Chapter 42 - Expanding the business

Sheyan looked on as more n more people entered the shop and got in line to buy scrolls and smiled with satisfaction.

"Krist Charl I am going out for a while to promote my military rank, if anyone makes trouble then use the nightmare realm authority to throw them out of the shop okay." Sheyan spoke.

"Okay sir." Krist and Charl replied and got back to their work. Krist gave the Scrolls to buyers while Charl took the utility points.

Sheyan came out of the shop and asked his nightmare imprint to show direction to the area where he can promote his military rank.

Following the direction of his nightmare imprint, Sheyan swiftly approached the middle region of the market place district, he suddenly felt the ground beneath vibrating a little. The tile beneath him suddenly lifted him up, three red tentacles erupted from the ground coiling and weaving around Sheyan forming a sealed but spacious fencing. It was to prevent others from falling in. Using his hand to touch, he could feel a spongy texture followed by a metal core within, it was slightly warm but extremely solid.

Riding on this 'elevator', Sheyan was lifted towards the summit of the realm. Upon reaching its goal, the tile beneath him dissolved into the lateral wall. Ahead of him was a hexagon shaped metal tunnel. The metal tunnel gave on an unfathomable feeling, even time could not leave a mark on it! As Sheyan walked through, 3 beams of green rays burst out and started scanning him. Any unnecessary movements would surely result in dire consequences.

At the end of the tunnel was a metal chair. The chair was embroidered with huge oval crystals. Sheyan sat down and a hologram screen ejected from the ground:

[ Serial no.1018...analyzing ]

[ Confirming identity... ]

[ Your current nightmare imprint ranking is: Recruit. ]

[ Conditions met to promote your military ranking. Do you wish to promote? Yes / No? ]

"Yes" Sheyan spoke.

[ Your current nightmare imprint ranking is: Private First Class. ]

[ Conditions met to promote your military ranking. Do you wish to promote? Yes /No? ]

"Yes" Sheyan spoke once again.

[ Your current nightmare military ranking is: Corporeal. ]

[ Conditions met to promote your military ranking. Do you wish to promote? Yes /No? ]

"Yes" Sheyan spoke once again.

[ Your current nightmare military ranking is: Sergeant. ]

[ Conditions met to promote your military ranking. Do you wish to promote? Yes /No? ]

"No" Sheyan refused the promotion this time.

'Promoting too many ranks after just one world may raise doubts, let's do it slowly, i remember when Sheyan increased his rank to first lieutenant, a person from future appeared on this screen hovering in front of me and talked with him, let's promote to first lieutenant rank after experiencing the third world just like original Sheyan.' Sheyan thought.

After settling the military rank matter, Sheyan once again descended to the ordinary marketplace, he checked nightmare realm store once again, some items were added but not of much value, for example bandges, military rank medals which could be bought with achievement points, equipping them would make better impression on some storyline characters. Sheyan closed the store and moved towards his shop once again.

"I have to raise my ability level, lend me some potential points dude." Suddenly Sheyan heard a contestant say these words to his partner.

'Right i just remembered, abilities can be upgraded and when abilities reach lvl 4 7 and 9 respectively they give bonus attributes or buffs just like when true basic attributes reach 20 points.' Sheyan thought and quickly opened his ability panel.

He had a total of 25 abilities, excluding the special abilities 'Determined' and 'Lucky Aura'.

Sheyan selected to upgrade his advanced long range combat lvl 3 to lvl 4.

[ A fee of 5000 utility points and 3 potential points is required to complete this action. ]

A notification appeared in front of him.

'This is so expensive, i remember Sheyan only needed hundred or so utility points when upgrading his ability.... Wait!, I remember he only had basic abilities, mine is advanced one, ofcourse it will require a higher fees, but the bonus I will recieve will also be much better than basic and intermediate ones.' Sheyan thought while looking at the notification.

'Although the received bonus buffs or attributes will be completely random, but i remember contestant can pay a small amount of fee to decrease the level of their abilities then upgrade them once again to get the random buff, others don't do it usually as it is too expensive but i am gonna have millions of utility points soon, i can try to get the best one or most suitable buff for me by upgrading my abilities again n again.' Sheyan thought as a smile appeared on his face.

