“Your challenge will be to defeat a new type of monster called Demon Rats,” Jin explained as he showed them the pictures taken by his reconnaissance teams. Demon Rat Brutes, Demon Rat Specialists with their various equipment such as the Steam Tanks and the Steam Helicopters.
“Xiong Da and Luo Bo will be fighting against the horde of rats who have come to recapture a town that was liberated by the Werejackals. You remember those from the Bank Heist Instances?” Jin asked, and the rest nodded their heads except for Yang Ling and Ruo Ying who had neither seen nor experienced those instances before.
It wasn’t until Xiong Da described them as the human-ish dog…fox like creatures they saw in the WunderPanda Theme Park Instance when it clicked for them. Jin continued his briefing telling them that the Werejackals were the commanding defensive team that would be protecting the town along with some knights.
“So it’s basically the same as the goblins, just a different battlefield and probably on a harder difficulty?” Shi Zuo asked as he saw that the Demon Rats now had access to heavy machinery to aid them, unlike Orcs, who mainly focused on manpower to overwhelm them.
Jin nodded his head, and Luo Bo commented that Jin must really hate the Ruby Rats to the point he even created a raid theme all about them. The rest chuckled at her comments, yet Xiong Da agreed he would be dying to kill all those Demon Rats in place of the Ruby Rats.
“Aww Shucks you guys.” Jin was being slightly sarcastic before continuing the briefing. “So yes, it is a new raid that will most likely replace the Goblin Raid instance in the near future. Call it something fresh or else people would become bored killing Orcs again, and again, right?”
“Personally, I would love to join the Orcs and fight against the goblins for a change.” Shi Zuo said, and the rest agreed.
“How about making it a bit more special, like a cultivator versus cultivator kind of thing with the old Goblin Raid Instance. Where cultivators fight alongside the race they choose?” Yang Ling suggested, and Jin nodded his head at that idea.
“Ah, I did think of that one before as well, but I hope there will be varied battlegrounds instead of just the two raid instances and the secret instances.” Luo Bo replied as she had nearly memorised all the building and knew exactly where to hide in order to snipe the Orcs down.
The Orcs did became cleverer in time and tried to ambush her, but so far they failed since the rabbit archer was very creative in her use of traps. (However, she had to give credit when they nearly caught her in a surprise.)
Ruo Ying also added that she remembered how exciting it was to be teleported to somewhere new in the first limited phase of Goblin Raids where they could do various missions. While the current instances were vast and crazily exciting, she missed those short battle sorties and hoped Jin could bring them back.
“Hmm. Perhaps, I really can spice things up, I will revise it when I have the time. As for the cultivator versus cultivator kind of battles, I have already filled out the necessary paperwork, but before I get issued the license I can’t implement anything of that sort. The one time with Xiong Da was only possible because the detectives agreed to look the other way.” Jin took all their opinions in before he returned back to the topic.
He was thankful that they were taking their time to talk and discuss all this because Another Jins were frantically making the presentation slides as they were speaking. Even the images when the presentation first started was by them, and yet the Pandawans before him had no clue Jin had helpers behind the scenes creating all of this in real time.
They thought that he was merely a person who was very prepared for anything …or had someone proficient in the use of magic like how the dungeon supplier managed to create the Giant Tree in the middle of Shenzhen overnight, getting coverage not just in local news, but to the whole country as well.
The System had predicted that the global news network would pick on it when it goes viral after Day One and was anticipating to collect the opinions of other news networks.
“Anyways there is something I haven’t mentioned yet. To make it even more unforgettable for all of you. I’ve taken into account the feedback gathered in the Goblin Raid Instance and came up with this innovation. You guys will be testing out this brand new feature.” Jin moved the presentation to the next slide with merely a word there: ‘SQUADS.’
Both he and the System had used the data of the cultivators and replicated highly intelligent human behaviour on the NPC clones they created. Not to mention, using the Farming Humans as the base of the NPCs had accelerated the process.
The System had always been keeping unique individuals that it found impossible to clone for use as followers. However, the Farming Humans was sort of an empty slate, where the System could clone them as NPCs and inserted certain specific behaviour, making them behave like humans when they were not (at least in the biological sense of Jin’s world).
They were more akin to Penguin Patsu or Bear Cub One rather than Octofussy, Vulcan or Chef Roro. To call them human was kind of the wrong category, so in order to preserve them as NPCs, the System had made the ‘Squad’ mates faceless and equipped them masks that were in accordance to the Leader who would be leading them.
For example, Xiong Da would receive a Squad full of Full Masked Hippo members. Initially, the masks would be very basic and more details would only be added as Xiong Da levels his squad up. Yes, Jin was going to proceed with the virtual gaming system that the System and him had talked about during their fight against Rong, The Demon Bull Exorcist Trainee. (This reminded him that he still had to speak to the leaders of JODE and initiate the passing out ceremony for the Demon Snake Exorcist Su Zhen later in the afternoon.)
“Oh? So we get to receive these squads for free from you?” Shi Zuo was excited to hear that and Jin nodded his head.
“As part of the experiment, yes. Otherwise, they will be priced rather expensively. Consider it as a possible premium feature of future instances, like how customers wished to fight alone and not with other cultivators. They can replace the team with their own NPC squad members.” Jin explained and listed the various possibilities of having a squad of their own.
“Also, this Squad highlight might potentially change how cultivators participate in Raid Events drastically. While I do not wish to brag, but you can customise how all your squad would look like to a certain extent and even choose the kind of weapons they would be equipped with.”
Jin emphasised that it was an exciting feature which he could not wait to see it being tested out.
