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The Royal Academy generally does not allow outsiders to enter. Relevant personnel need to submit an application for an appointment, and upon confirmation, they can come to the school.
Early on Saturday, Luna and several other servants arrived at the school.
The majority of the students at the Royal Academy are descendants of the noble family, who are not accustomed to doing chores like laundry or tidying up their rooms. The school has arranged for related paid services, but steward Aaron is not satisfied with how the paid servants clean the rooms. Therefore, Luna brought the servants to help Aresia tidy up her dormitory.
Aresia’s dormitory was exceptionally clean. Although one corner of the dormitory was converted into an experimental table, filled with various laboratory equipment, the warm and comfortable noble decoration on the other side seemed out of place. However, there was not a speck of dust in this entire area, and everything was neatly arranged, including the clothes hanging in the wardrobe, without a single wrinkle.
– It’s completely different from when young master Amos first moved in.
Upon entering the dormitory, Luna couldn’t help but show a surprised expression and asked, “Have the servants already come to clean today?”
Aresia blinked and replied, “Yes, they usually come to clean on Tuesdays and Fridays.”
This surprised even the servants, “Twice a week?”
Aresia nodded; in reality, the dormitory’s hygiene was managed by a magic caretaker. To ensure that someone else took care of it and to avoid unnecessary attention, the arrangement had been made discreetly.
Aresia was not fond of strangers entering the domain of her quarters. Bi-weekly cleaning was already pushing the limits.
The magical task of maintaining order in the dormitory was not to her liking, but it worked like a charm, thanks entirely to magical prowess.
Chores magic was a boon for the wizards responsible for cleaning the bathrooms. With it, the dormitory never resembled a chaotic mess, akin to a garbage heap.
Since the dormitory required no tidying up, Luna let the other servants take care of their duties first. Then, she began reporting the condition of the spider silk fabric to Aresia.
During the period of Aresia’s readjustment to campus life, the fame of the spider silk fabric had spread within the Gryphon Legion.
All credit for this was owed to her brother, Amos.
Amos gladly received the clothes sent by Aresia. At first, others did not notice anything special about him. However, after a while, his comrades noticed that, in the midst of the sweaty and intense training, one person always remained refreshingly cool.
Amos himself had a bold and outgoing personality. Coupled with the fact that the clothes were a gift from his sister, whenever someone inquired, he would enthusiastically praise Aresia and the spider silk fabric. He would mention that the magical pattern on the clothes was hand-drawn by Aresia, whether it was the unique combination magic array of the spider silk fabric or the temperature control and cleaning magic, it was undeniably eye-catching.
Amos’s showiness inadvertently caused some trouble for Aresia.
“Master Amos received a significant order from the Gryphon Legion.”
Initially, steward Aaron who is like a manager was hesitant. According to their original plan, they intended to wait until the textile factory was completed before starting external sales. However, Amos, in order to relieve the pressure from his colleagues, helped them secure a batch of orders.
It’s not surprising that Master Amos did this. He had connections with the textile factory, and it seemed that there were too few people placing orders.
As a result, they have already received orders for at least five hundred pieces of silk fabric, and this number is increasing. After all, Master Amos has already accepted a portion of the orders and cannot reject people from other legions.
Moreover, the people placing these orders are quite straightforward. Each person has directly given a deposit of one thousand gold coins and stated that they are willing to pay even ten thousand gold coins for a piece of silk fabric.
The regular soldiers of the Gryphon Legion may not be nobility, but they are professional knights. Although not noble, their professional status is quite decent, and the Legion itself provides good treatment. This group of people has the confidence to spend such money.
Already, just from the deposits, they have collected over five hundred thousand gold coins. Considering the situation at the textile factory, it is feared that it will be difficult to complete these orders within two months.
Even though earning such a large sum of money at once is not easy, steward Aaron was dumbfounded when Master Amos returned with the orders and the deposits.
Steward Aaron was worried because the textile factory initially operated at a loss due to its large scale. They recruited one hundred textile workers, assuming that each worker could produce three pieces of silk fabric per month. Based on this calculation, they estimated a monthly output of three hundred pieces.
