Jin was sitting right beside his tall and mighty Panda Tian Gong Statue, wanting nothing more than to just close his eyes and go back to sleep. Unfortunately, the System informed Jin that he had to move to the Arcade Dungeon Instance on the Third Level of the Tiangong Tree Mall and instruct Yong De, the owner of the Arcade Dungeon Instance on several things.
He stood up sluggishly before inserting some chi on his legs and used his Green Panda Wind to jump to the third floor. Without opening his Pandemonium app, Jin merely scanned his phone over the statue of a Panda sitting down and holding an arcade joystick controller.
There he found the anguished face of Yong De and He Rong.
He had asked the two to collaborate together for this new joint dungeon instance. This usually wouldn’t be a problem, however, Yong De and He Rong had some history with each other, and it wasn’t exactly the pleasant kind.
Apparently, Yong De had asked He Rong to sponsor some of the card tournaments when he first started out which the latter agreed to unilaterally. However, Yong De’s ambition had gotten the better of him, and he had promoted the gaming card tournaments a little too widely and fiercely.
The participation had been tremendously successful, but because Yong De’s predicted budget for He Rong’s sponsoring had been severely underestimated, he inevitably caused He Rong to be unable to pay for his shop’s rent for three months.
He Rong was forced to wit’s end when the landlord’s management team had insisted on him paying up or else they would demand the immediate closure of the store. Upon learning of his plight, Si Fang managed to get into contact with Grandma Yuan begging her for leniency towards He Rong especially since he had always been consistent with his payment.
Grandma Yuan, who always left the management team to their own devices, had been unaware about the situation He Rong was in and had graciously allowed him an extended period to pay his rent.
On the other hand, Yong De knew about He Rong’s plight but had not helped out much because he too had underestimated the prizes he gave out, causing him to pay the rent by living on just the basic necessities.
While the Arcade owner had improved since then in terms of managing his business, He Rong had not been very happy to team up with him when Jin asked him to. The Toyz Connection store owner no doubt had prefered to do literally anything else, but Jin asked him to give the partnership another shot.
“I roughly looked through the records you guys have given me and thanks for that by the way. He Rong, I see that your card sales have been doing rather well in the months whenever Yong De conducted these mini tournaments.” Jin had pointed out as a matter of fact, and He Rong had his mouth tight for a moment.
“I believe Yong De has been trying to make up to you and was too afraid to offend you too. But you need to make an effort to understand what he does too. I think both of you owe each other an apology and with this new shop instance, you can start things anew.” Jin had said during the brainstorming session when he asked the cooperation between those two.
Jin perceived that He Rong would not have the guts to do anything daring, and that made him rather conservative and calculative with his accounts. That was how he managed to keep a vast array of hobby related goods while maintaining his accounts well.
Yong De, on the other hand, was the opposite. He enjoyed being an entrepreneur and always wanted to bring in the latest fad since he yearned for both kids and adults to have fun.
But because most of these new arcade machines were licensed by the Japanese, importing them cost a fortune which had always put his accounts near red. That was why Jin had a hunch that if these two joined forces, they could become an unformidable duo against the tides of business obstacles.
Yong De had been more than happy to bury the hatchet by joining such a partnership. He Rong had been still reluctant but agreed to give it a try. If things did not work well, the dungeon supplier promised that he would create a brand new shop instance for both of them at no cost at all.
—–
As Jin entered the brand new Arcade store instance, he could already see the two owners arguing on what needed to be done. Contrary to most arcade centres where the place was either very flashy with lights and poor decoration or the opposite being mostly dark and dull, Jin had chosen a simplistic modern view for it.
His concept took inspiration from Zamzung or Huawee store outlets with lots of space providing the items in stock the opportunity to present themselves.
He Rong’s toy models (or what’s left of the undamaged stocks) were placed in a gallery kind of exhibition. Should the customers for something in particular, they could use the virtual hologram which Jin had installed to choose what kind of robots or toy models they wanted to buy.
The virtual hologram module was an extension of the pilot’s modification workshop console which Niu Lang’s Supa Robot Wars mini game offered, and Jin had used it here after scanning all the models available in He Rong’s stock. New stocks needed to be scanned once, and the System would take care of the logistic matters.
Usually, one would not necessarily have a good idea on how the product looked like before it was assembled, and the advertising on the packaging could only make them imagine. However, imagine no further since the virtual hologram not only showed the toy model but also the history or background of the toy based on internet sources and Wikipedia.
“Humans become slaves to what they see.” One of his professor’s quote during architectural design had made Jin remembered and slighty understood the vague and complex concept of aesthetics. Since then, he applied to his understanding superficially and in depth whenever possible. Hence, the creation of this virtual hologram was one of the ideas.
He Rong was surprised that they could do that and he believed that these virtual holograms would definitely make window shopping a blast for the hobbyists. Not only that, but Jin also began to sell some of his models to He Rong and of a high price too since most of the models were currently redeemable from the Goblin Raid event.
