In Crimson Port, inside House Everflame's castle, the young lord Cassius of House Everflame drooped his head, yawned,
and reluctantly put on his clothes with the help of two beautiful maids. After washing up, he finally felt much more energetic.
He casually grabbed a door-sized iron sword from the weapon rack in the courtyard, a sword almost as long and wide as himself,
and swung it hundreds of times with a whooshing sound, stretching his muscles and bones a bit.
Then he threw down the sword, mounted the Crimson Flame Beast led by the butler, and leisurely headed towards the Academy. A male attendant followed closely behind, carrying a satchel.
Although today was a holiday, it was the Vice Headmistress of Crimson Academy's birthday, and the banquet was being held inside Crimson Academy at noon.
As a prominent noble young lord in the city and the Vice Headmistress's nephew, Cassius planned to go early to congratulate his aunt and see if he could help with anything.
Autumn Way, as the main street of Crimson Academy, did not allow horses or carriages. Even if the noble young lords and ladies were lazy, they had to walk this section of the road honestly.
So, at the square at the street entrance, Cassius dismounted from the Crimson Flame Beast, handed the reins to the attendant, and walked to the Academy himself, carrying his satchel.
The square was also full of various riding beasts and vehicles, with enchanted carriages being the majority. After all, high-grade magical beasts were not something ordinary nobles could afford,
and low-grade magical beasts had no prestige, so it was better to take a carriage.
Beautifully dressed young men and women greeted each other. As the sole heir of House Everflame, Cassius held a very prominent position among the Academy's students.
Moreover, his strength was among the strongest in his age group, so naturally, many came to curry favor with him.
These noble young lords and ladies came so early not to celebrate the Vice Headmistress's birthday in advance like Cassius, but because someone had invited a famous opera troupe from the Lion Kingdom to perform for the Vice Headmistress's birthday.
These people were going to the Opera House to watch the stage play.
Responding to those who greeted him, Cassius pondered for a moment, then walked towards the Garron's Stew shop on Mare Street in Charger's Alley.
Several noble youths who were preparing to walk with him stopped when they saw this.
Everyone knew that Cassius liked the Cloud Boar stew from this shop very much, but nobles rarely ate Cloud Boar, such a humble creature. Cassius was an exception, going there every few days.
As usual, he ordered a bowl of stew sprinkled with spices, accompanied by a large flatbread. Cassius ate heartily, in a very un-noble fashion.
He inadvertently glanced at the shop opposite and was stunned. The sign for "Bladestone Enchantments" was gone; the current shop name was "Game City."
Game City? What kind of strange shop name is this?
While thinking, the half-open shop door opposite was pushed fully open. The shop owner inside carried out a ladder, placed it next to the sign, climbed up, and hammered in several large nails with loud thuds.
Then he ran back into the shop and carried out a huge crystal screen. One side of the crystal screen was completely black, like a mirror.
The shop owner carefully climbed the ladder and, with some difficulty, managed to hang it up, making Cassius sigh in relief for him.
After the crystal screen was hung, the shop owner pulled a small mana crystal from his pocket and inserted it into the upper left side of the large screen.
Cassius looked closely and saw that a black frame was drawn there, just big enough to hold the small mana crystal.
This spot should have an adsorption rune engraved, which automatically aligned and firmly adsorbed the mana crystal onto the screen.
By this time, the shop owner's actions had attracted the attention of many people nearby, who were curious about what he was doing.
The shop owner seemed oblivious, tapping the lower right position of the screen with his finger. A magical pattern of mana flickered, and a picture appeared on the mirror-like screen.
The picture showed "people" composed of simple lines and color blocks. Some people in civilian clothes were being escorted by another group of fully armed villains towards an underground passage.
The scene focused on one of the villains, whose body and face were firmly covered by thick tentacles and blood vessels.
His eyes were blood-red, and his throat vibrated, emitting roars (the picture thoughtfully included subtitles).
Next, the scene shifted. A male and female mercenary, dressed in mage robes, were receiving a mission from their captain.
In Newland Mountain in the Chaos Lands, some Moonwatch Empire civilians doing business there had been kidnapped by villains.
The Moonwatch Empire had issued a public contract to the Mercenary Guild. Successfully rescuing the civilians would earn a large amount of mercenary points.
Since their current location was relatively close to the incident, the mercenary captain dispatched his two most elite subordinates.
They were a brother and sister, named Garen Elemental Grip and Lux Elemental Grip.
Due to the large number of enemies ahead, the magic skyship could only land in a nearby forest. After the siblings observed the destination for a while, they were somehow discovered by the enemy.
Numerous red-eyed enemies rushed towards them... Then the art style of the picture suddenly changed, from a cinematic scene reminiscent of epic fantasy to Famicom pixel style.
However, one could vaguely distinguish in the picture a strong man in a blue mage robe and a woman in a red mage robe with exposed long legs, each holding a staff, firing small fireballs with "BIU BIU BIU" sounds at the attacking enemies.
