Coupon Making

Instead of cultivating in the night as he usually did. Jin decided to take a nap for a change. Being a grade 4 cultivator allowed him to sleep less and still be healthy, in fact, he could go on without sleep for a few days if he needed to.

Back in the ancient days, Grade 4 was the lowest grade that most masters would recommend for a person to reach before travelling and exploring the world, since you didn't need to eat or sleep as much, making it easier to survive in the wilderness. Not to mention, it would be easier for someone to stay on the run when escaping enemies and monsters at Grade 4 than when they were at the lower grades.

After a two hour nap, it was around 3 am in the morning when Jin woke up. He had a quick shower in the ensuite first before he left the house. He took a look at the toilet beside the kitchen. It seemed Yun did call a plumber in an attempt to fix the sludge problem but there were still tools left behind by the plumber team. "Guess they are still trying to solve it," Jin remembered he received a text message after his training in the Panda Muscles with Zeru that it would take a few days for the plumber to resolve the problem.

Jin now had a habit of bringing an additional set of clothes with him ever since the farming training session, since, in order to serve his customers professionally, he needed to change out of his sweaty attire after training. The living armour wristbands that turned into a storage watch when he was not using them for battle had been more useful than the limited storage ring that Ming had given him. Nevertheless, Jin carried the old worn-out bronze ring with him as a sentimental memento of Ming.

Upon reaching the store, he opened the drawer in the bar counter that contained the Tiangong shopping district coupon booklet which Si Fang, the owner of Lele café, had delivered to him at least a week ago. Jin picked the booklet up then turned on the Panda Port, his personal computer, cash registry, and the access to the dungeon maker instance. With a tap of his phone, Jin was teleported to the dungeon maker instance, where he had more time to spend than staying in the true reality.

But what determines what is a 'true' reality? It appeared that Jin, when was exposed to the parallel world explanation, his concept of time taught in school, had been thrown out of the window and perhaps ended up in the incinerator when it landed. He experienced time dilation of various dungeon instances and travelling to the other worlds had made him completely lose his concept of time. If not for his cultivation, Jin would have tired himself out.

Since he was a creator in the dungeon maker instance, he created a chair for himself and placed the coupon booklet right in front of him. Jin tried to load the internet from his phone and surprisingly the connection was really stable. He placed it on the table and digital screens immediately mirrored the phone's screen. With the research Jin did during his mini window-shopping tour around Tiangong shopping district, he used a Tiangong shopping district directory he found on the internet on one screen while the other was a Mooogle Map of the area.

With the pep talk that Yun gave him last night, Jin figured that if he wanted to be a proper boss of the shop, he should finish the tasks that were given by the system so he could move forward. Although the coupon booklet mission was completed, Jin had promised to revamp the coupon booklet in order to bring in more customers not just for him, but for the shopping district as well. He also did not forget that he had assured Lai Fu, the owner of Fresh Price, that he could bring Lai Fu to Grade 5. Lastly, he had to take a photo with the baby panda that was finally open to the public for viewing.

"As much as I hate to admit, the Tianggong shopping district committee members like Wacdonalds, Lele Cafe and Fresh Price have very good people traffic. If I can somehow tap into this traffic, I will definitely achieve better exposure."

"However, in return on my side, I should not be biased against other shops. In terms of business, those three shops have a better gross profit than the rest of the stores in the district. If I would like to boost the overall reputation of the district, I should ideally help different type of stores." Jin thought to himself.

Upon looking at the Mooogle maps, he realised that if he targeted each specific store, it would be too cumbersome for him and the details on the coupon booklet would definitely put off anyone that saw it.

"I shall make it simple then and go according to the original coupon booklet as a base to work from." In the coupon booklet, there were various sections such as electronics, clothes, antiques, cafes, restaurants, toys, video games, handy stores and even books. "If what the system says is true, upon completing the Baby Panda mission, the system will pay all expenses with regards to the coupon booklet right?"

Suddenly, on the digital screens, a large yes appeared instead of Yun explaining to him. Jin then realised that in this particular instance, he could communicate with the system too. "Any expense? What if I decide to give 1 million yuan as part of a lucky draw? Will you do that too?"

Surprisingly, the system did say Yes once more but Jin felt that there might be a catch later on if he really did that. He had read enough fantasy novels to know that Newton's third law where every action would have a reaction was still applicable, system or not.

In any case, with the help of the dungeon maker, Jin had recreated the coupon booklet. "This instance is so useful, I can literally create whatever I want." However, the moment he said that the system replied with a message. "Item creation was within limits."

Jin could not help but laugh and decided to take a look at the new coupon booklet. He had slapped a page of his own coupons in every section of the coupon booklet. The idea was if they had bought a dungeon ticket from his shop with the coupon he created, they were eligible for a free purchase of any one item they bought from the shopping district.

Customers could also buy the products in advance and show him the receipt along with the coupon and he would pay for the product. This meant that the customer could potentially not pay for the dungeon instance if the product they bought was more expensive than the dungeon. They might even get additional money back, which was a win for the customers and the shops in the shopping district.

Theoretically, Jin should be able to get a bulk of the money he spent refunding customers from the agreement of a 100% profit in the first week. This meant that he would even have proof of the receipt to get the money back from the store owners since the objective of this coupon booklet was to increase the exposure of the shopping district and increase its reputation once more so that people could erase from their minds, or at least move on from the pachinko fire incident .

However, not every store owner in the district would be honest and might even fake the results or create excuses in order to keep the profits so that they might finally not see red at the end of the fiscal month. Still, Jin had a better plan in the long term so that even if they did not wish to comply with the agreement that the shopping district committee had with Jin.

It would actually be a sort of relationship test to observe which store owners were willing to comply and which do not. Hence, if he ever felt the need to expand his business prospects and wished to do a few business co-operation, he would roughly know which stores owners to look for and which ones to avoid.

There was another set of coupons attached to the booklet too. These coupons indicated that if the customer purchased any item(s) with a value of more than 50 Yuan, they were eligible for a lucky draw ticket. Jin had gotten the idea from the Japanese Ichiban Kuji. In a Kuji lottery, you would always win something. Jin, however, did not set the prizes yet, and since the coupon was due for approval, Jin figured he had a few more days to think of the Kuji prizes after he submitted the revamped coupon booklet.

After a few changes to some graphical details, Jin realised something very important which he had forgotten. He had not chosen the name of his shop.