The Charm of Mini-Games

On the lawn in front of the Craig Building at Liebin Spellcaster Academy, Drogo and Aisha set up a stall.

Craig was a famous mage mentioned in every history of magic book. Though he had only been a sixth-level mage, the Principles of Magical Construct Engineering he proposed had directly founded an entire discipline. From then on, constructs were no longer merely toys for high-level mages.

He was also the beginning of the Craig family's prosperity. To commemorate him, Liebin Academy named the school building with the most classrooms after his surname.

That was why Drogo chose this place for the first step of his proselytizing.

Ordinarily, the less people read, the easier they were to convert. The level of education at a Spellcaster Academy did not make it an ideal place for preaching.

But Drogo had no choice. The divine corpse's only function at present was letting people play games, and playing games required illusionary simulation. Ordinary people could not do that. To promote it among ordinary people, they would need magical devices capable of casting simulations, and those were still under development.

The dismissal bell rang, and apprentice mages streamed out. If you were not eager to leave class, there was something wrong with your mindset.

Aisha hurriedly lowered her head, covered half her face with one hand, and peered upward with shifty eyes at the passing students, muttering nonstop, "They don't know me, they don't know me..."

"What are you doing?" Drogo asked in confusion. "Are you dissatisfied that I appointed you Cardinal Archbishop?"

"No, Drogo..."

"Use my title during work!"

"Okay, Pope, but can we change our church's name? It really is a little embarrassing."

A huge banner hung over the stall, bearing the words "Flying Red Center Church."

The tablecloth was printed with the slogan: "Creating happiness with heart."

A stack of promotional illustrations lay on the table, introducing the rules of various mini-games.

Drogo had originally wanted to call it something like the Steam Church or the 9934 Church, but the former had already been registered, while purely numerical names were not allowed for the latter.

Yes, founding a church in this world was quite free. As long as one acknowledged the Church's leadership and the deity it worshipped, one could register one's own church with the Church.

And the only organization without a name, referred to simply as "the Church," was the one whose sphere of influence covered the entire continent and whose strength surpassed even the most powerful nation.

"Will anyone really come for a name like that?" Aisha was still young and thin-skinned.

"Of course they will." Drogo sounded utterly confident.

"What kind of idiot would—"

"Wow, what's Flying Red Center? It looks so interesting!" Galina jogged over to the stall, dragging a deeply unwilling Yuffie along with one hand.

Aisha looked at Drogo, silently asking, Where did you find this plant?

Drogo said nothing and put on the air of an expert, signaling Aisha to get to work.

"Can we play these things if we join Flying Red Center Church?" Galina had already begun flipping through the promotional illustrations herself.

These illustrations had all been made with recording magic—in other words, they were in GIF format.

And they thoroughly understood the secrets of promoting web mini-games. After demonstrating the gameplay, every trial clip featured suffocatingly terrible controls, making viewers' hands itch to try it for themselves.

"Yes." Aisha had already put on the professional smile she had developed at the toy shop. "But there's one small prerequisite. To activate these games, you need to use illusionary simulation."

"I can do that!" Galina proudly puffed out her chest. Though she was not from the Illusion School, illusionary simulation was not difficult. She had learned it to cheat on exams, using simulations to cast spells she was not originally good at.

But it had not worked out. She had rather underestimated the intelligence of the proctors.

Without a second thought, Galina activated the Red Center Inscription and began trying the mini-games within one by one.

Yuffie carefully observed the illusions appearing before Galina, her expression gradually turning serious.

From an illusionist's perspective, those inscriptions were simply atrocious, like the work of an uneducated amateur scribbling nonsense at random.

Yet precisely because they were the work of an "amateur," those illusions were filled with such imagination.

Perhaps this was the kind of illusion she wanted to pursue?

"Senior Aisha!" The usually aloof Yuffie suddenly grew excited. "If I join Flying Red Center Church, can I study these spell models?"

"Huh? Yuffie!" Aisha had been focused on Galina just now and only noticed Yuffie at this point.

As mentioned earlier, everyone in the sparsely populated Illusion School knew one another. Yuffie and Aisha were both under Flynn's tutelage, but Yuffie was far more talented. At eighteen, she was already a fourth-level mage. She was especially skilled at model calculation and was being cultivated as the next legend.

"It's possible, but..." Aisha hesitated. Why did it feel like the future hope of the Illusion School was about to go down the wrong path?

"Then fine, I want to join Flying Red Center Church too!"

The coursework at Liebin Academy was extremely demanding. Galina and Yuffie hurriedly finished lunch, then went to the classroom to claim seats. Even so, they could not compete with the truly obsessive students and could only sit a few rows from the back.

This was an illusion-related elective open to students from other schools as well, which was why Galina was here too.

Of course, Galina did not genuinely want to take the course. Her course-selection strategy was simple: whatever Yuffie chose, she chose. That way, she would always have an expert backing her up.

Yuffie was previewing the lesson now, while Galina was playing Jump Jump.

Charge, release, charge again, release again...

Game over. 322 points.

A leaderboard appeared on the screen.

First place: Half-elf Toto, 5844 points;
Second place: Drogo, 1024 points;

...

Fifteenth place: The Great Legend Soren, 323 points;
Sixteenth place: Jiajia Is Super Pretty, 322 points;

"Hiss—"

Galina sat up straight and rolled her wrist. Just one point short. She would definitely surpass him next round. And he had even named himself Soren? Who was he trying to fool? Shameless!

She clicked restart.

A message popped up on the screen.

You have 0 remaining plays today. Share the Red Center Inscription with others to gain additional plays.

This is urgent!

Galina abruptly raised her head. As someone who had spent years clinging to experts whenever she picked courses, she knew exactly who excelled at what. She immediately picked out several people in the classroom who could use illusionary simulation.

There were still five minutes before class. That was enough.

After a thoroughly satisfying round of socializing, Galina returned to her seat with dozens of extra plays, deeply pleased with herself. The class bell rang at that very moment.

She continued immersing herself in the game.

"Galina." Yuffie poked her and softly reminded her.

Galina did not react. She had already reached 600 points and was about to overtake the person ahead of her, "I Have a Toy Shop." This was the most critical moment.

"Galina!" Yuffie poked her again.

The piece fell.

"Ah..." Galina was annoyed, but then she saw Yuffie frantically signaling with her eyes. What was wrong?

She turned around and saw the teacher's terrifying face.

"Having fun, are we?"

Galina inwardly cursed her bad luck. This teacher was the strictest among the elective instructors. If not for Yuffie, she never would have chosen this course.

"Go play it on the podium. Show everyone what you're playing that's making you so happy."

"That won't be necessary, Teacher. I know I was wrong."

"Then do you still want the credits for this course? If you do, get up there."

With no other choice, Galina played a round of Jump Jump in front of the class. Because she was nervous, she failed after only a few dozen points and slunk back to her seat amid the entire class's laughter.

Class continued.

"Give yourselves ten minutes to solve the example problem on the board."

The teacher assigned the work, then took the chance to have a drink of water and rest for a moment.

For some reason, the image of Galina playing that game would not leave his mind.

As if possessed, he quietly slipped his hand beneath the lectern and activated the Red Center Inscription.