Volume 1: Raging Waves City Chapter 180: The Golden Man
Yomington was frightened by his own guess. Although there was no evidence yet that Meteorite and his people were carrying out a big conspiracy against the City Alchemist Association, he still believed in his intuition.
But where is the opponent's attack point, and what makes them so confident that they can destroy the City Alchemist Association's position in Raging Waves City in one fell swoop.
Now the Nutao City has been disturbed by the meteorites, and it seems to be waiting for the final explosion.
Yomington knew he couldn't wait any longer and had to remind the City Alchemist Association. He took all the information he had sorted out during this period, and then hurried out to meet Orlando Grover, the president of the City Alchemist Association.
Grover is also the speaker of the city council.
The headquarters of the City Alchemist Association is located next to the City Government Office Building, on the west side of the Government Square, in a five-story building. There are both official research departments invested by the City Government Office and offices set up by a large number of private research institutes. Once a new development project appears, the City Alchemist Association can set up a research team very efficiently.
However, the headquarters of the City Alchemist Association has been severely harassed by the Cape District Secret Intelligence Bureau recently, and many tasks have been difficult to carry out. When Yomington arrived, he saw a group of imperial spies rushing out of the building in a hurry, holding a lot of information in their hands.
Yomington immediately lowered the brim of his hat and stepped aside. He didn't want to be noticed by these spies.
After entering the headquarters of the City Alchemist Association, he was able to meet Speaker Grover easily according to his identity.
Grover is a human with halfling blood and has undergone extraordinary transformation. He is only 1.3 meters tall, but has an extremely large head. He has red hair and a red beard, and the long hair on his temples is connected to the beard.
Grover's strong mental power allowed him to float in the air for a long time. He shook hands with the visiting Yomington, then floated back to his seat and sat down. With a wave of his hand, a chair placed by the wall moved to the opposite side of his desk.
"Your visit is later than I expected. I thought you would come to see me as soon as you were released from the Oulu Academy, but you chose to come now."
Yomington sat down, and the whole room was filled with the spiritual power radiating from Grover, as if surrounded by an oppressive magnetic field.
After getting used to this uncomfortable feeling, Yomington replied to Grover, "The attitude of the Oulu Academy is very subtle. Meteor exposed our Crusader Project to Willred, and he met Red Falcon, which affected his attitude towards us.
But I can confirm that Meteoric Star does not have the full support of the Oulu Academy.”
Grover said with a sigh: "Wilred is a very old-fashioned guy. He doesn't like me and I don't like him either. If it weren't for his high moral standards, the achievements that Oulu College could have achieved would be far beyond its current level.
We can only hope that his successors will be more open-minded and that bold experiments will continue to be at the forefront of the world.
You didn’t come here to talk to me about this, did you?”
"Yes." Yomington changed the topic to the purpose of his visit: "I think that Meteorite used the Changxiang-class hydrogen airship incident to continuously disrupt the City Alchemist Association because he was preparing a plan to attack the Alchemist Association.
If the influence of the City Alchemist Association is seriously damaged, it will greatly affect our control over the city."
Grover shook his head helplessly. "I didn't expect that you would turn Raging Waves City into this state after I hadn't paid attention to the City Council for a while. Now the Changxiang-class hydrogen airship incident has forced me to interrupt my research to deal with the aftermath of this incident.
The explosion of the hydrogen airship was a huge blow to the City Alchemist Association, and now we don’t even know how it exploded. I asked the person in charge, and he said that he personally added the stabilizer into the airship, so it shouldn’t have exploded.”
Yomington asked, "I heard that after Meteorite boarded the airship, he drove all the crew members off. Did he do something in the airship?"
"We don't know yet. But the manufacturing formula of hydrogen stabilizer is strictly confidential. After all, we plan to make money from it. Theoretically, it is impossible for Meteorite to know the formula of the stabilizer, and there is no way to destroy the hydrogen stabilizer."
