The new game is [Name]? Seriously?

The team didn't get a lot of money for D-rank missions, but it's still more than enough for several hours of gameplay.

"What was your record for the training, Sasuke?" Naruto asked.

"19.5 seconds." Sasuke looked quite smug.

"Damn!" Naruto, after adding 3 hours of game time, went back to the game. He, of course, saved some money for Ichiraku later.

"Wow! That's so good, Sasuke-kun! Mine was 20.1 seconds." Sakura was quick to voice her own score.

Sasuke looked shocked at how close it was. Perhaps she isn't as hopeless as he originally thought. She was the top kunoichi of the year, after all.

He went back to the game.

Kakashi was the only one who stayed with Marashi.

"Where did this technology come from?" He wasn't stupid. This level of technology was out of this world. Nothing came close to it, so he assumes Marashi got it from somewhere or someone.

"Trade secret." Marashi shrugged before continuing his reading.

It was only then that Kakashi noticed what he reading.

"Ah, a fellow man of culture." He nodded as if finding a long-lost twin brother.

"It's peak fiction," Marashi responded. So far, it wasn't great, but compared to the rest of the world, it was truly something special. His standards are just higher from being a transmigrator.

The white-haired man nodded repeatedly.

"Oh, right, what is Gamer Benefits?" Kakashi saw it on the difficulty selection and pain modifier settings, so he was naturally curious.

"It's basically just for shinobi and could help train instincts and be aware of danger. It could even help training your team as there is Co-op mode." He bullshitted with some sprinkles of truth.

From the game's settings, each successful mission would give you a 0.25% increase in whatever shinobi art the system decides. It is different for every player.

This is only true if you have maxed out the Pain Modifier and ANBU difficulty. The lowest benefits would be around 0.05% if you meet the lowest possible requirements for Gamer Benefits. There is the benefit that you can play the three difficulty modes and it stacks until you beat the campaign on those settings. Co-op mode also works but only for one difficulty, so if you want to min/max the gains, then doing it all on ANBU will be the best.

"There's Co-op? How does that work?" He asked.

"On the Cafe Games app, you could add those who have game cards and invite them, as long as you complete the mission, Co-op will be available," Marashi informed as Kakashi decided to beat the whole game first and perhaps have teamwork exercises in the game as well. 

He paid for 3 hours as Naruto was already in the game and went in as well.

Naturally, Sasuke and Sakura also paid for 3 hours, so his total gains for the day were 10,000 Ryo.

Hayate with 2,000 Ryo and Team 7 with 8,000 Ryo. Of course, he had to activate 4 PCs, as Marashi guided Naruto to the one Hayate used, so he wouldn't have to pay an extra 400 CC Points, so that was 1,600 Ryo in expenses.

The good thing is that to get the next game, he needs 10,000 Ryo or CC Points in sales, not profit.

He looked eagerly at the Games tab and bought it.

[You have gained Wizard101!]

Boy ain't no way, boy.

Marashi was conflicted. It was a staple in his childhood and even in his teenage and adult years.

Granted, his time playing became increasingly sporadic. The nostalgia kept bringing him in.

It's not a bad game. At the time, World of Warcraft just confused him with all the expansions, spells, and membership. Plus, wizards and magic were easy to understand for little Marashi.

There were, of course, massive problems with the game that couldn't be ignored as the game went on.

One of the biggest was that the game simply didn't respect the player's time.

You basically have to be unemployed to grind out the gear in that game for the best possible stats. That's not even counting the pay-to-win currency that has crazy stats, especially for PvP. It's locked behind a paywall.

Let's not even get into the fact that even 15 years after launch, you only really get 2 questing areas free. Unicorn Way and Triton Avenue, after that you have to get a membership or permanently unlock them with Crowns, the pay-to-win currency.

That might have been fine when there was only 1 arc to the game and five main worlds, but now there are 4 arcs and a dozen worlds. It's nonsense.

Also, there are packs for certain gear sets that are broken like the Dragon Fossil Warrior, back in the day. It also didn't even give you the school-specific gear. You could gear any of 7 schools' gear variants.

It was truly ass and very loot boxy. Gambling basically. There's also a lot of overpriced shit in the Crowns Shop. It was truly egregious and people still bought it.

Pet training was also crazy considering how important they are. If you train a pet and don't get a talent you wanted, then you have to start over, there are no roll-backs or picking them. It's RNG. Training them costs energy and you could buy energy elixir with crowns and if you want gear that increases energy, guess how you get it? Either packs or paying real money for certain bundle energy gear.

This was so wild, but the potential was there. It had its heyday and as long as he edits certain things, then he could fix those problems. Even add things players have wanted for many years. He could do it.

It's a turn-based card game at its core, but highly addicting with new spell cards from leveling up, crafting them, and so on.

He has great plans for it and transforming it into something truly special.

The first order of business is editing.

Technically, when the game first came out, it only went up to Mooshu until Dragonspyre was added later, the end of arc 1.

The max level at the time was 50 and he decided this would be a good starting point. He added the Pet Training features along with Gardening which is weird considering Celestia, the world after Dragonspyre, was before the Gardening update, but mega snacks are important for training pets.

He also decided to not charge a membership considering they are already paying for time on the computer, but Crowns, the virtual currency, isn't inherently a bad idea as long as it's done correctly. 

