A few minutes later, the group had reached a small sector of buildings, all with people streaming in and out of them. The central building looked like an old world bank, with an arched entrance and rows of tellers on the inside. Well, the tellers were actually robots, but they acted the same. In the center of this organized chaos, Okita sat on a chair, writing furiously. As Sam drew near, the man still did not see him, and he heard a few of the words that Okita was muttering.

“Dividends will not come into effect…” The man cut off as he saw the large group approaching him. “Hmm? I’m not one of the tellers… Oh, faction leader, it's you!” He said, finally recognizing Sam. Okita got up out of his chair and shook Sam’s hand vigorously. The thin Japanese man had a wide smile on his face as he tugged Sam off with him somewhere. They walked to the back of the bank, and Okita pulled out a key from his pocket, slotting it into a small hole in a vault door. The inside of the vault was empty, save for a deep metaphysical sense of wealth. It was a very strange feeling, but one that was clear to Sam. This was some sort of repository for credits. Sure enough, Okita explained what it was a moment later.

“This bank allows for us to collect interest on our faction funds. People can individually deposit money, but they have a lower interest rate. This was a very expensive purchase, but we’ve already made back a few hundred thousand credits. Having millions of credits in capital is no joke.”

“So, Okita, I was informed that you created a new tithe system for the faction. How exactly does that work?” Sam asked, interested in how the man was managing the faction funds. It wasn't because he didn't trust Okita or anything, but because he didn't know the first thing about finance, and he wanted to learn more. Okita lit up upon hearing about his project, and he pulled out a series of graphs and diagrams from his pockets.

‘So you see here the median gains over time are-”

“No, no, not the mathy stuff. I mean just how it's working. How did you implement it?” Sam said.

“Oh, I see. What I am basically doing is creating a system or reciprocity. For each specific sum of credits that a citizen pays, they gain a token that they can use to get food and so on. They’re still losing out by a lot, but it's quite popular. In addition, similar to how lotteries worked in the past, there is a small chance for someone to win big out of the total sum of these tithes.”

“This was partly my idea, but Okita implemented the main financial aspects,” Lao added. “I was able to make the system even more efficient by using my Dao.”

“I see. So how much money has been collected in the past few days?” Sam asked.

“Well, each citizen has voluntarily given us 10 thousand credits,and some of them have given even more. Multiplied by the number of people here, we have over 17 million credits in the bank. We spent a fair bit on city upgrades, but we still have quite a bit for a rainy day,” Okita said.

“Damn, that’s a lot of money. How exactly does this bank work? I don’t remember seeing it in the Metropolis Core.”

“Well, when you were gone, the others and I experimented with the core,” Eduardo said. “We found that there are certain buildings locked behind specific pieces of knowledge. For example a hospital cannot be built, unless the builder is knowledgeable about medicine and healing. Okita did not have access to the core, as he was not a captain, but he was able to designate one of us as his proxy. It added a 1.5 times multiplier to the cost, but that was fine given how much money we have.”

“How many buildings have you found like this?”

“We’ve found about 50 unique buildings, all related to various professions. We have only been able to build a few, the most important ones, but I can tell you the basics. Most of them were various standard municipal assets, such as a brewery, an armory and so forth.”

“Wait, an armory? Like an actual smithy?” Sam asked.

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“Actually, yes. Because the nature of the System allows for any sort of weapon or armor to be effective, antique weaponry and armor is much more valuable than it was before, sometimes even more so than modern weapons. Your mace is a prime example of this,” George said, confusing everyone with his sudden wellspring of knowledge. Noting the glances, the heavyset man grinned.

“I may be a bit slow, but I used to operate a forge in my farm. I made all of my tools from scratch, and made some money by selling horseshoes. In fact, I’m the one who is running our armory. There are already a few sets of armor ready, and I feel like you would be a good fit,” the man added. Seeing an opportunity to resume his work. Okita smiled.

