The Sovereignty System

Ben bowed and salute, "This lady is correct I am Marquess King. I am sorry I do not know your name yet, but I am sure it is just as beautiful as you are."

Ben used a cheesy line to curry favor the rich looking young lady knowing all too well that in this world there was no such thing as pickup lines. He could say something like that and come across as being a romantic of a flatterer instead of a pickup artist.

The young lady's face slightly flushed and her smile increased.

"I am Princess Alessandra of the Aregard Kingdom. I am a Stage One, Level Five cultivator. I have heard the rumors which have traveled throughout the city and even into the Royal Palace about the wonderful spirit food that you sell here in the market. I had talked with my father just last night and he told me that you had visited the palace and were bestowed a royal title of Marquess and had plans to open a store here in the capital."

Ben nodded with a smile before speaking again. "Your cultivation stage is impressive for your age. I was told by the royal cultivator that, he did not start until he was in his 30s. Now that you have such a good foundation already you will surely surpass him one day."

"I had also thought I might have a chance, but Marquess King you look to be about the same age as me and you are a Stage Four, Level Eight. At your growth rate, It will not be long until you are a Duke."

"I have only had a few opportunistic encounters along the way. Oh, you also asked me about opening a store, I have actually already acquired one. There across the City square, the large building with the copper roof and white columns out front is mine." Ben said proudly as he pointed out his store."

The princess held her hand over her mouth wide-eyed.

"It is beautiful! For some reason, I imagine a small foreign palace when looking at it. Though the design is far different from anything I have ever seen, I do love it." Princess Alessandra said as she looked over at the store in wonder.

"I would love to have you visit when I open in a couple of weeks, I think you may find the products I sell fascinating," Ben told her.

"Yes, I agree. I came because I was interested in your spirit food and wanted to purchase some for myself to see if I could boost my cultivation. Now I see you have a grander selection than I was led to believe for sale." She said as she glanced around.

"I see, so you were looking for spirit foods. As you said I have a much wider variety than last time. When I first started I had only a few vegetables, fruits, and this beef here. Allow me to show you my foods and explain everything. A few of these seem may be a bit foreign to you since they come from another land, but I guarantee you will love them."

Like a most typical girls, she fell in love with the pastries, cookies, and pies. It was a shock to eat food that tasted so good and it benefited her cultivation. He explained everything in detail to her in hopes she would talk about the products he sold to other noble women.

Princess Alessandra bought a portion of all the foods that he sold and had her guards put everything into an interspatial ring that one of them was entrusted with. They would later empty this ring inside the royal kitchen. The princess said she would have the palace cooks use these foods to prepare her meals for the next few weeks to see which foods she took a liking to.

As the guards were busy stacking the food so that the guard with the ring could easily store it, Ben bent down under a counter and bought a thick cardboard dress box from the System Store and put his current favorite out of the ten renaissance royalty dresses being made in the box which looked to be about her size.

It was a red and white satin dress with delicate gold embroidery patterns around the cuffs and down the length of the skirt. On top of the dress, he placed a gold designer necklace covered with rubies and diamonds.

Ben thought the necklace was a perfect match for the dress and it was the type of necklace you would see on an empress or an opulent queen.

This was still a primitive world that ran on a feudal system so even though gold and gems held value not many people wasted money on jewelry so it had to be sold at affordable prices.

Luckily for Ben, he did not have to buy the gold or the gems so everything is profit after the Gemstone Mine and the Jeweler was built. So gifting a sculpted design necklace covered in precious gems wasn't a loss.

Ben was not giving these gifts to Princess Alessandra to win her favor, or because she was a beautiful woman. What Ben wanted was for everyone to see her wearing his dress and his jewelry. This would make every woman in the kingdom want to have a dress like that and he was the only one that could make them.

Ben stood up with the box in hand and walked over to the princess and her guards. He handed it over to one of her empty-handed guards so that they could put it safely inside the ring.

"This is a small meeting gift from me and thanks for coming all the way out here to buy my spirit food. This gift is a surprise though so please don't open it to you get back to the palace." Benn figured if she saw what was in there she may try to refuse it so he played it low-key as if it wasn't anything big.

