A Black Market LitRPG

Chapter 7: Scaling

A week later...

"It's working like a charm." Slavin was gushing over how much money had been made over since the introduction of the Stamina Recovery Potions. "How are you getting all of these potions?"

"A new trade secret of the Seven Snakes," Kyle replied nonchalantly as he tallied the earnings.

A tidy sum of eight thousand rakels over seven days was a significant boost to their revenue. Assuming nothing wrong happened, they were set to make more than forty thousand rakels from this brothel alone every month.

With the potions, the number of repeat customers had increased, along with word of the brothel spreading. Rumours of the vigorous intensity of the sex workers went viral through the district, prompting even more to visit them.

Kyle still had plans to scale this further. "Read this." He passed a rolled-up parchment over to Slavin, who glanced through it, shock even more evident on his face as he read.

"Impressive. Loyalty programs and points will surely make even more customers come in multiple times. Especially when you lock the stamina recovery potion behind the program." Slavin remarked with a surprised look, wondering how the young man had so many ideas. The idea was not unique, but Slavin had never even thought of applying it to a brothel, of all things.

Kyle nodded in response, moving on to the next subject. "With the stamina potions available for your workers, you would have more of them coming in."

"Yes, the size of the brothel isn't enough to accommodate all of them. Even if they were willing to work today, I wouldn't have a room for them..." Slavin sighed.

"How much to expand to the next floors?"

"It won't cost much, about two thousand rakels a month in rent for the next floor. We will still have to do a fair amount of work, though – the place was a complete trash pile the last time I saw it. We will need movers to clear the floor before I get the construction crew in."

"If I get you your movers, how long will it take to construct?"

"Hmm... a week at most. The cost will be about six thousand rakels if I remember correctly. I'll have to check with Reyas again."

"Approved. Get it done as soon as possible."

Returning to the Seven Snake's base, Kyle rallied all of the associates, pausing the production of potions as well as the training that had been ongoing for two weeks now. Kyle could already see slight improvements in the physiques for nearly all of the gang members. Damian too was shaping up to be much fitter than he was before, though this was only the beginning of the training.

Kyle glanced at Keith who was standing at attention as well. "Have you been training as well?"

"Yes, sir, though not to such an extent due to my additional duties."

Kyle inspected Keith's body, noticing there was almost no difference between two weeks ago and now. He said nothing except nodding, but Keith could already read volumes from his disappointed gaze. Keith had always been one of the weakest in the gang, only kept around because of his prior scholar education as well as being Damian's younger brother.

Kyle expected every member to be strong – even his accountants. However, if this was the result of two weeks, Kyle was not expecting any significant improvements on Keith's part anytime soon.

"The training regime will be temporarily paused. Instead, we will clean out an expansion space, one floor above the brothel, to make space for expansion." Kyle explained.