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"Breaking news from the Elite Academies: Baisayer Icebear of the Frostpeak Empire has formally challenged Auston Ironpeak of the Dragonspire Empire to a public wager. Using the upcoming Elite Academy Tournament as their stage, they will compete for superior ranking in the fourth-year combat division. Terms of the wager stipulate that the loser must address the victor with full respectful honorifics for an entire year. Both students have signed binding magical contracts to enforce the agreement..."
The voice from Caelan's runestone radio was crisp and professional, reading the morning news with the practiced neutrality of someone who'd seen a thousand such challenges.
"In diplomatic developments, Xiba Country has issued a formal protest against the Moonwatch Empire's foreign minister, asserting that his recent remarks severely distort historical facts and current political realities. Officials from Xiba reiterate that their nation is fully independent and sovereign, and that the presence of the Church of Light within their borders is solely due to the genuine faith of their citizens. The Lionheart Empire's templar army stationed near the capital, they claim, serves merely as a 'hired bodyguard force' and does not constitute occupation..."
Caelan snorted softly at that particular piece of political theater while buttoning his shirt. Everyone with half a brain knew Xiba was essentially a puppet state, but the diplomatic fiction had to be maintained.
"In cultural news, the Illusion Games created by the Moonwatch Empire's rising star developer have become a staple entertainment at noble balls and gatherings throughout the Six Empires. High society correspondents report that the experience is unprecedentedly enjoyable and has sparked fierce competition among the aristocracy. However, the only recurring complaint across all social strata is the extreme difficulty in purchasing the runestones, with some shops reporting waiting lists of over three weeks..."
That made Caelan smile with genuine satisfaction. Supply issues were good problems to have.
"In religious matters, a bishop from the Church of Light issued a controversial warning this week regarding the 'spiritual dangers' of Illusion Games, claiming they are psychologically addictive and could potentially allow Illusionists to manipulate players' mental vulnerabilities through subliminal encoding. In a swift and unusually sharp response, the Pope of Light personally reprimanded the bishop, ordering him to retreat to a prayer room for reflection and to seek divine forgiveness for what His Holiness termed 'baseless alarmism and irresponsible fear-mongering.' The Pope's office further clarified that the Church sees no inherent threat in recreational magical entertainment..."
Caelan let out a low whistle. Having the Pope himself publicly slap down that kind of criticism was better publicity than any advertisement he could have purchased. He made a mental note to send a diplomatic thank-you gift to the Church—maybe a specially engraved set of games for their youth education programs.
He clicked off the radio and moved through his morning routine with practiced efficiency. Quick wash at the basin, final check of his appearance in the small mirror, running his fingers through his hair to make it look at least somewhat presentable. His reflection showed someone who looked significantly more put-together than he felt—the past week had been absolutely brutal.
Satisfied that he didn't look like a wild-eyed madman, Caelan stepped out of his new residential quarters and made his way toward his office.
Today was the day.
The official release of Super Street Fighter.
It had been over a week since his return from the Dragonspire Empire—nine days, to be precise—and every single one of them had been spent in a production frenzy that made the initial fifty-thousand-stone manufacturing run look quaint by comparison.
In that time, Cassius and Victor had become permanent fixtures at his shop. They'd arrive when the doors opened, claim their favorite consoles, and proceed to play for literally hours, only taking breaks to eat or handle urgent business. Caelan knew with absolute certainty that if he'd delayed the official launch any longer, Victor would have actually punched a hole through his office wall out of pure anticipation and frustration.
Through grueling overtime that had turned his entire staff into exhausted zombies, Caelan had managed to produce over three hundred thousand engraved runestones. The numbers were staggering—far beyond anything he'd previously attempted. Selling them at his standard price of five silver marks per game had netted him slightly over ten thousand gold crowns in revenue.
The first thing he'd done upon counting the final tallies was march straight to Victor's estate and clear his entire debt. All two thousand gold crowns, paid in full, plus an extra fifty crowns as interest because he wasn't about to let his friend claim he'd gotten off too easy.
Victor had tried to refuse the interest payment, claiming it was between friends, but Caelan had literally thrown the coin purse at his head and walked out before he could argue further.
But the runestones weren't even his proudest achievement from the past week.
No, that honor belonged to the five hundred units currently sitting on his warehouse shelves, covered in protective cloth and representing the bleeding edge of magical engineering.
The "Magical All-In-One" consoles.
These weren't the flat, tablet-style devices he'd been producing. These were something entirely new—uniform rectangular cubes measuring roughly forty-five centimeters tall, sixty centimeters wide, and twenty centimeters deep. About the size of a modern PC tower from his previous life, though the proportions were slightly different.