Jin purposely asked He Rong to price it high so that it would be fair for those who worked hard to get the various toy models Jin had created previously. As for the newest XXXXL Panda plushies? Those would be under Yong De’s speciality.
Aside from placing the three mini games instance entrances (the WunderPanda Park Entrances are still valid, these were just additional entrances) and the sales of Spinning Tops, Digital Pet playing card packs, Jin had placed a giant UFO machine that featured these oversized plushies.
How big was that UFO machine? The cage size was as big as a large cinematic screen, and the plushies were not limited to Pandas.
Mmhm. Pandas. Red Pandas. Penguins and a limited number of 1st edition Foxes and Snake plushies.
Yong De could not get the meaning behind these plushies and thought that Jin was merely exaggerating especially when the price to get these plushies was equivalent to getting a Panda Burger Set Meal (which cost roughly 15-16 Yuan.) Jin could only smirk and told him to leave it there for it to do its magic.
Other than that, Jin had revamped the fighting arcade games in one particular corner and equipped them with wide screens and a default arcade joystick controller. Should the gamers have their own personal controllers, there were terminals for them to attach the controllers as well.
As for the other arcade games, Jin had placed them neatly and replaced them with more modern controllers so they could be more responsive. (For example, the gun controllers were replaced with ones that could vibrate whenever reloading and the response time was better.)
The seats on the racing arcade games were also upgraded to quality leather ones, and it was very comfortable to sit in. The grips on the stick and wheels were better than the worn ones which Yong De had. But that was not all for the arcade games as Jin was planning to make this arcade instance one of the best instances he ever made. Yet. (He has no more money right now.)
Jin did tell the two new co-owners that he would be directly meddling with a number of the games and in return, they would receive these new arcade games for free without having to pay for any sort of license. However, Jin would receive 50% of the profit while the rest was them to keep.
Hence, the Arcade was handled not just by the two co-owners but by Jin too, and thus he aptly named it the Panda Arcade so people can associate the Panda brand to Jin’s Dungeon Supplier store. (At the same time, a meagre wish by the System to revive and relive the old Panda Clan’s roots.)
In terms of maintaining the games, he would get the goblin engineers to take a look once in a while so that would fall under maintenance cost. Otherwise, Jin would leave the promotion of these arcade games to He Rong and Yong De for he wanted to focus more on the dungeon supplier part.
One of the games that Jin had invented was something similar to a street fighter style game, but Jin told them not to charge any money for that particular game. That was because it would be a violation of various copyright reasons and that particular game was set in the underground basement level where it would take place.
At first, the He Rong was curious why Jin placed it underground, and then Yong De informed his new partner that the Triad members frequented the arcade a lot. That was why he requested Jin to create something to occupy the Triads time and most importantly money.
As for the Triad who would be protecting this particular underground fighting game was none other than the Tigers. In return, the Three-Eyed Tigers Triad would set up a small outpost here to monitor and protect the Tiangong Shopping District.
The dungeon supplier was unaware that this under the table deal was struck between Yong De and the Three-Eyed Tiger Triad Leader, San Ya Bai, enabling the tigers to response to the previous Ruby Rat ambush that quickly. For this, it gave Jin the impression that Yong De was not a simple person to read.
In any case, that particular (and borderline legal) game was sort of a replacement of the underground arcade game matches that had been taking place under Yong De’s basement. (It was surprisingly popular, and the money they made wasn’t that far from underground illegal street/boxing fights.) This was because they would not be using any licensed game but toy models and figurines. It was laughable, but Jin purposely made it this way to boost He Rong’s sales.
However, this was where the magic came in. Any toy models or figurines could be used for the fight. That’s right. ANY! So those cheapskate plastic toys that cost under five Yuan? It’s valid. Those miniatures that one bought from those gacha machines? Also valid. That collector version of Godzilla which worth thousands of Yuan? Equally valid!
The fighting game worked was by placing the desired toy model in front of the ‘transporter’, and the System would analyse its fine details for art and assign it a set amount of arbitrary stats. Based on the quality of the figurine, including custom paint job or mods would increase the stats for the model.
Yet, stats were just part of the equation. The System made sure that the stats would provide the player an edge but only enough to make a minor difference. The rest was up to the player’s skills and abilities in controlling the ‘character’ that they used from the figurine.
So, a cheapskate toy plastic tiger could beat a well painted American/Japanese figurine costing hundreds of dollars. However, like fighting arcade games, the outcome could not be determined beforehand so the Three-Eyed Tiger Triad would be using the underground basement of this shop instance as always for betting purposes.
While he did condone the betting act since the dungeon supplier did it in his instances too, Jin did reinforce Yong De to not keep any of the profit from them at any cost. In return, he would fall under the dungeon supplier’s protection instead.
Meanwhile, He Rong did not exactly understand (or pretended not to understand) the concept, and he asked Jin for a demonstration in case other people were interested to play in the game. Jin nodded stating he would gladly give them a demonstration.
“But first, choose a toy model. Both of you. Let’s have a mini try out after some basic tutorial.” Jin said as he purposely chose his Knight Savant figurine model that was on the shelves.
