Chapter 300: Military, Economy and Education

"Did you notice the girl in the Grand?" Knight asked Don while they were waiting for everyone in the Everlight castle to start the meeting.

"Yes, a Heavenly level mage"

"Do you think it's" Knight's voice trailed as Don nodded,

"It's Audrey Archeron, the princess of Archeron '' Knight was ready to retrieve the nails in case he had another episode as he had in the Ancient dungeon. Fortunately, it didn't come to that and Don seemed calm.

"What was she doing in Everlight? Does it have something to do with Sears?" 

"No. We made sure no one can find out anything about Sears" Knight said.

"What did you do with Sears?" Considering they didn't take Arrora to the ice mountain, she still had no idea what happened to Sears.

"Wasn't he a fire mage? So we hell fired him, no one can even find his ashes"

"I wish I was there to see that filth die" Arrora never liked the Cold Moon Palace and she hated everyone related to Rosaline more. The first thing she wanted after becoming stronger is to teach Cold Moon Palace their place under Everlight.

"Did he make you angry?"

"What kind of question is that? Of course, he made me furious Don, he did not only asked us to go to the devil's triangle but also disrespected you"

"Anger is good but don't let it cloud your judgment. I learned this the hard way" As they were speaking, one by one, people came into the meeting room and sat before giving a small bow towards him and Knight.

After everyone took their seats, Catalie appeared beside Don and stood beside him.

"Let's start the meeting. Amaryll how are the Grand and the Glacier doing?" Amaryll was brimming with joy and looked like she couldn't even sit still because of the excitement.

"Great! Great! Great! I never expected the place to be full of crowds on the very first day. There was so much crowd that we had to take people batch by batch. Now we need to order more supplies, much much more" Couple with Don's reputation and the nobles' craving for delicious food, the Grand became a Grand hit. Everyone knew that more people would come because of Amaryll's cooking and they had to buy more supplies to sustain the demand.

"What about the Glacier?" Arrora was curious to know more about the Glacier as it was mainly based on the Tea that she introduced.

"Surprisingly the Glacier is doing better than the Grand. The nobles seem to love Tea and all the flavors we have, notably, they are going crazy for Chocolate Tea and Milk Coffee. And although we have less fancy variants of tea for the commoners, they are also loving Tea and coffee. With this rate, ale and beer would soon be forgotten"

"Then it's a good thing that we don't have many taverns and inns in Everlight or it'll be the end for the owners," Uncle Dior said

"Although we don't have many, we do have a few taverns and inns. We need to make sure that they don't run out of business because of us" Vivian raised her concerns about the small owners of taverns and inns in Emir and Agoria.

"Dhursir, give the ale and beer we brew in Everlight to every tavern and inn owner out there for a very cheap price. Also, don't sell ale or beer in The Glacier and raise the price for the drinks there. That way, people would still go to taverns and inns and also the owners have a better chance of increasing their business with Dwarven products" 

"Will do that, me king" the old dwarf nodded without any second thoughts.

"Also, your majesty, we should give or loan coins to anyone who wants to open a business in Everlight," Vivian said.

"Only if they are our citizens and Uncle Dior can decide whether to give coins as free or as a loan"

"Now we have to talk about the upcoming ranking ceremony and King Mattia"

"Your majesty, I'm still waiting for our orders about the spy we caught," Vivian said.

"Mattia will not acknowledge anything about the spies or give a damn about them when they get caught. Get everything you can from the spy and kill him" No one was shocked about the order. If they didn't make an example out of spies of the nearby kingdoms, the kings of the nearby kingdoms would get cocky and send more and more people to spy on Everlight. Although they caught one spy, it was not possible to catch every single spy before they did some amount of damage to Everlight.

"Joel, warn our spies to be more careful. If their covers get blown, teleport them back to Everlight immediately" 

"Yes, General Knight"

"As for the ranking ceremony, we still have five months before the ceremony begins. I heard they rank kingdoms based on two things-military and economy, is that right?" 

"You're right, General Knight. The standard would vary each time and we don't know about that until the ceremony begins" Ukita said.

"I'm sure we have more than enough military power to reach the top five of the rank three kingdoms. It's the economy I'm worried about, we still need a few other income sources" Don knew that just two business establishments are not enough to keep the treasury full. With their kingdom growing each day, the expenses also grew with it and he had to make sure that they didn't dry out their treasury.

"Our major source of income comes from selling dwarven forged armors and weapons except Gabriella's guild is having a hard time with their competitor, the Thunder Hearts and it won't be too long till they make a move to clear out the Grega's guild," Uncle Dior said and Joel nodded as he was keeping tabs on both Grega's and Thunder Hearts merchant guilds.

"When the dam is built, we have another major source of income from Sigalla but the dam won't be finished before the Ranking ceremony. Therefore we have only two things to show in the ceremony under the economy category, our two new businesses and the trade between us and the Grega merchant guild. It's definitely not enough to get us into the top three, your majesty" 

Like it or not, Don had to agree with Uncle Dior. Their military power was high but they were weak in the Economy.

"Your majesty" the newcomer, Lia slightly raised her hand.

"Lia, you don't have to raise your hands, just say what you like" Lia was sitting next to Amaryll so Amaryll patted her back and said to encourage the girl to speak boldly.

"Yes, Amaryll" Lia nodded and turned back to look at Knight and Don.

"Your majesty, if you can give me more men, I can increase the production of the normal ships. We can sell those for a good price right?"

"How many ships are you producing now?"

"Currently I'm working on building more fishing boats and Spirit type ancient ships, your majesty. I have only enough workforce to build two Spirit ships and six fishing boats a week" Don nodded and looked at Amaryll who is also managing the human resource in Everlight.

"I can give you 300 more men to you Lia and I can also allocate more budget to shipbuilding"

"Is that enough Lia?"

"Yes your majesty, with this I can build more Spirit ships and fishing boats"

"Don, we have to keep the Ancients ships to ourselves and sell only the fishing boats"

"I know Knight"

"Your majesty, say you didn't forget about the vineyard and wine industry" It was not a secret that Amaryll is extremely excited to build a vineyard and start the wine production with Amber.

"I didn't Amaryll, in fact, I'd personally visit with you to see the place you have chosen to grow the black honey grapes"

"Really?! Wonderful" Amaryll practically bounced in joy when she heard him and put a smile on everyone's face as she looked like an excited little kid.

"Amaryll, wine production is not a small thing, we need a bigger workforce that we currently lack " Most of their workforce was allocated to the dam, construction of new houses and roads, beautifying the kingdom, light bulb, and generator production. They barely had enough men to allocate to Lia, therefore, Uncle Dior seemed reluctant to start another major operation like the Wine Industry.

"Arrora, Arwen, resume the slave traders hunting. Like before, if you can't kill the slave traders and rescue the slaves, just buy them. I will soon put an end to the slave markets" 

"As you wish, your majesty" Arrora grinned happily as Don looked at Joel

"Double the effort to bring the refugees to Everlight. Use whatever you need"

"When will Gabriella come back? If I'm right, we have healing potions to sell"

"We have a room full of valuable potions and pills, General Knight" Kayako almost finished all the herbs and ingredients at her disposal but she still didn't make a coin out of them because Gabriella's ships had not come back yet.

"Joel, check on her again. And speaking of potions, I assume Yvonne is settling down here" Don couldn't help but look at Arwen when he spoke about Yvonne. The two dwarves also let out a wry smile to embarrass Arwen.

"I'd like to visit Yvonne before I go with Amaryll. Knight did you give them the golden elixir"

"Not yet, l told them to settle down here first"

"Good, now I have one more last thing to discuss"