章 51: Chapter 51
Throughout the day Ben had received endless compliments on his store, not only was it enjoyable to just walk through and view the art and decor, but it was stocked with never before seen items that set their imaginations a light.
People began to think of all the ways these new items would save them time in their daily labors around the house or how they could help their business to grow.
Ben was very busy throughout the day teaching his salesgirls about the many products they sold along with also helping any customers who were ready to make a purchase.
Cordelia was his only saving grace during this first day of opening the doors to the public. Seeing she had already been introduced to most of these items and foods it was possible for her to help the salesgirls with the never-ending stream of questions on these new products.
When he eventually had a small break in the action Ben went into the back storage room and built a Market that looked like a large unexceptional cube next to the Warehouse. He had stripped away the architectural dressing on its exterior and reshaped it to appear as a large unmovable wooden crate. If anyone went into the back storage room and saw the Market they would simply think it was a wooden crate used to transport some type of large object.
This way the camouflaged Market wouldn't attract the unwanted attention of anyone who was brought back here. There were only two people who would be shown what it truly could do. These two people were his senior employees Baynard and Cordelia.
Firstly, Ben had to arrange the Market interface menu to provide access to anything that the store sold. After Ben had added the products and foods sold by the store to the Market's menu he brought Cordelia and Baynard into the back storage room to provide them with access rights to the new Market.
The two employees were also taught how to place their hand on the market to open the holographic menu that would only open for those he provided access. Unlike the Market at the fortress which was left unsecured, he used the security option on the new store Market to keep it locked. Only those who were added to the system would have access to the Market's menu.
They were fascinated by the semi-transparent pages of information that floated before their eyes but because this world had been introduced to magic its people were now able to accept these new and strange things quicker than someone from Earth would.
Ben showed them how to move their hand across the screen in a swiping motion so that they could change categories or turn the virtual pages. When they had located a product which needed to be restocked they were shown how to select it and chose the number of items they wished to remove.
Ben chose to bring out the paper he had sold earlier and when it appeared on the shelf next to the Market it gave Cordelia and Baynard a surprise. His senior employees looked at him with wide questioning eyes obviously curious about how this big wooden crate made things appear before them.
Ben smiled at their reactions and explained.
"Think of this large wooden box as if it were a spatial storage ring. I know the two of you probably have never seen or used such a ring but we all know how they work. Just like the ring, it uses spatial magic to hold items in a pocket dimension. The only difference is this box provides you with pages to see what it holds instead of using your mind to look inside of it."
This was mainly true the only part he had left out was the Market did not have its own pocket dimension it was linked to the Warehouse next to it that was the true provider of the spatial storage.
Ben knew he would not always be around to help them restock the store and this would help them to accomplish that. By giving them this simple explanation he hoped they would be comfortable using the Market and not feel it could harm them by using it.
The only thing the store sold that could not be removed from the Market was the carts. This was because Ben was the only one who could get them out of the store by using his inventory so he left them off the list of available goods.
There was no possible way that a cart could fit down the store's long hallway and out the two narrow glass double doors. The carts were much too wide and even if it could fit they would need everyone in the store just to push and pull the bulky carts out onto the street.
When the day came in which they happened to sell a cart Ben could place it out front for pickup or he could deliver it directly to their home or business with his inventory.
It was now midday near lunchtime when they were done with the crash course on how to operate the Market. Ben made his way over to the break room and prepared a nice selection of food. The stovetop oven allowed him to make a few Earth style dishes to treat his employees.
They were all allowed to go to the break room in pairs and enjoy the food. It would have been nice for them to all enjoy the meal together but the store had a continuous flow of customers that kept them from leaving their departments.
His employees couldn't believe how many people kept coming to the store. As customers were leaving others would also walk in creating an endless cycle of circulating people.
Ben just laughed because he figured this was only the start. When the word got around the city about his store it would always be packed from the time they opened the doors up until closing time.
He began to realize near the end of the day he would need more employees. This was only the first day of business. As he added more food and products to his store it would draw larger numbers of customers.
'I need to hire more employees if this is any indication of how busy the store will be from now on. Then there is the huge apartment I made upstairs on the third floor so that I could have a few soldiers live here and protect the place when I'm not around. It just never ends, I always have something else that I need to do or buy. I guess I need to find more employees and bring over a few soldiers from the fortress somehow.'
At the end of the day, they all brought the cashier trays from the registers into Baynard's office. Ben had the [Printery] pump out a couple leather-bound books with thick blank white paper. The books were quickly produced and placed on the empty bookshelf in Baynard's office.
Baynard had always kept the records for Remi on individual sheets of parchment and now he could keep monthly records all written out in these supplied leather bound books.
Before Baynard started he asked Ben for some loose sheets of parchment to do his math calculations on so that the books could be kept clean of them. Ben thought about it for a moment and came up with a better idea.
He had already built a Mechanical Device Factory in the basement so he went back down there and had it make a mechanical calculator for Baynard.
It worked like a typewriter when you hit the keys it would stamp out your calculations on a roll of white paper. If you rotated its side crank clockwise on the calculator it allowed you to do addition and multiplication. If this same crank was rotated counterclockwise it was then possible to do subtraction and division with it.
The internal working of the calculator worked in the same way as the cash register or typewriter. Inside of them were hundreds of small levers that would move a series of dials around when a number was pressed.
This made the mechanical calculator a large bulky piece of equipment. It wasn't very portable but once it was on your desk it could make your job much easier. Instead of having to write out columns of calculations Baynard could simply tap the keys and rotate to crank on the side when needed.
Baynard was fascinated with the new machine and being a person who made a living from calculating and recording numbers it was as if a ditch digger had his shovel replaced with a backhoe tractor. Baynard could tell right away this new technology would cut his workload in half.
In Ben's Build Menu there was an [Electrotronics & Appliances Manufacturer] which was grayed out meaning it was still locked. If he were to build an [Advanced Technology Research Facility] for twenty thousand gold coins he could then build the [Electrotronics & Appliances Manufacturer] for another additional twenty thousand gold coins.
The [Electrotronics & Appliances Manufacturer] would allow him to build many of Earth's modern electronics the problem was he needed to spend Forty thousand gold coins to build it!
If he had the money to build it giving Baynard a solar powered or electric calculator would be easy, he could even give him a laptop or a personal computer with Office software to keep the store records. This sadly was only an option for the future for now. One day he hoped to make enough money to where he had 40000g to spend without having to sell everything he owned to do it.
This store should be a big help towards helping him purchase those more expensive manufactures, factories, and workshops. He also had thoughts now of opening other businesses around the city to help generate even more money.
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The salesgirls had left the store with two big bags in each arm after they had dropped off their register trays. One had the uniforms Ben had given them and the other bag had spirit foods and the hygiene products from earlier.
Before Cordelia went home Ben asked her and Baynard to open the store tomorrow without him. He explained that he had recently advanced his cultivation and wanted to increase his noble rank.
He would need to have his cultivation tested in front of the king and sign the royal documents once again stating that he was now a Duke.
The two of them were amazed to hear Ben would soon hold the same title as the royal cultivator and be among the highest ranked nobles in the city. There was only one more title above Duke which was the Archduke title.
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Ben had also sent his senior employees both home with two bags containing their uniforms, food, and hygiene products for the day. He locked up after they left and restocked the store with everything they had sold today.
Now that Ben had a store where people could interact with all the things that he had out for sale his sales had greatly increased. People were able to use the changing rooms to try on clothing or sit down to slip on the different styles of footwear.
When Ben was set up in the central city square market he had only set out a few things for display behind his vendor stalls. His customer couldn't get a good look at them or know how it would fit and look on them.
People seemed to love to touch new things and interact with them. Ben could even remember it was like this on Earth. Places that would have expensive exhibits would need to place ropes or barriers around them to prevent the crowds from constantly touching them and there were some people who would even cross those barriers to touch these exhibits knowing full well they were not allowed.
It might be a curse for those who had these exhibits but it was a perk for someone who owned a store when a customer could interact with an item that caught their eye there would then be a greater chance that they would feel they needed or just wanted to have it.
Now that he had made the move from the central market to his store Ben had more than doubled the amount of money he was making. If he were to not spend any money at all for the next month it might be possible to actually build an Electronics Manufacturer.
The Electronics and Appliances Manufacture was not needed though at this time. It would not be possible to make money from selling electronics because his store was the only place in the city that had electricity available. There were still many other things which needed to be taken care of first.
Baynard was soon able to finish up his work and had gone home for the day. Ben followed him out and he locked the doors. There were still a few people out on the streets and a group of city guards was passing by investigating the businesses and walkways between them for any trouble.
Ben walked toward the City's east wall and easily hopped up and over it. Out about three hundred yards from where he landed, Ben could see the tall wood walls that surrounded the land he purchased.
He used the system menu to open the Gatehouse and walked around the farms and found everything was still as he had left it.
With his store doing so well he wanted to add to the selection of food he had available. Ben used the build menu to place down a mixed vegetable farm that grew Earth only vegetables and then a Victus only mixed vegetable farm. These two farms would begin to grow all new vegetables that he had not sold yet.
Ben also decided to make a rice field farm. The rice fields used the water from the water treatment structure under the store to flood the paddy fields which were surrounded by raised dirt berm that held the water in square shallow pools. Right next to these rice paddy fields a wheat field also began to take form as the blue mist carved out a section of unused land.
[Farm]: Can grow: vegetables, wheat, rice fields, oats, barley, hops, spices, and peanuts. Also, can be used are Victus grains and vegetables.
Ben always laughed when he built these Farms. They were called Farms, but they were scaled down miniature fields which were no bigger than a regular sized suburban backyard on Earth.
They had such a quick growth rate you could actually stand there and watch as the vegetables sprouted and grew. The farm plots might be small but they could put out multiple crop yields per day. As the crop matured the Farm would pick the veggies, fruit or whatever had been planted and begin the growth cycle on the next yield.
Next on the list were orchards which were also grown on a small patch of land that held about twenty-five close-growing trees. There was now an apple, pear, cherry, peach, orange, and plum orchard beginning to grow within the walled-in land.
[Auto_Notice] [The system has advanced a level! System Level 17!]
[Orchard]: Can grow: apple, pear, cherry, peach, orange, olive, plum, almond, chestnut, pecan, cashew, fig, cocoa, maple syrup, and native Victus fruits and nuts.
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