Chapter 395
Palustris, being a Tier 27 world, wasn’t exactly ideal to delve at with their abilities. But if they didn’t delve it while they were Tier 26 or Tier 27, they wouldn't get to delve it at all, so it was very much a now or never situation.
The planet did have Tier 28 rifts, but only a few, as any rift that was allowed to advance had to be a fire aspected rift. Then, any rift that was Tiered up had to remain fire aspected, meaning the actual amount of Tier 28 rifts were lower than would be otherwise possible. They also only had five Tier 29 rifts, thanks to those same difficulties.
Their official policy was to Tier up a percentage of the rifts per decade as they were trying to Tier the world up, and the best practice was to do so slowly but steadily with a gradual increase. But even for them, it was an expensive endeavor.
Thankfully, as a capital of the duchy, Palustris had started to turn a small profit which they were able to reinvest into the planet. Other revenue streams were expected to start turning a profit as the businesses got off their feet and found their niches, but that was still a few decades away at best.
In fact, the duchy itself was just barely profitable, which was a bit of a surprise at less than a full century from its creation. Most of that profit was from the duchy’s' aura harvesting business, but some of their other ventures were mildly profitable.
Their deal with the Dobrescus had also been paying dividends. Not because of the deals themselves, as they were mainly moving the aura potions at a set rate which, while profitable, wasn’t turning heads. Rather, it gave their people access to those same channels and shipping opportunities, allowing them to either send their goods far away or buy exotic goods otherwise not available locally.
That spurred on the transfer of money, which in turn enticed people to open businesses or just spend more in general, which led to profit for them.
Eventually, he and Liz would be entitled to a portion of those profits, though neither he nor Liz actually needed them, and they intended to simply reinvest their portions. Still it was eye opening seeing what their half sized and young duchy could create, and explained why so many people actually wanted to be nobles.
Most of the time, it felt like a profoundly thankless job, but even being a baron could ensure one was able to advance a dozen Tiers if they did a good job, just from the wealth they were able to accumulate.