Cave Refuge

"After settling down securely, I will definitely resume the ancestral brewing craft passed down for so many generations; it must not be lost under my watch."

Initially, the other party thought Mr. Thompson was simply thirsty when he brought out a bottle of mineral water and didn't pay much attention. But when they heard Mr. Thompson mention the family's brewing techniques and noticed that he didn't open the bottle to drink, they immediately understood Mr. Thompson's intentions.

With a casual expression, they picked up the bottle on the table, slightly loosened the cap, and a rich aroma of alcohol immediately wafted out from under the cap.

Smelling the aroma of liquor, the staff quickly tightened the cap. Then, after glancing around to make sure no one else was paying attention, they spoke calmly again, reminding, "The benefits here go through multiple rounds of review, so even if I wanted to give more against the rules, I couldn't."

After the other party finished speaking, they scanned the expressions of the Thompson family of three. Noting that their faces were still smiling despite the statement, the other party immediately understood the deep rapport of the Thompson family.

If any of the Thompsons had shown a flicker of change in expression after what he had said, he would have returned everything he had already secured. Of course, the benefits already given according to the rules wouldn't be taken back, but he wouldn't inquire into any additional matters.

However, judging by the current demeanor of the family of three, it was clear they were all smart. Otherwise, Mr. Thompson wouldn't have 'inadvertently' mentioned their heritage of various brewing skills.

Seeing that they were smart people, seemingly generous and willing to provide upfront, and also possessing brewing skills, the other party was naturally willing to deepen the relationship. After all, anyone sitting there would naturally have a large network of connections behind them. So they also knew of other bases beginning to organize manpower to cultivate land and plant crops on a large scale.

Despite the current shortage of food, it wouldn't be long before supply met demand. At that time, their craftsmanship would naturally become very sought after, especially since it seemed impossible to rebuild the previous industrial brewing in the short term.

Even once there's enough food, in the short term, those who want to drink will have to rely on manual workshops like Mr. Thompson's. Moreover, it's uncertain how many people have managed to preserve a complete set of brewing tools after the long-lasting Natural Disaster.

Having confirmed the great value of Mr. Thompson's connections, and recognizing that he was not foolish, the expression on the staff's face turned from formulaic to sincere, and they began speaking in a slightly softer tone: "Although you've earned the qualifications to purchase two sets of housing due to separate households.

I would actually suggest that you pool funds and purchase the largest housing unit available within your rights first. If there's still enough money for the second unit, buy it outright; if not, pay a deposit to secure it and pay the rest over time.

Also, since you have the family's brewing skills, if you don't mind, I would recommend choosing a top-floor unit with two apartments per floor. This way, both units would conveniently occupy the entire top-floor space."

Although the other party didn't continue, Mr. Thompson and Zachary understood that by occupying the top floor, they would naturally also take over the rooftop.

This situation was actually an unwritten rule, both before and after the Natural Disaster. Since living on the top floor often risks leaks, if other families were to store belongings on the rooftop, the owner of the rooftop by default would seek compensation from those families for any damages.

For this reason, most of the time, the ownership of the rooftop area naturally belongs to the residents below. Only then, when facing issues like a leaking roof or other problems, will the residents at the top directly pay out of pocket for repairs, sparing them from troubling other people.

Just like if there are shops on the ground floor, then the top space extended from those shops naturally and by default belongs to the residents on the second or third floor. Since it defaults to them, then the hygiene of the extended platform space and some other issues naturally become their responsibility.

With the suggestion from the staff, Mr. Thompson and Zachary exchanged glances before directly confirming the choice, because no matter when, the top floor and the first floor are actually similar—they both have obvious advantages as well as significant disadvantages. However, for the Thompson Family, the disadvantages of the top floor were not really too serious an issue.

Of course, when the other party accepts the items and directly recommends the top-floor housing, there naturally won't be the situation where, when it's time to select a residence, one discovers that there are no suitable homes available.

Once the Thompson Family agreed and confirmed their selection of the rooftop, the other party wrote an address on a piece of paper, handed it to Mr. Thompson, and said, "When it's time to choose a house, you just need to pick these two. According to your housing selection qualifications, these two are standalone rooftop houses.

Once you've chosen these two houses, there will only be your two family households on the rooftop. After you move in, naturally, nobody else would casually go up to the rooftop without reason."

Mr. Thompson took the paper handed over by the other party and repeatedly thanked them for the reminder. After all, anything that should have been given had already been given; at that moment, one only needed to say some free, pleasant words. If one did not show a grateful attitude, who knew whether any complications would arise later on.

After all, the paper received was just a personal proposal; the formalities that truly needed to be processed had not yet been fully completed, so the attitude that should be shown at that moment still needed to be shown.

Perhaps because the Thompson Family had already given gifts during the first step, when Mr. Thompson went to other counters to handle the procedures afterward, he simply distributed cigarettes, and the entire process went very smoothly, taking less than two hours to complete the residency and registration procedures quite easily.

The reason it took that long, despite the smooth process, was because of the lengthy time required to pay for the housing.

Because there was no specific circulating currency and everything depended on the valuation of physical goods, it took a lot of time to assess the value of the goods to accumulate enough for the housing payment.

It has been said before that although every time the Imperial Court establishes a base, the Contribution Value within the base gradually becomes the mainstream credit currency for future transactions, similarly, whenever the existing base collapses or when moving to another base, those Contribution Points obtained in the former base become worthless data.

This is also why, whenever a catastrophic Natural Disaster occurs, destroying the original bases, the Imperial Court is still willing to pay a huge price to establish a new base.

As for why Contribution Points from different bases are not universal yet survivors still accept them, this has been explained in detail before. Here is a simple reminder: first, Contribution Points are digital credit currency, very convenient for transactions, and not susceptible to counterfeit money.

Secondly, because there is an established currency distribution process, there is no need to worry about rapid devaluation of Contribution Points due to over-issuance by the Officials; in other words, the Imperial Court has high credibility in the aspect of Currency.

However, the family of three from the Thompson Family, who had just arrived, did not possess the circulating Currency or Contribution Value of Magic City. Fortunately, having gone through so many rounds of Natural Disasters, now, no matter which base it is, there was already a well-established and clear process for goods exchange; as long as one presents the corresponding goods, one could exchange for the corresponding Currency.

And because the exchange store is directly under the Imperial Court, all the prices for exchanging goods were clear and transparent, so there was no need to worry about being swindled.