The Birth of the Game Console

Human lives were short. How could one learn, within a limited lifetime, the knowledge dragons had accumulated over their long years? That was a problem.

Flynn did not know either.

But staying up all night playing games was definitely not the answer.

Flynn mounted her little bicycle and raced straight for Drogo’s Toy Store to demand an explanation.

How dare he lead her personal disciple astray!

The poor chain sparked as she pedaled furiously. Bicycles had no shock absorption these days, and Twin Towers City's roads were uneven. The frame rattled and clattered over the cobblestones. Fortunately, the bike was solidly built—if it had been carbon fiber, it probably would not have lasted even a kilometer.

Flynn did not even stand on the pedals. She sprinted while seated, and anyone on the roadside who saw her had to praise her, saying, "That girl has one tough butt."

With a beautiful drift and sudden stop, Flynn rode onto Cornflower Street. Drogo’s Toy Store was right in front of her.

She got off, straightened her clothes, and used a cleaning spell to sweep away the dust she had picked up along the way. As a golden dragon with taste, she had to remain elegant.

"Welcome to Drogo’s Toy Store."

Sniff, sniff.

Something was wrong. Drogo was not here, and neither was Aisha.

Toto burst out from the circle of children surrounding her and came before Flynn. "Lady Uman, the manager hasn't been in the store these past few days. He said that if you came to play mahjong, you should go find him in the Mixed District. And if you weren't here to play mahjong, it would be best if you went to find him anyway. He's currently conducting, uh..."

Toto suddenly froze halfway through her sentence. She fished a crumpled note from her pocket and painstakingly smoothed it open. "An important discussion concerning the Illusion School's future development and very survival."

"Huh?"

Mixed District, Drogo Dragon Island's Twin Towers City branch.

"Achoo!"

Drogo sneezed.

"Can dragons catch colds too?" Aisha asked in shock, as though she had seen the sun rise in the west.

"No. Someone's probably talking about me." Drogo vaguely sensed a hint of killing intent.

"You sneeze when people talk about you? Drogo! Drogo! Drogo!"

"How old are you?" Drogo felt as though he were raising a silly daughter. Though she was already a pillar of the Drogo Group, she still did not seem particularly bright.

"Nineteen." Aisha blinked.

"Enough. Break time is over. It's time to continue today's seminar."

Back in the main hall, a banner hung at the front: "Illusion Mimicry Prototype and Hero Auto Chess Development Seminar."

Almost every illusionist in the city had been gathered here. Fortunately, illusionists usually did not have much work to do, so they all had plenty of free time.

There were also the colleagues Yuno had poached from the research institute, the finest craftsmen within a hundred miles aside from the dwarves, and the magic device manufacturers Craig had introduced.

Development had been progressing fairly smoothly. He had to admire the promotional strategies born from the insane competition among game companies that bought traffic.

With features like leaderboards, regional rankings, and rewards for sharing the game, the Flying Red Center Church spread like a virus. Its influence had already expanded to mages across the entire continent. The Divine Remains now had more than enough capacity to hold several large games.

Even the most expensive art assets on Earth cost far less after being modeled with spells. Animation did not require animators to painstakingly keyframe everything by hand either—illusionists could handle it with sheer thought.

Drogo had no shortage of testers under him, and the programmer mages could transition over seamlessly after a little adaptation.

There were currently two major difficulties. The first was shrinking the magic game console. Even making it the size of an arcade cabinet would be acceptable, but the current prototype was two stories tall.

The second was figuring out how to settle data on the server—in other words, inside the Divine Remains. No one had ever created a spell model with a similar function.

Settling data on the magic device itself would be easy enough, since they could use mechanical structures. But that would make cheating far too easy.

The former was an online game. Anyone who wanted to use cheats would at least need to develop them specifically, making the barrier much higher.

The latter was a single-player game. You could directly alter the local data, and Wind Spirit Moon Shadow could take care of that.

"Come on, let's continue discussing how to solve the data problem."

"I have an idea." Yuffie raised her hand. "Suppose we specifically design a recording spell responsible for logging players' actions on the magic device. Once they make a valid action, the record is sent back to the Divine Remains, then the results produced by that action are synchronized to the other players..."

What a talent! Drogo could not help taking a closer look at the girl, who was even younger than Aisha. It had only been a few days, and she was already about to figure out event-based state synchronization.

Just as Yuffie was about to explain her proposal in detail, the doors to the hall were suddenly kicked open.

Flynn had arrived.

In Flynn's imagination, she would kick open the door and find Drogo grinning wickedly as he researched those strange, evil spells that made people addicted.

Then she would sternly stop him. Drogo would rather die than comply, the two dragons would fight, and Drogo would lose because he would be too embarrassed to go all out.

After that, he would apologize and make amends. Ideally, he would compensate her with a few more paintings like the ones from last time.

Who could have expected that after she really kicked open the doors, she would see no fewer than two hundred people, all apparently researching illusion spells.

A little embarrassed, she lowered her leg and tugged down her robe. She had hiked up the hem just now to kick.

Drogo found it strange that she was blushing. She had never worn clothes during all those years in dragon form, yet after only a few years in the city, she had become so modest.

Flynn beckoned to Drogo, telling him to hurry over, then shot Yuffie—whose speech had been interrupted—a glare. She had been absentminded in class these past two days, yet she had been awfully enthusiastic about running here.

Once Drogo reluctantly came over, the two dragons found an empty room.

Flynn struck first. "What exactly are you making? If all illusionists start researching Illusion Mimicry, won't it become even harder for them to make a living?"

"Illusionists were never good at combat to begin with, so they might as well stop fighting altogether. Games can provide the Illusion School with more job opportunities. Trust me. In a few years, it'll become as popular a school as the Evocation School."

"Impossible." Flynn rejected the idea without a second thought. In all her past experience, this was a world where strength represented everything.

"How about this? Try it for yourself and see what illusion spells can truly accomplish."

Drogo brought her before the enormous prototype. It did not have networking capabilities yet, so they needed to gather eight players locally. Six goblins skillfully activated the magic devices.

Though Flynn disliked the way Drogo used illusion spells, she had to admit that this was an extremely complex magic device, and its mimicry was remarkably exquisite—something she had never seen before.

But what use was mimicry if it could not produce any real effects?

"Let me introduce it. This is the initial version of Hero Auto Chess. It's still pretty crude, but it's already playable. Oh, right. This is you."

As he spoke, Drogo displayed a female hero designed entirely after Flynn's appearance.

"Considering how many years we've known each other, I made you a five-cost card—and the main carry, too. That brat Soren is only a support who can cast shields."

For the first time, Flynn felt that she could not understand dragon language. She understood every word Drogo said, but when they were put together, she could not understand any of it.

Still, with her talent, she was sure she would understand after trying it.

Filled with deep suspicion, Flynn began the first game of auto chess in her dragon life.

This weekend is my first time getting featured. I got so excited that I forgot to schedule the chapter release.

I'm sorry.

I'm not some reincarnated old monster or an extraterrestrial demon. I have absolutely no confidence in what I write. I never expected so many people to be reading it now. Touched.jpg

If possible, please click through to the latest chapter. Whether a new book gets featured during its early run depends entirely on follow-up reading, so please don't stockpile chapters.

If I can get through the recommendations and successfully go premium, you can stockpile all you want. I'll update like crazy then!