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Caelan slowly set down the runestone tablet he'd been working on, his fingers cramping slightly from the repetitive motions. He placed the completed game beside its mana crystal power source and cast a weary glance toward the window.
Past midnight. Again.
The moonlight filtering through the glass illuminated piles of engraved tablets stacked carefully in wooden frames throughout his small workspace. Completed inventory on one side, blank runestones awaiting his attention on the other. The organized chaos of a one-man production facility operating well past reasonable hours.
He stretched his stiff limbs, rolling his shoulders and hearing several joints pop in protest. As he surveyed the fruits of his labor, a strong sense of déjà vu washed over him—it felt disturbingly similar to his previous life, standing at a factory assembly line, tightening the same bolts on the same parts hour after hour after hour. Different world, different product, same soul-crushing repetition.
At least the pay is better this time, he thought wryly. And I'm the boss, so I can't really complain about the working conditions.
Still, there was a silver lining to all this overtime. The massive bulk order placed by the merchant Edmund Riverdale had been completely fulfilled—hundreds of game tablets, all engraved and quality-checked, ready for distribution across multiple kingdoms. That contract alone would keep his finances healthy for months.
More importantly, Caelan had noticed his engraving speed was steadily accelerating. What had initially taken him nearly a minute per tablet now took barely thirty seconds. Part of it was increasing proficiency—muscle memory developing, magical pathways becoming more efficient. But the bigger factor was his rapidly growing mana reserves. Each week spent absorbing energy in the academy's mana gathering array added incrementally to his total capacity, and that capacity directly translated to faster, more sustainable engraving sessions.
This efficiency improvement allowed Caelan to breathe a genuine sigh of relief. At least he didn't have to worry about literally dying of exhaustion on his makeshift assembly line anytime soon. The nightmare scenarios of passing out mid-engraving or burning out his magical core from overwork seemed less likely now.
Now that he was finally free of the Riverdale contract, with no immediate obligations hanging over his head, should he consider developing a new game?
His Mind Palace contained over a dozen titles stored in perfect detail, each one ready to be extracted and replicated. Fighting games, RPGs, platformers, puzzle games—an entire arcade's worth of potential products just waiting for him to have the time and energy to bring them into this world.
But Caelan hesitated. Immediately diving into another major project would only exhaust him further without significantly improving his actual magical strength. He was still firmly stuck at First Circle, and no amount of game development would change that. What he really needed was rest, proper cultivation practice, and maybe some semblance of a normal life.
Tomorrow, he decided, turning off the enchanted lights and preparing for bed. I'll think about new projects tomorrow.
He closed his eyes, hoping for quick, dreamless sleep.
Instead, images of games he'd once played continued to flash through his mind in an unstoppable parade: Legend of Mir with its grinding gameplay, MapleStory's colorful side-scrolling adventure, World of Warcraft's massive persistent world, Resident Evil's survival horror, Silent Hill's psychological terror, Overwatch's team-based shooting, Legend of Sword and Fairy's Chinese fantasy narrative...
So many games. So many possibilities. So many late nights ahead if he tried to recreate even a fraction of them.
The soft creak of the front door opening downstairs interrupted his spiraling thoughts.
Caelan checked his internal clock—just before eight in the morning. That meant Ella had arrived for her shift.
Wait. Eight in the morning?
He sat bolt upright, suddenly fully awake. He'd been lying here "trying to sleep" for nearly seven hours, apparently just staring at the inside of his eyelids while his mind raced through game catalogues.
That's... not healthy, he acknowledged with a grimace. I really need to learn actual meditation techniques instead of just lying awake all night.
He let out a long, jaw-cracking yawn and quickly went through his morning routine—washing up at the basin, pulling on clean clothes, running damp fingers through his distinctive blue hair to make it look somewhat presentable.
After greeting Ella downstairs with what he hoped was a convincing impression of someone who'd actually slept, he headed out toward the academy.
Ella always arrived before eight o'clock to organize the shop, restocking displays, cleaning game stations, preparing for the day's customers. She was truly a model employee—hardworking, reliable, never complained about the early hours or tedious tasks.
I really need to give her a generous year-end bonus, Caelan thought as he walked through the morning streets. Maybe even a raise. Good employees are hard to find, and she's been absolutely essential.
Lost in thoughts about employee compensation and business expenses, he arrived at the academy gate almost on autopilot, his feet carrying him along the familiar route while his mind wandered elsewhere.
Then he saw who was waiting for him, and his pleasant morning thoughts evaporated instantly.
Standing near the entrance, clearly watching for arrivals, was Professor Lysander of House Thunderorb—the music teacher who had previously pestered Caelan about composing original music for his games.
