After Jin taught them the basics of the ‘Figure Fighters’, they had conducted a mock battle with Yong De winning, before Jin left them to their devices.
He wanted to visit the other shop instances that were in the Tree Mall, if only to see the store owner’s reactions to his hard work.
Man Tang, the entertainment giant in the Tiangong Tree Mall, was right beside the arcade for added entertainment value. Her shop instance had been equally complicated but for another reason entirely. On its own, the karaoke shop instance looked like every other karaoke store Jin had even been to.
The outside store exterior within the instance was an exact replica of what Man Tang had previously. A billboard greeted the customers featuring a cat holding onto a mike with musical notes surrounding or coming out of the fat cat.
Man Tang insisted on maintaining her billboard as that particular brand for her shop had made a small reputation for itself. She, therefore, refused to change her shop name at all.
When Jin went inside, the interior was exactly the same as her previous shop, emphasising that she did not wish to change a single thing stating it would break her routine up.
Ah, but what was different about this particular instance were the karaoke rooms. That was where he worked his charm and also where Jin’s problems arose. As of now, Man Tang decided to limit herself with only five rooms for each particular theme she had requested, resulting in a total of fifteen rooms. If the business continued to be as prosperous, she would consider adding more.
Thus, Jin produced the three themes for her to use but because it was an instance within an instance, the dungeon supplier did encounter some problem. So, he decided to use the Sanctum of Worlds as the leading example since that was the closest to this particular design assuming it was already an example of Sub Instances only for the System to tell him otherwise.
The System stated that the Sanctum of Worlds was considered as a series of interconnecting instances because the System allowed two way communication between the monsters and they could enter via permission based requests which were loosely coded since most of the monsters had their home instances open for all to enter.
The karaoke store instance, on the other hand, needed to be slightly different in terms of design which the interconnecting instances could not achieve.
The first difference was that the Sub Instances were smaller and more definite in scale, which in turn would make it many times cheaper to maintain. But because of its rigidity, the System could not use it for the Sanctum of World’s concept.
Imagine using a Sub Instance for the guest home instance where everyone had their own rooms and cabins. If Jin caught more monsters, the System would eventually have to build even more Sub Instances that would be a waste of resources compared to infinitely expanding the guest home instance. The normal instances could also be reduced in size when not in use, making them very flexible.
But there were also perks to Sub Instances. The most important factor was security. Only the select few guests could enter a particular Sub Instance as soon as Man Tang granted her customers the permission via her modified Pandemonium app or her computer, which was connected to the System. Only the master of the instance and a few of her trusted employees would have access to the rooms. (In the Sanctum of Worlds, all the monsters basically had ‘Master’ permission.)
Fifteen rooms might not be much for the moment, but if she expanded in the near future, she worried that she could not possibly monitor that many rooms. Security was obviously crucial to her and using Sub Instances allowed the System to not bother too much and waste its precious resources to a particular tenant.
Jin also believed this was vital since Man Tang said that there were unfortunate incidents of her customers nearly got raped or robbed by unsuspecting passer-bys or fellow customers of her store. Therefore, by ensuring that the rooms were locked based on the rights of the guests, it should hopefully reduce such incidents before.
As stated previously, Jin was both busy(an excuse for being a little lazy) and too afraid to experiment too much with the Sub Instance, so the first five room he created were based on the theme of the Sanctum of Worlds’ Stadium instance where he held his town hall meetings for his monsters.
Man Tang’s customers could use the stage as a mock platform to sing to either an empty grass field or to an audience of Farming Human clones.
The latter was more expensive and was limited to two of the five rooms. For the clones, they would react accordingly to the singer’s effort. They wouldn’t boo or jeer but instead try their best to encourage within the stadium Sub Instance if performance was lacking.
Likewise, if the customer were singing exceptionally well, the clones would clap along with the song or even echo along with the sing along. It was to give the customers a sense of confidence while standing on stage and allow them to sing to their heart’s content.
Some might treat it as more than just a confident booster as a minority could use it as a way to practice for real concert performances.
A singer wannabe entering ‘the Voice’ competition could use this as a stage practice, or maybe a band of choir members use this as a viable platform to practice their performance. Either way, Man Tang liked the idea and was contemplating to build more of these themes.
When Jin was more confident, the next was a Cat oriented theme karaoke which was similar to a cat café. The multitude of cats would be accompanying the customers to sing along with the Karaoke.
But unlike the stadium one, the sound system in this Cat theme karaoke was more mellow since cats were supposedly scared of loud noises, so it was slightly more realistic.
However, Jin emphasised to the worried Man Tang that those cats were not the same as the real world cats, and all these were generated from the dimensional instances. Man Tang did not understand what Jin was talking about until she went into Cat theme rooms by herself.
The cats were quite accommodating to newcomers compared to most real cats except for a few naughty and rebellious ones added to the mix. (since a certain fox claimed it would be more lifelike.) Despite how real they seemed, Man Tang could see that the cats were not afraid of the sound system at all and she even saw one yawning away with the fairly loud music blasting away.
