Visual Inscription Workshop

"Eat grapes without spitting out the skins; don't eat grapes, yet spit out the skins."

"Black fertilizer turns gray and evaporates; gray fertilizer evaporates and turns black."

"Delicate pagoda, pagoda delicate, first floor of the delicate treasure pagoda..."

"No, what language are you even speaking?!" Aisha truly could not listen to Drogo's strange tongue twisters anymore. It felt like a pack of shamans were praying around her.

She had already been promoted from toy shop manager to Drogo's assistant. Kalaman Aclight was temporarily managing the toy shop, and he genuinely loved toys.

It was just that the relationship between the Aclight brothers was rather delicate now.

The illusion design work had also been handed over to the newly recruited graduates.

She had originally thought she would finally have some free time, but when there was trouble, Drogo was a powerful pillar to lean on; when there was no trouble, Drogo was the biggest trouble of all.

If her salary had not reached eighty silver coins a month, there was no way she would accompany this dragon in his madness every day.

Drogo suddenly stopped, looked around the room, and set his sights on a nearby table. With one swipe of his claw, he split it apart. Though it was furniture he had bought with his own money, Aisha, accustomed to thrift and household management, still felt her heart ache at the sight.

He dug out several wooden boards with his claw tips, drilled holes in them, then found a strip of cloth, threaded it through the holes, and tied it tight.

"Clack-a-ling, clack-a-ling-ding-clack—"

"This Tongrentang was once an old pharmacy..."

Aisha felt as though her mind had been contaminated. Even though she could not understand what Drogo was chanting, it was strangely addictive.

"Too bad there are no bamboo clappers. The flavor's all wrong," Drogo said in the common tongue.

Yes, Drogo could now speak the languages of humanoid creatures.

It was a new invention from the research institute: a voice device. It had originally been designed to imitate monster vocalizations for biological research. Drogo had ordered one that imitated human speech. Through throat vibrations and magic that mapped mouth shapes, it could determine what he wanted to say.

After several days of adjustment, he could already use it proficiently. It was even more nimble than his mouth had been when he was human.

He straightened the little bow tie around his neck. He had specifically chosen this appearance for the voice device. He was a long-lived species, and Conan was too, so using the same black technology was perfectly reasonable.

In future situations, he could wear his own disguise himself.

Many people were now watching the Drogo Group, made up of the toy shop, film studio, and potion factory, speculating that some powerful force controlled it from behind the scenes. Continuing to have Aisha act as its public face put far too much pressure and risk on a young girl.

It would be better to lay their cards on the table: there really was a force behind them. Let a "drake" wearing a voice device serve as its mouthpiece, then let their competitors guess away.

The unknown was often an effective defense.

"Knock, knock." Someone knocked on the door.

Aisha went to open it.

"Oh, our Aisha has gotten prettier again." The moment the door opened, Flynn gave her a huge hug. Even in human form, Flynn was a head taller than Aisha.

She cupped Aisha's slightly baby-fat cheeks in both hands and gave them a fierce rub.

"Teacher, what are you doing?" Aisha had recently begun to feel that Flynn looked at her as if she were her daughter.

"Ah, I feel much better now. Do you know how much effort it took me to contact all these people for your foolish boss?"

Behind Flynn, a large group of white-bearded old men stood respectfully in two rows. Farther back on the stairs stood somewhat younger middle-aged men, also dressed in exquisite mage robes.

Aisha recognized quite a few of them. Every one was a renowned illusionist on the continent, though illusionists' reputations only counted for so much.

Thanks to Flynn's prestige in the illusion world, they had all been gathered here. Some had even rushed to Twin Towers City from overseas.

This unprecedented all-star lineup of illusionists had been assembled to accomplish an important goal in Drogo's plan.

To complete the development tool for illusion spell models—the Visual Inscription Workshop.

Everyone took their seats, and Aisha distributed the workshop proposal to them.

Though it was called a workshop, it was actually another kind of spell model, running within the divine remains and used to create other spell models.

Drogo simply could not accept the current efficiency of illusion design. There was no debugging, no prompts, and not even a way to reuse existing spells. Everything had to be written again from scratch.

He needed a VS Code and GitHub for mages, followed by an operating system and game engine. These were all branches of technology he had to unlock in order to build a magical internet and gaming empire.

What the Visual Inscription Workshop was meant to accomplish was the functionality of VS Code.

Of course, it would be a simplified version. He did not expect to catch up to Microsoft's level of refinement in a single attempt.

For this reason, unlike before, when he could simply grab a couple of students from the Spellcaster Academy, Drogo had entrusted Flynn with finding every high-level illusionist on the continent.

It was also the first time the illusionists had encountered such spell requirements. Once they began reading the proposal, they were astonished to find that the demands were specified down to nearly every detail, with different functions even ranked by priority.

Whenever they had wanted to develop an illusion in the past, they had begun with only a vague concept. The process had been full of "inspiration" and "epiphanies." In short, the final result was often vastly different from what they had originally envisioned.

But that did not make it any less of a successful exploration of magic.

The proposal now in their hands, however, looked more like something those people who spent all day among steam and machinery would write.

It lacked magic's freedom, spirit, and beauty. The stubborn old mage came to a conclusion: it was practically a betrayal of ancestral methods.

"May I ask what this spell is meant to be used for?" The old mage raised his wrinkled hand. He was not in his own mage tower, so proper etiquette still had to be observed. After all, even all the colleagues present combined were not as old as Lady Flynn.

"To create the future," Drogo said.

"And this is?" The old mage rubbed his eyes. He had seen plenty of strange things, but a drake in a bow tie that could speak was a first.

"Our boss's, uh..." Aisha paused to consider her wording. "Spokesdragon. Yes, spokesdragon."

"And how should we address you?"

"Drogo. Drogo will do."

"Wow. That truly is... rather unique."

A group that did not fear angering the Red Dragon Drogo must possess unfathomable strength, the old mage thought. No wonder they had been able to enlist Lady Flynn's help.

Drogo continued, "This spell will be the foundation for creating every fantasy world of the future. It will become an inseparable part of everyone's lives, and illusionists will henceforth become the most important school of magic. Flynn, how many new students chose illusion at Repin Academy this year?"

"Twelve."

"Uh, what about last year?"

"Eight."

"That's a fifty-percent year-on-year increase! It represents the inevitable prosperity of the Illusion School. Magic Shadow and games are both creations born from the flourishing of illusion, and you, as the initiators of this transformation, will surely be remembered in history."

Painting a grand vision was a necessary condition for inspiring people's enthusiasm. Being remembered in history held enormous appeal for people of this era—the temptation of earning a page all to oneself in the family genealogy.

"Of course, every illusionist participating in this research will start at five gold coins. There will also be additional monthly allowances based on contribution, and generous bonuses once development succeeds."

Flynn was an outlier among illusionists. Of all the wealth in the world's illusionist community, she alone possessed nine-tenths and nine-hundredths of it.

Therefore, sufficient benefits were the sufficient condition for inspiring people's enthusiasm.

The starting point of every future change recorded in history—the Visual Inscription Workshop development team—was officially established.