Ben did not spend much money last night and it was currently burning a hole in his pocket. On his way to his usual place in the market square, he browsed through the long list of available spells.
He slowly scrolled down through them until one jumped out at him. It was a spell name he remembered from an RPG game he had once played.
[Zoom]: The zoom spell allows you to teleport to any place that you have previously visited.This spell is costly to cast, it will use 500mp and has a one minute cast time. [This spell cannot be leveled up or used in combat!!] {cooldown: 10 minutes]
[costs: 2000g]
Ben stopped in the middle of the street and almost made the people behind him walk into him. When they saw the noble looking clothing he was wearing they chose to remain silent and stepped around him. He was so distracted by the description he was reading that Ben had hardly realized he had stopped dead in the flow of the crowded street.
'This spell works exactly like it did in the game! Even though, this spell cost 2000g I can't complain about it at all. If I traveled halfway around the world I could jump back home or to the store within a minute! It seems I currently have 620mp so one cast will use most of my mana.'
Even if Ben could build ten workshops with the spell cost, he had to have this spell.
[Notice] [You have learned a new spell! Zoom!]
'Having money is a great thing, I can buy such nice things through the System Store!'
Ben was elated with his new spell and he wanted to test it out, but by the time his Mana regenerated enough to allow him to recast Zoom and travel back to the city, a good portion of the day would have been wasted.
So he went and took out his vendor stalls and arranged everything in preparation of the soon arriving shoppers when he had reached his location in the market square.
Ben worked together with Cordelia to help the gathering crowd of buyers. He remained vigilant throughout the morning and would continue to peek at his minimap for any signs of enemies.
Then sometime around noon, he found there was a red dot near the end of the aisle that his stalls were on.
When Ben nonchalantly looked in the direction of the red dot he could not make out who it may be. There were just too many people walking or standing in the area.
'This might mean they're ready to make a move again and try to persuade me to not open my store or somehow turn the people against me.' Ben thought while helping his customers.
At the end of the day the red dot had vanished and when he took Cordelia home there wasn't anyone tailing them.
The next attack would be at his shop during the night when the city was asleep. Ben had made it a habit to not leave anything behind in the market so the only place they could attack was his store.
The only reason, Ben could think of that they were so brave to attack his store was someone was paying them a large number of gold coins and they never figured, he would be currently living inside of his store.
People had seen him regularly visit the Inn that he used to stay. When he had eaten or drank in that inn's dining hall or bar the visiting many of the patrons had recognized him. Rumors may have then spread around that when Ben was in the city, he would stay in that inn.
It would not take much information gathering to learn where Ben stayed and what he did when he was in Goldcrest. This would allow the people making a move against him to plan around his movements.
They more than likely didn't know, he had now begun staying in his store because it was always later in the evening when the streets were empty by the time, Ben got back from the market. He was always the last one to leave so no one ever had been able to see he would head directly to his store afterward.
Once Ben was back at his store after walking Cordelia home, he quickly went inside while watching his minimap. Confident that he was not seen entering, Ben went directly to the third floor and climbed the ladder. He easily pulled himself up through the trap door and sat down in the middle of the roof out of sight from the street below.
Ben did not expect any activity right away so, he began to cultivate to pass the time. The fading light soon gave way to the night and the hours passed by only to be disturbed by the occasional sounds of the neighboring people's pets wandering the streets and alleys or the passing steps of the city guard patrols.
Making decent gains in his progression toward the next cultivation level, Ben was disturbed by the sound of a large group walking in his direction. With his Enhanced Hearing, he could hear the faintest of noises around him.
When Ben heard the sound of a group of at least twenty men moving quietly toward his store those muffled footfalls sounded like alarm bells to him.
He stopped circulating his Qi and glanced over at his minimap to see a group of twenty-five red dots moving slowly towards his store.
'So you finally decided to make your move, too bad things won't go as smooth as last time for you though.' Ben thought as he equipped his armor and the black rubber suit that fit over it.
Ben was now completely hidden in the shadows with the black suit covering his armor, but he decided to activate Silent Movement and Chameleon to make sure he was unseen.
By the time the group arrived out in front of his store he had silently made his way over to the edge of the roof and was looking down over the edge at the street below him.
