But before I leave via the Trade Network and allow the men some alone time together to discuss things amongst themselves, I establish a Trading Post at the center of the room itself.
It takes the form a Vending Machine, and while there are plenty of designs I can use, I find that design more practical, at least from experience.
Trading Post is a type of Vendors, and Vendors are available at level 3, but Vendors are not useful than Establishments, which is available at level 5. Even so, Vendors do have their usefulness, especially due to the fact that they can be placed inside Establishments.
Without a Trade Network, restocking Vendors is a pain in the ass, as I have to do so manually in person, and with the Trade Network, I can stock any Vendor via my Inventory for a fee, and that is just a small price to pay for luxury. A very small price, considering my Trade Network can span the entire universe.
It will span the entire universe and more! Eventually…
"You can buy anything on the catalogue within," I point at the Vending Machine. There is no need for me to explain more than that. "If the item you desire is not available, you may request it. The machine will not take any form of paper money, but it will accept whatever you believe to be of value."
With that, I teleport away, and once I am somewhere alone, I open the Option Window for the Trading Post. There are a lot of options available, but they are all shitty options. The options that are of use to me is locked behind a paywall.
I spend a significant amount of GP to unlock them, as they will be unlocked for every Trading Post that I establish in the future. It is basically an investment, more or less. Spend Wealth to get more Wealth, that sort of thing.
Once the options I have desired are available, I enable them, specifically Manual Control, User Account and Inventory Connection. Manual Control is for me to manually accept or reject items of trade since upgrading the AI of the Vending Machine is way too costly. User Account means exactly that. The same with Inventory Connection, which requires Trade Network as perquisite.
Those three options set me back a few million GPs. Not enough to drop my level, but quite significant considering my current Wealth level.
I have no time to wait around to see if the men make use of the Vending Machine or not. I believe one eventually will due to hunger and thirst, and when one does, the rest will soon follow, allowing me to obtain lots and lots of priceless trinkets for the Shop System.
While doing all of this, I head towards the military camp that I was at before. On the way there, I stop to pick up dozens or so corpses, monsters and humans. The Hive Mind will make use of them if I don't, for reanimated drones or for foods.
I, on the other hand, am not hungry enough for monster flesh. There is actually benefits of consuming the flesh of killed monsters, cooked or otherwise. Especially for those who are not awakened, as it lets them gain temporary abilities and powers amongst other things.
And that will cause all sort of problems.
In any case, I use the pendant to lead me to my mother. She is on the move despite being injured from the glow of the pendants. She should not be able to move with this kind of injuries, thus, that means…