After being thrown out of the garden, Adrian came back feeling much bitter, but he was powerless as of now.
He couldn’t do anything he wanted.
So, he came to the conclusion that he needed to build up his power to challenge the Crown Prince and the King.
And to do that, he would need to administer a land himself and become powerful.
Now, since his mother had practically no one backing her, he had no land to start from.
This frustrated him, and he found no solution to this problem other than the King rewarding them with one.
But why would the King hand out a reward to the nobody of a prince, or even his mother?
He needed to do something good enough to be rewarded by the King himself.
As he pondered over what to do, he came to notice that the royal court was giving out huge rewards for discovering gold and silver mines, and had even annexed some from the noble families.
He wondered why there was such a sudden need for gold and silver.
He thought of asking Ronald, but would he even know why they needed it?
It was worth a try.
So Adrian asked Ronald anyway.
As it turned out, Ronald had no idea about what was happening.
Adrian then asked his tutors, who were just taking free money from the royal treasury.
They told him that since gold and silver had a limited supply, coins could not be made infinitely from them.
Due to this, the kingdom was in urgent need of gold and silver coins, as they were in high demand while the kingdom had no sufficient supply of them.
This had led to the merchants and nobles hoarding the already available supply, causing a shortage for the commoners.
Bronze coins were too low in value and had to be paid in huge amounts even for small items, further worsening the shortage of gold and silver coins.
Adrian at once understood what the underlying problem was.
It was deflation.
Low availability of currency caused people to hoard it and decreased the total value of trade, leading to reduced taxes and lower spending.
This was a problem that had been tackled centuries ago in the modern world.
How, you ask?
Simple.
Currency notes.
They could issue paper money, guaranteeing that every hundred units of that paper were backed by a gold coin.
Adrian knew the solution.
He told Ronald his idea.
Ronald had trouble understanding why anyone would trust paper over gold.
Adrian replied,
“Because the Crown only takes taxes in that paper, and that paper can also buy the gold coin everybody trusts so much.”
Ronald, though sceptical, understood what Adrian was trying to say.
But he didn’t know what to do with this information.
To which Adrian told him his plan.
He told Ronald to go to his mother and tell her to repeat this idea in front of the King.
That would solve the current situation.
Ronald went to Elara and told her what Adrian had said, claiming that the idea was his own.
Elara was uneducated, so she didn’t understand what it meant.
But she trusted Ronald and learned whatever he told her.
Then, one day, when the King came to visit her, she told him the idea exactly as Ronald had explained it.
The King was by no means an idiot.
After hearing the idea from Elara’s mouth, he immediately knew that she was not the one who had come up with it.
He pressured her into revealing who had given her the idea.
Elara easily revealed Ronald’s name.
The King immediately called for Ronald and asked him to present the idea clearly.
Ronald said,
“Your Majesty, what if instead of giving gold coins to the people, we gave them a paper promising that every hundred units of that paper had a gold coin lying in the Royal Treasury? And to encourage the people to use the paper more and more instead of gold and silver, Your Majesty, can collect taxes in those paper notes.”
Aldric liked the idea.
But he had a feeling that it wasn’t coming from Ronald either.
It felt as though Ronald was merely a spokesperson for someone else.
But the only other person he could think of was Adrian.
And Adrian hadn’t even studied properly, let alone propose something this revolutionary.
The King left Elara’s chambers in a hurry.
That very night, he convened the Royal Court.
It was midnight when he presented the idea to everyone.
Some were in awe.
Some were suspicious.
Some couldn’t even understood what it means.
The King then ordered his Finance Minister to develop the idea properly within a week and check for its feasibility.
After a week, the Finance Minister came up with his thoughts on the King’s suggestion.
“Your Majesty, though it is a good idea, we can change it a little more. We can stop the people from redeeming these notes for gold and silver in the Royal Treasury and simply claim that this paper is His Majesty’s word, guaranteed to give you one hundred units’ worth of goods for one hundred units of the notes.”
The King liked this improvement very much.
He praised the Finance Minister for coming up with an even better solution to the kingdom’s economic problem.
The paper currency system was started in the kingdom soon after.
Then King Aldric called for Ronald to award him for the idea.
Adrian, already expecting this, had told Ronald what to ask for as a reward.
When the King asked Ronald to name his desired reward for his contribution, Ronald said,
“Your Majesty, I want the administrative rights of a village.”
The King was confused.
Why?
He had thought Ronald would ask for gold, or perhaps the new Royal Notes.
But why land?
Asked the King.
To which Ronald answered,
“Your Majesty, my lady Elara and her son, Adrian need a stable source of income.”
King Aldric was impressed by Ronald’s loyalty.
And so, he granted the administrative and taxation rights of the village of Valewood to Elara.
For the first time in his new life…
Adrian had land.
And with land came something far more valuable.
Power.