Chapter 655: Tavern
The next morning.
The new tavern is not open yet. They have yet to make themselves familiar with the place and surroundings and Sam is also making some modifications to the place.
The whole tavern is made of a special stone, that has a glossy black look. He decided to modify it a bit and since he also had the earth element, he can use it for practice.
But he might need some extra stone. So, he sent his team out to familiarize himself with the place and buy the required things.
That day, an attendant came to the tavern and took Sam to show the fields and other properties to him.
Sam was really surprised by this. Turns out, the largest field in the whole town belongs to Veer. It is almost one-third of the total agricultural land.
But what surprised him, even more, is that there is not enough manpower to cultivate the field completely.
In fact, half of the minotaurs yesterday are working in Veer's field as they worked to finish the harvest. Sam was surprised a bit, he can think of many ways to work with minimal manpower, since they have spiritual energy and elemental control, they can easily cultivate the land.
But then only Sam realized one thing, the problem is not initial tilling or watering, the problem is maintaining the field, controlling pests, and harvesting properly without causing damage.
The attendant went on explaining the troubles they are facing due to the excessive and direct use of spiritual energy.
The pests.
Just like how every other creature and plant are evolved with spiritual energy and so are the pests.
The fields generally do attract the pests and if the people involved used too much spiritual energy and the crops have too much direct contact with the external spiritual energy other than the spiritual energy from the earth, then they have a higher chance of infesting with pests.
The maintenance time and manpower to control pests are too much, so they wouldn't cultivate the excessive land. Rather they just made sure that they have enough.
This is the irony of the two races, Minotaur doesn't have enough land and is dying for more while dwarves have excessive land and couldn't find the time and people to cultivate them. This is something new.
Sam thought of this a bit and felt like he could make some business opportunities in here.
He checked all the properties of Veer. Apart from the fields, there is a small grove of fruit trees, a small pasture for some normal-sized livestock that is breeding some pigs, and a small pen with some chicken-type beasts.
Sam looked at all this and sighed.
He went back to the tavern to see his team is not there yet and reviewed the required documents. Since the land owned by Veer is private, he doesn't have to give away half of the wheat without any cost. He only has to pay tax with one-fourth of the harvest and of the remaining, he has to sell half to the Dwarven council.
The rest can be sold, or stored, or used for barter, that is all on him. Currently, there is a harvest going on and Sam has to take care of this.
After a while, his friends came and brought the required things, the stone was easily available, it only took some meat to get a large block of it.
They went to talk with the regular meat suppliers and fruit suppliers of Veer. They are not exactly willing to conduct business with Sam. Anyway, Veer only did business with them to support local products, so there is no need for him to worry. He has his own groves and livestock inside his dimension.
After getting ready, he first talked to Philip. Philip has been learning production techniques and mechanical engineering techniques along with inscription and formation techniques that could be fused with the production and forging. The time Sam left and the past year, he focused solely on mechanical engineering and production. His metal control and fire control made it easier for him and he caught up pretty fast.
Sam is going to give him a task.
"Create a harvesting machine. Use wind energy to your advantage and most of the working principles would be based on basic wind elemental technique. They don't even need to be attacking techniques and use the mechanisms to your advantage.
The machine should be in such a way that, the hay and grain must be separated and coming out after the machine is passed."
Sam explained and gave out some sketches of small harvesters from the modern world. Philip has some talent in mechanisms, so he knew he would be able to figure it out if he was guided in a proper direction.
After that, Watt was sent to harvest the fields with others. He was tasked to use his card techniques to complete the harvest faster but not a single grain should be destroyed which is actually the reason no one dares to use wind elemental energy to harvest as the slightest disturbance would cause the grains to be destroyed.
Chatur was tasked to create a pond with water circulating from the stream. He wouldn't have any tools, even the digging has to be done using his water control to make the stream move fast enough to remove the soil off the ground. They are using an uncultivated field from veer's land and use it to rear fish.
Arman and Jack are tasked to go to the grove for harvest. They have to harvest the fruit without touching them at all and not a single scar should be left on branches.
After that, they are going to go into the forest to explore.
After giving tasks to everyone, Sam went on to deal with his own tasks.
First, he cut the stone into the pieces he wanted and started placing them in various spots on the shop floor.
Then he placed his hand on the block as he used earth elemental energy to merge the block with the floor and also manipulate the shape so it would turn into a circular table standing with a single stem connecting the middle of the table to the floor.
All the merged into a single entity.
Even the stools around the table are made in the same way. This glossy stone is extremely good looking and it is hard enough to carry some weights, so it would be a pity to not use it to increase the looks of the store.
He changed the countertop and now he went back to the room and installed something. A liquor pipeline.
He installed various large barrels with pipelines going through the wall and taps on the front side. Now he can get whatever wine is from the counter and give it away.
He started arranging an open kitchen right beside the bar counter. Since the pipeline comes from the backroom, apart from the space for glasses and jugs there is no need for much room, so he can use an open kitchen to make the dishes for the customers.
Sam wants to try a new method of training in this place and this is one of those things.
But in his mind, he is also thinking that once this trip is over, he will bring one of Mackey's teams to this place and also create a proper brewery with the ape personally creating the recipes. This place depends solely on food. If he can capture the market, he will be able to get a good source of income.
The next day, the tavern was made a grand opening. There is one large signboard hanging on the door with words Sam's Pub.
And there are two more wooden planks hung on the pillar outside. One of them stating two things. Spirit stones are accepted and Self-service.
The second Plank is something different.
Free service for today due to opening.
The second Plank attracted the attention of the dwarves more than the first two.
Since it is free and it is a pub, they can only think of one thing, free wine.
Some of the dwarves and even humans came in.
Sam welcomed the first group and asked something.
"What element do you use?"
This is the first question, Sam asked and this stumped them. But one of the dwarves answered anyway.
"Fire."
Sam nodded and went to the taps. There are numerous taps. In fact, the whole wall was full of them. He opened one of the taps and filled the crystal bamboo jug.
He placed it on the counter and passed it to him, before saying.
"Please take a seat, your side dish will be up in a few seconds."
With that, he waved his hands and two shadows appeared. One of them is a yaksha and another one is a Naga.
The customers were startled for a bit, but Sam calmed them down.
"Don't worry, they are my shadows. Please give your elemental usage and cultivation level, they will give the appropriate wine to you and the side dishes will be up in no time."
With that, Sam went to the open kitchen on the side and started the stove before cooking. He took some beast meat, that has fire element and started stir-frying it with some herbal powder.
While doing so, he is controlling the energy in such a way that the energy of the meat will not disperse. He is practicing energy control in such a way.
He learned from Mackey how difficult it is to maintain the energy of the meat and food within in, particularly when they are of a different elements. But Sam has almost all the basic elements, except for the wood element. So, he figured he could use this method to increase the control so that his fusion attacks and ripple and void styles will be fine-tuned.
And this he decided to opt for cooking. Even though he couldn't cook for the whole day, he decided to cook for four hours a day. Two hours in the morning and two in the evening.
But he didn't know that the impact of his side dishes and wine combination will spread so much.
The dwarves who are having the wine are astounded. Because the wine is helping them as much as the high-grade wheat.
Even though they could get a little tipsy and couldn't handle it if they took it in large quantities, they are definitely shocked.
Sam who didn't predict this effect on the dwarves, didn't know that the word spread like crazy all over the town. He closed the service on the first day and he felt the business would be better the next day. But he just didn't expect how better it would be.