Is he here for me again? Caelan wondered, debating whether he could pretend not to see the man and slip past into the academy grounds.
As if summoned by the thought, Professor Lysander's head turned directly toward him, and a broad smile spread across the teacher's face. He began walking over with purposeful strides.
Well, so much for that plan.
"Caelan! My talented young friend!" Lysander called out cheerfully, his voice carrying across the courtyard. "Just the person I was hoping to see! Do you have a moment? There's a small matter that requires your unique talents."
Caelan suppressed a sigh and followed the music teacher toward the administration building, already resigning himself to whatever strange request was about to be made.
"A voiced version of the promotion?" Caelan asked, standing somewhat bewildered in the Director's office.
The Director—a man who appeared to be in his forties but was actually over one hundred and fifty years old—nodded emphatically. "Yes, exactly. I originally wanted Professor Lysander here to handle the project, since he's our resident expert on vocal composition and audio enchantments. But he very graciously recommended you instead."
Caelan glanced at the music teacher standing beside him. Lysander was wearing a smile that could probably charm naive young girls from a hundred paces, his face so carefully powdered and groomed that it practically glowed in the morning light.
This sly old fox, Caelan thought darkly. He pawned this job off on me just to avoid the Director's tendency for long-winded lectures.
"Professor Lysander insisted," the Director continued, "that using an illusion engraving would be more effective and simpler to mass-produce than traditional enchantment methods. And I must say, after reviewing your work with those game tablets, I'm inclined to agree. Your technique is remarkably efficient."
There was absolutely nothing Caelan could do. What the Director said was technically accurate—illusion engraving would indeed be simpler and more cost-effective for this purpose. He could hardly refuse without admitting he just didn't want to do the work.
"Then, Director," Caelan asked with forced politeness, "what specific content needs to be promoted?"
"Why, the Elite Academy Tournament, of course!"
"Huh?" The response came out before Caelan could stop it.
"What do you mean 'huh'?" The Director's expression shifted from friendly to indignant in an instant. "This is a matter of utmost importance! I was observing student behavior yesterday, and do you know what I discovered? Students nowadays don't pay any attention whatsoever to this annual grand event! How can this be? Your generation is becoming increasingly unreasonable, lacking all proper fighting spirit!"
Caelan could feel a lecture building like storm clouds on the horizon.
"You must understand," the Director continued, his voice rising with passion, "our Moonwatch Empire was founded on martial prowess! We endured countless years of oppression and dismissal from the original Five Great Empires, painstakingly building our strength through dedication and sacrifice—"
Something about the topic had clearly struck a nerve. The Director suddenly became deeply indignant, launching into an extended denunciation of the decadence and 'lying flat' attitude of contemporary youth. It was the classic "You are the worst class I've ever taught" lecture that every generation of students had apparently heard since the academy's founding.
"When I was your age, we took pride in combat training! We studied military history! We understood that strength was the only currency that mattered in this world! But now, what do I see? Students playing games! Obsessing over these 'runestone tablets' and 'leaderboard rankings' instead of preparing for real conflict! It's disgraceful! Shameful! A betrayal of everything our ancestors fought to achieve—"
The scolding continued without pause, passionate and seemingly inexhaustible. Caelan felt his head swelling like an overinflated balloon. He'd been standing here for five minutes already, maybe six, and the Director showed absolutely no signs of slowing down.
He glanced desperately at Professor Lysander, hoping for some support, some intervention, some acknowledgment that this was excessive—
The spot where Lysander had been standing was empty.
Completely, conspicuously empty.
Damn it. He slipped away while I wasn't looking.
Caelan did some quick mental calculations. Based on the Director's current stamina and the passionate intensity he was bringing to this rant, waiting for him to naturally tire himself out would probably take five or six hours minimum. Maybe more if he really got into his stride.
That was unacceptable.
During a brief pause where the Director stopped to take a breath, Caelan cautiously raised his hand and interrupted. "Director, I absolutely understand the importance of the tournament. Could you perhaps explain the specific content and format you'd like for the promotional engraving? That way, I can ensure I capture the proper tone and messaging."
The Director blinked, seemingly surprised to remember the actual purpose of this meeting. "Ah. Yes. Quite right. Very professional attitude."
He proceeded to outline his vision—an audio announcement that would play throughout the academy, reminding students of tournament dates, selection criteria, and the honor of representing Crimson Academy in continental competition.
In almost no time at all, Caelan had engraved the promotional runestone. As for the voice source for the audio, he decisively chose Professor Lysander's recorded voice from previous academy performances—payback for abandoning him to the Director's lecture. He combined it with a deliberately somnolent melody borrowed from opera house productions, the kind of music that made people want to take naps.
Job done.