A group of twenty-five men all dressed like normal commoners of the kingdom gathered below Ben. They were dressed like regular commoners but they had the appearance of experienced fighters. Their vigilant watch of the surroundings and the battle scars on their exposed skin let Ben know that they were no strangers to combat.
Before the group made any moves they gathered around in a huddle and began to establish a plan. One of the men who Ben assumed was their leader was giving orders on who would keep watch for guards while the others would attack the store.
Ben could hear the leader whispering to them that they would break the door like they had done last time and enter the store. When they were inside they would do as much damage as possible before setting a large fire inside and leaving the area.
Ben had heard enough and decide while they were all grouped up together this was the perfect time to strike. He reached his hands over the roof edge and began to cast his new sleep spell.
The spell had a five second cast time so he remained silent and waited until it was shot out and struck the ground in the center of the group below him.
The sleep spell has a thirty-foot radius which was more than enough to target all twenty-five men. Ben now only had a one minute window to make his move.
The entire group of twenty-five attackers collapsed to the ground together. When Ben saw them all hit the ground he grabbed the roof edge and smoothly swung himself out and dropped the forty feet to the street below him.
When he hit the ground he rolled and went right to his feet while grabbing a handful of zip tie cuffs from the pouch on his waist.
Now that he had a higher cultivation and his acrobatics skill, Ben was uninjured from such a high fall that could have killed a normal person.
He quickly rolled each man over on their stomachs and began to zip tie their hands behind their backs and their feet together. While he did this he counted off the seconds in his head.
Once he reached the forty-five-second count, he stood up and recast the sleep spell on the unconscious men. Now he had enough time to finish zipping them up and to drag them inside his store.
In just over a minute and a half, Ben had secured and dragged the vandals off the street without making a sound and best of all without anyone noticing.
Grabbing a man's arm with each hand, Ben began to carry them toward the back storage room two at a time as they began to now groggily wake up from the spell.
Once they became aware of the fact that they were tied up and captured the men began to call out to one another, make threats toward Ben or just scream out for help.
Unfortunately for them, the store had one-foot thick concrete walls and three-inch-thick plate glass windows. They could scream until their throats were raw and no one would hear them outside.
Ben remained silent without responding to them at all. He calmly unlocked the steel security door to the basement and began to carry the men down to the lower third floor.
When he had the entire group down on the lower third floor, he took out his a dagger and began to cut off all their clothes so that, he could find any type of hidden weapons.
It was a good thing that he did check because every one of them had daggers in leather sheaths strapped to their forearms, ankles, or waists.
The men were confused because the store and the basement was pitch black and they couldn't see a thing since they had been captured. They only knew that somehow they had been caught and were now being stripped and relieved of their weapons.
It was complete chaos some of them were trying to talk with one another and figure out what was going on why others were simply ranting and raving.
Ben had the benefit of having his Night Sight skill so he could see everything happening as if the lights were on already.
As soon as he was confident that they no longer had any more hidden weapons on them, Ben began to open the cell doors and drag them into each cell. He had only made twenty cells so Ben had to pair a few of them up together.
After he pulled them into the cell he held them down and cut off the zip tie cuffs and locked the door behind him. A couple of them tried to get to their feet and follow or attack Ben before he left the cell, but a quick kick or shove was enough to send them slamming against the back of the cell.
Being so far underground no one outside would ever hear these guys yelling, but Ben could hear them all too well. In the darkness, he opened his concrete and rebar tool and made a one-foot-thick wall down the center of the third-floor room.
Right in the center of the wall, he placed a custom-made door.
He designed a door that had ten inches of soundproof foam with one-inch steel facings on the front and back of it.
The door was a total of one foot thick and was hung on heavy-duty vault door hinges and was equipped with another fingerprint recognition lock.
Once, he closed the door he could just faintly hear the muffled yells while standing right beside the door.
'Now I don't have to listen to that racket and if by some miracle they were able to get out of their cells they would still need to chew through the two one-inch-thick steel plates on this door.'
Ben left his prisoners naked and in the dark without ever saying a single word to them. He wanted to give them some time alone in the dark to realize they were now captured and the only way out was if Ben let them out. Once, they realized this they would become much easier to deal with. Ben wanted to find out who had put them up to this attack and the only way, he could find out is if they told him.
If worse came to worse he could just tie them down and cast his Slave Command on them. If he ordered them to talk and they remained silent then they would die a long painful death from the Slave Command. He would then be stuck with these guys as slaves and they were not the type he wanted to leave alone with his followers back at the fortress.
