Three days later.
Distant Windy City.
Aric stood on the other side of the counter, helping Albert set up the store better. He arranged a number of glass bottles filled with drinks, consisting of two colors: one colorless and the other dark caramel brown. Outside the shop hung a black signboard with the following written on it:
"New Deal.
Buy two loaves of bread, get a sugary drink worth 8 copper coins."
Most of the customers who came for bread and other items didn't even notice it, but when they received a free sugary cold drink, they were taken aback.
"Albert? Are you selling alcohol?"
"Albert? Can kids drink it?"
"Is it addictive?"
Albert was bombarded with questions as the customers received their drinks. In order to appease them and also brand it in his own way, he showed them the certificate issued by the city administration.
He had obtained the certificate after much struggle and a bit of bribery too. This was the city administration we were talking about. There was no supervision or significant government interference due to the distance from the capital. But bribery was also a way to ensure that the administration wouldn't pay them much heed and would let him run the shop. In fact, the better the bribe, the better the protection, and Albert had actually paid 2 gold coins to ensure that the guards would keep an eye on them.
Albert had invested a lot in this venture. He knew that the payoff would be successful.
"The drinks are suitable for all ages and are not addictive. No alcohol is added, and they are actually sweet. You are all adults. Why don't you try it?"
The customers had never seen a colored drink that wasn't based on alcohol, so they were a bit skeptical. But when the cold drink hit their taste buds for the first time, their faces turned to absolute joy. One had to remember that these drinks Aric had brought didn't belong to the same quality as those from his own Earth but were from an Interstellar civilization.
There, millions of years had passed, and some food products were very famous among many species. Pizza, cold drinks, bread, rice, and many such human foods were common among most humanoid species. Thus, the cold drinks had evolved over the years. Even Aric himself loved the taste of the cold drinks and thought that the current market of his world needed this kind of drink.
But for now, it was a distant dream.
Aric suggested an idea, which Albert loved. Albert asked the customers to write their reviews of the new drinks on the board outside. The customers were perplexed by this, but Albert encouraged them to write any reviews, good or bad, on the blackboard outside, and to do so with their own casual handwriting, not some fancy ones.
"Seriously, son, how do you come up with such ideas?" Albert asked as he saw glowing reviews being left on the board, which even prompted passersby to see what was written. Aric just smiled at the question and continued his work of stacking the bottles and keeping the place clean.
Aric was happy with the start and knew that the drinks would slowly gain traction. But for that it would take some time. After helping him stack the bottles into the magical refrigerator, he left for his home. He needed to go to Echorysia for another work of his, which he had contemplated about.
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Echorysia.
He was back in his storage unit. He saw the cartons of cold drinks being placed around and smiled. After doing many experiments, he had a gained a general understanding of his powers. He could bring thing alone as long as he touched them with his hand. That included live things too. He had tried it with a frog he had caught a few days ago, and the frog seemed to be fine after he took it to Echorysia.
Though it did die after 2 hours, Apis had evaluated that the frog probably died to germs around. This result came up after Apis did the basic scan and evaluated that this 'ancient frog' didn't evolve over time. Apis being the intelligent AI that it was as bit perplexed of why an ancient frog species was around this place and Aric casually said that he found it nearby.
This experiment proved that he could bring living beings around too, he just didn't know if it was possible for human beings or not. And he also couldn't bring in things which he wasn't touching. He could even bring a chair or a bicycle along with him, maybe if he tried it with a car, it might be possible but he didn't have the chance to try it yet.
He didn't come to Echorysia empty handed this time. He had brought one USB memory stick/pen drive with himself. The pen drive did cost him a bit and had to ask his father for the money. After getting himself a memory stick he went straight to a local internet cafe and inserted it to the computer and downloaded what he wanted to take in.
Now that he was back with the memory stick, at Echorysia. Before arriving at the storage unit he had already ordered a special ordered a VR cabin which cost him 10,000 Sora credits. This had put a huge dent in his saving but he needed that for his next venture.
The VR cabin had a sleek silver exterior adorned with mesmerizing patterns that seemed to ripple. As the seamless doorway parted with a gentle whoosh, revealing its inner sanctum, Aric stepped into a vast chamber suffused with a soft, ethereal glow. Within, holographic displays adorned the walls, projecting scenes of distant galaxies and fantastical realms, while a circular platform at the chamber's center.
"The basic cabin itself is so sleek. I wonder what the higher paid versions differ in."
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