As for how students would actually react after hearing Lysander's pompous voice drone on about tournament glory set to sleep-inducing music? That was absolutely none of Caelan's business.
Caelan walked out of the administrative office wearing a relaxed expression, pleased to have escaped with only moderate trauma.
As he made his way across the courtyard, he turned his head to look at the Elite Academy Tournament banner hanging prominently at the academy gate in the distance. The massive crimson and gold text seemed to shimmer in the morning sunlight.
Something stirred in his mind.
Elite Academy Tournament.
The name suddenly triggered a connection in his memories, synapses firing in his Mind Palace as associations formed. Elite Academy Tournament... martial artists from different nations competing... tournament structure...
It made him think of that old Hong Kong movie he'd watched once—Future Cops, the ridiculous but entertaining film loosely based on Street Fighter. And speaking of that movie, one couldn't possibly avoid thinking about the game itself.
Street Fighter.
The legendary series of fighting arcade games launched by Capcom in 1987. The plot, in its most basic form, revolved around martial artists from all over the globe participating in the "World Warrior Tournament"—a competition that served as a backdrop for individual character stories, rivalries, revenge plots, and ultimately a confrontation with the villainous Shadaloo organization.
Elite Academy Tournament. World Warrior Tournament.
The parallels were obvious now that he was thinking about it.
It's perfect, Caelan realized, his mind already racing through possibilities. The tournament provides natural context for why all these different fighters would gather. The world-building is already done—I can just map the game's international cast onto the existing political structure of the Six Empires and surrounding nations.
Compared to Chronicle of the Fierce Tortoise Warriors—which had required significant adaptation to make the teenage mutant ninja turtle concept work in this world—Caelan was confident he could construct the framework of Street Fighter II and replicate most of its moves and core systems with relative ease.
The mechanics were more complex than his previous games, certainly. Multiple attack buttons, motion inputs for special moves, the juggle system, blocking mechanics, throw techs—all significantly more sophisticated than "jump and shoot" or "run and stomp."
But it was doable. He could feel it.
However, he had to be realistic about limitations. The graphics would not reach arcade-quality standards—his current magical capacity and the runestone storage constraints wouldn't support that level of visual fidelity. The best he could achieve would probably be relatively refined NES-level graphics, maybe slightly better if he optimized carefully.
He also wasn't entirely certain the game could be successfully engraved once fully constructed. The data complexity might exceed his current Second Circle abilities. He'd need to test the engraving process carefully to avoid burning out a bunch of expensive blank runestones on failed attempts.
Still, he thought as he walked toward his classroom, the goal is clear now. Street Fighter. It's happening.
The next challenge was figuring out how to modify the plot. Whether to use the original Street Fighter II storyline as a blueprint, or adapt it more heavily to fit this world's existing lore and political dynamics.
Arriving at the classroom door, Caelan collected his scattered thoughts, honestly reported the reason for his lateness to the instructor, and then obediently took his seat.
He glanced at the blackboard, noting the lesson topic.
Oh. This class is literature, studying classic passages from the famous opera Love of Pig Hill.
What was there to learn? With his Mind Palace's perfect memory, Caelan could recite the entire opera backward and forward, including stage directions and alternate versions from different regional productions. Listening to a basic analysis seemed redundant.
He settled into his seat, pulled out a notebook to maintain appearances, and continued brainstorming game content while pretending to pay attention to the lecture.
Game background setting? Obviously set it in this world rather than trying to maintain Earth geography. Map the characters onto existing nations and territories.
But why would everyone fight with bare hands? That was a significant departure from this world's normal combat conventions. Most warriors here used weapons, magical enhancement, or both. Pure martial arts competition was relatively rare outside specific training contexts.
Well, taking inspiration from the actual Elite Academy Tournament, the organizers' original intention could be promoting a pure martial arts competition—testing skill, technique, and personal prowess rather than magical firepower or weapon craftsmanship. A return to martial fundamentals.
But then the villain—Vega, or M. Bison depending on regional naming conventions—could be characterized as too erratic and power-hungry to respect the tournament's original ideals. He'd infiltrate and corrupt it, using the competition as a recruiting ground for his organization while planning world domination on the side.
Classic villain motivation. Works every time.
Vega's background? Obviously he should be a warlord leader from the Chaos Lands. Caelan had learned this lesson from Chronicle of the Fierce Tortoise Warriors—throwing villains into the Chaos Lands was always a safe bet. That region was already established as lawless, dangerous, and full of competing factions. Perfect breeding ground for evil organizations.
Caelan mentally revised the plot, adjusting details, smoothing connections, trying to make everything feel organic to this world rather than awkwardly transplanted from another.
After some consideration, though, he was still somewhat unsatisfied. There was no way around it—even though using existing world geography and politics was more convenient than inventing everything from scratch, working alone meant there would inevitably be plot holes and internal inconsistencies he couldn't catch himself.
