Ben first thought about finishing the concrete walls with some type of fancy wood panels. The white concrete walls were plain looking and painting them another color would not be much of an improvement.
He opened the upgrade menu and browsed through the wood panels in hopes of finding one that would look good in the store. Ben soon came upon an option different from his original idea. This style design was known on Earth as Wainscoting.
Wainscoting is wood paneling that lines the lower part of the walls of a room and the upper part of the wall would be painted or wallpapered.
Ben thought that this style had a classy and formal look so he decided to use it. All along the bottom part of the store walls, he used a glossy cherry wood decorative square patterned paneling.
For the exposed upper part of the wall from the paneling to the ceiling, Ben chose to use a thick solid deep dark red wallpaper.
When this outer wall upgrade was complete the store already began to have an upscale vibe to it. With the outer walls now Finished, Ben began to design a new floor plan for the first floor. At the front glass double doors, he made a large entrance area that had a wide hallway stretching off of it that ran down the center length of the store toward the back offices
When you entered the store you would be standing in an entrance area and would see the hallway in front of you. Off of this long hallway were evenly sized rooms that could be accessed through archways from this hallway. If a person were to walk down the hallway they would see archways on their left and right-hand sides that opened into the adjoining rooms.
Ben could fit three adjoining rooms off of each side of the long hallway. These rooms would later be departments that would display products of a similar type.
Each of the room walls and the hallway walls were also upgraded to look like the outer walls. The same dark glossy cherry wood paneling and the deep dark red wallpaper covered all the interior walls. The only exceptions were the back interiors of the offices, break-room, bathrooms and the storage room.
Moving onto covering the hallway and department room floors, he chose a matching dark burgundy plush carpet and rebond padding for the hallway and the department rooms.
For the front of the store in the entrance area, he had a gloss white hardwood floor installed and in the center of the white hardwood floor, Ben had his crest with the black dragon holding a red and black shield inserted into the hardwood flooring.
Now when any customer entered the store they would see his nobility crest in the middle of the entrance flooring. He wanted to begin to display this crest around his store so that people would soon associate it with him.
In the future, anything that Ben sold with his crest on it would come to be known as a symbol of quality. Just how designer clothes or luxury automobiles all had logos known worldwide, he would use the same principle. This way not only are people buying your product, but they are also advertising for you as well.
Ben surprisingly hadn't spent many gold coins to upgrade the shop today and thought he could still add a few more structures downstairs before quitting.
He unlocked the basement steel door in the back storage area and descended the stairs. The basement was pitch black until he reached out and flipped the light switch next to him and could finally see the other side of the huge underground room.
Ben walked across the room to where he had built the Water and Waste treatment structures and began browsing through the Build Menu. When he came across the Art Studio, Ben stopped and thought it would make a good addition to his store.
If he were to build an art studio, Ben could decorate the store with art and sell the art while using it to decorate the store. Every painting or drawing he hung in the store could have a price tag on it. This would allow him to decorate the store with beautiful art and make money selling it as well.
There was only one problem and that was, Ben needed to build a second Lumber Mill to unlock the Paper Mill which was in turn needed to provide the Art Studio with paper and canvases.
"System, I never even asked before, but is it possible to build a Lumber Mill anywhere I want? It does not say in the description it needs to be placed in the forest. I had only assumed at first it would need trees to cut down and turn into lumber when I built my first one."
*Ding!* [The lumber mill can be built anywhere in the build zone and does not have any restrictions on where it can be placed. It will have a slightly higher production rate if it is built closer to trees, due to the abundance of nature elemental mana released from the surrounding trees.]
'I'm such a dumbass I could have built everything inside my fortress then, to begin with. Oh well, you live and you learn.'
"System, I have another question. I know that these structures are not that big, but is there a way that I can make them even smaller. If no one ever needs to enter these structures why is it that the workshops are 15ft x 15ft couldn't it be shrunk down to the size of a refrigerator?"
*Ding* [There is an option that allows the host to alter the outer appearance of any structure. If the host wanted to change the look to represent a certain era in Earth's history it is possible, but the size can only be slightly scaled down. Even though, the structures cannot be entered they are outfitted internally with complex arrays and formations that gather mana to convert it into physical materials. If the host wished to make the structure larger it would not be a problem though.]
Ben began exploring the option that allowed you to alter the appearance of each structure and found that, he could make a Build Menu structure look like a modern building or any other era he chose. He even found a few strange fantasy themed building that could have been taken straight out of an RPG game.
Playing with the options for the Lumber Mill he could scale it down to a 9ft x 9ft. Ben took away all the exterior decoration so it was basically a big smooth stone cube.
