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Caelan reset the demonstration console, his hands moving with practiced confidence over the control interface. The crowd leaned forward unconsciously, not wanting to miss a single detail.
"Now, let me show you the second mode: Online Battle." He navigated to the selection screen and highlighted the option. "When you choose Online Battle, you'll see a list of available rooms. Let me demonstrate how this works."
He channeled a bit of extra magical energy, using an illusion spell to project a clearer, more detailed view of the room interface onto the wall behind him. The text appeared in crisp, easy-to-read letters:
Room 1: Cassius of House Everflame vs. Victor of House Blazeheart
(Battle Allowed / Spectate Allowed)
Room 2: Ella of House Redbean vs. Traveler
(Battle Allowed / Spectate Allowed)
Room 3: Oliver of House Redbean vs. Illusionist
(Battle Allowed / Spectate Allowed)
Room 4: Traveler vs. Illusionist
(Battle Allowed / Spectate Allowed)
Room 5: Jaren vs. Illusionist
(Battle Not Allowed / Spectate Allowed)
Room 6: Su Peng of House Blackrice vs. Traveler
(Battle Allowed / Spectate Not Allowed)
Room 7: Traveler vs. Traveler
(Battle Not Allowed / Spectate Not Allowed)
A ripple of interest moved through the audience as people processed the information. Murmurs of conversation started, questions being whispered between neighbors, but everyone remained focused on Caelan's explanation.
"You'll notice some names and the word 'Traveler' appearing in these rooms," Caelan continued, gesturing to the display. "Here's how the naming system works: players using the arcade version for online battles will be uniformly referred to as 'Travelers' to protect their privacy and simplify the interface. However, players using the console version—which I'll explain in detail shortly—will be able to register and display their own names."
That sparked more intense muttering. The implication was clear: owning a console gave you status, recognition, a permanent identity in the game world.
"Next to the room list interface, you'll see two primary options: Create Room and Join Room." Caelan highlighted each as he spoke. "If you select Create Room, you'll establish your own battle space. During creation, you can set specific permissions—whether to allow others to challenge you in battle, and whether to allow spectators to watch. These settings give you complete control over your gaming experience."
He paused, making sure everyone was following along. Satisfied with the attentive faces, he continued.
"When you first create a room and no real player has challenged you yet, you'll default to battling an Illusionist—essentially an AI opponent similar to the ones in single-player Story Mode. However, once you battle a real player, the winner gains ownership of the room and can hold it against future challengers."
"This creates a king-of-the-hill dynamic," he elaborated, warming to the explanation. "Winning means defending your position. Losing means you're knocked out and need to find another room or create your own. It's designed to foster continuous competition."
A hand shot up in the crowd. Caelan nodded permission to speak.
"What if I want to challenge someone but they're already fighting?" the young man asked.
"Excellent question," Caelan said. "Here's how that works: If a room allows both battling and spectating, the text showing the ongoing battle will display in green. If it's a real player battling an Illusionist, you can directly initiate a challenge the moment you enter. The game will immediately pause the current match and transition to the character selection screen for your challenge."
He gestured to the example rooms on the display. "However, if two real players are already battling each other in the room, you have two options. First, you can queue up to challenge the winner of the current match—your challenge will be registered and executed as soon as their bout concludes. Second, you can simply enter as a spectator and watch without participating. This way, you can study their strategies, learn their patterns, and prepare for your own matches."
"Of course," Caelan added with emphasis, "if the room creator set 'Battle Not Allowed' or 'Spectate Not Allowed' when establishing their room, you must respect those permissions. The system won't even let you attempt to violate their privacy settings."
Someone in the back called out, "Can you set both restrictions at once? No battle and no spectators?"
Caelan smiled slightly, having anticipated this question. "You can only choose one restriction at a time—either 'Battle Not Allowed' or 'Spectate Not Allowed,' but not both simultaneously. Think about it logically: if you could block both battling and spectating, why would you even connect to the online system? You'd essentially be playing alone in a locked room. At that point, Story Mode makes more sense."
A few scattered chuckles emerged from the audience at the image of someone creating an online room just to hide from everyone. Caelan inwardly breathed a sigh of relief—humor wasn't his strongest suit, and trying to lighten the atmosphere during technical demonstrations felt awkward. This kind of presentation should really have been Victor's job, with his natural charisma and ability to work a crowd. But Caelan had chosen to do it himself, so he had to see it through to the end.
