Chapter 103 Prototype VR World

Harry returned to his own Universe filled with questions after having watched the theatrical version of his life in another timeline. He got copies of the movies of course and just to be thorough, downloaded a copy of the internet from that world to ensure any other spoilers were well and thoroughly known about.

Most of the details of that world and this world matched however there was no X-Gene and he was unable to find signs of any schools of magic or sorcery. The Universe itself was called Earth-5556 and just about everything else was the same. They had DC Comics and Manga and Lord of the Rings just like Harry's Universe did. His world of course did not have Harry Potter movies or books but that world did. This difference is what made Harry get a copy of the Internet to see what else they had that his world did not, but other than a large amount of references to aliens and a general aversion to staying in London during Christmas, it was about the same.

Technically that meant Harry could go into that world's future and copy the internet from there and basically plagiarize everything that had ever been written there and print it here, but that was too lazy. He was somewhat tempted to travel to the future and check out some of the more advanced tech, but immediately decided against it. Time travel in that world had even more consequences than his did. If he got a piece of technology from that world and later some time traveler accidentally rewrote that piece of technology out of existence, then it could cause some serious damage to his dimension.

Harry asked the Doctor about the company that made the Sonic Screwdriver and the Doctor stated that shortly after they released the Sonic Screwdriver, the company closed down and now they sell bananas. To illustrate the point, the Doctor pulled a banana out of his coat pocket and handed it to Harry, implying that the Doctor himself had something to do with the company's change of direction.

After watching the movies, Harry was certain there were other dimensions with different versions of himself and Harry really wanted to visit them. He had two specific purposes for going there. First, he wanted to buy all the magical products. There were plenty of magical ingredients he could never have enough of and sourcing them from other dimensions was a great way to avoid waiting for them to naturally replenish themselves since magical ingredients didn't grow right when accelerated with any form of Time Magic.

The second reason to visit those other Harry Potter universes was even more important. Dolores Umbridge. Her very existence seemed to intrinsically call for Harry to visit and do horrible, unspeakable things to her.

The moment he got back to his own Universe he checked her status and unfortunately confirmed she had already been tossed through the Veil of Death. She was one of the idiots who tried to overthrow the Ministry and paid for it with her life since Azkaban had been shut down after Harry killed all the Dementors.

Of course that certainly wouldn't stop Harry from writing a long list of everything he planned to do to the woman once he found another version of her.

The problem was that Harry couldn't just look for a Universe with an Umbridge to torment. Unless a Quest came up and gave him the coordinates, Harry had no way of finding such a world. Blindly searching was a terrible idea. There were plenty of terrifying presences throughout the multiverse and impolitely opening the door to the world of one without permission was a recipe for disaster. What if he entered a world where the Fae were very active and stepped on one of their toes?

A full set of the Infinity Stones may not be able to help you if you encountered the wrong being. Harry himself was a terrifying creature from a certain point of view. He could get stronger without limits from killing and who was there to say there was nothing else like him out there in the Multiverse. Gaining the attention of such a being would result in a lot of awkwardness for Harry Potter if one followed him home.

For now he'd patiently wait until he got more Dimension Quests and keep himself busy.

While thinking this, Harry got an alert from Link. Link occasionally sent him certain alerts to see if it would generate a Quest. No luck so far but Harry didn't mind continuing to try.

This alert did not generate a Quest, but Harry would not ignore it. Harry had been keeping track of a large assortment of Persons of Interest. From the Zombie Dimension he had the names and identities of certain people he wanted to keep an eye out for.

For example he knew that Carl Lucas was currently inside Seagate Penitentiary for possession of drugs he claimed was planted on him. Harry could get him out, but his microdrones showed that Reva Connors, the head of a certain experiment there, had her eye on Carl as a perfect subject. Harry decided he'd help him out after the birth of Power Man.

The alert Link sent caught his interest for two reasons. First, the one who was in trouble. And second, the reason they were in trouble.

In order to keep an eye on certain people, Harry mailed them coupons for fantastic deals on awesome phones and phone plans. He didn't even need to add a compulsion charm. The deal was literally him taking a loss.

Jessica Jones received one of these coupons in the mail and the same day she had the newest, latest model of Brilliance Phone with an awesome monthly plan that was criminally cheap.

