22 Creating the game.

Adam calmly drank the tea that Grini had just brought, while watching the expressions that Oliver made when he read the summary of the project that Adam had given him.

The Wizard read each of the sheets more than once. When he finally understood everything that was written, a look of shock was on his face.

''Can we really do something like this? '' he asked in astonishment.

Adam nodded and replied, ''Yes,'' a single word but confident, causing Mr. Smith to take a long, dry drink, imagining how bright the future looked, a new technology on the market.

I could imagine how much they would sell with a product like that.

''So Mr. Smith. Can I count on you to get all the materials? '' asked Adam, sipping his tea. As if the matter was just a minor thing to him.

Mr. Smith stood up and confidently said, ''Absolutely. I have a few materials in mind that I believe would be perfect for the order. ''

''That is good. Let's talk about some details… ''

Adam explained some ideas he had and contextualized some of the information that was in the files. Oliver gave his opinion on the materials.

Towards the end of the meeting, Adam brought out the nondisclosure agreement.

''Mr. Smith. I asked George to prepare a special contract for our meeting.'' He said placing a sheet on the table.

Oliver was an intelligent man, he could see that there were some peculiarities in the project, which seemed to be ahead of what existed today on the market.

''I understand,'' he replied, and after a quick read through the contract, he dripped his blood.

This was a contract of secrecy protected by strong magic, which used blood as a signature.

''Very well. It will be a pleasure to work with you'' Adam said in a new handshake.

And he delivered some new project files, in which there were some drawings and measurement information.

''Likewise,'' Oliver replied. ''I'll have the materials for the first prototype in two days at most,'' he assured before leaving the mansion.

After Oliver left, Adam returned to the training room.

''I think I can go with the runes now.''

Adam knew that for the characters to move, he could use an enchantment, as it already existed in wizard chess.

But that shape would only be possible for physical pieces, he wanted a card game.

'' I think the dueling field must be the best place to put the magic circuit. Putting it on the cards individually would be too much work.'' He muttered. "But the important thing is the power headphone… I need something practical''

And after deciding, he began to carve small runes into chestnut wood. After some time, he had a successfully created magic circuit.

''It's not good enough… I need to decrease the energy needed.'' He muttered, throwing the cube to the side, where soon a pile of discarded cubes formed.

After three hours of much tinkering and failure, Adam held up a small cube engraved with tiny, tiny runes.

Each rune followed a pattern, and when placed together, they formed a rune circuit.

For what Adam had in mind, two simple runes did the trick. But he didn't want a product with a short shelf life.

''With this preservation circuit and some enchantments, I think it would keep the magical energy for about three to four years... ''

''If it wasn't to sell on a large scale, I could extend it to more than a decade… ''

The magic circuits that Adam created were for the purpose of storing energy, and preventing unwanted magical leakage. As the function of the rune would be simple, the energy needed was little, since the charge was shared with the other conductors and magic materials, the durability would be satisfactory.

After deciding to follow this pattern, Adam began mass breeding. This was the only part of the entire project that only he could do.

Two days later, Adam received the material that Oliver had promised.

'He's really efficient'

In front of Adam, at that moment, there were ten well-drawn cards, on each of them, there was a type of drawing, and they all made some simple moves. As in the pictures that moved, the cards kept repeating some movements.

Adam picked up one of the letters and studied it closely. On the card in question, there was a Troll drawn, ugly like the one he had faced in the bathroom on Halloween night. But this one was bigger, in the image the troll was moving, looking from side to side, as if looking for something.

At the top and bottom of the card there were no details, they wouldn't be needed, because they were just the prototypes.

For the tests, the only thing Adam needed were movement enchantments.

Adam put the card aside and picked up the other item he asked for. It was the battlefield where the duel would take place.

The battlefield was made of microfibers and other types of materials. The top Canvas was made of the same 'cloth' as that used in enchanted paintings, only a cheaper version.

The art of the battlefield wasn't finished either, there were just the places to place the cards.

''Time to work,'' I said, pulling up my sleeves.

There was a good bottle of ink, along with the material sent.

Adam took his personal quill and created a code of sorts using runes patterned on the back of one of the cards.

Then he began to draw a pattern of runes all over the underside of the battlefield. At the bottom of all the card slots was a larger runic pattern.

And across the battlefield was a trail of smaller runes that connected to these larger patterns. All the runes together tied to the last point, which were two slots for something else in the middle of the bottom and top of the battlefield.

Underneath these main slots was an even larger pattern of runes that were the heart of the entire rune structure.

Adam didn't take long to draw these patterns, and the answer to that was quite simple, there was nothing magical about it. Anyone could draw these patterns as long as they were 98% the same, it would work.

That's where the main point comes in, they were of no use. Not without the last piece.

''The heart,'' Adam muttered before correcting. ''The magic core.''