Yomington asked, "Is it possible that an insider leaked the information? After all, the Imperial Secret Service specializes in collecting this kind of confidential information."
"The confidentiality measures for hydrogen stabilizers include measures to prevent this kind of intelligence theft. And I have asked everyone who has access to the manufacturing process of hydrogen stabilizers, and I can be sure that no one has betrayed me."
It seems that the explosion of the Changxiang-class hydrogen airship was really just an accident, a problem with the stabilizer itself. It was a pity that the meteorite was not killed, but he seized the opportunity to counterattack.
This was a blessing in disguise. If Meteorite really knew the formula of the hydrogen stabilizer, then his ability to obtain intelligence was too terrifying, which meant that there was no secret from him at all.
"Mr. Speaker, I think the City Alchemist Association must now quickly make up for the negative impact of the hydrogen airship incident and cannot allow the meteorites to continue to harass us.
I know him, and he definitely has a big plan for the City Alchemist Guild."
"I agree with your point of view..." Grover nodded his big head. "Although I have never seen Meteor, I have to admit that he took away a district in Raging Wave City for Her Royal Highness the Princess. He did a great job. Now Her Royal Highness the Princess wants more, so we certainly can't let them succeed.
The impact of the hydrogen airship explosion will soon pass, and I have found a very confident partner. "
Yomington was very curious about what kind of partner could save this mess. I'm afraid that even if the imperial family stepped in, they wouldn't be able to eliminate such a huge negative impact.
"Who is it?"
Just as Grover was about to answer, an assistant pushed the door open and walked in.
"Mr. President, two people who claim to be directors of the World Bank are here to visit us."
"They are here. These are the partners I found. Please accompany me to meet them." Grover was very happy. He said to his assistant, "Please ask them to go to the reception room."
Yomington didn't expect that Grover would bring the World Bank to join the hydrogen airship development project.
The World Bank's credit is as solid as a star. If the World Bank joins this project, it will surely restore the public's confidence in the hydrogen airship project.
But if the World Bank joins in, it means they will take away a large part of the profits, but it is better than losing completely as it is now.
It can also destroy Meteorite's plan and preserve the base of Raging Waves City.
With great anticipation, Yomington followed the floating Grover to the reception room and met the visiting World Bank director.
A boy and a girl, twins, shining golden men.
Grover shook hands with them enthusiastically and introduced them: "Director Pan, Director Yin, this is Mr. Yomington, the chief of staff of the Prime Minister of the Empire. The Prime Minister of the Empire, Lord Gabriel, is also very supportive of the development of hydrogen airships ."
Grover invited Yomington to meet with the World Bank representatives to show them the Empire's support for the project and give them confidence to invest.
Pan is a very handsome young man with golden hair and a sunny and cheerful look. Yin is Pan's twin sister, who is more reserved and a typical blonde beauty.
Although they were from the Shine Gold Clan, they did not show any arrogance because they were from an ancient race. The glory of the Shine Gold Clan had long passed, and now they had adapted to their current identities and status.
Pan shook hands with Grover and Yomington, and after the guests sat down, he said actively: "The World Bank has always been very interested in the hydrogen airship project of the City Alchemist Association of Nutao City. Although it had an accident, some new inventions will have some accidents before they can be safely used.
We have seen the controllable side of hydrogen. As long as the problems found are solved, hydrogen airships will still be the best alternative to current steam airships."
Pan's attitude represents the attitude of the World Bank. This positive affirmation makes Grover and Yomington very happy. It seems that things are easier than they thought.
Grover said: "This accident is a big blow to the development of hydrogen airships, but in a sense it is also a good thing. It happened in the experimental stage, and we can make targeted compensation to make future hydrogen airships safer.
The cause of the accident may be that the hydrogen stabilizer has weakened its inhibitory force in the extremely high altitude environment. I will find the defect as soon as possible and fix it. This is not a difficult task for the scientific research strength of Raging Wave City. "
Pan replied: "Since we all have confidence in the hydrogen airship project, there is no obstacle to cooperation. The World Bank is willing to invest in this project and hopes to obtain 40% of all future profits of the hydrogen airship industry as a return on this investment."
