Chapter 168 – 100 SQ/M Clothing Store Building Abducted by Florida Man's UFO
The new parking lot building caught the attention of the workers. Teenagers gathered around it while Wu Buyi and the elders entered the building to explore.
As usual, they found another building with a massive space. They were no longer surprised.
"Again, the spatial distortion array," Wu Buyi shrugged and left the building.
Han Hao and Han Meng continued to explore the building. They reached the 8th floor, where Leo had parked his battle bus there.
"Oh, it's here. I guess this will be where Lord Florida Man keeps his flying ships. Well, what's on the next floor?" Han Hao saw the bus and proceeded to the rooftop. Han Meng also followed after his father.
Upon getting to the rooftop, they found a real-sized parking lot space and two ramps. As for Leo, he was no longer there.
"Slopes?" Han Meng inspected the south ramp and touched its surface. It was smooth and hard.
Han Hao also checked the west ramp. He crossed his arms in confusion.
"What are these for?"
"Who knows?"
"…"
These people never had a slider when they were young. Thus, they lacked imagination. As they lost interest, they leaped down from the building and returned to their duties.
A few minutes later, Leo came back from the junkyard, carrying two long logs. He placed it vertically, measuring if it could reach the top floor.
Unfortunately, it was too short.
"Bah. I guess I have to use another method. What to do…?"
Leo planned to extend the rooftop so that a stunt car could race on it. But since this project was complicated, Leo paused to think. He imagined steel rods, which were commonly used to weave a foundation of a mega project construction.
He looked at the iron pine log. Although it had strong durability and toughness, Leo wasn't confident that they could replace the modern steel rods. After all, they were vulnerable to fire.
"I have to upgrade the logs and wood somehow. But if I want to do that, I have to upgrade my alchemy workshops to enable more cauldrons. To upgrade those, I have to upgrade my store to level 10…"
Leo narrowed his eyes. He gazed at his general store building.
"No choice, eh? Oh, right. Didn't I have a new ability?"
Leo thought of his dao avatar's ability – The Domain of Genes. As it only affected hostile people, he could use it to replace the default mechanism of the store.
After making the decision, Leo entered the general store and warned the workers inside, who were resting on the third floor. He forced them to pack their belongings and wait in front of the store.
The confused teens and young men gathered their stuff and exited the building through the front door as requested. Then, they gathered in groups, waiting to see what Leo would do to the building.
After everybody had left, Leo didn't upgrade the building right away. Instead, he came out of the building and called the people to follow him to the parking lot.
The group proceeded to the sixth floor of the parking lot. Then, Leo opened his online shopping menu. He input keywords.
Recreational Vehicle, aka RV
DING
Vans, trucks, trailers, buses, coaches, and motorhome accessories showed up in Leo's menu. He sorted and filtered the list before he chose a brand new Mercedes Sprinter Camper Edition, which cost only 100 years of lifespan.
WHOOSH
A black luxurious van appeared in front of Leo. He smirked and touched it. As usual, he ordered his system in his mind.
'Upgrade it.'
DING
The upgrading fee was the same as its price tag. After upgrading it to level 9, Leo only spent 900 YOL, including the van.
The vehicle slightly transformed. Its paint reflected the light like a mirror, and Leo could see himself from the reflection. The tires and the van's width were slightly bigger. The black windows glittered as they absorbed the sunlight to generate Qi for the vehicle.
Leo slid open the van's door to check the interior.
Instead of seeing a compact camping van with luxurious seats, Leo found a specious 100 square meter room inside. It featured a kitchen, a refrigerator, a washing machine, two bathrooms, a living room, and two bedrooms. Every room was fully furnished. The flooring came with basic laminated wood, which looked easy to clean and maintain. Similar to Leo's bus, the driver's cockpit was separated from the living area.
Leo hopped inside. Although he was inside a van, he no longer needed to crouch as the ceiling was 2.5 meters high. He checked the bedrooms next.
Instead of finding a foldable bed, Leo found a bunk bed for two, two desks, and two closets. The room was as big as a studio room apartment. Leo checked the other room and saw the same interior. He was satisfied.
"Four people? Okay, that will work."
Leo got out of the van. Upon getting out, the crowd gazed at him in anticipation.
"I'm reallocating everybody's residents. You will no longer stay in my shopping mall anymore. Instead, I'll let you live in these vehicles that I'm about to build! Well, first… I need to park this thing properly."
Leo got back to the van and parked it at the north edge of the building.
"Group up into a team of four!"
The young disciples looked at each other and began forming teams. It didn't take long for hundreds of youngsters to form groups.
Leo picked the nearest group of four and pointed at the van.
"This is your new home. Take your belongings in there and choose your room. Also, you are responsible for your own rooms and van. If it gets dirty, it's on you!"
The four chosen youngsters were excited. They brought their belongings into the camping RV to see the inside. Upon seeing the interior, they weren't disappointed.
"Wow."
"Holy…"
Leo frowned at their reaction. He remembered something. Walking back into the van, Leo pulled the car's key. He stared hard at it while he ordered his cancer cells.
'Duplicate this thing for me. Use the metal Qi or whatsoever.'
