“Doctor Katz,” I greeted the man.

“Emperor Michael,” he replied with a nod.

“A 100 buildings so far?” I asked.

“Actually 120 buildings. We do them in 12 building blocks as you can see. Two deep, six long, and four stories tall,” he replied. He led me into a building. “Each building has a caretaker, or manager.”

“This entry in the corner, is for supplies, crates, and the elevator between levels. Expensive, but it the most efficient,” he said.

“Why not bigger building blocks?” I asked.

“Keeping the streets open. Also, the ground floor is for living and businesses, the top three floors have the farms. The idea is that the farms feed the people living here and support the local businesses to reduce shipping concerns. Also elevators require crystals, so best used for large cart transports. Basically an apartment block with farms above,” he said.

“The housing block is kept separate from the farms?” I asked.

“That door over there leads to the communal part of the apartments. Showers, lounge area. The rest of the units are packed in tightly. Let’s take a look. No one is living here at the moment.” He led me into the housing part of the complex. “The lounge, kitchen area, are decent sized. Then we have the cell rooms.” They were like prison cells, only tighter. They were as bad as the airship.

“You are packing people in,” I said.

“Yes. It isn’t a good living, but it is living. And cheap. Each room will only cost 10 points per day. You get a bed, light, dresser, and a roommate on the bunkbed,” he said.

“That would be 80 people?” I asked, looking at the size of the room.

“Yes. Very packed. One would be the building manager or caretaker. They maintain things and report issues. Also regular inspections,” he replied.

“This is very cramped.” I said as we went back to the main hall.

“It is. But better to start packing in people now for cheap than waiting. Down, this side hallway,” he said while opening a door taking me between some tiny rooms, to a room bordering the street. I looked around and saw a counter and several shelves.

“People can keep the outside or inside closed as they like. The front part, can lift up in front of those counters, if people want to sell directly to the street, or that door in the middle can be opened,” he replied.

“How much?” I asked.

“A shop would be 100 points per day. I suspect some of them will be used as washing rooms, mending rooms, and other such things,” he replied. I followed him back out of the store area and he closed the doors behind me. We made our way onto the second floor, from the secured area with the elevator and staircase.

Now this was impressive. Three levels of shelving, with box planters on each shelf and a light above them. “Incredibly expensive to set all this up. Enchanting the box planters, but there shouldn’t be issues. In time crops might be rotated out as needed. For now, there is a mix of stuff growing. Just takes time.”

“And things don’t stop growing,” I said while recalling his reports.

“That is a problem that can be handled with trimming. It is slow steady growth. No burst growth. The normal lifecycle of the plants from Earth doesn’t align to what we see here,” he explained.

“The lights? Are they needed?” I asked.

“Yes, to help the plants grow straight. Just needs a lot of investment for one of these places. The goal being the rental fees for the housing and business, keep things maintained, and then the food can be sold,” he answered.

“This will produce a lot more than people can eat? Or will it?” I asked.

“It should be enough for the people in the building with about 15% extra. A lot of it depends on what is grown, but that should be fairly close. That is why there are three growing levels to ensure a surplus. This will be sold to the businesses and allow cash crops,” he explained.

“And the residents aren’t involved with this?” I asked.

“No. There would be a manager for the building, along with a few people working for them. They would tend to the crops and be responsible for them. Audits to ensure no exploitation or small time power plays is taking place.” I nodded at this.

“The only thing I would change, is that I want a small chapel in the common area for the Power Church,” I replied.

“Really?” Doctor Katz asked and looked at me with a weird expression.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Yes. I insist on it. Talk to XLR8 for the create iconography to use. But I insist on this. It is a good set up. You really are maximizing the use of space,” I told him.

“Thank you. I had help of course. In time we might increase the height to grow more food, but four stories seems more than enough.” I nodded at this. It was already a huge investment for all these enchantments.

“The biggest issue is how close people will be packed in,” I replied.

“Housing is a premium. It isn’t good living, like I said, but it is living.”

“These are going to become slums. Nice looking slums. But the amount of criminal activity, will grow,” I said.

“That will occur anywhere, where the population density goes up. There is nothing we can do about it. In time the bad people will get weeded out. And people will settle into this buildings to live and find work. They are cheap, that is what is important. One light and very little, but sturdy furniture per room. They are meant as a place to sleep nothing more,” Doctor Katz said.

“Fair enough. I do like that you figured out food growing,” I told him but he just shook his head and sighed.

“But we are still going to war,” he added.

“Yes. This is a stop gap measure at best. Creating busy work for people to have a larger population base, but they won’t contribute anything. The government is basically subsidizing to keep people alive and stick them in prison cells,” I countered.

