Chapter 2639: Cost Calculation

As for consumption, excluding general basic maintenance, the consumption of the Elemental Essence itself should be considered the largest portion. Based on the Element-level of the Magic Item being linked to the Magic Net, one Primary Elemental Essence can only be used to link about 4 Node Magic Artifacts to the Magic Net.

In other words, taking the Four-Linked Spirit Automation networking device Xia Duo has currently designed as an example, if using Primary Elemental Essence, nearly eight sets of Elemental Essence would need to be replaced in a single day.

And if using Intermediate Elemental Essence, about three sets would need to be replaced; if using Advanced Elemental Essence, it would only need to be replaced about once every five days.

In terms of total cost, using Primary Elemental Essence consumes over 9,000 Gold Coins a day, using Intermediate Elemental Essence consumes about 6,000 a day, while using Advanced Elemental Essence only requires about 800 a day!

If relying solely on intuition, it seems that using Primary Elemental Essence is more cost-effective, but after actually calculating it, Xia Duo realized how unreliable intuition is; the cost of using Advanced Elemental Essence is actually less than one-tenth that of Primary Elemental Essence!

This is without even considering the reduction in production capacity caused by downtime when replacing the Elemental Essence. Compared to this, the cost-effectiveness of Advanced Elemental Essence has reached a new level!

After careful analysis, Xia Duo finally understood where the difference lies. The reason is that Elemental Essence is a consumable for him, and it has a fixed consumption rate based on the magnitude of the essence energy within it.

Compared to Primary and Intermediate, the price of Advanced Elemental Essence does not grow linearly with the essence energy; rather, the energy increases much faster, while the price is not that outrageous.

Primary Elemental Essence is 300 Gold Coins each, Intermediate is 500, and Advanced is surprisingly only 1,000!

As for the energy consumed by the Elemental Essence to maintain the stability of quasi-Magic Items linked to the Magic Net, the Advanced Elemental Essence is nearly 40 times that of the Primary Elemental Essence, and more than ten times that of the Intermediate Elemental Essence!

In that case, when producing some higher-level Magic Items, using Primary Elemental Essence would be more cost-effective.

……

We must provide them with a suitable path. At the current stage, the industries related to Magic in the Territory are not yet mature, or rather, they are just in the budding stage; it is the perfect opportunity for those Magic Technicians to show their skills.

I am not sure exactly how many times such recovery can occur, but as long as the total number is large enough, the cost spread out is nearly negligible.

During experiments, Xia Shao also speculated on what kind of model Calimshan's element farming actually is. From the perspective of essence energy, this pricing is actually not reasonable; the price of Primary Elemental Essence is too high!

Of course, at the current stage, Xia Shao is not prepared to apply Spirit Automation on a large scale, and is not even prepared to make it public within the Tower of Time.

Therefore, at this stage, no matter how high the pricing of Elemental Essence is, Xia Shao can accept it, because no matter how high this cost is, it is not higher than hiring a living low-level Mage.

Moreover, using Spirit Automation increases production efficiency; no low-level Mage would be willing to work for me all day without eating or drinking.

In fact, if Elder-level Elemental Essence could also be mass-produced, as long as the price did not exceed ten times that of Advanced Elemental Essence, it would actually be more cost-effective to purchase Elder-level Elemental Essence!

Referring to the price of Advanced Elemental Essence, it would be more reasonable to set the price of one Primary Elemental Essence at over 20 Gold Coins.

But as I said before, for someone like Xia Shao who treats Elemental Essence as a pure consumable, the pricing of Advanced Elemental Essence is truly too high.

In the past, the bulk of the cost actually came from the low-level Spellcaster themselves; using Spirit Automation for production eliminates the need for low-level Mages.

Of course, Xia Shao does not hope that Calimshan will raise the price of Advanced Elemental Essence by referring to the price of Primary Elemental Essence, as that would be too exaggerated; a single Advanced Elemental Essence might then sell for over ten thousand.

But regardless, even if only Primary Elemental Essence is used for production, the 4,000-plus cost spread across 120 Node Magic Artifacts only adds an average cost of 80 Gold Coins per Node Magic Artifact.

Xia Shao currently has a set of four Elder-level Elemental Essences gifted by the Mairide Family. In his research, he discovered that as long as a certain type of energy in the Elder-level Elemental Essence is not completely exhausted at once, it will slowly recover as long as it is placed in the corresponding elemental environment!

Over the next two days, Xia Shao worked overtime to complete the final design of the Spirit Automation networking device, and then spent another day manufacturing the first batch of ten devices.

If this were a normal Magic Artifact intended for external sale, I could completely offset this part of the cost by raising the price by 200 Gold Coins, given the mere 80 Gold Coin cost.

A mature civilization, or rather a mature society, must provide most of its members with sufficient and relatively suitable employment opportunities; if it cannot, that might be the beginning of chaos.

Or perhaps Calimshan has some special demand for Primary Elemental Essence, which is why a certain production volume is maintained.

If this were made public, I estimate most Magic Technicians would despair. Although not all Magic Technicians lack the potential to continue improving, relatively speaking, these people have already been screened once, and overall, their potential is lower.

If Spirit Automation were launched now, it would undoubtedly interrupt this process. Only after most industries have developed to a certain degree can upgrades be carried out on this foundation.

Machines can be turned on or off as desired, whereas low-level Mages require wages regardless of whether they are working or not.

It is just that I only have these four Elder-level Elemental Essences on hand right now, and I am reluctant to use them for extreme experiments.

This means that as long as there is enough Elder-level Elemental Essence, in terms of Spirit Automation, the cost of the essence can be completely ignored!

Xia Shao certainly does not hope that the Territory he has high hopes for will descend into chaos. As long as the interior is not chaotic, everything can be slowly adjusted and improved under his control until the most suitable model of civilization development for this magic world is found.

Moreover, from the perspective of farming costs, it is also unreasonable. If the farming cost of Advanced elements is only three times more than Primary ones, then it is better to just farm Primary Elemental Creatures; the cycle is short, the results are fast, and profits are easier to maximize.

He speculated that the reason for the pricing of Calimshan's Elemental Essence might be related to the formation of Elemental Essence; not all Elemental Creatures produce essence when killed.

Piecework wages are only 80 Gold Coins per piece; even a fool would not be willing, and can someone who becomes a low-level Mage be a fool?

In reality, the price of a single Advanced Magic Item is at least in the thousands of Gold Coins; regardless of the actual cost, the past price has been relatively stable.

The higher the level, the lower the output rate. If that is the case, Calimshan actually has no need to maintain the manufacture of Primary Elemental Essence and should just focus on high-end products.

Which low-level Mage would be willing to link a quasi-Advanced Magic Item to the Magic Net for 80 Gold Coins?

The reason why there is still Primary Elemental Essence output might be that there are too many Primary Elemental Creatures, occupying the resources of other levels of Elemental Creatures, and they must be harvested regularly to maintain the normal operation of the Element Ranch.

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