Chapter 1307: Store 'Instance' Islands

Chapter 1307: Store ‘Instance’ Islands

“10, 9, 8…4, 3, 2, 1!” When the countdown finally reached zero, there was a huge wave of chi emanating from the Dungeons and Pandas storefront. But to the rest who were not near it, they thought that it was the Tree Mall that had released that wave of chi but it was clear that that wave of chi was no ordinary burst.

Instead of malice, it was like an invitation to everyone who was waiting in line for the PandaVerse Festival, telling them to come and try to challenge the store to the best of their capabilities. Some of the customers had their legs shaking upon experiencing such a burst of chi for the very first time while the others relished that feeling and got more excited. 

The police and guards that were manning the queue got even more alert as they thought this wave of chi could put the crowd into a state of frenzy. However, they had forgotten that this was Jin’s territory and with Jin being the Panda Lord, the Panda Police Team was there to assist with the crowd as well. 

Right at the doorstep of Jin’s store, Super NPC Captain Hei and Captain Bai were standing like the two Door Gods that were guarding a Chinese Temple. “Any disorderly behaviour would warrant the Wrath of either me or Captain Bai!” Captain Hei shouted as the Super NPC Panda showed its muscles and teeth at the front row who were dying to get in first.”

That declaration instantly tamed the crowd as the cultivators controlled their desires and innate excitement as they walked into the store quickly but in an orderly fashion. Both the police and guards on duty were relieved that they did not have to resort to strength when the famous symbol of security within this Tree Mall had shown itself to the public. 

“Carry on, continue walking! If you wish to stop and take my picture, you are permitted for only three seconds before you move forward! Or else I kick to the back of the queue!” Captain Hei shouted as many wished to take a picture of him and Bai since they were rarely together. In fact, Jin was delighted that the need to take a photo with the Super NPCs had allowed the queue to move at a slow but smooth pace. 

While it’s true most of them could teleport instantly into the Dungeons and Panda’s store as long as they are within the Tree Mall, Jin had temporarily disabled that function to prevent excessive overcrowding or having the System put those people in a temporary buffer dimensional space before teleporting them into the instances. It was best if the System did waste its efforts doing that and rather divert its resources into security as well.

WIth the manual access via the consoles that Jin had prepared, the System too was able to have a good scan of all the cultivators that would be entering the dungeon instances as they were checked thoroughly by the consoles they were standing on. Most people thought that it was just identification verification and the issue of a physical band based on the ticket tier that they had purchased but it was also a tracking device for the System to take note of them.

While the Pandamonium App was capable of doing so since most people would carry their phone wherever they went, the physical band was used to track the cultivators within the Farming World if anything goes wrong, especially with the large scale invasion, some people might inevitably get lost or worse, captured by the enemies. Therefore it was imperative for the System to track them as well as use it as an SOS signal beacon so that other cultivators could come to the rescue if the System deemed that that particular cultivator might be tortured. (Of course, if it was impossible for the cultivators to do so, the System and Jin had already placed a rescue squad waiting to get them.)

Other than that, once they were verified by the System or had their personal information captured, the System would then allow them to enter the dungeon instance. As much as it sounds like a complicated procedure, in reality, it took at most ten seconds in order to teleport into the service instance. Jin even installed a sort of laser ‘scanning’ device with the physical consoles to purposely distract his Pandarens. (Yes, the laser is just for show, there was no need for that with the System checking the details so invasively.)

And when they entered, it felt like a brand new world. The Store instance that they were used to had once again expanded. The previous store instance was already considered huge since they had airports, seaports and even trains to bring them to the instance that they wanted to go to. Now, they realised that this particular store instance seemed to be moving and it was because the place that they were teleported to was indeed doing as they thought it would.

The entire land was travelling in the sea. As vague as it sounded, Jin had widened the store instance even further such that what they were on now was something akin to a moving island through the vast oceans. Pandarens at the seaports could see the effect even more as the ships that were once anchored had to be elevated and parked as the ‘island’ continued to move. 

“This was because of the extensive number of people that Jin had to resort to this ‘trick’ where he ‘stitched’ various separate dungeon instances into one big one by putting people into different ‘store instance’ islands. This was also to lift the pressure from the System while ensuring that they could enjoy the PandaVerse Festival’s main events.

“Store Island 1 and Store Island 2 had been filled up. Creating Store Island 3.” The System said as it requested Jin to choose a different theme for the store islands. “Let’s go with London view of the 1970s since we already had Hong Kong and Japan for the first two islands,” Jin said as he approved the System to create another Island to let the System allow the next wave of cultivators to come in.

“Well, this separate island theme should give some variation to how the cultivators move about while providing a sense of freedom hopping them,” Jin said as he ensured that the final touches of the Great Demon Rat War were ready.