“Boss!” Su Zhen, the Great White Snake Demon Cultivator, was the first to acknowledge Jin when she saw him entering the Restaurant carriage. Her recent success for being a full fledged Demon Exorcist had earnt her many praises from the Royal Snake clan, and most importantly, from her mother.
Lee Na was not exactly the best role model for being a mother considering her busy position as the Chief Operating Officer of JODE. While she had harboured high expectations for her daughter, she knew Su Zhen’s battle limits.
So, when Lee Na heard the news that her daughter was the first to graduate as a Demon Exorcist, she was completely taken by surprise and became elated. All thanks to Jin, Su Zhen had become a little closer to her mother as they started to talk a bit more even though it was mostly about work.
The others greeted Jin as well, and the penguin waiter offered an additional chair for him to sit. “Thanks, bud. You did great with Kido.” Jin smiled at the penguin waiter who he recognised him as the few Penguin Ninjas assisted in the rescue operation. The penguin waiter quietly smiled for Jin’s acknowledgement and returned to serve the other customers.
He later turned back at his kids and took out four nicely wrapped gifts and placed it on the table. “Its a little late but better late than never. Happy belated Christmas to you guys.” Jin said as he pushed the gifts to each side of the table and Rong, the Ox Demon Cultivator asked whether if they could open it straight away which Jin nodded back in response.
To Jin, it was interesting to see how each of the Demon cultivators opened their presents. Lian, the Nine Tailed Fox Demon Cultivator, and Rong ripped opened their presents as if they had never seen one in their lives. At the same time, Lein, the Qilin Demon Cultivator, and Su Zhen were more demure in their movements as they systematically open by using their finger with a bit chi to act as a letter opener to reveal their presents.
Each of them noticed that there were a formation patch and a pair of inscription charms in each of their gifts. Similar to how Kraft had given his Dark Elves a formation patch to represent their team, the Night Foxes, Jin had decided to create a group for them as well.
When Grandma Yuan had told him to take charge of the Shenzhen’s JODE branch, Jin knew there was no way he could be handling so many things all by himself and those apprentices were the answer. Though, Grandma Yuan had good intentions to provide him both the reputation and money, she did not know that Jin had a lot on his plate.
Sure, he might stick his hands in every little bit of issue that was raised up, but governing all of them? He isn’t a god and even the gods and demons he knew preferred not to do any of this. So, he had decided to groom these four and eventually, they would take over from him. Besides, there was nothing much to worry about them betraying after signing that System contract.
As for the presents, the formation patches had a furious looking Panda growling at the centre. And right beside the panda, there was a small but obvious distinction in each of the formation patches. They were the common pictorial representation of the demons which the teens had cultivated.
For example, Rong had an Ox facing at the side right below the Battle Panda’s face while Lein’s was the Qilin. Unlike a regular formation badge which needed to be pasted on a Velcro patch, these patches could be placed wherever they want, including on clothes or even their phones.
And that was not all to it.
Jin asked them to transfer some chi and Lian was the first to do to it since her curiosity took over her. In a few moments, the badge glowed, instantly creating a miniature AI right above her, similar to the digital pets that almost every cultivator had by their side.
This particular digital pet was different from the usual AI digital pets. Jin had customised it a little as an AI assistant, courtesy by the System. With the upcoming creation of the Demon Exorcist Administration and training centre, Jin believed the four of them would be at the pinnacle of this situation and these AI assistants would be a great help aiding them to run it.
Of course, Jin knew that they currently thirst for more battle and experience, but they had to take on the administrative matters and subsequently leadership roles. (Jin believed he knew how they felt since he was thirsty for battle too, but recently the dungeon supplier preferred the backlines.)
Thus, those digital pet assistants would aid them akin something similar to a competent secretary. The good and bad side about it was that it would only exist within Jin’s compound since those assistants were powered by the System. (Because of it, they cannot bring any work back home.)
Upon learning about the digital pet assistants, Su Zhen and Lein had already see the potential if it was working as intended. But to Lian, she was already treating it as a digital pet, hugging the nine tailed white fox and touching its exquisite fur.
She could not fathom how real and fluffy it felt but compared to Rong’s, she did had the better looking pet. Rong’s Ox Demon lore was based on Ao Ye, whose body was filled with loads of long human hair, from the top of the ox’s head to all the way to its tail. While Rong did complain it looked disgustingly terrible, its hair was surprisingly smooth, and Rong secretly harboured the desire to touch it.
He also found it quite ironic that it was in tune to some of the variant myths about Ao Ye, as to how the demon attracted its human prey by revealing a long bout of hair at an isolated corner of the village or forest. The humans who found the hair attractive, could not help trying to chase the beauty down, maybe to befriend her or otherwise for other nefarious intentions.
As for the pair of inscriptions bundled with the formation badges, Jin had another surprise installed.
