Cultivation Kill

Opening a shop sounds simple, but it's actually quite complicated. Shen Zige only has five people under him: Wright, Blain, Black, Nano, and Zhao Shi.

The specific tasks assigned in the initial stage are as follows:

Wright was in charge of handling the formalities at the government office. The formalities were easy to handle in this city; just throw spirit stones over, and they would take care of it for you. Each arena city was relatively independent in its management. Cities ranked lower were not as strictly managed as those ranked higher. Wright had heard that even theft was a crime in the top-ranked cities, but in the lower-ranked cities, as long as people were not caught on the spot, even if they went around to the victim again, the victim would have no recourse.

Nanmi and Zhao Shi were responsible for buying cardboard boxes to cut and make the "Cultivation Killer" identity cards. Of course, the cards only had text on them, as none of these people were good at drawing. Zhao Shi and Shen Zige came from the same place; he was an ordinary construction worker who was sent by his company to the west to build a stadium and was then brought to this sports city. Shen Zige's art skills were also average. Asking him to draw ten decks of cards for professional characters was out of the question; he didn't have time! He still needed to cultivate!

Blain and Black were in charge of renovating the house, which required manpower. Shen Zige then recruited five more people to help. Since the five newly recruited people did not speak the Common Language, their salaries were lower. The total salary of the five people was only equivalent to Wright's salary.

Shen Zige used to curse capitalists for being heartless, but he never expected that after coming here, he would become a heartless capitalist, even surpassing the heartless capitalist. One of the cruelest ways capitalists exploit workers is the piece-rate system, which was applied to him, and there were no rest days.

Shen Zige felt that working seven days a week was too harsh, so she decided to hire a few more people to take turns. Anyway, after the opening, each person would just look after the rooms and host the round table meeting about the cultivation and killing game. They wouldn't need to know the common language, since the customers were all time travelers!

After a busy week, Shen Zige's Immortal Cultivation Killing Experience Center opened for business!

The Qin sisters' translation company also opened at the same time. Of course, their company was already set up, and they were just waiting to cut the ribbon together with Shen Zige's cultivation and killing experience center.

After the ribbon-cutting ceremony, everyone went about their own business.

Shen Zige's Immortal Cultivation and Killing Experience Center consists of ten tiled houses side by side, with an open space in front. He erected a signboard on the open space, and the words "Immortal Cultivation and Killing Experience Center" were carved in three languages.

He obtained the identities of assassins, good guys, and neutrals in the cultivation game from the Star Realm Company's data center. It wasn't expensive; after all, so many people participate in the secret realm game, and many have different professions. You can get information by asking around; it just takes time.

The class/identity information will only be provided the first time you enter the dungeon. Players who have participated before are all experienced and know what skills each class has.

Shen Zige's cultivation secret realm differs from a true secret realm. Many professional skills are difficult to activate. For example, how can a merger propose to the host at the round table to merge with a certain participant? In a true secret realm, everyone moves around separately, but here there is no movement or dodging; it all relies on logical reasoning.

Despite its significant flaws, the Immortal Cultivation and Killing Experience Center is extremely popular. After all, being able to learn and train here in advance and become a master greatly increases the chances of survival in the real secret realm game later!

Who wouldn't want to survive?

On the first day, all ten cultivation rooms were fully booked, and many people were queuing outside waiting for someone ahead of them to log off. This reminded Shen Zige of the internet cafes of the past, where many people stood in the aisles waiting for others to log off. Of course, now every household has a computer, and internet cafes have become a sunset industry.

Nine people per room, one tael of silver per game. All ten rooms were full on the first day, and each room completed more than twenty games, with the highest number of games completed in one room being thirty!

Therefore, Shen Zige's income on the first day reached 1,800 taels of silver, which is 18 spirit stones. After deducting wages and the cost of items, she could still earn 1,600 taels of silver, which is 16 spirit stones.

"If I can earn sixteen spirit stones every day, that's four hundred and eighty spirit stones a month, and about enough to buy a storage bag in two months!" Shen Zige looked through the ledger after closing time. He told all his employees to leave and stayed up all night by himself. Since he hadn't rented an inn, he could just meditate and cultivate at the Immortal Cultivation Experience Center for one night.

