Everybody wants a piece of my Pocket

Fang Shi, the two bodyguards, and the four women on the flying ship waited for Elder Shui after he had activated the token she had given him. He cast his sight towards the Azure River sect, and saw beautiful buildings littering the riverside but part of his view was blocked by fog.

"It must be a common sight to see ethereal fog around a sect", Fang Shi remarked, "Even the Profound Sword sect had fog with in the sect as well."

Just as he remembered the mountain peaks of the Profound Sword sect, a voice replied to his comment, "It's a simple array formation to ensure that mortals don't accidentally enter the sect's land."

Fang Shi looked over to see Elder Shui leading several others to his position.

"Greetings to the elders of the Azure River sect", Fang Shi.

"Let me introduce you to my sister elders", Elder Shui greeted him, "This is Chief Elder Xu, Elder Zhao, Elder Li, and our artificer Elder Shen."

Fang Shi gave Elder Shen a strange looked when introduced before saying, "You wouldn't perhaps have a brother in the Profound Sword sect, would you?"

Elder Shen became embarrassed and grinned, "Yes, I do."

"Small world", Fang Shi quipped before turning his attention back to Elder Shui.

"Who are these other friends you've brought here, Owner Fang?", she asked.

Fang Shi turned around to his small entourage, "These two are puppets that my master sent with me for my safety, but it's a different story for the other four."

Fang Shi narrated the events of what happened after he left the Profound Sword sect, and the aftermath.

"I see", the chief elder replied after hearing everything, "We will provided temporary lodging for them for no cost while you perform your duties."

"I thank you then", Fang Shi expressed his gratitude, "Shall we enter now?"

Everyone nodded, and the whole group made their way to the guest quarters as they settled in.

The next few days passed essentially the same as it did in the Profund Sword sect as Fang Shi worked together with the artisans of the sect to construct a cultivation pod room. He didn't interact much with his four new employees for two reasons: first was that he was busy setting up the room, but he was also aware that this wasn't his home and he didn't want the his hosts listening in on their conversations. One thing he did find out were their names: Mei Ling, Li Xue, Zhang Fen, and Xiao Ru. It was unfortunate that they still had to wear their shabby robes, but nothing could be done about as Fang Shi didn't pack female robes in his bag and the Asure River sect wouldn't give disciple robes to an outsider.

Another interesting fact that Fang Shi found out was that the Azure River sect was not a female only sect. That being said, most of the elders and disciples were women and girls.

Several days later, a new cultivation room was completed though its design was different than the Profound Sword sect. Fang Shi was pleasantly surprised when the room fit 57 pods into the room, signifying that the spiritual vein here was slightly stronger.

Once everyone was satisfied with the results of their hard work, Fang Shi and the sect's leaders sat down to hammer out the details about payment. After both sides agreed, Fang Shi led the puppets and his four new employees back to the sect's gate before summoning the flying ship.

"Owner Fang", he heard before he was about leave, "Can I be rude for a moment, and make an inquiry?"

"It's not rude at all", Fang Shi replied, "Please proceed."

"I assume it was the master of the shop that made these interesting artifacts", Elder Shen implied, "But why would he focus on making artifacts that have no bearing in battle?"

"That's not entirely correct", Fang Shi understood her thoughts.

In this world, a being's might was the only thing that mattered, and everything that was made was made with that in mind.

"My store still sells weapons and armor", Fang Shi continued, "And while I don't know his motives, my understanding is that he wishes to improve the life of everyone, even mortals. Others might think this is pointless, but since my master has the strength to protect his values, I wish to lend my support."

"I see", Elder Shui said.

Thinking back to her experience in the store, she somewhat understood but still felt it was strange to operate a shop this way.

"Farewell for now, my friends", Fang Shi said, and commanded the flying ship.

The five elders that had met him at the gate also stood there as they watched the ship disappear over the horizon.

"We should take Sect Master there once she leaves secluded cultivation", Elder Shao told the others.

They nodded in agreement, before turning around and returning to the sect.

It took most of the day, but Fang Shi was able to return to Blue Moon city before the city gates closed for the night. He quickly made his way back to the store, glad to be under the system's protection again. Once they arrived, he led them off the flying ship only to be greeted by all the other employees.

"Welcome back, Owner Fang", the seven employees said as Fang Shi entered the store.

With a flick of his hand, Fang Shi dismissed the puppets and the flying ship, "Let's head to the dormitory for a meeting, we have new employees joining us."