The AI monitoring Miss Jones informed Link of some unusual activity which Link checked out and confirmed was a problem. Miss Jones had just been kidnapped by a mutate named Kevin Thompson, AKA Kilgrave.

Harry didn't pay attention to most villains, but this one was one he really didn't like. He asked Link to keep an eye out for him, but Kilgrave was not the only Kevin Thompson in the world and the man never did anything under his own name. That, and the picture Harry found of the man in the other Universe showed he was literally purple, while this one was not.

Jessica was currently being taken to a Hotel room by the man in question and Harry used the time to change his form into Obscurus and put on his demon mask. The moment Jessica's phone showed they entered the room, Harry teleported inside and directly used Time Magic to Stop Kilgrave.

Jessica didn't react, still standing there to his side with the same smile she'd been wearing since she entered the room. Harry figured she was under a psionic compulsion and tapped her forehead.

She blinked and took a step back before she started breathing heavily in what looked like a suppressed panic attack.

Harry turned around since staring was rude and asked, "You alright?"

After a few moments she asked, "You're that Obscurus guy?"

Harry, the Reds, and the Avengers all had their own action figures and fan websites so anyone in New York would recognize him and that mask pretty easily.

After a few moments of deliberation, Harry pulled out a coin and stuck it to Kilgrave's chest. A moment later, Kilgrave looked like he was stretched into a line and sucked up through a straw at the point the coin made contact with him as the Portkey took him to a specialized cell. Harry considered disintegrating him, but he wasn't feeling particularly merciful, so he'd let the man live. Maybe he'd remove his powers and send him to a normal jail. Though the possibility exists he'd be able to get his powers back, so he'd wait on that decision.

Harry turned back to see that Jessica Jones was looking a bit better, though still quite pale from the thought of what almost happened. Harry used a bit of sleight of hand to pull out a card and hand it to her.

She took it with a bit of hesitation and read, "Hero Association?" It was a business card with instructions for how to join.

Harry answered, "We'll be legal soon and there's no law against being a Hero and a Private Detective."

She asked, "How did you find out what was going on so fast?'

Harry decided not to fully lie to the PI and answered, "We keep track of people with powers as something of a pre screening process. In case you're wondering, you'd get approved right away. We've also been looking for this guy but didn't know what he looked like until we saw him pick you up in a way that didn't match your psyche profile in the slightest. It only took a few minutes to determine what happened and I was called to stop him."

She looked both offended and impressed, "You've been watching me?"

"Not me or any human," Harry answered placatingly. "We use AIs to monitor people. You're welcome for the phone by the way," he added since she'd certainly figure it out on her own. "The AI inside was programmed to inform us of anything weird. You can use it as a Personal Assistant if you want to since there is no longer a point in keeping it a secret. Feel free to give it a name. In any case, did you have any other questions before I leave?"

"Yeah, what did you do to that bastard? Why couldn't he move? And what are you going to do with him?"

"I restrained him using super powers. He was restrained. And killing him would be merciful compared to letting him live the rest of his days in a cell without any form of human contact. A prison run by robots and AIs just for him. The only one able to hear his voice will be himself. Even if he cracks he won't be allowed to die."

Jessica considered it for a few moments before nodding and deciding it was good enough.

Rather than teleport, Harry just gave a gentleman's bow and walked out of the room before teleporting away from the hall.

The Hero Association would be up by the beginning of 2014, a few months from now. Tony had retrieved all his Iron Man Armors and Harry had given a few entities a sneak peek at the Nova Guard Armor. He had enough Nova Crystals to make a few thousand Nova Guards, each with enough Nova Force to grant the user Flight and make them bulletproof, super strong, and able to emit gravimetric rays which are similar to concussive blasts. For cities with a high amount of Super Villains, Law Officers could be recommended as Nova Guards and join the Hero Association. The armor came with recording devices so it wasn't like they could get away with anything. A few weeks of training was all they really needed to be ready for the street since Nova Force was rather user friendly.

The months of September and October had been pretty busy since Harry had been Alpha testing the VR Game world with the Goblins.

The VR Game could be logged into with a foldable headset a bit larger than over the ear headphones but could fit in a large pocket or purse when folded up. They were quite heavy though as the main component was the metagem version of Quartz Crystal. The headsets did not actually log people into the VR world. They acted as Antennas for the actual system which logged people in. Each headset was paired with a Node that existed in a hidden warehouse and connected to it using the Quartz Crystal. The Node was what logged people into the VR world.

