The custom building used for commercial purposes was especially interesting, primarily because of the inherent flexibility she could use it with.
Except for the requirement that a unit must have at least one room to be used as a residence (a limitation to her custom building), everything else would be entirely up to them. They could choose whether to use a floor, or the whole building, or even just a room, for business.
In fact, she had already seen something , where they chose to designate a single room adjacent to the street. People would just go to this 'take out window' and go on their way.
Everything was all done very easily too. One option was for the citizens to just go to the building they hoped to use (assuming it was unowned) and the window for rental or purchase will appear.
The advantage of settling in the village center was the distribution map was visible, as well as the option to do minor customizations (for a small cost, of course).
Anyway, none of these considerations were heard by the other people. They were chattering about their experiences before reaching the territory. It took about half an hour of leisure walking, until they finally reached the center of the village.
The Village Center was about 5 meters in height and had similar style to the residential buildings.
It was surrounded by a large open space with sparse trees. Behind it was a simpler building, and similarly large in area.
They saw there were also a few more people heading inside, and the group followed them in.
Unlike the houses that had a homely feel to it, the design of the Village Center was a bit more sophisticated. There were cornices and accent walls, there were moldings that lined the edges and corners.
It had an open plan and high ceilings, and there was a huge chandelier-like feature in the middle, made of Youli stone and some other shiny/reflective stones they managed to get in small quantities.
There was no electricity but there was a 'skylight' above that transmitted lighting—whether it was the sun or the two moons—to the fixture, making it glow.
At night, a torch could be safely lit in these areas, as the youli stone was fire retardant and would not get burned.
If she could find good oil, she could also extend the lighting hours of these torches, which would allow for some degree of nightlife in the territory.
But all these were things for the future, not today.
Back to the Village Center, the group continued to study the new building type.
On the floor there was no counter, only elevated marble surfaces that occupied a third of the space. As well as panels about the size of a door lined up facing opposite each other.
The marble surfaces were 1 meter diameter white surfaces at the height of cocktail tables equidistant to each other. While the panels were of the same material but were standing upright.
A few of the surfaces were already occupied by people. "There're updates! New windows had opened! They buy 1 unit of wood for 5 copper!" One of the people from before yelled as he stood in front of one of the tables. "How much could we earn a day?"
"Let's try it out then!"
"What if we cut trees? How much wood would that give?"
This made Althea frown, forgetting about this issue.
Althea then made a mental note to publicize one of her rules: cutting trees in her territory is forbidden unless expressly allowed by the territory.
Also, when cutting trees outside, they shall also plant at least 3 seedlings in replacement.
Although Terran had somewhat recovered a bit from the destruction of nature of their predecessors, the damage had been done and too much had been lost.
As a plant enthusiast, she was determined for sustainable development.
More people sold some twigs and plants and others. Some were accepted, some were not. Someone even tried to sell a random item from the space, it was a wrapper.
His stance was hopeful, but his shoulder slumped a moment later. "Aw, not accepted. Only a sufficient amount of wood, stone, and plants were accepted."
Someone tried to sell a random fruit peel and fruit cores. "Got accepted! I only earned 0.3 copper."
"Why do you have that?"
"I was afraid the smell of what I ate would attract monsters or something."
Althea actually allowed 'trash' to be sold, because as a plant expert she knew every part of a plant had its use. She may even get unexpected seeds from this.
While she'd be throwing many of these to compost pits in the end, it would be a pity to miss a few good ones that might actually appear.
"Well you earned from recycling." The friends laughed and amused many of the people around. Soon, the people started occupying the free panels.
Seeing this activity, their party was eager to join in. They separated and went to separate surfaces, some in front of the marble, while she and a few others on the upright panels.
[Welcome to the Village Center!
Althea watched as the people used the panels on their own, without the system bothering her at all. She nodded in relief. It seemed that this building could function on its own, as long as she set it up properly.
She studied the panel and mused about some improvements. At the same time, she also received various notifications.
[Received! 100 copper!]
[Received! 1 copper!]
[Received! 1 copper!]
[Received! 200 copper!]
While nice at first, she couldn't imagine what it would be like when there were more people, or if she heard these dings inside her head all day long.
Fortunately, even notification settings could be personalized.
She decided to place a threshold for notifications, a minimum of 10 gold transactions, and delay notifications at night.
Althea smiled brightly. People had definitely started purchasing properties.
Sure enough, Real Estate was the Best.