It didn't take long for everyone to convene on the first floor living room, and Fang Shi started to introduce the new additions to the older employees.

"Everyone, allow me to introduce Mei Ling, Li Xue, Zhang Fen, and Xiao Ru", Fang Shi said before turning to the four women, "Everyone, these are my current employees: Wen Quan, Yu Xian, Xue Yao, Wei Liang, Hong Yan, Hong Shan, and finally Hong Li."

Just like before, he explained what happened during his trip and how he rescued the group of women from the bandits. Yu Xian and Xue Yao immediately invited the four women to sit next to them, but the Hong sisters offered customary words of comfort. Fang Shi suspected that the sisters' identity as spiritual beasts was the reason for their neutral response.

Fang Shi continued, "I'm sure that the old employees noticed that a third floor was added to the dormitory. As you can imagine, I sent a message to the senior watching the store so he could have rooms ready."

He paused for a moment before changing topics, "Now that everyone has met I have two announcement to make. There will be additional changes coming soon to the store as new departments will be opened. These new departments will focus on selling artifacts, but unlike the artifact refinery, these artifacts are focused more on improving the quality of life of our customers. If anyone is interested in moving from their current position to this one, just let me know. As for the other item, I don't feel that the environment of the store services the guests well enough. I will be searching for musicians, dancers, and singers soon to perform."

He turned towards the four women, "With your current situation, I don't expect you to fill any of those roles. I understand after your experience, it will take time to recover. That being said, as the four of you have agreed to work here, you will be expected to hold a position in the future. If you feel this isn't possible, then I will grant you the same benefits that I did the others and wish you well. Since we haven't officially signed a contract yet, you still have a choice."

All four women shook their heads before Mei Ling said, "Owner, we still intend to work here."

"That's good to hear, but I'll add a clause in the contract that if you can't adapt or recover in enough time, you can be released with no penalty", Fang Shi stated, "With that out of the way, does anyone have a question?"

"Owner", Hong Yan waved her hand, "Since you will allow us to transfer to a different position, could my sisters and I perform as singers and dancers?"

This caused Fang Shi to become cautious, "Hmmm, it's possible. I should tell you now that you will only be dancing and singing, this isn't a brothel after all. I will say maybe for now, and we will discuss this more in depth later. Anyways, that's it for now. Yu Xian and Xue Yao, please guide our new members to their rooms. As for you four, get some rest. Tomorrow, you will tour the grounds, familiarize yourselves with the different shops, and receive your resources. Dinner will be sent to your room soon, so have a good night."

With that, Fang Shi exited the dormitory and went to his home. There were many other projects that needed to be started after receiving inspiration from this trip. He had to design shops, artifacts, a stage, and add functions to the puppets to play musical instruments, and he knew it would take several days to get everything done. Also, he didn't want to be distracted during the trip, so he had the system silence any alerts that weren't a danger to his life. He didn't immediately turn it back on, but planned on dealing with once everything was finished first. As the new and old employees started to get used to each other, Fang a Shi sat in his personal pod after eating dinner, ready to start designing.

For the next several days, Fang Shi's days were busy as he visited the different shops on his land with the new employees. Not only was he giving them an orientation of everything, but he was checking how everything operated since his return. In the evening, he would sit down to cultivate, but he also was designing the new shops he would soon unveil. The rest of the time was spent with the Hong sisters: creating their performance clothes, composing several songs, and choreographing routines based on the song.

After 10 days of effort, Fang Shi laid in his bath relaxing after all the hard work he put in recently.

"System, change the notification alerts back to normal", he ordered.

As expected, several notifications tones were heard but it wasn't as numerous as he guessed it would be. Looking down at the panel, he saw:

[New! Business Trip

Make Lemonade

New! Fire sale]

Fang Shi was surprised to see that an achievement he had received before had appeared again, but he went ahead and checked the details.

[New! Business Trip

Business doesn't only happen inside a store. Occasionally, it is necessary for a merchant to travel to make a deal.

Leave the store to make a deal outside of the host's home city (Completed)

Reward: an upgraded flying sword with the technique. Once the technique is mastered, and the host uses the sword given, speed flying will be 10% faster than normal.]

[Make Lemonade

With the knowledge that the system will not honor items gained by killing, the host found a method to conduct business without anyone dying.

Reward: a free spin on the minor roulette wheel]

[New! Fire Sale

The purpose of a store is to sell products, and empty shelves are a pleasant sight to a merchant.

