“Calm down, everyone. There is no use if we argue about suggestions. Qiu Yue, I understand your concerns, and you want Jin to improve, but perhaps he might have some reasons he could not reveal.” Moloch tried to quell the uneasy atmosphere in the Dungeon Maker.
“Heh, so much for transparency. He promised that I could work unhindered and would not lie anything to me.” Qiu Yue knew Jin enough to see that he was hiding something.
“He did not lie to you, Master was merely omitting some information from you. Do not confuse the sin of omission and lying. The latter is one I do not tolerate and trust me, I know when he is bluffing.” Kraft suddenly entered the Dungeon Maker room, and somehow Jin felt even more uneasy.
“But understand this, little Red Panda. He is your boss. You can advise, guide or even beat him to a plummet to make him see your view, but you can never overwrite him.” Kraft spoke each and every word in a slow and menacing slur while glaring into her eyes, reminding her that she gave her life to the System and Jin the moment she accepted to be a Sub System User.
“Then what if he is misguided? What if he is wrong? What if he is adamant about being right even though his actions are unjustifiable and deserved to be punished? All I know is that the System will not do anything unless Jin affects its agenda.” Qiu Yue did not back down.
“I will punish him. Harshly. And trust me, I been through enough to see if a User is bad or not.” Kraft said as he placed his hand onto Qiu Yue’s shoulder and suddenly a burst of his memories flow through the Red Panda Cultivator’s brain. If not for the protection of the Sub System, Qiu Yue might have already passed out.
Tears involuntarily flowed out of Qiu Yue, but as she came back to reality, she quickly swiped them away and looked at Kraft with a more trusting look.
“Very good, that is one thing I like about you, Little Red Panda. Your resilience is commendable. Now, continue on with the meeting in peace, okay? I will just seat at one corner and use your blabbering as a lullaby to go to sleep.” Kraft’s lips curled ever so slightly to give his approval to Qiu Yue before going to the corner of the Dungeon Maker.
“…Well, so where are we?” Qiu Yue asked, and Moloch managed to steer the conversation back. As for Jin, he had been thinking what Qiu Yue had in mind and decided to appease her by offering an olive branch.
“We can make Glass Dome 1 as a place for cultivators to stay. Since we are using this city in the long run, its best to foster a collective identity than picking up stragglers from the Dungeon World.” Jin said, but Qiu Yue was not as excited as before.
Still, she did her job with professionalism. “If we are letting cultivators stay here, we need to let them know that this is not just some Dungeon Instance Hotel. It is a place where they could really stay for an extended period of times.”
“But I have a few questions on my part. If we want residents in the place instead of like erm hotels. Will there be an issue with our local government? Like deliveries of official letters, their housing tax etc? I mean, we are providing them ‘a dungeon instance’ to stay.” Jin asked sincerely, and Qiu Yue seemed to have all of this covered.
“I had the Empire Building Sub System to look into our by-laws and housing estate regulation. What we do is technically a loophole because no one had ever created a dungeon instance real enough or substantial to hold for decades. We will be the ‘first’ to do it.” Qiu Yue said and added that they need to be convincing enough to let people know that living in the Dungeon City Fortress is an alternative.
If they had fooled cultivators into thinking that the Goblin World and to some extent, the Farming World is a dungeon instance, there should be no exception for this too.
The only problem is that their land had no real value at the moment.
“So, we have to create the illusion of value on our side. Usually, people buy a place is because of a few criteria.” Qiu Yue showed four fingers out. “Privilege, Comfort, Space, Convenience and lastly price.”
“I assume, the concept of Privilege is how luxurious the place or unique the area could be?” Jin asked, and Qiu Yue nodded her head.
“The Pand-Atlantis Glass Dome itself is already a very unique concept, and staying in here will definitely be a notch better than all the other places out there. We have the illusion of comfort because the System will always be monitoring the area, so crimes can be quickly resolved.” Qiu Yue started to explain the criteria they had achieved.
“As for Space, the Sub System is still fixing the prices per square feet to make it competitive rate among the ones in the market. After which, we will mark it up. Lastly, convenience is definitely not an issue, I have placed all the basic amenities we needed, like shophouses etc. Else, they can teleport back to the Tree Mall and have their meals.”
“In fact, we might have something that stands out to attract buyers which no one in your world will ever have,” Moloch spoke out, and he took a card out and place it on the table.
It was a picture of a clown walking into a cave.
“The chance to bring them to various dungeons in this world. We will have the last laugh for taking their money and making them fight to earn more resources for the city.” Moloch said, and Kraft who was nearly asleep, half smirked at that opportunity.
“Ah, that sounds really a devious plan you have there!” Qiu Yue began to be filled with happy anticipation.
“Have the cultivators pay us money to stay on a monthly basis and organised a large raid to nearby dungeon caves at a small cost. If they win, their dungeon cores will direct remit money and resources to our city while we pay the cultivators in Panda Medals. If we do this on a large scale, it could be possible that we might earn ourselves a Metropolis in less than five years.” Moloch stated, and that made Jin stared at Moloch.
“Won’t it affect the ecosystem of the dungeon caves around the area? To have an influx of …outer world travellers using the resources here?” Jin questioned the viability of the organised dungeon cave ‘outings’.
“Hahah! Never! There are always more dungeon caves dying to have some business than cities around.”
“Heh! Not to mention, there is not a need to create too many instances too! We save money, earn money and get more resources! That is a totally a win win situation for us!” Qiu Yue replied, and Jin seemed to like that idea a lot.
“Oh and if we ever have an invasion, we can call on the cultivators to aid us as well. On the plus side, we do not even have to pay them money, just Panda Medals.” Moloch added.
“Fantastic! Let’s do this then. I will get Kiyu to start thinking of the advertisements ideas while we continue to prepare for the impending invasion.” Jin said, and he finally wrapped up the meeting for the Dungeon City Fortress.
