Chapter 1217 – Departing From The Symposium
As soon as the conversation (well, not THAT soon.), Sea Mesh had made a public statement announcing that it would be stepping out of the National Dungeon Supplier Symposium, causing a series of media blowouts that prompted the community to find out what was happening. Some spectators and critics who were more perceptive noticed that the Sea Mesh left the Symposium at the same time when Dungeons and Pandas 'involuntarily' left the event.
Seeing how the store had been garnering attention steadily for the past few months especially with its latest dungeon instance streaming, people were anticipating there would be some hype in the latest Symposium event when it agrees to participate. Thus, sales to the National Dungeon Supplier Symposium had reached a new high. Tickets were sold at record breaking pace after Dungeons and Pandas had announced that they were joining the Symposium but sadly the Committee did not attribute the high sales because of Jin's store.
They were sitting on their high horse thinking that people had renewed interest in the dungeon instance scene. Neither did they know about the connections Jin had with Sea Mesh so when they kicked Jin out of the Symposium, they did not expect such a backlash of having the popular company that dealt with Dungeon Supplier tech walk out through the front door with Jin.
Not only that, but Ke Loong had also managed to pull a few strings and caused two minor sponsors to break their contract with the National Dungeon Supplier Symposium, provoking even more heat for the Symposium committee to be in the spotlight.
Later, it did not take long for insider info to emerge that Dungeons and Pandas had been forcibly coerced to be their backup site. And as the insiders had stated, upon knowing the true objectives of the Symposium, the said Dungeon Supplier immediately wanted out. That was when the 'great walk out' of the Symposium started but people were suspicious why Dungeons and Pandas was so secretive of their technology until more breaking news came out through the net and other media streams.
"While we were unable to reach the store owner, multiple unnamed sources had indeed confirmed that Xie Jin, Dungeon Supplier for Dungeons and Pandas is the descendent of the long lost Royal Zodiac line of the Panda Clan." The anchorman said in the mainstream media during the evening news. It was minutes after the broadcast, Jin had sent an official announcement through the Pandamonium that he was indeed the last descendent of the Royal Zodiac Panda Clan.
Instead of fear, wrath or even distrust which Jin had anticipated, the internet was bustling with a load of questions for him and some were forming conspiracy theories about how the last remaining Royal Zodiac Clan suddenly decided to show his face.
Yet one thing was for sure. With that announcement, nobody could deny that his technology was something special and hiding behind the title of a Royal Zodiac would force people to blatantly ignore it. After all, each Royal Zodiac has its own secrets which allowed them to be the powers they are now in China.
Jin, however, reiterated that leaving Symposium was the only choice left for him with all roads of compromise closed. Thus, with a heavy heart, he left the Symposium and decided to create a major event to showcase the things he intended to release during the Symposium. He also added that Sea Mesh would be joining in the event which instantly prompted a series of refunds for the Symposium.
Naturally, the Symposium support team was not able to answer the massive influx of queries as well as the demands for refunds. Shortly after Jin's announcement, the Symposium committee eventually stood their ground and stated that no refunds would be given out since the event was approaching and the money in those ticket sales had already been used to fund the event.
Obviously, they were burning the bridges between their customers even more by standing their ground but because of that, Lynn had already come out with a manipulative PR move which even Jin was amazed by. They decided to lowball the Symposium even further by stating in their upcoming event that those who had bought the National Dungeon Supplier Symposium tickets were eligible for a free entry into Jin's latest major event.
"In addition, I would like to add that you can upgrade your free entry to a high tier ticket at a cheaper price so that it would be more of a bargain because of the goodies that were prepared along with it. If you are a patron of Dungeons and Pandas, you surely understand the value of the higher tier tickets that I had always offered. Thus, for those who I had offered free entry, please do consider supporting when the tier list is officially out!" Jin wrote in a tweet in his social network system which had led to a series of praise and criticism.
However, Jin did not care too much about what the people had criticised since most of it were from hardcore supporters of the Symposium, stating that how Jin had used his departure as bait for attention for his own personal event. And for Jin's supporters, they argued that he had every right to do so since the Symposium was the one that pulled a fast one at Jin despite already knowing that he was part of the new Royal Zodiac Clan.
Initially, some were doubtful whether Jin could even survive after the public announcement of him being the newest Royal Zodiac Clan but most of those doubts were crushed when leaks came out with people posting how Jin had annihilated the Tiger Clan's subsidiaries with just a handful of people during the Chinese New Year. And those leaks even stated that Jin was not even showing out his full strength against the Royal Zodiac Tiger Clan.
With this series of announcements, more eyes were looking at Jin and while the Dungeon Supplier did not fully expect such a scenario, he was at least well equipped to handle any sort of repercussion.. Surely, from this moment on, it would be tough and the Astral Panda Cultivator would not have it any other way.