"You are the best." Catalina stared at the scrolls with sparkling eyes and hugged Virtya before she ran out of the dinning room. What was in her mind right now was about making a copy of these designs and give them to a messenger who was sent to her by King Brisbois ( Catalina's father).
One should know that king Brisbois' had knights who were much superior as compared to Virtya's knights and that was why king Brisbois' knights could get in contact with Catalina without Virtya knowing and even sometimes, Virtya's knights would allow these strangers to meet Catalina because they had the royal insignia of Magyo but recently, Virtya had stopped it because of his wavering relationship with King Brisbois.
However, on this day, Virtya was going to inspect the cannons, yes. It had been almost a month since he ordered Guarin to study the design of the cannon and build them with the help of the blacksmiths.
The knights quickly arranged for Virtya to visit the blacksmithing guild once again.
After Virtya entered into the carriage together with Alexandre and Tanya, the knights started their journey.
The distance from the palace to the blacksmithing guild was not that long and it was merely close to 15 kilometers, therefore, Virtya decided to relax at this moment, he didn't want to talk to Alexandre or Tanya either because he was still sleepy after partying all night.
As Virtya closed his eyes, he started to ponder about the upcoming project which was about the automotives.
Clearly, Virtya had promised the people that he would make the locomotives come to being but he was not very much sure about his promise, not because he didn't knew anything about the steam engine but because of the huge capital that was needed to support a successful motor industry.
Virtya didn't just want to build one vehicle and stop there no. Virtya wanted to buiild vehicles for the people of Azuhai and the foreigners. Yes, he wanted money from this investment but where could be find the capital?
Unlike the cement factory, the motor industry needed much and continuous supply of iron which Virtya didn't have at this moment, not to mention that also coal was needed to run the steam engines which would force Virtya to buy more coal from Ugley and the other neighbouring kingdoms.
Coal was plenty because of its much use in this backward world but it was also expensive and because Azuhai didn't have any coal mine, this would force Virtya to foster a good relationship with the neighbouring kingdoms so that they could accept and continue to sell coal to him with no strings attached.
Actually, because of how complicated the motors were, it would need Virtya to cough up 50 billion gold coins so that he could build an almost modern motor manufacturing plant but where would Virtya find 50 billion gold coins when his kingdom didn't even have such an amount of money when they put their money together?
This was what was giving Virtya a headache and sleepless nights because if he couldn't find a way to raise 50 billion gold coins, then the motor industry would forever remain to be a pipe dream.
And the 50 billion gold coins was only for the motor industry and if Virtya wanted to connect all the towns and cities of Azuhai with rails and build a locomotive industry, then it would need Virtya to cough up 150 billion gold coins for the rail connection and the train factory.
However, these absurd amounts of money could be slashed if Virtya found a merchant who could sell to him the iron ore at a cheaper price but those merchants could only be found in the northern continent which had an abundance of the iron ore but reaching to the northern continent would need Virtya to spent 3 years for going to the northern continent, loading the iron ore into his ships and sailing back, that was a lot of time that Virtya didn't want to waste. But if he wanted a cheaper option, he had to be patient.