The visit to the Angel Race at an end.
Zhao Chen's party made ready to return to the Owl Dragon Star System.
Aboard the Hades.
"Two hundred million star coins the hull? Only tenfold profit — surely that is far too little. Why not simply hawk them our own interstellar warships?" Xue Xiaoxiao watched Commander Zhao Chen there at his work of parsing out the technical drawings got from the Angel Race for a class called the T3 Radiance-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer.
"Let me ask you. Suppose your own strength is very great, and your own legion fleets already constitute a system of their own. Someone comes of a sudden to sell you his interstellar warships — would you accept? And with no cooperation whatever between the two sides before that?" Zhao Chen returned.
Xue Xiaoxiao thought a while, and shook her head. "No."
"In future we shall assuredly sell our Owl Dragon's interstellar warships to the Angel Race. But before that we must first obtain this vast creature's trust. And next — who says our profit is only tenfold?" Zhao Chen smiled slightly.
Xue Xiaoxiao was blank a moment; she pointed at that set of materials — the other technicalities she could not follow, but the price written upon it she could understand well enough.
"Have the Angel Race's people not written it there themselves? The procurement price of this interstellar warship is 30 million star coins, and setting aside the core modules they keep secret, it wants 20 million still."
Secretary Nancy beside her pointed out the key to it. "What the Angel Race gave us is the procurement cost, not the true build cost!"
Xue Xiaoxiao was blank a moment; she had not yet caught up with it.
Zhao Chen rolled his eyes. "At the North Star Academy, did you stuff your brains into an interstellar battleship's main cannon?"
Xue Xiaoxiao stuck out her tongue.
Zhao Chen could not be troubled to explain; he needed now to parse out these technical drawings of the T3 Radiance-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer.
So that, carrying these drawings back to the Owl Dragon, they might go into mass production in the shortest time!
Secretary Nancy beside them explained. "In building an interstellar warship ourselves at present, everything is build cost, because a great many things we now supply for ourselves. From raw materials to component production, and then to final assembly and the rest, we can settle the whole of it ourselves, and the cost has been pressed very low. The Northern Goose Group's side may be a little different; for efficiency's sake they will add somewhat to the build cost. Whereas this figure the Angel Race gave us is in fact their procurement cost. Within it are technology licensing fees, and the procurement of certain special components produced at each maker, the procurement of raw materials and so on. And in each of those a little profit may be made besides; the more nodes in the middle, the more the procurement cost climbs step by step."
Xue Xiaoxiao seemed to have taken it in; but she asked in puzzlement, "Is the Angel Race not very strong? Why can they not do as we do?"
Secretary Nancy explained further. "Because the Angel Race's scale is far too vast, and they have existed a very long time. A great many starship technologies may have been researched out by starship research institutes below them, by laboratories — or even by other interstellar races. Those technologies the Angel Race's officialdom can hardly take and use outright, can they? Were they truly to do so, it would bring private starship research to a standstill, and the other interstellar races would provide them advanced starship technology no longer. It would be lifting a stone to drop it on their own foot. And to use those technologies naturally requires bearing a portion of the technology fees. Though that portion we too must bear, in contract-building. And the greatest difference within it is this: in the Angel Race, producing this class of interstellar warship may involve a hundred different makers. But in the Owl Dragon there is only one! Which greatly saves the cost trouble that comes of all those separate makers."
So saying, Secretary Nancy looked in worship toward the Commander at his work.
And that all this could be avoided was because these starship technologies had every one of them been brought out by the Commander himself.
"Then what will it cost us to produce this class of interstellar warship?" Xue Xiaoxiao asked in curiosity.
"Five million star coins." Zhao Chen named the figure.
"Five million star coins?" Xue Xiaoxiao was struck blank; then she counted it on her fingers. "Then if we deliver at 200 million star coins, is that not near fortyfold profit!"
Secretary Nancy too was startled by the figure. "Can we bring it as low as that?"
Zhao Chen gave a scornful laugh and pointed at this interstellar warship's technical materials. "That crew before were saying how exceedingly fine the Angel Race's starship technology is. Now that I have looked at it, it is nothing so much; set beside our Owl Dragon-line interstellar warships it is not worth a mention. Our Owl Dragon's technology leads them by a long way indeed! This T3 Radiance-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer is about of a grade with that T3 Flame-Dragon-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer I took to hoodwink old Chu with in those days. And I reckon besides that the Angel Race's own starship military-industrial production system is rather backward; the same component our Owl Dragon's military industry can complete in less time and with less waste of raw material. And there, you see — up comes the profit."
Having heard the Commander out, the two women saw it all at once.
Zhao Chen narrowed his eyes, and smiled coldly. "Those three Angel Kings do not, at the bottom of their hearts, take our Owl Dragon seriously at all. And above all that War Angel King. In fact I have no interest in them either. But there is no help for it — they have money."
Among the succubus Ludy's investigation of the Angel Race before, there was one item Zhao Chen had much minded.
Namely, that the Angel Race were confoundedly rich.
And now, under the Demon Race's attack, the Angel Race's case was of that sort where they had the money and no way to spend it!
Upon the Holy Temple Mount before, the bearing of the three Angel Kings — above all that War Angel King's — had been arrogant in the extreme.
Yet Zhao Chen wore his smile still, kindly and approachable.
For in his eyes that was no fiery-tempered Angel King.
That was a dear little thing that would burst and shower gold coins.
Though whether it would still be a dear little thing once the coins had all burst out was another matter.
"We provide the Angel Race these interstellar warships, and let them fight the Demon Race upon the front line. Which both lessens our own losses in dead and wounded, and helps draw off the Demon Race's attention — and we can earn funds from the Angel Race besides. Three birds with one stone." Zhao Chen wore the look of a profiteering merchant.
The Owl Dragon was in great want of funds at present.
And with the Angel Race, that great man of wealth, standing right there, how should Zhao Chen let slip this chance to shear a little wool?
As for whether he could carry an order of 10,000 interstellar warships.
Zhao Chen had reckoned it: to complete these 10,000 T3 Radiance-class Medium Interstellar Destroyers within a month wanted no more than the capacity of 500 T3 Furnace-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ships.
And at present the Northern Goose Group alone had 2,000 T3 Furnace-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ships in hand.
Which is to say, this production task Zhao Chen could complete without needing to move his own Owl Dragon's military industry at all.
By which time Zhao Chen would not only be allied to the Angel Race, that money tree, but would come by an income of near 2 trillion star coins outright!
Sure enough, nothing makes money like selling arms.