Closing the door of the shop and locking the door for the day, Lux found himself at a loss. He had so much to do.
Firstly, he had to improve both his professional level and his skill level.
Secondly, he had to create a proper development plan for his shop and how to deal with the professionals who entered the gate to collect resources, especially large resources such as timber.
Finally, he had to form a second core in his soul to master another profession. In this world where monsters could attack at any time and towers appeared randomly across the world, having the ability to defend yourself was important.
'I obviously can't let them transport tree trunks across the shop's hall. Moreover, I can't create the portal out of the shop due to the danger and the fact that it's illegal. As such, I either need to create a hole in the wall, let them bring the tree through the backyard as there are double doors or simply have them cut it directly inside the gate.' He thought as he saw no easy way to solve this problem.
If he had a thousand credits to transform the shop into a lv.1 gate shop, he wouldn't have such a problem. After all, he had seen the preview of the building and it was perfectly planned with large doors behind each gate leading to a sas to transport items straight out of the shop from the portal and a second barrier to prevent any problems in case a kid ran to the portal from the exterior or a monster broke out.
Unfortunately, he was too poor for it and considering the cost of a thousand credits, he would need to make a profit of a million Bym.
'I guess we can only leave this problem to the right professionals.' Decided Lux, who knew that there were professions such as supporters which took care of all kinds of support work ranging from disassembling a monster corpse to transporting resources.
There were even specialized professions that dealt solely with timber such as the woodcutting profession.
While such a profession held no combat potential as it only truly worked while working on wood, most proper guilds still had a few of those members around as they were useful to collect the timber in any cleared gate or tower.
Shaking his head, getting rid of the thoughts that ran rampant, knowing that everything started with his strength, he started his space wanderer's energy refinement process. With the little experience he now had, completing a refinement in two hours was pretty easy.
Staying up all night simply meditating and trying his Coordinate Research skill whenever he was low on soul energy, he understood the reason space wanderers had to work so much.
As he closed his eyes and restarted to research space coordinates, he felt his spirit fly up to the universe. Extending his senses according to the skill's use, as far as his skill rank and energy could allow him to reach, he traveled in the darkness of the universe, trying to find any light, any celestial body that could get his attention.
Continuing to research, his spirit still close to the planet as he could feel it, he saw the hundred of thousands of red threads that encroached upon the planet he lived on.
From time to time, a red string would be severed and lose its connection to the planet and yet, new ones were constantly approaching the same planet, ready to take its place.
"Those should be the towers." He confirmed with a sigh at the number of enemies humanity had to face.
Looking for the origin of these threads, he closely followed one until he came to a dead point, the red thread seemingly penetrating in the fabric of space itself. 'Either I'm not strong enough to continue investigating, the monsters are simply a part of the universe, created by the universe or this universe is being attacked by another dimension or something.' He thought while shrugging his shoulders. It wasn't something that he could change and he had better things to do than search for the reason for the invasion.
Turning away from the threads, he continued to look for any celestial body but even after spending an hour, he had yet to see even a hint of it.
"Let's take a look at Proteus." He decided as he already knew of those coordinates, received from the StarGate system.
Turning his head and heading in a straight line towards his target, he met nothing until he saw from afar the only Celestial Body he was linked to.
Seeing its small size, he didn't make anything of it. He already knew it to be a tier one celestial body.
It was only after he saw the various threads that he became excited. Excited at knowing how many other Spatial Wanderers had a gate to those coordinates.
"Hum, three blue threads which includes my link to those coordinates and one red thread meaning a tower. Unfortunately, I can't tell the level of the other gates nor the level of the tower. All I can tell is that the other two spatial wanderers are still alive and have a portal linked to this celestial body." He nodded to himself before directly stopping the use of the skill. His energy was becoming lower and lower and he barely had anything left in him.
"That's it for today." He decided as he reopened his eyes, deciding to look at his status.
"Status."
Lux Arden
Human
18 years old
- Profession
Lv.1 Space Wanderer (62%)
- Lv.1 Gate Creation
--> Open the Gate 100 times (2/100)
--> Open a gate in three location (1/3)
--> Open a gate 24 hours straight (2/24)
--> Improve two gates to level 2 (0/2)
--> Form the lv.2 skill pattern (0/1)
- Lv.1 Coordinate Research
--> Find one coordinate (1/1)
--> Locate three towers (1/3)
--> Locate five gates (2/5)
--> Explore for 24 hours (2/24)
--> Form the lv.2 skill pattern (0/1)
"Since I need to keep my spatial energy during the day to keep the portal open or open a portal, I'll work on forming a second core." He decided while preparing for the shop's opening.
The natural energy mostly had two uses, to refine specific energy into the professions and to create a new core.
Few would spend their limited energy to build a new core since there would be a need to continue refining energy in that core afterwards, effectively doubling the work. However, it also granted some great possibilities as having two professions brought diversity.
Relaxing a bit on his chair after unlocking the door, he started to condense a new core with his natural energy. He had plenty of time after all. He didn't try to become the strongest. He simply wanted to be able to develop his shop well and in peace.
A couple of hours went by before the door rang as it opened. "Ding."
Opening his eyes as he stopped what he was currently doing, he saw the same man who had entered the gate the previous day, John, leading four other people. Amongst them was Harris who seemingly loved to talk.
Looking at them, each wearing a sword, armor and amongst them, two wielding axes, Lux knew that his business was finally taking off, although slowly.
"Hey boss, has anyone entered the gate this morning?" He asked with a grin, some anxiety could still be seen in his eyes however.
"No, you are my first customers of the day. However, I don't know about the other gates on that celestial body." Replied Lux as he figured informing them that there might be other people could be useful.
"No problem. We'll all enter the gate today. We'll each stay seven hours. Is it fine if we enter and leave to bring back the loot to our truck?" He asked with a grin, ready to make some profit for that day's exploration.
"Sure, the gate will stay open from beginning to end. However, I need to remind you that even if they leave in the middle, the timer is still ongoing." Replied Lux, shaking his shoulders as the man nodded his head, already aware of such rules which were used everywhere.
Placing 1750 Bym on the counter, Lux got up from behind the counter and used one of his only two skills.
{Gate Creation - Proteus}
"If your goal is to make money, by bringing back some information and a drawn map, I will pay you a certain amount depending on the usefulness of the information." Explained Lux as he knew their goal of exploration was to make money and grow stronger. It just so happened that he needed more information about the gate.
"Finally, a tower exists but I don't know where exactly." Finished the young shopkeeper as the gate finally stabilized.
"Thanks, we'll make sure to bring back information if we find any." The leader grinned while leading his friends or subordinates straight into the gate.