Chapter 415 Sakura Treant Climbing Challenge
Even though Jin was the master of the store, he acted as one of the cultivators waiting for his turn. Some immediately recognised Jin in the queue but ignored him to mind their own business and continued chatting with their friends etc.
Else, it was just a few random questions from the bystanders since some recognised Lai Fu, Si Fang, Jin and even Ke Ru when they were in the queue but nothing too drastic. (The only people capable of recognising He Rong would be toy model enthusiasts, so he was fine with not being known.)
Yet, Jin did not stop the bystanders because it distracted Si Fang for a while from the real problem of trying out the Sakura Treant Climbing challenge which worked wonderfully well. Si Fang did not know it was his turn until the Wunder Pandit asked for payment to enter the challenge.
That was also when the store owners could see Si Fang challenging to climb away from the queue fence in order to escape the artificial ordeal which his friends had put him into. "Oh no, you are not going anywhere else!" Lai Fu grabbed him even without summoning his cultivation while Ke Ru took his phone and tapped it at the payment scanner.
Since they did not have that many medals, they used real cash to pay for it, and Si Fang accepted his fate as his friends had already completed the payment for him. Might as well get it over and done with. "There is no way at all, that I can somehow complete this." Si Fang thought to himself with such low confidence, but his friends were not giving up on him since they knew that he attributed his incompetency to the years of inactivity.
"We will do what we can. Maybe Boss Jin could show us how it's done? That might give Si Fang a confidence booster." He Rong proposed and many of the cultivators nearby spontaneously approved of his comment by cheering and encouraging both Jin and Si Fang to get to it. The crowd also wanted to know the cultivation prowess of this dungeon supplier. For him to create such incredible crazy dungeons, he should be as great as these Wunder Pandits flying around.
"No, I can't really fly at all. You guys are expecting too much from me!" Jin replied slightly embarrassed while chuckling at the ridiculous comments the nearby cultivators gave. But the moment, this small little crowd started to cheer Boss Jin's name, everyone in the vicinity began to take notice, and the attention towards Jin only grew larger. "I guess I better demonstrate quickly before they attract an even larger crowd." Jin thought to himself as he took out Bam, his katana.
"Oh ho ho, do not think I will go easy on you Master just because tens of people are watching you," Shu warned him through his telepathy as the treant suddenly grow a lot larger than before to deal with Jin as the new challenger.
"This is impossible even as a group attempting this challenge together~!" Si Fang trembled as he voiced his concern and got even more scared to the point that he nearly black out.
"Hahaha, please don't worry. The Wunder Pandits are just adjusting the difficulty to my level." Jin laughed as he stretched his arms a little while ensuring Bam was sheathed properly.
"Yes, Sir. Do not be alarmed. We will adjust the challenge for you later on. This is merely for the demonstration of our Boss." The Wunder Pandits assured Si Fang and his group of friends.
"You watching this?" Kraft asked as he was overlooking the Sakura Treant Climbing Challenge from the cliff above while pretending to sip on an ice cold drink he bought in the WunderPanda theme park. The two black foxes sitting on the wide metal railings nodded their heads as they had their eyes on a few cultivators who were closely observing Jin's every action since the time he had entered.
"Considering the numerous times that we have beaten the Ruby Rats, they are practically counting death to enter our dungeon instances. And you! You so readily allowed them to come in." Kraft said with annoyance at a particular entity,
"As long as they pay money, System won't refuse them. System trusts the capabilities of those protecting User. Besides, User has also been alerted of their appearance too." The System stated.
"Oddly enough, they are not the only ones watching Jin." Kiyu had a hoodie on so that her presence would be hidden from other cultivators.
"To think the Three Eyed Tigers are concerned about him too." Kraft took his phone out and within seconds, the System transmitted the video feed of the other gangsters into his phone to have a better look at them.
"System did not mention Yang Ling's triad members to User as System felt it was not necessary to do so. Original Bellator Kraft may be interested to know that the third daughter of the Royal Zodiac Tiger is in the instance as well." System said as it switched the video feed to Yang Ling who was trying out the Zither Mistress Obstacle Course.
