Chapter 149: Oppression-2.... 15 days of business struggles
For the first fifteen days, just like how Sam's trio faced the trouble inside the camp, his teammates are also having quite hard time inside the city.
They looked for the shops for three more days, but no amount of money is making them cut a successful deal. So, all they can do is go back to Nicholas.
"I am really sorry that you are going through this. I will talk to my father to look into it." Nicholas said to Watt.
Even he felt like the General Spark is going overboard. He is bending so many rules just to get back at a young man.
"Thanks." Watt didn't say much and they finished the deal.
After they looked at the small piece of land, Watt is thinking on how to deal with it.
"Let's go to the Artisan tower."
Philip said and four of them went to the tower.
Even though, it is difficult for them to find the high ranked Artisan, Watt was still remembered by the receptionist as Sam's subordinate of the Young Artisan. So, she immediately satisfied his requests.
There are two things they had to do.
"Watt, you communicate with Blue Flame city's Artisan tower and ask Chaya to send Mackey here. From the situation here, it would be hard for us to hire any employees. As him to bring his whole team here."
"Kelly, you communicate with a Rank-4 Architecture Artisan, I will go to Golden-Horse trading to see if we can arrange a faster transportation for Mackey and his followers."
Philip gave them some directions and went outside.
Right now, their main problem is not money at all. Sam gave them around thirty million spirit stones and they can afford to spend.
When Philip went outside, Kelly went to meet the tower head of the Artisan tower along with Watt.
Because, he is the only one who has permission to let others access the tower communication for another city.
They saw the Rank 5 badge on the middle-aged man's chest who is checking some material. He is a weapon artisan.
Yes, the tower head of this city is also a Rank 5. But what is the difference between him and Chaya? It is the number of stars. If you remember, in the beginning when Sam took the weapon Artisan exam his badge has nine stars below his rank.
These stars indicate the skill level. As an inferior city, Chaya's is a Rank 5 one star where this man is Rank 5 seven stars.
In the lower levels the stars won't make much difference, but as the rank grew the stars make a lot of difference.
"I heard that you are friends of Rank 5 Scholar Artisan Sam. May I know why you are here?"
He asked as soon as they entered the room.
"We would like to communicate with Blue flame Artisan tower."
"Why?"
"Well, this is the situation…"
Kelly went on explained the whole situation. When it was all done, the middle-aged man said.
"I heard about Artisan Sam from Chaya and from what I know, he has some keen interest in materials that are not popular. You know, we have a lot of space-jade in our tower. Do you guys know if he is interested?"
The middle-aged man said. From his words one could clearly tell he is trying to take advantage of the situation.
After all, the space jade is one of the least popular materials, but they still have to collect according to regulations of the Artisan tower. So, he can only find a way to get rid of them.
"Sure."
Watt immediately replied.
The middle-aged man laughed lightly and led them to the communication room.
When they are done there, both of them went back to hire an Architecture Artisan.
They took the man to their land and explained how they would like the construction.
Philip met them up there informing that they could get a Level 4 beasts for transporting Mackey and his employees, but the cost is a bit high.
The Fire wing eagles, except for Marquis' the rest are Peak of Level 3.
So, they can expect the journey to be done within a few days.
The Construction of the place went pretty smoothly. Nobody dared to make any moves on them as the work was under the Artisan tower.
So, even general has to think before he does something.
In a week, the construction was done and even Mackey and his team came.
When the construction was done, they went to the tower to settle down the bills, they bought all the space jade which was worth more than two million spirit stones.
And for Space Jade, it is quite large quantity.
But they have to decide on one more thing.
How to make it popular?
They have to make this place known and after thinking long and hard, Philip has only one idea and that is to attract them with the word 'Free'.
So, the four of them started gathering beast meat in morning and most of it was by hunting and at night, they started making fliers by hand.
For the next four days, they kept on distributing the fliers. Watt floated over the city as he gave one to every person he saw.
There is only thing on the flier.
"Free food made of Magical beast meat for three days." Along with location of their restaurant.
The word spread like wild fire in the city and they attracted a lot of people. Many people visited at first for curiosity and for confirmation if the info is right and they were not disappointed.
So, on the eleventh day, the grand opening of the restaurant was done in a majestic way. Hundreds of people came to taste the food.
When they tasted it; they were delighted.
Until the day thirteenth, Mackey and his staff were very busy and so were Watt, Jack, Kelly and Philip. The first three were hunting and buying meat from the hands of hunters directly in the woods.
Because, they were unable to buy any in the city.
Philip is busy managing the flow of customers. He even saw some candidates who came to test the waters and they were really worried after tasting the dishes. They are delicious.
The day fourteenth was their official opening for the business and many customers still came. They could feel the effects of the dishes immediately and many of them really liked the food and they even have a chance to exchange the food for the raw meat.
So, they were really excited to eat again.
"*Phew* This is the big day. I hope everything goes alright."
Philip said as he sighed. His palms are sweating. He is clearly nervous and serious. No one has seen him this serious before.
"I hope so too." Everyone has gone through a lot in these days. The constant rejection has almost made them lose their mind. They are cursing the general so much that if the words could kill, the general would definitely die a hundred times.
When the business started, they were clearly happy. Because, the flow of customers is quite high. By afternoon, they recovered all the expenses on buying the ingredients for the past three days of free food and by evening they were clearly satisfied.
Judging from the customers reaction, the business will be going quite well in the future and at this rate all their losses will be covered within a month.
So, the next day which is also the first fifteenth day, they opened the place quite hopefully.
But as soon as they started the business and the customer flow was at its peak, a problem came knocking.
A bunch of men came with menacing expressions.
"Who is in charge here?"
The leader who seemed to have a scar on his face asked.
Philip walked to them with a frown with Watt on his side and asked.
"What do you want?"
"Who gave you the permission to open a restaurant here?"
The man in the lead asked.
"The Duke." Philip said and took out a piece of paper with Duke's seal.
This is the permission exclusive for the candidates.
The man didn't even bother to take a look and just said.
"Whatever, you have to pay the protection fee, of you want to do any business here."
Philip frowned. But he asked.
"How much?"
"100,000. Per month."
Philip and Watt immediately became solemn. Because of the huge amount. It is not that they cannot afford it, but Philip has bad feeling that this might be another ploy from General. If the men really did work for General, they might use this money as leverage and make up a story for bribery.
Watt didn't stay here and immediately moved outside on Silver wind. He went to look for city guards.
Even though, they can fight off these guys, according to the rules, fighting in the city is prohibited and they need a valid reason if the fight broke out.
But if this is all a ploy, which has highest probability of being one, they didn't feel safe about taking action.
But Watt didn't find any city guards in the vicinity. The situation smelled more and more fishy.
When he went back to the restaurant, the situation already turned to worse.
The men who came in started destroying the tables because, Philip was thinking about how to deal with the situation.
Before he could retaliate, they already attacked randomly and started running away. This made them believe even more that this is a ploy.
Their business got disrupted and after another hour, when they started settling things, another wave of people came.
This time, they are prepared. Watt and Jack blocked their retreat while Philip attacked from the front.
Just as they were about to land an attack.
"Stop right there."
A middle-aged man immediately came. He is one of the supervisors of the Business side of the competition, he didn't even bother to ask, what is going on and said to Philip.
"You guys are trying to fight here, Minus 10 points."
"But Sir…" Philip tried to talk but was immediately cut off.
"I saw everything and I don���t want to listen to your explanation." The supervisor immediately left.
Philip, Jack and Kelly immediately felt dejected. They can now understand that they cannot do a proper business here. Only Watt is a bit normal, because Boss said that he would sort things out.