The World Bank is asking for 40 percent of its profits right out of the gate, which is simply taking advantage of someone's misfortune.
But since it is a negotiation, you have to ask for a high price and pay a low price.
Grover expressed his desired conditions, which were obviously far from the World Bank's offer. The meeting was a back-and-forth debate, and the investment conditions were approaching a balance point that was acceptable to both parties.
Just one meeting didn't lead to the deal being done.
But Grover and Yomington were already very satisfied. The World Bank's attitude was enough to save them from their current decline. After a negotiation, Grover immediately revealed some news to the newspaper. The headlines dominated by the meteorite detective for several days were finally going to be replaced.
At this time, Luke didn't know that the plan he was promoting had a variable, the Golden Civilization. The Secret Service had found accounting problems in the hydrogen airship research project, and a large amount of research funds raised were unaccounted for, and a lot of money went into private pockets without any concealment.
Through the search in recent days, the Secret Service found some fragments of the airship wreckage. The metal parts were burned and melted, which was enough to show how high the temperature was at that time.
Throwing out this evidence can increase people's fear of hydrogen airships, and then it will be a formal general offensive, mobilizing investors to sue the City Alchemist Association for financial fraud.
During this period, Luke never stopped learning ancient texts. He had already learned five ancient golden texts from the troll scholar Laconia. It was not a large number, but learning each word was a great mental drain.
Even though the progress was so slow, Laconia was still amazed at Luke's talent in learning ancient characters. Every time he learned an ancient character, the written ancient character would become a mysterious prop. If he could master more characters to form sentences, he could directly activate the secret technique and use the power of ancient civilization.
In order to witness the miracle, Laconia was very dedicated to teaching Luke.
The fundamental reason why Luke was able to master ancient characters so deeply was because of the egg of unknown origin.
The thing sealed in the egg called itself Banat. Banat learned modern language from Luke, and his progress was much faster than when he taught Luke the ancient golden language.
Moreover, he was very careful in teaching ancient characters. He only taught what Laconia taught and pretended to be deaf and dumb to the rest. Even though he could have simple communication with Luke, he never told him his identity or anything related to ancient civilization.
"It's very immoral for you to do this..." Luke said to the egg in his mind out of boredom, "I taught you so many modern words and told you so many things about this era, and this is all you give me in return? You should keep your privacy, but I rescued you from the ancient Golden Man and brought you here, so won't you give me something in return?"
"Do you think you rescued me here from ancient times?" Banat had mastered modern language and was able to communicate with Luke.
"How else? As far as I know, the ancient golden characters that the Golden People now know are not enough to set such a complicated seal. You must have been captured and sealed by the ancient Golden People during the ancient war, and I saved you."
Banat seemed to be in a very talkative mood today, and he said a few more things: "But it is also possible that after I was sealed, I was kept by the Shining Gold Man until now... or in the future... and then I was transferred to here at this point in time by you.
I am very curious about the power you possess, it is beyond my understanding, even in our time, no one can take things from the future."
Luke, who was chatting casually, suddenly became nervous: "What do you mean? You said you are not from ancient times?"
"Although I'm sealed, my perception of time still exists. According to the current time unit, you transferred me from last week to a month ago. Such a long time span really scared me.
And I have to remind you that the people guarding me must have discovered that I disappeared, and they will send people to look for me. I don't know if you have left any clues that they can find. If so, you must be in big trouble. "
It seems that the secret technique of "Rotation of Future and Present" is correct. This egg is not from ancient times, but was preserved by the Shining Gold Man in the future.
Then were there any clues left?
Do the 20,000 gold coupons used to buy eggs count?
Luke could already imagine the expression on the Golden Man's face when he opened the safe containing the sealed egg and saw the large sum of gold certificates inside.