"Now, regarding versions and pricing," Caelan said, transitioning smoothly to the part that would determine his financial future. "As I mentioned earlier, Super Street Fighter temporarily does not have the traditional household version—the number six engraved runestone tablets you're familiar with from my previous games."
That caused immediate stirring in the crowd. The absence of the cheap, portable option was notable.
"Instead," Caelan continued, "we have two options: the console version and the arcade version. Both versions allow for unlimited play sessions and operate on a time-based model rather than a purchase model. The recommended retail price is one silver mark for five hours of gameplay."
"Wait—what about the price of the console itself?" a merchant near the front interjected, his sharp eyes already calculating potential profit margins.
"The console version will be introduced in comprehensive detail very soon," Caelan replied smoothly, "and its price will be announced after that introduction. However, I can tell you now that we are also selling the arcade version for two gold crowns."
The number hung in the air like a stone dropped into still water.
Two gold crowns. That was exponentially higher than the 4.5 silver marks his previous games had cost. Forty-four times more expensive, to be precise.
The price of my previous games won't increase, Caelan thought, maintaining his composed expression while his mind raced. But for this new technology, this new level of complexity—don't blame me for being a bit ruthless with the pricing. Besides, a big house is calling my name. Maybe one with actual furniture this time.
Many merchants in the audience immediately frowned, their mental calculations clearly causing distress. Compared to the previous price point they'd grown accustomed to, this game was absurdly expensive. However, the terminology gave them hope—if this was the "arcade version," then logically the "console version" existed as an alternative. Perhaps, just perhaps, it would be more affordable for bulk purchase and resale.
They were, unfortunately, about to be very disappointed.
"Next, I'll introduce the console version." Caelan gestured toward the side of the stage with a flourish. "If you would?"
A burly man—one of the warehouse workers Caelan had hired for heavy lifting—slowly walked onto the stage. In his arms, held with visible effort despite his considerable strength, was a rectangular cube measuring roughly forty-five by sixty by twenty centimeters. The console's substantial weight was evident in the way the man moved, carefully placing each step.
The moment the merchants in the audience saw the size of the runestone console, understanding dawned with the weight of an anvil. This "console version" was not going to be the affordable alternative they'd been hoping for. The sheer volume of material alone suggested extreme expense, never mind whatever magical enhancements had been incorporated.
"I know exactly what you're all thinking," Caelan said, allowing a rueful, almost apologetic smile to cross his face. "But I need to be completely honest with you: this console version is significantly more difficult to produce than my previous games. The complexity is on an entirely different scale."
He gestured to the console with something approaching genuine helplessness. "The materials required, the precision of the enchantments, the time investment—it all adds up. Currently, I'm the only one who can manufacture these units, and I'm not even certain if other Illusionists would be capable of replicating the process. So you'll have to take my word on this: whatever I say about the difficulty and cost, it's the truth. And compared to my previous games, which I could engrave rapidly like operating a printing press, these console units require substantially more time per unit."
A merchant near the middle of the crowd stood up, his voice carrying clearly. "Boss, why don't you continue engraving games on ordinary runestone tablets like you did before? Why change a system that was working perfectly well?"
"Yes!" another voice chimed in from the left side. "The previous engraved runestones were so convenient to use." And cheap, the unspoken subtext screamed. Mainly they were wonderfully, beautifully cheap.
"Exactly!" A third merchant added his voice to the growing chorus. "Why make the system so complicated?" Why make it so ruinously expensive?
Caelan could practically see the thought bubbles above their heads, all variations on the same theme: We're not going to make nearly as much profit on these!
He didn't blame them, honestly. These merchants had been buying games from him for 4.5 silver marks and comfortably reselling them for fifty silver marks or more in their home countries. Some foreign students from the Shattered Lands had mentioned seeing his games sold for six or seven gold crowns in certain regions, which made Caelan simultaneously envious and frustrated. If he weren't acutely aware of being a combat-incompetent Second Circle mage, and if the Shattered Lands weren't famous for its "simple and honest" customs—which was diplomatic code for "full of bandits and extremely dangerous"—he would have seriously considered traveling there himself to sell directly.