Of course, Jin justified this with the way they had been programmed with some of the cats reacting a bit more violently to pitch or the sound level being way above the usual threshold. He even demonstrated that by giving her a real life example of shouting loudly into the mike and the cats shriek and ran into the corners of the karaoke room to hide.
Man Tang laughed at the reaction of the cats and believed it was authentic enough, and though there was one more themed room to check out, she preferred to stay with the cats a little while longer.
“Maybe that’s why she insisted on keeping the Cat billboard.” Jin thought to himself as he wondered if Man Tang was some sort of Cat Cultivator.
While the karaoke owner was playing with the cats, Jin entered the last particular theme of the Karaoke Store Instance. It was basically a musical studio theme room where there was an electronic menu right at the centre of the room.
Within that menu, Jin could choose any instruments he wanted to play in that room. Ranging from the piano, guitars to more orchestra based instruments such as the cello or violin. It was more of a room for people to come together to enjoy playing music or for lessons.
Man Tang was known for allowing others to use her previous place as a teaching ground for singing and musical lessons. While not teaching, she herself on some rare occasions even played the harp herself, causing her to earn a few fans of her own too.
Otherwise, the room could be reconverted to a more grandiose karaoke room with a push of a button at the front of the console where the cushions were spacious, and the sound system was as good as the stadium theme.
There was even a cabinet with all miscellaneous musical instruments along with a small stage for them to sing solo. The console would then act as the selection menu for the customers to choose their music.
Still, it was rather uncommon to put musical lessons in this sort of entertainment venue, but Man Tang kept it clean and family friendly at least till 9pm where the lessons should officially end. (Though there were occasions the lessons were dragged for at most an hour more.) After which, Man Tang would allow the ‘rowdier’ groups of customers to enter her shop.
She had decided to maintain this way for the upcoming new instance too, and the Triad members who drank and sang at her place knew better than to misbehave. Her cultivation level was said to be at Grade 6 and rumoured to be even higher.
That was also why Man Tang’s karaoke store was among the only few shops that were mostly left unharmed by the fight except for a few glass windows breaking. Jin was initially surprised after he heard that Man Tang had protected her customers from any of the Ruby Rat’s harm.
When given the charity funds, Man Tang also refused the funds stating that the damage that occurred was minimal and the funds should be given to someone that needed it more than her. Her regulars commonly joked that Man Tang could even win a fight against the legendary Boss Jin, but the karaoke owner had always refused to entertain their playful thoughts.
After inspecting the Karaoke Store Instance and judging that it was more or less in the best condition for tomorrow’s opening, Jin bid his goodbye to Man Tang. However, before he left, Man Tang stopped him for a moment and passed him an envelope. “This is the payment in advance for any damage incurred in the karaoke store instance for at least the next three months.”
Jin looked into the envelope and was shocked to see a stack of notes within it. Not tens nor hundreds, they were in the thousands. (It was rare enough to see Yuan notes in the thousands since they were near non existent in the digital age of phone payment.)
He stared at her with his eyes wide open as if to disapprove of this and knew immediately that it had something to do with something illegal. His dungeon instance might be expensive, but no matter how one destroyed something, it would not be as costly as this particular wad of cash in front of him.
Jin believed that the cash was hush money for the activities that might happen in the night when the triad members or businessmen performed their illicit deals. What kind? He did not have enough evidence nor proof to determine. (Maybe now and in the coming future, he does.)
However, he did hear gossips and rumours from various customers in his shop when they went operationally open for twenty four hours. Jin just believed they were mere hearsays and ignored them until now when Man Tang proposed to Jin to keep the money.
“Is it not enough?” Man Tang furrowed her eyebrows as she saw Jin’s expression. She had a hunch that he might be the righteous kind of person and might not want any of these deals to happen. However, her store was also able to weather because of this, and she would not mind leaving the Tiangong district if she was not able to allow these deals to happen.
“…Is that why there are occasional raids by the police, and yet nothing has happened to you?” Jin asked, and Man Tang who decided to be honest to her new landlord, simply nodded her head slightly though her face was nonchalant about it. Jin sighed for a moment before looking at the amount of cash in his hands while looking back at her again.
“I understand. I will pretend that this act of transaction has never happened.” Jin pushed the money back at her and bid her goodbye. Man Tang let off a slight smile and sighed as well.
“I guess for a new landlord, he is quite a decent person in handling issues.” Man Tang understood that Jin did not want to be involved in any issue of hers, nor was willing to offer any protection should anything happen. (or that was what she assumed)
Even if he wanted a piece of that cash, he could now indirectly increase the ‘maintenance fee’, and Man Tang would still have no issue to it for she wanted to continue to stay in Tiangong Shopping District as much as possible.
“Thank you for understanding.” Man Tang said behind him as she saw Jin off at the exit. It was a way of life for her, and that was how she grew up.
