“Finally, some bro time together.” Shi Zuo said as he placed his shoulders over Bin Yong. It was an unusually peculiar sight to watch the two interact since Shi Zuo was practically dragging Bin Yong into Jin’s store. It was now the latter half of November as well as the opening premiere of the long anticipated Deep Ones Dungeon.
The Goblin Raid Events were still ongoing, but Jin figured he could make use of the hype while providing new experiences for the veteran cultivators and regular customers who consistently supported him.
On a separate note, Jin recently found out that the Chinese government had created an initiative to keep their citizens fit. Every month starting in November, the government would credit 150 Yuan (20USD) for redemption in their citizen’s personal electronic wallets or bank accounts should they have accumulated five hours or more in sports related activities.
There were incremental rewards such as supermarket discounts too, but they were harder to earn if the citizens went the extra mile. All of these activities could be monitored through a particular health app in Mechat to promote fitness and wellness. That included participating in authorised and licensed sports complexes or gyms.
Naturally, Jin was included in the list of authorised health complexes with the aid of the System and the cultivators were elated to find out that his store was selected for such an initiative. According to the System and Kraft, people were willing to pay more in order to earn something for free and this was one such instance.
That was also why Jin coincided the start of the government’s initiative with the opening of the Deep Ones Dungeon instance. (Actually, it was a day after. Jin needed to make sure he indeed had access to the government’s incentive.) Another reason was that the government was willing to reimburse 3000 Yuan (434USD) to any authorised sports shop that had a minimum amount of 5000 sports related sales accumulated from their customers. That included the sales of the dungeon instance tickets since cultivation was considered the epitome of sports. Rigorous training and the increase in grade would eventually lead to a better, healthier lifestyle…or at least that was what the researchers claimed.
When Jin heard about the 5000 sports sales, he was wondering if the System was secretly preparing Jin for this particular initiative by the government since its previous mission in October sounded very similar to what the government deployed. “Could it be that the System is as simple minded as humans?” Jin wondered to himself when he saw the crowd rushing in for the premiere of the Deep Ones Dungeon instance.
“System would like to make it clear that it was just a coincidence that the previous mission was similar to the government’s initiative.” The System stated as it activated a screen console above Jin with a countdown timer.
“Yeah, I definitely believe you. Trust me, you are the best. Praise be to the Almighty Benevolent Spendthrift System!” Jin did not hold back his sarcasm. In the meantime, he looked at his much anticipated dungeons goers and prepared a short speech with regards to the Deep Ones Dungeon to hype and excite them up a little more before the timer hits zero.
Fortunately for Jin, there were many speculations about the Deep Ones after a few cultivators saw some of them during the first Western Diversion instance (well to Jin and his monsters, the real goblin battle). The rumours stated that those cultivators saw ferocious, deep sea monsters slaughtering orcs the moment they left the boat. It was a terrifying scene and hence, people anticipated that this particular dungeon would be something similar.
Jin neither denied nor confirmed the rumours. Some people believed that those cultivators were privileged enough to enjoy a sneak peek preview of the Deep Ones by Jin, a sly advertising tactic in the cultivators’ opinion to spread the gossip for his future dungeon instance.
Despite their opinions, the rumour spreading was indeed useful even though Jin had not purposely planned it this way beforehand. All he wanted was for the Deep Ones to vent some of their frustrations for waiting for their turn to shine (especially Derpy with his grand entrance). However, he decided to let the rumours spread since it was creating hype way more efficiently than the System expected compared to their own banners and trailers.
Jin also considered to continue implementing this sort of preview for future dungeons, just a small cameo of the monsters in the next dungeon as a sneak peek. But he had to do it in a way which would require the dungeon goers to have a keen eye to catch such cameos in the middle of a dungeon. (nor did Jin forget the future creation of the secret Gentlebear instance which he neglected it for some time.) It was not an easy feat but he did incorporate what he wanted to do for the next dungeon in the Deep Ones Dungeons.
“Firstly, thank you and welcome to the opening premiere of the Deep Ones Dungeon Instance. As you guys have heard, there had been sightings of the Deep Ones in the Goblin Raid dungeon. However, nothing else was shown to you guys and those rumours did not reveal much about the current plot of the dungeon. I presume the anticipation must be killing you guys by now??” Jin asked and the crowd cheered in unison.
“Alright, alright I will give you a hint. Instead of (just) senseless fighting, your objective this time will be to meet with a certain NPC and from there you might learn the true meaning of terror through the dungeon.” Jin spoke with a somewhat evil grin and everyone kept quiet for a moment to digest what he was saying before he continued “..or that’s what I hope you will feel. I’m sure some of the Pandawans out there will casually crash the dungeon and walk out unscathed.” Jin sighed heavily and a few started to chuckle. They were none other than Shi Zuo and Bin Yong.
“Does it involve swimming? I do not really know how to swim.” One of the cultivators raised their hand and asked which made some of the other cultivators laugh.
“Erm…well, technically we can all walk on water, right? Just a matter of duration. But no worries, I had planned a little on that aspect so you will be able to clear this dungeon without the need to swim. Of course, you are free to do so, if you wish… at your own risk, of course.” Jin answered and many started to whisper. They interpreted it both ways. Most believed that the dungeon scenario was on land, probably a coastal town since the name Deep Ones from Lovecraftian stories struck fear and despair in the stories via seaports and coastal towns.