"Rich can really be as wilful as they want." Sheyan spoke and quickly walked towards his shop.

Soon he reached near the area of his shop.

When he came outside of his shop he saw a big line outside it.

"Huh what's this?" Sheyan muttered and walked towards the shop's gate.

"Hey get back in line!"

"Can't you see the line, don't cut in."

"Brother it's no use cutting the line, those beauties inside will throw you out if you try to skip the line, so obediently go back in line and wait for your turn."

Seeing Sheyan trying to enter the shop, other people standing in line quickly stopped him and asked him to go back in the line.

Sheyan looked at them with funny face then ignored them and walked insider the shop.

"Hah another arrogant guy, he will be thrown out soon enough." A guy spoke.

"Yeah, don't know when will these wishful guys listen, 5 people has already been thrown out of the shop by those pretty ladies." Another guy chimmed in.

Sheyan entered the shop and looked at the hustle bustle, Krist and Charl were selling scrolls and taking utility points from people as fast as possible.

"How is the work going, Krissie Charlie." Sheyan asked.

Krist and Charl stopped working and looked at Sheyan.

"Sir you finally came back, so many arrogant guys came here demanding for discount, and the work is going well, but our scrolls supply is thinnig out very quickly, do we have more scrolls?" Charl replied and asked about more scrolls.

Contestants standing in line quitened and looked at the guy that just talked with the beautiful ladies selling the scrolls.

"Did she just say sir?" A guy spoke.

"Yeah i heard it too, so he is owner of this shop." Another guy spoke.

"Just which terrifying party is behind this guy and this shop, to have so many scrolls and sell them at such cheap prices." A girl spoke.

"Forget about that i just wanna know if there are more scrolls, i wanted a heavy firearms mastery scroll but the last one got sold just a minute ago." Another guy spoke in an irritated Voice.

"Well I have many scrolls left, I only took out 10% previously." Sheyan replied to Charl's questions.

"That's great sir, please put more of them on shelf." Krist spoke with a big smile. Making money for her sir meant helping out her sir and helping out her sir is the happiest thing for her.

"Okay but this shop seems smaller to take them all out, let's increase the size." Sheyan spoke and contacted the nightmare realm mentally.

'Nightmare realm i want to make this shop bigger.'

[ You can rent a 100sq meters for 10000 utility points. ]

[ You can rent a 200sq meters shop for 30000 utility points. ]

[ You can rent....

'Wait, i want to buy a shop, is it possible? And are there any benefits for buying a shop.' Sheyan further inquired.

[ Minimum price for buying a shop is 50000 utility points, a 50 sq metre area. ]

[ Buying a shop has many benefits such as you can set your personal rules and regulations, everyone who enters the shop needs to follow them, if someone do not follow them, then they will be penalized, penalty will be based on the area of your shop, bigger shop means more severe penalty. You will find out about other benefits when you buy the shop. ] Nightmare realm explained.

'How much for a 500 sq metres shop, divided in two floors.' Sheyan asked.

[ 500000 utility points. ]

"Charl how many utility we got?" Sheyan looked at Charl and asked.

"We got 573000 utility points sir." Charl answered.

"transfer them to me." Sheyan said and Charl quickly transferred all the utility points to Sheyan.

'I want to purchase it.' Sheyan spoke mentally, instantly he lost 500000 utility points and his shop area suddenly started to expand in size by 10 times, a new floor also appeared. It looked almost like a big mall.

Many empty shelves appeared, along with many robots.

'What are these robots?' Sheyan inquired.

[ These are all-work robots, you can use them as cashier, sales man, helper, cleaner etc. ]

"What happened! Such a big and luxurious shop! I never saw one before." A guy spoke while looking around at the shop.

"This should cost hundred thousands of utility points, no Contestant will waste so many utility points on a shop, most of them just put equipments on a blanket." A girl spoke, her voice shaking a little.

Sheyan ignored the chattering crowd and called for the all-work robots.

