Since it was Syl’s rune, she naturally had a share. However, she shook her head. "Think of it as our payment to stay here."
They were given a luxury bedroom to stay in indefinitely. She had seen that other customers paid well. How could they not give anything?
Finn stared at her and gently patted her head. "But this is your home, too, what rent?"
He wanted to say what’s mine is yours but he was afraid that was too frank.
Unexpectedly, Syl smiled at him. "What’s mine is yours," she said, and he couldn’t help but chuckle, replying the same. He couldn’t help but lean down to give her a kiss.
Ah, so happy~
...
Leiah and the others left about an hour later, their backpacks filled with snacks and sauces and the like. They bought a lot of the roasted spiced nuts, too. They were super convenient and delicious!
"Leez’s products should be out in the market soon, so you wouldn’t have to buy from here."
"I’m sure the ones you make yourself are especially delicious, though."
The rest of the staff did their jobs, and Syl and Athie also joined in as staff. Cute Athie was very smart, just that this little genius was a major introvert, and his definition of fun was reading.
Fortunately, Finn bought a few scrolls for reading in Town when he was there.
Not for him, he was never the reader, but he wanted to place a few in the living room, like how magazines were placed on coffee tables back on Earth.
Of course, the books here were never simply for leisure simply because producing them was expensive.
The moment he added Syl as a staff member, she immediately received [Advanced Runemaking] as a skill, even when the Rune Workshop wasn’t available yet. It was not a surprise, but it still made them feel good. She could at least absorb the information while they waited for the workshop to appear.
As for why this was (in contrast with the others, who had to wait until the associated building type became available), he reckoned it was because she already knew quite a lot about the subject, so the system simply handed the inheritance to her.
She could even have [Advanced Alchemy] as well, and so did Athie, though he did not pressure them to make things.
As staff, he only set a doable quote, and the rest would be up to them. In all cases, a portion of the earnings outside the quotas would go to them, which would be a reward for working extra hard.
Seeing their attributes, Finn smiled. He might just get to the required output to activate the rune workshop sooner than he thought.
Soon, both shops would finally have items to sell, and what a wonderful thing!
...
Everyone, including Finn, continued with shifts while dealing with customers. The three-hour rule was the same. This job was just especially tiring, even when there was no trouble.
After all, this was basically forcing people to socialize for an entire three hours straight at a time. Their smiles could get frozen that way!
Well, anyway, most seemed better behaved after Finn’s (and the Fortified-Blessed staff’s) arrival.
It was also better because the strong people had gone to the extension as well, so the heavy tensions were limited. He did advise them that it was much smaller than this place, so he recommended they not go at the same time.
He knew the activity there was wild, though. He knew this because he had been receiving a lot of [-1 Defense Points] for more than an hour now. Hopefully, they didn’t get too hurt.
He also hoped they wouldn’t damage his garden.
It would be great to upgrade the inn soon to activate the clinic. Considering it was a system building, he had a feeling it’d function even without people, and that was exactly what the inn and the extension needed.
Anyway, he focused on absorbing the cores for now as well as making more and more recipes, specifically using the ingredients he found in level 2.
His schedule, since he didn’t bother with barrier hunting with awakened stage monsters, was that he’d absorb cores before late afternoon, after which he’d start practicing his cooking. The products of that would be essence food that people could purchase with points.
Because he was experimenting, he barely repeated the menu, which made people passionately gather points so they didn’t miss a day. They found that just collecting toughened cores (which could be exchanged for points) was far more lucrative, which in turn, increased Finn’s mountain of toughened level cores
He poured all of his toughened cores—which were quite a lot—onto the core pool in his room that surrounded his sister. It was getting bigger for sure, and after he placed a few toughened cores, the rate of absorption was even faster.
As he sat and began the absorption process, the small mountain of cores gleamed in beautiful lighting. One had to know that activating so many at a time was impossible for most. For Finn, he literally just had to sit and start meditating.
He looked at the egg next to him. He had a little measuring method of wrapping soft and smooth fabric around it and marking where it was according to the date. If it grew, the location of the fabric would adjust upwards, and after so many weeks, it had grown.
While the stones lit around them, he gently patted its surface. He wondered how long it’d take for him to see his sister.
Would she be in bird form?
He imagined she was like those fluffy snow birds from Japan. Very cute.
He was also amazed with how open-minded he got. Even if she turned out to be a lizard or a snake, he’d totally still spoil her, right?
Shaking his head in amusement, he focused on his own absorption again.
It took about three hours to absorb 10 toughened cores. If people outside knew this, they would gape and maybe prostrate to ask for blessings.