Chapter 89

Ben ate dinner with Mythia and he explained he wasn't sure how long he would be gone. He assumed he would need to wait a few days before he could meet with the Ciral king. Instead of sitting around in an Inn down there he planned to purchase a small store or some land in the Ciral capital.

Instead of just making this a diplomatic trip he thought why not open another business while I am down there?

Ben planned to start off by building a store and firstly introducing his spirit foods. If he was received as well as he had been in Goldcrest he could even expand to open another business district there. If everything played out right, Ben could double his current sales profits and begin to bring in enough money to build the more expensive structures in his Build Menu.

When Mythia went off to bed Ben left the Keep and upgraded his Warehouse to level five. It now had a much larger access perimeter. The radius was still not large enough so Ben began to travel south along his forest road throughout the night.

He would stop every so often to build large sized hidden basements under the stone towers along his road. In each basement, he would build a level five Warehouse that was close enough to link with the others he built.

Before sunrise, he had built a line of hidden Warehouses that linked back to his fortress Warehouse.

Instead of repeating the process of building workshops and farms as he had done in Goldcrest he planned to make a chain of Warehouses linking to his main Warehouse. Once he opened a store he could build a Warehouse inside of it that linked up to this chain. All he would need then is a Market where his employees could remove produce or products to restock the store.

Ben left the forest wearing his noble outfit and reached the gates of Wolfmere not long after the guards had opened them. He chose to not wear his hemic cape to avoid another possible incident with these guards who did not know who he was. It was still early so Ben only saw a couple Merchant waiting to be inspected in front of the gates to the Ciral Capital.

The guards quickly waved Ben right through as he walked up empty-handed. They thought it was strange to see someone who appeared to be a young noble out by himself without guards or any transportation but it was none of their business if he wanted to court death on his own.

Ben asked a bored looking guard inside a guard station where the Royal Palace was located and was told to continue walking south on the main street they were on and he would run right into it.

The city of Wolfmere looked different from Goldcrest but the quality of the roads and Buildings were similar. They used the same technique of sinking round stones into the ground to make their streets. It was better than dirt or mud when it rained but not by much. The roads were so rough the carts would bounce up and down or side to side as they traveled across them.

The fashion was similar with Goldcrest and he was happy his clothes did not stand out except for the fact that they screamed he was a noble.

When Ben reached the Royal Palace he explained he was an Archduke from Aregard and had come to bring documents from King Sletten to the Ciral Court. Ben made it inside the palace without any trouble and went toward what appeared to be a reception desk in the entrance lobby.

"Hello, I am Archduke King from the Aregard Kingdom. I would like to make an appointment to see the king of Ciral. I have documents and a trade contract from the Aregard King that he will be of interest to your king." Ben explained his visit to the skinny middle-aged man at the counter and was asked to wait for a moment.

The receptionist left the lobby and returned a few minutes later with an older gentleman who appeared to be a palace official by the way he was dressed.

The official question Ben about the documents and contract. Ben only told him about the discounted Copper and Iron ore deal being offered to the Ciral Kingdom. Ben explained the Aregard King wished to make a deal to sell him ores cheaper than they could buy from any of the other kingdoms. He left out anything to do with his kingdom and the roads for now.

He didn't want to tell them about his new kingdom and make things more difficult than they needed to be. The official was friendly and seemed interested in the deal. The official did say the king had been tied up in meetings of late and it would be a few days before Ben could get to see him but everything looked good.

This was to be expected since he was not a noble of this kingdom and was an outsider. When the official left Ben then asked the Receptionist where he should go to purchase a store or commercial property in the city.

The Receptionist called someone over who must've been a servant or a runner in the palace and asked him to take Ben to the Land Management Office.

Ben's noble rank helped him out when it came to being able to purchase land in the city. He was told he would have to pay a nonresident property fee on top of the property cost because he was a noble from another kingdom.

He wasn't worried about the extra fees and was given a list of available stores and land for sale. He was soon back on the streets looking for a new property. He was making good money from his Aregard businesses now and did not have to worry about prices.

Ben walked around the city for a few hours and finally set his eyes on a small vacant store on a large piece of land. The store was located on the main street not far from the gate entrance to the city.

It seemed the owner of the store had retired last year and he was asking 3000g for the store and property. For the size and condition of the store, it was way overpriced. It sat on prime real estate in the shopping district and the land the store sits on is just as big as the land his three-story building in Goldcrest is on.

Ben didn't care about the shabby store and planned to tear it down and build a new store on the large chunk of prime land. What he liked was the street was packed with people here walking around making their daily purchases. It was worth having to pay twice as much as this property was worth to him. Once his store caught on it would be constantly flooded with all these shoppers who packed this street.

