At night, Caelan, full and satisfied, returned to his lodging above the shop. Lying on his bed, he picked his teeth while happily assessing his progress in his mind palace.
It could only be said that he truly lived up to his ten-star talent. Caelan felt that the improvement in his mind palace and mana today alone was equivalent to five or six days of his previous training.
If his mind palace could support more, and if more people played his game, his mana would surely increase even faster. Moreover, this mana did not conflict with the mana absorbed from the fire element gathering array; both were working together to strengthen him.
Is there a way to increase the number of people playing the game?
This is actually quite easy to solve.
In his previous life, during the era of the NES console, it was a combination of game cartridges and a main console. In this world, Caelan couldn't make a main console, but he could still make cartridges.
Enchanted crystals are versatile magical storage items. By imprinting a familiar spell into an enchanted crystal using one's own mana, a special pattern is formed.
Once the engraving is complete, as long as others touch this engraved crystal and transmit mana into it, they can release the spell. As long as there is enough mana, it doesn't matter if you don't understand the spell's operating principles at all.
The House Trident Flame shop next door does exactly this business. Their shop sells various engraved runestones made by famous archmaguses.
The most famous is undoubtedly their shop's treasure, the "Trident Flame" runestone. As long as sufficient mana is supplied, it can unleash an extremely powerful three-pronged flame.
He got this item from his family. It's said that no one knows how to make it anymore, so the shop owner treasures it.
It's only used as a display piece, occasionally brought out for familiar acquaintances to look at, and then carefully hidden away. It's essentially not for sale—unless you offer an exorbitant price.
Generally speaking, using a spell from an engraved runestone consumes many times more mana than casting it yourself after learning it.
For example, if casting a Fireball spell yourself costs 10 mana, then using an engraved runestone with a Fireball spell typically costs between 10 and 50.
However, this is only the general case. Some engraved runestones made by archmaguses allow you to cast spells with even less mana than you would need yourself.
These engraved runestones are expensive but not uncommon. The House Trident Flame shop has several archmaguses' works for sale, and many people, especially adventurers and mercenaries, buy them.
After all, in places with danger to life, saving even a little mana provides an extra layer of life assurance.
The task of engraving runestones is not something anyone can do. Besides the secret techniques passed down through families, it requires a lot of talent if one tries to figure it out independently.
And talent... looking at the gleaming ten-star in his mind palace, Caelan flipped over: "The one thing I'm not lacking is talent."
He rushed to the shop's shelves and found several crystal tablets of varying sizes and irregular cuts (these were all left behind by the previous tenant who fled and weren't worth much).
First, he took out the smallest one, a size 2 crystal tablet, about the length and width of a thumb and two millimeters thick.
He immersed his consciousness into his mind palace, found the illusion rune stack he had created for the game, and tried to input it into the crystal tablet in his hand.
How to describe this feeling? It was like selecting a file on a computer and copying it to a USB drive. Although it was much more complex than using a computer, it didn't seem... very difficult.
In less than a second, Caelan stopped transmitting mana and looked at the now-useless crystal tablet in his hand, tossing it into the trash.
After all, his mana was too weak. When his mana reached two more Circles, he estimated he could easily cram Contra into this small crystal.
The smaller the volume of an engraved runestone, the better, of course.
He calculated briefly, then took out a size 6 crystal tablet, roughly the size of a six-inch phone, and input Contra again.
This time it was very successful, and he clearly felt that the size 6 crystal tablet still had plenty of space left.
Caelan thought about it and decided not to waste this space. He planned to create a CG animation or something for Contra, just randomly making up a plot.
Games still needed a story. At least Caelan used to love exploring game stories when he played games—with cheats, of course.
Caelan didn't believe anyone else could cheat in the game he made, except for himself.
Perhaps others with Illusion talent could, but people with this talent are, after all, very few, and it's probably hard to find anyone with stronger talent than him.
He brought all the size 6 crystal tablets from the shop and loaded the game onto them one by one.
After loading a little over twenty, Caelan clearly felt his mana was insufficient. He was about to meditate to recover, but after some thought, he took out a mana crystal, placed it in his palm, and quickly drew mana from it.
Mana crystals are somewhat similar to spirit stones in cultivation novels, or like a power bank.
They can instantly accelerate the user's mana recovery and continuously charge engraved runestone items. In the past, mana crystals could only be obtained through mining; it's said they were all fallen from the sky over countless years, belonging to non-renewable resources, so they were very expensive.
But later, a brilliant person invented the mana gathering array, which could convert gathered elements into pure mana and store it in depleted mana crystals.
After that, mana crystals began to enter ordinary households, becoming common everyday items. The most common use was to put them in an enchanted crystal receiver to "power" the receiver.
