Ben walked down the short hallway that opened up into the storage room. He sat down at one of table and chair sets which were a part of the Remi's extra stock and ate some leftovers from the can of stew he opened earlier. One of the advantages of his inventory was nothing would go bad inside of it. If he opened a can of food he could pull it out of his inventory ten years later and it would be as fresh as the day he opened it.
Soon after eating his meal the Qi began to increase in his dantian, Ben closed his eyes and began to circulate the Qi through his meridians.
He cultivated in the back storage room until three in the morning and then stood up while opening his map. He used the map to search the area around the store to make sure no one was out on the streets.
The streets were empty and everyone was now home in bed so Ben opened the Build Menu, He used the deconstruction tool to remove the outer store walls one at a time. Each wall he deconstructed was replaced with a solid white colored concrete and rebar wall. Unlike his fortress, these walls were only one-foot thick so the amount of concrete and iron rebar used wasn't much and this also helped cut down on the construction time.
Ben kept removing the original walls and replacing them with concrete and rebar walls. It did not take long before the two side and back walls were replaced and he only had the front of the store left to deconstruct.
He decided not to remake the storefront how Remi had it originally built. The current design was just a flat front wall with a couple of small narrow windows on each floor fitted with locking wood shutters.
The front of the store looked out onto the city square where thousands of people walked around every day looking to buy their daily needs. Ben wanted his store to stand out and draw the attention of all those passing customers.
This is why he decided to use an ancient architecture from Earth. This style would fit in with the other city buildings without looking too modern, but be enough of a change to draw attention to it.
Before any changes were made to the front, Ben designed and constructed a single gable roof than ran the length of the store and overhung the storefront by ten feet. Under this gable roof overhang, he used white concrete to make four large Corinthian columns.
The Build Menu had so many choices for architecture including modern, industrial revolution, Victorian, medieval, ancient Egyptian, Greek, Roman, even fantasy. These were only a few of the available styles that the system had categorized. This allowed Ben to search through the different categories and find architectural ideas to incorporate into his design.
There was an endless selection of choices that could be used from early civilizations to modern day Earth. With a single click, the system could scan the area and build whatever you chose to fit the square footage perfectly.
Now he had four large ornate columns supporting the roof overhang above added to the design. In between the two middle columns he placed to Large glass double doors. These glass double doors were in the exact center of the storefront.
On each side of the glass double doors, Ben added large three-inch thick shatterproof glass picture windows on all three floors. Anyone who walked by could look through the large windows and see directly inside the store. The thickness of the glass would also help muffle the crowded streets outside the store.
After looking over his design Ben chose to begin construction and watched as his menu design came to life.
As he looked at the newly constructed storefront Ben noticed the round stone city square ended right at front of the four columns he just built and there was now a patch of dirt in between the store and the city square's stone covered ground. This dirt patch bothered him so he decided to cover it.
Once again he used the white colored concrete, but this time it was used to make the bare ground in front of the store look like white tiles had been laid down. He just covered the dirt area with the white concrete and added beveled crisscrossing expansion joints to make the concrete slab look like large tile squares.
The store now had white walls, white ornate columns, a white gable overhang, and white tile floors at the entrance.
When you stood back and looked at the store it no longer looked like a large box. Ben had redesigned it to look like an ancient Greek or Roman temple.
Since he had replaced the roof now it would need shingles or tiles to prevent it from leaking over time. In his fortress warehouse, Ben had a ton of copper ore sitting around because it was the most attainable ore so he decided to put it to use. The entire roof was covered in rectangular overlapping copper tiles. As of right now, it had a shiny copper color, but over time the weather would turn it an oxidized green color.
With the exterior completely remodeled the last thing to do outside, for now, was to make a large sign that he attached to the gable roof overhang facing. With how high it was people would see it clear across the city square.
The only thing that, Ben had written on the sign was "The Spirit King". Because Ben's last name was actually king he wasn't worried about someone causing him trouble over him using the title a king in this feudal type society.
With a proud smile on his face, he stood outside for a few minutes looking over the store. When he heard the city guard was patrolling the streets toward him, Ben went back inside and locked the door. It wasn't that he was doing anything wrong, he just did not feel like explaining to the guards why he was outside at 4:00 in the morning staring at his store.
'I can guarantee there will be people talking about my store tomorrow. A complete exterior redesign in one night everyone that walks by will do a triple take at it. Not to mention the neoclassical architecture doesn't clash with the other buildings, but it is definitely exotic looking comparatively.'
Back once again in the storage room, Ben made a concrete and rebar room in the far back corner measuring four feet wide and ten feet long. This small room was fitted with a door made with the custom design menu. This door was made of one-inch thick steel and had a heavy-duty deadbolt key operated lock installed into it.
When you were standing inside the storage room it only looked like a small room had been built in the back corner with a metal security door. That was until you unlocked the door and looked inside and found an incline that went underground below the store.