The employees' wages were agreed to be paid every seven days. He didn't intend to continue down the path of a ruthless boss, so he wouldn't delay paying wages. After all, reputation was the most important thing. If he delayed or underpaid wages, his reputation would be ruined, and no one would want to work there in the future.

Shen Zige plans to wait until Wright and his colleagues develop the habit of not slacking off, then change the piece-rate wage to an hourly wage. This way, his employees will have weekends off, high salaries, and benefits. He will also transform from a heartless boss into a conscientious one!

"Speaking of benefits, we still need to rent a few rooms as employee dormitories and a canteen." Shen Zige closed the ledger and muttered to herself, "The toilets also need to be expanded, and we need to hire two more toll collectors."

We just opened today and were unprepared. Two customers got into an argument over a toilet stall. One of them couldn't win the argument, so he grabbed a handful of feces from the toilet and smeared it on the other customer's face. The scene became incredibly chaotic and almost resulted in a fatality.

Fortunately, Wright and his group had worked with Conler before and had some reputation in the city, which allowed them to intimidate the two customers. Wright suggested confiscating all the money from the two quarreling people and throwing them out of the Immortal Cultivation Experience Center. Shen Zige immediately rejected this idea. This kind of robbery would make it impossible for any customer to come here to play games in the future. They needed to protect their customers, be fair and just, and keep the company's reputation as the most important thing!

There's also the issue of toll collectors. Today, quite a few customers, relying on their strong physiques, were unwilling to pay or paid less. If Shen Zige had to intervene every time, how would he have time to cultivate?

In addition, there were some minor issues, such as some people forcibly entering the store to sell boxed lunches during mealtimes, ignoring the ongoing games; and others stealing items from the store when the host wasn't looking.

"I guess I'm just not cut out to be a boss." Shen Zige thought that if it were Shi Yuan, he wouldn't be so overwhelmed.

Shen Zige had never done business before, and the first time she did, she encountered unexpected difficulties. This was a process of learning from theory to practice.

On the third day after opening, the Wright and Blain brothers saw that the business was booming and approached Shen Zige again to make demands.

“This is the deputy captain of the city guard's eighth team,” Wright said, pointing to a red-haired man. “He said he would help you deal with the troublesome guests, so you should give him two spirit stones as payment every day.”

Shen Zige understood; this was an attempt to collect protection money. He knew Wright hadn't finished speaking, so he didn't reply for the time being.

"Also, my and Bryn's salaries need to be tripled, I know you can afford it." Wright, emboldened by the presence of the vice-captain, continued to make demands, "We'll limit our working hours to three hours a day."

Judging from the aura, Shen Zige determined that the red-haired vice-captain was at the fourth level of the Spirit Condensation Realm, which is the middle stage of the Spirit Condensation Realm.

Wright's original salary was five times that of others. If it were tripled, it would be fifteen times that of others. If his working hours were shortened, it would mean he would be earning more than forty times that of others. Shen Zige absolutely could not accept these terms; it was extortion!

"The three of you are expelled. As for the deputy captain's protection fee, I'll consider it." Shen Zige quickly decided to sow discord first.

“Brother Qin,” Wright said respectfully to the red-haired man, even though he looked older.

The red-haired man clearly didn't care about Wright and his two companions, and said indifferently, "As long as you agree to my conditions, I'll protect your territory. I'll send two of my men over to help you. Whether the other party is an ordinary person or a Spirit Condensation cultivator, I can help you handle it. Of course, if a Foundation Establishment expert comes to cause trouble, there's nothing I can do. There's another advantage to cooperating with me: the tax authorities won't come."

Shen Zige knew that the 1219 Arena City had nine areas, and each area's city guards had two captains, a captain and a deputy captain, both of whom were at the Spirit Condensation stage. If he wanted to do business in this area, he would really have to cooperate with them. If he fought with Deputy Captain Qin now, he probably wouldn't be able to do business with them in the future.

“Brother, if you don’t cooperate with me, Captain Zeng will charge twice as much as I do,” Red-haired Deputy Captain Qin reminded him.

"Okay, it's a pleasure to cooperate." Shen Zige shook hands with Deputy Captain Qin. He understood why it was said that businessmen needed to be patient and know how to compromise. People who only knew how to fight and kill could only survive in underground organizations.

"It's a pleasure to cooperate." Deputy Captain Qin shook hands with Shen Zige, ignoring Wright and the other two.