Ke Loong was as excited as a kid about to see his beloved superhero. Even though his driver could see that Ke Loong was sitting patiently at the back of his car, he was too distracted with the news of the new Prototype Portal Device Jin gave him less than an hour ago.
He was initially scheduled to see a new, potential business client that boasted his new software to be revolutionary, claiming to be the next possible MeChat app. Of course, Ke Loong did not expect much upon seeing the draft proposal, but it was a favour he decided to do for the finance minister’s aide to see if there were any talented developers to keep the app industry competitive.
However, one minute into the interview, Jin called and Ke Loong knew straight away that the prototype portal device was ready. He answered the call and Jin indeed met his expectations. “Come quick. I am busy later in the evening.”
If his secretary ever picked up such a phone call, she would have dismissed it immediately given her attitude and possibly stating that Jin had no manners at all. That was why Ke Loong insisted Jin to call him instead since he knew Jin had a no nonsense attitude.
“Be right there.” Ke Loong got up from his chair and answered promptly, which made the app developer very speechless.
“Wait, I have not even star-” Ke Loong stopped him then sat down and scribbled something down on his notepad before tearing a page away to give the developer.
“Go to this place. Observe, learn and triumph his app programming. If you are able to do that, then I permit you to knock on my door again.” Ke Loong gave the developer Jin’s dungeon supplier address and packed his stuff.
“But…is this not a dungeon supplier store?” The developer was stunned momentarily when he was given such a random address. He was expecting something more like an address to a software company.
“Exactly.” Ke Loong believed that If Jin did not boast his all rounded Pandamonium app as the potential business rival against MeChat, this developer had no rights to say so either. Thus, he went off and asked his secretary to clear the mess up in his office while he called his chief engineer to meet him at Jin’s place.
———
Upon postponing all the many tasks a man of his position was expected to fulfil. All he could do was to wait for his Pipi ChuXing* driver to reach Jin’s address and couldn’t care less about all that boring paperwork waiting for him.
The anticipation for wanting to see the portal device at work had made him feel like time was passing way too slowly. True, there were portal scrolls out on the market created by high grade mages, which allowed anybody to go anywhere and anytime. However, their supply has always been limited and controlled very strictly to ensure maximum profit. Besides, the materials used were uncommon and only a handful of professional mages were trusted enough to be privy of such knowledge to craft them.
Many western governments also cited the potential threat of using such portals for fear of terrorism and assassination attacks and justified the strict control over portal scrolls. Ke Loong’s country, on the other hand, did not care about those excuses, when it was an open secret that they just wanted to monopolise those scrolls.
The ability to copy and subsequently innovate in order to be one step ahead of others was always the goal for every inventor and entrepreneur. As long as it was something revolutionary or had the potential to earn big money, the Chinese did not care about any consequences.
Only results mattered.
Ke Loong was pinning his hopes on Jin to succeed in his part of the bargain for there was a huge amount of political clout and money riding on this. If the western governments wished for their method to remain exclusive, the Eastern Governments would just have to create their very own version.
Even before the speedy car could manage at a complete halt, Ke Loong was already too anxious to get out. If not for his Hovering Hawk cultivation, he would have fallen to the ground and suffered at least a few scraps to the knee and elbows.
“BOSSSSSS I AM HEREEEEE!!!!” As quick as he could enter Jin’s shop, Ke Loong shouted loudly with his terrible disguise on again. (Some of the cultivators had begun to nickname him Mr Potato Head for the terrible fake moustache and a round black hat whenever he entered Jin’s shop.)
“Ah, Mr Ke Loong. This way, please.” Bear Cub One was the one welcoming him, but Ke Loong stopped Bear Cub One for just one moment.
“I have a few more associates that will be arriving here soon, though I would love to check the portal device first! Please lead them to us when they arrive.” Ke Loong said excitedly as he then hurried Bear Cub One to bring him to the assumed testing grounds.
When he arrived, he noticed it was the very same stadium that Jin used to host Yang Ling’s gearbox prototype demonstration. He felt chills coming over him, remembering the Banned Emperor assassination attempt and was thankful that Jin was there to help not just him but everyone in that instance.
Was it merely the only place for a demonstration or was this a power play by Jin to remind Ke Loong how they met. “Aww, this cunning fellow! I’m starting to like him more and more.” Ke Loong thought to himself.
Meanwhile, Jin was already there talking to a few of the Elfish researchers and Ayse, who now looked like a human with beautiful lush red hair and a sharp, slender face. All thanks to the cosmetic inscription that the System used on her.
