55 - Chapter 49
It had been over four months since Sa Bina had started at the academy. A lot of things had changed in that time.
Ever since the revelation over Sa Bina having divine roots, Sun Li had practically moved into the estate to act as her trainer full time. Sun Li had also pushed her to test out of the classes at the academy leaving her only attending half time.
The rest of the time had been spent in active cultivation, meditation, martial arts practice and experimenting with bread. With the exception of her bread, Sa Bina had really struggled with the others. Not having any background in the first three, it was a steep learning curve for her. Normally it was one of those things where children would learn the basics and then learn more once they turned fourteen or fifteen. However, as she could not wait, she had to gain several years training in a few months. Sun Li was a hard taskmaster, and would not allow Sa Bina to be simply adequate. She demanded excellence from Sa Bina, and pushed her to her limits daily. After several months, Sa Bina was finally starting to show some results.
There was also regular support from Shao Jia, both in the form of physical check ups and emotional support. Sa Bina had not realised how much the migration had impacted her mental state, and how much effect the teenage bodies hormonal cycle was having on her until she actually sat down and started to discuss her actions since waking up here.
It was like a perfect storm of trying to control a situation that Sa Bina found absurd, being bold to project strength and showing off to get the dopamine hit from the approval of others. Only after having in depth conversations with Sun Li and Shao Jia did Sa Bina realise how much she had impacted the city.
Some of her retainers had been injured in ‘bandit’ attacks, and she was sure that there had been attempts to get to her, not because anyone had said anything, but with how her security had been increased randomly one day.
Her changes had significant unintended consequences. The primary effect was the number of businesses that had switched over to her guild. The initial plan had been for a small minority of businesses to switch over, not really impacting the noble families financially. More a publicity impact than a financial one. However, due to the more favourable terms, and a say in how things were run, they had managed to gain most of the independent businesses.
As this represented almost half of all businesses in the city, it had become a problem that they could not address. They could not just randomly kick businesses out. The issue was that taxes collected from the businesses were also split with the noble houses. By going through her guild, even though the kingdom was actually getting a higher percentage of taxes, 88% vs 70% from the normal guilds, they would effectively cut most noble houses' tax income by half come the end of the year. The houses that had more business interests were less impacted, but they were all impacted to various degrees. The only positive from the situation was that the guild profits were enough to cover all her expenses, meaning that she had not had to touch her reserves for expenses.
If that was not bad enough, her push to use double entry bookkeeping had an impact on the middle class that had been using creative accounting to pad their own pockets. Even the houses that did not like her guild had been pushing to adopt the new system once they realised that it made it harder to skim from them.
There had been positives too. After significant experimentation, Sa Bina had perfected various types of bread. This had been an instant hit, primary thanks to her friends from school. She had asked them to try her creations to give her feedback, and they had all liked the bread so much that it had created massive demand for the newest fad in the city.
Sa Bina had expanded her farming operations to ensure that there would be enough grains produced to meet demand. She had increased the size of the land she owned and recruited even more people to work the land. The first crop would be harvested in the next month or so. In the temperate climate, they would be able to get between four and five crops per year, depending on the type of grain, crop rotation and a number of other factors. Thankfully she had people to manage that part of her operations.
In the last month or so, her estate had started to provide bread to most of the city. The massive bakeries were working full time to try and keep up with demand. So much so that they had started work on a second industrial kitchen.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
The main restaurant was coming along nicely. The plans had been adapted multiple times, and though the look and feel would match what Sa Bina had been after, the way that was to be achieved was more traditional to this world. Her ideas, which would have been great on a preindustrial earth, were actually very inefficient compared to methods that utilised qi.
For example, the wooden look she had wanted had been achieved by having a cultivator with wood qi grow the wood in that pattern on top of the earthen walls. It had made her realise just how little she actually understood technology in this world. Though the world looked quaint, some of the advancements and techniques were well beyond what could even be achieved on Earth.
Having Sun Li on site had been a literal god send, where her suggestions, and judicious use of the jobs board at the sect had led to miracles being achieved.
They had also achieved, using formations, the creation of air conditioning, cold rooms, both fridges and freezers, and a variety of ovens. Her artificers were working on creating smaller units that could be sold via her businesses.
Speaking of her businesses, her portfolio of businesses had expanded yet again. There had also been progress made with a variety of different alcohol types, including a gin, a whisky, a vodka, a rum and a mead. Sa Bina had her team work on a variety, hoping to cover all tastes.
There had also been progress with a variety of cheeses, though she had not released those to the public just yet. She had also stayed with the milder cheeses, as the stronger ones were an acquired taste and not popular with her retainers.
She was hoping to debut her cheeses, including cheddar, mozzarella, ricotta and mascarpone as well as butter, and a variety of creams in desserts as part of her launch for the harvest festival.
Though there was some concern whether it would be a good idea to go ahead with the event. With more and more noble houses upset with her guilds, it was anyone’s guess as to how they would react to an invitation at this stage.
Sa Bina had not had any time to cause any more trouble or instigate any other changes due to her packed schedule. She had managed to catch up with a lot of her required reading and had tested out of management, literature, geography and history too. It only left her attending Law and the Arts. She was happy that the classes were split across morning and afternoon, so she had the opportunity to spend lunch every other day with her friends. Otherwise she would never get to see them with the punishing schedule that Sun Li was setting.
According to both Sun Li and Shao Jia, her dantian was progressing well and was on track to ignite in the next month or so.
The only part of her plan that had seen no progress was to create baking soda and thus baking powder. She had asked her alchemists to look for potassium bicarbonate. She had also experimented with egg whites as a substitute and gained passable results with some of her recipes.
So overall the results were mixed and while it looked like things were going well for Sa Bina, she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. There was no way her meddling would go unanswered by the noble houses, especially the ones who had been profiting from the existing guild structures. The problem was that Sa Bina had no way of knowing what they were planning. Further, her status severely limited what actions she could take to find out. What had been a strength had now become a weakness.
If she employed spies, and deployed them against the other noble houses, it would leave her in a situation where she could be accused of espionage. That would allow the other houses to move against her openly. It would also force her allies, the ministries and the sect to abandon her. And while they would not be able to charge her with a crime, they would be able to impose economic sanctions, and even expel her. As she currently had nowhere else to go, it would leave her in a precarious position.
She was doing her best to learn what the houses could use against her by learning as much law as she could, though that would only be of limited use. She was not a legal expert, nor could she achieve mastery in such a short amount of time. She had focused her efforts on learning more about inter kingdom laws and politics to try and see if she could identify the potential avenues of attack against her and her holdings.
The other uncertainty was when her dantian would ignite. Her status was hidden unless she consented to an invasive qi scan. It would take someone inordinately strong, like the sect elders, or her permission to be able to scan her before the dantian ignited. However, she would not be able to hide her status after that. Anyone with decent qi sense would know she was a cultivator. This was an area where no one had been able to get information. Sa Bina had no idea what the reaction of the other noble houses would be. She could not even ask her friends, as the mere fact of asking would effectively reveal her state. The situation was too far outside the expected.
Sa Bina was left with very few viable options. She could not even abandon the city without leaving her allies and businesses in the lurch. All she could do was to prepare as best as she could and hope that whatever the nobles did was something she would be able to deal with.