Chapter 40 (1/2)

Late night.

Joshua declined the super luxurious residence provided by Sir Weissenasche and followed Hyrlan and Ciri back to the atelier.

The rather small atelier, in truth, could not fit three persons, and as a man, Joshua could not allow Hyrlan and Ciri to sleep on the floor.

So, he declined Hyrlan’s proposal to give him the only room. Instead, he found a separate workspace to start his late-night programming routine.

The beginning of any entrepreneurship was difficult. How many entrepreneurs in the IT industry back on Earth had started their journey in a small garage?

Be it Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Larry Page and Sergey Brin, all of them started from scratch in a garage.

Most of the well-known trillion-dollar companies in Silicon Valley basically all started from a small garage.

While Hyrlan’s atelier was not a garage, it was just a tad larger than one.

Joshua spread a blank sheet of paper out on the table as a light ball floated beside him, dispelling the surrounding darkness.

That was the lowest level of magic, “Illumination”, and it was something that almost all mages who could use magic would know. The originium crystal that was enchanted with the Illumination spell had replaced candles and became Norland’s most common lighting tool.

Using the light brought on by the Illumination spell, Joshua finished the creation of the “Beauty and the Demon” poster.

Joshua had yet to solve the program of importing images into the runic editing program in his consciousness. So, he could only write the title on the paper by hand before he chose the dance scene where Belle and the demon looked lovingly at each other, projecting it onto the paper.

After he completed the poster production, Joshua left the small space and proceeded to the room where the finished products were displayed.

The entire room was lit up by Illumination crystals, and the arcanotech Hyrlan had created were also emitting a faint glow. On the runic projection of the device was the image of a female mage.

Her pupils were filled with a faint blue arcane glow as magical currents surged in her hands. The background of the image was a raging storm with her silver and light-golden hair fluttering in the rain.

Just by looking at the portrait of the female mage alone, one could clearly feel how powerful she was.

“Who is she?”

Ciri walked out from behind the device, and she was holding a white paper. On it was the “original artwork” Joshua had drawn.

“Jaina. Jaina Proudmoore,” Joshua said her name.

That character was pretty much the heroine who ran through World of Warcraft’s story. Similarly, she was also the representative of the Mage class in the game of Hearthstone.

“What is her relationship with you…”

Ciri demurred for a moment but could not help asking Joshua the question.

“Relationship?”

Joshua was stunned for a moment. Jaina was just a fictional character, and Joshua did not have anything to do with her. Yet, as a World of Warcraft player, Joshua found such an answer unsatisfactory either.

“A comrade-in-arms whom I fought together with.”

Joshua had played on the side of the Alliance[1] in World of Warcraft, and Jaina was on the same side. As a video game player, Joshua was indeed Jaina’s comrade-in-arms.