“XIONG DA! HOW DARE YOU!” Bin Yong entered the shop instance and ran to the elevated floor of the Level One Shop Instance panting as he saw Xiong Da already holding onto tens of dungeon tickets and food waiting for them. Xiong Da specifically asked the penguins from the Restaurant Train of Delicacy to deliver the plates of curry rice to the second floor. Ruo Ying was already chewing on a few pieces of flavoured onigiri while stealing some scoops of curry from her boyfriend.
“What? Who asked you to be so slow? Come earlier next time! Hahahaha!” Xiong Da laughed as he placed the tickets on the table and Bin Yong reluctantly took them. Shi Zuo was the next to enter and found out that Bin Yong failed. Yes, they initially wanted to repay Xiong Da for the previous treats of dungeon instances by buying the tickets for Xiong Da and his girlfriend this time around but Xiong Da had beaten them once again.
Xiong Da promised that whenever possible, he would treat Bin Yong’s group to dungeons because of the huge favour they had done for him in getting Ruo Ying. Bin Yong had thought Xiong Da was joking and gladly accepted the idea. As a matter of fact, Xiong Da took his promise very seriously…
However, Bin Yong and Shi Zuo could not let this generosity continue for long. Once or twice would be fine yet Xiong Da treated them for almost all the dungeons whenever they met up with him and they felt that they would be losing face if they could not treat Xiong Da back once in a while. It was a Chinese man’s matter of pride to Shi Zuo and Bin Yong since they were not shameless enough to take the tickets for free on a regular basis.
Ironically, Xiong Da felt that it was a decent game to play with them. If they arrived earlier than Xiong Da, he would gladly receive their treat. But as long as he was earlier, Xiong Da would be buying the dungeon tickets. “The score should be 6-1 already. Please try again.” Ruo Ying teased Bin Yong as she munched on the pork cutlet soaked with curry sauce.
“You must be kidding me, you guys live just a few stations away from here. We’ve already tried to come as early as possible!” Shi Zuo grumbled as he sat down and thanked Xiong Da grudgingly for the food. Xiong Da sniggered and continued to eat his curry rice since the breakfast he made earlier was not enough for him.
“Where are Luo Bo and Jia Le?” Ruo Ying asked since they would usually be together with the guys.
“They had some work to clear for the upcoming animation project we got assigned to. That is why they would be rather late.” Shi Zuo answered and Bin Yong added that if they were still playing by then, the two girls would join them.
“Pity, I bought extra curry rice for them too. Guess I will be taking them. It’s a waste not to finish such good delicacy.” Xiong Da helped himself to it but it incurred the wrath of Ruo Ying.
“You better work your ass off later!” Ruo Ying took the opportunity to bite another delicious scoop of curry even though she kept saying she was conscious of her weight.
“But isn’t this the perfect opportunity for Ruo Ying to practice? The girls always make things less serious for her.” Shi Zuo suggested as he knew his girlfriend always like to steal the spotlight.
“Hmm, I guess that would mean we can focus on training Ruo Ying.” Xiong Da looked at her and she gave a slight nod but she was not forgiving him for eating that much early in the morning.
Xiong Da asked Ruo Ying for the app as he wanted to check her current physical status and equipment. Speaking about the stuff she carried, Ruo Ying’s weapon was similar to that of the Werecats Nyanmi and Meomi. But instead of whips, Ruo Ying used heavy duty chains as her primary choice of weapon. To everyone’s surprise, the Esthetical Egret Style focused a lot on arm strength to perform her attacks with grace. Not to mention, there was something that Xiong Da really liked about a beautiful lady swinging chains all along her opponent. There was a time they decided to duel with Xiong Da suppressing his cultivation. In the end two out of three battles, he was unable to win against Ruo Ying’s graceful style. (Or perhaps Xiong Da was too enthralled by her beauty.)
They discussed a little on what had been going on in their lives but it was a brief discussion since Xiong Da and Ruo Ying had their objectives set for the Large Panda Plushie. They quickly went to the instance stations which were continuously packed with people, but then they realised the event had yet to start officially.
“Do not worry about the dimensional instance machines! Please let the others who wish to do other dungeons use them first!” Mr Patsu stood near the dimensional instance machine and shouted at the top of his voice even though it was not necessary when the sound system in the shop instance was surround sound to begin with.
“What do you mean? Did you not say it’s a limited time event? If we do not use the dimensional instance machine, how do we teleport there?” A customer who was standing at the very front shouted back, feeling a little frustrated at the fact he was allowing others to go through.