For example, strict bare-handed combat was hard to make believable in practical terms. This wasn't a friendly exhibition match between academy students with referees and safety protocols. These were supposed to be serious warriors, many of them adults with combat experience, and especially the villains would have absolutely no reason to handicap themselves by following arbitrary rules about weaponry.
And speaking of bare hands, how would he explain Balrog—called Vega in Japan, using the claw weapon—being allowed to participate? That directly violated the "no weapons" premise.
Forget it, Caelan decided with slight frustration. Let's just set it this way for now. If the setting isn't perfect, I'll just... retcon it later.
He immediately felt guilty about that thought.
No, wait. Retconning is terrible practice. I should try not to learn from certain blizzard-themed game companies back on Earth who shall remain nameless but definitely started with 'B' and ended with 'lizzard.'
I'll figure out the plot holes properly before release. Maybe get Victor and Cassius to review the story and point out obvious problems.
Moving on to character selection: Caelan's first instinct was to use Super Street Fighter II Turbo as his blueprint. That was the refined version with sixteen selectable characters total—the original eight, plus Cammy, T. Hawk, Fei Long, and Dee Jay, plus the hidden final boss Akuma.
There were later versions that included even more variants like Shin Akuma, Evil Ryu, and Violent Ken, but Caelan felt those additions weren't necessary for an initial release. Maybe in future updates or expansions.
More importantly, after some mental calculations involving data storage and engraving complexity, Caelan reluctantly concluded that if he used the full sixteen-character version as his blueprint, he simply wouldn't have the magical capacity to engrave it onto standard runestones. Not without compressing the graphics so severely that the experience would be ruined.
Better to be patient. He could wait until his mana capacity grew stronger—hopefully reaching Third Circle within the year—and then release the definitive expanded version with all sixteen characters plus improved graphics.
For now, he would use what the community called the "Four Heavenly Kings" version as his foundation—the original twelve-character roster from Street Fighter II: Champion Edition. That included the original eight World Warriors plus the four boss characters: Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and M. Bison.
Twelve characters. More manageable. Still impressive compared to his previous games. Achievable within his current limitations.
The movesets should largely remain untouched from the original game. Caelan himself was actually a complete novice when it came to fighting game theory and high-level competitive play. He didn't truly understand advanced concepts like footsies, frame data, punish windows, option selects, or the intricate risk-reward calculations that serious players employed.
Back in his previous life, he'd just been a casual button-masher in King of Fighters '97, mashing out special moves and hoping for the best. Fun, but not exactly strategic mastery.
Therefore, without understanding the deep mechanical nuances that made fighting games balanced and competitive at high levels, Caelan would simply try his best to replicate the game based purely on the visual memories stored perfectly in his Mind Palace. Movement speeds, attack animations, special move properties—he could recreate all of that from observation even without understanding the mathematical framework underneath.
However—and this was crucial—visual effects absolutely had to be enhanced beyond the original game's relatively modest presentation.
In this world, there genuinely were people who could fly through the air using magical enhancement, summon flames from their bare hands, move faster than normal eyes could track. The baseline for "impressive combat" was significantly higher than on Earth.
If Caelan presented Street Fighter with its original, relatively grounded physics and understated special effects, the characters would seem weak by this world's standards. Ryu's Hadouken would be dismissed as a basic Fire spell that any Third Circle mage could replicate. Ken's Shoryuken would look unimpressive compared to actual martial artists using enhancement magic.
Hell, if he kept the original visual presentation, Akuma—who was supposed to be this terrifying, overwhelmingly powerful secret boss—would appear to have at most Third Circle strength when evaluated by this world's power-scaling standards.
And that wasn't even counting Akuma's actual lore strength, which described him as capable of sinking entire islands with single strikes.
No, Caelan decided firmly. The visual presentation needs to be dramatically enhanced. Every special move needs to feel powerful, impressive, worthy of this world's combat standards.
Hadoukens should look devastating. Dragon Punches should appear superhuman. Super moves should feel like ultimate techniques that could decide real battles.
Otherwise, players in this world won't take it seriously as a competition between warriors. They'll just see it as children playing at fighting.
He'd need to carefully balance the enhanced visuals against data storage limitations, but it was non-negotiable. Street Fighter needed to feel epic, or it wouldn't resonate with this world's audience.
Caelan continued planning, his notebook slowly filling with design notes, character lists, and visual effect descriptions while the literature teacher droned on about symbolic metaphor in opera composition.
Street Fighter, he thought with growing excitement. This is going to be amazing.
( Tell me if you like chapter this long or should i make it shorter )
For every 300 Power stones bonus chapter.