MC's career as foreign lord

“How did these guys get here?” Zhou Ren wondered, swatting a bat beside him.

He hadn't expected that while they were peacefully eating in the house, an inexplicable noise would come from the windows outside.

The little girl in the house was still playing with the newly awakened Raichu. This little fellow, carrying electricity, had woken up after sleeping for a day, and the elements within him had finally fully recovered.

Zhou Ren, meanwhile, was drinking milk and sketching in a book. He needed to properly plan the use of the railway and also map out a location for the Tinker's Construct setup.

But just as he opened the book and was about to pet Raichu, he was interrupted by this incident.

He and Mossa had just walked out when they were attacked by several strangely-shaped bats, each about half the size of a human head. However, these bats looked bizarre, but their attack power was unusually weak, and they were reduced to corpses and fell to the ground with just one strike.

These bats had red eyes, and their attacks even caused brief knockback, but these little guys, besides being annoying, didn't pose any trouble to them.

“Why are they all finding their way here?” Zhou Ren said. Vampire bats only breed in dark caves, so shouldn't they be going after the dozens of mining skeletons?

“Maybe it's because Jim and the others don't have blood. The bats smelled the blood and came over?” The Lich offered his guess, earning Zhou Ren's approval.

Zhou Ren nodded, “I'll make a door later and seal up the entrance to the underground mine. I didn't expect this to happen!”

This wasn't a particularly troublesome matter; it was probably just a little spice in life. Despite being called vampire bats, they didn't even have a chance to get close to the two of them before being cut in half with a single sword strike.

“Need any help?” The door opened, revealing an elf's head, and before she could finish speaking, a slightly smaller elf's head appeared, along with a bear's head perched on her head, and a flash of lightning.

“It's just a small matter, go inside!” Zhou Ren directly pushed the little head back in, then took the elf princess's hand, and the three of them went inside together.

Mossa ran to the back to install the door. These bats wouldn't pose any threat, but they would cause trouble.

Zhou Ren suddenly felt a little lucky that these monsters hadn't appeared at the very beginning, or else getting attacked while building and being knocked outside the structure wouldn't have been pleasant.

After all, these monsters had a glorious history of directly knocking players in front of the Ender Dragon's mouth, and he didn't want to become a provider of such classic video material.

Returning to the table, he finally had the mood to observe Raichu again. This little fellow was still restless. After nibbling on two elf fruits, the energy he had consumed earlier and the energy used to enchant the sword after sleeping seemed to have almost recovered.

Zhou Ren had also successfully obtained a longsword with a fleeting thunder enchantment, clearly displaying lightning damage and paralysis effects, making it look quite unique.

But when he grasped the lightning mark on himself, preparing to sense the little fellow's inner world, he was shocked by the other party's powerful and somewhat outrageous idea.

“You want to bring all your acquaintances to settle here?” Zhou Ren looked at Shia in astonishment. “Have you already started? Is that why you're so tired?”

“Shia, have you elves ever encountered such a thing?”

Then he saw that the elf princess also looked confused. “No, all lightning elements hope their destination is the elemental realm, why would they want to come to the outside world? The element content in the Prime Material Plane is very low!”

Unexpectedly, Raichu chirped twice, and Zhou Ren continued to translate.

After a period of growth, this little fellow could easily express his own meaning.

“Are you saying you found a place very suitable for you to live, and the element concentration here is higher than at home, allowing you to advance quickly?” Zhou Ren said, “How could there be a place for you to live here…”

He could understand the reason of high element concentration, after all, the concentration in this area was indeed not low, or else so many strange plants could not be planted.

But a suitable area to live, still a suitable area for lightning elements to live, what was that about? Could it be that there was a lightning pool in his territory that he didn't know about?

However, when he asked Raichu, the little fellow couldn't explain it clearly, just saying that there really was such an area in the territory, and he would take him to see it tomorrow.

“If it's about that, I might know a little!” Shia said, “You don't know, maybe your territory hadn't expanded there yet at that time!”

Hearing her say this, Zhou Ren also reacted, “You're not talking about…”

He thought of the magma pool where he had dug sand before. The fire element there was indeed very high, and it was said to be the residual mark left by the Dragon Queen Tiamat after the battle.

“You're saying it's…”

“I'm talking about…”

“The environment left by the Dragon Queen!”

“The former camp of the Blue Dragon King!”

Originally thought it was a telepathic response, but it turned out to be wild guesses that didn't match.

“Haha!” The two grinned and laughed.

“Since we both have guesses, let's wait and see what happens tomorrow!” Zhou Ren said. Guesses at this time were really interesting, not hurting anyone's feelings, but always giving a strange sense of participation.

“Master is so strange!” Liya didn't understand these things, tilted her head and glanced at the two of them, then took the two little guys and ran upstairs to play.

The top floor could just connect to the balcony on top of the kitchen, forming an interesting double balcony format. Zhou Ren also made a fence on top of the kitchen to maximize safety.

Now the brightness outside was enough, so there was no need to worry about monsters spawning, and Raichu could also fly, so there was no need to worry about being dropped. The only thing to worry about was probably Little Bear Dagger.

However, although it looked like a bear, its essence was a sprite, possessing special powers that ordinary people couldn't imagine, so it shouldn't be a problem.

Zhou Ren continued to scribble on the blank book in his hand, marking some future precautions and writing some plans.

Shia curiously watched from the side, “What material is this made of? It feels so exquisite!”

Zhou Ren then remembered that there didn't seem to be paper in this world. Books made of this material were only affordable for nobles, and their books were basically made of various kinds of leather, the most common being sheepskin.

That's why there were sayings like parchment or sheepskin book. Even the mages' books were mostly made of this kind of leather, after all, compared to other leathers, sheepskin was cheaper, more affordable, and relatively easier to process.

