Bab 2: Handphone

"So he really did know that I wished to be a dungeon supplier. I thought I kept it secret." Jin whispered to himself. The dungeon supplier profession is one of the most upcoming and lucrative jobs that many cultivators wished to be.

What was a dungeon supplier? A question an average commoner would usually ask when modern cultivators described their hobbies to them. To comprehend this unique profession, one had to understand how it came about ever since the enforcement of strict laws were drafted to keep Earth's wildlife in check. (That includes monsters.)

In the past, most cultivators would fight against wild monsters at their own risk. They would usually group and band together to fight against monsters previously impossible due to their innately high cultivation levels.

With the advent of resurrection, cultivators started to be reckless in their pursuit of cultivating. The new resurrection procedure allowed them to be bolder, and wealthy cultivators abused it non stop in order to take down such ferocious beasts. As a result, the rare resources they salvaged from these rare monsters brought them even more riches.

Unfortunately, these hunts caused a major disruption in the wildlife food chain. Hence that was where the enforcement of laws made it illegal to hunt most of the wildlife without a permit.

And that was how the dungeon supplier profession came about so both aspiring and veteran cultivators would be able to scratch that itch to kill monsters.

How it all began was when a group of Grandmaster cultivators created a pseudo dimension space, which allowed them to replicate the monsters that lived in the wild.

These dimension spaces gave new cultivators the chance to practice against seemingly real monsters to enhance their familiarity with real-life combat as well as help them develop new strategies.

These were initially available in famous sects until someone decided to do it as a business. Hence that was how the dungeon supplier profession arose. The dimension space was not per se a dungeon, but it was more of an instance.

These business minded cultivators would create their dimensional instance based on their experience fighting against a monster, and that experience would replicate the exact same monster into the dimension space.

He then collects a fee for a cultivator or a group of cultivators who wished to fight said monsters. The benefit of using a dimension space was that if the 'created' monsters were stronger than the cultivators and succeeded in 'killing' the cultivators, all the participating cultivators suffered were days of unconsciousness.

This came in handy when resurrection procedures became increasingly expensive. And as the dungeon supplier business booms, various kinds of dungeons were created to appeal to the new market. Technology started to be incorporated into the dimension spaces, which allowed low levels cultivators to fight against 'rare' monsters at an easier difficulty.

As technology advances, these businesses even fused thought of using the magic of dimension space with technology to create a series of monsters never seen before in the wild for cultivators to fight against.

Some business even gave rewards for completing the dungeon instances. However, the market started to become diluted with more or less the same type of monsters due to popularity. Even the fights or formulas of fighting were more or less scripted, but people took part occasionally for the thrill of a battle to release pent-up stress from their daily work.

With the current technology advancement, commoners could even experience what it was like to be a cultivator, and some also managed to awaken as one, making the dungeon supplier job a fairly lucrative one.

Yet, the conditions to become a dungeon supplier becomes harder with each year. The constant need to update their dimensional technology made purchases expensive and not to mention pricey maintenance fees, especially if the businessman's cultivation was low.

The alternative was to get into a vocational school for dungeon suppliers which required a high level of cultivation and good grades to learn about the workings of the dimension space. The course itself was not cheap either.

Jin had always wanted to be a dungeon supplier in order to re-emulate those authentic feelings he felt ever since Jin was a kid when he fought in the dimension space Ming had summoned.

This was because fighting monsters were pretty much Ming's bread and butter, resulting in Ming to plenty of experience in the army.

Jin roughly remembered that Ming's colleague gave his grandfather a scroll containing a spell to summon a temporary dimension space, allowing Ming to show Jin how real monsters could potentially behave in the wild.

The goblin Jin fought gave him jitters to this day, but the experience was equally exhilarating. It could never be compared to the current dungeon suppliers in the market.

Jin even tried the 'most authentic' five stars dungeon supplier that grandfather Ming brought him to on his 21st birthday, but it was still inferior to what Ming personally showed him.

His grandfather said that the monsters were a reflection of the cultivator's experience. He had been fighting goblins for years when he was just an infantry soldier, so he knew its strengths and weakness.