The princess thanked him for taking so much time out for her and made her way back to the Royal Palace. Ben apologized to his customers who all seemed somewhat entertained just watching the princess shop alongside them the entire time and did not seem to mind the delay.

By Princess Alessandra coming out just to buy from him it set off a whole new set of rumors. They all heard how she came looking all through the market to buy his spirit food. This helped him, even more, to win over those people who were unconvinced to buy from him earlier. If the royal family was buying spirit food from Ben then who the hell were they to turn their noses up to it?

The royal family had the best foods imported from all over the continent and here was Princess Alessandra buying his spirit food personally in the market square. It was obvious now that this spirit food was unlike nothing else around.

The day continued along and at closing time, as always he was the last to leave the area. It was well worth it though with the money he was bringing in.

When Ben entered his store after a long day, he was surprised to see the first floor had been cleared out. It seemed like Remi had begun to remove his goods. The second and third floor was still full, but he should have it all gone soon enough.

With an empty first floor and an increased balance of gold coins, it was time to continue the store's remodeling.

As Ben walked toward the back offices he noticed a parchment hanging on Remi's old office door.

Ben unpinned it from the door and began to read it.

_______________________________

Marquess King;

I should have all my furniture out in 3-4 days time. My wife and I have decided to move to a new city and start over. This time I will stay out of trouble and rebuild my business once again.

I am happy to see you are taking good care of the store already and I did not even recognize it when we arrived to remove some things today. The exterior of store looks beautiful and even though I lost the store, I am glad it went to someone who appreciates it and is willing to improve it.

Just one thing, how in the hell did you make so many changes in one night? Never mind I know that you cultivators are mysterious and have all types of incredible powers.

If I do not see you before I leave the city I will leave my key under those strange transparent front doors. Also, my wife asks me to thank you for saving us from ruin. It would have been bad for us all if it wasn't for your intervention. Thank you once again!

Sincerely; Remi Norberg

_______________________________

'Quite a change of heart there Remi. I am glad for them even though he did so many evil deeds his wife and daughter do not deserve to suffer for it.'

Ben put the note in his inventory and opened the office door. It was completely cleaned out as was Baynard's office all the files and parchment stacks Baynard had been working hard over were now packed away and gone along with his desk and chair. He was glad that he took the office furniture once he finished remodeling he would stock their offices with brand new furniture of a much higher quality.

To start off today's remodeling Ben deconstructed the offices and bathroom. Now it was possible to see the storage area from the front of the store.

With the concrete and rebar tool Ben began to plan out everything on in the custom build interface window. Once again he made a narrow hallway that would still lead into the back storage room.

Because Ben would have a Warehouse structure located in his store, he would not need such a large storage area. On deciding this the back office wall that separated the offices from the storage room was moved further back making the offices deeper and the storage room narrower.

Baynard's office was next and, Ben kept it at the same width as before. The only change was that his office was ten feet deeper now that the back wall had been pushed further back into the storage room.

Remi's old office was entirely way too big. It seemed to have been made overly big just to show off and claim this was the owner's office. Ben figured he would not be spending much time in his office so the size was cut down to be the same size as Baynard's.

With so much extra space now, he added a men's and women's separate bathrooms to the interface design. Ben had already placed Water Treatment and Waste Treatment structures in the basement so now it was possible to make modern restroom facilities.

He even found the toilet stall used in the Modern Restrooms Facility back at the fortress that had a built-in toilet paper dispensers. It used wood to produce toilet paper directly from the Warehouse! The system explained that the stall walls all had a miniature vertical formation built into their interiors. These arrays would use the wood as a source to create rolls of toilet paper.

These stalls were expensive but it was worth it to never have to worry about running out of toilet paper. Once Ben had built a Warehouse in the store it would only use a tiny amount of wood to replace any used toilet paper each day.

He thought about adding a couple urinals in the men's room design, but he did not want any customers becoming confused and leaving him a stinky little surprise inside them.

So the Men's and women's bathrooms each had six stalls with flushing toilets. And four sinks with hot and cold water taps. Above the sinks, he mounted modern glass mirrors as well.

