Mixed Blessing System

The other day in the morning...

When the sun rose under Peters City, Lothur, his wives, and the Ritter Motor Company associates were already at the factory.

Yesterday afternoon the fifth minibus to be produced was finished. With this, they could already inaugurate Peters City's interurban minibus transportation today!

That would be the second service offered by the Ritter Motor Company, something to popularize independent animal-powered vehicles once and for all, practical and cheap enough even for mortals.

Practically, only cultivators would have these transportation items, called cars, as ordinary mortals could hardly get enough coins to buy automobiles.

However, it was in Lothur's interest to put an end to the animals in the streets of Peters City, those beings that defecated and urinated in the local streets, polluting the surroundings.

In Lothur's mind, he envisioned a city without these problems, with more efficient and faster transportation.

Beasts would still exist on the city streets. Still, given the above-average intelligence of these creatures capable of cultivating, having them in the cities would not be a problem, as was the case for animals.

Hence, he explained to his associates how even ordinary mortals might be able to use this service.

"Minibusses will be seen all over Peters City in a short time. For now, there will only be five vehicles, but by the end of the month, I plan to have 20 units circulating the city and 3 more stops.

Through these vehicles, local citizens will be able to cross the entire city quickly and comfortably for the small cost of 1 bronze coin." He said, setting out the minimum price to be paid by each user of this service.

But this bronze coin would not just be for a person to take one of the minibusses, and then when they have to take another, pay again. No, when getting on a minibus, a user of this service could stay on it until the stop in Peters City central station instead of getting off at the first point of the route. Then, inside the station, this person would not have to pay to catch another minibus, whatever his destination.

Users of this service would only have to pay for the service again if they got off before the central station.

But Lothur already had something else in mind to help, but also encourage ordinary people to use these means of transportation.

"We will also create an option to buy useful minibus tickets in advance." He gestured as he spoke to his associates. "At the city's central station, service users will be able to buy small formations for 50 bronze coins. These formations can be reloaded and used in place of conventional coins.

With them, one of our minibus users will be able to take two minibusses out of the station on the same day for only one bronze coin."

Upon hearing this, the individuals who understood the subject the least frowned, and one of them asked Lothur. "What will be the advantage for us to do that?"

"Some citizens will be more resistant to opt for our transportation service as they will have to go back and forth daily to their destinations, which can cost them a lot. So this will make it easier for people like that to access this service.

But not only that. Because these tickets will be paid for in advance, we will have the coins of these service users in hand before they even use our minibusses."

Having other people's money in your hands was always an advantage since you could work those resources and keep the profits generated by them. In return, the owners of those resources would only have the same amount deposited.

That was one of the ways banks made money on Earth, and Lothur could not fail to make this option available to local citizens to help him get rich!

Those dubious people understood the benefit of doing this, thinking this could result in exciting profits for them.

Like those to be launched now, each minibus costs 99,000 bronze coins. At the same time, they would have to have a security guard, a conductor, and a driver to make the service possible.

The security guard had to be a cultivator, so his pay would have to be higher than that of the conductor and the driver.

The cost of this service for each vehicle, for one year of operation, for example, would be about 230,000 bronze coins, considering these people's salaries and the vehicle's price.

If each minibus ran every day of the year, then the minimum daily amount collected for the service to make sense would have to be at least 630 bronze coins. In other words, 630 people would have to pass by one of the vehicles or the station daily for the operation to exceed the investment already in the first year of business.

Each minibus had room for 36 people to travel simultaneously. In other words, a minibus would have to make about 18 trips a day, at full capacity, to exceed this mark already in the first year of operation.

The people there with Lothur had no in-depth knowledge about investments. Still, they were very good at the four basic operations and at handling currencies. So by doing this math, they all quickly realized that for the cost of one bronze coin and the early payment discount, they could quickly profit from this business.

After all, these vehicles could make over 40 trips a day around Peters City, and plenty of people would undoubtedly opt for transportation.

Those who had not yet gotten a car or could not even order one would want to try this transportation option!

With this, they could achieve higher than invested numbers in less than a year, and realizing this, they were more than satisfied.

They talked to Lothur for a few moments, clearing up some doubts, while most talked about their future results and how rich their families would become by being partners with this young man.

After more than an hour in that place, Lothur said. "Well, now we will start the operation of the transportation company. To do this, I will ask each of you to get into the vehicle of your choice.

I want the citizens to see you get off at points and around the city to help popularize the service."

Lothur's associates were fine with this, as they wanted to experience riding these larger vehicles. So, soon, they and the people who came with them for the inauguration of this service got on the five minibusses.

Lothur also got into one of these alongside Viktoria, Rebecca, Elke, and Annaliese, intending to get off in front of the Morning Star Academy.

Currently, their transport company has one central station and five points around Peters City. But these five points were just places with the preparation for minibusses to stop without disturbing the traffic.

But the minibusses could stop at some places along their way between one of these points and the central station, depending on the needs of some of the service users.

Among these stopping places was the Morning Star Academy, where Lothur wisely wanted to show the students there this transport option.

So the five minibusses left the Ritter Motor Company's yard, where eight other parked cars were waiting to be delivered to their owners in the coming days.

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