This time around in his visit to the Land Development Office Ben took his time looking through the records of available land in the city. The royal treasury was paying once again for the land he was purchasing and he wanted to buy as much land as possible.
Ben had plans for businesses he would like to open and if he could find the right piece of land he could simply build them all in one location.
This was a difficult task though because any land no matter the size in the popular areas around the city square or on the main street were often handed down from one generation to the next or sold off for large amounts of money.
The majority of Goldcrest was made up of residential housing and the houses were all built on small individual lots. If you wanted a large chunk of land in these residential neighborhoods you would need to buy too many single homes.
After searching through endless stacks of parchments for a couple of hours Ben came across the old warehouse district. This area of the city was where the original warehouses were built. The merchants and nobles who did business in Goldcrest all owned a warehouse in this district at one time.
The Land Development Chancery explained the old warehouse district as huge lots of land with large wooden warehouses that have seen better days. It was called the old warehouse district now because a few years back the city had demolished a block of old condemned homes and established a new warehouse district.
As the city's population grew so did the need for additional businesses to bring goods to the larger population. These new businesses required warehouses to store their merchandise because most stores weren't big enough to waste space with a large storage room.
Once the new and much larger warehouse district was built in a more convenient location near the city gates everyone wanted to move from the old district to the new one. The only problem was why would anyone buy their land in the old run down district when they could purchase land in a more suitable location in the new district?
Ben was amazed to see that over seventy percent of the old warehouse district lots were up for sale and the prices were set rather low. The merchants and nobles had become desperate enough to move to the new district which had sold off over half of the newly available lots that they all began to lower the prices on their land in the old warehouse district. The old warehouse owners began to think if they sold the land at a slight loss it would be worth it to move.
Not wanting to make an on the spot decision Ben decided to take a walk over to the old district. As he approached the palace gates and saw the crowded streets outside he suddenly remembered if he stepped outside he would be continuously stopped. He had to walk a couple of miles across the city and with him being in the spotlight right now it would take the rest of the day to get there.
He began to get a feeling of what a celebrity back on Earth had to deal with on a daily basis. Ben made a detour and walked off into the palace garden and sat down on a stone bench, he opened the System Store and made a filtered search in the Spells category.
He smiled when he found what he was looking for and spent 200g to buy a new spell.
[Notice] [You have learned a new spell! Disguise Self: Apprentice Level 1!]
[Disguise Self]: This spell allows the caster to change their appearance. As the spell level increase the caster can begin to make additional changes to his body shape, height, gender, and clothing.
Ben equipped his commoner clothes and walked out the palace gates and cast the Disguise Self spell. He brought out the small hand mirror he had purchased to show the royal cultivator how much he had changed after swallowing Springtime Rejuvenation pill.
The spell was still only an [Apprentice: level one] spell so the changes were not that drastic but it was enough to make him look like he could be a close relative to himself. He only needed to make people second guess if it was him and the changes were more than enough to throw people off from thinking he was Ben King.
He put away his hand mirror and began to make his way across town and was reminded of the time when he had first arrived in Goldcrest when people wouldn't so much as glance at him. Ben was once again just another commoner in the crowd making his way across the city.
Without any interruptions, he walked to the old warehouse district in twenty-five minutes. He brought out a sheet of paper he had written down all the addresses of the lots up for sale on.
Ben arrived on the north end of the old district and found the lots here on the crossroads were for sale. He always liked locations like this and had good luck with his vendor stalls which were on aisles that crossed. It would allow your location to be seen by traffic traveling in two different locations.
Ben continued forward to look through the old district and could see what the Chancery meant by the place had seen better days. The wooden warehouses were now all weather wore and needed repairs or to be torn down and rebuilt. The constant rain and sun over the years had dry rotted most of them leaving the area run down looking.
'This district might be a little rough looking but if I were to buy the northern end lots I could use fences and trees on the southern end of my property to hide the worn down warehouses.'
This was a great opportunity for him to purchase big sections of land for affordable prices and he made his mind up to do it.
Back at the Land Development Office, he purchased nine lots which were all two hundred feet by two hundred feet in size. Three of these lots side by side would cover from one street to the next, so Ben ended up buying a grid of three lots running from north to south and three lots running from west to east. He now owned all the lots at the far northern end of the warehouse district between three roads.