Others believed the plot would have something to do with a large ship where people would meet each other and decide to do something about the ongoing monster horde that plagued the ship. In this case, it would definitely be the Deep Ones. Jin managed to eavesdrop and smirked when he heard the cultivators’ ideas.
“Good ideas which I’d all considered about when I created them but so far it seems that they will find their expectations subverted.” Jin thought to himself as Mr Patsu came to interrupt Jin with the continuation of the countdown. Bear Cub One followed him while wearing a fluffy shark headgear which further strengthened the ship story theorised by the cultivators. Jin smiled as he stepped down from the bar counter, which he was using as a temporary stage to address the others. Perhaps he really should create an event space to announce this kind of stuff.
“4…3…2…1!!!” Mr Patsu slammed a big red button on an augmented virtual console and suddenly, shadow figures of the Deep Ones emerged from the corners of the medieval goblin themes and the cultivators could see that the shop interior decor seemed to head for a dark turn.
Then the lights began to flash to simulate the horrors of a blackout along with the sounds of lightning and thunder booming in the background. The cultivators could see the seemingly peaceful medieval goblin theme feel of the shop turn into an atmosphere of the eerie western 80’s era. It had some resemblance similar to the previous Halloween gothic theme but with grimmer colours.
Suddenly the entire shop instance went totally dark, and the cultivators all pretended to scream for participation sake (though there were some that really screamed, men included.) Lo and behold, the corners of the auditoriums and the walls were now filled with dark, grotesque tentacles moving around occasionally to scare the cultivators in conjunction with the medieval goblin theme that was still around.
It was to emulate the sense of fear that would patiently wait for the customers. To make the customers feel somewhat afraid yet at the same time obsessively curious about it. Some of the male cultivators jokingly warned that if the females got too close to the tentacles on the wall, they would be grabbed by them, inciting a few sexual innuendos.
“No worries, my tentacles are equal to all genders.” Jin smiled wickedly. The just teased lady cultivators took that opportunity to push their male counterparts towards the wall. True enough, the black tentacles on the wall wrapped around them for a few seconds before releasing them away. The male cultivators seemed like they were already scarred for life as the lady cultivators had their fill of fun bullying them.
Separately, the cultivators also noticed the design of the bar was sombre green. A closer look at the bar counter and seats revealed that they all had some sort of Lovecraftian design to them. It was rather exquisite and some who were fans of such horror genre began to ask where to buy such items. “It’s all custom made by my suppliers, in short, Trade Secret. ” Jin smiled gently this time round, and it had been ages since those customers especially the regular ones to hear such a phrase.
“Alright, what are we waiting for? Come on. Let’s go, bro.” Shi Zuo grabbed Bin Yong, who was already scared shitless by the opening ceremony. He was not surprised and deeply empathised with the girls, Luo Bo and Jia Le who did not want to try the new dungeon and let the guys try it out first to hear about their experience before attempting the dungeon instance.
“We’ve been through the Halloween event and survived through that. You even played it three times, remember?” Shi Zuo was trying to encourage his buddy.
“BECAUSE! You guys were not free at all THREE occasions. I had to bring each of you individually into that dungeon instance! And I have no idea how, but Boss Jin had designed it in such a way that I got scared every time I entered it. I still get shivers whenever I think about that stupid Pumpkin Face. ” Bin Yong replied with exasperation in his voice when he remembered the sinister Pyro Jack.
“Okay, chill man. Let’s do this first before our temporary attribute buff from the restaurant instance expires.” Shi Zuo said as he took his phone out to find the dungeon ticket option in the Pandamonium App. As usual, a tech savvy guy like Shi Zuo was amazed by the developers of the app for pushing out new updates this quickly.
Just as Jin had promised, everybody was now able to be teleported from the shop instance or any other particular service instance they were at to the dungeon they wished to play. There were even lobbies which helped people with matchmaking or create their own party beforehand to play the dungeons. This update by the System was to facilitate even less queuing time than before and to test out the true ability of the matchmaking technology the System had been collating data ever since day one.
Of course, those who created a party of their own would not be subjected to any matchmaking and the difficulty of the dungeon instance would be adjusted accordingly unless at the request by the lobby maker. With higher difficulty came better rewards. Similar to other dungeons, Jin continued to give out Panda medals via the stages they completed but this particular Deep Ones dungeon was slightly different.
He gave the System free rein to judge how much medals were to be given based on the cultivator’s progress. It was a new sort of predictive model which Qiu Yue recommended and wanted to see if the System could accommodate such an adaptive reward model.
There was a set of defined criteria (of course not revealed to the cultivators, who would have to try and figure them out) but depending on the cultivator’s approach of playing, the System would give the amount of panda medals accordingly.
Last but not least, the Pandamonium app could also synchronise the data it received to the Mechat’s health app so that the cultivators would be able to redeem their sports and wellness rewards from the government’s initiative.
Hence, Shi Zuo did not bother about Bin Yong’s wailing antics and forcefully registered him into his lobby via his phone app. And within an instant, they were teleported.
…Into a derelict room, strapped to a chair. Both arms and legs were wrapped tightly around the chair, and even their torsos were tightly bound.
“Where are WE??!?!?!?!?!?!!” Bin Yong shouted in panic as his echo reverberated within the entire room.