Back at the palace he paid the money and walked out a few minutes later with a deed to his new property. Now that the land had sold the Land Commision office would contact the owner and give him his money minus the transfer fees and the nonresident property fee.

Instead of going to his new property Ben stopped at a Tavern just up the street from his store. He sat at a table in the corner and ordered a mug of wine. The tavern began to fill up as it got nearer to the end of the day. Ben sat quietly alone in the corner and used his Enhanced Hearing to listen in on the surrounding conversations.

He began to find out Ciral seemed to have more corruption than Aregard. The Kingdom of Ciral has four kingdoms on its borders and this exposed them to the various plots from each of these kingdoms.

The Aregard Kingdom was sheltered in the northeast with only the Trareniel Kingdom on their southern border to deal with. The kingdom of Ciral had the Ferrama kingdom to the west and the Galeran Kingdom to the south. Then their eastern border was shared by the Trareniel Kingdom and the Brandomma Kingdom.

With exposure to so many kingdoms, they had to deal with spies, merchants who offered bribes to the guards and officials. There were also spies who infiltrated the Royal Palace and shady characters who offered bribes to the palace officials to know what was going on behind closed doors. The Ciral capital was doing more business than Goldcrest since it was so centrally located on the continent but they had to deal with all these extra headaches because of it.

Ben began to wonder if things were this bad was he going to run into other people who would try to run him out of business once he became successful here?

Once the sun set Ben paid his tab and left the tavern. He walked a couple blocks down the street to his new store and used the key he was given to enter. The store was empty single room inside with a tiny office off to the side.

With people still on the streets he decided to bring a sofa out of his Warehouse and laid down on it. Ben cultivated for a few hours and waited for everyone to head home for the night. It was just after 2:00 in the morning when he stood up and began to use his Deconstruct tool to take down the small store.

After hearing about corrupt guards and merchants Ben didn't want to trust the security of this city so he decided this new store wouldn't have any windows. The new store was almost an exact copy of his Goldcrest store without the picture windows and the double glass doors.

The outer walls were all one-foot-thick concrete with two layers of steel grid rebar. The two double doors out front were two-inch-thick steel doors with four heavy-duty deadbolt locks and solid steel door casings.

He had the outer shell and roof of the building constructed before morning and surprised everyone who walked by here every day. People were doing double takes all day long wondering how in the hell this huge building was constructed this quickly. They began to wonder if it had been there for a while already and they only just noticed it now. If not the new owner must have hired a massive team of workers to build it so quickly.

The store doors remained locked for the next few days while Ben put his Interior Designer profession to use. The store's interior was laid out exactly like his other store with separate departments and offices located near the back of the store.

Behind the row of offices was a storage room where he built a Market. Ben made another small room with a security door in the storage room that hid the staircase descending to the basement below the store.

In the basement, there was a Warehouse which was linked to the line of Warehouses in the Wayward Woodlands. Ben also built a Merchant Guild and a Spies Guild Next to his Warehouse.

[Merchants]: You will earn more money at any businesses where recruited Merchants work. All Merchant recruits are created with the Merchant skill. The higher the Merchants level the higher their Merchant skill level will be. Merchants can not level up their Merchant skill so chose wisely!

[Spies]: Your officials, guards, military units, and spies will become more adept at seeing through subterfuge. A free Counter Subterfuge lesson will be added to all military and civilian classes to teach your people how to deal with Spies, Corruption, and outside influences.

Ben recruited six level five merchants which made them business savvy enough to be successful CEOs of a modern business. He also hired two level five spies who were a male and female. After talking with the spies Ben found they had a Disguise Skill similar to what he has. They couldn't make themselves look like someone's twin but they could alter their appearances so they would not be recognized later.

The six merchants and the two spies were to live in the large apartment upstairs. Ben had copied the one from the Goldcrest store. It had a large Living Room, Kitchen, Dining Room, with ten bedrooms. Each of the ten bedrooms had a small bathroom with a toilet, sink, and shower.

The apartment has all modern appliances and they had access to the Market in the storage room to remove any furniture, cookware, tableware, food, or items they might need.

On the third day of owning his property, Ben had made a decent copy of his Goldcrest store. There were display cases and racks in every department but they were empty. The only department that had anything to buy was the food department.

[Notice] [Profession: Interior Designer has increased! Interior Designer Level 2!]

Ben opened the two double steel doors and put out a few tables with baskets filled with popular Victus vegetables. Four of the level five Merchants were giving out small bags of vegetables to passing shoppers for free while one merchant remained in the Food Department inside.

'Alright now that I have everything all set up here at the store I should head back to the royal palace and see when I can get to see the king. I could also leave them my store address now so they know where to find me.'

Ben sent his spies off into the city to gather information about what was going on behind the scenes in Wolfmere and the Merchants were watching the store while he walked off to check in at the palace.