System vs Rebirth

"Welcome." A young girl smiled, greeting the guest that came to the inn.

"Oh! What a cute girl. I'm planning to stay for three days. Do you have your best room?"

"Thank you very much." The girl politely thanked him for the praise before introducing the room. "We have our best room ready. Please follow me."

The middle-aged man nodded. He just casually paid a lot of money without blinking an eye.

"This is your key. Please follow me. I'll guide you to your room." The girl extended her hand.

"I can do it myself. Instead, why don't you prepare a bath for me? It's going to take a long time, right?"

"Of course, I can do that. But I need to know when you're going to take the bath, Sir. It's only going to take at most thirty minutes to prepare."

"Thirty minutes?" The middle-aged man raised his eyebrows.

"Yes."

The middle-aged man glanced outside, realizing that he had come to the inn just after lunch. It was indeed too early to take a bath. Then again, he was a bit curious about how they were going to prepare the bath.

Normally, it takes hours just to prepare for a bath. Even a conglomerate like him couldn't take a bath every single day.

Yet, they claimed they could prepare it in just thirty minutes. This piqued his interest.

"In that case, how about preparing now?"

"Yes, sir. In that case, I will lead you to your room." She extended her hand once again to ask him to follow her.

Having no choice, the man followed her to his room on the second floor. This was said to be the best inn, but the building itself was only two-story tall. He indeed found the building stretching wide, but it was still too normal for storiesest inn in the town.

However, it changed when he entered the room. The furniture wasn't that big of a deal, but the young staff immediately asked, "May I have permission to enter the bathroom so that I can prepare the bath for you, sir?"

"Y-yeah. Is the process different? Can I see it too?"

"Of course." She nodded with a smile and opened the door leading to the bathroom.

Once she entered the bathroom, there was already a large tub where people could sit down and lean back to relax. He originally thought that the bath would just be a giant bucket, but it seemed that he was wrong.

The girl simply opened the faucet and let the water flow out, gradually filling the tub. She waited for three minutes so that the water had filled up the bottom part of the tube.

She took out a lighter and moved to the back of the tub, lighting up the firewood underneath the tub. In addition, there was already a vent to expel the smoke, allowing the customers to use it safely.

"This is…" The middle-aged man looked shocked, not expecting that the water could actually flow out at this height. The reason why a bath couldn't be done easily was because they needed to fill up the tub with a lot of water they drew from the well.

"Please wait until the water fills up two thirds of the tub. We have also measured the firewood, so the smoke won't fill up the room and the water temperature won't be too high."

"O-oh?!" He was dumbfounded for a few seconds before glancing to the side, finding his assistant was the same. He said, "Thank you."

"You're welcome." The staff then pointed at the shower head and said, "If you only wish to wash your body, you only have to open this valve and…" She demonstrated it and water flowed out of the shower head. "You'll get the water."

"This…" The man scratched the back of his head. "Are you sure you can use all this water?"

There was one thing that he noticed. The invention itself wasn't that big of a deal. The shower was just a tube with a rather broad tip that had several holes in it. The bathtub was similar.

However, what he couldn't imagine was how easy it was to get access to water.

"Yes. The water is accessible all day. Of course, this water is not for drinking."

"All day?!"

As if she had gotten used to such reactions, the staff simply nodded her head. "Yes. We have a water tank above our building that provides all this water."

"But the water in that tank should be running out sooner or later, right?"

"Of course not. Thanks to our Lord, every person in this city had access to water."

"Everyone?!" He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying his best to regain his composure. He seemed to have underestimated the power of the water system that Noel popularized.

Even if it were for themselves, all nobles would definitely get their hands on this technology. No, he personally wanted this thing.

However, if the technology were this precious, would their lord be so simple? He had underestimated Noel, but he had to wait until the meeting before he could ascertain Noel's true ability.

"I understand. Thank you."

"I'm just doing my job." The staff smiled. "In that case, I will return after another fifteen minutes to make sure the bath is ready."

"Alright." The man nodded and walked out, allowing the staff to follow him and exit the room.

