Jen rented a store with retail space in the front and a living area/warehouse in the back. “I really like this store,” Sam said as he stocked the shelves with the different low-level charms he had created.

Apparently, almost no land in Casino City was privately owned. Jen learned that the Arc Guild owned its guild house and had their own transfer pad within their courtyard. However, most guilds had to rent property and the city never sold land with transfer pads anymore. Which explained why the Acid Guild had to run out of its guild hall to surround the transfer pad for their Deck Dropper.

Sam and Jen had also learned from conversations with Director Devon, that the healing charms would be in high demand at 20 copper each, and they were warned to take precautions from someone trying to buy them all up and resell them.

“I know you are on your ‘Jen the saint’ character build, but I still think 20 copper a piece is too cheap,” said Sam.

Jen huffed at Sam and said, “For the hundredth time, a typical farmer makes 25 copper a day. At most, we could sell them for 50 copper each, but then they would resent us when buying them, and for what? The coppers are not why we are opening the store. We are opening the store to get people to bring in their enchantments for you to fix and decrypt, and so I can gather intel about the Decks from as many people as possible. Before you say another word, yes, I am glad that we get a chance to help some of the poor people in this city.”

“You’re right Boss, I’ll try not to be a whiny little bitch anymore today.”

Jen quipped with a laugh, “You mean, whiny OLD boomer.”

Sam took his deserved ridicule as he continued to work and asked Jen, “Did you get a chance to ask Tamako what she thought about the magical gambling contracts I purchased from that scrivener’s office?”

Sam had purchased magical contracts that said he would look to fix or recharge enchantments, and if he could not fix the enchantment, he would return the item without charge for his services. The contract also forbade him from copying and selling the enchantment to anyone else. If he was able to fix the enchantment, they were required to pay him for his services. Once signed, the magical contract would disappear. If the contract was breached, the breaching party would lose half of their ability points back to the System.

Jen kept cleaning the front window display cases and said, “Oh yeah, I took one of the contracts to dinner last night and Tamako said it looked good to her, and it was fairly standard for the type of work you will be doing. However, because of the lack of enchanters on this Deck, she didn’t really know if you needed it because people really don’t have the option to go anywhere else.”

Sam liked the idea of a contract, and he wasn’t worried about signing it because after repairing the enchantments and learning how they worked, his Enchantment app would always strip the enchantment of useless or misleading runes, and then he would re-encrypt a new more efficient and better enchantment.

Less than a month after arriving in the First Deck, they opened their store for business. They were only open three days a week to keep the majority of their time focused on training. The first few days were a little slow, but when word got around about enchanted charms for 20 copper each, they had a line down the street.

They created three lines for customers, one line was only for those that wanted to purchase healing charms, and they had to use the charm in the store before they left. A second line was for anyone that wanted one of the other charms, and the customers could buy as many of the non-healing charms as they wanted. The third line was usually empty, but it was for customers that wanted enchantments fixed.

The blazing heat from the sun was causing everyone to get cranky inside the store when a system message appeared:

Casino City Block-Wide Notice

The Greater the Risk, the Greater the Reward!

==

Gambling Quest: Start a riot in the Enchantments and Charm store

==

Select your Fortune:

A. Accept and start a riot within 20 minutes that causes the destruction or theft of all the merchandise in the store, receive 1x the ability points you gamble and euphoria. Minimum bet 2, Maximum bet 4. Odds of death 40%

B. Decline Quest and continue your life as a risk-avoiding weakling!

==

Sam Selected “B,” and the quest was declined.

==

A scrawny, fidgety man sweating in line complained loudly, “It’s too hot in here! They should give us the charms for free to cool us down! They’re not even from our city!”

Their store contained the same posted warnings about gambler activity as all the others, but it was obvious the man accepted the gamble. Unfortunately, he was getting some grumbling agreements from other patrons. Before the man could say another inciting word, Sam jumped over the counter with such quickness and speed, the scrawny gambler didn’t even realize what was happening until he felt the strike of a wooden baton against his leg. The man screamed as he fell to the ground. Sam didn’t utter a sound as he quietly beat the man black and blue with the baton. He didn’t hit the man’s face or break any of his bones, but the man screamed and screamed as Sam continued to relentlessly drag and beat him out of the store. Jen could hear Sam continue to beat the gambler out in the road. She looked nervously at the customers, but was surprised when she heard their response.

“Stupid gambler shouldn’t have tried to start shit!” said an older man.

“He’s lucky Master Sam didn’t simply kill him,” said another.

“Did you see how fast he jumped over the counter. I bet no other lazy gamblers will try messing with their store again!” said a farmer.

“Next!” Jen called out to get the customers attention back onto store business.

When Sam returned to the store, he received a System Message.

==

A gambler has failed his quest against property you own, and you stopped him. The system has received 1 ability point, and you have received 1 ability point in luck from the unlucky gambler.

==

After they closed the store at the end of the day, Jen commented, “I think you beat that poor gambler too much. You could have easily drug him outside after you hit him the first time.”

