“So…you are finally planning to try one of Boss Jin’s instances?” He Rong, the shop owner for toy models, Toyz Contention, came into the now empty shop of Lele Café to find Shen Si Fang looking through his storage ring.
He saw Lai Fu, the Owner of the general goods store, Fresh Price, and Ke Ru, the franchise store manager of the shopping district’s Wacdonalds sitting at a corner having a coffee break together.
“You came too?” Ke Ru giggled a little, but her wrinkles were visible. With time, age had started to catch up on her. Luckily, the spiritual powers gained through killing the monsters in Jin’s dungeons on the occasional visits made it easy for her to maintain her cultivation and thus better skin complexion.
That was why in recent times all the grannies would smiling wide with glee. And people wondered why some girls in Jin’s store were battle maniacs. Most would say that it was to maintain their beauty, although Jin offering those beautiful clothes with inscription slots made the battle ‘addiction’ worse.
“It’s been quite a while since you picked up your weapon. But I thought you said you would not do so unless you retired from your café?” Lai Fu asked, and Si Fang laughed bitterly.
“Oh come on, you know exactly what happened that time when I picked my weapon, right?” Si Fang sighed upon mentioning the past. “Don’t you think you should give me some credit for the courage of wanting to pick up my sword again?”
“How could anyone forget? Aaaahhh, those were the days… You were so eager and nervous to prove yourself that you tripped and stabbed He Rong in the butt.” Ke Ru laughed as she reminisced how the four of them went dungeoneering in the past before they became individual shop owners.
“And then the monster ambushed you, and I had to fight with a broken sword stuck in my butt just to protect your ass.” He Rong shook his head, but to Si Fang, it was extremely embarrassing because he had wanted to impress a girl that he liked a lot.
And she was none other than the shop attendant in the dungeon store. He had boasted to her that she should watch his performance… unfortunately, she did. He became a laughing stock that he did not patronise any dungeon supplier ever since, until Jin’s arrival.
“I wonder what happened to that store attendant girl.” Lai Fu wondered out loud as he offered a sit to He Rong.
“Last I heard, she was going out with this hunky high cultivation grade dude. Ah, don’t you worry Si Fang. Your wife is so much better than that girl. Speaking of which, did you tell her you were going out for a dungeon instance?” He Rong replied to the group while asking Si Fang for a free coffee.
“She did not believe me until I showed her the electronic ticket I bought from Boss Jin’s store. Surprisingly, she was very supportive about me trying the Christmas Instance.” Si Fang said as he kept his sword in his storage ring once again.
“Huh, I heard that the new Christmas Instance is unlike the rest of Boss Jin’s dungeon instances from my regulars. They tried it just now and informed me that it was fascinating. I’ve asked them for more details, but they replied it would be best to take a look at it myself.” Lai Fu shrugged his shoulders.
“Yeah, even that Niu Lang who works for Boss Jin, did not want to tell me any details at all. Even when I promised him more discounts in exchange, he remained tight lipped about it.” He Rong shared as he remembered that fellow toy model enthusiast who kept asking for more and more tools as well as advice on how to build them properly.
“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s get going. I want to go back home after the instance to dry my clothes.” Ke Ru said, but He Rong had yet to have his coffee. Si Fang outright denied He Rong and they all walked towards Jin’s store.
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“No way!” the four middle aged business owners were stunned when they entered the shop instance. The interior décor had turned into a Christmas theme. 3D holographic snow was falling from the ceiling and later disappearing the moment it dropped on the ground.
There were piles of real pure snow at the corners of the auditorium that did not get dirty from touching it, which gave people the chance to play with it. (Which Jin found many of them to be very childish since all of them unhesitatingly throw those snowballs at his big headed panda costume.)
However, the most striking feature was the gigantic Grand Fir tree that was over 50 metres tall filled with multiple decorations from big bulky socks, toys, artificial candies to mini stuffed toy pandas trying their best climb the top.
Speaking of the top, there’s a panda with angel wings and halo holding onto a star and once every while, it would shimmer with a bright light that caused the entire Grand Fir tree to emit a noticeable rainbow aura around it.
“IT’S NOW!” Someone shouted and suddenly everyone who had been minding their own business in the store immediately perked up.
“Why are they rushing towards us?” Lai Fu, who was admiring the tree, looked at the incoming horde of cultivators.
“I think it’s not to us but this!!” Si Fang pointed at the side of him and indicated the tree was glowing with an immense aura. Suddenly his phone vibrated and so did the entire groups of cultivators. He realised that everyone in the vicinity of the tree had picked up their phones, all cheering.
Ke Ru took out her phone and saw a notification from the Pandamonium App, which automatically got updated when entering Jin’s store. “Oh! It’s a lottery wheel!” Ke Ru exclaimed which prompted the rest to check their phones carefully.
