That said, that forge was not as big as he thought, and it’d definitely be occupied nearly every time. How would he make all the pottery and utensil requirements? Should he have bought them in the Town? But they were too fragile to travel with for so long...
But then his eyes met with Micc’s, who flinched when he suddenly grabbed his shoulders. "B-Boss?"
"Earth magic!"
"What?"
Finn wanted to slap himself for not thinking about it earlier. Didn’t he have a pottery cheat right here in the form of an earth mage?!
He pointed at one of the blank lots next to the blacksmith workshop. "Let’s build a manual pottery kiln here. Pottery, tiles, and whatever earthenware we need, we can make them here !"
Finn’s sparkling amber eyes stared at Micc. "How much do you know about pottery?"
"...er..."
None?
"It doesn’t matter, you’ll learn," Finn shrugged. Pottery using his earth magic could also count as training!
It would be a waste not to maximize this. The cellar could be expanded, apparently at least to the entire footprint of the building above. He had also wanted to expand the cold and fermentation areas.
They could further maximize the space using shelves as well. He really wanted—no, needed —bigger vats! He didn’t want to be stingy with his alcohol again!
He was planning on upgrading these later, and he wanted as much alcohol, sauces, and everything to be placed there for stock! To do that, he needed a lot of containers!
Anyway, back to the kiln, they could make more tiles to serve as pathways outside of the territory, so people could find his inn faster and easier.
Granted, they’d need to add a lot of fibers or whatever reinforcement so they wouldn’t crack so easily, but that’d be Micc’s problem~
Micc: "..."
"But...but my earth products can’t hold form for too long."
Finn nodded. "Exactly why we’re using a kiln, right?
"Don’t you want to see it? The things you made, which usually could not last a few hours, last years instead?"
...
Since it was manual construction, the kiln could wait until he finished up the other buildings. It wouldn’t do if a customer suddenly arrived and new buildings popped up in an instant.
[Purchased! Canteen! -500 Gold, -2000 Hearth Points]
Next to be built was the Canteen, which he placed across the workshop area, across the plaza. As always, his staff excitedly followed after him, watching everything be built up from the ground up.
"I will never get tired of this."
"How convenient. What else can we build?"
"Not much anymore," Finn said. "I’ve already spent most of my wealth by now, and I got a lot of money from the guild."
At this, the staff members looked at each other with determined eyes. This meant the innkeeper just needed more money!
"We’ll be sure to get more customers and get them to spend more money!"
"YEAH!"
"YEAHHH!"
Finn’s lips twitched. "..."
Well, at least they were passionate.
...
The canteen, like the workshop, followed the aesthetics of the inn. It also had two floors, but the second floor was more of a mezzanine area wherein a third of the floor was open below. It was more like an interior balcony, with eating tables on it.
The majority of the floor areas were seating areas. There were one or two for larger groups, but the rest were tables for four and for twos.
There was a kitchen, but it was not big. The counter took up more of the staff-only area. After all, this was designed to be automatic, and the kitchen was probably just there for added meals and for convenience.
He opened the [Room] and saw that he could set 3 main meals, 2 sides, and 1 drink. As long as the raw materials were available in the connected storage, the canteen would produce them according to request and the recipe, the trigger of which was the customers’ payment.
Curious, he decided to set up one of the side dishes to the common spiced and mashed thornroot. He composed the recipe to the grams and the liters, which also allowed him to control the servings.
He just had to set the price, which was also in gold, so he had to take note of making a set rather than individual dishes to avoid exploiting the customers too much.
[Please set the utensils]
"Oh."
He told his staff what he was seeing and someone quickly took a wooden plate made by Ranran. They also placed the raw materials in the storage room.
From here, they learned that the customer simply had to place the gold on the space indicated on the counter, which was a special colored marble. After payment, the food would appear after a couple of seconds of ’production’. He and the staff took their spoons and tested the food.
"It’s delicious. Master’s is much better, but this is still very delicious."
"Indeed."
Finn nodded, tasting as well.
The canteen could only produce non-essence food, at least for now, even if the recipe was the same as what he did. Still, it was still delicious and, most importantly, convenient.
He then asked Tumble to make about a hundred segmented plates. It was the type of plate that could properly separate 1 main dish, as well as its side dishes and starters, without mixing them.
Like the blacksmith workshop, the canteen also had its own store room, though a bit smaller. However, he could set it to connect with the cellar instead, which was what he’d do, because the shelf life of food in the cellar was far longer than that of others, and it was also for the convenience of the staff members.
He should probably use this as the breakfast add-on for the rooms, and use his essence food kitchen as premium dining. The place was huge and could accommodate hundreds at a time now, considering the camping area. He didn’t want to cook like he did the last time, that was too much of a hassle.
Finally, he built the last workshop available to him at his level.
[Purchased! Alchemy Shop! -1000 Gold, -5000 Hearth Points]
[System detected that Staff #5 Haorus Leshon can be given a Staff Occupation.]
[Would you like to grant Intermediate Alchemy for 800 Hearth Points?]
[System detected that Staff #0 Finn Solthar can be given a Staff Occupation.]
[Would you like to grant Intermediate Alchemy for 800 Hearth Points?]
He blinked. "Holy shi—"