Dazzling Light, It Was Dazzling Light

Ever since the Goddess of Magic had come after him for revenge, Drogo had become a cautious dragon.

Aisha had not, of course, been captured at random.

Illusionists were a rare breed among mages. They were neither as useful as offensive mages nor as profitable as those who studied enchantments and potions. And when it came to putting on mystical airs, they could not compare to the Divination School. Few people chose to study it.

There were only a few hundred registered illusionists in the entire Mages Association.

After bribing an insider, Drogo had gone through every one of their files.

Those who were too famous or too powerful would not do. It was not that he could not beat them; they would just bring too much trouble, and trouble annoyed dragons.

They also had to specialize in visual illusions. Yo-yos had no use for illusions involving the other senses.

It was best if they had harmonious families. Such people were easier to control than those with no one to worry about but themselves.

From the remaining list, Aisha stood out.

The Association's assessment of her was: "Her illusions are not particularly deceptive, but their visual presentation is exceptional."

She also had experience working part-time on stage effects at a theater.

She was not a qualified illusionist, but she perfectly matched Drogo's needs.

Naturally, Aisha herself knew none of this.

She thought she was an unlucky victim who had happened upon an evil dragon. She was trying to understand what a yo-yo was while worrying that the promised twenty-five silver coins would be withheld.

Although that Subordination Contract nominally bound both sides, she was not foolish enough to believe that little bit of magic would work on an Ancient Dragon.

Drogo took out a yo-yo as well, preparing to demonstrate how it was played. Even his shrunken dragon claws looked absurdly large compared to it.

He looped the string around his middle finger, flicked his wrist, and sent the yo-yo sliding down the string. It spun as it hovered in midair.

Aisha now understood why it had looked familiar. Her brother had liked playing with this sort of toy when he was little, throwing it down and watching it wind itself back up. She had never understood what was fun about that.

She had not expected an evil dragon's toy to really be just a toy. It was a little disappointing.

No, she soon noticed the difference. Why was that ball not winding itself back up?

Wasn't that even more boring?

Sure enough, evil dragons could not make good toys. How could a flying lizard with nothing but brute strength understand the subtleties of human design?

Yet Drogo's next movements exceeded her expectations.

He swung the ball forward, looped it around his fingertips, and laid it back across the string. As both claws exerted force, the yo-yo darted and danced between the strings.

Aisha's eyes could not even keep up with its trajectory.

It could do that too?

He had not secretly used magic just to play with a toy, had he?

After completing a dazzling series of moves, he caught the string and reeled in the yo-yo. He said nothing, putting on the air of an expert. Even that fierce dragon head gained a few extra points of charm.

Aisha copied him, gripping the yo-yo and throwing it downward. After only two seconds of spinning, the body tilted sideways and hung from the string.

Why?

The shock and confusion in her eyes gave Drogo a surge of secret satisfaction.

Back in the day, he had been a yo-yo expert in elementary school. Li Fei, Mike—none of them had been better than him.

For a time, he had believed he could become a professional yo-yo player. Then he watched videos of real yo-yo competitions and suddenly felt that going to school was not so hard after all.

"There are two types of illusions needed. One is a simple light effect triggered while the yo-yo is spinning, and the other is a complex illusion triggered after the yo-yo completes a special movement trajectory. One yo-yo needs to be able to trigger multiple illusions. Any difficulties?"

Drogo planned to recreate the effects from TV dramas and cartoons. Different tricks would summon different special effects.

Then he could develop limited-edition yo-yos. Certain moves could only be performed with certain yo-yos, and each one could sell for dozens of gold coins.

After hearing the requirements, Aisha found them unprecedented. No one had ever asked for low-level illusions to be triggered in different ways, but theoretically, it was possible.

"No problem. Persistence Runes can do it."

The trajectory of a Persistence Rune while moving could form a magic array, thereby triggering a preset illusion.

"Good. I'll show you the work environment first. Goblin Xin 104 will bring you the proposal for the specific requirements."

"Uh, Goblin Xin 104 is?"

"The Goblin who translated earlier. Goblins have no names aside from chieftains and shamans, so they use numbers."

"And what is a proposal?"

"It details your work, including diagrams of the tricks' trajectories and sketches of the corresponding illusions."

Aisha listened in a daze. No one had ever described requirements for illusions to her like this.