But complaining internally was one thing; the merchants' legitimate questions still deserved thoughtful answers.
"The issue is scale," Caelan said seriously, his tone shifting to convey the genuine nature of the problem. "As more and more people buy my games, my current production speed can no longer keep pace with demand. And that's just for the simpler games I released previously. For games like Super Street Fighter—with significantly more complex mechanics, more exquisite graphics, more detailed animations—engraving them onto standard runestones requires substantially more mana, more mental energy, and exponentially more time per unit."
He let that sink in before continuing. "Consider the trajectory: as my magical power grows and I advance through the Circles, I'll be able to create even more sophisticated games. More complexity, more features, more content. Even if I stopped sleeping entirely, working day and night without rest, I physically wouldn't be able to produce enough individual runestones to meet everyone's demands. The math simply doesn't work."
"So I had to find a solution," Caelan concluded gravely. "A way to scale production without sacrificing quality or burning myself out completely."
"So, Boss," someone from the audience asked, leaning forward with interest, "have you actually solved the production problem? Is that what this console represents?"
"Yes, I have."
"The console is the solution?"
"Exactly." Caelan walked over to the console sitting on the demonstration table and rotated it so its blackened face pointed toward the audience. "This blackened panel is the display screen—it faces you during play and shows the game content. The visual quality is superior to projecting onto walls or wooden boards."
He retrieved a standard engraved runestone from his pocket, placed it carefully into a slot on the console, and channeled a measured pulse of mana into the device. The black panel quickly illuminated, transforming into a crisp, high-definition screen displaying content with remarkable clarity—colors more vibrant, text sharper, animations smoother than anything previously possible.
To ensure even those in the back could see clearly, Caelan used an additional illusion spell to project the console's display onto the wall behind him at larger scale. The desktop interface appeared, rendered with clean lines and intuitive organization.
Caelan had designed this desktop to closely mimic the Windows operating system from his previous life, though significantly simplified for this world's users. Currently, the empty desktop displayed only six icons arranged in neat rows:
My Account
Game Store
My Games
Game Forum
Spacetime Communication
Keyboard/Mouse Adjustment
Seeing the bewildered, confused faces throughout the crowd—people clearly struggling to understand what they were looking at—Caelan allowed himself a faint smile. This was new territory for everyone, himself included. He was essentially teaching people who'd never seen a computer what a computer was.
He waved his hand, and the desktop display duplicated itself, appearing next to the background wall's projection for easier visibility. Caelan pointed to a specific element of the interface.
"This is what appears on your console screen after startup—I call it the 'desktop.' Now, see this oval-shaped pattern with a red dot in the center on the right side of the console? I call this device the 'mouse.'"
He placed his palm over the physical mouse component built into the console's surface. "You simply place your palm over the red dot, like so, and the red dot will automatically align with the center of your palm—it uses a minor attunement spell to recognize your hand position. Once aligned, you can control the position of the mouse by moving your hand."
Caelan gestured to the screen. "When you move the mouse, this white pointer—see it here on the screen?—will move in corresponding direction and speed with your hand movements. Like this."
He demonstrated, moving his hand in various directions while the white arrow-shaped pointer tracked perfectly across the desktop display. Circles, figure-eights, diagonal lines—the pointer followed every motion with precise responsiveness.
The audience watched with fascination, heads tilting as they tracked the pointer's movements. There were murmurs of appreciation, though not overwhelming surprise. After all, they'd already grown accustomed to controlling game characters with button inputs in his previous releases. This seemed like a natural evolution of the same principle—magical interface responding to physical input.
Caelan deliberately did not introduce the keyboard component sitting next to the mouse. One new interface element at a time; overwhelming them with information would be counterproductive.
Instead, he moved the mouse pointer to hover over the first icon. "I call this entire screen after startup the 'desktop'—it's your home base, your main hub for accessing everything the console offers. When you move the mouse pointer to an icon on the desktop and then perform what I call a 'double-click'—that means pressing the left mouse button twice in rapid succession—you open that icon and access its contents."
He demonstrated, his finger pressing the ethereal left button area twice in quick succession.
The "My Account" icon responded immediately, expanding to fill the screen with a new interface.
The crowd leaned forward as one, eager to see what came next.