Unlocking the doors, Lux was surprised to see almost sixty people waiting on the other side of the doors. However, just as his eyes widened, his expression cooled and went back to normal.
"Please enter in line." He said as he walked back to the counter.
"Hi, we'd like to spend eight hours on the other side of the gate." Said a young man dressed lavishly who led six of his friends.
"Alright, do you need any information?" He asked as he nodded his head.
"I'll take everything that you have along with the map. Is it true that you pay us for exploring and bringing back a map of the portal?" He asked while ordering.
"Yes. I pay a certain amount for any new information brought back to the shop. The prices are there." He said as he pointed to the side where he had taken the time to write down his buying price before continuing.
"The price for all the information plus the map is 1140 Bym. The price for staying in the gate is 50 Bym per hour. For eight hours and the information, it will cost you 3940 Bym." Said Lux as the man nodded his head and paid the money before entering the gate as Lux opened it.
With the first group entering, more and more groups entered until it was the turn of Nellya's group of 30.
"30 people for twelve hours each, just like yesterday." She said as she handed over the contract which he took 18,000 Bym of before handing it back to her.
"Have a good day." He said as she nodded with a smile and followed through in the gate.
With the day starting relatively well, his savings having increased all the way to 68,620 Bym, Lux continued to form his second core. He couldn't properly train and improve his space wanderer's core as it took a lot of time and he couldn't be interrupted during this time. As such, he simply condensed the second core since he had the energy and the time.
Seeing people come and go, he answered the questions of a few new customers and four more groups entered the gate. It seemed that his shop was slowly gaining some popularity.
"Boss!" Said a customer as he rushed through the gate.
"What is it?" He asked, all of his attention on the man as he seemed pretty panicked.
"We found the tower." He said, breathlessly as he had rushed back to inform him.
His eyes focused since if the guy was so nervous, it meant that the tower had a problem.
"Did it break open?" He asked with some concern.
"No. However, it will open in 13 hours." He replied, which relaxed Lux a lot.
"How many floors are there on the tower?" He asked as he would obviously pay the man for the information.
"There are two floors but we don't know what kind of monsters are in it." He said as he explained everything, his eyes glancing at the information pinned on the wall which was the reward from bringing back information.
Looking in his system panel and confirming it had indeed appeared, meaning his information was truthful, he took the map handed over to him.
"You didn't map the surroundings of the location?" He asked as he was expecting them to map everything to make as much money as possible.
"No, we found the tower from afar and after confirming it, I came back right away." He explained with a smile.
"Alright then. The reward for bringing back the location of a two-floor tower is 10,000 Bym, are you alright with this price?" Asked Lux as he placed ten thousand on the counter.
"Can I haggle to gain more?" He asked with a sly smile as those around were surprised to find that the tower had already been located.
With a small smile, Lux shook his head. "You can try to sell the information to someone else for a higher price but the prices I set are non-negotiable. Also please note that the moment I buy the information from someone else, I will sell the information as well. For a two floor tower, the price is set at 500 Bym."
With quick calculations in his mind, the man seemed relieved that Lux would have to sell more than twenty times the information to barely break even and as such he wouldn't be taken advantage of. After all, compared to him, the information sold by the shop owner was a lot more trustworthy.
"No problem but may I ask why you sell it for such a low price? You will most likely make a loss." He asked as he received the money. Once a tower broke open, monsters would start coming out of it relentlessly, emptying a part of the tower's surpopulation of monsters. However, the tower itself would continue existing and would still need someone to clear it to stop the constant spanning of monsters.
"The tower will eventually become a problem in the gate. As such, selling the information at a low price will allow some people to avoid going straight to the tower which will help them survive. Some others will want to try their luck. After all, to build an official organization, you must be able to clear towers and it just so happens that this tower will be in a relatively controlled environment." He explained but seeing his wondering expression, Lux continued.
"The towers that appear in the wild may have all kinds of monsters around and it isn't safe. On the contrary in gates, the celestial body has been more or less controlled meaning that there won't be a dragon or any more dangerous monsters popping out of anywhere." He explained as he nodded his head in understanding.
While he left to join his friends once more, money in hand, Lux updated the information package of the celestial body before once again working on his core formation.
As the second core to be created, it was still pretty easy and didn't need much energy. Just with the few hours he had been working on it, he had already increased its completion rate by 3%. A couple of days and he would be done with it.
After this small incident, nothing much happened, only a few guys who entered the gate and soon enough, everyone was leaving, bringing some information along with whatever resources they had collected from the gate.
Closing the gate and locking the door, Lux looked at the development of the celestial body.
An increase of 30.5% of the map which cost him 61,000 Bym and the last tier 1 ressource, Illusion Grass, for 2000 Bym.
"Now I only need to find the last portal, the last environmental danger and complete the map and I'll be done with the exploration." Said Lux to himself before receiving the system prompt.
[Do you wish to exchange Bym for Credits?]
Looking at his 54,560 Bym remaining, he nodded his head. He had looked through the shop and knew exactly what he needed now that his shop was gaining popularity.
"Exchange 33,000 Bym."
[Exchange completed, current balance: 33 credits.]
Opening the shop, he looked through the high number of items and finally selected the three items he currently needed.
"I'll buy one world ledger, one explorer's exchange board and a time ledger."
[-10 credits for the world ledger.]
[-7 credits for the exchange board.]
[-16 credits for the Time Ledger.]
[Please select their location.]
As the four sentences of the system appeared in his mind, he started by setting the first item he had bought.
"Place the world ledger to the right of the portal." He said as he immediately took to inscribing the necessary information on it. The name of the celestial body, ressource star level, monster and environmental dangers star level.
Done with the item, he decided that he would update the world ledger everytime he closed unless no changes happened to the celestial body. Going for the second item he bought, he ordered the system.
"Place the exchange board on the right wall." When the board appeared, he took the time to write various missions on pieces of papers and pinned them to the exchange board.
Currently the board wouldn't be very useful. However, he held no doubt that the moment he unlocked more celestial bodies, there would be missions popping up by either himself or civilians such as businessmen who needed certain materials or parents who wanted someone to escort their child.
For the moment, the only tasks posted were the continuous tasks he himself gave, open for everyone about the exploration of the celestial body.
"Finally, set the time ledger on the counter in a slightly elevated angle so that I am the only one who can see it." As he finished and the ledger appeared, he wasted no time in separating the ledger in four parts for the name of the explorer, their group if they had one, the time the explorer entered and the time they decided to stay in.
With the material it was made of, no trace would stick once he cleaned it up and as such he would have no problem reutilizing it.
"Though, the price is quite high for pieces of wood." He said with a shake of his head knowing that despite looking like a piece of wood, it had the benefit of being from the system. It meant that as long as he upgraded the shop's defenses to level one, the items would have just as much defense as the shop which was completely different from the counter which could easily be broken by a slightly stronger explorer.
'I'll have to spend a lot more credits to improve the shop and open more portals but it will do the job for the moment.' He decided as he went straight back to his room and started training to improve himself.