Once Lao Ku portrayed his cultivation, he proceeded to gather an intense amount of chi and wanted to show the audience that he was all powerful by crushing these panda puppets into pieces. In actual fact, he already knew about Dungeons and Panda's procedures and their strict policy and zero tolerance of cultivators breaking the rules.
Before coming to this store, he previously noticed that those who broke the rules were cultivation grades significantly lower than him and he felt those cultivators definitely deserve it for going against someone who they were not prepared for. But for Lao Ku, who had recently broken into the realm of Grade 12, believed that he had the upper hand for this particular situation.
And if he were to be successful against this Dungeon and Pandas store, he would be able to gain some popularity, notoriety…and most importantly money.
Aye, he was employed by Jin's competitors who wanted to bring his increasing popularity down to the gutters. It seemed as if his competitors had researched sufficiently on Jin's supposed grade level since he had managed to take down the Rat Triad's Boss who was rumoured to be Grade 13.
"But because of budget constraints, this said competitor could only manage to employ a grade 12 cultivator to harass the User." The System said once it had accessed the memories of Lao Ku at the sidelines, since analysing each and every cultivator entering Jin's store had been a mandatory process after the assassination incident.
In the meantime, Jin had already prepared to open the Cultivation Zoo in his Dungeon Maker but seeing the entire commotion from behind the scenes, he decided to delay it a little before its grand official opening. After all, this was his store, and everyone's focus was on the Lion. It did however give him extra time to perform a quick check through the parameters of the Zoo once more.
"Does not matter much. Those SWAT Pandas were only fodder for him to gain confidence, Captain Hei or Bai could easily finish him." Jin did not bother much since he had defeated foes way stronger than a Grade 12 and with his current cultivation, the System had already unlocked or in this case, increased the potential of his NPCs to match Jin's strength and a little more. In the System's opinion, it was a miracle that not many competitors tried to bring him down and it theorised it was partially attributed to the fact that Jin had managed to take down the Rat Triad Boss.
Knowing that there was a new Dungeon Supplier able to beat a Triad Boss, not many of his potential foes tried to do anything foolish. In addition, he was under the protection of the Royal Zodiac Dragon Clans so it was safe to cross the clans out and attribute this harassment from one of his dungeon supplier competitors, presumably because Jin had entered the Symposium.
"The System feels that User should enter the fray and teach a lesson against the cultivator not because it was the right thing to do but as part of a warning against other competitors watching from the sidelines. Also, this would reinforce the fact that you are the owner since the new cultivators entering the stores might not have an idea that you are THE Dungeon Supplier."
"In short, make my appearance as a booster for popularity's sake," Jin said and the System acknowledged.
"Competency and popularity is the way to being the number one dungeon supplier." The System replied.
"Then, tell me who is exactly the top number one? I mean we have not been focusing on them since we are busy climbing up the ranks. But with all these developments from the past few months, I should have shot up through the ranks like a rocket. It's time to know who true competitors are. Is it RedStacks in Europe? :DPlayer in Japan? or the American's WoW Supplier?" Jin queried while zooming into the Lion Cultivator.
"Unfortunately, the Number One Ranking for the Dungeon Supplier is not from this world." The System said and Jin furrowed his eyebrows.
"What do you exactly mean?" Jin said as he stopped looking at the screen where the Lion Cultivator had successfully defeated two of the SWAT Pandas, evaporating into dust. One of the SWAT Pandas had already contacted the Captains as backup and the rest of the Pandas were fighting defensively to ensure that their Captain could come in time. (Obviously, it was a ruse to get the crowd to hype up since the Captain NPCs could teleport at any time.)
"The ability to supply dungeons does not stop at dimension instances." The System said it in a fairly cryptic way but Jin gradually understood that there were people who were able to create dungeons without the use of dimensional instances.
"Demons like Baal? Gods?" Jin queried and the System did not wish to even pop a name up, reinforcing Jin's doubts even further that there were forces stronger than him that were at play if he were to wish to get the Number One title.
"Then I guess with my luck, these …competitors of mine would appear sooner or later," Jin said and the System nodded its proverbial head.
"Our interaction across worlds as well as the intensive use of the interworld black market had certainly raised some eyebrows. But for now, the System believed that they were not taking any actions, simply because it would be fun for them to see a challenger offering a fight against them. Or they were too ignorant to see us as a threat." The System explained and Jin nearly choked on his laughter.
"You make us sound like this lion cultivator, flaunting his powers around, thinking that he is better than everyone else in the room," Jin said as he stared idly at the screen. "But you know we do not do just that. We are way more than this lion cultivator." Jin said as he finally pressed a button to accelerate the process of Captain Hei's appearance. "We will do whatever it takes to make sure that our competitor is like this Lion cultivator. Fooled. Superior. And thinks that he has the upper hand but we have been hiding our trump card all this time just so we can have the last laugh." Jin said as he saw Lao Ku slammed the third SWAT Panda to the ground, exhilarated by the recent success of destroying the security guards, believing that was all the Dungeons and Pandas had to offer.
It was not until a loud wave of cheers suddenly emerged not for him but for a being that had been known for crushing evil-doers.
"Captain Hei. At the scene." The Panda clicked his walkie talkie back to his vest and he walked proudly towards the offender. Unlike the other SWAT Pandas, his muscles were bustling with chi and each walk he takes commanded pride, power and most importantly. Authority.
"You are that evil-doer who wished to break the rules?" Hei said as he lifted his black sunglasses up to have a look at the runt.
"So, you are the rumour Super NPC that supposedly protects the place? Well, time to protect your own ass from my attacks!" Lao Ku said as he once again portrayed his cultivation out wide with a gigantic lion roaring and two other smaller ones at its side.
"Stop yapping and come at me. You runt.." Hei commented and the crowd instantly yelled with excitement.
