Chapter 2932: Entering a New Stage

————Still about an hour left~~

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In Xia Duo's view, insurance is an Order Cornerstone more stable than Mingshui New Currency; from the classical era to the modern day, one can see the presence of insurance.

Not to mention Earth, the crew pension of the Seventon Boatman Guild is a typical form of insurance; crew members pay a certain premium every month, and once an accident occurs, their families can receive compensation two to three times the total premium.

Besides the crew, ships and cargo also have similar insurance schemes, mostly existing in the form of guild public accumulation funds, and almost all chambers of commerce involved in shipping business participate in them to share the risk.

The advice Xia Duo is now giving to Zhenna is to establish a more professional, more comprehensive, and broader insurance system to provide services for more people.

……

A moment later, Lajieer sent a message saying that the representatives from Vidas Workshop and the Mina Family had arrived and were waiting in the next room. Seeing that Zhenna was still deep in thought and unsure of how far she had considered, Xia Duo reminded her again:

"President Zhenna, if the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce has an insurance business, then I will definitely take out a policy for every independent Laboratory in the Tower of Time; otherwise, a single experimental accident could cause a group of people to go bankrupt."

"And then there are the airships flying in the sky every day; equipment failure, attacks by flying beasts, or even human sabotage could all lead to an airship crash. If there were insurance, perhaps there would be more airships flying over Netheril in the future, and commerce would be more prosperous."

From Seventon to Daxia Territory, if one takes the traditional water transport route, at least a month is wasted on the road.

The reason is that although the two places are connected by waterways, the currents are sometimes against and sometimes with the flow, and coupled with the winding river, it is impossible for ships to travel at full speed on the water.

The time taken from Seventon to Daxia Territory is even longer than going to the more distant Asikeer.

But airships are different; flying in the sky, as long as they fly high enough, it takes at most one or two days to fly from Daxia Territory to Seventon. Even with low-altitude flight, considering the unpredictable wind direction or interference from flying beasts along the way, it will not exceed five days.

This is a time difference of at least six times.

The biggest problem currently affecting the popularization of airships is the high manufacturing cost (the air bag and the Endless Gas Bottle); once an accident occurs, an ordinary Mage simply cannot recover the losses.

Therefore, although many people are optimistic about this mode of transport, considering the high upfront investment costs, most are still in a wait-and-see state.

As a partner of the Tower of Time, the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce naturally obtained the airship technology authorization at the first opportunity (the Tower of Time and Leisen Territory share the patent) and purchased several finished airships from Leisen Territory.

However, there are not many scenarios where they are actually used; general supplies can go through traditional transport channels, and valuable items can go through a Portal or Teleportation Array, or even be transported by a High Mage in person.

This makes the airship seem somewhat lackluster, and according to Xia Duo's understanding, a Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce airship crashed while flying the 【Kangqi Plain-Seventon】 route.

But if there were insurance, although the unit price of freight and the cost of the airship might increase a little, in the long run, this part of the cost could be diluted.

Yet the convenience brought by airship transport will change the current commercial form of Netheril; at that time, ground transport might be completely eliminated, or only used for short-distance transport.

The two insurance application scenarios Xia Duo proposed were examples based on the past experience of the Tower of Time. Although Zhenna does not manage a Mage Tower organization, as a Great Arcanist, how could she have never encountered a Laboratory?

Moreover, Xia Duo believes that Zhenna must have encountered Laboratory accidents, the kind of accidents that exceed the Laboratory's own Protection limits; one such accident is equivalent to rebuilding a new Laboratory.

As an Earthling, Xia Duo is very attentive to Laboratory risk management. After he took over the Tower of Time, ordinary Laboratories rarely had major accidents, but for an Arcanist's Advanced Laboratory, there was no way around it.

It is basically destroyed once used, and then rebuilt; this is also the main reason why most Arcanists come from Mage Tower organizations.

"Loose cultivator" Mages simply cannot find a suitable Advanced Laboratory and can only beg the Seven Towers or join the Arcane Union, a relatively loose mass organization, to have a chance to become an Advanced Arcanist.

In fact, Mages who truly have the ideal of becoming an Advanced Arcanist have already found ways to join a Mage Tower organization that possesses an Advanced Laboratory before advancing.

Of course, for an existence like an Advanced Laboratory that is almost destroyed once used, even if someone is willing to underwrite it, the premium would certainly be equivalent to the reconstruction cost, or even higher.

But ordinary Laboratories do not have accidents often, so to avoid bankruptcy overnight, buying insurance is very appropriate.

As for airship insurance, or rather airship freight insurance, the Tower of Time has a total of two airships, one large and one small. The small one is a patrol vehicle for the Spellbreaker Guard, and the large one is used more as a training airship and has not been put into commercial use.

But the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce has an airship fleet, and their understanding of the pain points of airships is likely more profound than Xia Duo's.

Xia Duo does not care about the cost of airships; in fact, he has already mastered the key technologies to reduce costs—for the air bag, there is mass-produced Magic Glue material, which is lighter and more durable; for the Endless Gas Bottle, he also has a team for mass-producing Magic Artifacts, plus the Wind Elemental Plane that can provide light gas.

It is very difficult for others to solve these two points, especially the Endless Gas Bottle; currently, only Kelifu has a Wind Elemental Plane that can produce light gas, a technology that is firmly a bottleneck, and it can only be purchased at a high price.

One could also try elemental conversion, but without knowing the elemental composition of the light gas, there is no way to do it.

Of course, if someone is lucky enough to discover it, then they will make money, and they could even beat down the price of the Endless Gas Bottle, the core component of the airship, severely, with a price war completely crushing the existing Plane-channel type Endless Gas Bottles.

If the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce is willing to engage in airship freight insurance, Xia Duo is also willing to give it another push from behind, selling cheaper and better airship air bags (Magic Rubber Shoes are already being sold, and others will discover this material sooner or later; the Tower of Time has already established a Magic Glue Research Center and is not worried about competition).

As for other components and final assembly, they can be left to others to do.

The money in this world can never be earned in full; it is enough to master the core technologies and key processes. Leaving other steps to others can also form a benefit alliance, where everyone makes the cake bigger together, increasing the ability to resist risks while also reaping more benefits.

……

Under Xia Duo's repeated reminders, Zhenna finally made up her mind. Of course, what prompted her decision, besides the insurance prospects Xia Duo showed her, was the internal reform of the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce; this was an excellent opportunity!

As a Merchant, she knows very well that although internal reform is essentially about taking power from the branches below, it cannot be done so directly when actually carrying it out.

Participating in the mineral development of the Grey Peak Mountains and the newly learned insurance business are important ways for her to reorganize the internal order of the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce.