During these weeks, preparations were enough to open the first Astral Sky Shop, which they did.
The building they chose as an initial shop wasn't the final project of a super shop they had in mind.
After much planning, they decided to start with a typical five-story shop.
The first floor had everyday and affordable items like healing pills, low-level talismans, weapons, armor, and dresses. It was separated into five sections and had a little bit of everything.
The most junior workers of the Astral Sky Clan created the items sold here.
The second shop was divided in two, half for Blacksmithing products and accessories and the other half for tailoring products. The quality of items on this floor was much higher.
Items ranked between the high levels of the magic rank to the high levels of the Earth rank.
The third floor was built for Alchemy products. Unlike the standard and typical items on the first floor, the ones here were more varied, of much higher quality, and created by the top alchemist of the Astral Sky Clan. They also sold a few herbs they grew in their garden.
The fourth floor was a rare formation shop. Creating affordable one-use formations was complicated, and the people able to do so were scarce.
As with floors two and three, the quality ranged from Magic to Earth Rank.
Then, there was the fifth floor.
This floor was particular as only very close friends with the Astral Sky Clan could enter. Not many could access it for now, but those who could, entered a floor similar to the first one, but the quality of items was what someone would call luxury.
Not only were there peak-level Earth-rank treasures, but seeing Heaven-grade treasures occasionally appearing wasn't that rare.
Angel, Kali, Andrea, Evelyn, and Yasenia herself were the ones creating the items for this floor. Well, our dragoness didn't create items directly, but she was getting slowly used to being their assistant, so she had a hand in a few of them.
All the products created and sold by the Astral Sky Clan soon became the talk of the city among the higher-ranked powers. The general populace still didn't trust them enough to buy their miscellaneous items, not that Yasenia cared.
Her objective market since the beginning was the top and smallest percent of the cultivators.
Yasenia also got rid of the debt, paying the nine sects and the City Lord everything she owed.
In short, many of the untied ends got knotted.
Yasenia also heard from Jorey that Ebirah's clan had sent a representative to meet with her. Ebirah was their princess, after all.
Yasenia has heard from their lobster friend that she wasn't the only child but the youngest. Therefore, she has been pampered since childhood. Naturally, our girls weren't stingy with pampering Andrea's companion.
Angel liked to play with Ebirah quite a lot, and you could see them together almost daily while Andrea watched from the side with a gentle smile.
It was like a mother overseeing her two naughty children, an adorable sight.
In Ebirah's clan member's words, they would arrive shortly, but she wasn't sure when. For a clan of this caliber, "shortly" could mean a week, a month, or a year. Hence, she wasn't that worried and asked one of the harpies in the management team to focus on the clan's arrival and to inform her whenever they arrived.
Another significant event during these weeks was a small recruiting campaign Yasenia did to increase her Clan's numbers.
Yasenia did it much laxer this time, not going to find spies.
The main reason is that she had appointed all Harpies as senior clan members, and they would be in charge of the actual essential and potentially damaging matters. Yasenia and all the other girls were nurturing the initial three hundred harpies to be the elite clan members.
Yasenia had had a talk with them, explaining her objectives with this recruitment. It was to see which powers would send these spies with harmful intentions.
It was similar to casting bait and seeing how many would swallow it. This can give them much more information than going around trying to learn from them.
In short, let them come and show me who they are. After I get that info, you'll be in trouble.
She did the recruitment only two days ago.
The number of people in their clan had naturally increased from three hundred to seven hundred.
After opening their shop, many alchemists, blacksmiths, and other profession-masters flocked to their Clan with the intention of learning their trade secrets.
Yasenia did not only avoid them but enthusiastically invited them.
Do you want to come to catch our secrets? Sure, come to our Astral Sky Clan and try it. However, whether you can leave or not, that's another whole question.
Therefore, the small Spirit Profession teams increased by about ten to fifteen people each. The harpies were the seniors and evaluated the others.
Ghana's handpicking the harpies made Yasenia learn how much of a talent they actually were since there wasn't a single harpy that got outranked by the new batch of people.
