Chapter 78: New Game

How great would it be if Asmir fell in love with me at first sight? Okay, I can stop dreaming about it now.

Asmir was really generous with Hiro.

She didn't only give him a three-storey building consisting of a bar and rental rooms, she also expended her faith energy to give everyone a psychological cue, making them believe that this place had a long history in the stronghold.

This way, the re-opening of the business wouldn't seem abrupt in the eyes of the commoners and in turn, their masters among the high-class demons.

After entering the old building with a host of male and female servants, Hiro assigned them the menial tasks of cleaning up, stocking the storeroom, and checking the upper floors.

Hiro didn't know much about alcohol and beverages, so he made an order list to store anything popular.

Setting up the Passione Tavern finished after half a day of hard work. Toward the end, Hiro kept five decent-looking female demons with adequate self-defense qualities to work as waitresses.

Then, he retreated into the shop owner's office to work on the rules and menu items for the tavern.

As a stronghold ruled by law under the dictatorship of Asmir, such things were standard protocol.

Hiro jotted down simple rules such as no fighting, no sexual harassment, no instigation through taunts or gestures, no paying on credit, no sleeping in the bar after closing hours, no inflicting damage to the furniture and properties, etc.

Hiro then listed fair prices for drinks, lodging, and long-term rental contracts on a separate parchment, leaving a small note at the bottom corner that read "I buy information."

Although it seemed like an obvious bait and no one would open their mouths recklessly, Hiro was casting a long line to fish at the moment, so he didn't care.

Smart demons would approach him under the guise of renting or lodging for a night while their true purpose might be to sell information.

Some might be willing to pay for information.

Hiro wasn't anxious about his current mission to discover traitors in the Demon Tower, as he hoped to upgrade his {Espionage I} skill through the bar's revenue first.

Hiro leaned back into his chair and mumbled under his breath, "System, open a new job for me as a shop owner. Also, how many achievement points will I get for selling beverages and providing lodging services?"

[Notice: Currently analyzing the currency system in your environment, please wait patiently.]

Hiro wanted to ask if he could use gems to buy achievement points when he suddenly realized how stupid of an idea that would be.

It would be such a waste!

As Hiro's train of thought reached this point, he suddenly realized something else.

When the bar is crowded, wouldn't I be able to infer a lot of information if I were to scan for interpersonal missions? The mission briefing is more than enough to deduce a lot of vital data based on the difficulty level and the specific task details.

Hiro was also hesitant about which game to buy at the moment. With the 80% voucher in his hand, his budget allowed him to buy any game under 500 gems in price.

After giving it some thought and witnessing the strength Asmir displayed, Hiro understood that between Tier-4 and Tier-3 existed a massive gap.

However, Hiro also understood that the key factor was faith energy and laws, and no matter how broken the {Synchronization} feature was, it couldn't generate faith energy out of nowhere.

[Notice: If you complete a game you've purchased through gems, there's a slight possibility to obtain a minor realm fragment imbued with the attributes of the game you've completed.]

Hiro was stunned. "Are you trying to tempt me with that 'slight' possibility?! Aren't you simply hunkering after my gems?"

The system didn't respond this time. Although feeling a little uncomfortable, Hiro couldn't contain his eagerness for long.

After all, he saw how eager those great characters were to obtain the fragment from a minor realm.

However, Hiro wasn't stupid.

Finishing a game with a Tier-4 powerhouse as the final boss was one thing, but finishing off a game with a potential Tier-2 powerhouse as the final boss was something else altogether.

Even with the time dilation feature, it might take months or years in real time to complete such an endeavor.

After struggling with himself for a very long time, Hiro finally opened the system shop and filtered out all games above the 480 gems benchmark.

Then, he added an additional filter to remove immortal cultivation-related games, demonic themes-related games, and sorcery-related games from th list.

After thinking about it, he removed sci-fi and urban fantasy games because he felt that their world wasn't comprehensive enough to invoke novelty.

Hiro had to think about the long run for no reason other than his company's future prospects.

Even if the Paranormals decided to abandon the Old World and move out to the New World in full force, it wouldn't hurt to leave some foundation behind.

Such a massive source of faith energy couldn't be neglected. Taking in mind that most of the living creatures in his pocket dimension were magical beasts, Hiro settled for a game with mythical creatures in the lore.

After browsing for a few minutes, he found a game that cost 425 gems, which would be reduced to 85 gems after the 80% discount.

It was a game called Draconia.

The main game plot of the game revolved around dragons. As for the specific lore and storyline, Hiro had to first launch the game so he could understand it.

After confirming the purchase, Hiro let out a sigh of relief, though he felt a sting of pain in his heart as he watched his gems fall from 100 to a mere 15 gems.

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"It's okay," Hiro told himself. "I can complete three hard missions and I can round them up to thirty…"

After encouraging himself, Hiro prepared for the opening of the tavern in the following day.

As long as the system hadn't finished assessing the currency and designing a working plan for him, Hiro wasn't planning to open for business yet.

When the workers saw Hiro leaving the manager's office, they quickly greeted him.

"Greetings, Master!"

"Greetings, Master!"

…

As maids and servants, they would address Hiro as Master both in private and public settings, while the customers would simply address him as the "Shopkeeper" in the future.

Hiro nodded and said, "Keep up the good work."

Then, he activated the interpersonal missions and the treasure-scanning function consecutively.

All of them had missions of easy difficulty above their heads, and they didn't have any treasures on their bodies.

This usually meant that they were small characters so Hiro didn't give them a second glance.

"I'm going up to rest, you can return in three days for the opening," Hiro instructed.

He already inquired with the system, and it shouldn't take more than two days for the system to collect data on the interactions between demons in the stronghold.

However, Hiro decided to play it safe just in case.

The five maids hurriedly expressed their understanding before leaving the bar in a hurry.

Hiro sighed, feeling glad that the cosmetics would cancel out his love-at-first-sight charm.

Otherwise, he would suffer from a headache if Asmir kept assigning female demons to work for him.

…

After making the arrangements, Hiro went to the master bedroom on the third floor of the building. After a quick shower, he went to sleep.

Of course, he hoped he could enter his training space in the real world to enjoy the time-dilation benefits, but Hiro had this feeling that Asmir was definitely keeping an eye on him.

He could still remember their long conversation in that sealed space about the Unfathomables and his purpose in coming to the Demon Realm.

Most likely, Asmir decided to keep him around as a backup for herself in case this realm encountered a disaster in the future.

Hiro wasn't certain, but he had the feeling that Asmir was interested in joining the Unfathomables.

Hiro thought about it, but there was no way for him to collect faith energy from the demons.

Resigned, he decided to advance his Daoist character to Tier-4 standards and add immortal Qi elements to his pocket dimension as soon as possible.

Then, he could focus all his energy on Draconia. At any rate, he only needed time to accumulate enough spirit Qi for both his spiritual cultivation and physical cultivation.

After making up his mind, Hiro entered the {Simulation Space} and selected the new game from the library.

Then, he calmly watched the introductory cutscenes, immersed in the lore. seaʀᴄh thё NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

…

The rebellion of the myriad races brought an end to the reign of the Sacred Beasts, starting with the Dragons.

Although these high and mighty creatures were reclusive from worldly affairs, they couldn't escape the machinations of the greedy, ambitious creatures who occupied the majority of the food chain in the world.

It was too late to react when the disaster fell.