"Nothing could be more real than a monster fighting desperately for its survival." Jin recollected what Ming said in the past.

As he stared into space reminiscing about the past, Jin had totally forgotten about the screen which was right in front of him. It was blinking white and black continuously, telling Jin to place his phone in front of the screen. Without much hesitation, Jin did what he was told, taking his handphone out of his pocket and putting it on the screen.

The handphone somehow fits nicely onto the screen despite its size.

It then instructed Jin to remove his hand while leaving the phone on the screen. He was initially a little sceptical, but what the hell. Jin already followed its instructions until now, he might as well continue on.

Besides, Jin believed that the Systems he read about had their own quirks, so he played along when he saw his handphone floated in mid-air.

Still, the new System User was amazed when he saw his handphone starting to change its shape slowly. It got a little larger like the latest Zamzung Note 55 but coated black in colour with a carbon fibre layering along with a sleek back cover. Afterwhich, the screen of the phone blinked and a progress bar appeared as if it was installing something.

The installation was fast, and the screen immediately asked for a fingerprint. "You can pick it up now," Yun said in his head as he compiled to the instructions and picked the phone up. Afterwhich, the flickering screen where the phone was being held disappeared almost immediately.

So Jin adjusted his left thumb on the allocated slot provided by the phone, and it accepted the print. The phone subsequently asked for a retina scan which he gave the phone what it asked of him. After scanning both of his eyes, the phone restarted and showed a weird OS picture of a sleeping panda instead of the standard Ant-droid picture.

"Ehh Yun, mind explaining? What did the System do to my phone?" Jin questioned.

"Jin, the System transferred some of its capabilities to your phone for easier access and usage as you start out as a young budding dungeon supplier," Yun replied.

The phone automatically returned to its home screen, and Jin did not see much of a difference until a notification appeared in front of it as if the phone was trying to communicate with Jin.

"The phone would now instantly unlock itself when you are viewing it. No one else would be able to access your phone since the phone now required biometrics. -Yun"

"So you can communicate me via the phone or through my head?"

"I can do both depending on the situation, so you will not look like a fool in public. Ming had some weird gazes back when he was using the System, and it was amusing, to say the least. Hahaha!" Yun sent a smiley emoji on the phone.

"So what else can this new phone do?" Jin asked as a multiple number of messages appeared.

"A lot, firstly the specs of this phone had been upgraded to the 10 times stronger than the strongest current PC configuration in the world. It is even stronger than the computers handling the particle accelerators. It will also upgrade the hardware by itself when necessary."

"You will never need to charge this phone ever again. The battery life is infinite, and you do not need to worry about damaging it. The screen is of top military grade and can stop a bullet. Dropping the phone from 101 floors and I can guarantee not a single scratch on it."

"In the event, it gets damaged, the System will change it for you again on the spot," Yun added a happy :D emoji in the text too.

"What this phone ultimately does is to serve as an aiding tool for you to become the best dungeon supplier your grandfather wants you to be. Look through the phone menu. You would understand more as you explore its features."

Jin noticed that there were many new apps on the phone as he browsed through the menu. The one he felt curious about was when he saw an app called 'Personal Stats'.

He pressed on it immediately, and a stressed panda looking at a clipboard appeared as the starting screen for the app.

*********

Name: Xie Jin

Profession: Dungeon Supplier wannabe

Cultivation Level: Grade II

Monsters: Nil

Dungeon: Nil

**********

He looked at how pathetically empty his stats were, so Jin decided to press the home button to try another app, but Yun stopped him and told him to go to the Missions App directly.

There, he saw a number of missions available for him. Two of which were in red, indicating high importance.

"Get your first monster!" and "Bring your store up and running!" were glaring right in front of him within the mission app.

"Looks like I will try the mission 'get your first monster!'. The second mission can be done later." Jin tapped on the phone again, causing a list of conditions to emerge right in front of him along with a big red button at the bottom stating 'Mission Start'.

"Whew, I guess this is the start of everything." Jin put his phone down on the table and excitedly ran into his room to get geared up.