When she worked part-time at the theater, the director's ideas had always been extremely abstract. He also loved using obscure terms, and it took endless communication and experimentation to get things right.

Why did this dragon feel more civilized and advanced than they were?

Was he really an evil dragon guilty of countless crimes?

Questions filled her mind, to the point that she followed the dragon into the Goblins' cave without any guard up.

Though having her guard up would not have helped anyway.

If a dragon researching toys was merely strange, then the sight inside the cave completely shattered her worldview.

It was not the dark, foul-smelling place full of excrement and remains described by bards.

Instead, it was clean, orderly, and odorless. It was even more organized than the streets of her hometown city. It felt rather... indescribable, but strange.

The cave was spacious, over three meters high, with stone-reinforced walls. Inside were not only Goblins, but also Orcs and undead.

The girl and the dragon boarded a cart pulled by Wargs. The Goblin driver stopped at intersections, waiting for the undead ahead to lower a red flag and raise a green one before proceeding.

Fluorescent Stones provided lighting at regular intervals, while signboards marked the routes and various areas.

Not even the great cities of the kingdom could manage this!

Seeing Aisha's confusion, Drogo explained, "As long as food and shelter are provided, habits can be changed."

"But with so many of them, how much food would that take?"

"They farm and raise livestock themselves."

"Huh?" Aisha thought she had misheard. "Aren't these creatures all stupid? Don't they only know how to plunder?"

"Ha, a common misunderstanding. Humans always think they alone are special. Goblins and Orcs are both highly adaptable creatures. To survive, they can learn many things, as long as there is enough pressure."

"And their pressure is?"

"Me."

"..."

Aisha suddenly felt a little foolish. They had talked for so long that she had forgotten the one beside her was an Ancient Dragon.

Her view suddenly opened up as they arrived at a vast underground platform.

Row after row of Goblins gathered there, seated along both sides of several extra-long tables. Their hands busied themselves with something, and once they finished, they passed it to the next Goblin.

"We're here." Drogo got off the cart and raised a claw toward the platform, with a hint of pride. "Welcome to the No. 1 Yo-yo Production Line."

Production line? Another word she had never heard before. But looking at how the Goblins worked, Aisha roughly understood. The name was quite fitting.

"The Goblins really are a little stupid. They cannot learn to make an entire yo-yo, so each one only learns a single step."

Drogo pointed to the other side, where there was a separate rock chamber with an attractive door installed on it.

"Your workshop and residence. Two hundred square meters, equipped with basic magical tools, fully furnished, with a private bathroom. If you feel hot, just call an undead to cool things down. Don't worry, they won't curse their colleagues."

This was looking more and more like a legitimate job, Aisha thought.

"Ren 82."

Drogo let out a roar, and a Goblin hurried over.

"From now on, you are Lady Aisha's assistant. Stay outside her door and be available whenever she calls. If she is satisfied with you, you get an extra piece of lizard meat for dinner. Understood?"

Ren 82 nodded and planted himself outside the rock chamber's door.

"Then, get to work."

The first magical yo-yo was born even more smoothly than Drogo had expected.

Aisha handed the sample to his claw after only two days.

The implementation method was highly efficient as well. She did not need to make every yo-yo herself.

Rune magic was somewhat like programming. It called "functions" from the Goddess of Magic, then mages packaged them into runes.

After that, ordinary Goblins could handle imprinting the runes onto the yo-yos, while shamans could infuse the runes with magic.

So Aisha was responsible only for the design work.

The rune that produced the spinning light effect was imprinted on the outer layer. As long as the yo-yo slept, it would activate, and the light gradually weakened as the spin slowed.

The illusion rune was imprinted around the outside of the bearing, so it would not be affected by the spinning. It was a clever idea.

Drogo examined the yo-yo in his claw. Although it was not as refined as Earth's industrial products, it was still well-made. Goblins did not cut corners.

He began trying it out.

Sleep, double loop, flip, then Launch. It was a combo that looked simple now, but back in childhood, anyone who could pull it off was the coolest kid among their friends.

And at the instant the move was completed, the phantom of a silver dragon shot into the sky.

"Sky-Soaring Silver Dragon isn't a dead trick!"

Drogo laughed, and he laughed happily.

Aisha watched from the side. She was astonished, not by the illusion's effect, but because she saw a smile on a dragon's face—a childlike smile.