Now on the second lower floor, Ben began to examine his recent notice before proceeding.
[Notice] [Skill: Night Sight has increased. Night Sight Level 2!]
After he reviewed his notice alert, Ben began to build on the second floor. This time he added a scaled down [Marble Quarry], a [Sculpture Studio], a [Carpetmaker], and a [Mechanical Devices Factory].
[Marble Quarry]: Produces marble by absorbing earth elemental mana and converting it into blocks of marble. Marble color can be changed. [Locked until: built Masons Guild] [requires: stone, wood]
[Sculpture Studio]: Produces sculptures from wood, stone, metal, marble, plastic. Custom 3d scanner option that allows scanning of people, photos, drawings, and paintings to be used for sculptures. [Consumes: wood, stone, metal, marble, plastic] [requires: stone, wood]
[Carpetmaker]: Produces Carpets of various materials and styles. It also comes with a custom design menu that allows you to design your own carpets.[Locked until: built toolmaker] [consumes: cotton-hemp-wool] [requires:stone, wood]
[Mechanical Devices Factory]: Produces bicycles, cash registers, typewriters/typewriter tape, mechanical calculator, wind-up music boxes, wind-up metronome, rotary crank bellows fire starter, hand crank winch, hand crank blender, hand crank meat grinder, hand crank clothing wringer, hand crank sifter, pedal-powered jigsaw, pedal-powered circular saw, pedal-powered lathe, pedal-powered sewing machine, pedal-powered stone grinder and many other non electrical equipment and devices to choose from. [consumes: steel, plastic, nylon, glass, ink, rubber, fabrics] [locked until: research center-mine-toolmaker] [requires: stone, wood]
[Auto_Notice] [The system has advanced a level! System Level 15!]
Ben started off by setting up the Sculpture Studio. He had it begin production on a marble sculpture of a fantasy fairy the size of a real woman. The model he chose was a beautiful fairy with four delicate wings and was wearing what looked liked beaded Arabic belly dancer clothes.
The next marble sculpture was of his noble crest it was a three-foot-tall black marble dragon holding a red and black marble shield in its white talons. He only had the studio produce twelve of them for now. He was not planning on selling these he just wanted them to decorate his store with.
He then thought about making a sculpture of a medieval knight, but the system was so detailed that, Ben was worried the armorers of the city might copy the full plate armor from the statue and begin to supply the Aregard Kingdoms troops with it. For now, he wanted to keep all major military advancements out of the other kingdoms hands.
Ben looked through statues of a medieval footman that wore armor like the troops of this world. The footman was holding a sword and shield and looked like he was standing on the front lines ready for battle. Ben made the footman statue out of polished iron. It would be heavy but when it was finished it would be an incredible decoration for any noble's estate.
He even decides to copy a few greek and Roman god/goddess marble statues. While he was thinking of the ancient gods, Ben made a few Egyptian gods and mythical creature marble statues as well.
With a decent selection of statues now chosen he moved over to set up the Carpetmaker. This time he just chose from an assortment of countries whom he thought made decent carpets. He chose Pakistani, Turkish, Italian, Indian, Egyptian, Chinese, and French woven carpets. Ben chose about ten different styles from each country that, he liked and began production on them right away.
The last place that he set up was the Mechanical Device Factory. The main reason that he wanted this factory was to make a cash register for him.
He wanted to add a cash register to each of his store's departments to make sales easier for the saleswomen and quicker for the customer. He began production on one of the old school cash registers that when you pushed the numbered buttons it would use levers and gears to rotate dials on top of the machine that displayed the final total.
He also decided to make a couple styles of cruiser bicycles and three-wheeled bicycles. They are simple bicycles without any gears or handbrakes. Ben had a choice from BMX, mountain, triathlon, and just about any type of bike was available. The problem was that no one knew how to ride a bike and adding a bunch of gears hand brakes and other gadgets would make it more difficult to operate for a beginner.
Ben also added the hand crank items that would help save time around the house and the pedal-powered tools. Even though the pedal-powered tools would be a big hit with the craftsmen and construction workers, he was just unsure how many of them there actually were in the city.
'This is enough for tonight, I need to go cultivate and see if I can break-through before I have to leave in the morning.' Ben thought as he went up to the basement lower first floor to sit on his bed.