This design meant that even if someone created a perfect copy of one of the game's headsets, it would not work since there was no node paired with it. Harry was very aware of the potential problems with this type of VR, so he wasn't going to let other people try to copy him. Even if someone perfectly understood every function of the headset, it was literally only half the equipment needed for the full dive VR so Harry didn't expect anyone this century to be able to compete with him.

In just a few months of Alpha-Testing the Goblins had spent three hundred years in the time-accelerated world and created a Goblin Empire they'd be allowed to keep once the game was fully released. People visiting the Goblin Empire could treat them as monsters or NPCs. If they thought the Goblins were just weak monsters and attacked, the Goblins would enjoy ruthlessly tearing the poor souls to pieces.

Now he needed a group for the Beta-Test. A very large group who could keep a secret.

And that was how Harry ended up sitting at a table with the Ruler of Latveria, Victor Von Doom.

Dr. Doom had received the request for a meeting from Harry a few weeks ago about a massive project Harry wanted some help with and the Latverian Dictator would not deny his own curiosity as to what someone like Harry Potter needed help for.

Usually Dr. Doom would have people asking his favor meet him in his Throne Room where he could look down upon them from said Throne and make their position clear. He had a feeling doing so with Harry Potter would end in a prank and decided not to even allow Harry in his Throne Room for fear of what Harry would do to it.

After reading over the details of Harry's game, Doom asked with a modicum of disbelief, "You want the citizens of Latveria to act as Beta-Testers for a Virtual Reality Video game you've made?"

Harry nodded, "Pretty much. Your citizens are, by a pretty wide margin, the most ideal test group. They are modern, advanced, slightly insulated but connected. The only thing I ask is that none of the testers go public with any spoilers. Their payment will be free lifetime access to the game and they can keep the character they've made when the game is released giving them a head start on everyone else."

Doom considered everything in silence for a few minutes. Harry didn't mind.

Victor eventually just asked, "What is the point of this game?"

Harry heard the layers of questions hidden in that statement and answered honestly. "I intend to replace all resource wars with this game. Time is the most valuable resource in the world, and this game multiplies it. What's more, stronger players will have access to zones and cities and countries and worlds within the game where time moves even faster. The stronger they get, the more time they have access to."

"What's the maximum acceleration?"

"Theoretically? Two thousand times. But most human brains cannot adapt to such speeds. Any brain though can adapt to a hundred times without issue. However the longer a person plays the game, the more their brain adapts. After playing long enough, almost anyone could handle at least five hundred times acceleration, though leveling up won't be easy in the slightest. The leveling curve in the game is meant to slow people down and make sure they have enough time to adapt before they reach higher level zones with higher values of time acceleration."

"So you intend to replace the whole of the Earth with this game?"

"The servers which contain the data for the game hold trillions of times more data than all other data on the Earth combined. I used Pym Particles and Unstable Molecules to create systems more advanced than even Quantum computers and using a Time Accelerated environment, I've had billions of AIs created to run and design the worlds within the game. Much less just the Earth, there is literally enough world in that game for every sentient being in the Galaxy to play at the same time without it feeling crowded."

"Oh, and how were those AIs created?"

"Link, my first AI, People Watches as a Hobby. He designed the AIs using parameters and traits and flaws from real people all throughout the world. No direct copies, but the AIs that make up the NPCs of that world are just as smart or dumb as real people. Link had them run the Game world for a few hundred thousand years to see which ones did well and which ones did not. Doing so also created a History for the game."

Harry had all the servers run in a time accelerated environment for a few weeks in which centuries had passed for the physical servers themselves. Besides the data generated, it also showed the physical weaknesses within the Servers that would have to be replaced and dealt with as time passed, giving Harry a clear picture on how maintenance would look over time before he even started the launch, allowing him to automate the maintenance ahead of any issues.

Doom sighed as the realization of what Potter was doing was made clear. Harry Potter was ending the world. In a very real sense, Harry was the enemy of every government and politician in the world since they would lose everything and by the time they realized it, it would be too late. And with the Hero Association, Harry would have the strength to protect himself from anything that tried to stop him or get in his way.

