“Quickly eat that mushroom!”
“Wait... that’s a monster! That’s not a mushroom that you can eat!”
Inside the Hearthstone Tavern’s office. Joshua was holding a cup of fruit juice that he used ‘freeze magic’ on as he looked at Ciri and Tylene crowded before a small screen fighting over a ‘game controller.’
As he drifted into his mind, Joshua began to recall his childhood.
The screen before Ciri and Tylene was a game that has just been uploaded to the Mage Forum’s ‘Games Special District.’ It was called ‘Super Mario.’
This game was something Joshua created in his free time. With his current knowledge and the calculation ability provided by the World Tree, recreating the classic pixel games from NES was not difficult.
That was why Joshua decided to open up this ‘Games Special District’ in the Mage Forum.
“That strange star will give you invincibility once you eat it! No! Use fireballs to destroy those mushroom monsters ahead first!”
Ciri was instructing Tylene on how to play Super Mario. The frost elf was acting completely flustered as she held a rectangular originium crystal ‘controller’ and pressed upon it nonstop.
There were no buttons on the controller. Instead, there were rune inscriptions on various locations. Upon touching the rune inscriptions, a corresponding command will be entered into the magic network.
It seemed like Tylene was still not very skilled with controlling the small plumber on the screen. She received the GAMEOVER screen several times in succession.
Joshua felt a lot of reminiscence watching this scene. After all, when he was young, he had squeezed before a TV with his friends and spent their entire summer vacation on the NES.
Unfortunately, Joshua did not encounter such beautiful girls in his childhood, especially not two at the same time.
Seeing that Ciri and Tylene were enjoying themselves, Joshua extended his hand and swiped. The interface for the Mage Forum appeared before his eyes.
The forum was split into multiple different discussion sub-forums. The most important sub-forum was the ‘Magic Research’ sub-forum.
Joshua tapped into the Magic Research sub-forum and tapped into the ‘Owl Penpal Society Registration Post.’
‘Ash-colored Owl. Register.’
‘Voodoo Snake. Register.’
‘Flameweaver Alchemist. Register.’
‘Camping Sect. Register.’
......
The post was only posted for over two hours. Yet, there were over a hundred responses already.
Joshua closed the post and entered the back-end to check out the total amount of people registered in the magic network right now. During the morning time, there were only twenty-seven people. Now that it was approaching 4PM, the number of registered users had reached one thousand seven hundred and twenty-one.
This number was still rapidly increasing by two or three every second. The magic network had begun to gradually spread. The mages of Norland finally had their wishes fulfilled. After they stepped into the Industrial Age, they’ve entered the Information Age!
The amount of posts on the Mage Forum also began to rapidly increase...
‘Question: what exactly is the principle behind this mystical magic?’ Poster: Rogker’s Wild Mage.
‘My God! Why is my reply column filled with dwarves?!’ Poster: Lost.
‘Help! How do I find Miss Gallolei on the Mage Forum?’ Poster: Muron Family’s Eldest Son.
The entire page was filled with strange posts. As this was the first time the residents of this world used a forum as a means of communication, they would most definitely need some time to learn it. But, Joshua’s attention was caught by the last post on the page.
Apart from the mages from the Owl Penpal Society, the others that were lured into the Mage Forum were movie fans that joined because they heard they would be able to converse with the Flower of Farucci and learn what Belle was doing.
Joshua had set up for sale the originium crystals containing runes that allowed one to register for the magic network in the Weissenasche Theater, The majority of the crowd only joined the Mage Forum after watching ‘Léon: The Demon.’
On the upper left corner of the Mage Forum’s home page was a special area used to recommend the current hottest posts and hottest users.
Currently, Ynor and Gallolei have monopolized the recommendation area. Anyone with a discerning eye would notice it right away.
By chance, Gallolei suddenly updated her personal camp.
Joshua tapped into her camp and was greeted with a picture. A picture of food. A spotlessly white plate was filled with a hundred circular-shaped foodstuffs. They seemed like purple grapes and gave off a sparking sense of realism.
Judging from the location of the image, it must be taken in Madam Schroder’s mansion’s dining hall. It was uploaded ten minutes ago.
‘I’ve managed to sample Farucci’s speciality in Norland today. These are the roes of the Lotsk fish. They are extremely delicious. Mister Joshua, if you happen to see this, do you want to come over and sample it?”
This Black Swan had masterfully grasped ‘photography.’ Furthermore, she knew what sort of content to post on her camp. But, the final sentence caused Joshua to feel a bit uneasy.
Currently, there were over a hundred people following Gallolei’s camp. Once Gallolei made that post, over a dozen comments appeared in a short few minutes. While that number was pitifully small compared to the top microbloggers on earth who possessed millions of fans following them, the camp system has only just started being popularized in this world.
Joshua believed that this Black Swan’s charm would lure a lot of people already paying attention to her to join the magic network.
Joshua took a glance at the comments below. He saw that the majority of them were exclaiming in surprise and asking if it was really Miss Gallolei.
‘The last time I saw Miss Gallolei, it was when I was watching the performance of ‘By the Beautiful Lake Crowe’ in Farucci’s capital.’
‘Who is Mister Joshua?!’
Gallolei was most definitely capable of being considered as the goddess of the people from Farucci. On top of that, with the screening of ‘Léon: The Demon,’ her influence had increased from the Nation of Arts to the entire world.
Although Joshua felt that it wasn’t great that his name had appeared on Gallolei’s camp, he didn’t bother to submit a reply.
The number of users on the magic network was gradually increasing. Not long, the entire city of Norland will surge with a craze to join the magic network.
Joshua felt that he should be concerned with how to provide a sufficient amount of nourishment for the magic network’s server. Else, if too many users joined and the server suddenly crashed from overuse, compensation Hearthstone packs would not be able to solve the issue at all.
“Ahh... I died again...”
Tylene let go of the controller with disappointment. Compared to Ciri, this elven lady does not possess much talent for games.
Joshua deliberately incorporated rankings for the minigames in the Games Special District. Ciri’s forum name was stably taking the first place spot. That being said, there weren’t any other attempts at the games yet.
“Tylene.”
Joshua finished drinking his fruit juice. He was prepared to discuss with this frost elf lady on their next step in growing the World Tree.
Norland’s theaters were completely occupied by ‘Léon: The Demon.’ The audiences were coming to the theaters to watch ‘Léon: The Demon’ too.
Even if Joshua was to utilize his status as the behind-the-scenes boss of the Weissenasche Theater to hold several singing concerts for this frost elf, he reckoned that not many people will bother to purchase tickets.
That said, apart from the vocal recitals and music record sales, Joshua had another method to make the citizens of Norland admire this frost elf. Furthermore, this method was even more effective.