The funny thing was he was actually able to find a picture display sign showing someone on the toilet using toilet paper to wipe and tossing it in the bowl and flushing the toilet with the tank handle! All Ben could think of was the sign had been made for backwater populations that are just being introduced to indoor plumbing on Earth.

It didn't matter to him because this was the perfect thing to finish off the bathrooms with and on the front and back of each stall door he mounted the illustration signs so that he would not have to go through the embarrassment of teaching his female employees and customers how to use the toilet and wipe themselves.

Both of the new bathrooms still had a small 6x6 unused area and after some thought, he placed two frosted glass shower stalls in each bathroom design. This way the employees could shower before or after work if they wanted and when he was in the city he would have a place to wash as well.

From what he had seen so far most people in the city only took baths in wood barrels that they sat in.

'The girls should love these showers. They no longer need to start a fire to heat water then drag it and dump it in the barrel. Just hop in turn the knobs and you get an instant hot shower.' Ben thought as he finalized the office and bathroom design and began constructing it.

From right to left there was now the door to the back storage room, a door to Baynard's office, a door to his office, a door for the men's room, a door for the women's room, and then a section of an unused area between the bathrooms and the outside wall.

This unused space past the bathrooms was soon made into a little break room. Ben bought a refrigerator and stove top oven and connected them to the power plant downstairs. He also chose to install a fire sprinkler over the stove. It would take the employees some time getting used to an electric stove and he did not want them burning down the store.

Ben built a simple looking picnic table, two long benches, and wooden countertop cupboards with storage under them. Next to the cupboards, Ben placed a wall mounted sink to wash dishes and retrieve cooking water. Underneath the sink was where he put the trash disposal unit connected to the Trash Incinerator in the basement.

The cupboards were filled with pots, pans, skillets, utensils, cups, and plates. He brought out various canned food and fresh food and filled the fridge and cabinets.

Now the employees had a place to eat their lunch in peace away from the customers and when he was in town he had a small kitchen to cook his meals.

After he had finished the break-room a question came to him.

'Do employees even get a break time in this city? I could see most owners making them work all day long. Well not me a happy content employee will be much more productive than one who dreads to go to their job.'

As the sun was almost set the store began to get dark. Ben stood there thinking for some time about what he should do. He wanted to put electric lights throughout the store but he worried that word would spread about them and he didn't want the king to come around asking him to put them in the Royal Palace.

He began to formulate a story that he happened to meet a high ranking magician on the road. When he helped him out by giving him spirit food to boost his spell training, the magician wanted to return the favor.

This magician could use light magic and he had a strange spell used to attach light directly to an item. That item was somehow linked to a switch so that his spell could be continuously be turned on and off. When the Mana eventually ran out on the spell it was up to Ben to inject more Mana into the switch to recharge the lights.

If anyone questioned him about being able to use Mana he could reluctantly cast a spell and show them he could also use magic and manipulate Mana so recharging them is an easy task.

'This should be a good enough story to tell. They would have to believe me if it wasn't magic what else could it be? They have no idea what electricity is so magic is the most plausible story.'

Ben had talked himself into it, but before he could hang any lights the store ceiling needed some changes. After searching through the ceiling tiles there was a nice decorative square tile with patterns on it that was crafted from polished copper.

When the whole ceiling was covered in the square patterned polished copper tiles it had an old world classy feel to it that Ben liked. With that out of the way, he needed to move fast before it was pitch black in the store.

Ben looked through small light fixtures and found a compact fancy crystal chandelier 2ft x 2ft x 2ft. He planned to split up the first floor into departments but for now, he would just connect all the chandeliers to one light switch by the front door.

Ben stopped momentarily to review his current notifications before deciding to continue his work.

[Notice] [Profession: Carpenter has increased. Carpenter Level 4.]

[Notice] [Profession: Furniture Maker has increased. Furniture Maker Level 3.]

'When I first got these professions I didn't think I would ever use them. They are already coming in handy and saving me money. They must have increased after building everything in the break room just now.'

Ben closed the notices and looked around the now lit up room to decide what to do next.