170 Growing Pains

The next three months passed by peacefully for Jayde. Her clothing line at The Golden Thread had taken off, and Maianna had no choice but to move to larger premises in a more affluent area in Aeris due to the number of noble families patronizing her shop. Jayde and Maianna decided to leave the original small shop open for the poorer customers, selling cheaper clothing.

During this period Maianna also opened up three other shops one in Shadowfen the capital city of the Ayon Kingdom in the south, the other in Calchester the capital city of the Shadel Kingdom in the east. Jayde had instructed that the third shop was to be opened in Arvia, the capital city of the Acica kingdom in the north, the home town of the Freeholds.

During the past three months, The Golden Thread's cosmetic line had also become so popular with all the females in the Lower Realm that gold was flowing into Jayde's coffers at an alarming rate, but Jayde had now run into a severe problem—she couldn't keep up with production. Jayde decided to approach Maianna about this problem.

The two women were sitting in Maianna's new office discussing the latest sales figures when Jayde bought up the issue of supply.

"It's not just the manufacturing, but also the supply of the basic ingredients that is the problem," Jayde said.

"The clothing side is also experiencing the same problem, I have hired as many seamstresses as I can, but we can barely keep up with our orders. Like this there is no way we can open up more shops," Maianna said looking serious.

Rubbing her head tiredly, she glanced at Jayde hesitantly. "I do have a suggestion, but I am sure you not going to like it."

Jayde arched one finely shaped eyebrow, looking expectantly at Maianna.

Maianna smiled wanly. "Slaves."

"Maianna," Jayde said with a grim voice, "you know how I feel about slaves."

"I know Jayde, but do we really have a choice?"

Over the past three months, Maianna had gotten to know the young girl sitting in front of her. She had been surprised at how vehemently Jayde hated the class system in Doha, especially the whole slave system. Maianna still believed that Jayde came from a noble background, and she had been delighted when she had found out that Jayde shared a similar view as she did to slavery—Maianna had never expected someone from a high ranking family could view commoners like herself as equals.

Jayde knew that Maianna had a valid point, without using slaves they had little to no chance of growing their business. While Jayde was earning a lot of gold it still wasn't nearly enough to take on the Freehold clan, she would need a lot more gold before she could implement her plan to squeeze the Freehold business empire, cutting off their financial backing.

Jayde had initially thought that she could buy slaves and free them when she had raised this idea with Maianna, Maianna had been quick to point out that once the slaves were free, they would be quickly captured again and sold.

Jayde sat quietly in her chair thinking over various plans, but she really couldn't think of any solutions to their labor shortage. Jayde understood that she couldn't change the social system on Doha, not until there was a way to equalize the power distribution between the various classes. It would be alright if the noble and royal families protected the stone class mages, but they didn't, and without a strong supporter, these mages were open to abuse.

Anyway, why should those nobles protect those mages, Jayde thought bitterly, having a labor force that you didn't have to pay wages to only benefited them. The most significant cost to any business was labor, who in their right mind wouldn't want this for free. The cost of feeding and housing these slaves was negligible as most owners didn't really care about their salves well-being.

"Fine, I agree," Jayde said smiling bitterly. "But I have conditions."

"One — our slaves will be treated properly, and by that, I mean decent food, clothing, housing, medical care and education for their children. Two, they are paid a basic weekly wage, this must be based on their skills. Three, no forced breeding, all men and women are to treated with respect. Four they are given access to further training to improve their skills, and lastly they work the same hours as our free workers," Jayde said feeling slightly nauseous as she came to this decision.

While she might be forced having to buy people like cattle, that didn't mean she had to treat them that way. Maianna was surprised when she heard Jayde agree to her idea, but she was ecstatic hearing Jayde's conditions. Like Jayde, Maianna abhorred slavery, she had lost her younger brother and sister when they had been taken away when they had tested as stone class on their reading day.

Jayde and Maianna then discussed where to set up their new base of operations, since Jayde knew very little about the surrounding area, she left this up to Maianna. Maianna pulled out a map of the Lower Realm, and while looking over the map, she thought hard about where they should move their manufacturing to.

It will need to be low key, Maianna thought, their unorthodox way of treating their salves would cause unrest among the noble families. Our factory will have to be close enough to Aeris, but we will need good farming land, they were going to have to grow their own herbs, plants, and food. Maianna mumbled to herself. Must also have some sort of foundation, they were going to need housing initially for their workers, but not too many buildings as they will have to buy all the land, and buildings would just drive up the cost.