"Huh, Tiger girl turned even prettier with her hair longer, and she managed to hide her gearbox rather nicely in that long elegant pleated grey skirt of hers." Kraft praised her which made the foxes and Kiyu curious to learn more. She quickly turned into a fox while no one was looking to have a peek at Kraft's phone.
"Aww yeah, she is definitely Jin's type but doesn't he have Qiu Yue already?" Kiyu asked, and both the black foxes Tsu and Kai shook their heads simultaneously.
"You have much more to learn than just seducing a guy, though you could say Jin's heart is more like a girl's rather than a staunch straightforward young man. He's definitely part of the strawberry generation no matter how you look at it, we kind of have to beat him up to toughen his stance. But for now..." Kraft answered as he tilted his head at the crowd's loud cheering which could be heard even from the cliff that was hundreds of metres above.
With the help of the System, Shu had enlarged itself even further to the point of surpassing the height of the cliff that was supposed to keep the Sakura Treant Climbing Challenge a surprise secret for the first timers.
Jin began sprinting towards the tree to gain some momentum the second those cute Wunder Pandits rang a gong at the side of the queue. When he was near the Tree, he focused his chi in his shoes and shot himself as high as he could, barely touching the tree trunk.
Nearly fifty metres before he felt that his speed was slowing down considerably, he grabbed on the tree bark to get a proper bearing for a moment. After which, Jin propelled himself upwards, only to encounter a large piece of rock growing out of Shu's trunk.
Was he going to hit head on? No. Instead, he focused some chi on his hands, and attempted to grab the rock, using it as a support. However, he did not realise it would be so smooth until his hands slipped further up and Jin's body knocked onto the rock, causing him to fall.
Was that it? Nope.
Jin quickly recovered and repositioned himself facing the ground while using his Epic Sword Art, Bamboo Cyclone of the Lazy Panda. He did not call out its name and used as little chi as possible to activate it so that his cultivation grade would not appear.
Thus, it made the strength of cyclone weak. Still, it was enough to create sufficient uplift for Jin to push upwards and head towards the rock again. (Should he fully unleash the epic art, he believed that he would fly up at least a few hundred metres.)
Now that he knew about the rock surface being so smooth, he increased the amount of chi on his hands to improve the grip to grab onto it. Afterwards, he pulled himself up with just one hand since he was holding his Bam Katana with the other, and the cultivators watching were clapping for him.
"You are not planning on making this easy for me, are you?" Jin sent a chi voice transmission to the Treant which it responded to with a rain of sakura petals falling towards him.
"I can make it even harder if that's what you want," Shu replied with a gigle in his chi transmission and the rock Jin was standing on seemed to be shaking. He immediately realised that Shu was purposely messing with him, so Jin took a quick leap at a 45 degree angle towards a branch that seemed to be within reach. Meanwhile, the cultivators at the bottom were all watching with anticipation, hoping that he could reach that particular branch.
Although Shu was playing mean, it was not to that degree of unfairness. Hence, the branch remained as it was and Jin managed to grab it before balancing himself at the top of the branch. Suddenly, Jin could feel a slight change in the atmosphere and dodged in time as he saw a blade sliding a few centimetres vertically away from him. It was none other than Shu's (Giant) Praying Mantis pet.
Not a moment of rest after barely dodging the attack, the Praying Mantis used its other front leg to slash at Jin which he parried using his scabbard. Without much space on the top of a three metre long branch, Jin had to either defeat the pet or ascend as quickly as possible to grab a prize before the allocated time was up.
"Sorry, Mantis. I am going to be a little ruthless." Jin mumbled as he took out Boo from his storage ring him as well to dual wield against the double bladed legs. It was a furious flurry of blows, and the branch they were standing on shook violently. It could give way if one of the slashes hit the branch.