It also explained why Harry asked Victor himself. Doom was not exactly a Hero, and ending the world wasn't something he'd be entirely opposed to as long as he profited from the end. Harry's offer of Beta-testing for the Citizens of Latveria meant that his people would have an acceptably large advantage in the 'New World' compared to others.

The most terrifying thing about Harry's plan was that at the moment at least, it was not illegal. Certainly they could pass laws to make it illegal later, but as long as the threat of what this game truly meant was hidden until it was too late, there was nothing anyone except a Dictator like himself could do. The headsets for the game only needed a small amount of electricity and didn't require internet access, so there was no reliable way to prevent people from playing other than dealing with Harry himself.

After weighing the risks, Victor eventually stated, "I assume you brought some headsets for a demonstration?"

Harry smiled and tossed one over to Victor who caught it and unfolded it. The headset had enough internal cushioning to survive being dropped from two stories and were water resistant, though there really shouldn't be too many situations where the water resistance comes into play.

Doom typed a few things into the wrist mounted display on the armor he almost never took off and put on the headset. The headset included a visor which had a Heads Up Display which gave an easy to understand tutorial on how to use it and asked if the Player wanted to enable or disable a few features. Some features such as real muscle exertion could only be enabled if the Player was laying down, but since Doom's suit locked him in place, he could choose to enable that feature.

Harry put on the headset and logged in as well.

The next moment, Harry and Doom found themselves on a bench in an open courtyard area in what appeared to be a massive medieval style castle city.

After a few moments of silence, Doom said, "A bit primitive for an area with a hundred thousand years of history."

Harry nodded and added, "This area is only about a hundred years old. Plenty of weaker people in the higher level areas decide to form an expedition to lower level areas that have not been mapped. They are unable to get stronger and die of old age in lower level areas, but they can still make a mark on the world before their death. This region was built by such a person and his children are the rulers. There are a lot of flaws in such regions that Players can take advantage of. If Players started in an area that was tens of thousands of years old, how would they advance over people who were there from the start?"

Harry eventually did figure out how to make a decent Thief Class, but the problem was that an area that was ancient would have the security to prevent newbie thieves from doing anything fun. So Harry and Link developed a system where new areas were built and old areas occasionally destroyed all the time so things would be unstable enough to be interesting.

Starting cities had plenty of flaws and holes in security while older cities had less flaws for higher level Thieves. One of the reasons a Thief and Assassin class was needed was to attract the criminal element into the game so they'd spend more time committing crimes in game than out of the game. Why would a person who enjoys stealing play a game where every house is impossible to steal from?

Doom asked, "How can NPCs who live thousands of years in the high level areas die of old age in the lower level areas?"

"Well, relative to the low level areas, everyone ages at the same rate, despite how much time passes. So if an NPC's son is twenty years younger than he is and spends a decade in a higher level area with a greater acceleration value and returns, he still looks twenty years younger than his father despite hundreds or more years passing while he was there."

"What about population growth?"

"The number of NPCs is massive and determined by the number of AIs. If an NPC is killed, the AI is born to another NPC, so the number always remains about the same."

In other words an NPC in a time accelerated environment would not necessarily have more children than someone living in a lower level area.

At the mention of population, Victor spotted a number of children running around. He asked, "This world has education?"

"I'm going to pretend not to be insulted that you asked that. Not only does every region have education, but children who play this game can attend Schools in the game for free, while those who are older can pay a tuition to go to school. Higher level areas have higher level institutes. Due to the Time Acceleration, you could get multiple degrees in a College in the higher level areas in a fraction of the time it would require in the real world. It will probably take some time for me to go through the steps necessary to get those degrees accredited out the game, but I fully intend to make it happen."

"Why would an educated adult go to a school here?"

"To learn the language if nothing else. Link and I created a new language and everyone here speaks it. All Players can speak any language and it will be translated for them, but the translated language will make them sound a bit like hillbilly hicks to the locals. Higher rank NPCs are unwilling to speak with such uncultured savages so getting any influence in-game requires learning the language of this world. The local schools teach Maths, Sciences, Language, and History, though the History of the region. Knowledge of Classes and monsters are taught as well. Higher level Schools teach Literature, Government Structure, Higher Sciences and Maths, and Metaphysics of course."

Metaphysics was basically magic and taught to various degrees at all levels. Thanks to the Class system, you didn't need to know how magic worked at lower levels but you wouldn't get very far in the higher level areas without understanding how certain things worked.