All harpies maintained their advantage in education, achievements, intelligence, and almost everything measurable besides one or two exceptions.
These new four hundred people meant that the variety of beast-human and genders had increased.
Yasenia seriously considered creating an only-female clan, but she felt that many powers would resist them if they did something like this.
Not because it was only female, but having an only male clan would also be bad.
For example, look at harpies and garudas. These two races are one of the strongest in the continent, and they still have plenty of problems just because they are only female and only male.
During the meeting, Ghana strongly voiced her disagreement with the only-female idea, and Yasenia ultimately accepted Ghana's stance.
The maids who cared for the house were the sex and entertainment workers. Of all the groups, this was the one with the slightest increase. About five or six women entered it.
Yasenia asked about males that worked in the trade, and the harpies shook their heads, saying that if she wanted a male prostitute group, it would be best to create another different group.
The main reason was that males and females in the trade might end up together and finally quit.
Just in this case, mixing genders was not a good idea.
With Yasenia's permission, the entertainment workers began flirting with the new residents.
Some even managed to bed them.
The new people were surprised by the inside brothel, but not many protested against the idea.
Those who did were prude people that thought these acts were dirty. Yasenia asked them to leave if they wanted since she considered them as valid as a blacksmith.
Naturally, the entertainment harpies almost fluttered out of the room with happiness when that happened, and their loyalty and motivation increased accordingly.
Today, one of those harpies appeared in her office, reporting an interesting matter.
Yasenia saw that she was one of the youngest and smiled softly. Her attitude in private toward the harpies has softened during these weeks as they interacted more.
"Sit and take something to drink. You look tired."
The woman smiled sweetly and sat on the couch right next to Yasenia. Our dragoness didn't stop her and gave her a glass of water.
Then, without hurrying her, Yasenia kept working on some documents and waited for the harpy to speak.
The harpy looked at the dragoness's work for some minutes, charmed by her serious appearance. 'Looking at the Matriarch is always a delight~.'
Finally, she spoke. "Matriarch, I discovered that one of the recruits has bad intentions."
Yasenia turned to look at her and motioned her to approach her.
The harpy fluttered like a happy bird going toward her nest and reached her side. Yasenia grabbed her by the armpits and sat her on the table. "Did they hurt you?"
Yasenia inspected her body and looked for injuries. She even opened her legs and spread her labia to check with her spiritual sense inside.
After seeing everything, just a little bit bruised because of the recent affair, she sighed in relief. "They didn't force you to do anything, right?"
The harpy felt her heart fuzzy and asked shyly. "No, but can I receive a hug from the Matriarch? I feel a bit bad knowing they want to hurt you. The Matriarch hug can make all bad feelings go away!"
Yasenia blinked and chuckled. "Oh, you sweet-mouthed girl. Come here, but only today, okay?"
The young harpy smiled sweetly and fluttered into her embrace.
All the harpies had discovered that their Matriarch was quite tolerant as long as they did their job well and didn't step on any bottom lines.
She would even allow them light intimacy, like hugs and pats on the head.
They also received her divine massage and acupuncture at night, cleansing their body of impurities and many more benefits.
Not all of them had received it since Yasenia did it to ten harpies daily and spent ten minutes for each.
Yasenia held the small woman and caressed her back. "So, what did you discover?"
The harpy snuggled closer and sniffed her scent. Then, she snarled. "Hmph, that person thought I was being held against my will here. Of course, I didn't correct him. After sweetly talking to him, he told me he was here to learn Matriarch's production methods and pass them back to his family. He also told me that he would liberate me from you!"
The harpy gritted her teeth and said with apparent anger. "I had to hold back from slapping him on the spot! How dare he covet what's yours!? Take me away from the Matriarch!? Who does he think he is to compare himself with you!? A bit more, and I would've taken him away from life!"
Yasenia laughed and ruffled her hair. "Don't get agitated. Do you know from which family he is?"
The woman smiled proudly. "Of course! He is from the [Bone Mouse] family and part of the [Five Shadow Fangs] organization. He told me that because I said you were powerful, he would need the background to compete with the Matriarch. The brainless man spilled everything extremely easily while coaxing him while rolling on the bed."
