?On the morning of Emma and Lyra's departure to the institute, 6 humans and 3 beasts gathered outside Heeran's Love.
Ning, Hadden, Laila, and Rova were there to see Emma away. Juna, who was on her way to her job, had agreed to take the young girl to the institute.
Ning had wanted to do so himself, but Emma had protested. This was her journey, so she wanted to take the first step by herself.
Lyra had been okay with leaving all until the point they had to. She was still ready to go, but she cried next to her mother after it only set on her how long she would be away.
"Listen to sister Emma and all will be well," Umbra told her daughter. "If you miss me, just let her know and I will come."
Lory stood by the site, not particularly emotional about his twin sister leaving for long. He was more excited about what he was promised after she would be gone.
Battles in the Arena
"I'll see you guys later."
Emma waved goodbye and walked away with Lyra and Juna.
With them gone, everyone returned to their task. Lady Laila went to prepare the lunch for the day, Hadden returned to rest after all the beatings he had gotten this morning, and Ning returned to the open space behind the house where he had been making more weapons to sell.
He had reached the Essence Manifestation realm with 3 of his cores in the past half a month, so his overall improvement in the quality of the weapons he could make had been massive as well.
As such, Ning was making more and more weapons and armor, and sometimes even trinkets to replace what he made while he was weaker just a month ago.
He hadn't yet replaced everything he made as some of them didn't need replacing. Others he never put on a shelf as there was not enough space.
He wished the space was larger. He even wanted to make it so, but he would need a bit more Essence than just this for that.
He was halfway through making a silver bow when Rova walked to the back.
It had been 3 days since the girl had taken up her job as the sales staff of the shop, and as of yet, she had made no sale. Ning didn't tell her anything about it just yet, as she was still getting used to the shop.
He noticed her arrival, but he didn't stop. The girl didn't speak either and waited for Ning to finish. Once the silver bow was made completely, Ning put it into his storage and looked toward her.
"Why have you abandoned the shop?" he asked her.
"Hadden is watching for the moment," the girl said. "I thought of something, boss"
Ning looked at her and saw that she was waiting for him to say something. "Continue."
"I think I know why we're not selling anything," she said.
Ning watched her eyes wide with glee as if she truly had discovered something he had missed. "What?" he asked.
"We don't sell anything, because nobody knows who we are," she said as a matter of fact.
Ning didn't know how to react to such an obvious statement. He nodded slowly. "I know," he said. "We tried pamphlets for a few days to advertise the shop, but it didn't work."
"No, no, no!" the girl quickly said, moving her hands in a gesture of disapproval as if swiping away flies. "Not fliers or pamphlets. People don't like advertising, especially when it is done to their face. You need to be more subtle in the way you advertise something."
Ning was a little interested. "Go on."
The girl lifted a finger. "What do we sell?" she asked.
"Weapons, armor, converted artifacts," Ning answered, waiting for where she was going with this.
She raised another finger in her other hand. "And who do we sell it to?" she asked.
"Our target customer…" Ning thought. "Anyone that wants to arm or defend themselves. Mostly Essence experts."
"Yes," the girl said. "But more importantly, it's someone who wants to fight, or expects to be in one."
Ning nodded.
She touched those two fingers. "So if we want to advertise our items, we need to do it to these people specifically."
That made sense to Ning. The last time Ning had sold something, it had been in a world with Qi where everyone who was anyone wanted to buy artifacts from him.
Even when he made hundreds of thousands of them, he would be missing out on thrice that number of customers. As a result, he never had to worry about what to sell or who to sell it to.
If he made it, they bought it. Some even requested something to be made. As a result, he hadn't managed to figure out how to sell his artifacts in the few days he had opened his shop.
"What do you suggest?" he asked her.
"I suggest we go to a place where we can fight all three things," she said. "A place with fighters, a place with artifacts, and a place with people to advertise to."
Ning had an idea of what she was talking about, and before she could even say it, he responded.
"The Arena?" he asked her.
The girl nodded fervently, her hair bobbing up and down.
"We advertise to the people in the arena?" he asked as much as he talked to himself. "Do you use fliers again? But you said that wouldn't work."
"No, not fliers," the girl said. "We need to be subtle, remember. So, instead of giving out the , we just have to keep it there for them to see. We… we should hire some fighters to take our weapons and have them fight in the arena."
"When they win they can—"
Ning stopped her before she could finish. "Brilliant idea," he said with a wide grin. "But we don't need to hire fighters. I alone am enough."
The silver bow flew back out into his hand.
"It's been a while since I properly fought in a battle."
