Volume 4 Chapter 141 Highest end compet.i.tion
The next morning, Xu Yi carried the unwilling Freya and together with Liz and Linda who came with her, as well as Agnes, to bid farewell to elder Illusia.
The four humans and one elf entered Xu Yi’s Magic Sedan parked outside the forest. They used two hours to drive to Banta City that they had left for a long time and entered the City Lord Manor.
After Seveni had been crowned, Banta City had a new City Lord again.
The current City Lord Will was a firm supporter of Seveni. He wasn’t even forty this year and was considered a young and upcoming count in the Lampuri Kingdom.
Seveni sent him as the new City Lord of Banta City, which showed how much importance Seveni placed on Banta City.
In the year that Count Will had been City Lord, he had worked hard to follow her majesty Seveni’s meaning, working hard to promote Banta City’s magic machine industry.
With the great support of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, although the current Banta City wasn’t as prosperous as before because many companies, especially the Frestech Chamber of Commerce moved out their production bases, with their cooperation with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, the city had restored much of its prosperity from before.
Entering Banta City, one would see advertis.e.m.e.nts for magic machines all over.
But if one looked attentively, they would find that almost all of these magic machines had the symbol of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
Because most of the companies that produced magic machines in Banta City appeared through the joint capital of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and the Lampuri Kingdom.
Strictly speaking, every time those companies sold a magic machine, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce profited.
Even if it was less than the profit they earned from the Frestech Brand alone, with these joint capital companies and the large developed market of the Lampuri Kingdom, in the past nine months of this year, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had earned a giant profit of over five million gold coins from the Lampuri Kingdom.
But this time, Xu Yi didn’t come to Banta City for joint capital companies. Rather he came for something that most people thought was a small matter that didn’t need the chairman of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce like him to come to.
Because of the instructions of Count Will ahead of time, Xu Yi’s Magic Sedan came to the City Lord Manor without hindrance and Xu Yi quickly met with Count Will.
Seeing Xu Yi, Count Will immediately revealed a warm smile.
“Chairman Xu, after a long two years, you’re finally back in Banta City. I represent all the citizens to give you the sincere welcome.”
Xu Yi laughed and shook hands with Count Will before saying, “Lord Count, you’re too serious. Banta City has always been my second hometown, how could I need a special welcome to come back.”
“Alright, I hope that chairman Xu can always remember that Banta City will be your second hometown. I also hope that chairman Xu can come back to this hometown more in the future.” Count Will said with a sincere smile, “Now that Banta City is at the most important part of its development, we can’t lack the support of chairman Xu.”
Xu Yi shook his head with a faint smile, “Based on the situation on the way here, Banta City is already in a very stable development situation. Even without me, I believe that Banta City will become one of the top cities of the Lampuri Kingdom.”
After these two exchanged pleasantries, they quickly entered the main topic.
Xu Yi’s trip back to Banta City this time was mainly to partic.i.p.ate in the bi annual event of Banta City. Other than the fall and spring harvest, it was the bicycle race that was held after the harvest.
Although there had only been six bicycle races, each race had become bigger than the last. This year, just in the bicycle race in the spring of the first half of the year, there were over fifty thousand partic.i.p.ants.
And as for the bicycle race of this year’s fall, other than partic.i.p.ants from the surrounding cities, there were even many people who came from far away cities to partic.i.p.ate.
Even other than the Lampuri Kingdom, there were quite a few people who came from the Drake Duchy, the Mirando Duchy, and the Rudson Kingdom to partic.i.p.ate.
So this race in Banta City could be considered an international event. Not only did it have a great influence on the Lampuri Kingdom, it had great influence on the surrounding countries.
Different from the other races, starting from this race, they would begin accepting the registration of teams.
Because of this rule, there were many people who had registered as teams in this race.
Among the teams, other than a few teams that were alone, most of the teams were invested in by different companies or by a certain n.o.ble.
In these teams, there was only a single team that attracted everyone’s attention because this team was named the Frestech Race Team.
The one supporting the Frestech Race Team was naturally the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
The bicycles were developed by the Frestech Chamber of Commerce after all.
Even if some companies had received the technology from the Frestech Chamber of commerce, building their own bicycles, everyone believed that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce was much better than the other companies when it came to bicycles.