“Because it does not matter.” Jin who came out from nowhere was wearing a brand new costume. A large Panda head with a helmet on while his outfit carried a full battle gear that consisted of a combat vest, a large backpack (which had nothing inside!) along with miscellaneous items that made it appear as if Jin was so overly prepared that it encumbered him, making him useless in a fight. But it was just a costume and costumes was meant to exaggerate.
He took off the Panda Head like how he did for Pandracula and addressed the masses. “As long as you have a ticket, you can now scan it with your Pandamonium App QR code capture and be teleported from anywhere within the shop instance compound. So you can do that from the Hot Spring instance, from the Restaurant Train Instance, from the Panda Muscle Instance, so on and so forth! This method is currently only implemented for the Goblin War Raid Instance. The rest of the other dungeon instances will follow within the next couple of days after we receive sufficient data from the servers to make it possible.” Jin shouted as he looked at the time and day on the digital clock in the shop instance.
“Ah crap, I have to change the interior decor to suit the November Mission.” Jin placed a mental note to remove the Halloween decoration soon or else it would not fit the mood. Other than that, there were more questions coming from the floor when Jin spoke about the Goblin War Raid Instance. The customers were fighting to get an answer from Jin but they were doing that to pass the time for the event to start.
“Why is this one called a Raid instance? How is it different from your other Dungeons?” A customer asked and Jin smirked at the incoming question. He instantly took out his phone and messaged the System to pull out a map of the goblin world, which was mostly centralised at the Gob Gob Kingdom. The map instantly turned into 3D and appeared at the top of the audience on an angle for better viewing to a large crowd.
“This will be your battlefield. As some of you might have read in the mail I sent via the Pandamonium app, we will be fighting against Orcs while siding with the goblins. All cultivators will be inserted into the battlefield like special forces to stop pockets of the Orc invasion and completing various objectives.” Jin explained and everyone immediately became very excited. This was the first time a dungeon supplier created a large scale battle for everyone. Even big names like King’s Monster could never do it. If Ke Loong were here, he would be pulling his hair our once more. (No doubt, Mr Know it All would notify him about the change of events in Jin’s store.)
“The Dimensional Instance will teleport you to a certain location which will, in turn, send you wherever Orcs are bound to appear planning on attacking the goblins. So you might have missions like save the Goblin Villagers, Protect the Goblin Village, Stop the Orc Escorts, Ambush the Orcs, so on and so forth. For now the events are related to defensive manoeuvres. If the response for this Goblin War Raid Event is good, we might host offensive missions in the future.” Jin elaborated and people started to discuss among themselves.
“Once your objective is completed, you will earn a number of Raid points which can be exchanged for items. The Event Redemption Counter to collect loot is right over there. There will be Pandas to assist you in exchanging your points for items, medals and every other thing available.” Jin added while pointing at the corner with a door that stated ‘Event Redemption Counter’. He purposely made a room filled with babyish Panda AIs to aid the collection at the counter. As a nice little bonus, seeing all those Pandas should motivate a lot of his customers to aim for the Legendary Panda Plushie. (Which Jin created a few more to cater and entice the masses upon seeing Xiong Da’s and Ruo Ying’s reaction previously.)
Some other customers had more questions but Jin interrupted them by saying that more will be revealed when they enter the instance in a minute’s time. Everyone including Xiong Da and the others had their hearts pumping since it seemed like this could turn out to be the largest event yet. While they were unaware how much Jin had to put in to make this work, Jin felt this was the fastest way to end the Goblin War and the only way to not just protect the goblin borders but ensure the orcs were being pushed back to their own regions.
People were taking live videos describing how excited they were and posting them in the social network services and some were taking pictures of their preparations for the Goblin War Raid instances, indirectly promoting Jin’s shop even more. The clock ticked to 12 pm and each and every of the customers’ Pandamonium App was lit up, giving them access to the Raid Event.
“THE EVENT STARTS NOW!!” Jin shouted at the top of his voice and even shot a firework from his fake grenade launcher to announce the start of the event. Everyone who had their tickets was immediately beamed off to the Goblin World with the help of the System. This is where the magic began, and also where half of the budget of his 10 million dungeon dollars was being spent on.
Xiong Da, Ruo Ying, Bin Yong and Shi Zuo found themselves in a large cargo plane setting, having been teleported with many other cultivators. From the looks of it, it seemed like a military cargo plane which they saw in movies and the sound of propellers made their heart start pumping faster. Usually, such a setting would mean that they would be jumping off the plane, so would they have to do the same?!