Harry pointed at various people wearing various pieces of equipment and said, "Sorcerer, Wizard, Warrior, Thief, Druid, Priest, Artificer, etc. You can check your own class as well."

Doom did so and brought up his own stats. It had him as a level 81 Sorcerer, a level 23 Warrior, a level 15 Priest, a level 8 Psychic, and a level 58 Artificer. This surprised him. It seemed to be translating his personal skills into this world.

Harry figured what Doom was thinking and said, "Players without gifts or prior training can use Class Items to level up. They can take the time to level up multiple class Items at once to multiclass. Players who already have such skills can also get Class Items which will automatically level up to their existing level. To level up further, you either do Quests or fight monsters to accumulate EXP. Once you have accumulated enough, you can take your Class Item to a special location and transfer the EXP to the Item to level it up. There is no limit to how much EXP you can accumulate, but it won't make you stronger unless you use it to level up a class item. If you are killed, all your accumulated EXP is lost. Player Killers can get some of the accumulated EXP from Players they kill if they have any. There are also ways to cause a person's class items to lose a level's worth of EXP when killing a Player or being killed by a special NPC. If such a thing happens to a person who is multiclassing, each of their classes lose a level. Of course, leveling up in game won't make you level up in real life."

Doom eventually asked, "Why is my Warrior level so low and what does Artificer represent?"

"Warriors in this game use Chi. The fact that you even have a Warrior level implies that you have trained to the point you have some access to your Chi. A grand majority of martial artists on the planet won't even have a single level of Warrior since they never accessed their Chi. And Artificer represents your understanding of magic tech, not ordinary tech. Magic tech is far superior after all. The higher your level in Artificer, the stronger the magical items you'll be able to craft and use in battle."

Doom nodded with acknowledgement and got up to wander around. This was a starting area so the highest level was less than fifty for the commoners and adventurers walking around.

After exploring the obvious stuff, Harry took him to a few more interesting areas, including an empty house.

Harry motioned to a pedestal and said, "If someone rents a room at an Inn or owns a house, they can access one of these within." Harry turned it on and showed it to Doom. It was obviously an internet browser. Players wouldn't be able to just loiter on the street browsing the internet, they had to pay for a room or buy a property to access it. The browser also included a clock which showed the local time In Latveria down to the second, but it was obviously moving four times slower than the outside world.

Doom asked, "Do you intend for people to work from here as well?"

"Yes. But renting or purchasing space to access the Internet will require in-game money. Especially if they want to hire NPCs. So companies which elect to do so will need to spend real money to purchase in-game money. This means that real companies will buy gold from Players who spend time hunting monsters or trading for Gold. That means people can have an actual profession, playing the game for a living."

Link and Harry had run billions of simulations on the best way to promote this and knew exactly how to ensure it stayed reasonable without getting out of hand and regulate the value of in-game gold to prevent it from losing value as more players leveled up. There would be laws in game that prevented people from working for too long and those laws would be enforced by NPCs, so a company could not force a person to work 36 in game hours straight a day for an eight hour paycheck outside. Companies would still try of course, but that just meant NPCs could give Quests to take them down and let reckless players break into their in-game offices and wreck the place for EXP.

As for people who thought they could replace all their employees with NPC AIs? Harry looked forward to them discovering how human these NPCs were. Overwork them and they won't just quit. They will set fire to your building forcing you to pay to fix it before the Internet Access of the rooms is restored. What was the company going to do, Arrest the NPC? The NPC could just move to a different city before the arrest request came out.

While Doom was checking out the Browsing capabilities of the pedestal, Harry remembered something and handed a potion looking item to Doom. "I almost forgot, drink this."

Doom gave Harry an, 'you really expect me to?' stare and asked, "What is it?"

"One Percent Chance Esper Awakening Potion, one free with every account. Trust me."

Doom considered it and figured out what Harry meant. He drank it and a pop up appeared. Reading it off, he said, "Esper Subclass, Sorcery Master."

After a moment, Doom felt something familiar. It was the feeling of being able to control energy he granted himself when he drained the Power Cosmic from the Fantastic Four. It was not initially available to him in this world, but now it was.

