Aisha's Family Are All Treasures

In the days after meeting with Soren, Drogo's Toy Store returned to peace and quiet.

Of course, the staff were the ones run ragged, while Drogo was solely responsible for the peace and quiet.

His homemade minigame venture had hit a major bottleneck.

With his limited intelligence, he could not create overly complex spell models. He should be the one writing proposals and leave professional matters to professionals.

It was time to look for some workhorses—no, talent.

Where could he recruit people?

"This thing can't possibly be solved!" Aisha's helpless roar came from inside the shop.

As a toy store, they could not just sell Yo-yos. They definitely needed to expand their product line.

It just so happened that the new products shipped over from Dragon Island had arrived today.

They were a batch of puzzle toys. They had actually been planned before the Yo-yos, but they were not suitable as the vanguard for opening the market.

They were too easy to imitate. Only after Drogo's Toy Store had built up a certain level of brand influence could they ensure that customers would be more inclined to buy them here.

That was why so many brands on Earth liked cultivating fans. When there was no qualitative gap in product quality, it came down to marketing.

Once a brand's Halo became sufficiently prestigious in fans' hearts, even if the product had problems, they would persuade themselves to accept them.

Loyalty!

Aisha came over to Drogo in a huff, holding one of the newly arrived toys: a Rubik's Cube.

"You lied! It can't possibly be solved!"

Drogo glanced at Aisha and said disdainfully, "What if I solve it?"

Aisha was a child who had never been baptized by internet arguing culture. Her mindset was extremely fragile, and she almost always fell for provocation.

"Then, then I'll wear that mascot costume and hand out flyers on the street."

Along with the puzzle toys had come an exaggerated mascot costume. It was the toy store's mascot: a silly, chubby, cute version of Drogo. Once worn, the wearer's face would sit right inside the dragon's mouth.

The original plan was for one employee each day to wear it and hand out flyers on the street, promoting the grand toy puzzle reward.

For example, the first person to restore the Rubik's Cube on the spot within ten minutes would receive one gold coin. The first person to solve Lone Mountain Path—the other world's version of Huarong Pass—in 120 moves or fewer would also receive one gold coin, and so on.

As the store manager, Aisha showed absolutely no leadership and firmly refused to wear the mascot costume, claiming that it would damage her image as an outstanding young illusionist.

"Are you sure? If you don't dare..."

"W-what's there to be afraid of?! I only lose face in Twin Towers City! No one back home knows me anyway!"

Drogo took the Rubik's Cube and pretended to carefully inspect each of its faces.

In truth, even looking at it was pointless. He could hardly be considered someone who knew how to solve a Rubik's Cube. Back then, he had merely memorized the universal algorithm by rote so he could show off in front of his classmates.

To someone skilled at it, he was certainly slow and clumsy. But in Aisha's eyes, where solving even one face took over ten minutes, it was simply unbelievable.

The Rubik's Cube spun rapidly between Drogo's claws, its colors restoring layer by layer until all six faces were complete.

Time taken: 4 minutes and 53 seconds.

Not fast, but fast enough.

"Why?!" Aisha squeezed her own face with both hands in shock. "You definitely used magic, didn't you?!"

"Then tell me, what magic did I use?"

Right. What magic could he have used?

Aisha still could not accept it. "But whenever I solve one face and then work on the others, it gets messed up again."

Drogo refused to answer and held out the mascot costume.

Aisha's protest was ineffective. She became the first person in this world's history to cosplay Drogo.

"Remember to keep smiling while you work!" Drogo reminded her as he watched her stomp away.

Aisha changed into the mascot costume and reluctantly went out onto the street. Every time she handed someone a flyer, she had to go through a fierce internal struggle.

Please, don't let anyone recognize me today.

"Aisha! Is that a new toy from the toy store? Mom, I want one!"

"Oh, Little Jenny." Maintaining her professional standards, Aisha greeted the child in a deliberately sweet voice.

Except her mouth drooped, her cheeks sagged, her brows were tightly furrowed into an upside-down V, and her entire face screamed happiness.

She lowered her expectations. Please, just don't let anyone besides toy store customers recognize me today.

"Aisha?"

The tone was uncertain. There was still room to salvage this.

Aisha immediately buried half her face inside the costume head and said in a muffled voice, "I'm not Aisha. I am the evil dragon Drogo, the most wicked, stingy, heartless, bullying evil dragon!"

"Uh, didn't you say in your letter that you were the manager of Drogo's Toy Store?"

"In your letter?" Aisha pried open the dragon's mouth to see more clearly. After finally making out the visitor, she said, "Brother?"

Yuno Stone, the eldest son of the Stone family and Aisha's older brother, was twenty-five years old and worked as a laboratory assistant in the optics department of the Fico Institute.

It sounded highly professional, but his daily duties were really just serving tea, wiping instruments, acting as a tool for recording experimental data, and serving as a memo during research meetings.

Worth mentioning was that his monthly salary was only sixty copper coins, nominally called a stipend. If the institute had not provided dormitories, he would have struggled to survive in Twin Towers City.

Back in the day, he had been the best student in the surrounding villages, the hope of the whole village. Only after getting into the big city did he discover that he was not some heaven-blessed prodigy at all. Unwilling to return home in disgrace, he could only deceive himself into staying, telling himself that opportunities would eventually come.

The two went to a café and sat in the outdoor dining area.

Aisha discovered the mascot costume's only advantage: it was actually quite comfortable as padding on the chair.

"So this is what you do as a manager?"

"Of course not. I'm responsible for Yo-yo special effects, you know Yo-yos, right? I also teach illusion inscriptions to an idiot. I make a lot of money..."

"Forget it. It isn't easy doing odd jobs, and Twin Towers City's cost of living is so high. Take this money. My job is fairly stable."

As he spoke, he pulled out a tightly wrapped bundle from an inner pocket in his clothes. After unwrapping several layers, he finally revealed the silver coins inside. He counted out five, hesitated, then took out another two.

"What are you doing? I told you I'm the manager." Aisha hurriedly stuffed the money back into her brother's hands. "If you don't believe me, forget it. Why did you come to Cornflower Street today?"

Yuno could not afford the spending here.

"I saw the promotion saying that solving puzzles at Drogo's Toy Store could win prize money, so I wanted to try."

"That money isn't easy to get." Aisha still felt that there was something fishy about how Drogo had restored the Rubik's Cube. "Do you need money badly right now?"

"Ugh—" Yuno was clearly in a terrible mood. "The research project I applied for wasn't approved. The institute won't provide funding, but I want to continue the research myself."

"What kind of project?" Aisha felt that if it was not too expensive, she should be able to help.

"Simply put, it lets optical images pass through a filter and appear on a Magic Crystal surface in their original colors. The colors are converted by the crystal surface into magical vibrations, and the vibration values are amplified through an array..."

"Stop, stop, stop!" Aisha quickly cut Yuno off.

Whether she could understand it or not was another matter. Just hearing all those technical terms made her head hurt.

"Why not just tell me what it does?"

"It records scenes that happen and stores them inside Magic Crystals."

"I get it. Then what's the difference between that and Recording Magic?"

"In theory, it's easier to use, can store longer content, and does not require magic power during playback. It's just that I can't achieve that yet. Right now, it's not even as useful as Recording Magic, which is why the project wasn't approved..."

Yuno's tone grew increasingly aggrieved.

"Anyway, once you make it work, it'll definitely be better than Recording Magic." Aisha truly could not stand her brother's rambling anymore.

"Probably, but scientific research must be rigorous. Before conducting sufficient experiments..."

"Stop talking. Come with me. I know someone who can invest in your project."