He took out all the scrolls from his storage along with many items such as vests, gun Holsters, glock 17, boxes of bullets, Dog tags, Black barreled guns and put them in front of the robots.

A small hill made of scrolls and equipments appeared in front of the contestants, making them lose their voices and almost losing strength in their legs.

"Th-This! Am i inside a dream? Punch me hard, someone." A guy spoke with a shaky voice and wide opened eyes although they couldn't be seen because of the fog.

"Punch me too, i think i am in a dream too." Another guy spoke.

"The heck is happening here." A girl spoke, her breath almost stuck in her throat.

Sheyan looked at the exaggerated reaction and shook his head. He looked back at the robots and commanded.

"Set all these things in neat and tidy order, put the same ones in same shelves or same section. First floor is for scrolls, second floor is for items and equipments."

All-in robots nodded and quickly picked up the items and started to put them on shelves, there were a total of 30 robots.

"Krissie Charlie you can leave the work to them." Sheyan turned around and told krist and Charl.

"Sir, we want to be of help to you too, let us do it please." Charl and krist quickly spoke.

"Uhm okay if you want to do it then continue." Sheyan shrugged his hands.

"Thankyou sir." Charl and krist thanked Sheyan before continuing their work.

Contestants who were standing in line outside quickly entered the shop when they saw the shop getting bigger from outside.

"What's that! A mountain of items and scrolls!" A guy exclaimed loudly.

Other also looked at the mountain and drooled from their mouths.

"Oh right, i forgot to set the rules, nightmare realm i want to set the rules for my shop." Sheyan spoke.

[ Since your shop is worth 500000 utility points, you can set five rules, anyone who violates the rules will be penalized 5000 utility points. ]

'Rule no. 1: No bargaining, prices are fixed.'

'Rule no. 2: Abusing the staff in any way is forbidden.'

'Rule no. 3: No shouting inside the shop.'

'Rule no. 4: uhhh I don't have anymore in mind, let's set the last two rules later.' Sheyan spoke to nightmare realm mentally.

[ Rules has been set, a board telling all the rules will be hanged outside the shop and one more board telling the rules will be in the middle of the shop. ]

Instantly a board appeared in the middle of the shop attracting everyone's attention.

"Bargaining, abusing and shouting is forbidden inside the shop." A guy repeated after reading all the rules.

"We should follow the rules I think, or the shop owner might not sell the items to us." A girl spoke in a small voice to not break the rule accidentally.

"Charl Krist, go set the price tags of items, Vest: 1000 utility points, Glock 17: 2000 utility points, Black barreled gun: 10000 utility points, Gun holster: 500 utility points, military bullets: 1000 points/box, 9mm bullets: 200 points/box, Dog tag: 200 points." Sheyan spoke to Charl and Krist.

"Yes sir." Krist and Charl quickly stood up to do what Sheyan said.

"Oh right, take these two things too, and put them in the most obvious place." Sheyan took out two blueprints from his storage.

"Laser blaster for 250000 points and flame Blaster for 150000 points." Sheyan continued.

"Yes sir" Krist and Charl quickly left after taking the blueprints.

"Sorry for the inconvenience my friends, will you all wait for 15 minutes before buying things till everything is settled." Sheyan smiled and spoke to the contestants.

"Yes yes no problem sir, please take your time." Contestants quickly replied.

'Oh right i would need Potential points too if i want to upgrade my abilities.' Sheyan thought and set one more counter beside the receptionist counter.

"Hey guys, do you know what's the market price for potential points?" Sheyan asked the contestants.

"Sir 1 potential point is worth 3000 utility points in the market, only on some rare occasion when someone is in dire needs will this price fluctuate." A girl quickly answered Sheyan.

"Oh thankyou." Sheyan thanked the lady and quickly words appeared on the counter.

*Exchange Counter*

*4000 utility points for 1 potential point*

"4000 utility points for 1 potential point!" Contestants exclaimed.

"Sir, are you some saint sent by the heavens to help us poor people?" A girl spoke, if her face wasn't blurred by fog, people could have seen the fanatical glow in her eyes like she was looking at a god.

"Hahahaha you can think of me as a Saint if you want." Sheyan laughed and spoke.