“Instructor Zeru! What next?!” Xiong Da shouted loudly to prove that he was done with the exercise regime that Zeru had given him. Xiong Da had sweat enough to fill up a lake large enough for a hippo to float around.
“That will be it for today. Go get yourself some food, you deserve it.” Zeru gave his approval and Xiong Da was finally able to relax in the boxing ring. Having spent a lot of time in Panda Muscles, he did not realise it was already late night.
During the time Xiong Da had been training, he had seen a number of new faces in the Panda Muscles Service Instance. Many were trying out the equipment installed in this major facility. Who did not like new advanced stuff? Even Xiong Da, who was particular about gyms, had started to love Panda Muscles a lot. The individual toilets here were cleaner than any high class gym had he tried going to and that was his pet peeve for most gyms that he had gone to.
To Xiong Da’s surprise, there were actually instructors allocated for the Panda Muscles Service Instance. All the customers had to do was hire them from the centre of the Panda Muscles facility, which was where the reception centre was located. The funny thing was that the instructors were actually the gang of werejackals and werecats that had been captured by Jin.
“Wow, is Jin secretly a super engineer that knows how to programme his instances or is he some crazy smart genius that knows some high level cultivation magic?” Xiong Da could not help but comment when he saw the werejackals walking around helping the cultivators.
“Unless…those monsters are REAL?” Xiong Da tried to rationalise the possibility since Zeru was real even though he acted as an AI instructor when the training had just begun.
“Heh, he just so happened to find some…group that was willing to believe in him and lent their technology and cultivation magic expertise to him. But trust me, Jin has fought enough monsters to create these dungeons.” Zeru tried to explain and defend Jin vaguely when he passed a bottle of fresh spring water for Xiong Dato drink. Xiong Da also dismissed that thought after some consideration. There was no dungeon supplier, for now at least, able to provide real monsters in captivity, and much less have those different monsters act the same each time in the dungeon.
“Hahaha, sounds like he made a deal with the devil…or should I say the Pandas.” Xiong Da laughed as he thanked Zeru for the water.
Initially, the werejackals looked menacing and cultivators had a hard time starting a conversation with them, but in no time, the male cultivators finally got used to their presence. They were giving the cultivators advice as well as training tips also while helping them develop a training regime. In fact, only the werejackals were fast enough to keep up with the cultivators’ training pace.
For the females, Nyami and Meomi were the ones assisting them. Nyami already had enough students to open a class for yoga while Meomi did CrossFit training with the other females.
“You sure you guys won’t get stronger by training with us?” A grade 2 male cultivator asked Werejackal Grey and he laughed at the cultivator. “If we do not train with you guys, you guys will feel that we are not a challenge at all!”
“So in a way, we are training with the enemy to learn about our enemy?” The ponytail female cultivator questioned and Meomi nodded her head. “Applies to both of us.”
“That’s not a bad way to train since having a rival works always works well” The grade 2 cultivator replied as he continued his weightlifting reps.
When Xiong Da was fully rested up, he noticed that some of the customers had their digital pets out with them. Some of the pets were cheering their cultivators on, while others were holding onto a towel or a bottle of water for them to refresh themselves.
“Ah, I totally forget about the existence of my digital pet.” Xiong Da took his phone out and checked the Pandamonium forums. He quickly activated his pet and a small, cute, miniature sized hippo yawned in front of him. Xiong Da also bought the Qixi Festival loot box because he thought that maybe…just maybe… Ruo Ying would join him in the future.
“In any case, let me give you some new clothes.” Xiong Da remembered he had a pet fashion ticket to use and Pandamonium revealed a lollipop accessory. Xiong Da thought it was hilarious how he got a food fashion item and quickly slotted the accessory onto his digital pet hippo.
“I wonder if these pets have other abilities other than just tagging along.” Xiong Da reminded himself to ask Jin but at the moment, he decided to go take a shower first before he went for his dinner.
———–
“Where’s Boss Jin?” Xiong Da asked as he looked around the now empty store, with only Yun cleaning the bar counter and Milk sitting nearby drinking a cup of black ivory coffee.
“He is outside at the kitchen caravan with Zhen Qing.” Milk told Xiong Da and he guessed he had to put his digital pet question on hold for the moment. “Ms Yun, give me – Oh Ms Yun, you know my stomach very well.” Before Xiong Da even opened his mouth, Yun had already started putting dishes out onto the bar counter for Xiong Da.
There was already an assortment of food for him to savour. Triple Cheese Pizza, the random but tasty onigiri, his favourite Black Ivory Coffee, and two plates of Tonkatsu Curry Rice along with a jug of spring water for him to rinse it all down.
“Is this part of the plan? Does Jin want to feed me with lots of good food? Because if so, I’m down!” Xiong Da shamelessly asked but Yun shook her head. “This is not even the beginning of his plan, I think you will be able to try his plan out tomorrow.”
“Any hints?” Xiong Da was already munching on his food when he asked the question.
“Find out tomorrow!” Milk teased him even further but Xiong Da just gave a huff and continued to eat his food.
Meanwhile, Jin was helping Zhen Qing clean the kitchen caravan. “Boss, it’s okay, I can handle this myself.”
“No, I want this done quickly so I can ask you a few things.” Jin insisted but Zhen Qing instantly stopped him after a while. “No, Boss. Stop. I understand that you are my boss but we need to have some workspace authority. This is the kitchen, therefore it is my domain. I hope you can appreciate and understand why I want to clean and pack things myself.” Zhen Qing explained.
“Ah.” Jin realised that he was at the wrong and Zhen Qing wanted to be in control of her space. “Okay, if that’s the case, I’ll wait for you to finish cleaning and then we can talk.” Jin tried to salvage the whole conversation.
“What is it about? I can multitask.” Zhen Qing picked up where she left off and continued her cleaning.
“It is about your cultivation.” Jin sighed as he was starting to realise he might not get the chance to bond with her properly so he changed his topic.
“Hmm…I will quickly clean this up and get back to you.” Zhen Qing hurried as she felt more pumped than ever even though the day had made her extremely tired. ‘If I could really learn a cultivation method, I might be able to do more things!’ Zhen Qing thought to herself as she started to dread the status of a commoner.
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