Sam had expected Jen to comment on his actions, and said “I know you are going to disagree with my reasoning, but he had to be made an example of. I made sure not to break any of his bones or hit him in the face. However, I admit that I did try to get him to scream by inflicting as much pain as possible.”

“That’s just horrible!” replied Jen.

“I know, but if we didn’t make an example of him, there would be other gamblers testing our resolve, and we might have to kill them.”

“Protecting our store is one thing, but beating a man unnecessarily is just torture, and that’s bullshit! What do you think Kelly would say if she saw what you did!” retorted Jen.

Thinking of Kelly’s reaction was like a punch in his gut, utterly tearing down his arguments for beating the gambler. Sam looked down at the floor as he replied with the sadness and guilt of what he knew Kelly would think, “You’re right. Kelly wouldn’t even want to look at me. I just….I screwed up. It was wrong and I will do my best to discuss things with you first in the future before taking any action.”

“Well…you better!” Jen said before storming off to her room.

“Misery is the source of innovation Kelly,” Sam said to her memory while working. Sam was in a depression of guilt as he fabricated a small box that held both his cold enchantment charm and his breeze enchanted charm. He upgraded the material he was using for the charms to hardened steel he purchased from a blacksmith.

Two days after the incident with the gambler, he finished and placed these enchanted boxes around the store, their living area, and even their warehouse, creating the first air conditioning system in the First Deck.

Sam explained to Jen, “We will burn through about 16 charms every three days just cooling the store and home. I can make each charm in about 10 minutes at my current level of dexterity and agility, so it shouldn’t be a problem to maintain them.” as he placed two of his AC boxes right at the entrance of the door so people could feel the blast of cool air when they walked in.

“Worth it! Those are great!” Jen replied with an overly positive attitude, trying to release the tension from their argument.

While the store was open, Jen used her psych ability on each customer who came in, practicing and testing her ability to read their stats, emotions, and increasing her eavesdrop skill, all while helping customers with purchases.

The customers already knew what and how much they wanted to purchase by the time they were finally able to get to the front of the line, but they would want to linger because of the relaxing and cool AC in their store.

Jen tried to rush them through their purchase unless they were talkative about the Decks or other enchantments they had used or seen. Sam primarily handled the healing customers. He could sell them the healing charm and monitor their use, while using his multi focus to literally craft charms behind the counter at the same time.

After three weeks of running the store and making adjustments to how it operated, Jen said, “Meet Long Bi and his wife Ji Bi. I have hired them to sell the charms and administer the healing charms.”

The store had performed so well, they had agreed to hire someone to do the grunt work. “Nice to meet you!” said Sam.

He knew Jen would have used her psych skill and found the perfect employees.

Jen then pointed at two children that looked to be between 12 and 14, and said, “Their kids will keep the line orderly, and to speed up the purchases, they will describe the charms to the customers while they wait in line.”

A few days later Sam changed the operating hours to 5 days a week, and said “Great job, Jen. You really know how to hire good employees. I’m surprised that Long and his family learned how to manage the store so quickly.”

Jen replied, “We’ve been neglecting our skills growth while getting the store up and running. The stats we know we can grow through training are strength, agility, stamina, and stamina regen. We aren’t growing at the 12x rate like back on Earth, but we know we can grow them without earning ability points or experience points from The System. Get ready, because unless there is an emergency, we are going to push our limits on these stats first thing every morning.” With that statement, she sent a training schedule over to Sam’s onboard.

Sam groaned inwardly as he thought he was past this type of training at his age, but he knew Jen’s plan was needed if they were going to get Kelly back.

A few days later, sweating and tired, Sam said, “You were right, Jen,” as he was wheezing for air.

Jen looked at Sam indignantly as she lifted her hands up in the air behind her head, trying to get her breath back and said, “Of course I was right. We just gained 2 ability points in strength, stamina, stamina regen, and 1 point in agility. That’s like gaining 3 and ½ levels. The odd thing about the Decks is that experience points can get you levels and ability points right away, but when gaining ability points through training, it won’t increase your experience points for a level gain, but those ability points that will grow your power.

It surprised Jen and Sam to learn how little interest there was by people in transferring to higher decks. The farmers were mostly content with being left alone to run their farms. There was so much of the First Deck that still hadn’t been explored, the adventurers in the guilds didn’t see any reason to transfer to a higher Deck. Especially since Deck Jumpers were drained of all their mana, and they couldn’t take any of their hard-earned gear when being teleported naked.

The only reasonably safe way to transfer up a Deck was to be part of a guild that would protect the Deck Jumper when they arrived. However, even then, the jumper was naked and had nothing to offer or any method to increase the power of the guild. New jumpers ended up being a lacky for one of the stronger guild members for many years until they could eventually acquire enough power to contribute to the guild.

The only other option was to take an unprotected transfer pad out in the wilderness, but that almost always meant certain death at the hands of gamblers or wild beasts in the Deck you jumped to, just like those transferred from Earth.

After learning more about Deck Jumping, they didn’t want to join a guild to teleport up, and they especially didn’t want to tell anyone their secret about taking gear inside of dead animal party members.