The next days inside of the pavilion were unusually calm. No new people wanted to meet Yui or dared to make a ruckus, while she was also in a somber, depressed mood.

Part of it had to do with her exhaustion and feeling as if her whole body had been thrown around and battered by invisible hands after she used way more spiritual energy than she should have.

The other part was related to Tora's reminder that she had just used up most of their gathered energy of the last few days and they had to get a lot more again before they could continue to improve the Earthly Treasures Pavilion's services again.

Throwing around spiritual energy willy-nilly, if you didn't know how to control it properly, was not just a burden for the body, but also extremely inefficient.

Like a leaking waterpipe, Yui barely directed her powers and used up way more than would have been necessary if she had actually controlled the output of spiritual power properly.

At least the forge and other crafting areas, like an alchemy workstation progressed as they had planned, not requiring a lot of additional energy to set up.

What Yui called a forge area, was more like a general craft related area now to work with not just metals but also wood, leather and other materials, while the alchemy workstation included tools for enchantment.

They already had a third area planned for talismans and other artwork that required various papers and brushes, but it was still just an idea and had not been built yet.

"Tora, I don't think we should sell access to our crafting areas." Yui said one day looking at the newly finished alchemy workstation.

"Hmm, why is that?" her sister asked, being the lazy type, it sounded like the perfect idea after all. No work to do while still earning something. She didn't even bother giving it much thought so far.

"You see, unlike our other locations these workstations have a limited amount of, we could call it slots, where people can work at. It will quickly get crowded."

Looking at the size of the crafting areas, probably 5 to 10 people could work in each area, but 10 would already have to squeeze in and be bothering each other. They were all concentrated in a single 'wing' of the pavilion.

The big gate with the entrance was one side of the hexagon and the second was now occupied by the crafting wing, that split up into various specialized rooms.

Expanding space in a normal dimension was a lot harder than expanding a completely separate pocket plane, like they used for their resource locations, as such Yui did not want to cause too much of a drain by endlessly expanding their workstations either.

"I think it would be more worthwhile for us, to use the area we have as good as we can and sell the products made here for a premium. Making special items that cannot be found anywhere else will be sold for a high price."

"Ah that sounds like trouble! I'm only making items for Miyuki." exclaimed Tora, annoyed by even the idea that she had to work.

Giving her an amused grin, by now Yui knew of Tora's habits well enough to no longer become surprised by her sister's words.

"I always wondered. Why can you change the land and mines and forests and even grow plants in a short time, but you never simple create the finished resources outright. Wouldn't that be easier?"

Tora shook her head. "You can't do it that way, it's not a natural process, it won't work for spiritual treasures. You can't directly influence spirit treasures with spirit power, it interferes with their growth and composition."

"All you can do is make a suitable environment to speed up their growth and give them a little push. I could create some normal minerals for you if you want though, but if you look at the amount of power I have to spend, on outright creating something bigger, it is a lot higher than creating environments."

"The Earthly Treasures Pavilion is in the end an artifact, specialized to create various places for treasures. It is the most efficient when using it for these tasks. For small other things it's fine, but on a larger scale we are more efficient to buy them elsewhere or hire help to make them. The same applies to gathering the treasures. If I use too much power to gather them, it might influence the quality of the treasures."

"Right right, you're busy with the pavilion. We should hire some people who have some idea of the basics and who can focus on such tasks. I have way too many other things to worry about right now to really become good at any of the crafting professions anyways."

Yui did not want to mention that her attempts at creating quality goods all ended in disappointment and a lot of laughter from her sister.

Miyuki even asked what the finished products were supposed to be, unable to recognize the strange shapes and forms that looked like especially artistic modern art sculptures.

"We should also hire some more people to help with administrative tasks. It would be nice to have someone to run an auction or some people to scout for locations for branch offices or something. Ryoma could help with assigning people and giving them tasks. I don't really want him to get bullied by you to gather resources every night."

It was not rare for Yui to have these little brainstorming talks with Tora. Many of their projects came up during these times, with Yui throwing out idea after idea and Tora ruthlessly shooting down most of them that seemed like too much effort for her.

"It's not like I ask him to go out every evening. I guess he just feels like he has to do something, men here would see it as odd if they just stay at home looking after the kid. The idea of men and their role in a family is more traditional than in your old world, but I'm sure if you ask him to spend the night with you instead, he won't go out."

Tora had fun again teasing her sister as usual, but even though Yui was already used to it, she would still blush every time.

-

Yui walked over to the board near the marketplace, commonly used for various requests. From groups hiring members for some exploration or hunt, to item requests, all kinds of private announcements could be found here.

She added her own request to the others before heading off to do some shopping of her own. While they had various means to create things with Tora's help, she liked to take a look at other shops and what they would come up with. It never hurt to be aware of their competition and the market situation after all.

-

It did not take long for her actions to make people curious. The Earthly Treasures Pavilion was no longer a hidden secret. By now the shop was somewhat of a sensation and most people in the capital knew about it.

Yui as the one who acted as shopkeeper most of the time and the owner and face of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion, was rather well known among the population.

"Look look, it's a job offer from the Earthly Treasures Pavilion!"

"You mean they are looking for people? Who are they looking for exactly?"

"I can read it for you … but the gist of it is, they are looking for people who have experience with collecting minerals and mining, logging, herblore, farming and some for hunting beasts. They are also hiring craftsmen of at least journeyman rank, as well as alchemists, enchanters and spirit scribes of at least apprentice rank."

"If they have their own craftsmen and people gathering resources, will they close their gathering locations for outsiders?"