He left the palace once again and instead of walking across town he simply cast Zoom to the corner where his lots were located.
When he stepped onto the property he received a system prompt.
[Auto_Notice] [You have created a build zone outpost! The king of Aregard has recognized your ownership of a section of land within his borders! You are now able to build as high or as low as you wish within the borders of this outpost!]
[Would you like to name this outpost?] [YES] [NO]
Ben simply named the new land "My Business District" and began to use his deconstruction option to remove the old empty warehouses. The warehouse district was simply a place to store things so there was nobody around to watch Ben strip the lots clean of the decrepit buildings.
He soon had just over eight acres of open land laid out in a rectangle shape to build whatever he wanted on. The problem was he was getting low on funds so he had to use his Zoom spell again to travel to his store office. He took the coins in his desk drawer swallowed a few Mana recovery pills and walked back to his new build zone.
On the first lot, Ben began the construction of a [Theater] on the northwestern corner.
[Theater]: An indoor place where people can sit and watch performers and concerts live on stage. Seats five hundred people and has ninety VIP box rooms. [Locked until: built recreation center] [costs: 300g]
[Auto_Notice] [The system has advanced a level! System Level 24!]
He had his musicians living at his Small Palace and he needed a place where they could perform.
Ben made a couple small changes to the Theater. All along the outer walls and the balcony were lined with small VIP boxes just big enough to fit four people comfortably.
In the balcony Box sections that looked directly down at the stage, Ben combined the entire top row of boxes to make too large private boxes. On the outside wall of one box he engraved the King's crest in gold on the other large box next to it he carved his own crest in gold.
He then switched the wooden doors on the two large VIP rooms for one-inch thick steel doors that had four heavy-duty deadbolt locks. He also replaced the wooden door casing with three-inch steel bars to prevent the door from being forcibly blown in. The walls, floors, and ceilings surrounding each of these large custom VIP rooms also contained two-inch-thick steel plates to prevent anyone from breaking into the box through from outside the room.
Ben made a row of seats along the front opening of each large box and had a three-inch plastic and nylon blend partition installed high enough to protect the people who were sitting there from ranged attacks. This partition was only a couple feet high so if you were to stand up you could see over the top of it. This allowed the people in the large VIP rooms to hear the performance and still be protected.
Ben wanted to create a safe place where the king and his family could sit and watch performances without having to worry about assassins in the crowd. With the steel doors and the surrounding hidden steel plates, there was no way anyone could break into the large rooms.
Just above the opening that looked out over the crowd Ben also installed a set of Steel Security Shutters with a button on the wall in front of the large ornate seat where the king would sit.
If there was any kind of danger he could hit the small red button on the wall directly in front of him and the Steel Security Shutters would come slamming down and block off the entire opening. This way if someone were to try and climb up to the king's box from the lower VIP boxes the king could seal off his box and wait for backup to handle the attackers outside.
When the Theater was built Ben went inside and used his Interior Designer Profession to create an elegant lounge and dining area in each of the large boxes. There wasn't anywhere to buy food or beverages inside the theater but Ben wouldn't stop the royal family from bringing food and drinks along with them.
By the time Ben finished decorating the interior of the new Theater, it was beginning to get dark out. He activated his Night Vision and opened the Build Menu up to the Theater again.
He was going to make another Theater next to the one he built but it would look much different when he was done redesigning it. The first Theater he built was laid out in a rectangle shape the next Theater he was designing would be a circular shape.
It was a four-level building in the shape of a cylinder. Inside in the center of the circular Theater was a small round stage which was surrounded by seats and above the circled floor seating area where VIP box seats which also wrapped around the lower circle stage. Behind the floor seats and the box seats were outer hallways and staircase that allowed people to walk all the way around the outer circumference of the building. With this design, Ben figured he could allow more seats to be closer to the stage.
This building was going to be an [Auction House]. Due to the fact it would keep his and customers valuable items on the premises, Ben would need a secure room inside the Auction House.
He began by building a small concrete and rebar room with a thick steel vault door on the ground level. The lock on the vault door was a finger scan model like the one he had on his metal shutters and the cell doors under his store.
Inside the small concrete room, he used the Tunnel tool to cut out an inclined ramp and to make a large basement under the Auction House. The basement walls and floor were also lined with five-feet of concrete and rebar to help support the structure above and make it difficult to tunnel into this room from the outside.
Inside the large basement, Ben built rows of different sized steel cages that all had locks. Anyone who brought something into his Auction House would have a lockable cage which their item was stored in until it was shown on the stage.
If someone were to dig from the outside and break through the five-foot thick concrete and cut their way through the multiple steel rebar grids in the concrete walls, floors, or ceiling they would also need to cut into these steel cages to steal an item.
With the quality of the tools in this section of the world it would be near impossible to accomplish this and if they were to try it would take them months just to get through the thick concrete and rebar grids. It would be hard to miss hearing someone slamming away at the concrete wall day after day until they broke in so Ben felt it was secure enough for now.
Next, in the secure basement, Ben installed ceiling lights and placed a wall switch near the ramp leading upstairs and a switch at the top near the vault door. Back upstairs Ben sectioned off the area around this small room that led to the secure basement with more thick concrete and rebar walls and covered the drab grey concrete walls with elegant wood panels.
There wasn't any way for people to get near this secure door unless they walked up the aisle from the seating area that led through the archway into this area. Ben planned to put a guard at this door during auctions because there would be no reason for anyone but staff to walk through there.
Ben checked the time in the system menu and saw it was 7:38 PM and decided to head back to the keep and see how Mythia was doing. His Zoom spell teleported him into his bedroom on the third floor of the keep.
He found Mythia in the living room sitting on a sofa with her eyes closed and she was repeating letters to herself.
She opened her eyes and smiled when she heard Ben walk into the room. Ben asked her how her day was and she was excited about what she was learning from the Basic Education for All school.
Myhia told Ben she was just visualizing the alphabet in her head. Ben had forgotten with the system schools there were no textbooks or papers to bring home to review.
To help her with his studies he brought out every book he had been selling at his store. He had made a few Earth styled children's which were perfect for her. They went over the alphabet and even taught children to read small simple words.
Mythia was enthralled by the colorful picture books. They were the same books Ben could remember reading as a kid that would have a picture of an item with the word beside it. The first page had a ball with the word underneath it.
Ben began to teach her how to sound out each letter to form a word
"B-a-l-l"
"B-all"
"Ball"
They studied together for an hour and then Ben went into her room and placed her new large stack of books on her empty bookshelf. Most of these books were still too advanced for her to read but with the system teaching her by the end of the week she will have no problem reading most of them.
Ben checked with her to make sure she was properly using the supplements he put in her closet and found she used them every morning when she had woken up and went to the Gym.
It was beginning to get late so he had her head off to bed so she wouldn't be tired all day tomorrow and went to his room to cultivate. He felt like he was close to breaking through to the next level and the royal cultivator had confirmed it as well.
Laying down on his bed, Ben closed his eyes but before he could begin cultivating an idea came to him. He just thought of the sect category he had unlocked and the Qi chamber!
He stood up and activated Silent Movement so he wouldn't disturb Mythia and went downstairs to the empty second floor of the keep.
Because he had never built a Qi chamber he didn't know what to expect so he discussed it with Athena. She said it was designed to be a detached room which measured fifteen feet by fifteen feet.
The Qi chamber could be built by itself or built-in groups. She explained if he were to build a sect and it had a large population of people then you would want to build a few Qi chambers so people would not have to wait for one to become available.
Ben nodded in agreement and thought all he needed for now though was one chamber. Later on, when Mythia began to cultivate he could always build an additional one for her as well.
Off in the far corner away from the staircase Ben began construction of a QI chamber. After a fifteen minute wait, it was complete.
The inside of the QI Chamber was empty. It was a small room with what looked like bamboo mat floors and a meditation cushion in the center of the room.
Being a young American Ben had never tried Zen meditation. In his cultivation novels, Cultivators would often sit with their legs crossed in a zen meditation pose when they were circulating their QI.
Ben had never attempted this and had no reason to start. He had no problem sitting or laying down comfortably while he cultivated. The whole traditional meditation pose seems it would be uncomfortable and distracting to his cultivation.
He placed the meditation cushion into his inventory and opened the System Store. He went through the furniture from Earth and purchased a comfortable leather reclining chair and placed it in the center of the room.
Before he tried out the chair he looked around the room and found a couple switches next to the door. The top switch was marked lock and the bottom switch was simply marked QI.
He pressed the lower button and could feel the energy in the room begin to change right away. Now Ben was excited to try this room out so he went over and laid back on his new chair and began to circulate his Qi.
