Chapter 257: Chapter 257: Deposits and Loans Both Skyrocket

Dragon Island Council of Elders.

"Are our loan terms a bit too lenient? Should we control them a bit, or make some small adjustments?"

The golden dragon, who had always been worried they couldn’t loan the money out, was now looking at Nidhogg, the Dragon of Despair, with some concern.

In just one day, not counting the tens of millions of gold coins loaned out to Viscount Roster, merchants large and small had already borrowed a full 80 million gold coins.

After the auction ended, some great nobles and supernatural beings had also withdrawn some gold coins. In reality, not counting the dragons’ own money, they’d collected just under 300 million gold coins in total deposits.

Considering that loans carried risks and might result in lots of bad debts, and some great nobles might still withdraw gold from the bank... the risk was really getting pretty big.

"No."

Nidhogg, the Dragon of Despair, shook his head very decisively. "Even if the loans we put out exceed the amount of deposits we’ve absorbed, we have to continue. As long as they meet the current conditions, we continue. Worst case scenario, we’ll transport some gold from Dragon Island."

"Trust me, it won’t be long before those people who are holding gold coins and repeatedly testing us, depositing and withdrawing nonstop, will completely trust us and start keeping their surplus money with us. At that point, the problem you’re worried about will return to its original state—worrying that we have too much money and can’t loan it out..."

"Besides, have you guys not thought about why the god had us give interest rate discounts to those small and medium merchants who want to start new companies? It’s because the god wants to stimulate them to enter into magic conductor reform."

"The god needs them to boldly move forward, not to look back and forth hesitantly."

The words of Nidhogg, the Dragon of Despair, stunned quite a few dragons in the Council of Elders. Then, one by one, they showed thoughtful, suddenly enlightened expressions.

"Actually, it’s mainly that I don’t want to bear greater risk. Otherwise, we’d only need to make one promise—same rice, same flour, same cotton—and absorbing deposits would be much easier."

"What do you mean by ’same rice, same flour, same cotton’?" The golden dragon was somewhat puzzled.

"It means promising that however much grain and cotton their money can buy now, after one year, we guarantee that the money they withdraw can still buy that same amount of grain and cotton."

Nidhogg, the Dragon of Despair, said quite casually, "That way, we could eliminate most human freemen’s concerns. But it’s too much trouble, and these risks aren’t ones we should bear. There’s no need. Once we’ve built up our reputation to a certain degree, it’ll be the same anyway."

"So what do we do next?" The golden dragon was somewhat curious.

"We don’t do anything. We continue collecting money, making loans, and delivering packages."

Nidhogg, the Dragon of Despair’s tone was very certain, without a hint of hesitation. "Don’t forget what our original idea was. We went in with the mindset of spending money to buy children, serving the God of Technology. Even spending some gold didn’t matter, as long as we could expand the dragon population."

At some point, the dragons had started thinking about how to use these two companies to make profits, rather than sticking with their original idea.

Nidhogg could understand. No matter who you were, facing such two behemoths, such massive gold transactions, you couldn’t help but think about how to profit.

Besides, he actually felt the current trend was pretty good. Those great nobles withdrawing money weren’t necessarily worried the money would disappear—many nobles also had money that could help them make more money, and they’d just temporarily deposited it because of the auction.

Those magicians and supernatural beings—most of them hadn’t withdrawn anything. That was the proof.

Those freemen, the small customers, were indeed testing them with a few gold coins right now. But when they believed, these small customers with a few gold coins, dozens of gold coins, would also pool together an extremely large amount of funds.

You have to realize, this was only about half a day, and just those few major cities had already added a full 600,000 new customers. Once all the Dragon Banks across the entire continent started up, how many new customers would there be?

He didn’t even dare to imagine.

As for the merchants taking out loans, right now there were more in big cities, especially those merchants around Roster territory—they were bold, could see the prospects, took out lots of loans, which was why 80-plus million gold coins were loaned out in such a short time. When it came to covering small territories, they wouldn’t be able to loan out that much.

Gradually, this numerical gap would be made up.

In fact, how things developed was pretty close to what Nidhogg, the Dragon of Despair, expected.

Actually, it was even better than what Nidhogg, the Dragon of Despair, expected.

Because... there were way too many people in this world suffering from threats from bandits and thieves, especially those people in the Thieves’ Guild. Most of them didn’t dare steal from great nobles, but for these ordinary merchants and those low-to-middle-income freemen, they were like a nightmare.

Low-level thieves stole from low-income freemen, high-level thieves stole from middle-income people and merchants. Keeping money at home was incredibly dangerous. Even the method of digging a hole in the yard and burying it was powerless against thieves who had divine arts.

Keeping it in Dragon Bank, even if there was no interest, as long as they could withdraw it, that was a pretty good idea. What’s more, the money could actually make money.

The farther from the big cities, the stronger this sentiment.

As more and more Dragon Banks started announcing that depositing 3 gold coins would get you a free second-gen Magic Net ring, the number of Dragon Bank customers began to skyrocket.

Ten days later, Dragon Bank’s customer count had reached a terrifying 5 million people, of which 4.2 million still had deposits in the bank. Together, these people had stored a total of over 620 million gold coins.

The amount loaned out had reached a terrifying 450 million gold coins.

"This plan went unexpectedly smoothly!"

In the divine realm, Ren couldn’t help but sigh. "In just 10 days, our Magic Net users skyrocketed to 5.5 million. Compared to before, that’s nearly 4 million more people. Too bad many of them won’t be high-intensity Magic Net users."

"Now you’re complaining?" The Goddess of Magic glared at him. "Even if they only open the Magic Net once a day and pray once, that’s still 4 million more prayers of faith we get! That’s not nothing."

"Haha, you’re right."

Ren laughed heartily. "I feel like just these past few days, the faith we’ve absorbed through the Magic Net has nearly doubled. Can’t ask for too much."

"But speaking of which, what I care about more is that gold coins have started flowing. I feel like on the continent, for tens of thousands of years, money has never flowed this quickly. Those small and medium merchants who are starting to make big moves relying on Roster territory through loans, along with some minor nobles, will completely push our magic-tech industry forward at full speed!"

Loaning out over 400 million gold coins—the greatest value of the bank had already been revealed!