“That sounds like a great idea. Why don’t you take our illustrious leader to go see your wares?” The way that Okita said that made the statement sound more than a little suspect, but Sam didn't point it out. He had an image to preserve, and it was not of an immature man child who laughed at bawdy comments.

George led Sam out of the bank, and the rest of the captains started to peel away, citing a need to resume their work. Sam didn't know how they had so much work, seeing as so much of the complex was automated, but he trusted their judgment. Rax padded along beside them, and the herpetopede smiled at Sam, a strange toothy expression that looked quite comical. He didn't seem to have anything to say though, so Sam merely smiled back. The armory was on the other side of town, and George opened the doors wide as they reached it.

“There aren’t many people looking for armor these days, but perhaps after they see you with it on, they will change their minds,” George said while doing this. The interior of the armory was filled with crude looking weapons that gradually grew more and more professional looking as they reached the back of the room. There were three sets of armor as well, a set of studded leather, one of chainmail, and one of full plate.

“Did you make all of these?” Sam asked.

“Sure did. Boosted my smithing skills quite a bit too. I’m still a Novice ranked smith, but I’m close to the next rank. Why don’t you try the armor for size?”

“They look too large for me,” Sam said, pointing at the suits that were clearly designed for a man of George’s stature.

“Don’t worry about that, they shift size to match the wearer.”

Sam frowned at this, but moved over to the armor anyway. He was interested in the middle set, the chainmail one. The leather one was too light for a melee fighter like him, and the plate armor was too restrictive, at least with his current stats. Sam pulled it off the rack, and stared at it, unsure of how exactly to put it on.

“Uh, George…”

“Oh, I’ll help you with that. It needs to bond to you before you can access the utility features.”

“Utility features? Sounds good,” Sam said, unsure of what the other man meant. George grabbed a paring knife from a table, probably for working with leather, and suddenly jabbed Sam’s thumb.

“Ow! What the hell?” Sam exclaimed, more out of shock than anything else. George ignored him, and flicked the drop of blood onto the armor. It immediately shrunk to Sam’s size, and then enveloped him fully, before automatically fitting itself to him. Sam was fully clothed in his armor a moment later, and as he looked down at it, he had a strange sense of pride. He no longer looked like a hillbilly Renaissance fair actor, but an actual knight. His overalls had served him well, but that time was over now. Sam checked the stats of the armor next.

Basic Chainmail

G-Rank Armor

This armor is a somewhat crude initial project of a smith new to his craft, but it is serviceable nonetheless. It is enchanted with basic System granted enhancements, which include various utility features such as auto cleaning and equipping. In addition, it is much more durable than any mundane suit of armor, imbued with the power of its maker.

It was a commonplace description for a commonplace set of armor. The item was neither extremely poor, nor very good. It was good enough for Sam though.

“Thanks, George. This will be really useful,” Sam said, smiling. George beamed and waved to Sam as he walked out the door. Then Sam paused, and looked back at George.

“I have something that might be useful for our lower level allies. It’s useless for me now, but if you can find a way to mass produce the effect, then it could be useful.” Sam pulled out his brooch that he had earned by defeating the sylvanian horror back in the tournament and tossed it to George. The man caught it dexterously, at odds with his large size. He grinned at Sam, and vanished into a back room, presumably to tinker with the item. Sam left the smithy, and Rax walked along with him.

“Sam?”

‘Yes, Rax?” Sam responded, knowing what the creature was about to say to him.

“What was that thing about after you left? You know, when you contacted me through our party link, and then said something strange?”

“Yeah, uh, sorry about that. I had a decision that I needed a little bit of outside interference to answer. I know it might have been a bit rude though. You were the only person that I could think of to do it with though. Jeffrey might have been too busy,” Sam responded, smiling awkwardly.

“Oh, that’s all good. I was just confused.”

They wandered through the town amiably, and Sam took in the new buildings.