Chapter 22 - School

"What is all this, boss?" Asked Miranda in awe as she saw the newly refurbished shop, one she could tell was a lot better equipped than in the past.

"I had some people renovate the shop." He started before introducing the two machines to the girls who would certainly have a lot less to worry about once the machine was introduced.

"Boss, we have had some people ask us when the next portal will be opened." Said Viola who often received these kinds of questions due to her being both younger and more aesthetically pleasing than Miranda, not that she was ugly either.

Being more approachable was both a blessing and a curse as while she could enjoy creating connections more easily, she also got endlessly annoyed by boys trying to hit on her and she was also the one who received all kinds of questions since she seemed more 'available'.

"I'm looking for new coordinates every day but it might take a while. I'll open a new one as soon as I can." Replied the young man who obviously couldn't exactly tell when he would expand the shop's selling features.

Confirming that everything was doing well, he immediately left. He had no need to stay in the shop anymore as the girls took care of the matters of the shop and his only job was to continuously develop the shop's features. In this case, become stronger and research new coordinates.

Heading to his room in which he was starting to spend more time in than out of it, he continued his search.

{Coordinate Research}.

With his energy heading straight for the cosmos, he restarted his endless search for anything in the void of space. Whether a small celestial body such as a medium-sized asteroid or a small planet, he would accept anything.

This universe was weird in the fact that even small asteroids that should have been nothing more than a bare rock had not only an environment but even an atmosphere. Whether it was due to the appearance of towers or the weird energy which allowed for the creation of professions, it was a fact that this universe was completely different from his previous one.

His consciousness, through the thread of energy, travelled aimlessly in the void of space, searching for the equivalent of a needle in a giant mountain of haystacks.

Sending out pulses of energy from time to time, greatly expanding his search radius for a few seconds, hoping to get something, he eventually cut the energy thread as he went back to his body.

"Still nothing. It might take months for others to even find anything. I'm considered lucky since I can simply buy the coordinates themselves instead."

"Boss, someone is downstairs, mentioning something about cooperation." Sais Miranda who knocked twice on his door before stalking to talk through the door.

"Who is it?" He asked with a raised eyebrow as he readied himself to go downstairs.

"Some explorer's school director along with a few professors." She replied as she had identified them well before coming to get him. After all, she wasn't useless and could at least tell whether the person truly needed to see her boss or just thought of himself as too important to deal with her.

Pushing open the door, Lux followed her down the stairs as they soon arrived in the hall which was pretty calm after everyone entered the gate. It was often this way. Except for certain circumstances such as the previous gate war which made the shop a bustling hub as people entered and exited in a hurry, the shop was otherwise completely calm.

"Hello, boss Lux." Said the director as he approached with an ingratiating smile, offering his hand for a shake.

"Hello director, may I ask what this is about?" Asked Lux directly as he went straight to the subject, surprising both the director and the teachers that accompanied him.

"We were looking to create a cooperation between your shop and our school." He started as Lux nodded his head, that much already evident for him who knew none of the teachers otherwise.

"How do you wish to cooperate?" He asked as the director had obviously already prepared some kind of plan.

"We would like to bring our students to your gate for a three day practice exercise. We have learned about the Cave of Illusions and the Sinking Lake and would like to introduce our students to some of the less dangerous environmental dangers of gates." He started as Lux nodded his head as it was normal that some information had spread, perhaps some teacher had come to gather some information as they chose the best gate for their students.

"Sure, what do you need my cooperation for?" Asked Lux as he was wondering where his use appeared except for the opening of the portal.

"We would like to hire some explorers to escort and protect the students and at the same time, we would like some explorers to introduce their professions to our students, same with yours if you don't mind." He explained before finally reaching where he needed his cooperation for.

"On our side, we would like it if you could prepare some monsters for the students to fight and leave a specific space for the students so that they don't encounter explorers in the gate." He finished as Lux understood his hope for such a situation to occur. After all, in gates, explorers were as much a threat as monsters. Thankfully, with his gate shop not having a large official group, many small guilds, families and associations entered the gate and supported one another.

With the guarantee from himself that he wasn't interested in taking the ressources from them and that they could harvest as much as they could, even pushing them to do so before he closed the gate due to the distance, few conflicts arose on the other side.

"Yes, that won't be a problem. I'll notify the explorers." Easily replied Lux who knew that such a situation could easily be solved by his words alone. After all, compared to other gate shops, he gave much more benefits to them and was known to be fair. As such, asking them to leave a small piece of the planet for the students to explore was more than enough.

Besides, unless he was wrong, those same groups would probably even try to recruit a few of those who had more potential. While they couldn't tell who was the best in improving their profession, those that learned more and knew more would be well-received in any group.

"Perfect, would a week later be possible?" Asked the white-haired headmaster who introduced himself as Kaien.

"No problem, everything will be ready." Replied the shop owner as he directly received a payment of 50,000 Bym which was all the money that their school, as the fifth best highschool out of five, received yearly from the city for explorations.

"Boss, why did you accept?" Asked Viola who tilted her head in wonder. The timespan they planned on entering the gate and the number of people easily brought the amount above 370,000 Bym after the hourly price had dropped to 52 Bym.

"They won't be taking a large part of the planet. At the same time, it will give jobs to the explorers and it creates a connection with the school which will be a yearly thing if everything goes well and at the same time, it helps us increase our reputation." He explained as she nodded her head.

"Besides, the resources on the planet are starting to get pretty low and it will help the students make a bit of money while teaching them, it's a pretty nice activity for them if they wish to become explorers." He finished as from the memories of his past self, he had dreamed of entering a portal in advance just to make a bit of money and as such, Lux figured that he could help them in his own way.

In this way, five days slowly passed. The tower clearing group had already reached the second and last floor of the tower while the explorers had greatly collected the ressources. Even a few civilian groups had been hired by the various explorer groups to extract the iron ore resources of the celestial body.

Name: Proteus

Size: Tier 1

Gate level: 3 (2232/10,000)

Activation cost: 17 energy/hour

Time Remaining: 9d, 16h, 20m, 1s

Environment level: 1 star (55%)

 --> Tier 1 - Cave of Illusions (32%)

 --> Tier 1 - Sinking Lake (23%)

Monster Danger level: 0 star (97%)

 --> Tier 1 - Plague Frogs: 19%

 --> Tier 1 - Shade Snakes: 13%

 --> Tier 1 - Wind Ants: 25%

 --> Tier 1 - Goblin: 20%

 --> Tier 1 - Bone Monkey: 15%

 --> Tier 1 - Kobold: 2%

 --> Tier 1 - Orc: 1%

 --> Tier 2 - Werewolves: 1%

 --> Tier 2 - Purple Moths: 1%

Ressource level: 0 star (56%)

 --> Tier 0 - Iron Ore: 25%

 --> Tier 0 - Oak Tree: 5%

 --> Tier 1 - Epnola Wood: 7%

 --> Tier 1 - Pygmy Leaf: 4%

 --> Tier 1 - Nightweed: 7%

 --> Tier 1 - Illusion Grass: 8%

Map: 100% explored

Gates: 1

 --> Lv.3 gate - Lux Arden

Tower: 1

 --> 2 floors (Open) (1 floor remaining)

Cost per hour: 41 Bym