"WAHHHH... No! AHH! I want the Firepower Warriors! Buy them for me! AHHH—"
Zog was jolted awake by a brat's piercing screams. Ever since he'd learned the Inscriptions of the Illusion School, he had been like a kid discovering video games for the first time, completely engrossed.
His sleep schedule was completely wrecked. He would fall asleep only when he couldn't stay awake a moment longer, then wake up at random times.
The brat in front of him, seeing that crying and screaming wasn't working, unleashed another special technique: throwing a tantrum on the floor.
"WAAAHHH—" While wailing, he also started pounding his arms and legs against the ground. "Buy it for me! You have to buy it for me..."
"You already have a Firepower Warrior," his young mother said, a little helpless.
"That one's different!"
"I'm telling you, Zog loves to eat naughty children! If you keep this up, he'll come and snatch you away!"
"PFFT—"
Elsa couldn't hold back her laughter.
Perhaps Elsa's laugh wounded the brat's pride, because he scrambled up from the ground and scurried away.
The Dragon in question was quite displeased. He could live with being accused of crimes like kidnapping the Princess and demolishing palaces, but eating children? What was that all about?
"The first batch of blind boxes are all packaged," Elsa said when she saw Zog was awake, reporting on her work. For the past two weeks, the Dragon had been like a man possessed, constantly muttering about making a game.
"Good. Once the outdoor display is set up, we can start the prize draw."
As the plot of *Firepower Young King* progressed, the main characters' second-generation yo-yos had all made their debut.
As this was the first new product launch since Zog's Toy Store opened, it naturally needed a promotional event to build hype.
Zog decided to let the residents of Twin Tower City witness the evil invention of mobile game companies.
Gacha.
The first batch of second-generation yo-yos all had serial numbers to distinguish them from future production runs.
These yo-yos couldn't be purchased directly. Instead, they were special prizes in the blind boxes.
A blind box pull cost Ten Copper Coins, with a chance to win accessories, a random first-generation yo-yo, or a special prize.
Furthermore, each pull also awarded a prize ticket. Collecting eighty tickets allowed you to redeem them for any second-generation yo-yo of your choice.
This was the key to the event's design. Without the eighty-pull pity system, the toy store would have to pay taxes as a gambling den, which had a much higher rate. But with the guarantee, it was just a fun toy prize draw.
In reality, pulling a first-generation yo-yo was a small win, and a second-generation yo-yo was a massive one. Even getting accessories wasn't a total loss, so customers were eager to try their luck.
However, as everyone knows, while the customer's pull is blind, the seller packs the boxes with their eyes wide open.
The customers might get a small win, but Zog would never take a loss.
Soon, the display stand was completely mobbed.
Humans are creatures easily swayed by atmosphere, and opening blind boxes is an activity that easily goes to one's head.
Therefore, pulling for prizes while a crowd watches causes the odds of getting carried away to increase exponentially.
Before long, a bizarre yet feverish atmosphere formed around the stand.
Whenever someone started opening a blind box, the crowd would let out a unified "Ooooh—" of encouragement. The volume would gradually rise, peaking the moment the box was opened.
You could tell what the person got just from the sound that followed.
An "Awww—" meant accessories.
An "Oh?" meant a first-generation yo-yo.
An "OH! OH! OH!" meant a second-generation yo-yo. The winner would then rush into the crowd to celebrate, and a whole group of people would start jumping up and down as if they had all won.
Of course, there were also shouts of, "You must be a shill planted by the toy store!"
That was for someone who pulled multiple second-generation yo-yos in a row.
Suddenly, the crowd parted to form a path, and someone shouted, "Young Master Craig is here."
Amidst the crowd's envious and fearful gazes, Craig ambled up to the display stand.
He savored being the center of everyone's attention.
Especially when he heard whispers from the crowd: "Isn't that the guy who invented Cregg's Magical Storm?"
He pretended to be unfazed, but his grin was so wide you could hang a fishhook on it.
"Quick, quick!" Zog urgently called to Elsa. "Get this kid a clerk just to open his boxes, and add a ten-pull option."
It had to be said, although Craig was only a little over ten, he had already mastered the art of aristocratic showmanship.
Whenever he accumulated a batch of accessories from his pulls, he would toss them all into the crowd.
If he pulled a first-generation yo-yo, he would also give it away, but he would precisely pick out the poorest-looking child or a disabled child in the crowd, give them the toy, and pat their head in encouragement.
What's that? The child was accidentally disabled while working as a child laborer at his family's port and had yet to receive any compensation?
What did that matter? He could still bask in the cheers of the crowd.
In the end, Craig left with a haul of eight second-generation yo-yos from five hundred and fourteen pulls.
Before leaving, he even asked Elsa if there would be a sequel to *Firepower Young King* after it finished. If so, he asked if they could create a character for him, adding that the price was negotiable.
Due to the customers' overwhelming enthusiasm, the toy store extended its hours by two hours.
Of course, the employees received overtime pay for this extra time. Zog was a boss with a moral bottom line; he wasn't the type to pull a stunt like "voluntary" overtime.
By the end of the day, the toy store's total revenue had surpassed Ten Gold Coins, the highest it had been other than the day Craig had thrown his money around.
However, Zog was in no mood to count his money for now. His first mini-game project was entering a critical phase.
Gacha in the store could only harvest one city. If he actually made the game, not even the Continent could contain his harvest.
There was just one small problem at the moment: he couldn't quite understand the Inscriptions he had written before going to sleep.
He had just discovered another major drawback of the current method for constructing Magic models.
There was nowhere to write comments.
Some people might think programmers are completely familiar with and confident in the code they write.
That would be a gross overestimation of the profession.
Without comments, who can remember what they wrote?!
Of course, it was possible that some natural-born coding saints could manage it, but Zog certainly wasn't one of them.
His superb memory only allowed him to remember *what* he'd done, not *why* he'd done it that way.
Before using Illusion Mimicry on his two weeks of work, he did something a self-proclaimed "materialist warrior" wouldn't normally do.
He prayed.
As they say, a twitching left eye is for money, and a twitching right eye is for superstition. So, for purely pragmatic reasons, he decided to temporarily believe in this world's Deities.
He infused the model with Magic Power. The Mimicry began.
Countless points of light rose up, forming a monochrome screen in mid-air. Light and shadow flickered, revealing the content.
A game piece stood on a square block. Another block floated diagonally above it. At the very top was a number, currently zero.
Zog extended the tip of his claw and gently tapped the screen. The piece compressed slightly. When he lifted his claw, the piece shot up diagonally and landed on the second block. The number changed to one.
Success!
"What kind of Magic is that?" Elsa had also noticed the light screen in front of Zog.
"It's Magic for playing. I call it 'Jump Jump'."
It was an extremely stripped-down version of Jump Jump, with no sound effects, monochrome graphics, low resolution, no art assets, and no internet connection.
But Zog was still having a great time playing it.
It was originally a mini-game developed by Ketchapp, a subsidiary of Ubisoft, which was later "borrowed" by Penguin and sparked a massive promotional wave for mini-programs.
It might not have been a great game, but it was addictive, low-cost, and easy to spread. It was definitely a great business.
Although, for now, Zog had no way to spread it.
'For playing?' That did sound just like Zog.
The more Elsa watched, the more complex it seemed. She asked, "How many Inscriptions did this Magic use?"
"A few thousand, I guess."
"A few thousand!" That number was enough to construct many types of Five Ring Magic, yet this was just for a game.
"What, you want to learn? I can teach you."
"Just tapping and jumping like that? What's so fun about it?"