As it was Qiu Yue’s precious pet project, she made sure that Jin listened to all the nonsense that she rambled out. (After all, she had to listen to his for the other parts of the meeting.)
“Alright, alright. Fire away. I like to know what you had in store for us.” Jin surrendered and got to hear what she what to say.
“Before I carry on, I like to clarify on a few things on the record. From the past visions of this city, you eventually want Pand-Atlantis as a place for the cultivators to stay, right? Or do you wish to change to something similar to a hotel style kind of feel? Because, at this point, I can still make some amendments to suit your goals.” Qiu Yue inquired as she liked to know whether would Jin regret his decision. But ultimately, the Empire Building Sub System User did not want all her and the monsters’ work to go to waste.
“I am not entirely sure, to be honest. Initially, I wanted people to have a place to stay, especially for those who felt that the housing prices are too painful to afford. But when you mentioned hotel getaways, I feel that the scenario was entirely possible as well.” Jin said, but Qiu Yue punched him at his arm.
“Make up your mind! That answer you gave is too wishy washy!” Qiu Yue pouted as she hated this part of Jin badly. He always wanted to have a compromise between solutions while that kind of attitude worked for several cases of his, it was not entirely the best way to work in life.
Sometimes, Jin have to choose a side and now was one of the few times. With the remaining budget and time left before the opening of the city, his decision was critical in deciding how Glass Dome 1 works. The forceful reminder by Qiu Yue did eventually shook Jin a little.
For once, Jin quietly sat down and stared at the hologram layout of Glass Dome 1. He did mention that he wanted to create this as a place for the cultivators to stay. But there were other thoughts in his mind too.
After all, this was a city in the Dungeon World, and it was also his chance to possibly make it famous. How so? If King Baal’s army did invade Jin’s Dungeon City Fortress, news would spread like wildfire how the almighty King Baal suffered a crushing defeat.
After the sounding victory, Jin could send out a call of arms to both monsters and adventurers. This potentially leads to an influx of immigrants hoping to join his city that defended against King Baal.
Given this world’s taste for blood and war through dungeons, the inhabitants would love to fight against the infamous King Baal army and make a name for themselves.
And since only Glass Dome 1 would be the first to be available after the opening of the Dungeon City Fortress, he could take ‘preorders’ from wealthy adventurers and monsters to build their houses in Glass Dome 2. With a series of empty land plots all around, it provided space for other monsters with various sizes too.
But that was just one particular scenario in his head which he loved to achieve. If the first battle was a failure or if Jin could not attract the Dungeon World’s inhabitants to his city, he would then had to rely on the cultivators in his shop to buy the apartments or at the very least rent them. With such a dilemma, he decided to pour it out for Qiu Yue and Moloch to hear and asked for their opinion.
“Oh? I did not expect you to think about the adventurers and monsters in their world. I always assumed that you will only cater this Dungeon City Fortress of yours for your cultivators.” Moloch responded with an interested look in his face.
“I can only assure you that what you said was more or less accurate. Cities with reputation do indeed attract adventurers and monsters of all sorts.”
“Mmm, Actually I beg to differ.” Qiu Yue raised her objection without hesitation. “I will suggest you stick to the plan where you provide the city to the cultivators and treat the adventurers and monsters as the tourists.”
“Why? Aren’t we building a city in the dungeon world? Wouldn’t it be natural for those adventurers and monsters to enter?” Jin asked.
“System prefer Qiu Yue’s plan too. While adventurers will go for raids too, they are a source of inconsistent amount of income. Monsters might be a cheap addition to the city defences, but System and the Dungeon Core had to pay them for their services.” The System spoke out its opinion for once.
“Not just that. People tend to fear change instead of embracing it. The technology we utilised, the creativity we put into this place. Only cultivators with the assumption that this is some sort of dungeon instance would appreciate it.” Qiu Yue explained.
“The adventurers also have an inherent bias against Dungeon Cities because they always assumed they are ruled by monsters. And monsters are their livelihood to live and survive. If you do not remember, Moloch said that only a fraction of adventurers would be willing to stay in dungeon cities.”
“Unfortunately, I did say that.” Moloch smiled weakly.
“And like the System had said, monsters who settle here need to be paid. We have enough on our plate, and I solely need an accountant to run our money properly despite the fact that we have a System.”
“…Because our cash flows go in and out too quickly?” Jin asked, feeling a little guilty.
“Heh, glad you know. The System can calculate but cannot predict our windfall, our potential assets, and most importantly, we do not have any investments. All of these building…of great wonders, we rely our expenses on trading in the black market and our store-“
“We have the Tree Mall now, we can increase the number of tenants to-“
“Not the point! You are charging them cheaply that if not for the 3% commission of the net sales that I had written in the contract, you would only be receiving peanuts from them. But what I want to say is that if we only have someone that can play the stock markets and have multiple connections with other businesses, we could be better off.” Qiu Yue said, and suddenly a thought struck on her and so did Jin.
“Mr Know-It-All? I saw him playing stock markets on his phone a number of times and judging from the way he analysed battles, I think he could be a good addition to our team.” Qiu Yue suggested, and Jin was in a lurch.
“System, can you create an NPC that plays the stock market? Or maybe Kraft to do it?” Jin requested and totally ignored Qiu Yue.
“Hello? Why did you suddenly change the subject? Is there something wrong with Mr Know-It-All?’ Qiu Yue questioned, but Jin gave a half-ass response saying that it would be better to have the System to create an NPC which we can fully trust since investments involved with boatloads of money.
“But you roped me in? I am a stranger who did not know anything until I was exposed to the System, and it taught me things? How about that Amura Rei? He is even more of a total stranger to us!” Qiu Yue said and saw Jin’s face filled with dilemma again. She then stopped arguing and took a breath in.
“Fine, get an NPC from the System and made us owe it an abyss worth of debt.” Qiu Yue said with a bit of spite.
