God of Technology: Creating the Internet in Another World-Chapter 493: Negotiations with the Gray Fort Empire

"So you’re basically planning to poach people?"

The Dragon of Despair Nidhogg was silent for a while before slowly speaking.

"How can you call it poaching? It’s clearly a triple-win situation."

Viscount Roster said righteously, "The Church of Technology gets more fresh blood with experience. Alchemists get better working conditions and income. The Alchemy Guild gets the fame they want."

"Besides, even if they start joining the Church of Technology to research Magic Conductors, not everyone will go. Even those who do won’t completely abandon alchemy work."

"Won’t affect the Alchemy Guild at all."

"This is called win-win!"

The Dragon of Despair Nidhogg was silent for a while. "Put it that way, you could call it quadruple-win, quintuple-win, sextuple-win."

"My Dragon Bank can loan out money, letting more people invest in Magic Conductor production."

"My Dragon Delivery gets more business."

"Those regular folks get better working conditions."

"People using these Magic Conductors get convenient lives."

"Exactly, that’s what win-win means!" Viscount Roster laughed heartily, looking pleased. "Anyway, this benefits everyone—it’s not about who benefits more."

The Dragon of Despair Nidhogg was speechless.

Time passed day by day like this.

The projection equipment installed everywhere soon started running. The alchemy competition instantly grabbed tons of people’s attention.

However, right at this moment, the Gray Fort Empire finally completed verification. After confirming the Tulip Kingdom situation, they made a series of reforms.

"This is the agreement the Gray Fort Empire just sent over. Needs your personal attention."

A young man brought a document to Viscount Roster’s office.

"Give me the quick version." Viscount Roster said casually as he took the document.

"It’s about economic trade cooperation. The Gray Fort Empire’s currency is issued based on gold. Golden dragon coins do have purchasing power in Gray Fort, but they more commonly use a type of paper currency issued by the state."

The young assistant spoke quickly. "They hope we can establish a unified currency interface."

"This would make trade between us more convenient."

"Hmm? Looks like they want to transition to credit currency too."

Viscount Roster smiled dismissively. "If it was really gold-based, why would they specifically come talk about it?"

Right now on the continent, most people conducting cross-border trade, even cross-territory trade, used golden dragon coins.

Simple reason—golden dragon coins had stable quality. Everyone knew exactly what they were worth.

Plus you could trade them through the Magic Net.

But this didn’t include one country—the Gray Fort Empire. Though many of the Gray Fort Empire’s nobles and churches had deposited their wealth in Dragon Bank.

Even every decent-sized city had Dragon Bank branches.

But for domestic transactions, they still used their own currency.

This was the result of reforms by that Tricky Coin guy—also how he got his nickname. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

"Maybe they still don’t want to give up their currency system, but facing increasingly large transactions with us, they have to consider these things."

The young assistant smiled and shared his thoughts first.

However, Viscount Roster shook his head. "Your understanding of this document isn’t thorough enough."

"Their reforms are actually relatively moderate. On the surface, the Gray Fort Empire seems to have a unified currency. Transactions between lords, and regular people’s transactions in major cities all use the unified currency."

"But in reality? Huge amounts of gold aren’t under the empire’s control at all."

"The amount they can issue is extremely limited."

"Especially after Dragon Bank appeared—tons of private individuals transported gold to the dragons."

"At this point, the Gray Fort Empire’s paper currency is actually very dangerous, maybe can’t even be redeemed."

"If word gets out, their paper currency collapses immediately."

"Partnering with us actually has only one purpose—borrowing our power to stabilize this paper currency’s value."

"They probably want us to accept this paper currency too."

"Then use this paper currency to purchase all kinds of supplies in Gray Fort."

"Doesn’t that mean they want to transfer the risk to us?" The young assistant couldn’t help exclaiming. "How could we agree to something like that?"

"Why wouldn’t you agree?" Viscount Roster shook his head. "We need the Gray Fort Empire’s raw materials. The goods we produce also need to be sold."

"Being able to circulate in the Gray Fort Empire is what we want."

"As for other things, we don’t need to worry about them."

"We just need to spend the paper currency we earn very quickly and there’s no problem."

"But well, we still need to negotiate with them properly."

Actually from this document, Viscount Roster already saw that the Gray Fort Empire was ready to fully embrace the Magic Conductor era.

Just that some things needed proper discussion to ensure their interests.

Viscount Roster had no resistance to things like this.

Everything needed to consider the interests involved.

Never mind this kind of thing—even using landlords and private capital to invest, fundraise, finance and send funds into these industries through various means, Viscount Roster wouldn’t hesitate at all.

With capital and resources, you could speed up the whole process.

After carefully reviewing the document several times, "I need to make a trip to the Gray Fort Empire’s capital. I’ll leave things here to you."

"Receive those people from the various churches properly."

"Yes!"

The young assistant nodded quickly. "But the distance from us..."

"I’ll be back before that meeting." Viscount Roster said.

Hearing this, the young assistant said no more.

Soon, Viscount Roster found the Dragon of Despair Nidhogg and rushed to the Gray Fort Empire at top speed.

In just a few hours, he was already standing before the Gray Fort Emperor.

"Mr. Roster, didn’t expect you to come so fast."

The Gray Fort Emperor found it somewhat incredible. They were both people with status, and from different countries too. Shouldn’t they communicate first in this situation?

And he just flew right over?

His document had only been sent a few hours ago.

"Such an important matter should naturally be settled as soon as possible."

Viscount Roster showed a helpless smile. "After all, we don’t have much time left, do we?"