In any case, the group also realised that each of them had been equipped with a half mask based on their cultivation. Xiong Da had a half Hippo mask with teeth protruding out, Ruo Ying was wearing a white Egret half Mask with the beak angled downwards. Bin Yong had a half mask of the body of a beetle and though it looked like it blocked his vision, it was nothing like that. He could perfectly see through it and Shi Zuo had a comical monkey mask on instead of those serious ones like Ruo Ying’s and Bin Yong’s.
“Comrades! Captain Hei will debrief you on the things to do! Have a seat at the side of the plane!” A large muscular Panda shouted and his combat vest had Bai written on his left chest tag. Bin Yong and Shi Zuo had played enough of Jin’s dungeons to notice that the Pandas that instructed them were usually Hei, Bai, and Hui. All they did was wear different outfits for different dungeon instances. In a way, it gave the cultivators a sense of familiarity with the muscular three leader pandas.
When the group began to sit down, a holographic map appeared right beneath their legs, on the floor of the plane. It was similar to the map that Jin had shown but it was more detailed than the one in the Shop instance. The map was zoomed in to a region and it was concentrated to the size of a village. There were many various beeping colour markers on the holographic which the Captains told them that they represented different things.
Greens were goblin military soldiers regardless of ranks hence allies. Whites were the innocents and civilians while the approaching reds were the enemies. Greys were some larger creatures, which should best be avoided, as they could turn hostile. Captain Hei also said that the cultivators were marked as Purples.
“For the team that will be participating, you will be protecting the village from a company of Orcs attempting to pillage the village of their food stocks, wealth and manpower. We can not allow that. There are currently ten goblin militia defending the village behind the flimsy wooden walls but as you can see from the map, their enemies outnumber them ten to one. We would like to even the playing field a little so I am sending one team into that area. Who wants to do the honours?” Captain Hei asked and almost everyone put their hands up.
“Heh, Pandawan Xiong Da, your group is far too seasoned to take this.” Captain Bai commented and the two Panda Captains decided to choose another team. At that time a monster appeared from the direction of the cockpit. Most cultivators quickly recognised him as one of the Werejackals, to which everyone almost took their weapons out as part of an instinctive reaction.
“Woah! Woah! Woah!” Werejackal Grey expected the reaction as predicted by Jin but he did not think it would be this fierce.
“Put your weapons down! We told you, you would be hunting Orcs! Does he look anything like an Orc?!” The two Panda Captains commanded and everyone slowly lowered their weapons.
“Is he not the enemy?” A male Deer masked cultivator asked while placing his weapon back to his storage ring.
“Nope, all the monsters you had encountered in Jin’s dungeons will now serve as your guide and companions for this battle in case anything goes awry.” Captain Bai replied as he formally introduced Grey which allowed everyone to relax.
“Nice to meet you, I will be accompanying Team… Alpha was it? Ah you! I remember you. You killed me with that fancy sword style!” Grey recognised the Deer masked cultivator and they did some small talk before the Panda Captains interrupted them.
“Attention Team Alpha. Each of you wear this ring before you go down. Do not worry. The ring will fit all sizes.” Hei started to pass the rings to Team Alpha and everyone examined the ring before putting it on.
“This particular ring has multiple purposes. One, it will calculate the number of kills you’ve attained and the participation points for stronger orcs. Two, it will teleport you back to the shop instance when you are done. Three, it will also teleport you back when it senses that you are in critical danger, and most likely save you from a fatal blow. When it does that, it will also be game over for you. Points will then be calculated regardless if you complete the objective or not.” Captain Hei explained.
“Meanwhile, I will be there to assist in your fight too if necessary. I will not interfere for most of the fight but take it as I am the support if things go south. Else, I will be assisting the villagers to safety.” Grey said and the five cultivators in Team Alpha acknowledged.
“Alright, we will be reaching our destination soon. The rest of you listen up! Strap on to your seats! Team Alpha! See that platform over there? Move to there immediately!” Captain Bai commanded and everyone followed the Panda Captain’s orders.
The five cultivators with Grey stood on an elevated platform which subsequently lit up red boxes under their feet. The red boxes blinked for five seconds and the cultivators within the red boxes on the elevated platform moved downwards. All of a sudden, a seat appear on each of the cultivator red boxes and pilot like seatbelts were blinking at the side, asking the cultivators to strap them on. However, the only one that did not follow was Grey. He held on to the platform bar and even ordered the cultivators to strap tight.
Xiong Da and others who were at the side of the plane wondered why the strictness and then there were flashing lights and blaring sounds that indicated the opening the plane’s cargo ramp. “HOLY SHIT! ARE THOSE ALL C130s?!” Shi Zuo was shouting as he could not hear himself when the cargo ramp was fully opened to see multiple C130 planes flying in unison from the rear. The other cultivators were in awe by the authenticity of the whole dungeon experience, (If only they knew how real everything was…) that they did not realise the lights in the C130 turned from red to green.