"Good girl. You've done an outstanding job." Yasenia patted her on the head and massaged her scalp as a reward.
The harpy smiled and melted in Yasenia's embrace. "I've checked with the sisters in management and discovered that they are a third-rate power in the Continent, meaning they don't have an Epoch Core cultivator in their ranks."
Yasenia took out a [Bloodline Enhancing Pill] and gave it to her. "Here, a reward for the well-done job. Now, go rest. You don't have to do your duties for three days if you don't want to. Focus on him and try to exhort more info."
"Matriarch, this pill is too precious! It costs tens of thousands of Astral points!"
Yasenia and the others had fed their harpies with a wide variety of pills to increase bone, muscle, bloodline, soul, talent, potential, mind, meridian, and dantian strength, quality, and capacity.
[Bloodline Enhancing Pill] could be ingested ten times, but they only gave three to each. They made the same for most of the pills that weren't single-use.
Give them a third of the total consumable amount. The rest, they would need to work hard to gain them.
This pill was a low-level Earth-ranked pill. There were up to Heaven-ranked medicines that could be exchanged with Astral Points.
For each rank, there was an exponential increase in points.
For example, you needed between a thousand to ten thousand points for Magic items, between fifty thousand and two hundred thousand for Earth-ranked, and one million and up for Heaven-ranked items.
The one in charge of this internal shop's prices, management, and everything else was a direct subordinate of Tatyana, one of the seven harpies Tatyana thought had potential, so Yasenia wasn't worried.
The harpy wasn't only surprised to receive a pill that was impossible to buy; she was ecstatic.
Even the most hard-working harpy had about three thousand points at the moment.
She instantly hugged Yasenia excitedly and smooched her face in excitement. "Thank you, Matriarch! I love you so much! Also, also, I won't rest! I like working for the Matriarch and want to do my best. I will win many points and exchange them for your food!"
Yasenia's food was incredibly nutritious and had properties that could help with cultivation as effectively as an Earth-ranked energy absorption pill. Additionally, the food had the added benefit of purifying impurities like a pill would and could bring permanent increases in strength and other areas, which was highly valuable.
It was sold for between two hundred thousand and one million points per dish.
Yasenia smiled and knocked her head softly. "Don't kiss me, little girl. That is outside your boundaries!"
The woman blushed and smiled shyly.
Yasenia tickled her and reprimanded her while the harpy laughed. "Little rascal, you know I won't punish you, so you took advantage? You are a bad girl!"
"Hahaha, I surrender, Matriarch! Forgive me!! Hahaha!"
Yasenia stopped and commented. "Either way, I won't insist you take a vacation. Go back. When you gather enough points, I'll cook your favorite meal."
The harpy's eyes lit up, and nodded rapidly. Then, she ran out of the room while humming. 'The Matriarch is the best~. I love her so much~.'
However, when she exited the room, she saw Cecile standing at the door with her arms crossed.
The harpy comically froze and began sweating. 'Crap.'
Cecile squinted and walked past her. "Be a little bit more restrained, or you'll go straight to the training room for a day and night."
The harpy felt cold all over and stuttered. "Y-Yes, Army Commander. I'm sorry, Army Commander!"
After she saw Cecile entering the room, the harpy sighed in relief. 'Thankfully, she wasn't angry. The Army commander is the second most beautiful woman, on par with Lady Tatyana, but unlike the matchless Matriarch's beauty, they are both terrifying. I feel like crying each time they squint at me.'
Then, she quickly left to meet with the man she seduced. 'Hehehe, I'm going to squeeze dry all the information you can give and share it with the Matriarch!'
Yasenia saw Cecile entering and raised an eyebrow.
However, she didn't say anything about the harpy and asked. "What's wrong?"
Cecile walked and sat in Yasenia's lap with crossed arms. "That harpy looked very happy. What did you do?"
Yasenia blinked twice and laughed. She exchanged a deep kiss with her and smirked. "Jealous? Don't be, sweetheart. I just gave her a little hug for a good job. You see, she…"