Harry added, "The one percent only applies to people without inherent gifts. This way a mutant or mutate or whatever can use their powers in game and tell others it is their Esper Subclass. Normal people still have a one percent chance to get a random one and they can purchase another Esper Awakening Potion at various percentages of success for a lot of gold. Really rich Players can show off how rich they are by purchasing Awakening Potions over and over until they get an Esper Subclass."

Doom asked, "So any mutant who plays this game will be discovered by your systems?"

"Yes, but I doubt I'll do anything with it unless it is a power they obviously need help controlling. The game can even help them train their power without worrying about others and no one says they have to use their Subclass abilities. You should notice that it can be enabled and disabled."

After considering everything a bit more, he asked, "And how realistic is combat?"

Harry smiled and said, "Well, there is a Tournament today. Wanna compete?"

Doom replied, "Only if you are competing as well."

Harry laughed. It was so on. Harry led them to the Arena area built next to the Adventurer's Guild. Players would eventually form their own Guilds and groups but could rely on NPC guilds for support until then.

The Tournament usually has a preliminary round, but Harry used his Admin status as a VIP to get himself and Victor slots for the best 16 at opposite ends of the matchup chart.

In game terms, Harry was a level 160 Sorcerer, a level 150 Wizard, a level 140 Druid, a level 130 Dragoon (Dragon Chi Warrior), a level 140 Berserker, a level 140 Psychic, and a level 150 Artificer. Even with all that, there were NPCs stronger than Harry was.

Since neither Doom nor Harry was using their Tech in game, their Artificer classes did not come into play, but that didn't matter too much for this fight.

Doom's fight was first, he was against a Druid. Druid spells focused on nature and animal magic. A Druid could control plants, control, strengthen, and enlarge animals, and use weather magic. Tournaments did not allow personal equipment and an animal companion counted as one so most Druids would not be able to show their strength in a Tournament match on a stone stage without animals or plant growth. This one was an exception. He specialized in weather and wind magic.

Still, his Whirling Vortex and Tornado Spells did not do much to Doom who used a simple Sorcery spell to keep himself grounded and deflect the energy of the wind. After analyzing the Druid for a bit, Doom struck the man with lightning, cutting off the man's concentration and spell, allowing Doom to fire multiple bolts of energy at the Druid, knocking him off the stage.

The commenter for the match went wild as the Druid had won a few tournaments in the past. Few were able to keep their feet on the ground when faced with a tornado which ironically made this Druid rather good at tournaments. Though he only had enough time to cast the Tornado because Doom let him. Most of his more skilled opponents would not, meaning he'd have to use the quicker casting Whirlwind spell to keep the target away while he took the time needed to cast the Tornado. Opponents who could get to him through the Whirlwind easily took him down, but not all classes could or knew how.

Harry's match was against a Shadow Thief. For the Thief Class, Harry elected to use Shadow Force to empower them. It had a few similarities to Dark Force, but was far more user friendly. Shadows existed between light and darkness and required both to exist, so heavy use would not affect the mind of those who used it.

Harry had to spend a bit of time using Metaphysics to calculate all the possible ways to use Shadow Force and the class turned out pretty balanced. High level Shadow Thieves can move and attack through shadows, can turn their own Shadow into a copy of themselves and multiply the copies, shroud themselves in Shadow to increase evasion, and use their shadow to scan an area for traps and hidden secrets and much much more.

Harry's opponent created a blinding light behind him which caused most to turn their eyes away. The light stretched the man's shadow behind Harry where it lifted off the ground and attacked him. Harry deflected it with a psionic barrier and walked towards the Thief. The lengthened shadow retracted as the light behind him faded and the man used Shadow Shroud to cover himself in a cloak of darkness as he rushed towards Harry.

The shroud made it difficult to target him at a range giving the Thief the time needed to get close.

Harry cast the Wizard Spell, the Slippery Jinx at the ground causing the man to slip and fall down. Harry then threw a fireball at him and ended the match. Most wizards would be unable to target the ground with a Jinx, but Harry's Wizard level was high enough to do whatever he wanted with his magic.

Doom's next opponent was also a Wizard, but just like his last match, this one was a specialist. Most Wizards used Fire, Ice, and Lightning Magic but this one specialized in curses, hexes, and jinxes.

Once he cast his first leg locking Jinx at Doom, Victor cast a Sorcery spell which filled the arena with thick mist. Jinxes require eye contact and hexes and curses had to hit the target to be effective.

