Chapter 753: Hidden Sea
Sam started his work instantly.
He made Raunak process another few acres of land under his name and bought it and started clearing it.
He felt like the owner of this whole forest.
This time though, he doesn't have to worry too much about the construction materials. He just bought them from the new customers. He didn't buy the huge blocks of the stone though. He mostly bought the scrap that would help him make the concrete blocks.
Within the factory, Sam is placing some machines that are used for crushing large rocks into small stones, machines for extracting the ingredient from the plants, and also a machine for extracting from the animals.
This factory is not just for making cement ingredients, this also for making the concrete blocks and sell them as construction materials instead of normal stone.
So, Sam made some steam engine-driven machines that would run the factory. Like the large concrete mixer, the pulverizing machine, and such.
That is not just for the sake of selling the factory. There is another motivation behind this.
Since the other party wants to get power and influence using their current power and influence as the base, Sam just found his new group of customers. He can sell anything and everything to them and all he has to do is sell the designs and methods which is easier for him and since they don't value the spirit stones much and he would get more value for cheaper products.
And his next target is engine-driven machines. He would just reach the target of Raunak's promotion by next month.
Another week passed in the construction and the factory is basically ready. There is not much detail for Sam to do, he just has to finish the basic structure and the builders from the buyer will come and take over.
Dia is in charge of tilling the fields and the ape in charge of planting them while Sky and Yanwu managed the pasture while the shadows performed the menial work.
After this week, the buyer came back with his team to take over and he was surprised by the new machines.
"Where did you get them?"
"I made them."
This surprised him even more and the man started examining them carefully.
"These are great."
"I know. But I would refrain from opening them and examining them if I were you. Once you pry it open, the machine will be destroyed and you would have to pay a good amount of money to buy another and that too if I was there and I am willing to sell it at that time."
"Then I must be careful."
After that they completed the rest of the procedures and Sam moved his camp to a different place.
This deal added another two hundred twenty-five million spirit stones to the tax target, along with another forty million lands Sam bought, the tax for the biscuit factory which is around one hundred and twelve, and the initial taxes from the liquor recipes already crossed the half-way point.
Currently, Raunak only has around three hundred and seventy million spirit stones that he has to finish in.
Sam is tempted to just buy more land, but without any proper reason like building a factory-like before, the authorities are strictly against this.
Raunak has become colder in general after that breakdown he had. He is making all the decisions by himself without consulting Sam for everything and getting paranoid.
The first thing he did after separating his office is completely prohibited any normal official to have any access to his office and that included the supposed guards that were sent by them.
Apart from that, he dismissed all the subordinates he was given which are essentially lackeys of other factions, and recruited the smaller level people in the administration office as his employees.
The employees have only one weakness which is their desire to become real employees. They are the people that don't have any background and made out of the school of bureaucracy with sheer luck or grit without making any connections.
Raunak showed some hope to them and recruited them under him and even here they are mostly responsible for performing the menial tasks like following the applications through the actual administration due to the land sale, or handing over the immediate tax Sam is paying them and such.
But he is also helping them showing the ropes of real bureaucracy involving them in the discussions with the rest of the bureaucrats.
He is giving them tips and experience along with the information which they would obtain about the rest of the bureaucrats and their characters along with some inner workings.
They are ecstatic. These are the people that don't want to join any faction and sell themselves but still want to rise in the ranks.
Everything is stable for now. Sam is currently waiting for another approach from this invisible third faction regarding the machines.
Currently, there is no visible movement from them, because even with Sam's warning they are going to be a bit curious and with the belief in their abilities, they will not give up the opportunity of trying their luck in examining the machines.
In fact, Sam actually wants that. He wants them to examine and tear the machines apart and he would use that as leverage to make a new business for himself. He would get that forging license which is impossible to get through Raunak from them and he would then start his weapon business here.
He wouldn't sell products themselves, he would sell the designs and factories.
He would open something like Patent Company use that as a base of his development in this realm. But he is not keen on opening it on this planet.
This planet is made for agriculture. Not manufacturing.
While he is contemplating his future development plans in this realm, the trio returned from the trip and brought some interesting news.
And that is, the villages and towns which are at the edge of the map are not actually the end of this planet. In the map, the towns are shown as the end and the rest of the planet is covered with forest which is restrictive to enter because of the presence of the high-level beasts.
At least that is what they were told. But the trio went to different places to verify these claims and it turns out it is not exactly true.
There are indeed some forests that are being occupied by some high-level beasts, but there are some places that are a bit suspicious and the trio's investigation revealed something that was being hidden for a long time.
There is a sea on this planet.
Sam doesn't know how the elves managed to hide it for so many years and from so many people. But there is indeed a sea on this planet and it is actually a large one.
One of the reasons that they managed to hide is because the travel is not by some spaceship. It is done by the wormholes which act as portals.
This made things easier for the elves to hide. And from what the people observed the towns and cities that are on the edge of the map are not actually the last towns and villages on the edge, in fact there are other towns beyond them.
But those towns are actually blocked by the thick forests which the trio suspects are artificially grown. Anyone who wants to travel past that has to go through the thick forests and they did encounter some beasts, but they are not actually wild beasts, they are tamed and some people are even riding them.
They are mostly elves and when they sneaked past them, they finally noticed something.
There are other towns past this forest, but the towns are not normal. They are bases for the soldiers. They didn't dare go deeper than that, but they are sure that they saw the sea and felt the salty sea breeze.
So there is some reason that the factions are trying to cover this up and particularly when they are teamed up together and setting aside their differences.
There are some speculations Sam has.
One of them is that they wanted to make the people completely oblivious of what is happening because there might be some serious danger in the sea.
Or there is a war going on with some enemy which they didn't want to show to their citizens and civilians.
In both cases, the danger is too big and the people will be in a panicked state. In the worst-case scenario, if that danger comes into the town, then their main target would be the people that are ruling, so there would be no bureaucrats who would be willing to work here.
So, this would hinder them from staying on this planet and running it and even the normal people that are responsible for the development of the planet wouldn't be willing to stay here when they knew that there is an enemy breathing under their neck.
Sam is smelling an opportunity here based on the threat that is on the sea. But for that, he has to find what it is exactly.