"Oi, Ren. Snap back to reality," he said while glancing at his assistant.

"Ah! President…" His assistant looked embarrassed and pointed at the bathroom. "The water… the water…"

"I know." As the president of Remane Company, the current top merchant group in the Muivell Kingdom, what he felt from the invention was not greed or curiosity. Instead, it was fear.

The reason he managed to raise this company to its peak was because he feared a lot of things and always proceeded cautiously.

However, that wasn't the extent of his shock. When he explored the room, he actually found a wooden box. There was a note on the table stating, "Please put this box near the lamp if you wish to turn on the light."

"Lamp?" The president fell silent and turned around. There was one lamp in the middle of the room and a little socket near it. He found another lamp on the table.

Out of curiosity, the president brought this box to the table and placed it next to the lamp. He thought that the lamp would require oil to function, but to his surprise, the lamp actually lit up just by putting the box next to it.

"This is…" The president sucked a cold breath. "Ren, close the windows."

His assistant hurriedly followed the instructions. Once all windows were closed, the room darkened, showing the potential of the lamp. It wasn't too bright, but it was still twice as bright as a candle.

"It's bright?" His assistant gasped. "This is more than enough to read during the night."

"Yeah. You can actually work during the night without having your eyes hurt. This is amazing. There is no smoke or smell either." The president grabbed the wooden box. "I wonder what is this?"

"The box is light…" The president carefully held it and tried to shake it. He did it as gently as possible, not wanting to break precious items.

"President. Aren't all these very important to people like us?"

"Yeah. I'm not sure what this box is, but this clicking sound… it sounds like a demon crystal."

"Isn't that the fuel of the rune technology?"

"Indeed. I think that they are using this box so that we don't make direct contact with the demon crystal. And even if we steal this, there is already a big deposit when we rent a room. I guess that's enough to replace this box and the demon crystal."

"Shouldn't we try to negotiate with the Lord? Maybe we can acquire this technology."

"I'm not sure. You should have seen several carriages outside, right? It means we're not the only ones coming here. So, I will see what the Lord wants from me first before playing my cards. Don't say anything in the meeting tomorrow, but make sure to learn from the negotiation."

"Understood."

After warning his assistant, the president continued observing all the inventions inside the room. Not long after, the young staff returned to the room and made sure that everything was ready for him.

From a few inventions alone, the trip had become something he would never forget in his entire life.

And he couldn't help but wonder what the noble wanted from him, especially with this kind of setup.

…

The next day.

He entered the room with his assistant in the meeting hall prepared by Noel. To his surprise, the table was long, and there were a total of eleven chairs inside the room. Several people had taken their seats while their assistants seemed to be standing next to them or behind them.

All of these people were quite famous as well, especially in the business world. Still, the scariest would be him, the current president of the number one company in the kingdom.

It seemed that Noel didn't plan to meet them one by one, which changed the tone of the meeting entirely.

Even though the eyes were on him, he quietly sat down and gestured for his assistant to stand on the corner so as not to disturb the others.

He could see the intention behind these people from their eyes alone. Some were greedy, some were scared, and some were actually passive. It seemed that all of them had experienced the inn. They were aware of what they could 'steal' from Noel and didn't plan to hold back in this meeting.

"Well, well. Isn't this President Maxwell?" Another man greeted him.

He couldn't help but furrow his eyebrows, considering the opposite party was the president of the two biggest merchant groups.

He was the number one merchant in this kingdom, but his business spread to all kinds of sectors, so each company wasn't as big as this guy's.

Before he could reply to him, a few more people entered the room. As he originally expected, Noel had gathered all the top merchants in the kingdom for this meeting.

After another five minutes, the door once again opened, but this time the guards outside declared out loud, "Lord Noel Ardagan has entered the room."

The young noble entered the room and stood at the edge of the table. All the merchants stood up as a formality, though some of them didn't want to stand up and only did it because the others did it.

Noel simply waved his hand down before taking his seat. He opened his mouth, his tone was calm as though there was no problems bothering him. "Welcome to my Laivaen City. Please take a seat."