She could easily pass as a killer model and surely would be one of the most beautiful women Jin had ever encountered. Still, he could not help but feel that her beauty paled in comparison to Kiyu. It seemed to lack something, but he could not pinpoint it. Perhaps, the foxy minx really did have some innate abilities that made her so enchanting.
The elves had turned to humans as well. They retained their near perfect features less their pointy ears. Even Ayse was shocked at first upon seeing them, since she never knew they could be that magnificent looking.
“You know, according to the System, they could look like this on their own, if only they had been given proper nutrition while under your care?” Jin asked and Ayse laughed bitterly.
She admitted that her former slaves had shown proved their competency in completing this particular project of Jin’s. She had indeed started to show some respect for them and even treating them on equal footing as her previous Orc comrades. (If her father would learn of this, he’d surely turned in his grave.)
“BOSSSSSS I AM HEERREEEEEEE!” Ke Loong shouted again from afar the field and Jin could not help but sigh a little.
“You are early.” Jin replied back while he asked his ’employees’ to start booting up the machine to prepare the demonstration.
“Wow. If your employees are half as competent as they are good looking, then I have no doubts about today’s success. Are you some kind of perfectionist?” Ke Loong asked as he nearly drooled at Ayse when she flipped her red hair. “In any case, I would love to see the portal device in action before my chief engineer and his team of goons arrive.” Ke Loong revealed with much anticipation.
“You sure, you do not want want to wait for your chief engineer and his goons to take a look at it before testing it out? Are you that confident that it will work?” Jin commented and Ke Loong laughed heartily.
“I’m willing to bet a panda that either you or your staff have already tried it. Otherwise, there’s no way you would even dare to let me on here. I fully believe that your work ethics are on the moral high ground.” Ke Loong praised Jin as he looked over the fairly large circular metal device with various pipes and ports connecting to it. If anything, it looked more steampunk than futuristic modern.
“Thank you for your trust. So, we have prepared to showcase two variants. One is a portal device without an active exit gate. You input the coordinates, and it will teleport you there. The other is a portal device that is linked to another portal device, acting as an exit gate, which is a safer, but a costlier option. I assume you wished to try out the latter.” Jin looked at Ke Loong who ironically asked to try out the former instead.
“Let’s keep the best for last. Surprise me with the first.” Ke Loong replied, and Jin informed the Sea Mesh CEO about all the flaws of the portal device by repeating what the System had told him. Ke Loong still insisted on trying the portal device without an exit gate.
Jin shrugged his shoulders a little before telling one of the elfish researchers to teleport him to the far end of the stadium where the goal post was while Ke Loong stood ready at the device platform.
“Any last words?” Jin smirked as he asked, which made Ke Loong turn his head suddenly towards him. However, it was too late to say anything since Jin had already activated the portal device.
A blue light shone onto Ke Loong with him screaming his lungs out as he experienced an oddly weird feeling while being transmitted like bits of data and within a second, he disappeared, teleporting right beside the goal post. Ke Loong took a bit of time to calm down when he noticed the change in the environment. (He touched himself all over and checked whether all his body parts still remained intact.)
“It…worked…IT WORKED!!!!” Ke Loong yelled in celebration mode. ” IT FUCKING WORKS HAHAHAHAHAHA” Ke Loong began to run back towards Jin to congratulate him for this successful trial test. Coincidentally that was also when his team of engineers came in.
Looking at their superior behaving like a complete fool, they stood there with a perplexed look on their faces, before they got noticed. “Hey Bo Ze!!!! IT WORKS!! This dungeon supplier and his researchers beat you to it! Suck it!!! You owe me an exclusive dinner with your cousin at Shangri La! WOOHOOOOO!!!!” Ke Loong still in some kind of ‘happy shock’, could not believe it as he shouted at his chief engineer Bo Ze.
“I wait -what??” Bo Ze was still so confused by the entire scene which Ke Loong dragged him to the portal and asked Jin to fire it up once more. However, unlike Ke Loong, Bo Ze was having a head full of reservations with this portal device, especially when there were no known credentials for the dungeon supplier nor the researchers in this field. They were total nobodies to him. “No! Ke Loong! Don’t UWAHHHHH~!” Jin did not care and accommodated his business partner’s request.
This time, Ke Loong and Bo Ze were teleported together to a couple of meters behind the goal post, and the CEO kept laughing like a mad man. The first one could have been a fluke, but this proved that the concept worked.