Completely sell out all products for seven days straight (Completed)

Reward: Increase the storage space for store items by 100% (i.e. double the current size of space)]

Fang Shi was excited to win the opportunity to spin the wheel again, but the next achievement shocked him. He opened the sales report for the last seven days, and started scrutinizing the list of customers and the products they bought. After researching as far back as he could, Fang Shi realized that since the first day he had left to travel, several scions from the eight great families of Blue Moon city had visited daily. They would arrive, by products in bulk, and then leave just to repeat this the very next day.

It didn't take long for Fang Shi to formulate a theory, "They know I sell for a low price that doesn't generate much profit. They must be buying my products for low, and then turning around and selling high. I don't have evidence though, and even if I did, what can I do about it?"

With a mental command, Fang Shi summoned several puppets to his home. He held up a paper that held the names of the suspects and said, "When these guests or guests of their families visit the store, and buy large quantities of goods, follow them. Make sure that you aren't seen, and collect evidence if it turns out they are claiming our products are their own. Do not attempt to attack them if you find them guilty, just return with the evidence."

Fang Shi had little choice to do things this way, he had previously sent a puppet to the stores of the eight great families and found nothing. He figured that they must be transporting it to surrounding cities, and selling there to escape his notice.

While he waited for the results on the investigation, he finally thought about the storage ring he had been wearing that carried the payments from the two sects, and the reward of the bounty. After some thought, Fang Shi removed the ring from his finger and tossed it into the artifact on the store's first floor that customers used to evaluate items.

A notification played in his mind much to his surprise, so he quickly checked:

[New! Infinite Space…almost]

[New! Infinite Space…almost

Recycle a storage bag, ring, or item (Completed)

Reward: A custom storage ring for the host. The host can hide the ring if he wished. This storage ring starts off with the original size of the item recycled, but as more storage items are recycled, the space inside will increase by the item's limit.]

Fang Shi was pleasantly surprised by this unexpected reward, so he quickly made his way to the artifact refinery to pick it up. He slipped it on his finger, looked inside, and found that it indeed had the same space as the original ring. After thinking for a few minutes, he decided to add a sign to the artifact evaluation and recycler highlighting that he accepted storage bags and rings for spirit stones as well.

Several days later, Fang Shi's good mood was gone again as the scheme's of his rivals was still ongoing. The only positive of the situation was that the last few rewards he had received had been boosted by the achievement that strengthened rewards based on the number of rivals he currently had. This meant the flying sword actually faster than 10%, the storage ring was bigger than the original space, and he had 2 spins of the wheel and not 1.

Just a Fang Shi was considering using his spins, his puppets started to return to his home. Each one set an image recording stone on the table, and then returned to their normal position of rest. Fang Shi would pick up the stone, view the contents, and place the stone back on the table.

"I was right, they are a bunch of old foxes", Fang Shi sighed, "They are indeed buying up my goods, and reselling them to the towns and cities around Blue Moon city."

Fang Shi spent the evening considering how to handle the situation, on one hand, he could just simply raise prices, but this would harm the mortals and poor that came to his shop. He could also instill limits on the number of items a guest could buy, but he also detested this idea. In the end he placed signs around the entrance and each checkout stating:

(Due to the ill intentions of some guests, any questionable purchases will be investigated by the senior. If the guests are found guilty of purchasing for the sole purpose of reselling, that person and their household will be permanently banned from the pavilion.)

The next morning when the morning rush of customers entered, they found the warnings posted. Most of the guests didn't care after reading the posted notice, but there was a very small portion of guests that were scared for their lives. Unfortunately for one young man, he was addicted to the income made from reselling products and tried it again only to be caught. He didn't belong to one of the eight great families, and had only copied them in an attempt to become wealthy. Instead, he became famous as his name and face appeared in the pavilion, informing others that the consequences stated on the sign were real.

With another crisis temporarily averted, Fang Shi was once again in his bath tub. This time instead of checking his status or notifications, he had a roulette wheel in front of him, ready to spin.

"Spin", he said, and the wheel in front of him quickly moved.

The wheel spun for the same amount of time as it took to drink a cup of tea before finally stopping.

'Congratulations! The host has received a class 3 seed package', the system announced.

The bag appeared in his hands, so he opened it. Inside were a mix of seeds, some were ones he had, but the others are him excited.

"With this, we can finally make coffee and chocolate", Fang Shi said as he stored away the bag, "Spin again."

Once again, the wheel spun and when it stopped this time, the system voice spoke, 'Congratulations to the host, a Class 2 puppetry inheritance is awarded. Deploying puppets immediately to retrieve it."