Once Luo Bo placed the white gem on the pedestal, the gem floated up off of it and energy burst out from it.
Like a shining beacon from a lighthouse, the watchtower sent a magical bright shockwave through the entire area, causing the undead to stop moving all of a sudden. The zombies then slowly crumbled into dust and if someone had been paying attention to the chi in the environment, they would have been able to discern that the tension in the air was lifted and a sense of relief washed over the area when the entire horde of zombie perished into the ground.
Members of Squad B who were fending off the undead overheard a loud blast come from the far end of the Great Wall and turned to see a burst of white magical shockwaves coming from the watchtower.
“They finally did it.” Shi Zuo wiped his sweat off his head with his shirt sleeve. Yue Han hollered loudly while the rest of them sighed with relief while some with a smile on their face.
They were not the only ones celebrating. Even the customers in the store cheered loudly for showing them such an exciting stream of a dungeon run. The spirits were running high and some of the customers even offered to buy drinks for strangers, which was still a fairly rare scene in Jin’s store on a normal day, or any store for that matter.
Meanwhile, Squad A was reunited on the top floor and Luo Bo was pleasantly surprised to find that both of them survived the encounter with the Grade 3 zombified cultivator. “It was a good thing Captain Hei gave us that trump card. Looks like Boss Jin had some compassion to not make things too difficult for us.”
“Hahaha, I heard from some of the customers that there is a Normal+ mode for the goblin dungeon and a team actually completed it. Maybe, he would like to cater to all sort of cultivators, which I believe it is a good thing.” Luo Bo commented as the three of them walked down the stairs with Jia Le deactivating the plant barriers she invoked previously to prevent zombies from overwhelming them.
When they were out of the watchtower, the members of Squad A noticed a small platoon consisting of Panda foot soldiers and foot archers standing in a square formation right in front of them.
“Salute!” Sergeant Panda ordered and the soldiers straightened their pose and lifted their paws, placing them on their left chest. The coordination and discipline of the soldiers were very obvious to Bin Yong and the rest of the cultivators and indicated that they went through harsh training.
“A sincere thank you for eliminating the zombies.” The Sergeant Panda ordered the remaining panda soldiers to be at ease and they started to clear the area up and assess the situation. At this point, a grey falcon screeched and descended near Bin Yong. When it landed, it seemed to signal them to board it.
“Is this not the falcon we saw before we got here?” Jia Le asked.
“Then that means Captain Hei is close. Come, let’s get on board and perhaps we will be able to meet the rest.” Bin Yong jumped up onto the falcon and unknowingly extended his hand towards Jia Le first before realising Luo Bo was closer to him instead.
“Oh oops.” Bin Yong clumsily moved his hand away from Jia Le and then towards Luo Bo. She accepted his offer and grabbed his hand to get up onto the back of the gigantic falcon. When Jia Le got up, Luo Bo winked and smiled at her, as if to indicate that she did a good job influencing Bin Yong.
The falcon took off from the Great Wall and travelled a fair distance before meeting the brown falcon in midair which Captain Hei was piloting. “Ah! The remaining members of Squad A looks like you are all back safe and sound too.” Hei beckoned them to join up with the other cultivators on the brown falcon and they did.
Bu Dong went up to Bin Yong and congratulated him on the success of his mission objective as well. “Ahaha, it’s not me who did it. It was Luo Bo here. Also, we could not have succeeded without the aid of Jia Le.” Bin Yong refused the praise but directed it to Luo Bo.
However, Luo Bo ignored Bu Dong and ran to hug Shi Zuo. “You stupid! How could you just leave us alone? That Bin Yong was so useless today. All he has been doing was protecting Jia Le and not me!. He will forget about us soon! Uwaahhhhh!”
While Shi Zuo was a little dumbfounded, he was glad to hear a summary of what had happened in the watchtower. He gave a thumbs up to Bin Yong and sent a private voice transmission to him. “Emerald Mountain Hot Spring instance! Chance!”
“Shut uppp!” Bin Yong replied to the private transmission and gave an angry yet contented kind of look at Shi Zuo before Shi Zuo continued to comfort Luo Bo.
In the meantime, Jia Le wanted to tell Bin Yong that he did a good job too but there was too much drumming in the corner of her heart. “Perhaps…I should just take it slow for now and I think I am already quite content with the progress today.” Jia Le lied to herself as her emotions in her expressed a blaring ‘No’ to her instead.
“Alright, hold on tight, I am going to bring you all to somewhere.” Captain Hei took another straw of wheat from his officer shirt pocket before he patted the brown falcon’s head. Upon receiving the command, the falcon dashed through the skies with great speed.
Meanwhile, Captain Hei erected a shield barrier to protect the young cultivators from the piercing winds during the flight of the brown falcon.
After a moment, the falcon came out from the clouds and the cultivators saw a colossal mountain right in front of them. The view below was magnificent too. As the falcon got closer to the mountain, they noticed a large cave with a red double iron door.
Captain Hei signalled the falcon to land at the side of the cave and everyone got off. Captain Hei then threw a dirty bronze key to Shi Zuo. “You are the MVP for today’s dungeon. Open the iron door and you will find the rewards that the Panda Nation had left for you and the two Squads. Till then, may the cultivation be with you, Pandawans.”
“He called us Pandawans? Which means we are not recruits to him anymore?” Xiong Da was amazed and laughed at the change of attitude by the Panda AI.
“What does Pandawan even mean?” Bu Dong never heard of such a word.
“I believe it’s a parody of a title in Moon Wars that meant apprentice. Maybe we could ask Boss Jin about it later.” Xiong Da commented.
“Ask later, treasure first!” Shi Zuo hurriedly placed the key into one of the red iron doors and it clicked. Everyone was so excited that they chattered and imagined what kind of treasure would be in there. Hence, all eight of them coordinated to push the red iron doors apart and they were stupefied by the sight of what was in the cave.
A tattered cardboard box.
“WHAT THE PANDA!” Yue Han was always the first to be dramatic.
“Did they cheat us?” Kong Xian was extremely displeased.
“Let us just check the box first.” Jia Le decided to walk towards it before Bin Yong stopped her.
“Wait! What if it is a trap? Like a test by Captain Hei?” Bin Yong made a bit of sense but he did not notice that Shi Zuo had ignored him and walked towards the cardboard box.
“It’s a bunch of keys with another note and a small rectangular wooden box.” Shi Zuo reported as he unboxed the contents in it.
“HA HA HA HA! The Polar Phantom Gentlebear Strikes Back! If you want your loot, come and find me! This is one of the keys that you will need when you enter my instance! However, do not say that I am selfish. I am gentlebearly enough to leave a part of the treasure for you! (Well, actually my bag was already brimming with loot, and I did not have any other space for that.) Till then!” Luo Bo took the piece of note and read it out loud.
“Perhaps a dungeon puzzle piece?” Xiong Da felt extremely delirious from that possibility as he saw the bunch of keys were identical in nature and there were exactly eight of it. He loved mystery and to put it into dungeons? He was definitely looking forward to it.
“OH MY GOSH!!!” Shi Zuo opened the wooden box and found eight gold panda medals and everyone was delighted by that reward alone.
“Does that mean the gentlebear would have a ton of gold medals with it?!” Bin Yong could not control his jealousy when seeing that such a generous reward had been stolen. A few seconds later, a female announcer stated that the dungeon was completed and they would be teleporting back soon.
Meanwhile, in Jin’s store, the whole crowd was bursting with lots of questions again.
