Farming in a Parallel World and Becoming a God-Chapter 1269 - 689: Poverty is the Root of Conflict_3

The first plan, I will spend a significant amount of money to purchase all ownership rights of the water channels from you. Once the glass water lamp production plant is built, I will prioritize hiring laborers from your village for production. Wages will be paid monthly without delay.

The second plan, you invest the water channels as shares, and I inject the funds to establish a village-run enterprise under the name of Nimiel Village. Villagers of Nimiel will collectively hold shares in this factory. Once the factory becomes profitable, dividends will be distributed according to the shares you hold. Laborers for this production plant will also be prioritized from your village, and the wages will be issued monthly. This is considered part of the production costs and is unrelated to the collective shares you hold.

If you are willing to cooperate, regardless of which plan you choose, I will leave a deposit of one hundred thousand gold coins in your village. However, you must sign a confidentiality agreement with me, pledging not to disclose the manufacturing method of the glass water lamp to any outsiders or produce the glass water lamps privately without the explicit consent of our factory.

The replication of glass water lamps is not particularly difficult. Once the process is understood, it can be imitated. Gaven’s confidentiality agreement is merely a precautionary measure—to delay competitive merchants from obtaining this information. Every day they are delayed, he can capture a larger market share. Once imitations surface, it will transition into standard commercial strategies like price wars. A monopoly like Ghost Grape Wine is simply out of the question.

"One hundred thousand gold lions as a deposit? That means each of us can get over two hundred gold lions. All our years of investment will be redeemed at last."

"A hundred thousand just as a deposit? Then the purchase price for the water channels must be far higher. Exactly how much is it?"

"You haven’t mentioned how much you’re willing to offer for our water channels."

"Yes, exactly. How much are you willing to pay for our water channels?"

"Give us a number first, so we can consider it."

The villagers of Nimiel Village were no longer merely wide-eyed; their eyes were practically glowing with gold. Those three crates of gold lions dazzled them, though they had little to do with the villagers personally, merely serving as fleeting eye candy. But the deposit—now that struck a directly personal chord.

Who would have thought that the water channels, previously dismissed by them as worthless and almost dismantled, could hold such value?

Everyone was eager, pushing to know the true price of the water channels. It wasn’t entirely their fault for being shortsighted—they were, after all, just a group of farmers with little to no business acumen to easily discern which of the two plans would be more profitable.

Gaven launched his money-dropping strategy with a heavy bombshell: "One million. As long as every single villager in your village agrees to sign the buyout agreement with me, I will pay one million gold lions in full upfront."

In truth, with such an innovative industry, Gaven could have exploited the villagers’ ignorance and acquired the water channels at a much lower price, without even offering the second plan.

But he wasn’t a money-grubbing profiteer purely driven by greed. At the very least, his motivations for setting up factories and establishing new industries weren’t solely about generating profits. That was merely a side benefit. His true aim was to bring wealth to more people, illuminate their paths to prosperity, and in doing so, garner their goodwill. One day, when he ventured into trade or sought to pursue the divine position of wealth and money, they would naturally become his first believers.

"One million gold lions?"

"One million gold lions?!"

"One million gold lions?!?"

A flurry of astonished exclamations erupted, each successively more high-pitched, each more piercing, the same phrase expressing an overwhelming variety of emotions—shock, disbelief, and more.

"One million gold lions? What are we waiting for? Sign the agreement already—our water channels are yours!"

"I agree too. With a million gold lions, we could take just half of it and buy an estate bigger than our village in a more convenient location. We’d never have to deal with the sticky mucus of the Boom Boom Arowana Shrimp or those lethal electric eels again."

"Exactly. With that kind of money, we can do whatever we want—those who want to start businesses can start businesses, those who want to grow grapes can grow grapes. Even moving to Susar City, any family with tens of thousands of gold lions will have enough capital to survive."

"Hey, let me tell you, moving to Susar City would be the dumbest choice. Tens of thousands of gold lions only give you the capital to survive; you’d still be at the very bottom of the city. Why not use that money to buy a small estate elsewhere and live as landowners? We’ve been farming all our lives—don’t we deserve some relaxation?"

The gathered villagers of Nimiel had no hesitation. Regardless of age or gender, they unanimously supported this proposal.

As for whether Gaven could truly produce one million gold lions, the frenzied crowd momentarily neglected to consider this point. They were entirely swept up in the grandeur of Gaven’s prior show of wealth, falling into a pattern of thinking where rationality was momentarily suspended. Many frauds and pyramid schemes also operated based on such psychological tactics.

One million gold lions—a staggering sum indeed.

When Gaven had previously slain the Red Dragon of the East Road disaster and looted the Dragon’s Nest, the cash he pulled from the hoard amounted to just over fifty thousand Nu Bao (Komeer gold lions and Sambia’s Nu Bao were nearly equivalent in market value and were commonly used across much of the Komeer and Sambiyan Kingdoms). That was the accumulation of more than a decade of plunder.

In the Komeer Kingdom, that sum could purchase a medium-sized castle, a large estate, or even acquire a mid-sized merchant guild along with its assets and personnel.

When the Conqueror Army first set out on its path of conquest, Gaven’s liquid funds didn’t exceed two hundred thousand.