So when most people purchased bicycles, they would choose the Frestech Brand.
The Frestech Chamber of Commerce occupied a terrifying 80% of the bicycle market, but this was a deliberate number set by Xu Yi.
If he really wanted it, he could even reach 90% or even higher.
The Frestech Race Team partic.i.p.ating in the bicycle race was naturally most people’s choice for the winner.
But the Frestech Chamber of Commerce announced a decision in the «Banta Times». In order for the compet.i.tion reward the Frestech Chamber of Commerce released to fall in their own hands, the Frestech Race Team wouldn’t be placed in the compet.i.tion results this time.
But the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had also stated that in order to promote the healthy development of the bicycle race, starting from next year’s fall race, the Frestech Race Team would be officially integrated into the compet.i.tion. If the Frestech Race Team took the championship, they would receive the corresponding reward.
When they announced this in the «Banta Times», Xu Yi’s words had been spread to everyone.
“We’ll give you all a year to catch up to the Frestech Race Team. If you can’t do it, then don’t think about taking the championship.”
These words for the normal partic.i.p.ants seemed every aggressive and they were a bit unconvinced in their heart, but there was nothing they could do.
But for the teams of the other companies and n.o.bles, this was without a doubt bare provocation.
And for the teams that represented the other companies that produce bicycles, this was a challenge.
For those teams, they would clearly be using the bicycles their companies produced to partic.i.p.ate in the race.
If they could get good achievements in this race or even beat the players that used the Frestech Brand Bicycles, it would be without a doubt good advertis.e.m.e.nt for their company.
The Banta City bicycle race received a lot of attention and if they achieved this, it would make their company famous and would without a doubt increase their sales.
But now that Xu Yi had tossed these words down, he was without a doubt telling those other companies that they weren’t qualified.
Although those companies didn’t submit, there was no one that could refute it.
Speaking of ability with machines, no matter which company it was, it was impossible for them to match the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
After introducing the details of tomorrow’s bicycle race to Xu Yi, Count Will invited Xu Yi to the conference room of the City Lord Manor.
When the door opened, Xu Yi saw several familiar faces.
Looking carefully, Xu Yi remembered that these people were the chairmen of the joint capital companies.
If he didn’t remember wrong, the companies under these chairmen were all companies that worked with bicycles.
Seeing Xu Yi and Count Will come in, the chairmen all quickly stood up. They all revealed smiles that were several times warmer than the one Count Will just had.
After exchanging greetings, Count Will quickly got into the main topic.
The chairmen of these bicycle companies were called over today by Count Will to let them have a chance to use Xu Yi’s visit to discuss a deeper cooperation when it came to bicycles.
Xu Yi wasn’t surprised by this, actually he had disclosed this to Count Will ahead of this, so it was considered his arrangement.
Xu Yi had sent the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s statement in the «Banta Times» a few days ago, which was considered a setup for this discussion.
These companies relied on the joint capital method with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce to produce bicycles. Even if they could never break the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s monopoly, they had still earned quite a bit. Now that Xu Yi wanted to work more deeply with them, it was greatly welcomed by them.
But when Xu Yi proposed the cooperation method, the chairmen were a bit stunned.
Xu Yi didn’t propose the method they had expected and hoped for, giving them more technology related to the bicycles, enhancing the quality of their bicycles. As soon as he spoke, he suggested holding a specialized race with them!
“To put it simply, it will be a race that is separate from the public race of tomorrow. If the Banta City race is one for the general public to partic.i.p.ate in, the race that we will be holding will only be for the teams chosen by those in the industry or teams created by those in the industry to partic.i.p.ate in.”
The chairmen looked at each other and one of them couldn’t help asking, “But chairman Xu, what is the meaning in doing this? If it is just a race, Banta City’s race is already mature enough and attracts enough attention.”
The other chairmen also agreed with this. Xu YI revealed a faint smile and shook his head.
“No, the compet.i.tion I want to hold only allows specialized people to enter. The teams in the compet.i.tion are only allowed to use the names of their company and the bicycles their company produces, creating the highest level of compet.i.tion for bicycle racing.”
“This highest level doesn’t just represent the highest level of compet.i.tors, but also the highest level of bicycles. Do you understand what I mean?”
After hearing Xu YI’s explanation, the chairman thought it over before their eyes lit up at the same time.