Transformations 

Near the end of the afternoon, Tenur and the slaves in that store finished the work they had started earlier.

Luckily for them, the Touma family store had many tools applicable to the work Tenur had planned.

Therefore, all the slaves could perform their duties in time for them to finish assembling Tenur's planned furniture later that day.

So, while the windows of that store were open, with the sun still illuminating the interior of it, everyone involved in that project could see this place with a new look.

The previously chaotic interior was now divided into two large aisles, with large pieces of furniture with ores in the center and smaller pieces on the sides of the two aisles.

On top of each piece of furniture were the items stored inside the lower compartment, from where any store employee could easily bag whatever quantity any customer bought.

Also, because of this, Tenur now had a handle on how many bags of each ore or the quantity of each resource in that store.

He had made this project to organize the interior of Mero's store. Still, he took the opportunity to count the quantities of each resource as well.

From now on, every day before closing, he and his staff would have to count the quantities of each item and see if the initial value of the day matched the final one, considering the sales.

That would be an easy job since the compartments of the furniture Tenur planned had 'levels' to distinguish the quantities.

Listening to Tenur's explanation, Amir felt in awe of this man again, noting that the store had changed considerably with just their accomplishments in one day.

While the store looked more pleasing to the eye, it had also become more accessible to keep organized and to check the quantities of each thing.

Shui himself had to admit that the place had improved. Yet, he wouldn't say anything because he was dissatisfied with Tenur.

Not only that, he was not only siphoning off coins from this store, but he had also been buying resources at lower-than-sale prices and reselling this elsewhere.

Because of the changes made by Tenur, he would now face difficulties in his practices!

'Damn it!

Damned Mero! Fucking Tenur!

If they didn't get in the way of my business, I could achieve my goals in just over a year!' He clenched his fists angrily.

Unlike a slave, who had no right to earn coins, a servant did.

Using this right, servants could disaffiliate themselves from their masters and eventually even create families, buy slaves, and have their own servants.

It was not easy to do this. One would need luck and determination to do everything to achieve this rise in status in this society. But it was possible to do this, and Shui had been pursuing this through his corrupt actions in this store of Mero!

But as Shui cursed Tenur and his own master in his mind, wondering what he should do to change the present situation, the head slave of this store said.

"From now on, you will do what I just explained regarding counting the items daily. However, we have a problem here.

This store has more captives than it actually needs."

The slaves promptly realized what Tenur meant by those words and frowned.

But none of them would speak at the moment.

Tenur continued. "The services this store needs do not require many of you. So I will use you in other ways."

"What are you talking about?" Shui asked.

As everyone watched him, Tenur explained. "Part of why this store is not doing well is because of the local situation, or rather, the lack of demand for our items in Cusca.

So to raise sales, I need to increase the local demand for our products."

"But how are we going to do that? We can't force people to buy our resources!" Shui argued while Amir stood silently watching.

Tenur retorted. "Wrong, you can always force others to do what you want. To do so, you just need to take a step back and take some action...

I will show this city the usefulness of some of our resources through the service of these slaves who will not work in the store."

"What will that be like?" Amir asked.

"I will let 3 slaves take care of the manual labor of this store and use the rest on three projects." He smiled as he gestured. "I have three plans to increase the demand for our resources in this city. The first is making the inhabitants consume our ores, the second is for some of the few grains we have here, and the third is clothing products.

I will start producing paint and plaster to increase the demand for minerals. We have all the necessary materials here and don't need a very complex process to start creating these items."

"Paint? Plaster?" The slaves looked at each other in doubt.

Meanwhile, Shui and Amir were also surprised by those words, especially plaster, since they had never heard of it.

They even knew what paint was. After all, as much as it was unusual to find painted properties in this society, paint was used for writing and decorating the houses of the wealthy in Noskain.

Everyone there had already entered their master's estates, so they knew what paint was.

But the paint was costly and rare. So it was certainly not something that would become popular in this place.

"Yes, paint. I plan to produce plaster to cover up the holes, and irregularities in this store's inside and outside walls and then use paint to decorate it."

Tenur planned to popularize these two products in Mero's store and present them at low prices to attract the population to buy plaster and paint.

'Plaster is for covering holes?' Amir wondered, curious to see what Tenur had in mind.

But before Shui could get in his way, Tenur went ahead with his plans. "Secondly, I've noticed a low supply of good food in this city. So I will teach the second group a bread and meat recipe that will make the inhabitants buy this food directly from our store or buy the ingredients to produce it themselves.

Finally, I want the last slaves to help me design body models. We will display the clothes and tools of this store on these models with the prices of each thing to attract the attention of citizens passing near the store."

These last words of Tenur's were the only ones that did not cause surprise, with each of these people realizing this would indeed help.

So Tenur finished his speech as the night ended the day. "Tomorrow, we will not open the store. I intend to start those actions, and we will only begin the activities of this store under the new administration the day after tomorrow."

"What, another day? Amir, this slave is abusing his own luck!" Shui shouted upon hearing Tenur's words. "How will we report any improvement if he keeps the store closed?

From what's happening here, we'll have a nicer store by the end of this slave's assignment, but it won't do any good since it'll be closed."

Amir knew this man deliberately wanted to cause trouble for Tenur, but he still asked this slave. "Will the store open the day after tomorrow?"

"Yes, senior Amir."

"Very well, there is nothing to discuss then. It's just another day, but we will have months ahead..." Amir said before leaving from there to find something to eat.

Shui was left talking to himself, with Tenur helping the other slaves close up the store.

Only when that establishment returned its operations would he be able to catch that man stealing from Mero... Until then, he would have to put up with it.

Hence, he went on with his routine, eating and resting for the next day.