The lottery wheel had various chances to win bronze, silver and gold panda medals but the odds were smaller for the silver and gold medals. For the first spin, Ke Ru managed to get five silver medals while the rest got 15 bronze medals. When they asked around, a nearby customer told them that every time the tree shimmered with a rainbow aura, they had to be near the tree to receive this free lottery wheel chance.
“However, it happens randomly, and there does not seem to be any specific intervals. Sometimes it can take two hours, other times even just 1 minute apart! I think Boss Jin did this to prevent anyone from ‘loitering’ at this place just for free goodies.” The male customer explained.
“There may also be a limit on how many times you can get it too, per day that is. I read that five is the maximum from certain users on the forum, but I’ve yet to confirm it personally since this was just my fourth time.” Another male customer said and the store owners nodded their head in acknowledgement.
“That is not like Jin to give precious medals out like candies.” Lai Fu who had confronted Jin before knew that this was not his characteristic.
“Hahah, you will understand when you enter the Christmas Instance.” A Santa Panda’s muffled voice came from behind them.
“Oh, Boss Jin!” The owners said in unison when the Santa Panda took off his large bulky panda head to reveal Jin. (Actually, it’s Another Jin manning the store.)
“I am pleasantly surprised that you guys are here.” Another Jin greeted them back in a happy tone and He Rong told him about their situation.
“So…yea erm that’s why we haven’t tried any dungeon instances together for a very long time.” He Rong explained the non embarrassing version to Jin, stating that they were budding cultivators before they became business owners and did not have the time to cultivate at all. But with Jin’s dungeon opening all day round, they thought it was not too hard squeezing in some time to get a bit of a workout.
“Yeah, we are planning to train so we can guard our personal establishments and not let those rowdy Ruby Rats make us look like clowns.” Ke Ru said even though the risk of her getting injured should technically be lesser, especially with many of the cultivators who passed by Jin’s store, would certainly patronise Wacdonalds every once in a while. But it was true that it would not hurt bringing their cultivation grades up to defend themselves from possible attacks.
“Thus, we would like to try the Christmas Instance as advertised in your promotional video.” Lai Fu replied which made Jin ponder for a while.
“To be honest, the Christmas Instance is not exactly the best place to start proper training. It’s more like a service instance rather than serious dungeon instance. Though that may change somewhat in the coming days.” Jin revealed with a bit of mystery, and Si Fang face turned white.
“But…I’ve already bought the electronic ticket from the Pandamonium App…” Si Fang seemed down and the rest of his fellow store owners began to laugh at his terrible luck.
“Seriously, the only times you’ve had good luck was with finding your wife and the cafe. You really cannot be doing anything else.” He Rong laughed as he slapped Si Fang’s back to comfort him.
“Okay, actually with your current grades, I suppose you can use the new instance as a method of training your cultivation too. Though in Lai Fu’s case, who is STILL a Grade 4 cultivator, it would probably be more of a fun experience for him.” Jin revised his explanation upon looking at their grades via the System’s Pandamonium App. (The System could portray the stats of a cultivator in the dungeon for Jin to examine if he commands, but Jin guess the phone was more natural than staring at someone for a long time.)
Jin also purposely mentioned Lai Fu’s name to make him a little guilty since that General Store Owner had decided to take up the Reservoir of Deep Fishing Instance free tickets and never return to patronise a second time. It made Jin slightly bitter. Yet it seems that his reply had no impact on the General Store Owner one bit.
“However, in the future, when I add in a special feature for that instance, I assure you that everyone will be able to use that service instance as a part of their training regime,” Jin replied as he took down the rest of the Panda Costume that he was wearing in front of them.
“If you want, I can escort you guys there and provide several recommendations to train your cultivation,” Jin added.
“Sure, why not?” Lai Fu took him up on the offer and Jin proceeded to teach the store owners how to use Pandamonium App. Ke Ru remembered the mere basics since she did a dungeon or two before, but it did not hurt to have an impromptu tutorial as a refresher from Boss Jin.
While he did not have to do any of this, he found it could potentially be beneficial to stay on the good side of the shopping district committee. Nevertheless, he did not give any business discounts to them, and they knew it was not personal, just the job.
“Don’t we need to be in a party or something?” Si Fang asked remembering how the Pandawans in the morning were talking about team strategies and stuff.
“Hahah! You will understand when you enter the instance.” Jin smiled as he commanded the System telepathically to teleport them into the Christmas Instance.
“Oh. My. God.” “What is THIS?!?!” Lai Fu shouted, and the rest of his group were shocked too. “You created all of this?!” Lai Fu could not believe his eyes and Jin nodded his head proudly while he saw their stunned faces like all the other customers that first came into the instance.
“Hi! Welcome to WunderPanda! A Winter Wonderland Theme Park to cater to every cultivators’ desires and fulfilling their wildest imagination!” A Panda Mascot came out from the front gates to greet them cheerfully.
