteed minimum income; there was basically nothing lower than this, only higher.

Xia Duo had long planned to use the Territory as the primary import market for the Tower of Time's cheap Magic Items, which was why he had deliberately built a high-income, high-consumption economic system within the Territory.

On one hand, it was to let the residents get used to consumption in units of Gold Coins, and on the other hand, it was to allow Magic Items to be perfectly embedded into the Territory's economic system.

Instead of becoming an alternative existence that only the Spellcaster group could afford, as was the case in other territories.

Only by shipping in large quantities could the Tower of Time's mass production advantage be fully utilized, using the market to test products, thereby forming a positive cycle and pushing related experience and technology to iterate and update rapidly.

Of course, relying solely on the internal market of the Territory was not enough; it might be enough to verify products, but to make the capital flow return to positive, a sufficiently large external market was still needed.

For this reason, Xia Duo chose to cooperate with the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce to sell the Tower of Time's mass-produced Magic Items to all parts of Netheril, and even the Elf World.

……

Besides reducing the production cost of Magic Items through mass production, Xia Duo mostly adopted transfer payments to increase the income of the residents.

For example, subsidizing agriculture and other industries, transferring wealth directly to official residents;

Or for instance, development subsidies; every official resident could receive a substantial Gold Coin subsidy—or one could call it a salary—when being granted land, which other Pioneer Territories did not have, with the specific amount related to the number of meritorious deeds during the development period.

Having children counted too, and one could even be allocated more land!

Then there was the Territory's infrastructure led by the Government Hall; the wages of the recruited residents were far higher than in other territories, or rather, other territories did not pay at all, as those residents had to serve the lord for free for a fixed number of months every year.

In addition, unlike other territories that had almost only a few management personnel, such as tax officials and clerks, Daxia Territory's various departments supported a large number of civil servants, managing the Territory in almost every detail, unlike the extensive management of other territories.

Not to mention, armed forces like the Army and security officers also had incomes far exceeding those of other territories.

Basically, Xia Duo's high-income policy had covered all groups of people in the Territory.

It even included children who were still in School; as long as they studied hard and achieved good rankings in the Tower of Time's weekly, monthly, and annual exams, those whose families were still in the development stage would be credited with merit, while those who were already official residents would be given money directly.

Up to now, Xia Duo had not heard of a single case of an Apprentice of the Tower of Time not studying well; everyone was striving for self-improvement, for themselves or for their families.

One had to know that the number of Apprentices in the Tower of Time now was not small, reaching nearly two thousand!

If this were placed before Xia Duo's transmigration, and someone said it was a school of two thousand people where everyone was a hardworking and motivated student, he would not believe it even if he were beaten to death, but now, the facts were right before his eyes.

Of course, he also knew the general environment of Netheril at the current stage; the spread of Knowledge was so closed off that everyone knew the preciousness of Knowledge, especially Magic Knowledge.

As long as the grassroots people saw a glimmer of hope, how could they not fight with all their might?

Once Magic Education in the Territory reached a certain level of popularity, situations similar to those in Xia Duo's hometown would inevitably appear, because by then, society would no longer be in a state where "only those who know Spells can have dignity."

As long as non-Mage professions could obtain social recognition and safety guarantees, not everyone would strive towards becoming a Mage, or perhaps there were too many directions to strive for, and focusing on one direction would inevitably make people slack off.

But generally speaking, the more choices the residents had, the more prosperous civilization would become.

As for the progress of Magic, Xia Duo believed that the driving force of one genius was far more effective than a hundred mediocre people, provided, of course, that a certain number of basic researchers were guaranteed.

Without a certain base of researchers, relying only on individual geniuses would make it very difficult to push for the progress of Magic and civilization together.

That was why Xia Duo worked hard to promote the popularization of Magic Education, to obtain a sufficiently large base of researchers, and at the same time to select more excellent Magic talents.

And this, along with the popularization of Magic Items and even the process of Magic Civilianization, was actually complementary; missing any one of them would only result in a cripple.

Therefore, no matter how many difficulties lay ahead, Xia Duo had to persist in pushing forward Magic Civilianization and the popularization of education.

As for the risks Laidun mentioned, where in this world was there anything completely without risk? Even when drinking water, some people choked to death!

As long as the risk was relatively controllable and the benefits outweighed the disadvantages, then it could be done.

Referring to Xia Duo's hometown, that was an electric society where ordinary people could be related to electricity almost every moment, but as far as Xia Duo knew, people on Earth did not have the talent to control lightning, and touching an electric gate would still kill them.

But engineers set up various Insurance measures for electrical appliances and electrical facilities; although they could not completely eliminate hidden dangers, as long as the operation was standardized, the probability of accidents was very small.

The same was true for Magic Items; as long as the scenarios for use by ordinary people were considered at the beginning of the design, and then optimized based on usage feedback, a civilian product with a relatively high safety factor could eventually be obtained.

As for the abuse of Magic Items, Xia Duo was not very worried about that.

At the current stage, Daxia Territory had not yet developed to the point where the types of Magic Items were rampant; the civilian Magic Items first promoted by the Territory were all practical tools.

For example, the Magic kitchenware, Magic washing machines, Magic fans, Magic plows, Magic harvesters, and so on, that Xia Duo was more optimistic about.

To the residents, these might be very fresh at first and they would want to try them a few more times, but once they used them more, and every household had them, they would not treat them as treasures to be fondled all day long.

It was just like buying an induction cooker on Earth; even during the period when induction cookers were just emerging, normal people would not keep them on to play with, but would only use them when needed.

At first, they might take a few more looks, but after using them for a long time, there would be no feeling at all.

……

Of course, Xia Duo did not use his own knowledge and experience to suppress Laidun's worries; he still let the other party go to the Territory meeting to discuss with the Chief Officials of various departments.

This matter had not even begun yet; at the very least, he had to wait until Jieyi had results that could be put into actual use, and before that, the more they discussed, the more problems they could discover.

After all, the experience from Earth was not necessarily suitable here.