Not Making Enough Money

For the next 3 days, Delaina ran her gambling bots and fed the animals with food on a regular basis. She had put multiple toys within each of the pens, they all had runes that would increase their durability. The collars had this on them as well, so that they wouldn't fall apart by accident when they might be practicing a new skill.

When she wasn't feeding the animals or cultivating, She would be outside carving runes and arrays. She made a large barrier array, which directly took her 2 days.

It was made of countless barrier runes of low quality and 6 mid-quality barrier runes threaded together into a medium quality large-scale barrier array that surrounded the entirety of her prosperity, not including the parking lot. It didn't allow things to exit or enter when it was activated.

She also carved alarm runes and attack runes, allowing her to monitor her home easily, or to attack intruders whenever she was too far away to do it herself.

Going up to the third floor, she saw 20 lazy cats living comfortably. Most of them were sleeping while others would play with each other or the toys. The two cats in the lightning pen didn't seem to get along well.

The orange one would mess with the grey one all the time, the grey one would leave it alone but when the orange cat tried to take the grey cat's food, it immediately retaliated, hissing and scratching at the orange cat. The grey cat was able to successfully keep his lunch to himself that day. After that, the orange cat never dared to touch food that wasn't its own ever again...

The cat's of the light pen seemed to like each other as they were always playing together, and when they slept, they would always lay on top of one another.

Waking up to a pen, she touched a rune and infused a large amount of qi into it.

This rune forcefully cultivated whatever element you had an affinity with.

It didn't hurt, just felt a little odd. So when the rune started up, it made the cats immediately wake up and walk around. It took about 20 minutes for them to calm down. Soon, both cat's began to cultivate on their own by doing what the array was doing for them on their own.

Delaina wouldn't force the cats to cultivate if they didn't want to.

Although that situation was rare, there were of course occasions where such a thing would happen.

If it were to happen, she would take it out of the pen and let it live on the first and second floor of the hotel, letting it wander around as it pleased, because it wouldn't be dangerous for normal people if they were to encounter it.

All sentient beings wanted one thing: survival. And so, although the cat's didn't know what they were doing was cultivating, they knew that what they were doing would give them more power, and this power would give them a better chance at survival.

That was why the cats voluntarily decided to cultivate some more after she turned the awakening rune off.

She walked around to each pen, turning the awakening rune on for a half hour before going to the next one. She did the same for each pen, including the ones on the 4th floor. This continued for 3 days.

None of the animals seemed to have any problems with not wanting to cultivate so she wasn't worried.

Delaina then bought a bunch of metal from the junkyard, taking it home, she used her metal element qi to shape it into letters. It spelled out 'Delacruz Petshop'. She carved [Glow] runes of purple, white and blue and placed them inside the letters before taking them outside and hanging them on the second floor.

She hung a sign on the metal gates that said it was closed until further notice, and began creating her website.

The website was simple and easy to navigate. The main colors were purple, blue and white with black text. Although she did all this, it would probably be a while before it would be in use.

Next up she began making the most important thing: The contract platform.

The contract platform was a very important thing to Delaina's plan. Without this, it would not work.

She spent the next 2 weeks making one. It was a large platform with hundreds of runes carved into it. Once activated, a small stone would form between both the human's and the animal's eyes. Once ready, the stone would fly off and land on the podium before them, before melting in the color elemental affinity that they have and combining.

After that, the process would be done. They would be connected through a contract of owner and pet. Although there were many types of contracts, there were many that Delaina was not fond of, so she chose to only make this one available.

This contract allowed both parties to have roughly equal say in their relationship. If the human dies, the pet would no longer have an owner, and could go find another one if it so chooses. If the pet dies, the human is not affected.

Neither party can force the other to do something that goes against its morals such as killing it's family or sacrificing itself for it's owner.

The only thing that was not equal was that humans could have as many pets as it wanted but without its current owner's permission, it could not take another owner.

To break this contract, they would have to agree and then go to the contract platform together and it can be reversed.

Delaina believed that these conditions were much better then some other like the enslavement contract where the owner could control the pets life and death, could force it to do anything, even kill itself and it would have no way to say no or break the contract.

Recently, Delaina was unsatisfied with the bank she was bringing in, so she decided to take on a new job: modeling.

Although those people had been looking for her a few months ago, she thought that they might have stopped looking. And, even if they weren't, it didn't matter. That was because after she had gotten to the mid fifth realm, she could change the way she looks physically, meaning that even if a camera saw her, she would look the same as she does in person.

Looking at the audition letter, she changed her looks and clothes ready to go and try out for a children's clothing brand as Cherry Vendara.