Mana crystals also recover their own mana, but very slowly.
Yes, that brilliant person was the First Emperor.
You're truly incredible, fellow countryman.
After using up all sixty or so size 6 crystal tablets in the shop's inventory, Caelan tried inputting chess into a size 2 crystal tablet and found it was effortless.
Judging by the capacity, he estimated that even the smallest size 1 crystal tablet could easily load it, but the shop had no size 1 tablets in stock.
It was also quite late, and most shops outside, except for those selling late-night snacks, were probably closed. Forget it, he would just use the size 2 crystal tablet; the extra memory would make the board and pieces appear more exquisite and clearer.
After effortlessly loading chess onto more than thirty size 2 crystal tablets, Caelan casually washed up and fell into a deep sleep on his bed.
The next day was the seventh day of the ten-day week. After today, there would be a three-day holiday.
Carrying his bag, he arrived at the classroom, where many classmates were already eagerly waiting. Not only from his own class, but even more from the neighboring class. Seeing Caelan arrive, they were all very happy and gathered around him.
"Caelan, quickly bring out that Elemental Contra for us to play! I'm sure I can reach the sixth level today."
" chess! I want to play chess."
"Hurry up! Tomorrow is the holiday, and we won't be able to play."
"You idiots! You can go find Caelan during the holiday... Caelan, tomorrow is the holiday, can I come to your shop to play? I'll bring you some delicious food."
"Ah, I have to go home for the holiday, and my home is a bit far from here."
Caelan was, of course, very amiable towards these enthusiastic classmates who helped him improve his strength. After signaling them to quiet down, Caelan placed the bag from his back onto the desk and opened it, revealing the size 2 and size 6 crystal tablets inside.
"Guys, I welcome you to visit my shop tomorrow," Caelan said, looking at the surrounding classmates. "But People who live far away don't need to worry.
Yesterday, I already engraved Elemental Contra and chess into runestones. The size 6 crystal tablet is for Elemental Contra, and the size 2 crystal tablet is for chess.
Everyone just needs to place them in the correct position according to the arrows I've drawn on them, and then charge the engraved runestone with your own mana or with a mana crystal, and you can play."
"Ah, really? That's great! Give me the Elemental Contra!" As soon as Caelan finished speaking, a classmate immediately reached out to grab a crystal.
Caelan quickly snatched the bag back, smiling at them. A quick-witted guy immediately reacted, looking disdainfully at the boy who tried to grab the runestone and said,
"Have some shame! Caelan worked hard to make these last night, and you just want to take one for free?"
Caelan thought: It wasn't that much work, I made them quite easily.
The quick-handed boy blushed in embarrassment and quickly apologized: "I'm sorry, Caelan, I was too impatient, it wasn't intentional. How much do you sell these runestones for?"
Caelan naturally wasn't angry with him. He waved his hand and said it was fine, then announced the prices he had set last night.
" chess for 1 silver mark, Elemental Contra for 5 silver marks."
Considering the cost of a size 2 crystal tablet at 5 copper bits each, and a size 6 crystal at 1 silver mark, this price was a bit high (1 silver mark equals 100 copper bits). However, technology is priceless!
Similarly, size 6 crystal tablets engraved by those archmaguses often cost thousands of gold crowns, so Caelan's price was actually very low.
As expected, the classmates had no objections to the price. Those with coin bought several copies without batting an eye, saying they wanted to show them to friends and family tomorrow.
Even those with tight budgets bought a chess.
After buying the runestones, everyone excitedly went to test the effects. Caelan also gave on-site guidance on the best way to place the engraved runestones and casually chatted with them about their gaming experiences.
Returning to his seat, just as he was about to count his coin, a figure approached. Caelan looked and saw it was Theron, the Blood-Splattering Warrior.
Theron looked awkward and a bit embarrassed. After a moment of hesitation, he said to Caelan, "Um, Caelan, I'm a bit short on coin lately..."
"No loans, I'm very poor." Caelan refused outright.
Theron was stunned, then almost died of anger when he realized what Caelan had said. You just sold so much and you say you're poor?
But he ultimately held back his temper and said with a fawning smile, "No, no, I'm not asking to borrow coin. I'm asking if you can manifest that Elemental Contra for me to play. I watched for half a day yesterday and didn't get to play."
Oh, so that's what it was. That's easy to arrange.
Caelan waved his hand, and the Elemental Contra interface appeared on the wall behind him, with the control buttons on the table below:
"Class starts in about ten minutes, you know. I'll put it away after class." Yesterday, wealthy Guys brought their friends to play together, and Theron had indeed been watching from the sidelines.
"Okay, okay." Theron didn't even turn his head, completely engrossed in playing.
Fuel the story with Powerstones.