Leo's transparent blood seeped out from his fingertip. When it touched the air and Qi, it turned black and grew bigger. In the blink of an eye, it transformed into a black water slime.
The slime enveloped the car key for a moment. It slowly split into three and separated from the original. Then, they transformed, duplicating the key's size and shape.
Just like that, Leo got three additional keys for these guys. He tossed one to each resident.
"Don't lose it. That's the key to your home. Also, if any moron tries to drive the car without permission and crashes something, I'll deduct your lifespan for the repair cost. Comprende?!"
The four teenagers repeatedly nodded and sweated profusely. They stored their keys in their spatial rings.
After entrusting the keys to the new residents, Leo repeated the process. He purchased another RV, picking the same brand.
.
.
In the end, Leo purchased a hundred RVs and parked them on the seventh floor. As Leo left a lot of room for other cars to navigate through this floor to the lower and higher levels, it was 80% full. Although there were rooms to squeeze more vans in, Leo left some empty areas for the boys for creativity.
All homeless employees got their new home. Leo could upgrade the store without implicating the bystanders.
Going back to the general store, Leo visited the third floor, where the employees used to stay there. As Leo had expected, the floor and the partitioned rooms were full of dirt and footprints. It needed a heavy cleaning.
Leo shrugged and visited the second floor next. He collected all sports cars into his spatial rings. Then, he touched the floor.
"Upgrade Menu."
DING
<Would you like to upgrade the Humble General Store to Level 10?>
<Warning! Upgrading your Humble General Store to level 10 will unlock the PVP feature and disable your newbie protection domain. Once upgraded, you cannot decrease its level!>
<Warning! Upgrading your Humble General Store to level 10 will activate Fate Crystal's Main Quests. Please strengthen your base before you start the main quests.>
"Stop whining. Do it!"
DING
<Upgrading!>
RUMBLE
The entire shopping mall trembled. Sounds of glass breaking echoed while the entire building transformed once again.
The store gained two new floors while it maintained its interior and spaces. New sets of escalators and a new elevator appeared, allowing shoppers to walk freely in the mall. From the second level to the fifth level, the majority of the floor vanished, transforming the interior floors into balcony floors.
Compensating for the lost usage space, each partitioned room in the mall got bigger. They looked small from the outside. But when Leo looked closer, each room was about 1,000 square meters, which was quite sizable for a store.
After the trembling stopped, the system prompted him with a new message.
DING
<Your Humble General Store has reached the maximum level. To upgrade it further, please evolve the building into a "Shopping Mall" by using the store domain menu.>
<Main Quest has been unlocked. A new quest menu can be accessed via the store domain menu.>
<Your Newbie Protection has expired. The store building will no longer be protected by the absolute defense domain. If the Humble General Store building is destroyed, your store domain will be deleted.>
<PVP Mode has been unlocked. You may access this menu via the store domain menu.>
<Shop Merging Feature has been unlocked. You can now move your store buildings into the Humble General Store.>
<New Construction Options!>
"…"
A lot of information flooded Leo's mind. He slowly digested it one by one.
First, Leo wanted to refute the system as this place was no longer a "Humble" general store. It should be called empty-mall-level backrooms.
As the system gave him a new thing to do, Leo tested it right away. He opened the store domain menu to see the new features.
New tabs appeared in the shop domain menu – Merge, PVP, and Quests.
Leo pressed on it.
DING
<Please select the building you wish to merge with your Humble General Store.>
In the menu, the screen highlighted the clothing store and alchemy workshops in green.
Experimenting with it, Leo pressed on the clothing store building.
DING
<Please designate the room you wish for the Clothing Store Level 9 to occupy.>
Leo didn't think much. He picked an empty room on the first floor.
WHOOSH
The clothing store building instantly vanished. The workers in the store, including the cat-eared mannequin, remained behind. They looked around in confusion as the entire building was gone.
WHOOSH
All items and clothes that the mannequin made appeared in the designated room. The interior changed into what the clothing store once had. Moreover, all the clothes and display mannequins sorted themselves, gathering on the new shelves and cloth hangers in the room.
Leo walked toward the new clothing store in his mall to check. As the store was in the mall, no front door or wall existed anymore. Only a long display window separated this place from the adjacent rooms.
Curious about what the mannequin had made, Leo checked the products. He noticed several sets of black suits, neckties, long pants, leather shoes, evening dresses, t-shirts, and random clothes that Leo had shown to the mannequin girl. Roughly counting, Leo believed she had at least 2,000 clothes for sale.
TAKTAKTAK
The clothing store mannequin sprinted into the shopping mall. She found Leo and stopped on her track. Then, she saluted.
"Oh, you're here."
"…"
The mannequin seemed to be in a good mood. She rushed into the new clothing store and inspected the interior.
A few seconds later, the girls, who worked at the clothing store, followed their boss to the mall. When they found the mannequin, they were relieved.
"There you are… Eh? L-Lord Florida Man?"
The girls bowed to Leo, "G-Greetings, senior! Er… Right! W-We have something to report! T-The clothing store has disappeared, sir! The whole building vanishes!"
Leo grinned. As the girls seemed confused, Leo explained everything to them.
"It's fine. Actually, there will be a big change. A lot of changes…"