However, compared to inexpensive paper, this kind of thing naturally has no advantage. Therefore, in Zhou Ren's plan, promoting paper is also a very important aspect.

Even if Shia didn't ask, he estimated he would find an excuse to bring it up. Since she asked, it's even easier to handle.

“This is naturally a material used for recording. I usually call it paper!” Zhou Ren said, “Its function should be similar to your parchment!”

“But this thing is so thin and soft!” Shia said, pinching the paper. “Can you really write on it? Wouldn’t a quill pen, being so hard, damage it?”

“There isn’t only the quill pen as an option. We can completely use charcoal to make charcoal pencils!” Zhou Ren said, a quill pen also appearing in his hand.

“The quill pen requires so much force because it needs to leave a deep enough mark on the parchment. But mine doesn’t need that. You only need to dip it in ink and gently swipe, and you can create a very clear mark!”

He could see the light shining in the eyes of the elven princess. This thing could even be called an epoch-making creation. As long as someone isn't blind, they should be able to feel it.

The newest novels are first published at 69shu!

“I was wondering if I could take this opportunity to sell these papers to your elves?” Zhou Ren said, “This way, you can use paper to complete most of your work, without having to collect those heavy and difficult-to-write parchment scrolls. Perhaps the collection of all the paper in a region wouldn’t even be half as thick as this book!”

“If I weren’t in charge of the elven finances, I would want to immediately make a decision to buy all the books and paper you have here!” Shia said, “Just thinking about not having to use that thick parchment for corrections makes me feel so much better!”

Taking this opportunity, she complained to Zhou Ren, “You don’t know how difficult it is to write on parchment, and to prevent wasting it, we have to be very careful when writing on it, otherwise an entire parchment scroll becomes unusable!”

Although she is nobility, even mages can't afford to waste leather recklessly, because mages don't engage in production. Only farmers raise animals.

Therefore, even imperial mages often face the awkward situation of not having enough parchment, and even being unable to use scrolls.

In many mages' countries, sheep raised by farmers are strictly monitored. After each sheep is slaughtered, their leather is very well preserved and then made into parchment scrolls.

“Royal family members are punished for wasting too much parchment, because it is a very precious strategic resource. For minor matters, they basically use magical voice transmission, or simply take a trip through a teleportation gate!”

Zhou Ren nodded, not finding it difficult to understand. After all, compared to the constant presence of the Demon King and magical elements, raising sheep in this low-productivity situation requires a lot of effort.

It might be better to spend some magic power to accomplish their goals than to use parchment.

“So, I could even expand my sheep-raising scale and then sell the sheep to you?” Zhou Ren said, but he suddenly shook his head. His sheep don't produce leather; a few pieces of meat fall off, and then they disappear.

If someone spends a lot of money to buy hundreds of sheep and then discovers that only meat is left, wouldn't they come and chop him up?

He put this idea out of his mind. It's better not to do this kind of deceptive thing. He wants to be an honest and kind businessman, so that he can project money into all countries.

The two looked at each other and smiled. Zhou Ren said, “I can give you a few books as a gift in my personal capacity!”

As long as the elven royal family becomes accustomed to using books, presumably this habit will spread very quickly among the nobles of the entire elven empire. This is called the idol effect in business.

This is a very common technique in business promotion.

Zhou Ren took out a brand-new book, “In that case, I will give you a set of pens!”

After all, the existing pens and inks of the elves are not suitable for writing on white paper. Those pens that require a lot of force to make marks on parchment would probably split his white paper in half with a single stroke.

“Okay, I’ll try!” Shia said, very interested in engraving a line of words on it. It wasn't really engraving; the ink seemed to flow from the quill pen, dripping onto the paper in her hand, writing a line of very delicate handwriting.

“It’s indeed much more comfortable than ordinary parchment!” Shia said with great surprise, “If I give a little to the Mother Empress, she won’t need to inscribe words with magic every day!”

“Inscribe words with magic…” Zhou Ren helplessly complained. He wasn't a newbie who didn't know anything at the beginning. The magic of this world needs to be implemented through spell slots. Wasting one or even several spell slots every day to write words is probably something only the elves would do.

Shia also complained, “What is this? Someone once suggested using magical inscription as a type of elven spell to be passed down, but fortunately, this matter was rejected by the Council of Elders!”

“Good heavens!” Zhou Ren now knew the extent to which these elves wanted to be lazy, even wanting to engrave this writing magic into their bloodline.

“With this thing, there’s no need to consider that!” Shia raised her hand, “Now I can basically decide that the entire elven race will order a large quantity of the paper you mentioned. If you don’t mind, all elven administrative departments and ordinary nobles will use a lot of the paper you manufacture!”

Zhou Ren shook his head, “It’s a good thing for me, but if we really need so much paper, we won’t have enough materials!”

“Calculate it. Even if we provide 100,000 books a month (of course, not just single sheets of paper; isn't a book made of three sheets of paper better?), we will need 100,000 sugarcanes and more than 30,000 pieces of leather.”

He gave Shia a simple calculation, “A book requires a piece of leather about the length of an arm. Do you think it's worth it?”

“How many words can be written in a book?” Shia asked rhetorically.

“Well… hundreds of thousands of words should be possible, right?” Zhou Ren pondered, thought about the thickness of the book, and then nodded heavily, “Almost, 100,000 to 200,000 words!”

“However, a parchment scroll can only be filled with a few hundred or a thousand words at most. If you let them exchange parchment scrolls for books, exchanging ten scrolls for one book wouldn't be a loss!” Shia said, “Moreover, there will be losses in the production of parchment scrolls. Not every attempt is successful!”

“Then another topic arises,” Zhou Ren’s mind was active, “Do you think we can use this paper to make scrolls?”