"Not mentioned here, I have no idea. That would be rather bad for a lot of people. Now that I think about it, I'm rather surprised how reliant some professions have become on this Earthly Treasures Pavilion and their places to harvest stuff in such a short time. Who would want to go back to their old spots and make much less in a much longer time with way higher risk?"

"Wait, did you just say farming or did I hear that wrong?"

"Nah farming is written here, can't tell you more than that."

"Well, it does take a different skillset than gathering or growing spirit herbs for sure, even if it is related to herbalism, I do wonder what the outcome of this will be though."

-

Meanwhile Yui bought some groceries and then hired some merchants who planned to leave for other areas to check for some suitable cities to start branches.

Most of this was still beyond their current means, but collecting information early was always a good idea, especially as travel crossing borders would take a lot longer here. No airplanes or trains existed after all, just carriages drawn by various animals and beasts.

Happy having achieved all the tasks she had planned for today, Yui was on her way back when she heard a few people talking.

"… yes seven villages near the border were already destroyed. Those people will likely have a really hard time with all their homes and fields gone."

"At least most of them could keep their lives. Running away is still better than getting killed and eaten by the beasts."

"Well, what did you expect. With Yuzena Empire being all expansion happy these days, most of the troops are stationed in the north, no one worries about the deep forests in the west really. Tanawa isn't a real threat as the beasts in those forests are way more likely to invade than any army they could field."

"Yeah, it's not like I don't know about it. Just makes me uncomfortable that all our soldiers are along the northern border when the people living near the west are being treated as necessary sacrifices without protection."

'A beast tide in the west? An expansion happy empire in the north? There are obviously many things going on I should inform myself about.'

Yui gave the topics some thought, thinking about ways how to help the people affected and how to turn this to something positive for both the Earthly Treasures Pavilion as well as the population.

'So many things to do!'

-

The next day Yui had prepared a lot of changes. After several days without anything really going on, she was excited for new things happening in their shop. Most of the time, she would just sell talismans and then wait around on her own for a long time.

Whenever something new was added it brought some excitement and it was the same feeling on this day as well.

A new crystal display was now there, offering two more tickets.

[Crop Farm Ticket | Limited Edition] – 10 Silver coins.

Enables the user to enter the Crop Farm for eight hours.

[Spirit Crop Farm Ticket] – 100 Spirit shards.

Enables the user to enter the Spirit Crop Farm for eight hours.

With many people struggling to survive in some areas of the kingdom and imports of large quantities of goods from other lands becoming a logistic nightmare, having a steady supply of food was not an easy task.

With a mostly temperate climate in the region, while the winters would not be too harsh, it was not warm enough to grow crops around the year. Summer had long passed, and winter was quickly approaching.

All the crops would have already been harvested and sold, even though it might influence a few people who were trading these crops, she did not worry too much about it. Being able to give people access to fields in the middle of winter for a reasonable price might not help the pavilion a lot, but it would make it a lot easier for many people to keep themselves fed and alive.

They could easily just remove the offer once it was time for regular crops to grow again and with the prices set at a level that wasn't too low either, merchants would not find themselves in a situation where they had no chance to compete as long as they did not jack up the prices in an unreasonable way.

Obviously, spirit crops were a totally different thing. As luxury goods, Yui did not worry about keeping their high prices or standards.

"Ha, this looks great, our shop slowly fills up!"

Ryoma was standing next to Yui and inspected the new display.

"Yes, looks decent. What should we do with all the applicants? Who should we pick?"

His question made Yui turn her attention away from the display for the first time.

"Uh, just pick people that seem nice and have the right skills, I guess? I thought that is your decision. Go give it a try, if it doesn't work well, pay them what we owe them and find someone else?"

"Very well, then I will do my best to select some people who seem trustworthy and have the right skills. We should be able to start producing some items soon."

"Sounds good. Have them start with things that can heal or protect. Tora can make really high-quality things, but I don't want to have to rely on Tora for every simple injury and we can't be involved with every single street brawl."

"You mean, we give them to our workers?" Ryoma was surprised by Yui's way of handling things.

"Yes, we start with the hunting teams, as they are likely going to face the most danger. Make sure they all have healing pills or elixirs on them and some protective enchantments. Then stockpile additional healing pills until we have a certain amount that will last us some time, before moving on to other alchemical pills."

"Same for the protective items, once the hunting teams people have one each, make one for each person. That will be our gifts to them if they stick around and finish their training period or whatever you want to call it. If they decide to leave before that time, they have to return them."

Ryoma nodded, before he wanted to leave.

"Oh right, Ryoma, also make sure that they don't provoke people or cause trouble with our name. We will cover for them if someone is being unreasonable, no matter who it is, but we won't defend someone if they break the law or think they can be asshats just because they think no one can touch them."

"I will make sure they are aware of that. Don't forget about taking a break for lunch today." he smiled at the thought of someone messing with their people or treat them unfairly.

"Uh, thanks Ryoma. I will see you later."

Turning back to the task at hand, she placed another display case, putting it next to the mine display, which had now been renamed to just [Spirit Mine], as it was no longer specific for spirit copper after all.

[Depths of the Star Mountain] - 50 First Tier Cores, 5 Second Tier Cores or 50 Spirit Stones

Enables the user to explore the Depths of the Star Mountain, an area rich in second tier metals of all kinds.

Happy with its location, she moved on to look for another nice place and put a slightly different colored display case down.

Instead of the typical black and red colors, this one was best described as rainbow colored. With many different hues and a playful design.

[Yui's Dungeon of Many Things] – Free Entrance 1 / week

Rewards depending on skill & luck. Limited to people of Qi Condensation Stage or lower.

With a smirk, Yui was now looking forward to all the customers and her first guinea pi … serious adventurers to test her dungeon.