“You two know how to make people wait.” Jia Ying was seen sitting on the upper floors of the Shop Level One Instance. She was petting the Sanguine Stag that was on her lap when Shi Hui and Se Lang found her. Jia Ying was also adjusting her deck of Pet Battle cards which seemed to be the trend now in Jin’s store.
There was even an auditorium that was dedicated to the Pet Battle Royale Service Instance and sometimes if the battles were intense, both the auditoriums were assigned for it. What about the dungeons? Were they not as popular as before? Were Jin’s monsters now slacking?
Definitely not.
The new Pet Battle Royale Service Instance was catered to various groups of people. One of them was the people who wanted to fight against monsters instead of players because they preferred to do so. They thought that they could learn a thing or two from a Player versus Monster environment before fighting against other cultivators.
Hence, the monsters were equally busy fighting various players too. What the players did not know was that the monsters were alive and not computer simulated. So, they were getting a challenge which was equally if not harder than the players. Reward wise was still the same. The players were unaware, but when the monsters won, they got better food, modern equipment or even orbs of spiritual force for their home instance.
It was an incentive that Jin created to help the monsters build up their own home. Earning something through hard work established more ownership and pride for their new home instead of just giving them everything at hand. Therefore, this spurred the monsters to fight harder and stronger in Pet battles too.
Of course, the cards were sometimes regulated by the System in those individual battles. Otherwise, the new cultivators would be trashed by them. If such cases occur, the System compensated them with Panda Medals which they could use in Jin’s general store to get items. (Yes! That general store does not just sell potions! They have a partially hidden everyday store section which the customers have yet to discover.)
“Still, it’s amazing how lively the shop has become with the new shop instance, and it saved me a lot of trouble. I remember the police station issued an increased alert to Tiangong Shopping District two weeks ago because of Boss Jin’s arrival. I even had to break a few fights up, because people tried to squeeze into Jin’s shop.” Se Lang commented as his Wacky Wolf pet jumped on his head and wagged its tail.
“Seriously, Boss Jin should have gone with a shop instance from the start, when he opened his shop. It would have been a fantastic experience to see the Qixi theme.” Shi Hui complained about the previous shop interior while her pet swan sat quietly on her lap.
With the shop being a dimensional instance, the whole place was now decorated with Halloween theme. One day after launching the shop’s dimensional instance, the returning customers were amazed by yet another drastic change to the store’s interior design.
Instead of the simple plain spacious layout, the entire place revamped with a gothic setting to it. The ceiling of the Shop Level One instance was initially white and dull but now there was a stained glass ceiling with ever bright moonlight shining in.
The stained glass, or art glass, which required artistic and engineering craftsmanship to assemble the pieces in real life, was a treat to the eyes, especially an overly large glass ceiling like Jin’s. However, with the aid of the System, all it cost was several dungeon dollars which Jin gladly paid since the interior of a shop played an essential part in the psychological aspect of customers.
“Yeah, I like the stained glass ceiling the most.” Jia Ying returned the deck of Pet Battle cards into her storage ring and looked at the ceiling. It was not the usual scary Halloween kind of stained glass design but rather various flowers which she could not identify.
The glass ceiling was divided into seven parts, similar to how the Shop Level One Instance was being separated, allowing each part of the auditorium to be lit up in various colours. Also, the colours were not too bright nor too gloomy, and it fits the theme of Halloween.
Even the couches which were initially white were changed to ruby red, and there were floating candles around the auditoriums. The caravan which Zhen Qing was operating was also redesigned to fit the theme.
There was initially a panda statue lazing around on top of the caravan, but now it turned into a Frankenstein costume panda where the patches of black seemed to be ‘sewn’ onto the bear, and it even had a nut bolt through its head.
Getting the customers into the mood was vitally important for a shop like his. Not to mention, to fulfil his ridiculous secondary mission objective of getting 5000 customers general sales would not seem as absurd as it would be with the all new Battle Pet service instance.
“Hahaha, but the funniest thing was Boss Jin and Zhen Qing. I liked how Zhen Qing managed to pull off such a terrible looking costume and still display such grace.” Shi Hui quietly took a picture of the beautiful cook who happened to wear a bloodied chef outfit with fake tools hanging on the side of her waist, yet she still appeared so sexy in it.
“Talking about sexy, I think Yun and Milk were just too hot for their costumes.” Se Lang blurted out and suddenly felt a kick on his left shin. Jia Ying gave an annoyed look at Se Lang as if to say “watch what you are saying stupid guy” and pointed at Shi Hui.
“But but…Jin’s costume is over the top ridiculous.” Se Lang gave his comments on Jin to change the topic. Se Lang also initially thought it was another AI NPC that helped Boss Jin with the Bar Island until Jin took out the head to reveal his face. Jin was in a panda suit with a traditional Count Dracula looking suit… with a panda head. Even the oversized panda head had two canine teeth protruding out of its mouth.
“Unfortunately, he was too lazy to act the role of Count Dracula.” Jia Ying tried to reinforce the change of topic while peeking down to the lower floors from where she was sitting and saw Jin lazily walking around in that costume giving out Halloween lollipops.
Riding on the wave of Halloween. Jin also decided to throw in more cosmetic items related to Halloween, and he learned a thing from mobile games gacha. For a limited time only, during the Halloween period and till the end of November, the Pet Battle vending machine would have an increased rate of getting a limited set of special moves.
Oh, but he was not that evil in sucking people’s money. The reason Jin gave out Halloween lollipops was that attached to the candies was a QR code that allowed the customers to get a free Halloween limited edition cosmetic item which could only be redeemed once.
“Oh yeah, I do agree with Se Lang. Milk and Yun were very sexy in their costumes.” Shi Hui did not care about the derailed topic both Se Lang and Jia Ying tried to create. She liked how Se Lang was blunt and honest about everything. It was that quality of his, which made Shi Hui find Se Lang very attractive. In university and even in her musical performance, not many were willing to tell the truth and always sugar coated things.
“Anyways, Jia Ying, where are Jing Ru and Yue Wen?” Shi Hui realised they were not around.
“Ehh, about that. They went for the Halloween instance first because Jing Ru’s father came by with her. With a powerhouse like Jing Ru’s father, Yue Wen wanted to see how strong a Grade 6 was and dragged the both of them into the dungeon instance. We could wait for them here.” Jia Ying said.
“Besides, we might have a higher chance of winning later on, since they could tell us what to watch out for.” Jia Ying added but later saw Shi Hui pouting.
“It must have been that impatient Yue Wen. How dare they not wait for us! It was not Se Lang’s fault to take that much time window shopping in the weapon store!” Shi Hui was somewhat upset.
“If that’s the case, we should also go as three member team. I do not want to be spoiled by Yue Wen again.” Shi Hui grabbed Se Lang’s hands and pulled him up.
“But we might not be strong enough…” Se Lang wanted to argue, but Jia Ying took the opportunity to pat on Se Lang’s back as an excuse. “You cannot stop her when she is adamant. Let’s go Se Lang.” Jia Ying felt her heart beating slightly faster.
“Okay, okay. In any case, I nearly forgot that Boss Jin’s dungeons are modified to players’ grade.” Se Lang agreed, and he smiled at Jia Ying before he was dragged away by Shi Hui.
So cheerful. So gullible. The trio had no idea what they were in for, with this Halloween instance.
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