After a couple months the money and items started to roll in but there were problems. My people didn't really have any jobs.
So I figured I'd come up with a way to solve that and the problem of slow transportation all in one.
How are we going to do that you ask? Old time steam engines. We have tons of fire crystals that we can use instead of coal or even fire and water magic. So it was a good plan.
The plan was simple.
We would cut a path straight to the other kingdom the trees would be used for building railroad ties to support the track.
The ground would be flattened out by earth magic. Zombies and people would follow behind placing down ties. Then laying the rails which would be spiked to the ties and welded together using fire magic.
The Knights would clear the area of any monsters wandering around trying to disrupt construction.
Using my forge and foundry and junk iron it was easy to get the metal materials I needed made with moulds.
It took a month to get everything made and I had to borrow 5 million gold from father in law which took some convincing.
With 5 million I could buy 1 steam engine a passenger car and a storage car for goods.
At the end of both sides of the track was rails set up to be able to be turned with a wench it needed a bit of man power so we didn't have to buy another engine for the back to make reverse trips but that was worth it.
I was already 5m in debt I can't afford another 3m for another steam engine.
The engine was an instant sensation. Trips that took 3 days now took a few hours.
The Warriors in my kingdom could take the train during the morning along with goods and go raid the dungeon all day to make cash then take the evening train home and sleep and repeat.
It was revolutionary. As people still used carriages and horses or magic beasts.
This allowed people in my kingdom to make money to bring home. This also interested merchants who started to arrive in the kingdom.
I made money on train rides too and from the kingdom. Taxes from cargo helped out. Merchants would pay for faster travel.
The travel tickets were cheap for warriors going to dungeons but a little more pricey for merchants and nobles.
They could bitch all they wanted I owned the thing and I make the prices.
Other kingdoms heard of this wonder and started to send me propositions to build one connecting them to other kingdoms.
They sent people to try to find out how my steam engine worked but they were always caught and executed for trying to steal another kingdoms secrets.
Running a train cost me almost nothing. The water for steam was provided by water mages. The heat was pure fire energy from fire mages. I had to pay the loaders and the railway rotators the driver and the two mages.
That was it. I could have used zombies but my people needed jobs.
As for the other kingdoms wanting trains sure.
10m for the plans to build them and how I did it so fast. Some tried to be sneaky and wait until others figured it out until our two kingdoms made a statement we would go to war with anyone who had stolen my technology. The fact we had necromancers and two armies was a major deterrent force.
So they all forked over the cash.
There were 3 other kingdoms. In total I made 25m after getting rid of my debt. They would make the trains and everything on their own coin I just sold them the rights to make it.
Jobs for earth and wood mages skyrocketed. They had never thought about doing some of the stuff I wrote down. Earth mages were looked down on for not having powerful attacks like fire mages and wood mages were just glorified gardeners.
With the money I had on hand we started to fix up the kingdom even more.
I hired the poor and workers from other kingdoms to start updating the sewage system.
It was hard and dirty work but I paid well. New pipes were run underground. Flowing water was redirected to help keep them clean.
The old sewers weren't maintained in over a hundred years. There was collapsed tunnels, rusted pipes, an over population of slimes who fed on the nasty stuff down there.
Next I had installed small solar station and started to get proper street lights up and going. Most people used torches or monster cores for lights in lamps.
They never thought of using electricity to power things. Night life got better with the city being lit up. There were night markets and new bars opened up since this became a booze capital people were able to have fun and relax after a hard day of work in sewers or dungeons.
With the introduction of electricity I was able to add more stuff for people to play with.
Pinball games exploded on the scene right next to air hockey and pool became a thing. The most They had was usually darts.
it was small things to make the people happy.
Since I had established the booze capital of the world. I figured why not add gambling as well.
I made a casino that the nobles loved. Slot machines, roulette, Dice games, card games. We had some of everything. The suckers just rolled in and threw their money at me. With low booze prices mixed with bad decisions I was making tons of profit.