“It could hold of a conflict for at least a century,” he countered. I nodded at that.

“It could. And it probably will go a bit longer than that. The problem is that it isn’t permanent doctor. And it doesn’t contribute to the wealth or health of this nation. More points aren’t going to be brought in. There will just be more jobs for people at the bottom of society,” I countered.

“That may be true, but it will time for people to lift themselves up. To make their way in the world,” he replied.

“Which is why I agreed. The war isn’t just about the population doctor. There might be another Divine Empress out there. That is why I must know. I have been putting off a push like this for far too long,” I replied.

“I know, but I am coming with you. Perhaps we can avoid a war,” he said.

“Perhaps. We will see. I am not too hopeful about the nature of other nations or governments, but I suspect it will be bad,” I replied. I followed the good doctor out of the farm and back out onto the street. He waved at a man who quickly began locking the doors up.

“Your caretaker for the building?” I asked him.

“Yes. I was hoping you would invest,” he finally got to the heart of the matter.

“Run it profitably, and you can start up a charity to fund more construction of these farm apartments. This is just a black hole of points,” I said.

“That may be, but it is important.” We walked in silence back towards the Imperial Palace as my soldiers formed a perimeter about us.

“How much does it cost to build one of these places?” I asked.

“About a 100 million points, due to all the enchantments,” he replied.

“That much, really?” I asked.

“Crafting crystals aren’t cheap unfortunately. There is a high demand. And they are worth about 10 regular crystals at the same level. Since the planters are down with level 2 enchantments, that means each one costs about 2,200 points, with four enchantments layered on, materials, and craftsmanship. Also getting the dirt and so on.”

“Then you have 12,000 planters per floor level, with 3 level is 80 million points. The remaining 20 million points are for the floors, lights, and everything else in the buildings.”

“Fine,” I said.

“Fine?” he asked.

“I don’t like charity. And I don’t like this farming idea that much. But I do like you. I will support 5 billion points over the next thousand days. No more from me. You can beg Clarissa or try to make money from the existing buildings, but that is it. Don’t ask me again after that. Also I want shrines for the Power Church in every lounge area,” I replied.

“10 billion and shrines in all the buildings,” he countered.

“You overstep Doctor,” I told him off.

“Maybe, but getting a 100 of these buildings up and running, will let me build more on a regular basis, and completely eliminate any issues with housing, and jobs.”

“For Purgatory. Not for the other cities,” I countered.

“They will base things off my model once they see the success,” he countered.

“Get the other 5 billion from Clarissa’s share of the tax revenue. You are getting that much from me, and you are lucky to get even that much. I think it is a waste of points, but you know I have wasted them on other stupid things,” I sighed, still annoyed at the meta-point user who had scammed me.

“And I can start a charity?” he asked, since I had been so against them in the past.

“Or an actual corporation. Delegate doctor, delegate like Clarissa. Then do extensive audits to make sure things don’t get off track. She has the right idea there.” Work smarter, not harder.

“When things settle down,” he replied.

“We will be leaving on day 5,020 to check out the other nations,” I replied.

“That soon?” he asked.

“That late. I pushed things back on account of you doing all this. Delegate doctor. Consider that an order from your Emperor. I am sure Clarissa will be happy to assign one of her many minions,” I told him.

“I want someone with compassion,” he replied, and I shook my head at this.

“Get someone with business sense and have a metric of their performance, be appearance and how well operations function for these buildings. Trust me, compassion is the death of business. Make the end product rainbows and unicorns, and attach that to metrics, it will work out much better,” I told him, hoping he would take my advice.

“Really? That seems counterintuitive,” he replied.

“It is to some extent. But someone with compassion won’t look for the most cost-effective solutions. They won’t aim to maximize the metrics you set. That is one reason I don’t like charities. They confuse helping people for babying them. Just have metrics and audits. If things need to be adjusted, it is easier to adjust those than trying to find new people to run things,” I explained to him.

Hopefully some of this was sticking. I was no master of management like Clarissa, but I knew enough to be dangerous. Trying to reinvent the wheel, for running a slum required thinking of happiness as a metric. Or at least livability.

I would check back on these places in a couple of years, and hopefully they weren’t crime filled holes of misery and despair. It felt like things would go that way, but the good doctor might surprise me. We were creating about 8 jobs, but creating housing for 80 people. Even if another 8 were for support like mending clothes and washing them, that left 64 people with nothing to do.

Their pay had to come from somewhere. Maybe local guards, business people, and they would go to other businesses in the city. Still it was a lot of people that would get packed in. Perhaps a park building or two would be useful. I would have to follow up with Clarissa’s city planning people to make sure they took that into account. Couldn’t just put people in tight conditions without expecting violence or trouble.