Moving her finger over each of the tiny villages in the Ayon Kingdom, Maianna tried to remember all the communities she had visited when she was younger. Unlike Jayde, Maianna had traveled extensively before finally settling down in Aeris. As her eyes followed her finger down the coastline of the Ayon Kingdom, Maianna eyes lit up.

"Here!" she exclaimed excitedly tapping her finger against a small village, "this is perfect."

Jayde leaned over to have a look at the area on the map that Maianna was pointing too.

"Shaihshire? Why Shaihshire?" Jayde asked.

Grinning with delight, Maianna looked at Jayde her eyes fever-bright with excitement.

"Shaihshire is perfect, decades ago the last king of Ayon decided to open up a port city. He wanted to create various sea trading routes with the other kingdoms. So he had a dock built in Shaihshire, but the whole experiment failed. The quickest way to travel to Shaihshire is through the Leiquet Forest, but there are too many spirit beasts within Leiquet Forest, and it ended up costing the merchant too much gold to hire large mercenary groups to escort their caravans.

Traveling around Leiquet Forest added weeks to the travel, and then unlucky for Shaihshire, around that time a large Aura stone deposit was found in Farnlis Summit just outside Erstonia, the people of Erstonia quickly built a large port and Erstonia became the official port city in the Ayon Kingdom."

Jayde's interest peaked as she listened to Maianna's story. Jayde knew all about the Leiquet Forest, it was a massive jungle-like forest just outside of Aeris. All first-year students were required to spend two weeks in the Leiquet Forest hunting in three months time hunting spirit beasts as part of their dix month assessment. The teachers at Damonia had been warning student for the past week about the up and coming assessments.

"Excluding the issue about traveling through the Leiquet Forest, Shaihshire itself is an excellent location, the village is located in a large valley, surrounded by hills only one easy entrance into the valley—so easily defendable. The land is fertile, and there is a large forest just outside the village perfect for easy access to lumber. The hills contain a few quarries for stone." Maianna said interrupting Jayde's thoughts.

"It does sound great, but isn't it going to be expensive buy all that land?" Jayde asked with concern.

Giving Jayde a sly look, Maianna said: "That's the beauty of it, Lady Sarralle was delighted with her new gown and came in yesterday to order new gowns for herself and her four daughters for the upcoming harvest ball, I told her we couldn't help, not in such a short time."

Jayde's eyebrows furrowed, she was confused about what Lady Sarralle had to do with Shaihshire.

Seeing that Jayde had no clue what she was talking about Maianna explained.

"Lady Sarralle is King Chauveseul's adored younger sister. King Chauveseul father was forced to buy back all the land sold to the nobles when the Shaihshire experiment failed — it was the only way he could appease the nobles who had invested in Shaihshire."

"Oh, so you think that if you offer to make Lady Sarralle and her daughters' new gowns, she will be able to help you obtain the title deeds to all that land."

"Positive of it, especially if I offer to use that new armor strength spider-silk that you created," Maianna said grinning widely.

Jayde nodded. "But Maianna can you, and your team create five gowns in time, aren't you swamped with orders?" Jayde asked with concern, before taking a sip of her tea.

"Pfft, I only turned her down as her daughters are entitled cows who like throwing their weight around," Maianna said cheekily.

At Maianna cheeky resort, Jayde choked on the tea she had just swallowed. Coughing she threw Maianna an amused look.

"Okay, then I will leave this task in your capable hands," Jayde said quietly, fighting to keep the laughter out of her voice.

Jayde and Maianna chatted a while longer about their future plans, once Maianna managed to purchase the lands, Jayde would accompany Maianna to Shaihshire to inspect the village. Jayde and Maianna would be able to travel to Shaihshire renting one of the flying beasts available in Aeris, and since Shaihshire was only an hour's flight from Aeris Jayde wouldn't need to take time off school.

Only after they had decent accommodation ready would Maianna and Jayde visit the local slave market and purchase their new labor force. Jayde gave Maianna half of the gold she had saved up to help pay for the for land as well as the initial supplies they would need.

After collecting Raven, who was busy trying on various new outfits, Jayde bid Maianna goodbye, before the two girls hurried to meet up with Ash and Nova.

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