Of all a sudden, Jin felt his sweat slowly wetting the back of his shirt. Participating in the National Dungeon Symposium? That would basically be an open invitation to have his secrets possibly exposed.
For not being a proper dungeon supplier.
At the moment, he could get away with it mainly because Jin was able to divert such questions to the quintessential excuse of ‘trade secrets’. However, if he were to join the National Dungeon Symposium, authentic high grade dungeon suppliers would have genuine questions for him.
Even Ke Loong had his suspicions and assumed that Jin was using technology more advanced than the current prototypes. But Mr Know-it-All told him to trust Jin fully and work with him instead of doubting him.
This ‘blind’ trust was not without any support. Ke Loong’s Chief Engineer, Bo Ze had sent numerous workers under disguise to try out Jin’s dungeons, so they all could fathom and theorise how Jin’s shop. Unfortunately for them, they came out even more baffled and had only worked out assumptions on how Jin’s instances work to a certain extent.
There were numerous missing holes in their theory which Bo Ze’s talented senior engineers could not figure out, but that did not mean that they were not secretly attempting to decipher it. Because in the end, they were hopeful they were able to reverse engineer what they had experience in Jin’s dungeon. All of it was to possibly rival Jin in the future despite Ke Loong insistence saying that they want to be partners.
Ke Loong did want to be partners all for one reason.
Upon seeing such Dungeon Technology, he wanted to own this by himself. That was why Sea Mesh CEO ordered his HR to mercilessly headhunt Jin’s researchers. If he could get the technological knowledge from Jin’s researchers, they would further push the research they had been doing. Sadly, they had a hard time finding them, and even their online database had no information on them. (Mainly because they do not exist in this world in the first place! Teehee!)
Also, why let that particular dungeon technology stay in one corner of Shenzhen? Let Ke Loong handle it, and he would spread it to each and every intersection of China and probably the whole world! Up till then, Sea Mesh Company would be famous world wide and not to mention the profit!
That was also why Ke Loong appeared very trusting and accommodating to Jin for the Portal Devices. He wanted to do everything to earn Jin’s trust, and even he could not get the Dungeon Technology, this particular Portal Device technology would soar throughout the world given its use and efficiency.
However, Jin was not a small little town bumpkin.
He knew that Ke Loong had plans to poach people like Ayse and had been wary. So by placing the portal devices in dungeon instances and monsters, it was not only to improve the security but to show the dungeon supplier’s dominance.
This particular move made Ke Loong wary whether if Jin was starting to learn to be street smart or it had been that way all along, and merely pretended to be taken advantage of.
At the same time, Kraft had suggested to Jin’s Head Researcher to take further initiative to aid her master. With the success of getting information on Ryuli, Kraft had passed Ayse a thumb drive with another version of Foxy. Just plug the thumb drive once into any of their PCs or laptops and Ms Foxy will worm its way into their servers with absolute stealth.
“Two can play the game,” Kraft said to Jin after the revelation of Mr Know It All as a potential spy. A spy for corporate businesses, for the government or foreign governments? Kraft did not bother that much, but for Mr Know-it-all to introduce an intimate business contact of his to Jin, Kraft would not be taking any chances in counter industry espionage.
With all these events happening at the sidelines, Jin knew that participating in the Symposium might potentially bring him more harm than good. He had enough problems to deal with both in this world and other worlds so he rather not risk himself exposing too much at the moment until he had time and energy to focus on his main business at hand.
“I will consider but most likely not going for the Symposium as a participant. More of an audience. I will prefer to see how the competition is like before entering. Maybe the year after?” Jin said to Si Fang politely.
“Ah, that’s a pity. I was hoping you could rise even higher, especially when your dungeon instances are always the talk around the café. Even without me going to your shop, I already know that you have an awesome Christmas Raid going on.” Si Fang teased how great Jin’s dungeons were.
“Perhaps, you and the other shop keepers could come and try it out. I can give you guys a free trial for the first round as a thank you for sticking through. Hahaha!” Jin said, and Si Fang did not dislike the idea.
“Yeah, we could do that. By the way, are you available for supper tonight? We usually have a get together at Boxing Day as part of the Tian Gong Shopping District shopping community.” Si Fang asked, causing Jin to look at his phone.
“If…I am not too occupied with my dungeon making. Hahah! I will inform Lynn in case I could not be there.” Jin replied unfavourable, making Si Fang a little disappointed as he wanted to JIn to participate in this special supper as a thank you for what he had done for the Tiangong shopping district.
Jin could have abandoned the old store owners, he could have ignored the livelihood of the people in this place. Instead, he stood up against the bullies in this unfair society and carved a breathing space not just for himself but for the rest of the owners here.
Si Fang had always thought that the owners were being too irresponsible for demanding much from the new landlord. Jin did not need to accommodate to the old store owners at all, but he still did it despite the fact that not many owners liked him initially when he came.
Even when their business picked up indirectly from Jin’s Dungeons and Pandas, many store owners were jealous of his efforts. That was why Si Fang saw Jin more than a thriving business owner when he saw how unselfish the dungeon supplier cared to open up jobs for the rest to grow as well. If Si Fang were deep down honest to himself in that Ruby Rat Triad incident, he would probably save his friends and ignore the rest of the group store owners.
Some might say that Jin was naïve, but when Siu Fang and his friends gathered for some casual small talk, they discussed how the dungeon supplier had the foresight to keep the old store owners. One was to prevent former store owners to inciting possible vengeance, assuming that it was Jin’s plan to use the Triads to push the previous owners out of the place.
The other reason was to create a debt of gratitude and at the same time a sort of repayment for the destruction of Tiangong Shopping District. Yet, Si Fang and friends clearly knew that the Triad had been aiming for this particular spot to create a casino in order to attract more cash into their coffers.
However, the act of killing a Triad Boss had caused Jin to have unintended consequences as well. The news spread like a riptide through the underworld scenes, and a number of Triad Bosses close to Wo De Tian were seemingly unhappy that Jin was to be left untouched. And that was the absolute order by Mu Bing, the Triad Boss for the Prosperous Pigs as well as one of the elders in the Triad Circles.
Because of this effect, Jin noticed that there were multiple requests of store owners without any branded names wanting to place a mark into the Tree Mall to cash in with the popularity. (The famous shopping brands were intentionally avoiding the Tree Mall as an order by their respective Triads.)
For now, Jin decided to play as the ignorant to the multiple requests until he finds what he needs within the candidates for his Mall. (After all, there is only ‘limited’ amount of space he could give out.)
Upon seeing Si Fang’s disappointed look, Jin sighed softly as he knew that he did somewhat owe SI Fang for the favour of him decorating the Tree Mall for Christmas.
“Alright, I promise that I will join for a while since I also like to hear everyone’s thoughts and feelings after working for a few weeks in the Tree Mall.” Jin said with a crumpled smile. Si Fang knew that Jin was trying to be accommodating and thus the café owner tapped on Jin’s shoulder and thanked him for making time.