“SEE! Bo Ze! He’s done it! He really did it! You tasted it first hand!” Ke Loong felt so happy that Jin’s prototype portal invention surpassed all their expectations. To him, it was already a success being able to teleport one human at such a distance, as long as it worked all the time, but Jin had one upped himself once more since his prototype was already able to teleport at least two people.
He couldn’t wait to try out the other version if this was supposed to be the inferior one. With his CEO continuing to behave totally out of the norm, Bo Ze tried to rationalise what just happened. Even after experiencing it for himself, he couldn’t believe it. “A mechanical device that managed to simulate the wonders of magic?” Bo Ze mumbled to himself.
“Magic is just a type of technology we haven’t figure out yet. Everything can be explained with reason. (The Western Mages would surely kill him for such blasphemy) Nothing is impossible!” Ke Loong boasted as he subsequently introduced Jin to his chief engineer.
“I’ve looked through your credentials, and I hope you can forgive my doubting you. I’ve believed you were just another run off the mill engineer, who somehow bamboozled Ke Loong.” Bo Ze apologised genuinely and Jin chuckled bitterly.
“It’s alright. You aren’t exactly wrong, I myself am just a run off the mill engineer. The credits due should be given to my employees who shared the same vision as me when I started to become a dungeon supplier to make people’s life better.”
“Ayse’s the name.” The red haired brunette took the initiative to step into the conversation and introduce herself but Bo Ze was struck mindless by her beauty.
“Erm, I uh *cough* Nice to meet you, I am Bo Ze, Sea Mesh Chief Engineer.” Bo Ze subsequently introduced the rest of his team to Ayse before she did the same for her Elfish researchers. They began to start talking about the concept and theories behind it and used terms which both Ke Loong and Jin could barely catch up with.
Granted Jin actually knew most of them, but their application talk on quantum physics just gave him the usual headache and made him realise this was one of the partial reasons why he’d rather become the number one dungeon supplier than the world’s best engineer.
Eventually, Ayse demonstrated the variant with the exit gate and explained how two portal devices make the travel safer and more accurate. (An idea by Ayse when she asked the System whether having two portal devices would improve the accuracy of the teleportation. Jin blamed himself for not thinking about it himself, especially since he’d watched a series with such a concept when he was younger.)
“Now since the techies are talking their own stuff, let’s talk business, Jin.”
Ke Loong said which Jin subsequently offered to talk over a nice warm meal which Ke Loong promptly agreed with. No negotiations could have gone better with Lynn’s delicious food by the table. Jin brought his guest to the exclusive premium part of the Restaurant Train of Delicacy instance and Ke Loong adored the authentic Japanese looking interior design.
“I love it, it feels tranquil, the music’s at the perfect volume and the scent aroma makes one feel relaxed. I’m really considering bringing my clients to your shop’s restaurant instance for future negotiations. I’ve tasted the food, and to be frank, your chef could fight with those overly arrogant five star restaurants and besides, which businessman doesn’t want some secret eating place of their own?” Ke Loong rambled while Jin had ordered the food for both of them and the penguins began making the tea at the side. (A simple tea ceremony as a part of the gesture by Jin since Ke Loong could be considered a VVIP guest.) Even the way those penguins served the Japanese Tea made Ke Loong intrigued.
“Anyways, where are we? Oh yeah. You held up your side of the bargain, and now it’s my turn. When do you want the devices to be up for sale?” Ke Loong asked as he thanked the penguin NPC for serving him while he took in the scent of the freshly brewed green tea.
“To be honest, I would prefer your engineers to take a look at it and collaborate with my employees for a while longer. Ideally, I’d want it to be portable before we started selling them.” Jin answered, stating his desires.
“Oh my friend, you really are a perfectionist. There’s no need to be humble. What you’ve just shown us on its own is revolutionary. Besides, the world isn’t ready for portable reusable portal devices. Too many possible scenarios of countries threatening us would arise.” Ke Loong took a sip of the green tea and felt refreshed almost instantly.
“Just imagine us having a battalion of such special forces, able to teleport anytime, anywhere, ready to strike. It would no doubt be terrifying, and those Western countries wouldn’t like to entertain such ideas. In fact, this kind of technology, if you manage to accomplish it, would better be kept a secret.” Ke Loong, who was more experienced in business and politics, told Jin about this.