Mounts, stylized gear, and pets at a fraction of their original cost. Packs will now have a pity system and only give gear to the school that they are in. Pets will now have a talent lock system that, as long as you pay a certain amount of gold, you could lock in that talent. You can only do this once per pet and will transfer to the offspring which you could lock in another talent. This method has a bit of risk involved, so he added a much safer option.

Build-a-Pet. It's where you can, quite literally, choose what talents go in the talent pool for 100,000 gold. It'll still be a bit random, but if you pay 200,000 gold, then after leveling up the pet you can directly choose whatever talent you want with the RNG being completely removed. It's very grindy but at least it's reliable and you can even reset the pet, but you'd be punished by a 50% increase in exp needed for each level up, so choose the talents wisely in the pool.

There's 10 talent slots anyway. He also got rid of the Pet Derby, that shit is ass.

The pet levels go from baby, teen, adult, ancient, and epic, at least in this initial version of the game.

PvP will be held off for now and there will be some AI Speech Recognition. Naturally, gear drops will be for the player's own school.

This game was very intensive so he spent hours working on it to get it just right.

After three hours, Team 7 came out of VR with grins on their faces.

"That game is so cool, Marashi-oji!" Naruto complimented but the person in question's lip twitched at being called old, but he brushed it off.

"Don't be rude, Naruto! It's a very fun game, Marashi-san." Sakura had a blast and completed multiple missions and she got further into the story.

Sasuke nodded without saying much, but he felt the same.

"Is it the only game you have here, Marashi?" Kakashi asked as he only saw COD on the app.

"I just got a new one, Wizard101." He informed as Naruto got excited.

"Wizards?! Can we cast magic and spells?!" Naruto thought it was cool, and he was pretty spot on.

"Yeah, you can go on quests, have pets, buy houses and customize them, and battle monsters." He informed which intrigued them, but they had enough for now.

"Alright! Ichiraku and then I'm coming back to be a wizard!" Naruto ran off to eat and then gathered his savings to buy more hours.

"Does this game have teamwork in it?" Kakashi naturally didn't forget that he had a team to look after and saw these games as exercises while also having fun.

"Yeah. You can battle with three other wizards and schools that could synergize with each other." He explained which interested the remaining three shinobi.

"What are the schools? Do we really have to go to school to learn magic?" Sasuke was against the idea of having to go back to one.

Marashi shook his head.

"No, while there are schools for magic in the game, it's just where you learn spells, not sit in a classroom. Schools are basically just a type of magic. There is Fire, Ice, Storm, Life, Myth, Death, and Balance. Each school has its strengths and weaknesses." He explained which made them feel relieved.

"Hmm, so you can't learn other types of magic?" Kakashi asked.

"You can, but they use Training Points which you can get from certain quests and leveling up." Marashi cleared up the misunderstanding and Kakashi nodded. They were like Nature Transformation jutsu like Fire Release and Lightning Release.

The kids left, but Kakashi, carrying around more money, decided to buy 10 hours of playtime for a total of 5,000 Ryo.

Marashi felt today was a smashing success and it was only around noon.

He decided to treat himself to some ramen and Mountain Dew while looking at the next game price which was 50,000 CC Points. A considerable jump, but it's doable.

Wizard101 would be the first game he plays in this world so he loaded it up and played the PC version so he could watch out for potential customers.

After playing for two hours and getting to level 8, he did the side quests too, four people came into the shop.

Naruto, Konohamaru, Moegi, and Udon.

"Is this the place, Naruto-niichan?" Konohamaru asked while Naruto nodded enthusiastically.

"Yep! This place is awesome! There's a new game where we can be wizards!" Naruto came over to Marashi as he sat back down at the desk.

"Really?" The three kids looked skeptical but Naruto didn't seem to be lying.

After a brief explanation, the kids were given cards and they paid for two hours while Naruto stocked up for 8 hours with a total of 7,000 Ryo.

Now his total profit for the day was 20,400 Ryo! That's quite good, sure he probably won't get much from Kakashi tomorrow considering he stocked up, but he could get more customers to do so as well.

He could even add benefits. For every 24 hours of playtime bought, they'd get maybe an hour or two for free or a discount on the Snack Machine, or maybe a discount on buying hours in bulk.

Call him Big Business Borsalino. Ah, if only that were his name. Mucho Money Marashi? Three different languages kind of, Mr. Worldwide.

While Marashi is thinking about nonsense, the four adolescents started up the game in VR.

He gained clarity as he watched their monitors. The screens naturally showed them in VR, so he could watch from afar.

'I wonder what schools they will choose.' He wondered.

===

Now this will either make or break the story. Wizard101 had a massive following before falling off and numerous problems emerged. I also wanted to try something truly different.

Just let me cook a bit.

I promise I won't burn down the kitchen.

Hopefully.

===

A little refresher for those unfamiliar with Wizard101

Fire is a high damage school that specializes in Damage over Time spells, even if this sort of sucks ass at the higher levels. All my homies hate Rain of Fire.

Ice is the tank school and specializes in defense and absurd amounts of health. 

Storm is the strongest school in terms of pure damage output. Big number go brrrr. Glass cannon though. Lowest health among all schools.

Life is the healing school. Nothing much else to say.

Myth has minions, which are hardly ever used, and the damage isn't bad at higher levels, but still not a great school.

Death? The most broken school in the game. It can heal, tank, and deal nice damage while healing yourself at the same time.

Balance? Pure utility, but even death does this better with things like Dark Pact, Empower, Bad Juju, etc.

In short, Death is busted, but Storm is also hella fun to play.