It didn't take long until the Mantis could not keep up with Jin, leaving an opening which Jin made use of to shoot a beam of Panda Yawning while portraying three pandas silhouettes above him. Jin kept himself in check to ensure that he did not use too much power so that the people monitoring him would be misinformed.
Nevertheless, a Grade 3 Panda Yawning chi beam was 'sufficient' to decapitate the Mantis and Jin did not hesitate to jump up again instead of climbing the tree like what other cultivators should do.
While it was not obvious, Shu assisted with his pet's decapitation with falling sakura petals since it was not entirely visible from the angle and height which the Ruby Rats were watching from. He knew that his master was keeping his powers in check the moment he slipped from the rock.
"Hmm, I cannot confirm his cultivation grade, but he used some weird air cyclone technique which seemed weak as fuck and the same chi beam he had used against Lai Fu." A Ruby Rat member monitoring Jin was relaying his information via a wireless Bluetooth receiver which Kraft and the System intercepted easily.
"He must be hiding his cultivation, but in most circumstances, this kind of people will show their true powers because who doesn't like to show off? Have all eyes remain at him." The person at the receiving end replied before cutting abruptly.
"But...he is already done..." The Ruby Rat mumbled as Jin had reached the closest price ticket he could find and picked it up. After which, he performed a free fall, and it became the Wunder Pandits turn to shine as they flew up and grabbed their master down. Everyone cheered again accompanied with a tremendous amount of applause.
"There was no wasted movement at all." Lai Fu said as he evaluated Jin's climb. "But it was boring. Even the fight against me that time was more exciting."
"Yeah, I was expecting some crazy show of skills too." Ke Ru nodded her head in agreement.
"Hey, it's not my fault you did not expect me to shoot a beam of chi from my mouth that time! I was just showing you the attraction. I never planned to entertain you with some crazy technique play." Jin rebutted, but they did not care because now it was Si Fang's turn to act.
"I can do it. I can do it." Si Fang tried to calm himself down by repeating those words of encouragement like a mantra. He still remembered Jin back when he first came into Tiangong Shopping District, all clueless and naive. Si Fang thought a young entrepreneur like him would not last more than three months with the declining business atmosphere the district had.
However, Jin kept on pressing and even though he had some special 'trade secrets', it was obviously due to his perseverance that he managed to get where he was right now and not by escaping reality. He even changed how Tiangong Shopping District felt like. Definitely more lively than before. Si Fang would not lie that the increased number of customers he was getting would all attributed because of Jin.
"Don't worry. This is why we are doing this as a team." Lai Fu said as he patted his friend's back and revealed his two handed great sword.
"You better not fall, I want a portion of that prize ticket too." He Rong unsheathed his own sword.
"At the very least, the tree grew back to normal." Ke Ru smiled as she brandished her sword too. Out of the four of them, only Lai Fu was the odd one out because the other three store owners were once fellow disciples from the same cultivation training 'school', teaching the Hunting Hog Style.
It started out as a university side module that Si Fang, He Rong and Ke Ru happened to take together as students. Due to the overwhelming work, the three of them who were in the same project group decided to learn cultivation from a grandmaster who was giving out free lessons.
Their grandmaster, like other cultivation grandmasters had cooperated with the university to provide a basic course for the students and planned to teach them more about his self created style if they were willing to become his students. It was similar to the Cultivation zoo where various grandmasters tried to gain students but in a more formal setting via the university module.
Si Fang's grandmaster initially gained a lot of students' interest for showing a unique ability, and he was delighted by the overwhelming response.
Thus, he borrowed a barren temple ground to teach those willing to push themselves. The grandmaster hoped that they would spread the word of his Hunting Hog style among the many famous styles out there that were somewhat related to the Royal Zodiacs Styles.
Sadly, the only students he ever had were those three that were genuinely interested in his Hunting Hog Style.
"Hesitate no more Si Fang! Go for it! A command from your Senior in cultivation!" Ke Ru shouted at Si Fang as the bell gong rang once more to signify the start of the challenge.