Early Access

Drogo deliberately found a piece of wood, carved it into an oval, hollowed out the center, left a long slit, then made a little hammer from a wooden strip and began striking it with great devotion.

"Dong—dong—dong—"

The sound of calming the mind and suppressing desire echoed through the third floor of the workshop.

"Are you performing a ritual or something?" Flynn could not help asking.

"How did you know?" Drogo answered as he tapped the wooden fish. "I am performing a ritual. No bugs, no bugs..."

"What does bug mean?"

"Error in dragon language," Drogo blurted out.

"Who are you trying to fool? You think I don't know dragon language?" Flynn stared fixedly at Drogo, trying to spot a flaw.

"Ah, right, Red Dragon language. Hahaha."

"Do you often pin all sorts of weird words on dragon language in front of other people?"

Drogo glanced guiltily at Flynn and stiffly changed the subject. "How could I? I don't, I haven't... Ah, let's test the last feature."

He then activated Illusion Mimicry.

A simple window appeared, with a file index on the left, a workspace on the right, and an inscription input method below.

It looked fairly convincing.

It was still a long way from a fully realized VS Code, but it could barely count as a bargain-bin notepad with prompts.

Do not underestimate Notepad. That thing was actually damn powerful. At the very least, compared to the current state where every mage was basically a "manual immortal," it was a productivity strike from another dimension.

"I hereby announce that the Visual Inscription Workshop v0.1 early access version is officially complete!"

Calling an early access version "officially complete" sounded a little strange, but unless this batch of illusionists died of old age, none of them could possibly quit. They would all keep developing it until the official version was done.

The spirit of craftsmanship!

That way, development could split into two tracks. The elite illusionists would continue refining the Inscription Workshop, while the main force that had previously developed Auto Chess would be shifted over to use the current workshop to create a game engine.

Auto Chess development was already nearing its end. Importing the missing music and voice acting did not require so many people; leaving a small group behind for maintenance and updates would be enough.

He could just barely keep things going. He had already picked the continent's illusionists clean; if he wanted to recruit more, he could only look overseas.

When would the next crop of chives—no, illusionists—graduate? Drogo Group offers, total compensation of five hundred silver coins. Click to receive.

Maybe he should organize a Drogo Young Illusionist Competition sometime, with a prize pool of eight hundred or a thousand gold coins, then launch a Drogo Pan-Continental Prodigy Program.

All heroes under heaven would fall into my net!

The elderly illusionists had little interest in celebrating the Visual Inscription Workshop's milestone victory either. With bodies as old as theirs, if something went wrong during the celebration, they would not even know whom to blame.

The essence of priest healing spells was to enhance a person's own recovery ability, then let them tough it out. No matter how much an old person's recovery ability was enhanced, it could only go so far.

As for infections, modern medicine had not yet developed in this era, so antibiotics were out of the question. When a priest arrived, it was always: "Your immune system has been strengthened. Get in there!"

Mental illness?

Mental illness did not exist in this era. There was only being stupid, crazy, mentally abnormal, and finally dead.

In the end, only Drogo, Flynn, and Aisha, who was so sleepy she could barely remain standing, cut into a cake marked "Visual Inscription Workshop V0.1" late at night.

Of course it was late at night. What other time could it have been? When had a release day ever not involved working overtime until midnight?

Sigh. He had somehow found the same feeling of working at a game company back in his fantasy otherworld. What was even the point of transmigrating?

Fortunately, he was the boss here. He was the one putting pressure on others; no one could pressure him.

At last, there was no one who thought open worlds were great today and ordered him to make an open-world demo, then decided turn-based games were great tomorrow and told him to scrap the previous project and make a turn-based demo.

They were all investors looking to make quick money. Give them a few months to reskin it, launch it, buy traffic, squeeze it dry, then move on to the next one.

A few games would claw their way to the top and become hits, stuffing themselves full, leaving a mess behind them.

He hoped Black Myth, "the village's only college student," was doing well. He did not expect it to save the market. The Wandering Earth had not saved science-fiction films either, but there always had to be pioneers.

Drogo stuffed a piece of cake into his mouth, and tears instantly streamed down his face.

"What's wrong?" Flynn asked nervously. She had thought Drogo seemed strange all day. Was it that time of the month? No, he was a male dragon. What kind of menstrual cycle could he possibly have?

Complete Transformation had made Flynn's way of thinking more human-like.

In the past, if any dragon cried weakly, a beating would surely fix it.

So dragons could not be blamed for having abnormal brains. That was simply how their race educated its young.

Education determined destiny.

"It's nothing," Drogo said. He was not actually overwhelmed by sentiment. "It's too sweet. Why is it so sweet? Bleurgh—"

This damned cake was so sweet it was like eating a Snickers covered in M&M's and wrapped in another layer of syrup.

It caused immediate physical discomfort. The last time Drogo had been this thoroughly crushed was when the Goddess of Magic had shamelessly handed someone an eleventh-circle scroll. This time, a single piece of cake had hurt him inside and out.

Pure sweetness. There really was no flavor other than sweet.

He knew sugar was precious in this world, so the highest-tier cake he had ordered would naturally be sweet, but why was it this sweet?

Other than the fact that it genuinely used animal cream, it had no redeeming qualities. If one bite did not spike his blood sugar to eighteen, his pancreas deserved a medal.

Apparently, this world not only lacked the Eastern Continent that produced those mysterious little energizing leaves, it also lacked places that produced spices.

He missed industrial flavoring.

"We shouldn't keep such good stuff to ourselves. Leave some for everyone else."

Thoughtfully, Drogo cut the cake into small pieces and placed one at every workstation. Flynn cast a Frost spell to keep them from spoiling.

May the old grandpas and grandmas have no cavities.

Aisha had already fallen asleep standing up. The girl truly had some impressive skills. Drogo had no choice but to carry her back to the toy store.

Flynn accompanied him as they strolled along Cornflower Street.

It had been a long time since he had enjoyed any quiet.

The two places were not far apart. From a distance, he could see a small stall set up outside the toy store, with an illumination spell still lit.

What was going on? Had the toy store added some new project he did not know about?

As he walked closer, he discovered it was Toto's stall. She was not selling anything, merely sitting in a rocking chair while quite a few people queued around her.

Toto noticed them too and instantly stood up. "I didn't see anything! I don't know anything!"

"What did you see for you to say you saw something?"

"I didn't see anything!"

"Aisha is asleep, not dead. Why are you making such a fuss? More importantly, why are you still here after work?" Ever since meeting Toto, Drogo felt like he had never seen her sleep. Was she some ultimate life-form or something?

"I'm boosting accounts."

"Huh?" Drogo heard a term that was both unfamiliar and familiar, one that logically should not have existed here.

"Boosting your little games."

Well, look at you. Her efficiency at discovering a new industry really was absurdly high.

Drogo casually opened the Flying Red Zhong Game Box.

First place in Jump Jump: Toto.

First place in Up a Hundred Floors: Toto.

First place in Twin Towers City Blocks: Toto. Wait, ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten-thousands... Over nine hundred thousand points! One digit more than second place.

"Are you even human, Toto?"

"No. I'm half-elf."

Drogo fell silent at once.

"Oh, right." Toto took out a letter. "A dwarf uncle asked me to give this to you just now."

Drogo took it and saw the words written on it:

To the esteemed drake who calls himself Drogo: