Bu Dong listened intently to Katerine’s explanation on their Fire Shaman class, both as a refresher as well as an in-depth understanding. The last time Katerine shared her own abilities as a Fire Shaman was during the Shaoling Football Instance which she knew he would have forgotten about it.
Only now did he come to learn that there were basic variations of Fire Shamans. While most of the Shamans studied the basic offensive and defensive spells, they would usually specialise down a certain route.
Katerine, was the rare type, who had chosen the support route while Nia and Shanice were the more commonly found offensive Fire Shamans. In contrast, Jasmin was the only one with defensive capabilities among the four of them.
Compared to the Pandawans, the tourist group had little experience with dungeoneering, much less something as intense as Jin’s dungeon runs. Her friends would be Grade 2 equivalents in terms of power level and only Katerine who had been here before recently managed to rank up to level 3.
Unlike Eastern cultivations, the Western way of magic was based on levels. As long as one reached a new level, they would be given access to a plethora of new magic skills to study. Most tended to practice a few select spells to master them well. Low levelled mages only had a very limited amount of instant cast spells they could prepare in advance. (Long casting spells were another matter.)
The spells they decided to prepare capped based on the amount of magic power their body could handle. To reach higher levels, they would need to develop stronger and more diverse mana circuits. All these limitations were artificially imposed by the International Magical Associations (with varying names in many countries) to ensure that one did not go overboard.
Eastern cultivators would mostly have to be wary of chi poisoning. If one wasn’t careful, it was enough to simply rest for a period of time as it merely affected the body.
Mana poisoning, on the other hand, spread to the brain first and subsequently the body. Overconsumption of mana could pose a lethal risk. (Peppers was slightly different since her body was not considered as part of the homo sapiens category despite the fact that she looked like one.)
To lessen the risk of such a thing occurring, various international magical associations instructed magicians to come for a monthly check up at their nearest Magic Clinic (or at the very most, quarter yearly). The association would then ascertain the magical power levels of said individual and promote him/her if they managed to reach certain thresholds, updating their corresponding badges.
Those badges were imbued with specific magical properties and could also be used as identification. Through the advent of technology, a fingerprint and a trace of magical energy could nowadays be inserted into the portable scanners, rendering the badge almost meaningless. Still most would either wear it on their body or at least take it with them as it was a prestige item. (Aka bragging rights.)
“So, when you say you girls aim to beat Evil Santa’s second form, that is not bragging or anything but a genuine plea to bring you up to such heights?” He asked, and the girls nodded their heads.
“I am really not that confident at all.” Bu Dong said as he clearly remembering how the Pandawans failed to work together to get past the first form properly.
“Please! We promise to listen to all your orders.” Katerine assured the Ape Cultivator, but he still had his doubts.
“When you are in a fight, you might be too busy to care about other things other than your own survival, it will be hard for me to communicate with you girls. I might not even be that great in multi tasking. At most, I think I can help you clear his first form. How about that?” Bu Dong tried to compromise with the group hoping that they did not have too much of an expectation.
“I guess that’s fine.” Nia shrugged her shoulders as honestly, she and the other two girls did not know what to expect and assumed this current Dungeon Supplier was something more fanciful than the ones they played before.
Katerine had been praising it to the high heavens, and from what they saw from Bu Don’s group, it was at least very well designed. However, most of their concentration at the moment was not concerning the dungeon (unlike Katerine).
Instead, it was on the Pandamonium App.
The funny thing was that the app that they were asked to install had immediately changed its language to German (the app icon had a german flag behind the Panda) and the prices were all in Euros which surprised them a lot. (Not to mention, they could pay by cash or by card.) For a dungeon instance to cost only five euros? The other three did not mind trying it out a few times to get the hang of it.
Only Katerine was a bit baffled about this. She had already been to this store before and knew that the conversion to Yuan and Euro should be significant. So, paying five euros came as a bit of a shock, especially when Bu Dong told her he only had to pay five Yuan for it.
She did ask Yun who was at the bar counter if it was some glitch or anything. Yun merely replied that this was the new pricing model.
“Either you pay it, or you don’t. We’ve standardised across the board to ensure that each customer pays in their own national currency.”
“But that’s not fair…” Katerine complained and Yun looked at her.
“According to our research, the average price for the most common dungeon type in Germany is around 40 over euros. Cheapest 30ish. Mind you, it’s the kind where you just fight without getting anything in return for beating it, unlike our Raid Points. So, do you still think it would be fair that you get to play such a wonderfully crafted dungeon instance for merely 63 cents? ” Yun questioned, and Katerine was dumbfounded for a moment.
“We do not need your patronage if you find our prices disagreeable or not to your liking. So what will it be, do you want in or out?”
Yun knew that Katerine was dying to play the new dungeon instance, and the latter knew that this shop was making enough money to withstand any possible backlash it may receive with its stance on payment.
“Yes, I would like to play. One Evil Santa Boss Raid ticket please!” Katerine answered without any hesitation.