One face of each cube was painted matte black and enchanted to serve as a high-fidelity display screen. The resolution was incredible—far superior to anything else available in this world. Colors were vibrant, response time was instant, and the viewing angles were perfect from any position in a room.
But the real magic was inside.
Each console contained a masterpiece of magical material engineering, components Caelan had sourced at enormous expense and integrated with painstaking precision:
Fortitude Stone (one hundred grams per unit): Incredibly rare and expensive, this material had one unique property—it could hold vastly more magical data than standard runestones. Using Fortitude Stone as the base storage medium meant each console could hold not just one game, but potentially dozens, with room for future expansion. It was the magical equivalent of high-capacity hard drives.
White Meteorite (trace amounts, carefully distributed): This was the breakthrough material from his cloud server experiments. Properly integrated into the console's structure, it acted as a "network card"—allowing remote updates, high-speed remote engraving of new content, and most importantly, enabling console-to-console communication across vast distances. This was what would make online play possible.
Gold-veined Stone (structural framework): This provided physical durability and magical stability. Consoles would be handled roughly, moved around, potentially dropped by careless players. Gold-veined Stone ensured they could survive real-world use without cracking or degrading.
Black Mithril (control circuits): This was Caelan's insurance policy and administrative backdoor. Black Mithril responded uniquely to his personal magical signature, allowing him to remotely access any console from his "Server" office. He could push patches, update game content, adjust balance, or—if necessary—completely wipe a console's data. It was remote administration capability that no one else in this world could replicate.
He had created the world's first cloud-managed gaming hardware.
Each console had cost him roughly fifteen gold crowns in materials and another five in labor to assemble properly. Twenty gold crowns per unit meant he'd invested ten thousand crowns just in building this initial batch. It was an insane gamble—if they didn't sell, he'd be ruined.
But Caelan had absolute confidence they would sell. Because he wasn't just offering games anymore.
He was offering an ecosystem. A platform. A gateway to a connected gaming future that this world had never even imagined.
When he pushed open the doors to the main game hall, the sight that greeted him made his heart race with vindication.
The room was packed. Absolutely packed.
Every available space was occupied by people standing shoulder to shoulder, their eyes glued to the massive promotional animation looping on the enchanted wall display. The usual background noise of gaming—the electronic sounds, the chatter—was completely absent. Everyone was silent, mesmerized, watching the cinematic play out.
The promotional video was something Caelan had crafted with extreme care. It opened with sweeping shots of a devastated world:
In a future where mana has been depleted from the world, the age of magic has ended. Wizards have fallen. Empires built on arcane power have crumbled to dust. Humanity faces extinction.
The scene shifted to show warriors training, their bodies pushed to superhuman limits through pure physical conditioning.
But humanity endures. In place of spells, they have turned to honing their flesh, bone, and will into weapons. They are known simply as Fighters—warriors who need no magic to shake the earth.
Then the tone darkened. The scene showed a figure wreathed in purple energy, his face hidden in shadow.
In the Shattered Lands, a man named Bison discovered something the world believed impossible: a way to convert negative emotions—hatred, anger, fear, despair—into raw power. Dark power. Corrupting power.
The animation showed silhouettes of cities burning, people screaming, darkness spreading like a plague.
Bison plans to conquer the world. His method: brainwashing elite young women into a personal guard of assassins, then systematically eliminating the leaders of the Six Great Empires in a single coordinated strike that will leave the world leaderless and ripe for domination.
The scene shifted to show a tournament arena, fighters from different nations gathering.
To find the perfect puppets for his plot—warriors with the skill to execute his plans—Bison has organized the 'Street Fighter' tournament. He lures the world's strongest martial artists with promises of glory, honor, and recognition, only to trap them in his mental web the moment they prove their worth...
The animation exploded into a rapid-fire montage of high-definition character illustrations. Each fighter appeared with their name, country, and a brief action pose that showcased their fighting style.
But the undisputed star of the show was Chun-Li.
Her illustration occupied the screen longer than anyone else's. The exotic styling of her Moonwatch Empire qipao-inspired outfit, the distinctive ox-horn buns in her hair, her powerful muscular physique that somehow remained elegantly feminine, the fierce determination in her eyes—everything about her design screamed "iconic character."
The crowd's reaction was audible. Gasps, whispers, a few appreciative murmurs. In a world that prized martial prowess above almost everything else, seeing a woman portrayed as a legitimate warrior—not a mage hiding behind spells, but someone who could physically fight toe-to-toe with men—was still relatively novel and exciting.
Jaren stood near the front of the crowd, surrounded by an eager audience as he explained the game mechanics to anyone who would listen. Caelan could hear fragments of his explanation drifting across the hall.