Even though he could continue to build lower level floors to his basement if he ran out of space, he figured it would be more convenient to keep everything as close to the surface as possible.
[Lumber Mill]: provides wood by absorbing wood elemental mana and converting it into a wood plank made of condensed mana. [requires: stone-wood] [Cost: 200g]
With his second Lumber Mill now placed down, it was possible to build a Paper Mill. Just like the Lumber Mill, he decided to make the following structures as small and plain as possible.
The only person that would more than likely ever come down here would be him and he did not need the building to look like they belonged to part of a city landscape since they were all indoors and underground.
[Paper Mill]: Produces writing paper of various sizes, colors, thicknesses, and materials. Also produces kraft paper, watercolor paper, chalk paper, tissue paper, vellum paper, art canvas, toilet paper, paper towels, napkins, cardboard, and construction paper.
[Locked until; 2nd lumber mill is built]
[consumes: water, wood chips, cotton, hemp, dyes] [requires: stone, wood]
When the Paper Mill was complete, Ben went up into the storage room and built a Warehouse structure against the back wall.
This Warehouse would gather all the resources and products produced at the store. He had never upgraded his original Warehouse in the fortress so it only had a limited range that could connect to the nearby surrounding structures.
He was currently hundreds of miles away from his fortress so there was no way for his original Warehouse could collect the resources and products that would be produced below his store.
"System. Let's say hypothetically I wanted to connect the store's Warehouse to the fortress Warehouse. How would I accomplish this?"
*Ding!* [The host would need to make a string of Warehouses built between here and the original warehouse. Any warehouses that fall within the range of one another will be linked together allowing built structures to have access to resources that are in any of these linked warehouses no matter how far away they are.]
'I would need to build a chain of level five warehouses that have an overlapping radius. This way I could space them out as far as possible to limit the total amount I would need to build. I don't have plans to try and connect this store to the fortress, but one day my build zone will reach deep into that southern Wayward Forest and I will more than likely need to build a chain of warehouse across it if I ever want to build structures reliant on resources in the forest.'
Ben opened the store Warehouse to check on the inventory. Now that he had a Lumber Mill and Paper Mill he could see the wood, paper, canvas, and cardboard being added to it already.
The Lumber Mill was adding wood planks to the Warehouse that would not only help the Paper Mill, but it would also supply the automatic toilet paper dispensers in the bathrooms.
Back once again in the basement, Ben placed down an Art Studio and waited for it to be built.
[Art Studio]: Produces paintings and drawings in many mediums. Custom option to scan people or pictures to be used in paintings or drawings.
[Consumes: Canvas, Paper, Chalk Paper] [requires: stone, wood]
[Locked until; build Paper Mill]
[Auto_Notice] [The system has advanced a level! System Level 12!]
The Art Studio provided an endless selection of drawing and painting to reproduce. Ben chose a few fantasy paintings of scenic landscapes, floating islands with beautiful castles built on them, medieval scenes of tournaments with knights jousting and even a few famous paintings from Earth. He had drawings made of Earth's animals, flowers, beautiful landscapes, and even a few of Earth's famous natural landmarks. He also used an option to make five random painting each week so his stock of art would continue to change.
Once he chose what type of frames he wanted for each piece the studio began production on them all.
Now that, Ben's available funds were quickly being depleted, he decided to go lay down and cultivate for a few hours before going to sleep. He still found it hard to get used to not feeling tired when nighttime rolled around.
As his cultivation rose in stages Ben could remain awake for longer periods of time. It wasn't that, he minded it because he could accomplish so much more. It was just strange after going to bed nightly for some many years and now not having too.
Not feeling tired, Ben cultivated until morning and then left the store locking it behind him. He walked over to his stalls in the square which are located fairly close to the new store.
With his merchandise once again laid out on display, he worked throughout the day selling what he could.
Just past midday he was shocked to see his sales manager Cordelia passing by. She was out picking up a few things that she needed at home and had happened upon Ben's vendor stalls.
She was fascinated with the many products and foods that Ben had out for sale. He showed her around and gave her a quick explanation on what he had currently for sale.
When she found out these were a few of the items that they would sell at the new store, Cordelia became excited she wanted yo learn more about them.
She decided to hang around and listened to Ben talk with the customers and explain how certain things were made or what they did, she began to make a mental note of everything Ben said. After listening to Ben for about an hour and noticing how busy he was, Cordelia asked if she could help him.
Ben felt bad that he gave her time off and she was wasting it here. He did not want her to feel obligated to work, just because he was busy.
When she explained that she wanted to learn more about everything so that she could also help teach the sales girls later, Ben eventually gave in and allowed her to help him.