The fireball slammed into the hard brown mountainside rock with a fierce crack. It left a black scorch mark but didn't damage the stone itself.
Still, Caelan was satisfied. He'd made real progress.
He pulled up his status panel in his mind palace:
Name: Caelan of House Ironfist
Age: 19 years old
Family: Only child, parents alive
Appearance: Handsome
Talent: Two-star Fire, one-star Lightning, one-star Water, one-star Wind, one-star Earth, one-star Light, ten-star Illusion (Wow, a golden legend!)
Physical Combat Power: Unranked
Magical Combat Power: First Circle Illusionist, First Circle Fire, First Circle Wind, First Circle Lightning
Overall Combat Power: First Circle (still super weak)
Mana Level: Second Circle (NEW)
Wealth: 13 gold crowns (not counting silver marks and copper bits anymore); a roughly 27-square-meter shop in a decent commercial area; hundreds of various books; assorted shop inventory
After only a few days of making games, Caelan's mana level had already hit Second Circle.
The Illusion system improved mana through feedback from people who'd been affected by his illusions. Even though the efficiency from positive emotions was extremely low, there were hundreds of players. And they just kept coming.
On the afternoon of the second holiday, Caelan had felt something shift inside him—like a barrier about to break. So after closing the shop that night, he'd come to the academy's training grounds alone to test his theory.
Sure enough. When he cast the fireball, he could clearly feel the power had increased. Even if it still couldn't damage the brown mountain rock.
He was getting there. Before long, he'd be able to try engraving arcade games. The future looked bright.
Back at the shop, with no plans to open for the evening, Caelan had nothing better to do. He pulled out Super Mario and started playing.
Unlike Contra, Super Mario only had two difficulty settings:
Mario Difficulty: Original
Super Mario Difficulty: Faster enemy movement, more traps, some trap bullet patterns strengthened
A true man, naturally, chose the original difficulty.
It had been a while since he'd played, though. For the first time ever, Caelan burned through all his lives without even clearing the first level.
He sat there in silence.
After glancing left and right to make sure nobody was watching, he secretly let one of the expert-level testers from his mind palace possess him. All the experience from testing flooded in at once. His reaction speed and control improved by—honestly, he didn't even know how many levels. He cleared stages with a single life, then blazed through the entire game.
The mental energy drain was brutal, though. He almost didn't make it to the end.
As Bowser fell into the lava sea, Princess Peach kissed Mario passionately. The scene nearly became inappropriate for children.
Satisfied, Caelan stopped channeling mana, put away the runestone, and—feeling dizzy—stumbled back to his room to sleep.
News spread fast.
An Illusionist had opened a special shop on Mare Street in Charger's Alley off Autumn Way. The word got out beyond just students. By the third day of the holiday, when Caelan went out for breakfast, the shop was already packed. Several men who were clearly in their thirties or forties were playing—most of them on chess and Tank Battle.
In the back of the shop, Caelan spotted Quinn playing Elemental Contra with another girl. Maybe it was because he'd made so many modifications to this particular game, but people in this world seemed to get really immersed when playing it. It had been the most popular title so far.
He remembered Quinn had already bought a copy, though. Whatever. He was too lazy to police who played what. Let them have fun.
The girl had serious gaming talent. A small crowd had gathered to watch her play. The girl next to her, by contrast, seemed kind of clumsy—she burned through all five lives pretty quickly. But at least she was honest about it. Didn't try to steal Quinn's lives, just watched her play with genuine interest.
Caelan didn't stick around. He retreated to the back room to think about what game to make next.
At Crimson Academy, inside the Vice Headmistress's residence, Minerva stood with her hands on her hips, laughing up at the sky.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I CLEARED IT!"
Across from her, Cassius wiped sweat from his forehead and let out a long, relieved sigh.
Finally. It wasn't easy.
After "borrowing" more than twenty lives from him, the two of them had finally cleared Easy difficulty of Elemental Contra together. In the future, he absolutely had to avoid playing games with his aunt. This was torture.
Though he did have that "secret manual" from the Illusionist shopkeeper to thank.
Before Cassius could relax for more than two seconds, Minerva—having finished her victory laugh—turned to him.
"Alright. Time to try a higher difficulty."
Cassius nearly jumped out of his skin. "W-wait! We've been playing this for hours. Don't you think we should, you know, take a break? Play something else?"
Victor leaned over helpfully. "Auntie, come play Tank Battle with me! It's so much fun."
"Get lost, you useless waste of space. Your skills are terrible and you still have the nerve to ask me to play?" Minerva didn't pull her punches.
Victor pouted. He was deeply unconvinced by his aunt calling his skills bad. He thought her skills were way worse than his. He could get to level twenty-plus in Tank Battle now. The game had thirty-five levels total. Could she do that? Absolutely not.
In the living room, Aldric was playing chess with the Headmaster of Crimson Academy.
"You lose," the Headmaster said.
"Wait, no. According to the rules, when you're about to attack my General on the next move, aren't you supposed to give a verbal warning? Say 'check' or something?"
"I launched a sneak attack."
"Are you kidding me right now? You're the Headmaster of Crimson Academy. The mentor to countless Empire geniuses. Can you please be reasonable and set a good example? These are the rules of chess. If you don't follow them, how can anyone play properly?" Aldric slapped the table.
"Fine, fine. Let's rewind and do it properly. You're going to lose anyway." The Headmaster compromised. "Check."
"I'll move left."
"My chariot is covering that square."
"Then I'll move right."
"My soldier advances one step. Your General has nowhere to go."
Aldric stared at the board for a long moment, then sighed helplessly. "This doesn't make sense. You only learned this game today. How are you already better than me?"
The Headmaster would never tell Aldric that a few days ago—the very day chess first appeared—one of the instructors had informed him about it. He and the other faculty members had been playing for days now.
"This game is not simple," the Headmaster said, taking a sip of tea with genuine appreciation. "It seems our academy is about to produce an extraordinary Master Illusionist."
Aldric nodded. " chess really isn't simple at all. Within this small board, there are countless variations. I can even sense military strategy in it." He paused. "But speaking of Master Illusionists... under the current rules of this world, Illusionists can't pose a threat to ordinary people anymore. It's remarkable that this kid from your academy found a new path—creating these illusion games that don't require deceiving anyone."
"It couldn't be helped," the Headmaster said. "Besides the Illusion school, the boy's highest talent is only two-star Fire. His actual combat performance has consistently been at the bottom of his class. His class advisor has repeatedly asked me to expel him to avoid dragging down the class's year-end performance evaluation." He set down his teacup. "I refused. I'm hoping he can grow quickly through these so-called games."
Aldric looked hesitant. "But... I remember reading in books that positive emotions provide extremely low mana feedback to Illusionists. Wouldn't his progress still be very slow this way?"
"No matter what, it should be faster than before—when he could only accumulate mana through his two-star Fire talent."
They both fell silent for a moment.
Caelan had no idea the Headmaster of his academy was evaluating him with someone else.
Right now, he was staring speechlessly at the two little boys standing in front of him.
PLZ THROW POWERSTONES.
Author Note : My exams are going on till Date : 20/12/25 so i can promise daily update till 20 .