Ben had used the tunnel option in the Build Menu to experimentally cut out an incline that went below the store. At the bottom of this incline, he began to use the tunnel tool to dig out a large room the size of the upper store. He found since the tool allowed him to make a tunnel as wide as he wanted it could be used to also make an underground room with it.
While he was digging out the earth in sections, he would make concrete support columns to brace up the floor above so it would not collapse. The dirt walls and dirt floor were replaced with concrete and rebar as he cut out the new basement.
Now it looked just like a huge dark room with a few scattered support columns, Ben walked over to the far wall and built a Power Plant, Water Treatment, Trash Incinerator, and a Waste Treatment structures. While he was waiting on these structures to be built he added a few ceiling mounted light fixtures around the room.
[Power Plant]: Provides a power grid for fives miles in every direction from where it is placed. Upgrading can further extend the grid's coverage. [locked until: built Research Center.] [cost: 200g]
[Water Treatment]: Provides clean purified water from the surrounding atmosphere. [locked until: built Research Center] [Costs: 200g]
[Trash Incinerator]: The trash incinerator is directly linked to all trash disposal units in its radius. Every 12 hours the incinerator will collect trash from the nearby disposal units and burn it inside of a pocket dimension like the waste treatment structure.
[costs: 200g]
[Waste Treatment]: Disposes of all human waste inside a pocket dimension. [locked until: built Research Center] [Costs: 200g]
With almost all his money now spent which included the little bit that he made today. He finished the basement room off by building a staircase on the dirt incline ramp from the upper ground level and mounting a light switch on the wall at the bottom of those stairs.
Since this was the first time he had ever placed an electric switch he wasn't expecting a circuit menu to pop up. This circuit menu showed all the electric wall fixtures mounted around the room. All he had to do was draw a line from a light fixture to the switch and the system would somehow connect them as if there was a wire running between the two.
Ben flipped the now connected light switch after completing the circuit and the large underground basement lit up. From inside his inventory, he placed down a table, chairs, and bed he had bought originally for the slaves while they stayed in the keep.
Tomorrow when he could make more money it would be possible to continue to upgrade the store, but for now, he decided to relax for a couple hours before it was time to head over to his vendor stalls.
As the sun began to peek over the horizon, Ben already had everything out on display before anyone else had arrived at the city square. Before he knew it the market aisle began to become slowly filled with shoppers.
The little blow up at the gate yesterday with the guard had turned into a good thing in a few ways. He was awarded a title and store from it and people now knew that he was in the city again. With his return, his original customers and those that had missed him last time began walking the market area to find out where he was set up this time.
Ben told all his customers when they found him that he had bought Remi Norberg's store and it had nothing to do with the crooked merchant anymore. They could even see from where they were standing that it looked like a completely different store.
So many people were blown away by the sudden change in the store. Just overnight it had gone from looking like a big box to a dazzling white upscale boutique. Even though, the design was foreign looking the symmetrical architecture was beautiful looking to everyone who examined it.
While the crowds walked by and admired the new store, Ben was busy at his vendor stalls trying to entice new customers to try his food. He was selling a large amount of food today now that he had such a diverse selection. People were fascinated by the canned foods that could be stored for weeks without going bad. The clothes and jewelry were still hard to sell, but they were a new concept that still needed to catch on.
None of that mattered to Ben he had access to his fortress Warehouse now through the system interface so whenever any food was deposited in it, he could instantly remove and sell it if needed. He was careful to make sure he left a buffer amount for the Restaurant and Market to operate or his people would be left without anything to eat.
It was just past noon now and he was happily selling as much as he could to the growing crowd of customers. It began to get to a point that he almost regretted sending the salesgirls on a paid vacation instead of bringing them out to work here with him.
As he kept busy helping his customers there seemed to be a commotion of some kind moving around the market. Ben was somewhat distracted so he didn't notice it until he saw that the crowd was parting to give way to a group down the aisle from his vendor stalls.
It seemed to be a group of guards wearing armor that looked much nicer than the city guards. These guards were walking on each side of a young woman who was wearing rich looking clothes with what appeared to be polished silver pieces of armor on her shoulders and forearms and a thin longsword hung from her waist.
Her long flowing blond hair was held in place by a petite tiara styled crown that framed a delicate face with deep blue eyes. She wore a warm smile on her face and seemed to be enjoying herself as if she were a child seeing so many new sights for the first time.
The people who moved out of the way caught Ben's eye when he saw that they would bow or curtsy to her depending on their gender. Ben assumed she must be a well-liked daughter of a wealthy noble until he recognized the crest on the guard's uniforms walking on both sides of her.
The crest was the same crest he had seen on the palace gates and the same crest on the ring and badge he was wearing.
It didn't take long for her party to travel down the aisle with everyone stepping aside for them. When pretty young lady spotted Ben's sign she stopped and read it to herself then looked over at Ben with a smile.
"Marquess King the spirit food cultivator I presume?" She asked with a smile lighting up her face.