The Wizard stayed still, trying not to make any sound under the assumption that Doom was as blind as he was. Since he lost eye contact due to the mist, the effect of the Jinx ended and Doom silently approached him, grabbed him, and threw him out of the arena.

Harry's next fight was against an Illusion Sorcerer which ended predictably. Doom's semifinal match was against a Chi Warrior and Doom defeated him with superior martial arts though he was physically weaker due to the lack of Chi. Harry's semi-final match was against a Chi Warrior as well and Harry just punched him out of the fight.

At the finals, Harry could have sworn he saw the slightest smirk on Doom's face and wondered if the man would admit he might actually have been having a bit of fun.

At the start of the match Doom called fire and lightning down using Sorcery and his Esper Subclass to hit as hard as he possibly could. The damage wrecked the arena stage and cracked the walls and shook the roof, causing the NPCs to panic.

When the smoke cleared, Harry stood there covered in red and golden light. A Berserker was someone who saturated themselves in Strength Energy and Time Energy to move faster and stronger. A Dragoon used Dragon Chi to fight Dragons, so their defense was far superior to a normal Warrior. Harry never gave himself an Esper subclass because even in a world where his Stats were stripped and his Obscurus status removed, he was still a force to be reckoned with.

Harry used Time Energy to accelerate his movement speed and struck Doom with everything he had, knowing Doom would not be satisfied with anything less. Doom exploded, but all deaths in the Arena were reversed, so it didn't matter.

The Latverian Dictator respawned outside the arena and looked up at the replay of his defeat. Though the city was supposedly medieval, it had a replay screen magically displayed by an Illusion Sorcerer employee for the audience to get a better look at and for highlights of the matches.

Doom considered how the fight would be different if he used his armor, but Harry's knowledge of tech was not inferior to his own, so Doom figured it would only make a marginal difference.

Harry noticed his face and said, "Muscle Wizard for the win."

Doom visibly rolled his eyes. They walked outside the arena and after a while, Doom asked, "How will you draw people into this game. There has to be a hook."

Harry nodded. "If someone beats the final boss, the evil Demon King, they will be awarded the title of Emperor of the most prosperous Empire in the game located in the heart of the highest time accelerated area and be granted Admin privileges in that Empire."

"Admin privileges?"

"Admins have the authority to change some things and have more control over NPCs."

"How strong is the Demon King?"

"Like level 1000. But there are Seals hidden in certain places throughout the world and getting to them and activating them will weaken the Demon King. Activating them all can get the Demon King down to level 400, but that would still require a team of a dozen players with multiple level 300 plus classes each to fight. I honestly don't expect people to find all the Seals, the normal way is to attack and take over the Demon King's territory. Doing so awards Emblems to those who control the territory. Bringing an Emblem with you when you fight the Demon King weakens him. But that will force people who take over his territory to either work together or fight each other to amass all the Emblems. Territories will be regularly attacked as well to reclaim the Emblems."

"You are a far greater Super Villain than I am."

"So does that mean you're in?"

"Only if you give me a territory in the game and give me Admin privileges for it."

"Done and done. I figured you'd ask that. Feel free to be evil in the game. I'll let you design a starting city and fill it with quality NPCs. Your Citizens will start there as the beta-test. However you will not be allowed to prevent them from leaving."

Doom scoffed. "I'm going to pretend not to be insulted that you asked that. My people are not forced to stay under my rule. They stay because life is better under my rule and they know it."

Harry nodded and added, "Too bad you don't like ruling, though I suppose the best rulers are the best because they don't like it."

Doom didn't comment on that and logged off, followed shortly by Harry.

Harry delivered the Node server to Doom's Palace and ten thousand Headsets for Doom to distribute to trustworthy Beta-Testers. The Node Servers could technically work from anywhere but had a tiny bit of a lag if not in the same hemisphere of the Earth as the Headset it was paired with. All the details for them were given to Doom, though the Node Servers only connected to the game, they didn't contain the game content. The true game servers were connected to the Node servers through magic and hidden away using a modified Fidelius charm to prevent tracking or scrying any sort to find them.

Some might consider his security precautions overkill but this world was his creation and he was rather paranoid about protecting it.

Thankfully Harry and Doom finished all the paperwork and preparation by the end of the first week of November. Harry would be rather busy the second week of November, because that was when the Convergence of the Nine Realms would begin.