Adam picked up two small structures less than an inch high, made of wood, the size of the cards.

Inside these small wooden towers, Adam drew yet another pattern of runes, which linked the patterns coming from the battlefield to an empty spot in the center, where Adam placed one of the energy runes he had created.

When the last rune was drawn, and the two towers placed in the Slots, the Power Runes glowed blue, which represented that the entire rune structure was functional and powered up.

''Let's see if it needs any adjustments'' He said, picking up two cards.

One of the cards was with the drawing of the troll. The moment Adam placed the letter in one of the card areas, a small troll appeared on top of the letter.

It was about twelve inches tall, and its build was like that of a troll. His lumpy body, short legs and long arms, holding a staff in one of them.

The troll moved on top of the card, but before a command was given, it would do nothing but stay there, with simple movements.

Adam placed the second card across the battlefield. And a knight in golden armor, holding a long sword, appeared.

Since it was just a test, Adam didn't have to follow any rules, and the cards were without abilities or stats.

''Sword knight attack the ogre'' He gave the command and the knight soon answered.

The knight raised his sword in the air, and a golden energy covered the sword, when the knight made the attack move from the top down, an energy cut shot out and hit the troll.

The troll had no stats, and the simple one(1) strike that Adam set up was enough to defeat him.

When the Troll card was hit, it darkened and floated to where the graveyard would be.

After finishing his movement, the knight got into a tired position, one knee on the ground with the sword supporting him.

Adam had a wide smile on his face after seeing that everything was working.

''Genius, I'm a genius.'' He laughed out loud. ''I'm going to be rich. Well, I'm rich already..."

Adam wasn't really thinking about the money he was going to make, he had far more money than he could ever spend in his lifetime, and he was earning more and more with every passing moment.

His happiness was from the feeling of creating something. Since he started studying runes and more complex rune structures, he could see one day when he could create something close to a humanoid, he still didn't have enough knowledge for something like that, but the idea floated in his dreams at night.

His small achievement with the game gave him more hope to continue. Then he remembered the part that followed, and his expression fell.

''Time to create the cards, their names, functions, attributes, histories, 'mana' costs ''' He sighed. '' In addition to the 'codes' for each of them… ''

Now came the worst part. Although Adam had already made a lot of headway over the past few days, it was all raw material about the characters he had in mind.

To create a game, there needed to be a balance in the characters and a sense of equality between the possible Decks.

Adam had all the ideas in mind, now it was time to start bringing each one of them to life.

So Adam took parchment after parchment and began creating the specifications for each letter to send to Oliver.

If he wanted, he could send all the raw material, and leave the creation of the cards to the project team, but he didn't want that, he wanted to create each one of the cards himself.

So he spent the next ten days, he wrote and erased, threw it away, and wrote again. Each card had to be unique and contain its singularities.

There needed to be a balance in each letter, beyond the contents that Adam required each letter to have.

Whenever he finished a card, he created a 'code' that represented the card, and added that code to the rune structures on the battlefield. So that the letter could be recognized.

On the evening of the tenth day, Adam dropped the last scroll, and let his body fall to the cushion behind him.

''I'm done,'' he murmured, before closing his eyes and falling asleep. He had finally finished creating all the cards. There were six hundred (600) letters.

In the following days, he would need to create an absurd amount of energy runes, but it wouldn't be half as tiring as creating the cards.

The next day, Adam sent all the materials, with the specifications and designs of the cards he had created, as well as the rune circuits for the battlefields.

Adam also carved a rune into the wood and sent it to be crafted. Then the runes would be sent back to him and he would inject the magic.

''Now the rest is up to Oliver''

It was the game's production process, and Adam had no responsibility from now on.

To speed up the creation of energy runes, Adam also started making some at home.

He adopted a process of doing first and injecting energy later. So, the scene in the training room was funny, hundreds of knives, carving the runic patterns on the small wooden blocks.

Adam was in the middle of the room, he was carving a rune himself, and every move he made, the different knives imitated him.

While Adam created the magic cores.

Oliver ran the letter productions.

When Oliver received the parchments with the description of each letter, he couldn't help but take a deep breath. It was all so detailed, and fantastic, that if he didn't know Adam, it was impossible to know it was a child he raised.

Oliver was the only one who knew that Adam was the creator of all this. For the rest of those involved, their company was just working on a customer order.

Interestingly, everyone who was working on the project was enjoying it, it was one of the most detailed jobs they had ever done.

Oliver was enjoying watching the letters come to life. Every day he would go to the drawing section and watch the wizards draw the characters line by line.

Then there were the enchantments and spells section, to give 'life' to the cards.

Oliver stopped beside a life-sized letter and admired the beauty of the maiden depicted on the canvas.

This was one of the posters that would be spread around stores and magic centers. It was an advertisement for the game.