“GO GO GO GO!” Panda Captain Bai shouted while waving his hand and the platform in front of them was being slingshotted like a rock on a catapult out of the plane. That was when the others saw that the platform was flying with its own jet boosters at the back like those flying cars in the cartoon Jetsons less the awfully large spherical glass covering it. Grey was enjoying the wind as he manoeuvred the floating platform to their destination. Team Alpha experienced a huge scare at the start but their fears turned into enjoyment as the floating platform brought them closer to the village. That was when the C130 cargo ramp closed up and the holographic map appeared once more. The Panda Captains showed the remaining cultivators on board the other missions available.
At that point, Captain Hei gave out the rest of the rings as they were deciding which mission to choose. While the Panda Captains had covered most of the capabilities of this simple looking metal ring, it would be doing more than what was explained, hiding the true abilities of the ring.
That ring allowed the System to monitor the condition of all the cultivators in this particular world, making it a sort of monitoring and tracking device. It also made it possible for the System to determine if more reinforcements were needed to enter that particular region. However, that was not the main reason for having those rings. It was to ultimately alert Jin if the Avatars of Shaitan would be appearing on the battlefield. That was when Jin and his bellators would enter into the fray to fight against them. Who knows, maybe the other cultivators could finally see Jin in real action.
Not only that, whatever monster the cultivators killed, the ring will enable them to be captured through the System’s powers. It might look like the orcs disappearing from the ‘instance’ after dying and it would serve to reduce suspicion for the cultivators that were participating in it. In short, they would be doing Jin’s work while paying Jin to do it. Ingenious idea thought up by one of the Jins in High Intensity Mode and the System was more than happy to implement it.
This ‘Raid’ instance had been given the go ahead by King Sol and whatever advisors he had left after the ambush in the Goblin Castle. By using Ripcaller’s family connections to the Assassin Guild Network (mainly due to the fact that almost every village had an inn or pub), the goblin citizens were being informed that humanoids in half masks alongside various monsters would be coming down to protect the village and towns whenever possible.
This gave the villagers and goblin citizens a certain awareness that they would be protected by these humanoids. However, not every goblin believed it since pubs were always filled with rumours. Hence, Jin partnered with King Sol and Que Er to send out Royal Decrees informing the goblin citizens of the current situation and the ‘Raid’ instance solution that Jin proposed to reinforce the message sent by the Assassin guild network.
Information transmission was a problem in such medieval ages and that was where the Magpie Queen stepped in. Que Er utilised her magical magpies to deliver the messages which travelled at the speed of the fastest bird on earth, the Peregrine Falcon at 386 km/h (240 mph) to deliver those messages. The town criers who recognised the Royal Decrees announced it to the villagers they were in and thus most of the news was spread within half a day. Many of the village and town’s militia had sufficient time to set up defences and every goblin took the initiative to prepare for war such as harvesting the food stock and conscription.
Initially, King Sol was stunned by the help that Jin was providing and the arrival of Hou Fei was a more than welcome surprise. The Panda Remnant got Sword General Gladios to assemble the best marksmen in the army and taught them how to use the weapons. General Gladios always wanted to have a magical projectile weapon similar to what General Argent was carrying but he felt it was too far fetched since they killed the Head researcher and his assistants during the Goblin Rebellion.
The goblins had been unable to retrieve any important information because the Head Researcher managed to initiate a self destruct sequence before his death. However, with Hou Fei entering the picture, the goblin marksmen were able to get the hang of the new weapons quickly. He even taught them the basis of reloading the right way. (Some of the goblins nearly had their thumbs dislocated because of the impact of the reloading mechanism of the M1 Garand rifle. However, the System already tried to modify the weird reloading design and it was less painful than Hou Fei remembered.)
Firing requires ammunition and those and more rifles were later brought in by the zombies in batches. Meanwhile, the defending goblins were practising all day and night firing the guns. Hou Fei even introduced paintball exercise to make them learn to fight against each other, and of course, the highest scorer had the entitlement to operate the M2 Browning heavy machine gun. The marksmen goblins turned fanatical the moment they saw the heavy machine gun in action and every one of them vowed to be the best.
“More will come in, your Majesty. In no time, your goblin kingdom should turn out to be the most advanced kingdom in this world, all thanks to my young master.” Hou Fei bowed with courtly etiquette, something he learnt during his stint in the Royal Zodiac Snake family.