The initial enemies seemed to have no long-range attack methods and could only swing their claws, surging towards the two. Most would die and disappear after being hit by one small fireball. A few elites could withstand several shots, appearing more troublesome.
Later, enemies who could also fire projectiles from a distance gradually appeared. The siblings rolled and jumped, advancing while dodging enemy attacks, appearing to be at ease.
The battle continued to advance. Suddenly, two oval objects flew from behind. The siblings immediately fired arcane orbs to shatter them.
Two items dropped from the flying objects: one labeled "Fire" and one labeled "Water." After Garen picked up "Fire,"
the arcane orbs he fired began to transform into five rotating small fireballs, swirling and flying towards the enemies (Contra F-bullet).
As for Lux, who picked up "Water," her attack method changed into a blue water column. A mechanical fortress that previously required several arcane orbs to break could now be shattered directly by one water column.
When encountering powerful enemies that could not be instantly killed, a slowing effect could also be applied (Contra L-bullet, with added freezing slow).
Next, the effect of "Earth" was also demonstrated: slow attack frequency but powerful attack, and the ability to nullify stone ball attacks from many flying projectiles (Contra S-bullet).
There was also the fan-shaped wind blade effect of "Wind," and the powerful but even slower attack frequency of "Thunder" (effect similar to Metal Slug's L-gun).
Finally, the scene rapidly switched between various background battlefields. Cassius, with his good eyesight,
could see various familiar magical beasts controlled by unknown creatures fighting the siblings, including one that looked like a Scaled Earth Dragon.
Finally, the screen returned to high-resolution.
In front of the siblings stood a similarly controlled giant, nearly ten meters tall, holding a huge axe blade, leaping high and striking down at the siblings.
After the screen turned blood-red, the five characters for "Elemental Contra" appeared, occupying a large portion of the crystal screen.
Below, there was another line of smaller characters: "Control your heroes, eliminate evil!"
The half-eaten flatbread in Cassius's hand fell directly to the ground, but he was oblivious. Like the onlookers around him,
the scene on the crystal screen had completely shocked him.
As a high-ranking noble, Cassius had long seen magical products that could display images, such as the Phoenix Empire's magic photo frames,
which could permanently fix a person's appearance at a certain moment in the frame.
There were also runic products invented by illusionists from the Frostpeak Empire, which could engrave moving illusionary scenes into crystal tablets, allowing that segment of the scene to play indefinitely.
However, he had heard that such technologies were very profound and mysterious. Moreover, judging by the small characters,
could it be that the people in the picture could be controlled? This was truly unheard of.
He couldn't help but be secretly surprised, wondering about the background of this shop owner, who was roughly the same age as himself.
"This shop was originally opened by our Academy's 'illusion god,'" a voice beside him said.
Cassius turned his head and saw that it was his classmate, cousin, and greatest rival, Victor of House Vastflame, who also possessed a nine-star talent.
Speaking of Victor, Cassius had a lot of curses he wanted to utter. Relying on being born two days earlier, he constantly demanded to be called "Cousin."
When they were children, he always bullied Cassius.
It wasn't until Cassius started learning Spellblade techniques later, and their strengths became equal, that his "miserable" childhood finally ended.
"What are you doing here, kid?" Cassius said unhappily.
"Nonsense, I'm here to attend my aunt's birthday banquet," Victor said, then scanned Cassius up and down: "Yo, drinking Cloud Boar stew again?"
"None of your business." Cassius pouted, thought for a moment, and asked, "You know about this shop?"
"I didn't know before, but now that I see the familiar scene, I do. You're too out of it, kid.
You don't know anything about the ' chess' and 'Elemental Contra' that have been spreading like wildfire in the Academy these past few days."
"I don't know."
"Oh, then later, you'll learn from your elder cousin how I play." Without waiting for Cassius's consent, he forcefully dragged him into the shop opposite.
The shop was currently filled with small tables, some seating two people, others only one. The center of each table had a drawn frame and directional indicators.
Seeing customers enter, the young shop owner inside quickly greeted them: "Oh, two students, welcome to our shop. We mainly sell game cartridges and offer trials. Would you two like to try it out?"
"Did you make the scene on the crystal screen outside?" Cassius asked curiously.
The shop owner seemed surprised by the question: "I made it. What about it?"
Just as Cassius was about to say something, Victor interjected: "He's a ten-star Illusionist genius, so making this is naturally a small matter.
Don't ask so many questions. Come on, big brother will take you to play Elemental Contra."
The shop owner seemed unsurprised that Victor knew him, as they had taken an elective course together at the academy.
He led the two to a double table, took out a size 6 runestone, placed it in the frame on the table, and charged it with mana.
The CG animation they had seen outside the shop began to play again, though it was clearly not as refined as the one outside.
Fuel the story with Powerstones.