A month is gone in the blink of an eye. In that time, production on the game continued, and Adam injected magic into every rune he received or made himself.

Now the runes were not smaller cubes, the circuits were drawn in a circle and when the wood was polished, it became a small sphere. It was hard to imagine that a small sphere could contain magical energy, all for the beauty of runes and magic.

During those days, it wasn't uncommon to find Adam in a bathtub. He discovered long ago that he recovered faster in the water. Only after learning about ancient magic did he begin to understand why.

Unfortunately, he didn't have much time to study this element further, and perhaps he would once be returned to Hogwarts.

''Maybe I should create a rune that can store a lot of magic and pass it on to others on contact…'' He sighed, continuing to inject magic into the energy runes.

Today, Adam was in the main room of the Davies mansion, next to him was George.

The two looked with interest at what had just arrived.

''Then that's it ? '' asked George, looking at the cards, and the battlefield.

The butler was curious. From the little he saw while Adam worked on creating the game, he could understand that there were interesting and revolutionary things in the field of magic today.

Adam looked at the cards with emotion. Since they arrived, he's been passing them one by one and admiring the work done. It was like a child who has just been given a new toy.

''So, will you explain to me how to play this? ''George asked.'' Or are you afraid of losing, just like in chess? ''

Adam laughed.'' Really? I'm losing? I remember the score was something like 22 to 8 for me''

''I don't remember any of that.'' The old man joked.

''Okay, I'll introduce you to the game.''

The name of the game is Wizards and Creatures.

The game is a battle between two great Wizards, called Lords of Magic. They are the main cards, and they are in the wizard's tower, at the ends of the battlefield.

There are currently twelve types of Lords of Magic. And each of them has their own Decks of fifty (50) cards, with different playing styles.

Card types:

Mana cards are used to give mana to the player. Mana is the magical energy needed to place a character card on the field, or use spells and enchantments.

Spell Cards, there are two types of spells, the quick spells, which can be used during the opponent's turn, as long as you have the necessary mana. Quick spells, once used, are sent to the graveyard of eternity.

Learnable spells, the player spends X number of mana to learn a spell. Learnable spells can be learned by the Lord of Magic, or by an ordinary wizard character card.

Some spells are only learnable by wizards with certain requirements, such as dark magic alignment.

Lord of Magic can only learn one spell per game, but you don't need to pay mana to use the learned spell.

Common Wizard character cards have a limit on how many spells they can learn, which depends on their magic level.

Enchantment cards, enchantments are more powerful spells, which usually hit in a certain area, or even the entire battlefield. You need to pay mana to activate an enchantment, and they last x number of turns before they wear off.

Runic Artifact Cards, like enchantments, artifacts have area effects, usually buffs or debuffs. Unlike enchantments, artifacts do not disappear after a number of rounds, only if they are destroyed.

Character cards are the creatures and beings controlled by the Lord of Magic. Among the character cards are common wizards, knights, magical warriors, trolls, goblin, mummies, orcs, inferius, dragons, griffins, Cerberus, jellyfish, void beings, angels, giants, dementors, and many others.

Terrain cards, terrain cards, change the battlefield to meet a condition, acting to the benefit of certain characters. There are also lands that increase mana production.

Letter from the Lords of Magic:

Each Lord of Magic starts with thirty (30) points of Hp. Whoever takes the enemy Lord of Magic to zero points first wins.

Each Lord of Magic has two unique abilities. Unique skills cost no mana to use, but can only be used once every ten turns.

The Lords of Magic, who use artifacts and enchantments, can only keep three per time on the field.

The Twelve Lords of Magic:

The White Wizard.

The Dark Lord.

The Runic.

The Alchemist.

The Prophet

The Holy Maiden.

The Arcanist

Lady of Void.

The Invoker.

Demon Queen.

Lord of Blood.

The Fool.

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Each card has a name, class, mana cost, attack and defense moves. An attack and defense value.

If you tap a card with your wand, the area where it shows abilities changes, and displays either a character backstory or a more detailed description. On spell cards, spell out correct pronunciation and wand motion, with a warning not to try if underage, without adult supervision.

Some Lords of Magic have cards with special conditions, where you don't have to pay mana to attack, but blood, for example.

When he created the cards, Adam was thinking about giving young wizards a little imagination and teaching. So the cards that exist in the world of Harry Potter, when tapped with the wand, will show tips and how to use them. If it is a creature, it will show its strengths and weaknesses, and recommended spells. That way, wizards could learn while playing.

George asked some questions and Adam took his doubts, after a few more minutes of explanations, the butler decided to venture into the first match.

George looked over the Lords of Magic, and made his choice. ''I'll go with, The Alchemist.'' Then he picked up the Alchemist Deck.

Adam smiled and glanced at the cards, but he didn't seem doubtful, his gaze soon fixed on a specific Deck.

''So I'm with, The Fool''