The current situation is that the production volume is insufficient even within the Gryphon Legion.
Aresia couldn’t help but feel puzzled. If there weren’t enough people, they could hire more. However, when she heard that the fabric weavers were struggling to keep up with the demand, her expression turned strange.
“Did you inform them about the price of our silk fabric?” she asked.
The steward replied, “Yes, isn’t it 100 gold coins per meter of fabric? So, for a piece that is thirty meters long, it would be 3,000 gold coins.”
Aresia rubbed her forehead and said, “When did I say it was 100 gold coins per meter? I meant 100 gold coins for a piece.”
“Yes, 100 gold coins…”
It was only halfway through the conversation that the steward realized his misunderstanding. In this world, clothing and fabric are sold by the meter. People have the habit of referring to fabric as “meters.” The steward had limited exposure to fabric, so it took him a while to grasp the concept.
Furthermore, selling a meter of fabric for 100 gold coins seemed reasonable, considering that the noble’s favored fabrics were even more expensive. Their silk fabric was a magical material, and even if they sold it at twice the price, people would still be willing to buy it. The steward never realized that there was an issue with the price.
But in reality, selling a piece of fabric for 100 gold coins was considered cheap.
In the steward’s eyes, silk fabric was not like ordinary fabric. It was an alchemical product, and its price was naturally higher.
Aresia calculated, “The cost of materials such as silk, labor, and even the solidifying agent is quite low. The cost to weave a piece of fabric doesn’t even exceed one gold coin. Selling it for 100 gold coins means we’re making a huge profit. Selling it any higher would be inappropriate.”
The nearly 100-fold profit made Aresia uneasy, and she feared attracting curses.
Moreover, the fact that they were purchasing silk was not a secret. People knew that the price of silk was low, and they found it interesting. Additionally, the scarcity and high value of the fabric made people willing to spend money on it. But once silk fabric becomes more widely available and its production increases, people will not be willing to pay thousands of gold coins for it.
This situation even caused dissatisfaction among some people at the textile factory.
Although setting a higher price seemed tempting, Aresia insisted on sticking to the original pricing.
The steward knew that the profit from silk fabric was high, but he was surprised to learn that it was this high. He couldn’t help but be astonished.
Aresia looked through the order list the steward had brought and asked him to return the deposits while nodding in agreement.
“What about the textile factory?” she inquired.
“The looms in the textile factory have been set up, and the one hundred textile workers we recruited have started working. With this number, we can maintain a monthly output of around three hundred pieces. But we need to continue hiring.”
Aresia pondered for a moment and said, “Let’s hold off on hiring more people for now. I’ll find a way to address the production issue.”
Although she didn’t know how to solve it yet, the steward still agreed.
Aresia asked, “Is the raw material supply sufficient?”
“Adventurers have been consistently completing the quests posted at the Adventurer’s Guild, so the supply of silk has been stable. We have already stockpiled enough material at the textile factory. Additionally, we received a batch of high-quality magical spider silk, which has already been processed. The Duke personally contacted the Adventurer’s Guild to assist in the purchase of suitable silk.”
The silk from low-level spiders was very cheap, but the silk from higher-level magical spiders was excellent for alchemical materials and had a high price. To ensure a continuous supply, the steward used a portion of the deposits received to pay for the Adventurer’s Guild’s quest commission. This didn’t affect the remaining deposits.
“But we’re running out of solidifying agent.”
Aresia had the formula for the silk solidifying agent in her possession. It was their trump card for producing silk fabric. Since they hadn’t found a trustworthy alchemist or alchemy master, it was up to Aresia to prepare the solidifying agent herself.
Aresia was well-prepared and had brought a set of experimental equipment. She had also brought plenty of materials to make a batch of solidifying agent, which she would prepare in the dormitory every night. She handed this responsibility over to the steward.
There was also a batch of dyes in the report.
Aresia had asked the owner of a tailor shop to help find someone to dye the fabric temporarily. However, this was not a long-term solution. The steward had already prepared for this by arranging the construction of a dedicated dyeing workshop. The batch of dyes was a temporary measure.
After reporting on the textile factory’s situation, the steward began to inquire about Aresia’s activities at the academy.