Chapter 589: Cost Design and Production Methods

The 6th Layer of the Tower of Time, Tilake Research Lab.

When Xia Duo arrived here, the doors to the Research Lab were wide open, and a group of people were sitting around the Reception Room inside chatting; seeing Xia Duo approach, they all stood up at once.

A trace of confusion flashed in Xia Duo's eyes, but he quickly realized that it must have been because he had just asked the Tower Spirit to notify the members of the Tower of Time, letting these people know he had returned to the Tower of Time and prompting them to respond in this way.

Rationally, Xia Duo did not approve of such formalities, but when it happened to him, it really didn't reach the point of being annoying; skipping over these thoughts, he took the initiative to go up and greet them:

"Tilake, Dien, are you waiting here specifically for me? Don't do this next time!"

"We just happened to be on our break, so it doesn't count as waiting specifically," Tilake said with a smile.

However, Xia Duo did not take these words to heart; if it were truly a break, would there be a need to chase away all the Apprentices and leave only the Official Mages? Furthermore, he had never heard of the Tower of Time having any such thing as a break.

Even if there were, it would only be when the Official Mages wanted to rest that there would be a break; this had nothing to do with the Apprentices.

"Alright, let's not talk about this anymore; take me to see the 【Warning Amulet】!"

"Understood, Mage Xia Duo, please follow me!" Tilake reached out with a gesture and led the way, "The 【Warning Amulet】 is in my bedroom, turned on at all times, and there is also a finished product placed in the Green Pearl Forest to test its maximum duration."

The private residences, or rather, research labs, of the mages in the Tower of Time all had similar internal layouts, and it wasn't far from the Reception Room to the bedroom; just as the two stepped into the bedroom area, Xia Duo heard a harsh buzzing sound—evidently, the effect of the 【Warning Amulet】 was quite good.

At Xia Duo's signal, Tilake did not immediately deactivate the alarm sound, but let it continue to ring; after about ten seconds or so, the sound finally stopped.

Xia Duo noticed that the warning Jieti did not disappear because the alarm sound had gone off, so he turned around and shouted toward the Reception Room, "Dien, come over here for a moment!"

Hearing the voice, Dien walked over quickly; just like Xia Duo and Tilake, the alarm sound went off again the moment he entered the bedroom area.

"Sami, Aideliqi, you two come over as well, and enter at the same time!"

Sami and Aideliqi complied; similar experiments had already been conducted many times within their own research lab, and when they entered the Jieti area simultaneously, two almost identical harsh buzzing sounds rang out.

Although these two alarm sounds sounded exactly the same, and when overlapped they sounded more like a single noise, one could still clearly distinguish that there were two sounds.

Xia Duo looked at the silver cubic metal block on the desk in Tilake's bedroom that was roughly small enough to be grabbed with one hand and nodded with satisfaction; although there was still a gap compared to the 【Warning Magic】 cast personally by a mage, for an Adventurer in a dangerous area, such a 【Warning Amulet】 was completely sufficient.

"Except for the shape and volume, I am very satisfied with other aspects."

Although he didn't actually pick it up, Xia Duo knew very well that the majority of this silver cubic metal block's composition was silver, so the weight certainly wouldn't be light, and this shape didn't look like it was convenient to carry either.

Hearing Xia Duo's evaluation, Tilake explained:

"Adopting this shape is to maximize the accommodation of the internal Mithril Component; besides, this volume is the minimum volume at the lowest cost. If it needs to be adjusted to another shape, the Mithril Component would need to be adjusted, or even the amount of Mithril used would need to be increased. If you want to reduce the volume, it would require even more Mithril, and the cost would increase significantly."

"It doesn't matter; as long as it allows the buyer to carry and use it conveniently, they won't care at all if it's slightly more expensive!" In Xia Duo's hometown, there was even a saying about trading privacy for convenience; now that he was only slightly increasing the cost, it wouldn't affect sales at all.

After all, the cost of this cubic Amulet was only about 200 Gold Coins, and even if it increased, it would still be lower than the cost of other similar Magic Items on the market; this was the advantage brought by technological progress.

Moreover, since his costs here had increased, he could completely increase the selling price by the same proportion, transferring this part of the cost to the buyer, and even charge a premium for the product's ease of use; there were too many things that could be calculated here.

Tilake nodded as if he understood, "I understand, I will complete the adjustments as soon as possible."

"No need to rush this; besides checking on the 【Warning Amulet】, I have another very important matter that I need to tell you all!"

Returning to the Reception Room, just as Xia Duo was about to bring up the matter of the Communication Magic Tool, Dien interjected, "Is it related to the meeting the day after tomorrow that the Tower Spirit just notified us about?"

"Unrelated, but also related!"

Xia Duo glanced at everyone, and seeing that they were full of confusion, he immediately took a thick stack of documents out of his Dimensional Bag, handed them to Dien, and signaled for him to distribute them to everyone before explaining:

"These documents record a new type of communication Spell, as well as the manufacturing data for a Communication Magic Tool based on this new communication Spell; you all should take a rough look first!"

As he spoke, Xia Duo also took out two unencrypted, unpackaged semi-finished Communication Magic Tools and placed them on the table in the Reception Room; these were actually the laboratory versions he had manufactured at the very beginning, and after a long period of testing, they still hadn't broken.

Giving them to Tilake and the others now was also to provide them with a reference while they carried out the research and design of the "【Permanent Magic】 type Communication Magic Tool."

The 【Permanent Magic】 type Magic Item combined the advantages of both the "Mithril Component Magic Item" and the "【Magic Permanence】 type Magic Item," though to a certain extent, it also combined the disadvantages of both.

However, the biggest advantage of the Permanent type Magic Item was not any advantage in terms of usage, but that the cost was greatly reduced compared to those two manufacturing methods.

Of course, if one must pursue high-quality goods, most of the time it is still better to manufacture Magic Items using the 【Mithril Component】 or 【Magic Permanence】 methods.

For example, the several Communication Magic Tools that Xia Duo had manufactured previously were all made using the 【Mithril Component】 method.

……

A moment later, Tilake closed the documents; he looked at Xia Duo, his eyes revealing a hint of confusion and doubt, "Mage Xia Duo, is this 【Magic Net Background Communication】 a 2nd Circle Spell?"

"Yes! I know that most people here have not come into contact with the Second Layer of the Magic Weave, but you don't need to worry; the situation will change before long!"

"Is it related to the meeting the day after tomorrow?" Tilake asked the question again.

"Yes." Xia Duo did not hide it, nor was there any need to hide it.

Although he was currently Niya's Agent, and he had discussed the transformation of the Tower of Time with Niya before returning from Seventon this time, a mage was a mage after all; he couldn't just announce the transformation without a word, and he had originally intended to give the members of the Tower of Time a heads-up in advance.