The spread of food was not just fantastic, but absolutely amazing. Lacking time, Lynn had no other choice but to entrust her penguins with creating this particular grand feast from scratch. With the limited experience they had, Lynn has assumed that she would need to oversee all of the cooking of food.
Thankfully she was proven wrong again and again as she sampled each and every dish early in the eve before Christmas day. Her penguins had taken what they had learnt and applied everything without fail. Sure enough, there were some minor mistakes here and there but to be able to cook such an enormously large amount of food without losing the quality, made Lynn respect her penguins to the fullest.
The piggycupines surprisingly turned out to be one of the most versatile monsters they had ever caught. The meat was extra tender, making it very easy to stew, fry or even roast. And their spikes, when cooked well, had a nutritional value equivalent to a plate of vegetables.
Thus, a number of dishes were based on these Giant monsters, and the System even gave them access to the farming world materials (Which were totally in excess). All the meat loving monsters adored the thickness of the slab of meat Jin was offered, and no one had any complaints at all.
The Beast Demons mostly had the whole piggycupine in front of them to savour. The penguins had made sure that the meat was seasoned properly and sufficient spices were used on different parts of the body so the Beast Demons could enjoy a plethora of taste from a single dish.
As for Mr Derpy, the size of piggycupines were like a chicken nugget, so for this special occasion, Jin had made sure that he had more than just dozens of ‘chicken nuggets’ for his meal. Mr Derpy did not expect to have a sumptuous and filling meal in his life nor his stay with Jin so far. The dungeon supplier told him that if he does well in the new Open Dungeon Instance, Jin will get him more than just ‘nuggets’ in the future.
“As the Shadow of Lord Dagen, you have unknowingly signed a binding promise to me. You must fulfil at all cost or else… Hey wait, Jin! Don’t take my piggy nuggets away! Please! I’ll be nice! I’ll be nice!!” Mr Derpy whined a little, and all his Deep Ones were laughing at the power play between Jin and their Supreme Lord.
The Dungeon Supplier had come over to the Deep Ones to inform them that he did not prepare an Island Instance for them. Instead, they had the whole western sea region to play with. They would be retaining their underwater forsaken town from the current home instance, and in return, Jin had given them a bunch full of System points to use them as they saw fit.
The Deep Ones were actually elated to learn that their underwater forsaken town remained status quo as they were initially afraid when Jin said all minions would move to Island Instances. They also quite liked the idea that it was up to them whether they wanted to further improve their city or stretch its perimeters. With Jin’s generous compensation, they even considered building a second outpost underwater. (Maybe an underwater military base?)
“Ah, except you guys will definitely be one of the few permanent bad guys for this Open Dungeon. The sea cannot be all calm and dandy, right?” Jin said, and the Deep Ones immediately cheered for that death and destruction was still applicable for them.
As the feasting continued on, Lynn and Qiu Yue suddenly appeared on the stage again, stopping the current powerpoint slides. Some of the monsters jeered and Qiu Yue snap back at them. “You guys! If you don’t see it, it’s more of a surprise! Rawr!” (She had been drinking a little of Lynn’s new sake which was meant for later part of the feast.)
“Hahaha! Calm down Qiu Yue. How about we have a round of game as promised to earn some extra System points?” Lynn suggested, and that made the entire horde roared in unity. Who did not want some extra System points? That equated to better food in the future and possibly a more comfortable place to stay in with the new Island Instance. It was THE currency to get no matter what kind of hell the minion had to go through!
“For fairness sake, anyone larger than Baphomet won’t be allowed to play. So Beast Demons and Mr Derpy, I am sorry. You will have to watch from afar. To make it up to you, we are preparing a secret meaty dish which has specially been prepared by Lynn. ” Qiu Yue said, and the large monsters felt they had gotten the better part of the deal to be able to eat Lynn’s personal cooking.
The next game was essentially a massive game of dodgeball with a slight twist. With the aid of Peppers’ magic, the participating monsters would be magically coated with a sticky layer for the ball to stick and donning a helmet on. The varying colours of the helmet indicated how many points that particular monster was worth in order to balance the game a little.
Aside from catching the ball, the monsters could also block incoming attacks with their weapons or skills as well. The balls would be indestructible enough so that none of them had to worry about holding back. If a ball hit a monster, it would get stuck before getting teleported out, awarding to one who threw the ball the corresponding point.
So for monsters like Flame Ripper, his speed as an evolved assassin goblin would make him nearly uncatchable, and he had the skills to block most other minions. Yet his helmet was considered A-Tier, the second highest number of points attainable if he had been hit and subsequently ousted.
The S-Tier helmets were reserved for the bellators themselves. They were worth 500 points whereas hitting Flame Ripper would only yield 100 points. Thus, the bellators had become the prime targets for almost all of the participating monsters.
And this made each and every bellator’s blood boil with much excitement. For this time only, Yun even participated in the event and wore a S-Tier helmet to make the game even more thrilling. There were no concrete rules at all, and Qiu Yue told them that teaming up was also an option but the points earnt would ultimately belong to one from an individual.
For people like Amura Rei, who was just a normal human with the knowledge of the Mecha World, he was given the lowest tier helmet, D-Tier. Those helmets were also imbued by the System with a barrier mechanism that provided high defence so that if those stray S-Tier balls hit any of the lower tier users, they would not be accidentally killed by them.
Oddly enough, Jin was not taking part himself and was the person who would blow the whistle in the Stadium Instance to start the games in there. The rest of the non-participants were given the privilege to watch it through the large screen with various magic eyes providing the live scene feed.
“Are you guys ready?!” Jin asked as he flew above the entire group and held a flare gun with him. The participants shouted with anticipation and excitement as their master slowly raised the flare gun and pointed it upwards.
A bright red flare flew up to the sky, and the game of deadly dodgeball commenced.
