Everyone knew that the main attraction was the Dungeons and Pandas dungeon supplier shop at the top, but the lower floors satisfied the locals sufficiently. From their local fast food restaurant to an arcade, to a general store, there was more than enough variety for anyone to find something worthwhile.
Lai Fu had at first just purchased the normal expansion which Jin and Qiu Yue had packaged for the current store owners which lead to the creation of his Offshore Sea Store. However, after experimenting a bit with it, and finding tremendous success, he had decided to put his faith in Jin and invested in the landlord’s dungeon expansion package because of the generous insurance he finally received.
From a mini-mart that sold a variety of food supplies and essential household hardware, his shop had turned into a mega general store that could handle all the needs of the people. As his store instance featured something like a harbour port, ships similar to the size of aircraft carriers came to dock right beside the port to sell his goods. (With the new event that featured the heavily decorated ship which Jin used, Lai Fu wanted to purchase such a skin for his shop instance.) That’s not all! Boss Lai Fu even subscribed to the Pandafull Delivery which featured same day delivery for the local province if they decided to order via the Pandamonium App.
With Pandarens’ exclusive access and occasional discounts at intervals managed by the System, Lai Fu was guaranteed to sell his stock away without any trouble, allowing him to bring in a variety of items. Though he did think of expanding to existing delivery services and online shopping platforms, Jin’s Pandamonium App had made it all too lazy for him and the other Instance Owners.
He had no idea how the delivery men and women managed it all, but Lai Fu knew that not a single customer complained about it. All he had were five star reviews about the delivery system, and it was so much so that it made it seemed as if bots were spamming it. The delivery service subscription and instance expansion had been one of the best things he’d ever invested in. And with growth, it was only natural that he had to hire more NPCs to help him, especially the Deep Ones who sailed ships of supplies and handled the cargo.
Tip them once in a while with some real Yuan, and they immediately go bonkers, assisting Lai Fu and his human employees with even mundane tasks.
Lai Fu certainly wasn’t the only case though. The same applied to the other shop owner in the Tree Mall. All store owners had purchased NPCs and Jin’s minions to handle their stores, even asking for extra for the Chinese New Year Holiday. (They did have to come back and settle certain administrative issues like managing the day’s profit.)
Some food store owners had even completely handed the reins of the stalls to Jin’s minions.
This was a welcomed opportunity for the ‘less competent’ penguins and other Giant World Tribe minions to try their luck and skills in handling a store. With the increase of worker, the criteria for directly working in Lynn’s kitchen had gotten stricter and stricter with each passing day. They saw it as a way to polish their skills for the monthly competition that Lynn was hosting to check the next month’s rotation of workers.
Jin was okay with the owners taking a break during the holidays, but he wanted them to know that this was the exception and not the norm. The dungeon supplier had therefore added an amendment to the contract stating that after a certain number of days of absence, excluding the proof of medical leave, he would take an increasing amount of commission from the profits they earned which only increased for every day they didn’t show up.
It served as a good reminder for them as well as the other Instance Owners that it was ‘their’ store to handle. If Jin’s minions were the only ones doing all the work, then why should he allow them to continue existing?
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“To think that I have to personally come to get him to see father… Argh, Jin sometimes you really get on my nerves!” Tiger Princess Yang Ling thought to herself as she entered that infamously popular Tree Mall.
She did not bother to take the elevator or stairs and instead opted to use her ‘qigong’ to jump to the top. While real qi gong required even more finesse in Chi, the Tree Mall was designed in such a way that jumping with high strides along the Giant Panda Statue in the middle of it all make it easy to practice for it. She had always wanted to do this after improving her Gearbox Tech into something more of a simple attachment than a clumpy suit of metal.
Her Gearbox Tech had been highly sought after by various robotics companies from other countries, including Japan, US and the European Union after the initial round of promotion that showed them the potential of her product.
The product she was currently wearing was the result of all the brains that had come together. Using the prototype Jin had gifted Yang Ling as the basis of their study they had managed to create their own improved prototype model from it.
Initially, they had planned to reverse engineer Jin’s model and replicate it. However, after dozens of tests, they could not determine all the materials Jin’s version has used. It seemed as if he was using some unknown materials, so their best guess was that it was some sort of manufacturing secret created by mixing some items in certain combination resulting in such a strong, sturdy product.
Unable to go with Option A, they had adapted their plan and put their focus on increasing the efficiency and reducing the bulky size. With her long coat, it was impossible to tell that Yang Ling wasn’t using her own legs to walk and jump around.
Yang Ling’s agenda for today was not just to fulfil her father’s request but to also learn more of this secret combination that the dungeon supplier had used for his prototype. Because of this ‘minor’ obstacle, they were unable to mass-produce the Gearbox Tech in huge quantities since the cost of the materials required to emulate them was too expensive for the average consumer.
Still, due to this endeavour, Yang Ling was looked upon once more, and it had led to a more favourable relationship with her father. (Though she believed it was mainly because of the generous grant money that started to pour in because of the development of her Gearbox technology) But besides all the business issues, there was one thing that still lingered in her head.
She wanted to earn Jin’s acknowledgement.
Yang Ling had made it this far because of him, and for some reason, she wanted him to be proud of her. If not for Jin, it might have taken decades before she would be able to walk to this degree. If not for him, Yang Ling would not have gained so much attention that even brought international companies to their door front.
Her gratitude towards him was boundless… unfortunately the Panda Boss did not seem quite as appreciative of her. The Tiger Princess was in for a challenge if she wanted to get him to pay a visit to her father.
