After two days of R & R leisure time, a mass message was passed to all commanding officers by General Hou Fei to meet at the beach for assembly by 0800 hours. Jin was there early to prepare the necessary pamphlets and booklets to distribute, but he can’t help to notice how orderly and punctual the soldiers were when it came to their appointed time.
Instead of coming on the dot to assemble, each and every one of them had already been there at 0730 hours for roll call. They even performed their basic set of exercises in their standard army uniforms before standing at attention waiting for the commanding officers to collate and record the people who were present.
All five thousand were waiting at the shoreline silently, and the only thing that could be heard was the sound of the artificial sea waves hitting the beach. (To them it’s rather real though)
A mass gathering of that many soldiers was indeed a sight to behold, and Jin could not help but take a panoramic picture of the soldiers awaiting their next orders. Soon, Hou Fei came fashionably late at 8.01 am. The commanding officers then announced their battalion’s roll call, stating the number of soldiers that were present.
Upon the completion of the roll call, Hou Fei scanned the beachhead filled with soldiers and subsequently dismissed the soldiers to get their breakfast and return to the shoreline by 9 am.
Everyone left double time, marching back to the hotels in an orderly fashion. Only the commanding officers had stayed and now followed Hou Fei to meet Jin.
“This is the dungeon supplier who has created the raid exercise we will all attend. While I did mention that the police should be joining us in a combined training exercise, this one is going to be a little bit more special.” Hou Fei introduced him, and everyone took turns to shake Jin’s hand.
“Boss Jin, it’s an honour to meet you. Your reputation of realistic dungeon instances precedes you.” Major Boon Tiong said to Jin as they exchanged greetings.
“Indeed. When I heard of General Hou Fei’s plan to stay in a dungeon supplier store in Shenzhen, we believed only you could make it happen.” Colonel Chen Lai added, which made Jin wonder how they had heard of his place before.
“The good old General always brags about how he’s met this fantastic dungeon supplier and keeps insisting that we should send our squad/battalion to try the dungeons first hand. It’s a big headache for me though.
Honestly, you can’t imagine how much of an issue it was to prepare the funds for this ‘vacation’. The defence ministry got on my back and nearly wanted to start a full-on investigation about why five battalions left their bases early for the Dongguan-Huizhou incursions to join some impromptu training exercise leaving a barebone security to guard the bases.” Colonel Kan Jian lightly complained, revealing himself to be the head of finance for the Royal Snake Battalions.
“You’re here to relax right now, so stop with all that bureaucratic nonsense. You should all agree that it was a good recommendation for the soldiers to rest here, right? Besides, we are the first to be allowed to test this place out. Boss Jin hasn’t even disclosed this location to the public.” Hou Fei rolled his eyes at Kan Jian’s constant nagging. He obviously knew that his subordinate was keeping the spending funds at a minimum for other big-budget purchases in the future.
“Yeah, yeah. It’s all good. Nobody can deny a single bit. The accommodation was shockingly comfortable.” Kan Jian praised while the others also agreed that the amenities and food were excellent too.
“Okay, enough of that. Let’s get to the main topic, shall we?” Colonel Chen Lai pointed out, knowing how the officers sometimes wished to butter up their relations with General Hou Fei, even though they knew he was not that kind of person. “Jin, what are your plans for us?”
“Yes, I’ll get to it in a moment, but before that, let’s go somewhere a little more comfortable for this talk,” Jin suggested as he opened a portal right in front of them, allowing them to enter the prepared war room for the discussion.
Waiting for the guests, the penguins had prepared snacks such as palm-sized sandwiches so the officers could take a bite while they listened to what Jin had to say.
The dungeon supplier told them how the exercise would commence, explaining the current plans they had and informing them about the defences he had created beforehand.
“However, please be aware that this is a new technological engine that I am experimenting with, so it’s likely that the algorithm is mighty unstable. In other words, the monsters that will enter the field might either be a lot weaker than you… or what’s more likely to be the case, they could be way stronger than expected.” Jin warned them. This did cast some worries on the officers.
“Isn’t that dangerous for the upholding the integrity of the dungeon instance? Should we expect it to break down all of a sudden?” Colonel Chen Lai asked, and Jin shook his head.
“No, that won’t be an issue. I’m using two different servers for this raid, so you do not have to worry about that possibility at all. This dungeon instance will not crash.” Jin claimed with confidence though deep down, there was some anxiety that King Baal might choose to cast his strongest magics obliterating everyone to obtain the Dungeon Core and destroying all the hard work they had done over the last weeks.
The System repeatedly assured Jin that even in such a worst-case scenario there were already measures in place to retrieve all the items they had built to a certain extent. Thus, it would not be a total waste of time, effort and money.
“Is this erm… technological monster creation engine you are using from Sea Mesh?” Evidently, at least Major Boon Tiong knew about the connections between Jin and Ke Loong. Only through further conversations did Jin find out that he was part of the information gathering team for the Royal Snake Battalions.
“I’m afraid I can’t comment on that,” Jin replied adamantly yet Boon Tiong did not mind the answer, stating that he had just been trying his luck.
“Then I hope you don’t mind me asking why you choose to use this new engine when you could have created default ones for us to fight against?” Chen Lai questioned Jin’s reason for going with this particular method.
“Because Hou Fei wanted me to prepare you guys for the worst of the worst against the upcoming Monster Horde that you’ll all be fighting,” Jin answered as he eyed at Hou Fei, hoping for some assurance. The Panda Remnant did not disappoint him.
“I vouch for him. Jin’s dungeons are the closest thing to a ‘warm-up’ we can get without actually fighting those beasts. If he can’t manage to do it, you can forget about any other dungeon supplier. We’ll be doing this along with his customer cultivators as well as a few of Jin’s created monsters to even the ‘playing field’.” Hou Fei said to treat the remaining friendlies as variables that needed to be considered. After all, they were simulating a monster horde kind of exercise.
“Too bad for us, we won’t be earning any rewards though Jin did promise me that if we do well in the fight, we’ll get to stay in the hotel for two additional days for free. So you guys better buck up! I want to enjoy that freaking presidential suite at the top of Hotel Pandastic!” Hou Fei teased, and everyone laughed.
