“That idiot Jin! Why does he always do this kind of nonsense!” Xiong Da was already on his way to the Tree Mall via taxi. If not for the fact that he had to take on the call of nature at 5 am in the morning, he would have totally snooze off the vibration notification from his phone.
Though he loved to get Ruo Ying, his girlfriend and personal secretary up for the emergency dungeon raid, she had been awake an hour ago entertaining a few friends of hers that came from abroad.
Thus, Xiong Da decided to go alone, hoping that Ruo Ying was able to get some quality sleep. (He too knew that he could snore too loud for comfort and sometimes, she had to bear with it.) At most, he will buy breakfast from the Tree Mall and surprise her with it.
Upon consoling his conscience, the Hippo Cultivator attempted to message in the Pandawan group chat to see if anyone’s awake for Emergency Raid instance.
Ironically, the only person who answered was Bu Dong. While he was preparing to rest for the night after a series of online video game session with his friend Kong Xian, the Towering Tortoise Cultivator, the Emergency Raid Instance came about. Since it was the weekend, they had decided to sneak out of the house to go to the Tree Mall.
Kong Xian initially rejected since he had spent enough on his girlfriend and any more would put a strain on his January’s budget. But when he heard that his generous friend Bu Dong would be hailing a cab for him as well as treating him breakfast after the raid, Kong Xian had agreed to go. (Some friend he was…)
As Xiong Da reached to the Tree Mall, he noticed that only the Panda Tiangong Statue with a Santa Hat was lit up. At the same time, he also heard a series of shouting echoing at the higher levels of the mall and observed that it could be Jin’s Emergency Raid working.
Unlike Jin’s store which continued to open 24 hours, the rest of the place remained empty, and even the power to the escalators was down till the next morning. Hence, Xiong Da used his cultivation powers to jump up the top floor. He treated it as part of a warm up exercise and teleported into Jin’s store instance upon reaching the top level.
“Yo, Xiong Da. I thought you will reach here first.” Bu Dong said as Kong Xian was already yawning away. “I checked the forums a bit, and apparently it’s rumoured to be as tough as the Christmas Raid. The only difference is that its a community raid, so everyone gonna participates until the instance itself is full.”
“And Boss Jin had also added a few new features. Apparently, the improved mask UI feature you talked about? He implemented it into this particular raid, and people were saying that there’s store app we can access inside the dungeon.” Kong Xian added, and Xiong Da’s eyes widen.
“Well, its about time! No matter how much I prepared, Boss Jin’s dungeons would always bleed me dry of potions! This time around, I am just going to spam the store app when we are in the dungeon. He owed me that much anyway, hahahah!” Xiong Da said, and suddenly someone within the auditoriums was shouting for everyone to come to take a look.
Although the number of people visiting Jin’s store increased, there was still more than enough space for people to squeeze through the auditorium to check what was on the screen. They witnessed the Giant Salamander Valg slamming randomly within the castle interior, and the magic eye would zoom towards the frog swordsman fighting against it. The fight was increasingly intense, and it became evident that the raid required more help.
A few other cultivators were fighting against the Giant Salamander Valg as well, but it seemed like this raid was already pushing them to the limits. Mr Patsu urged the rest to hurry into the raid instance and aid the cultivators that were still standing strong.
“I am all ready, been optimising my stuff on my taxi trip here and must say, it’s amazing that the new store function would allow me to buy items on the fly.” Xiong Da said as he took his phone out and pressed the ‘send purchase’ option. The little Panda Postman appeared once again, tipping his cap towards Xiong Da as he dragged a crate two times bigger than him out of the portal.
The bystanders had mixed reactions to the Panda Postman. Some were commenting on how cute the Panda was in trying to get the crate out of the portal though others felt that the Postman was rather pitiful, doing a task which they deemed it was overwhelming even for the little guy. Xiong Da felt terrible too upon seeing the Panda Postman struggling, but the latter stopped him from coming any nearer.
“I have a job to do, and I will finish it no matter what.” The Panda Postman said, and the female cultivators were already posting pictures on how cute the little Panda Postman was in showing his determination to complete the job. (Even though most of them knew that it was all part of the gimmick.)
Bu Dong and Kong Xian shrugged their shoudlers and told Xiong Da that they were ready to depart whenever he was ready. The three eventually entered the raid when Xiong Da filled his storage rings with the items he ordered. To him, it seemed like this community raid could be as exciting as the Goblin Raid instances.
————–
“Shit! This is no joke!” Xia Mao said as he barely dodged the pillar looking fist of the Giant Salamander Valg. If not for Jing Yu’s quick assistance by using her cloth to pull Xia Mao closer, he would have lost his life in an instant.
“Stop fooling around already and use your cultivation properly!” Jing Yu knew that that crossbow and Cat Head arrows were not even a proper substitution for his actual cultivation.
“You want me to activate my cultivation against this big guy? Are you nuts!?” Xia Mao said as he unwrapped the cloth around him, but somehow it got stuck. He then realised that Jing Yu was already pointing her sword while further tightening the cloth which was wrapped around that Cat Cultivator.
“Arghhh. Fine! I am not as nimble as I am now! DO NOT expect much from me!” Xia Mao grumbled as he shot the Cat Head arrow before keeping his crossbow in his storage ring and took out a scimitar.
Immediately, he revealed his cultivation above him, and it was a series of cats with blindfolds on them.
“Activate Blind Cat Stance, Shadow!” Xia Mao said out loud, and suddenly his body sparkled with chi before half of his body became translucent while the other half was filled with void like shadows.
“Grab on to my sword, I will send you flying so that you can assist that dumb frog who is jumping around like an annoying fly.” Jing Yu said, and Xia Mao held on to the cloth that was wrapped around him.
Jing Yu then slowly rolled her eyes as that was not what she meant. She knew that the sword was connected to the cloth, but Jing Yu needed him to hold her floating weapon to have her technique be executed correctly.
And since Xia Mao wanted to tease and joke during this tense situation, she did not care anymore and sent a burst of chi through that wrapped cloth. With a blink of an eye, the white fabric intensely rolled towards the Giant Valg, and Xia Mao was literally flying off like a spinning top.
However, with his Blind Cat Stance, he managed to balance himself midair and twirled once more before moving like an arrow towards the Giant Valg’s face. The monster noticed something was flying towards him, and he decided to open his mouth to release a blast of …Valg corpses.
But as luck would have it, Gaeru was perceptive enough to preempt the projectile attack. When the Giant Salamander Valg was about to make a move, the Frog Swordsman decided to counter attack by jumping towards its neck and stabbing it on the side. While Jin might not be there to handle Boo efficiently, the sword itself was still capable of inflicting a decent amount of damage by penetrating through the Valg’s thick skin.
The quick stab was successful as the impact pushed that the Giant Salamander Valg to the side, causing the blast of corpses to be diverted a by few degrees. Still, Gaeru discerned that it was not enough since part of it would definitely hit Xia Mao. Even the other cultivators in the area who were witnessing the attack thought that Xia Mao would be a goner.
But presently, only the Blind Cat Cultivator Xia Mao knew that the attack would be rendered useless with his ability.
