Mage? Spell Engineer!.

Chapter 456: The Alchemist Returns

Lucas had a quarrel at home and ended up on the street. He wanted to go to the beer hall, but he really didn't have any money left.

The newspaper that the guild had read before leaving get off work became his life-saving straw. Lucas took the page with the recruitment information and found a private room in a restaurant according to the address on it.

The waiter asked him to wait for a while, and then a fat man slammed the door and walked out, his face red. This made him even more nervous.

When he went in again, he saw a young man wearing fancy and fashionable clothes sitting at the tea table. He had a handsome but somewhat feminine face. Lucas was a little disappointed. He had imagined that if the interviewer was Rorschach, he could try to get close to him. How could he tell the interviewer that he had met Rorschach once before?
"I'm Valan, nice to meet you." He extended his hand to shake Lucas's, then motioned for him to sit down: "I think you should have seen the man just now? Don't get me wrong, he is not the interviewer. Mr. Lucas, welcome. Don't you have a resume?"

Lucas was speechless for a moment, then he thought of a good excuse: "I came here as soon as I saw your recruitment advertisement. Look, I can't stay in the guild for even a day!"

Valan agreed with this statement. He only asked Lucas to prove that he worked in a magic guild and was an apprentice of the Tower of Mysticism.

After Lucas showed his work badge and the fading apprentice badge, Valan immediately asked him to sign a letter of intent, requiring Lucas to resign from the guild within five days:
"You will now receive an advance of three months' salary, a total of 42 gold eagle coins. However, if you cannot resign from your original position within this ten days, you will need to pay double the penalty."

When the heavy leather bag arrived, Lucas knew he had lost the ability to refuse. His face flushed, even like the last man who left the room angrily, but that was proof of his joy and excitement: "Too generous, sir, I can't believe it. Don't you want to test me more? For example, let me prove that I am a spellcaster."

"No." The young man showed a long-lost frivolous attitude and shrugged nonchalantly: "I don't know any magic! I'm just responsible for going through the process. If there is no problem, I hope you can come to work as soon as possible. It's next to the Munich Bartholome Chamber of Commerce office. The detailed address is in the contract."

"Don't we have to move to the Special Administrative Region to work?" Lucas was ecstatic again.

"No, at least not in the near future." Valan came to Munich, in addition to retrieving the sad magic guild employees and contacting the apprentices of the Tower of Mysticism, he also had another mission.

The Valois Kingdom had a long-standing pension system, and the Empire went a step further and established the earliest personal pension insurance and labor insurance system on the continent of Floren in the form of the Imperial Parliament.

Although the original intention was good, Byrne obviously had its own special circumstances - developed industry associations were more humane than cold commercial insurance companies. They did not need any annuities or insurance. Guild members enjoyed mutual help similar to that of a brotherhood, and workshop owners would promise to leave a generous pension to the craftsmen to ensure that they could live a decent life when they were old.

At least when the Tam River Alliance was still prosperous, the guild was "affectionate" towards its own people.

As for this year's market, even the most powerful guild on earth, the Magic Guild, is cutting salaries, and other workshops are having an even harder time. People suddenly discovered that the workshop owners have no surplus food!
In line with the development of the times, a financial trading company called "Baien Stability Insurance" was listed simultaneously in Munich, Nuremberg and Würzburg, hiring many college students who wanted to make extra money to sell annuities and accident insurance.

"Uncle, I'm a student at Mu University of Technology, and I'm working part-time. Can I bother you for a moment? Have you heard of 'Bain Stability Insurance'? Our insurance..."

The dialogue is very standard, and all comes from a mysterious person.

Its opening has even become a source of amusement among the people: everyone is running out of money for food today and tomorrow, and this so-called insurance company still wants to take money out of everyone’s pockets?

In theory, insurance companies are also financial industries. If they want to grab the territory, even if it is personal insurance that even dogs don’t buy now, they should ask the industry big brother for approval. But they really agreed because they threw a heavy product to the banks. "You mean to insure our loans?" The managers of Grove Bank, one of the three giants of the banking industry association, heard of such a bold operation for the first time.

Varan showed a handsome smile and was extremely confident: "This is our product. Pay us the premium. If the loan cannot be recovered, we will bear the loss and pay you the insurance money."

It's incredible that there are such people who are being taken advantage of. Doesn't that mean that all lending and investment risks can be transferred? Although the premium is a bit high, it is completely acceptable at a time when banks are plagued by bad debts.

While the manager of Grove Bank was still studying the terms, the manager of another giant, Baldi Bank, was laughing because he didn't believe that such a good thing could exist in the world.

Valan said innocently, "Please believe in our strength. First of all, our registered capital of 5 Golden Eagle Coins has been certified by the City Hall. We will never run away during bankruptcy liquidation. In addition, our trading company also holds % of the original shares of Kempson Steel Plant."

Andre, who was accompanying him, took out a piece of parchment. It looked ordinary, but it had the secret mark left by Rorschach on it.

"The only requirement is that after a crisis occurs, the debt claims are transferred to our trading company and we are allowed to put them on the market for trading. The detailed plan is in the document." Valan launched the prepared blue book "Initiative for the Construction and Development of the Asset-Backed Securities Market".

Selling in a package? This made the bankers' eyes light up, because the investments and loans they could not recover were piled up like a mountain, threatening the normal operation of the bank. If they could be resold, whoever bought it would give everyone a break. And from the content of the parchment and the secret mark, it was clear who was behind this company.

When things are too good to be true, there must be something fishy going on. However, the managers all thought of their bosses behind the scenes and suspended the meeting at the same time.

The telegram went in and out from Munich to the Tower of Mysticism, and the comment from the Tower of Mysticism contained only one word: OK.

As a result, a product that the public could not understand at all came into being: mortgage-backed securities.

Almost at the same time as the product came out, the Special Zone suddenly received news that due to production capacity reasons, the Special Zone would release the military supply order of the Kingdom of Bain, and the specific situation was being negotiated with the City Hall. Even the Brewing Guild, which originally could not get a share of the pie, suddenly received news that a large amount of aged wine was needed to be distilled into alcohol to meet military supply.

The royal family did not know why, but it seemed to alleviate the depression. So, under the lobbying of the Banking Association, King Albert borrowed money from the three major banks and purchased a large number of new winter clothes for the army from the wool and textile guilds.

For a while, the market seemed to be getting better again, but the city hall's requirements were very strict. In order to ensure quality and quantity, the workshop had to reach a certain scale to receive transferred orders.

Some workshop owners gritted their teeth and decided to go to the bank again. Then they suddenly found that the loan managers who used to have stern faces all greeted them with smiles and approved all loans with a wave of their hands. In the past, if they wanted to borrow some money, they had to beg for help!

When the workshop was recovering, someone smartly discovered that the mortgage-backed securities were rising steadily. The reason was simple: the securities were discounted when they were packaged with bad loans. Now that the workshop's situation had improved and the old debts had been repaid, the securities had made considerable profits.

Hmm? It just so happens that everyone has spare money now. The citizens' money is earned, and the workshop's money is borrowed, but they are all money, so it doesn't matter.
(End of this chapter)