Chapter 2023: Rebuilding Central Warehouse
Before Jin could settle to do other things for the Kingdom, he needed to take care of the food and water problem, or else his people would starve. Thankfully right now, he has quite a fair bit of metal resources from Portal 2 and 3, allowing him to do something that could aid with the food situation.
"I assume that you are putting all these food in the biggest warehouse storage?" Jin questioned and the merchants shook their heads.
"They are placed all over the city for easier access to the warehouse, besides there is no central warehouse which is not far from here and is mostly occupied with the nobles' items and collections." The merchants replied and Jin thought about it for a while.
"Also, most of the current items that had been salvaged were also being transported to the central warehouse because of the sudden influx of resources. We have yet to create a plan or schedule to distribute these resources to their respective guilds or stores."
"I also assumed not a lot of the meat had been transported yet?" Jin asked and most of them nodded their heads, indicating that the salvagers had backlogs due to the previous monsters from Portal 2 and 3. Some were already working overtime and Jin was glad that he provoked the gangsters who seemed to be in charge of the slums.
If it worked out, the salvagers might have more people at hand to aid with their jobs in the coming days.
At the same time, it reminded him of the use of currency. How copper, silver, and gold might be limited pieces now that they are not circulated throughout Atopia's kingdoms. It made him remember that there was a need for a new currency, a currency that could tide through the people that were stuck in here, or else the value intended for certain items would rise sky high. Continue the saga at m v l e mpyr
Either that, he removed currency entirely and went with aiding one another but humans are selfish and would desire something of value instead.
"One of you, show me the warehouse. The others, tell the salvagers to deliver all the food items to the central warehouse instead. You, yes, the one with the sinister goatee, go get the Merchant Guildmaster to the Central Warehouse. I am not taking no for an answer." Jin said and the merchants reluctantly agreed to his orders.
They were not the kind who would take orders but the situation was different now that they were powerless in an isolated kingdom.
----
When the merchants were walking on the street with Jin, various people were commenting about who that person was in that unusual shirt and shorts attire. It was something which they had never seen before.
Only the more astute people would have realised that it was the King and they never saw a noble or King to be so unkempt in their appearances, unlike the Merchants who were dressed in their pricy robes while they kept him accompanied to the Central Warehouse.
And it was because those merchants that were with him were somewhat high level, that the guards at the Central Warehouse were able to let them enter without prior permission or approval. Yet when Jin saw the contents of the warehouse, he felt like destroying everything inside.
"Wow, that's a lot of useless shit," Jin said as he saw all the collection of art, statues, and weird ornaments that the nobles had been saving in this particular warehouse. The merchants felt a slight intent for murder and Jin relaxed. "Sigh, I am not saying art has no value, it's just that we are at war with demons and humans. There is no way these art items will give any aid that we need."
It was pretty obvious that Jin wanted all these private collections to be removed and for now, the only space he could think of was... "Just put them somewhere else, or throw them in the castle's jail or something," Jin exclaimed and the merchants were shaking their heads.
"...We, we will take them..." The merchants said that they knew the intrinsic value of the art pieces and Jin knew that they were going for the long game.
"Sure, you can take them, but sign this contract first," Jin said as he used the System Hologram as a magical tablet and showed it to them. The merchants were surprised to see that a holographic piece of paper was right in front of them but more shocked by the conditions and details that Jin had.
To Jin who was a businessman, already remembered most of the clauses that the System had always used against greedy people and that was why he was able to formulate and get this static system to create the contract for him so quickly.
The merchants looked at the contract and were a little reluctant to sign, stating that the terms were somewhat against them. "The storage and eventual sales of the art pieces, not to mention the current situation that we are in... I do not think it will be worth that much money..." The merchants said and Jin tilted his head in curiosity.
"Hmm? Are you sure? Then we should just throw and chuck them in the dungeon cells beneath the castle. Why are you still going to hang onto them, if you cannot accept these terms and conditions." Jin knew that with time, the prices of these art pieces would go up if they sold them secretly through black market sources. That is assuming there is a way to go out in the first place.
It might look like it's hard to do that but Jin could easily open a hole for the merchants to get out. However, he did not want outside people to know inside people can get out. He wants to maintain the impression that the shield is to isolate the people outside as well as inside.
"We...will accept those terms and conditions then."
"Very good. Do remember that the penalty for this would be extremely high if you break the rules." Jin said as he instructed them that all they needed to do was to prick their hand a little to get some blood onto the holographic contract.
Soon, it magically turned into a physical form and even duplicated itself to the few merchants that were around him. "Alright, then get all this junk out okay?" Jin said as he asked them where all the salvaged materials from portals 1,2 and 3 were. They eventually pointed to him and he told them to get all the art stuff to be out of the place.
"System, I like to smith out a building, how many floors can I build with this amount of stones?" Jin asked as he stared at the fairly staggering amount but the System did not respond at all. "Damn it, now I am starting to miss the old System." Jin cursed a little before taking out Mr Hammer.
"What are you being serious? You want to smith out an entire building?" Mr Hammer questioned and Jin nodded his head. "I am using this Central Warehouse as the base of the building so it should not cost as much materials as I derived it to be...
I think?" Jin said as he started to possess all the stones and rock that had been meticulously mined from those portals with his Maqi and started hammering onto the building.
Eventually, the pattern came out and Jin silted out all the thoughts in his mind as he only had one thing that he wanted to forge out.
A tall ass building that was capable of holding not just items but also convenient for people to take things in and out, Jin wants this building to have huge elevators, air conditioning, clean rooms, restricted rooms, and basements that were capable to hold reservoirs of water.
All of these were to ensure that he was able to cater to the subsequent portals that he was about to pump out. But what Jin knew was that there was no way the improvised smithing would be able to get such a terrific building. At the very least, a few stories high would be sufficient for current usage. Only when he has more than enough material, he will build a new one.
That was why, he was trying to cheat by inserting Maqi into the materials, hoping that it would be sufficient to create another floor or two.
Not to mention, with every hammer hit he made, Jin was sure to insert as much Maqi as he could output, hoping that it would make a difference for the end product. But what he did not know was that the sequence seemed to be different from making the saw cutter or the Blooded Mana Sword which he smithed out previously.
The process felt longer than usual. Minutes turned to hours and soon it was mid day and he was still hammering on to it. Soon, Jin also realised that the hammering interval was random as there were times it was slow, at times it was fast and all he did was act like a fool knocking on the warehouse's wall.
Still, Gara daringly approached the King and asked for instructions considering how Jin had previously ordered the merchants to bring the raw meat into this warehouse instead. Jin was able to multitask as he ordered them to use the ice mages to keep the meat fresh for a while longer.
That was when he realised he could continue doing this hammering while giving orders to the ministers as well. That was where he started to learn the current food status of the place, the state of the military, and how the guilds were ruling most of Ress' economy rather than individuals.
It was a good and bad thing for the last portion as there was more organisation to Ress than Jin had thought but it also meant that there were restrictions to people who could not join because they did not meet the sufficient requirements. That was why Jin suggested to Topharm to create a Freelancer Guild to allow the slums to start working and putting in the effort for the kingdom as well.
In return for their services, food will be given as a reward.
All of these meetings were happening as Jin continued to bam and slam the Central Warehouse Wall until late evening, the Discarded King finally saw the last Red prompt which he had remembered seeing after reaching the end of Improvised Smithing.