The amount of Qi he could draw into his dantain improved his circulation from a stream into a river. He felt like his cultivation was supercharged now as the Qi rushed through his meridians as if a dam had just burst.
Sometime around two in the morning he had broken through to the next level and he remained in the Qi chamber until the sun began to rise.
[Notice] [You have advanced in cultivation! Cultivation Stage Six: Level Three!]
Upon leaving the Qi chamber Ben walked over to the Restaurant and ordered a breakfast meal from the interface menu. He placed it into his inventory to keep it warm and went back to the keep.
He went into Mythia's room and placed the meal on her desk and covered it with a plastic bowl in order to keep it warm. Next, to the covered meal he laid out a set of the fancy solid gold tableware he had made for the party.
He went into her closet and laid out her supplements and drinks next to her meal and cast Zoom spell to return to Goldcrest.
Now back at his new property in the old warehouse district he opened the Build Menu.
'I think it is time to test out my system level 20 bonus. I want to make a Restaurant here but the predesigned one the system offers isn't right for here in the city and it is too plain looking as well. I want to make some type of theme restaurant. It needs to be different from all the other places to eat in the city.'
Ben stood thinking for a few minutes of what style of Restaurant he wanted to build. He first thought about making walls made of huge aquariums with exotic fish swimming around but figured it would be too much work feeding the fish and cleaning the huge aquariums on a daily basis.
His next idea was to make an outdoor forest restaurant. He could grow large trees and place tables around them to let people feel they were out in the wilderness eating a meal. This idea would be often affected by the weather. If it was cold, rained, or snowed no one would want to visit then.
Then he had an idea he thought would work. He was going to make a huge greenhouse and fill it with trees and gardens.
Using the new custom building design menu Ben began to design a wrought iron greenhouse garden restaurant.
The greenhouse would be 150 feet long x 80 feet wide and the ceiling would be 40 feet tall. The only part of the entire greenhouse that wasn't glass was the kitchen area at the back of the restaurant.
This custom building design menu allowed Ben to take parts from unlocked pre-designed buildings in his Build Menu and use them on any of his custom created buildings.
He liked the kitchen in his Small Palace so he placed the Small Palace Kitchen in his greenhouse restaurant. Inside of the kitchen, he placed a Market which was partially submerged in the ground. The market stuck up at waist height and was decorated to look like a large center island counter which the cooks could use to prepare meals on.
By having a Market in the kitchen the cooks would never run out of food. They could draw anything they needed from the market without having to wait for Ben to restock the supplies. Ben wanted every business he created to be as self-reliant as possible. If he had to constantly keep stocking these places he would never have any time to move onto other projects.
The next part of the design was the main greenhouse area. Some ceiling window panes were hinged and connected to small electric motors. There were switches on the outer kitchen wall that would allow the staff to open and close the glass panes in the ceiling. This would allow them to control the temperature in the greenhouse.
Once the main outer structure was designed it was time to lay out what the landscaping would look like. There would be large colorful trees with red and purple leaves, decorative shrubs, small ornamental trees, and colorful flower gardens.
Winding through the gardens were small streams of water that tricked along with the help of water pumps. The water gave off a relaxing sound as it moved around through the vegetation.
The center of the greenhouse floor was designed to have dark brown hardwood floors that looked like freshly exposed earth.
Evenly spaced around the center of hardwood floors were square tables that could seat four people.
Along the outside of the hardwood floors near the edge of the gardens were rows of dark brown leather cushioned booths that could seat up to a party of eight people. The next addition to the design was to create a waitress station against the outer kitchen wall. There was a long counter here with drawers and cupboards under it to hold tableware, tablecloths, glasses, plates, cleaning supplies, napkins and all the small things needed to keep the Restaurant running.
The last thing Ben added to the design was a Greeting Station, a Checkout Station with a cash register near the front door, and a seating area for people to relax while they waited for an available table.
Ben finalized the design and the system removed the gold and resources needed. He had now built three new businesses and used three of the nine plots the kingdom had bought for him.
Ben opened up his fortress Warehouse and sold off the large stockpile of iron ore from his five upgraded Mines and bolstered his dwindling funds.
He left the greenhouse garden restaurant to continue constructing and walked east toward the three center lots that now stood barren of any structures and he prepared to continue building.