——-
“Alright, Xiong Da! Finally, I found a mission worthy of your team. Don’t worry. In terms of points, you will definitely get more than you’d expect. We saved the best for last. Let’s just say it’s a special for our regular customers.” Captain Bai winked his eye and Xiong Da finally released a big sigh.
“About time! I thought you guys purposely ignored us.” Xiong Da complained half seriously as he still did not let go of the ultimate goal of getting the Big Panda Plushie. Even Ruo Ying and the rest were getting restless. As Panda Hei was about to explain the mission, there was a portal appearing and two familiar figures came out of it, panting madly.
“Why did you two not tell us that this was a special event?!?!” Luo Bo with her Rabbit half mask smacked both Bin Yong and Shi Zuo’s head and she demanded Jia Le to follow suit. Jia Le did not dare to beat Shi Zuo’s head but instead gave double the punishment to Bin Yong after adjusting her bellflower mask. (Shi Zuo went to comfort Bin Yong afterwards.)
“Looks like this will be a fun group to enter with.” Zhi Nu, the Immortal Weaver came from the direction of the C130 cockpit and introduced herself to be the support monster of the group. Jia Le waved happily towards Zhi Nu, seeing a familiar monster which Bin Yong and her had encountered and sided with. Their interaction was cut short by Panda Hei who gave a brief summary of what was happening to Luo Bo and Jia Le.
“Your objective, Team Hippo is to assist and hold the frontlines for half a day if possible. The elite goblin flying unit, Dashing Wyverns will be there commanded by one of their famous Goblin Generals in the kingdom alongside with Piercestriker. Although you should know him as our very own ‘Spear Goblin’.” Captain Bai explained and everyone who played enough of Jin’s dungeon could never forget that little spear goblin.
“The Goblins and you need to stall the invading Orc army for the main goblin army to arrive in about half a day to the bordering town of Gob Gob Bu. Only competent Pandawans will be allowed in this main fight because of the danger it poses as well as the strategic value the town possesses. More Pandawans should most likely arrive later as reinforcement but your group will be first to enter and assist with the fight.” Captain Bai added as he beckoned them to come to him as he showed them an unopened crate.
“Just for you guys. Pick your poison.” Captain Bai used a crowbar nearby and pried open the crate revealing a series of temporary offensive, defensive and support inscriptions and high quality chi potions which would have cost them tens of Panda medals. “Courtesy from our boss. Part of the reason why you guys are the last team and we could not let the other customers see this. It’d seem totally unfair to them. Regardless, choose fast. ETA five minutes.” Captain Bai sniggered and Team Hippo quickly chose their inscriptions and potions. Because Xiong Da had worked with Bin Yong and the others, he roughly knew the team dynamics of the group and recommended certain inscriptions to specific individuals of the team.
While this was going on, Captain Hei took a sledgehammer and crashed it into a lock of a large metal crate which caught the group’s attention. The reveal of the contents in the metal crate was equally amazing but Luo Bo who was a frequent buyer noticed that they were stock products from the Weapon shop.
“Yes, Luo Bo. If you wish to restock your arrows, you can do so here. The price is the same as the Weapons Store but the range of items are limited. Boss Jin felt this selection would be best unless you have any specific requests, we can bring it in later during your fight.” Captain Hei told her and added that only competent Pandawans in limited events were allowed to have this feature.
“I see, I will get some of these arrows and would like to request the following.” Luo Bo took out her phone and started browsing her notes. It turned out she had detailed the kind of arrows in various dungeon scenarios. She had also predicted that Boss Jin would be doing a large scale scenario and had prepared accordingly with the stock in the Weapons Store. (She browsed the various stores Jin had in her Pandamonium app when she was bored, especially the Armour Store where they sold almost every other apparel in the net.)
“Ah, I understand. Sure I will add them to the airdrop supply crate if you guys can survive for at least an hour or two.” Captain Hei noted the purchase and the transaction were all done with the Pandamonium app. Even Jia Le bought certain special kunais and slotted it into her side leg pocket. The rest were quite satisfied with the current weaponry they were carrying.
“Alright ETA 1 minute. Get to the platform, hurry hurry!” Captain Bai banged on the side of the plane and the standard blaring sounds of the plane’s alarm system went off. The members of Team Hippo assembled themselves on the next elevated platform that appeared from the floor of the plane.
“Let’s kick some Orc butt.” Xiong Da was eager to start as he adjusted his belt.
“Ass, you mean.” Luo Bo corrected him as she saw the cargo ramp opening from the C130 plane.
“Language!” Zhi Nu shouted, which Luo Bo conveniently ignored because of the awe of the high skies and the wind that was blowing towards her. The platform was shot out of the C130 plane and towards the valley town of Gob Gob Bu.
