Chapter 370: Exchange Of Gifts
Hailing from an extremely powerful family in a bigger, more advanced nation, Natasha Summers knew well the importance of cleanliness as well as some of the causal links between squaller and disease, but she had never before heard such a comprehensive explanation for why food spoiled or people became sick in unsanitary conditions.
Whether it was from her perspective as a Queen, as the Minister of Finance, or as the biggest funder of charities and orphanages in the country, this newfound understanding alarmed Natasha and she immediately began making plans to address the issue.
Just thinking about how precious a gift Lucas had freely given her, especially when she knew he could make a fortune by selling these designs or building and running bathhouses himself, Natasha again felt that there was something special about this boy.
Her daughter really had good taste in ’friends’, it seemed.
Of course, as a qualified merchant, the Second Queen firmly believed in the principle of equivalent exchange. Never one to just receive and not reciprocate, Natasha finally got around to answering Lucas’ original question, "In all seriousness, I am here to meet with a convoy from the Vast Ocean Trading Company that should arrive soon."
When Lucas heard this, his ears immediately perked up and his eyes practically glowed, "A trade convoy from the Sovereignty will be here soon? As in, ’that’ convoy, Aunty Summers? Really?"
"Hahaha, so you can show innocent reactions," Natasha laughed together with Vanessa.
Realizing his gaff, Lucas lowered his head and blushed furiously.
After taking a moment to compose herself again, the Second Queen simply nodded, "You’re quite right, Lucas. It is ’that’ convoy, the one with your order aboard."
Lucas had to try really hard not to cheer.
During his brief visit to the palace, Lucas had put in a massive order for a huge variety of goods with the Vast Ocean Trading Company through Natasha, but given how far away the Kore Sovereignty was, and the incredibly slow rate of information transmission on the Blue Sky Continent, he had expected it would be at least 6 months before anything arrived.
However, just 2 months later, it seemed he would be getting a late Christmas gift, not that anyone in Servist knew what Christmas was.
Seeing the young boy’s excitement, mixed with confusion, Natasha kindly explained, "The Branch Office in Rockwell City has a method to communicate directly with the company’s headquarters. It’s not used often, but seeing how eager you were back then, I made a request to the Head Manager there to immediately send your order to my family after our last meeting."
The implications of his new aunt’s words reverberated inside Lucas’ head like thunder. A method of long-distance real-time communication actually existed in this world!
It seemed he had been greatly underestimating the capabilities of the people of the Blue Sky Continent!
Getting over his initial shock, however, Lucas promptly bowed and hurriedly blurted out, "Many thanks, Your Majesty! Those supplies are indeed vital to many projects I am planning! I deeply appreciate you using your authority and connections to..."
*Thwack*
"Ow!" Lucas rubbed his forehead as he looked up questioningly at the woman who had just flicked him.
Leaning down slightly and gently stroking the boy’s head, Natasha Summers said seriously, "No more of that. Compared to what you taught me that night, using my last name to pressure a small Branch Manager is barely even worth mentioning."
Pursing his lips, Lucas wasn’t totally convinced.
He indeed had a long talk with the Second Queen about a number of rather simple economic concepts back at the palace, but that hardly qualified as him ’teaching’ her.
If anything, it was just Lucas randomly throwing out half-baked knowledge he was able to pull from his inherited memories to keep the conversation between them flowing. In no way was it a broad and exhaustive lesson on supply-chains and macroeconomic theory.
Hell, Lucas wasn’t even sure what he said that night was completely accurate; after all, his otherworldly benefactor didn’t seem like an expert in this particular field.
Noticing this look, Natasha just laughed and ruffled Lucas’ hair a bit harder, "It might have been a casual conversation to you, but to me, it was absolutely invaluable and enlightening. I’ve even been able to use a little of what you taught me to address some small problems with the kingdom’s economy."
"Well, if you say so, Your Maje... I mean, Aunt Natasha," Lucas nodded, deciding to take the Second Queen at her word.
Natasha also didn’t bother trying to convince him any further, nor did she bother explaining that the ’minor’ problems she was talking about were actually massive, complex, long-standing issues which had plagued the Rockwell Kingdom for centuries.
There was no need for Lucas to know that because of that one conversation, the Second Queen had worked furiously right up until her trip to Misty City to convince her husband and the rest of the Royal Council to massively increase the budget for ongoing and future infrastructure projects, especially when it came to maintaining and improving roads, ports, and waterways.
Most of the upper echelon of the kingdom already understood how important the smooth flow of goods and people was to the kingdom’s economy, especially the Second Queen who came from a merchant background, but it was only after Lucas explained something he called ’capital circulation’ and its ability to generate long-term growth that Natasha truly saw the bigger truth.
All her life, she had thought of the economy was the sum total of all money, goods, and services in the kingdom.
As long as there was money, and things to buy with money, the economy was healthy; thus, the more money, more goods, and more services there were, the stronger the nation was.
This was an understandable point of view for someone used to buying and selling goods in order to make a profit, but Lucas’ view of the nation as a living being, with money acting like its Internal Qi, opened another dimension of thinking to Natasha.
For a Cultivator, the total amount of Internal Qi they had was certainly a critical factor in determining their strength, but equally important was how fast they could absorb, refine, circulate, and release that Qi.
Not having enough Internal Qi was an issue, but having lots of Internal Qi while being unable to use it efficiently had serious short-term and long-term negative consequences as well.
Lucas even went so far as to say that the smooth, unimpeded flow of money was more important than the actual amount of money in the country, and that anything which impeded that flow was a potentially fatal problem.