“Anyway, let’s focus on the main issue, instead of that! Can you even imagine how much money we’ll be able to earn?! If your two portal devices method truly works regardless of size, getting charged extra for cargo will be a problem of the past! Granted it will cause a lot of people to be out of jobs, but that’s the sad reality with the progress of technology. Still, it would save a shit lot on transportation. Heck, we can probably market it as truly environmentally friendly, if you consider lesser plane trips for cargos. And here I am just talking about shipping and transportation of goods. What about travel? That would be another avenue we can improve on. Well, of course, we are going to keep this all to ourselves and make our country an even more modern society!” Ke Loong rambled with the possibilities.
“I shall leave that part in your capable hands. All I really want is my future customers to have an easier time teleporting to my shop instance. In fact, it would be ideal if my Dungeon Supplier Store will have the exclusive rights to get customers this way.” Jin knew the implications of having the portal technology being spread region wide and hopefully country wide… If he dared to dream bigger, worldwide.
“I know, I know. You can leave that to me. I’ve figured you would be more worried about your shop. That is why my planning team had been tasked to distinguish a few majorly popular spots to put your portal device throughout the country. Places like Beijing, Shanghai, Macau and even Hong Kong! If we place it in a good spot and advertise it well, your shop instance will be more than a hit in no time. It won’t be long that this small store in the corner of Shenzhen will just be a fleeting memory!” Ke Loong replied.
“Look, my friend. If you let me expand to these fields, I let you in with the share of profit too. That way you have more money to create whatever dungeons you want and maybe become an affluent figure in no time! Not to mention, you have the backing of the Royal Zodiac Tiger. There is no way this plan can fail if we time it nicely and execute it flawlessly.”
“Pei, are there any signs that I am bewitched or enthralled by any spells? Because I feel that his sales pitch is just too perfect.” Jin sent his thoughts to Pei.
“Not that I’m aware of. No magic nor chi powers are being emitted. He is being rather honest with you despite the wonderful sales pitch…or that is how I feel. He really wants you to succeed, and by doing all that was mentioned, he is willing to do most of the heavy lifting while you’ll be reaping most the rewards.” Pei replied as she based her opinion on the many bargaining talks she’d accompanied Another Jin to protected him from any psychic magic.
“I guess he believed that you and your monsters worked your asses off to make the portal device happen. Plus, you were recommended by Mr Know-it-all. That is why he was willing to take such steps with you.” Pei added for Jin to consider.
“I see. Because it really seems to be the most perfect sales pitch I’ve ever heard. It felt too good to be true… Damn it, if I only Qiu Yue was around, right now.” Jin presented some small talk as the food came, and they started to dig in. Ke Loong was keeping quiet, giving Jin some time for his proposition to sink in. If he pushed too much, he worried it could have an adverse effect.
“Actually, I am overhearing the conversation together with Lynn.” Qiu Yue suddenly talked to Jin via his thoughts. At that moment, he was glad that the System was with him. “The System wanted me to be around to calm you down because it knows that you aren’t fit for negotiations as long as they aren’t pure bargaining, but I’d feel too awkward to join you midway. ” Qiu Yue replied as she was browsing at Lynn’s office.
“But don’t you worry, we are in Lynn’s office and hearing the entire conversation, we even have video footage. If there’s anything worrisome, I’ll warn you. Damn Lynn, you mind making one extra set of that curry rice Jin’s having?” Qiu Yue said as she sat at the office watching the whole scene as Lynn told her penguins to prepare two sets.
“In my opinion, this is possibly one of those life changing opportunities knocking at your door. His proposal is rather valid and I can see money rolling in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of yuan. It will be able to boost our financial account by craploads. Besides, the contract with him is still valid. It’s a good thing you let Xiong Da change some of the statements, or else he would have done all these possible expansions without your acknowledgement.” Qiu Yue examined from afar.
It was a pity she could not be in the conversation with him, but this was purely a Boss to another Boss kind of decision. She could only give her comments to Jin as any interference would show weakness in negotiations to the other party.
“Trust what your heart wants. Don’t doubt the future. No matter the consequences, we will be behind you, Boss.” Lynn gave her own opinion with conviction and Jin took his colleagues’ word seriously.
“No input from you, System?” Jin laughed at Ke Loong’s small talk while he asked for the last opinion.
“System has determined that User should have own his stand and decision long ready.” System stated, and Jin smiled as he looked at Ke Loong. He placed his utensils down and raised his hand towards the Sea Mesh CEO.
“Don’t worry, we will take this a step at a time and have some compromise if need be. But one thing is for sure. You will not regret this one bit. ” Ke Loong grinned as he returned the handshake.
From that day onwards, Jin’s reputation would no longer be isolated within Tiangong District.
