Earlier that day, around noon.
At Crimson Academy, in the faculty residential district, Vice Headmistress Minerva of House Everflame had a villa-style personal residence
one of the perks of her position. Today was her fortieth birthday. Originally, she had zero interest in celebrating this troublesome occasion, but her three main suitors had other ideas.
Major General Shandor of the Moonwatch Empire sent out invitations across Crimson Port, inviting every high-ranking official in the city.
Drakon of House Crashfist, representing the Dragonspire Empire, presented a young Red Armored Dragon as a diplomatic gift. An actual dragon. For her birthday.
And Leonard of House Stormbringer from the Lion Kingdom hired a famous opera troupe to perform at the theater, with free admission for everyone.
Well, everyone except the nobles, who got a special section.
At that point, there was no way to avoid throwing the damn party.
Minerva of House Everflame was the youngest of two sisters—her older brother currently led the family. She had eight-star fire talent, which was already insane, but she'd gone beyond that.
Her combat strength had surpassed her brother years ago. She was at Peak Eighth Circle now, with a real shot at breaking through to Ninth.
That made her one of the most famous geniuses of the younger generation worldwide.
Add in the fact that she was beautiful, and naturally she'd attracted attention from top-tier men across multiple empires since she was young.
She'd had countless suitors over the years. Even that notorious old lecher Camor of House Iceheart from the Lion Kingdom had reportedly written to the Moonwatch Emperor asking to marry her.
The Emperor had politely declined on her behalf, of course.
Caroline of House Burstflame, the Fire Archmage of the Phoenix Empire, had publicly expressed interest in taking Minerva as her apprentice.
But given that particular Archmage's "minor flaw" of being attracted to both genders and having a reputation for not leaving any of her disciples alone... Cassius's father had politely declined on his sister's behalf.
Very politely.
That same dazzling, near-legendary figure was currently sitting cross-legged on her sofa, completely undignified, playing a game called "Elemental Contra" with her nephew.
"Give me that Wind orb! The Wind orb, Cassius! If you dare pick it up, I'll beat you to death!"
Cassius's face was full of misery as he obediently let his aunt grab the power-up.
He was starting to regret showing her this game. It would've been fine if he'd just let her try it once or twice, but no—after a couple rounds,
Aunt Minerva had hurried out to the front yard to greet his father, then completely ignored all the guests and her suitors to drag her nephew back inside to keep playing.
Unfortunately, his aunt's gaming talent was terrible. She was about as skilled as Victor, which was to say, not at all. The two of them could be called a pair of disasters.
But she refused to play with Victor, insisting on playing with Cassius, who was actually decent at the game.
Poor Cassius. He could solo clear up to level seven on his own. With his aunt? They couldn't even make it past level four. On Easy difficulty.
Cassius glanced hopelessly across the room at Victor, who was playing Tank Battle. Victor noticed and shot him a smug, gloating look before going back to his game.
Victor had discovered he really loved Tank Battle. In the first level, you could set up the terrain yourself before starting.
His favorite strategy was to build two rows of iron walls with just a tiny gap at the very edge for enemy tanks to pass through.
Then he'd camp at that opening and pick them off one by one. Biu. Biu. Biu. All day long.
He could play that mode forever. The only shame was it only worked on level one. Level two didn't let you build walls, which was truly unfortunate.
"Min, this is ridiculous!" The door swung open and a tall, thin man strode in. "It's your own birthday party. You're the guest of honor.
You can't just abandon everyone outside and hide in your room—what are you even doing?"
He stopped when he saw what was happening inside. "What... are you two doing?"
"Playing a game," Cassius answered honestly. "It was made by an Illusionist student at our academy."
"An Illusionist?" The man frowned. "There are Illusionists strong enough to get into an advanced academy these days?"
This was Cassius's father—Aldric of House Everflame, current head of the family.
"I heard he got in through special admission," Victor piped up from across the room. "Good talent."
"Wasting time on trivial pursuits." Aldric's face was stern. "Min, come outside with me and greet the guests."
"No. I'm not going." Minerva's eyes never left the screen, her fingers working the controls. Her character jumped, tried to dodge the incoming shots, but she was a beat too slow. Death screen. Again.
She didn't even hesitate. Just stole another life from Cassius.
Cassius said nothing. What could he say?
After a long moment of silence, Cassius realized his father hadn't left. He glanced back and found Aldric standing right behind them, watching intently.
"Seems... interesting," Aldric murmured.
Victor perked up. "Uncle, want to play? It's really novel—I've never seen anything like it before. Very entertaining."
Aldric looked at the several runestone tablets in Victor's hands, then pointed at the screen in front of Minerva. "This 'game' on the screen—is this the only one?"
"Oh, no. That's Elemental Contra. There are others." Victor picked up a tablet. "This one's called Tank Battle. Even more fun than Contra, in my opinion. Want to try it, Uncle?"
Aldric didn't answer. Instead, he picked up the smallest runestone tablet. "What's this one?"
"Instructions," Victor said. "For all four games."
Aldric channeled mana into the tablet. Text and diagrams appeared before his eyes. He stood there motionless for a long time, reading through everything in silence.
Meanwhile, Minerva led Cassius to yet another game over. She tugged at his sleeve, clearly wanting to keep going, but with his father standing right there,
Cassius didn't dare. Minerva pouted in frustration and went back to playing solo.
"Which one is chess?" Aldric asked suddenly.
Cassius quickly handed over the chess tablet.
Aldric took it and turned to leave. "Don't stay cooped up in here all day. Come out and see the guests occasionally. Even if you're just humoring them."
"Sure."
"Okay."
"Heh."
The last response was clearly from Minerva. Aldric was utterly helpless when it came to his younger sister.
Her talent was lower than his, but she could beat him in a fight now. All he could do was pretend he hadn't heard her dismissive grunt. He shot Cassius and Victor a warning glare before disappearing from sight.
The moment he was gone, Victor started a new game of Tank Battle, gleefully building his iron wall maze to massacre the AI.
Cassius was completely speechless. He genuinely couldn't understand what Victor found so entertaining about that.
He'd read the instructions for Tank Battle too. Unlike Super Mario and Elemental Contra, it didn't have a story, but the gameplay was totally different from the other two. It should be interesting.
He just hadn't had a chance to try it yet.
His thoughts were interrupted by his aunt's voice.
"Ahhhh! I died again! Cassius, get over here right now."
Cassius wanted to cry.
How could she possibly be this bad at it?
PLZ Give me Powerstones.