Zog never thought the first time he’d borrow a book from a library would be after he’d transmigrated.

Back on Earth, he had only ever gone to the library during the hell week for finals, and he never borrowed any books. He just used it as a study hall. Aside from the occasional couple engaging in some PDA, it was a pretty good place to study.

Beastman War Axe pushed a cart full of large tomes back to the toy store, unloading them all onto the third floor.

Elf Secret Transmission

Soma Epic

Song of Feroni

Chronicles of Valon

Trafalgar Expedition

...

They were all the most famous epics, legends, myths, and heroic biographies of the various races.

Zog spread a huge chart out on the floor, divided into several columns: Name, Race, Class, Additional Traits, Skill, and Cost.

Then he took out the first book and opened it.

"Sate Furnace, the thirty-sixth chief of the Demon Mountain Clan of Dwarves, who defeated a six-thousand-strong Beastman Warband at Hu Luo Pass with only two thousand soldiers."

Zog finished the biography of tens of thousands of words. Thanks to years of experience reading web novels, his skill at speed-reading ten lines at a glance was highly polished.

He then filled in the chart: Sate Furnace, Dwarf, Warrior. After a moment’s hesitation, he also added Leader. Cost: 4. As for the Skill...

He skimmed the story again. It didn’t seem to record any famous moves, so he would have to improvise.

’Furnace, furnace...’

’I’ve got it!’

’Upon activating the Skill, he enters Forging Mode, greatly increasing his resistance, dealing continuous damage to surrounding enemies, and causing a small area-of-effect knock-up after three attacks.’

’Role: front-line, sustained crowd control.’

He jotted down some rough numbers for the Skill’s stats. He’d stayed up a couple of nights ago calculating the standard values and coefficients, but he’d have to do the math again here; he couldn’t just plug in the formula. ’I miss Excel,’ he thought.

Many people probably imagine a game designer’s main job is to build dream worlds in a game engine.

That’s not it. Although you do use the engine, the main job is writing documents, filling out spreadsheets, figuring out implementation plans for the producer’s "sudden flash of inspiration," and getting into heated arguments with the art and programming teams.

Oh, right, and on patch days, you have to pull all-nighters while being hounded by the publishing and QA teams.

’Which character should I pick next?’

"Wow, are you studying history? Is the next Shadow of Evil going to be a historical theme?" Elsa had approached him at some point.

"No, I’m planning to make a new game."

After creating a series of mini-games like *Doodle Jump*, *Icy Tower*, *Link-Link*, *Snake*, and *Twin Tower City Tetris*, Zog felt he had become proficient with the Illusion Rune. It was time to tackle a big project.

He had chosen auto-chess.

It had some production difficulty, but not too much. At least it was easier to make than games with lots of action and interaction. The main challenges were in the design phase, but he had templates to reference.

Next was art assets. While there were people who could draw, not many could turn those drawings into Illusions. Sooner or later, he would improve the employment situation for Illusionists with the power of a single dragon.

Of course, one dragon couldn’t possibly do all this work. He planned to make a demo first to test its feasibility, then build a development team once the "carbon-based servers" were in place.

"So, is the game historical-themed?"

"No, it’s just borrowing elements from historical figures. Besides, you can’t really call this stuff history."

Zog pointed a claw at the portrait of Sate Furnace in the book. "He didn’t actually defeat the Beastman Warband back then. It was because I was raiding that Beastman Tribe, so the Warband ran off in a hurry to defend their home."

"Er, and why were you, sir, going there at the time?"

"The tribe’s Shaman claimed to have received a gift from the Deities—a fruit that extended one’s life. I went to ’share’ in it."

Elsa couldn’t understand how he could use the word "share" with a straight face. She pressed on, "Do you even need to extend your life?"

"Not really. There was a rumor that the fruit was the most delicious thing in the world."

"And in reality?"

"A scam to trick a dragon. At best, it was a little juicier than a turnip." Even though several hundred years had passed, Zog still sounded indignant, as if he’d been the one who got ripped off.

Ever since then, Zog had steered clear of all the hyped-up delicacies of the Otherworld. Without various cultivation techniques to serve as a foundation, they couldn’t even get past the raw ingredient stage.

Elsa was now certain that Zog’s title, "The Unprovoked Calamity," was no mistake. For the Beastman Tribe that got raided over a fruit that was just "a little juicier than a turnip," it couldn’t get any more unprovoked.

"Oh, right. I came to give you this."

Elsa took out a grimy cloth bundle. Her curiosity about what Zog was doing had almost made her forget her real purpose.

"The Treasure Hunter delivered the Divine Remains just now."

"Divine Remains!" Zog shot up. ’Speak of the devil... or in this case, the server.’ "Where is it?"

"This is it," Elsa said, holding out the bundle.

Zog stared at the bundle. ’You’ve got to be kidding me. If you threw this thing in the Mixed Zone, I doubt anyone would even bother to pick it up.’

’They must have a death wish, trying to scam a dragon like me.’

With a swipe of his claw, he tore the cloth bundle open. Inside was a piece of bone about thirty centimeters long. There was nothing special about it at all, except that its surface was as smooth as if a dog had been licking it for eight years.

’My initial appraisal: it’s a fake.’

Zog picked it up. It was feather-light, putting no weight on his claw at all. Out of habit, he brought it to his nose and sniffed.

’Something’s wrong.’

Zog sniffed it carefully again. The bone had no smell whatsoever!

Smell was the Dragon Race’s keenest sense, at least a hundred times more sensitive than a canine’s. It was no exaggeration to say that if you trained the Dragon Race to be drug-sniffing dragons, they could sit in an airport and tell you if someone on a landing plane was smuggling drugs.

Yet this bone was bizarrely odorless.

’Oh no, the uncanny valley effect is kicking in.’

Zog told Elsa to hide downstairs while he tried to inject a little Magic Power into the bone.

Instantly, his consciousness was dragged into a void-like space.

A tiny ball of light floated before him—perhaps the residual power of a deceased deity. It began transmitting a massive amount of knowledge into his mind.

Then, his consciousness was ejected from the space.

’That scared the scales off me!’

’This is why I hate dealing with these Deities. They love playing their cryptic games even after they’re dead.’

From the information he had just received, he learned that he was now the designated "agent dragon" for this divine fragment.

If he were to establish a church, he would start as Pope Zog.

However, since the deity was dead, it couldn’t provide any powers. It only had the function of storing Magic models.

That was more than enough for him.

Zog held the rights to define the protocol for connecting to the Divine Remains server. It could be a ritual, a prayer, an inscription—anything.

’Isn’t this just torture for someone like me who’s terrible at naming things?’

’How about "It’s free anyway, might as well believe a little"?’

’No, I should be more serious.’ After some thought, Zog defined a divine inscription that looked exactly like the Red Middle tile.

But the most insane thing about this Divine Remains was that, in theory, its capacity had no upper limit.

The more believers it had, the more it could hold.

As a server, the more load it had, the more users it had. The more users, the higher the capacity. The higher the capacity, the lower the load.

Therefore, the more load it had, the less load it had.

However, its current capacity was very limited. After Zog tried stuffing the Magic models for a few mini-games into it, there was barely any space left.

’I’m in a hurry. I need believers.’

Zog shouted, "Elsa, hurry over here! I’ve got something amazing to show you!"