Today marked the one-year anniversary of the Dragon Flame Restaurant's branch in the capital. To celebrate such a special day, all food in the restaurant was half price.
Ina's life had changed significantly over the past few months. After securing a partnership with Mr. William regarding potions, she had a constant flow of gold coins every month. Moreover, she sold some of the jewelry she had taken from Knox and spent this period buying various assets—shops, farms, and real estate. She no longer had to worry about counting her coins.
She opened a few more branches of the tea restaurant within the capital. To avoid confusion from having multiple Dragon Flame Tea Restaurants, she named the new ones "Dragon Horn Tea Restaurant" and "Dragon Tooth Tea Restaurant". The names of any future restaurants would follow this pattern.
With the mechanical bees officially registered, they could finally deliver meals throughout the capital. People in the Silver Empire could enjoy their meals at home, aside from going to the restaurants themselves. Because there weren't enough delivery panels, only a few places could order through them. Most tea restaurants and restaurants used a pre-order system. Customers who dined at the restaurant could pre-order their meals for the next day, and leave their address, and the mechanical bees would deliver at the designated time.
Some nobles would send their servants to buy food on the spot but were willing to pay extra for the mechanical bees to deliver it because the bees were faster, and the food was fresher.
Star Academy's departments of Magic Machinery and Potion Studies suddenly came into wealth. It was rumored that they received a donation from a wealthy businessman. As Ina had once promised to donate a part of the delivery profits to the academy, when Principal Helena inquired about it, she chose to donate it to these two departments due to her familiarity with them.
Professor Derick was overjoyed. These days he was as swift as the wind, advocating for solutions to Elvys' curse and poring over the texts Ina had taken from Knox, although he hadn't found anything yet.
During these months, the restaurant smoothly leveled up to Level 5. In fact, the restaurant had enough experience to reach a higher level, but Ina encountered a new situation.
According to the system, there would be a hidden main task to level up from 5 to 6. This hidden task needed to be completed to level up further.
Looking at the empty taskbar, Ina asked, "You're not telling me this task has no hints at all, right?"
This hidden task was indeed thoroughly hidden.
The system only said, "When related clues appear, the task will provide a hint."
Even though the restaurant's leveling up was halted, the achievement point store underwent dramatic changes, as previously revealed by the system.
All rewards that Ina had previously obtained from the reward pool could now be directly redeemed through achievement points.
The half-star to three-star rewards required 50 to 2000 achievement points for redemption. The rewards above three stars required a lot more, with the lowest needing a number trailed by four zeros. It made Ina realize that redeeming these high-star rewards was not cost-effective. It would be better to bravely gamble in the reward pool.
In addition, items like the "Sacred Oak Wine Barrel★★★★☆", which were of higher star rating, had a uniqueness to them. Once drawn, there would not be a second one, and there was no indication of how many achievement points were needed for exchange.
Ina had saved up tens of thousands of achievement points, and she exchanged them for many useful things. For instance, two-star Guardian Golems were deployed to every shop, at least two each. Cotton Candy Machines and Ice Cream Machines were distributed to every tea restaurant, which improved the speed of food delivery.
The milk tea was a signature product of the tea restaurant, and the amount of tea consumed daily was staggering. Luckily, Ina had exchanged a significant number of tea tree saplings from the system. Planted alongside the Glow Daisies behind the tavern in the Misty Town, they had grown into a sizable tea plantation.
Besides the tea restaurants, Ina had opened many candy shops during these days. Not only in the capital, but such small candy shops had also sprung up in major cities across the Silver Empire. A vibrant toy house was placed at the entrance of each shop, where anyone entering the candy store could pick a piece of candy to eat.
The stores mainly sold maltose and various fruit-flavored hard candies, and soft, fluffy cotton candy that was as soft as a cloud. The candies were pure and cheap, which made them very popular among commoner children.
The candy shops were managed by the Rize people who had passed their graduation exams. They knew the most basic common words and could keep the account books neat and tidy. These people were first assigned to various branches of the restaurant as waiters. After learning the basic knowledge of running a shop from branch managers like Anty or Lesley, they were assigned to the candy shops as managers.
The scale of the candy shop was small, and one person could handle everything. After some time of experience in the candy shop, those who performed well could manage the tea restaurant. Some people might prefer the atmosphere of the candy shop and enjoy seeing the innocent smiles of children, and they might choose to continue working in the candy shop.
Ina exchanged transportation crystals for everyone who went out, which made it convenient for them to travel back and forth between the Extreme Cold Icefield and their workplace.
Because she had been busy with the tea restaurants and candy shops, it had been a full year since the branch in the capital was opened, and Ina had not yet opened the next one. According to the system, after level 5, the upgrade reward of the restaurant would no longer be a shop, but another type of reward.
But now, Ina had a considerable amount of gold coins on hand. She was no longer like before when she had to stretch her budget after spending over a hundred gold coins on a vineyard and almost depleted her assets. If she wanted to open a branch somewhere, she could buy it with a wave of her hand.
The restaurant's funds were now substantial.
[Dragon Flame Restaurant
Branch: Extreme Cold Icefield
Branch: Neranka
Branch: Silver Empire Capital
Branch: Not drawn yet
Branch: Not drawn yet
Industries: Farms (Bathtub Farm, Summer House, Fatir Manor), Ranch (50% ownership of Frank's Chicken Coop, Rabbit Pen), Forestry (Tea Tree Forest), Fishpond (Miyabi Fishpond - cold Thorn fish, Daao River Shrimp, Crayfish), Commercial (Tea Restaurant [chain], Candy Shop [chain])
Level: 5 (can continue to level up after completing the main task)
Experience points (affected by turnover and number of customers served):
Achievement points:
Staff: Humans ( Dusì, Anty, Rize people, etc.) Golems (Root Ripping, Head Smashing, Vegetable Chopping, Rice Serving without Shaking) Magical beasts ( Lizard, The Goldfinch Lizard,The four-winged thunder hawk,white-feathered pelican)
Reputation: Mist Town (50) Mercenary Guild (20) Rize Tribe (500) Star Academy (100)
Current Funds: 347,655 gold coins, 78 silver coins, 46 copper coins]
Now, it was time to open a new branch. She hoped that this randomly chosen location would bring Ina new surprises.
After she confirmed the opening of the new branch, her vision blurred, and she suddenly found herself thousands of miles away from the Silver Empire Capital.
To Ina's surprise, what was under her feet was not the ground as she had expected, but... the rough bark of a tree.
This was the initial snow on the branches, the flying catkins in the spring, and the crown of nature described by the reclusive poets.
In Ina's eyes: it's a silver coin tree.
The scene in the distance was dreamlike. The morning mist was slowly dissipating, with dappled golden spots intertwining in the forest. Every tree in the dense forest was stretching out its lush branches and leaves. Vines, whose name Ina could not utter, were entwining the trunks, climbing upwards, then falling from the branches, like light green curtains.
The type of tree she was seeing now confirmed Ina's current location: it's the Silverleaf Forest of the elves.
Only the Silverleaf Forest had these unique silver-patterned trees. The elves lived in these treehouses where Ina was now. They rarely left the forest and lived a self-sufficient life. Especially since the nearest city to the Silverleaf Forest was Femington of the Orlan Empire, after the Orlan Empire began its purge of other races, people there no longer approached the Silverleaf Forest, for fear of getting involved with the elves.
Ina looked around. The forest was very quiet, with only a few bird calls and rustling insect noises. She figured this area should not be where the elves lived, but it should not be far from there. If she went to the outskirts of the forest, these silver-patterned trees would no longer be found.