"—six different attack buttons, each controlling different strengths—"
"—special moves require directional inputs combined with attacks—"
"—super moves that can reverse an entire match in seconds—"
The enthusiasm in the room was palpable, electric. For the people of this world—a world where Combat Academies were prestigious, where warriors were celebrated as heroes, where physical prowess determined social standing—the appeal of a fighting game was even more visceral than it had been back on Earth.
This wasn't just entertainment. This was fantasy fulfillment. This was every person's dream of being strong, skilled, and unstoppable.
The moment Caelan stepped into view, the room fell into expectant silence.
All eyes turned toward him as he made his way through the crowd, which parted like water to create a path. The weight of their attention was intense, but Caelan had gotten better at handling it over the past months. He climbed onto the high platform that served as his demonstration stage, carrying an Eight-numbered runestone tablet roughly the size of a modern iPad.
This was his "Remote Controller"—a specialized device linked directly to his server office, allowing him to control and demonstrate the consoles from anywhere in the building.
Caelan placed the tablet carefully on the pedestal at the center of the platform and injected a measured stream of mana into it. Immediately, the massive black wooden display board mounted on the wall behind him flickered to life, its surface transforming into a perfect mirror of his controller screen.
Everyone in the hall could now see exactly what he was doing.
The intro cinematic finished its loop, and the main menu appeared. The design was clean, elegant, immediately intuitive. Two large options dominated the screen:
STORY MODE
ONLINE BATTLE
"Super Street Fighter offers two distinct ways to play," Caelan announced, his voice carrying easily through the silent hall. He'd learned to project properly over the past weeks, developing something like a showman's presence. "The first mode is Story Mode, where you select your fighter and face a series of illusory AI opponents in single-player combat."
He navigated to the Story Mode option, bringing up the difficulty selection screen.
"Story Mode features three difficulty levels: Normal, Expert, and Nightmare." As he spoke, each option was highlighted in turn. "The character statistics don't change between difficulties—your fighter's strength, speed, and abilities remain constant. What changes is the speed and precision of your opponent's reactions. On Normal, enemies will make obvious mistakes and leave large openings for counterattacks. On Expert, they fight intelligently and capitalize on your errors. On Nightmare..."
He paused for dramatic effect, letting tension build.
"On Nightmare difficulty, the AI opponents react faster than humanly possible. They will punish every mistake instantly. They will read your patterns and adapt. They will make you question whether you actually know how to play at all."
Nervous laughter rippled through the crowd.
"To earn a spot on the First Clear Leaderboard—to have your name permanently engraved in the game's history as one of the first warriors to conquer Super Street Fighter—you must complete Story Mode on Nightmare difficulty." Caelan smiled slightly. "I estimate fewer than one person in a hundred will achieve this within the first month."
That sparked immediate muttering. He could practically see people mentally calculating their odds, their confidence, their determination to prove him wrong.
"The second mode," Caelan continued, allowing his smile to widen into something more genuine, more excited, "is something entirely new. Something that changes everything."
He navigated to the Online Battle option, and the screen shifted to show a connection interface.
"Online Battle mode utilizes new magical technology I've developed over the past months. With this system, you no longer have to be in the same physical room to fight your friends. You don't need to crowd around a single console, arguing over whose turn it is. You don't need to travel across the city to challenge your rivals."
He paused, letting that sink in.
"As long as you have a registered console—one of these new Magical All-In-One units—you can challenge anyone, anywhere in Crimson Port. You could be in your home in the northern district, and challenge someone in the southern merchant quarter. You could be at the Academy and battle a friend at their family estate. The distance doesn't matter. The magic connects you."
The hall remained silent, but Caelan could see the exact moment the implications hit. Eyes widened. Mouths opened slightly. People turned to look at each other with expressions of dawning realization.
"And this is only the beginning," Caelan added, his voice rising with genuine enthusiasm. "Right now, the network is limited to Crimson Port. But eventually, with enough consoles and infrastructure, you'll be able to challenge players in other cities. Other kingdoms. Across the entire continent."
That broke the silence.
The hall erupted in a roar of excitement that shook the rafters. People were shouting, cheering, grabbing their friends' shoulders and yelling in their ears about the possibilities. The noise was deafening, overwhelming, glorious.
This wasn't just a game anymore.
This was the start of a new era of global competition.
This was the birth of esports in a fantasy world.
And Caelan stood at the center of it all, watching his vision finally come to life, feeling the weight of five hundred consoles waiting in the warehouse and knowing with absolute certainty that they would all be sold by the end of the week.
The future had arrived, and it was exactly as amazing as he'd dreamed.