Chapter 125: Chapter 124: Naming Genius
"Mudbrick Premier?"
Two worry lines creased Furin’s otherwise smooth forehead as she stared at the project name on the proposal.
"Do you really have to name it that?"
She simply couldn’t fathom why a Magic spell designed to process effects for a Shadow of Evil needed such a bizarre name.
"I have another idea," Zog said, holding up a small claw.
"If it’s anything like that one, don’t even say it."
"Uhdobe, Primier!"
Furin nearly blacked out.
"Don’t you think a name that makes no sense is more attractive? We can’t just call it ’Easy Edit,’ ’Clip Show,’ or ’Must Cut,’ can we?"
"I think those last few are better. At least you can understand what they mean."
In the end, under Furin’s strong protest, Zog gave up his plan to phonetically transliterate Adobe and decided to pay homage in spirit.
The founder of Adobe named the company after a small creek near his home called Adobe Creek, so Zog decided to follow his example.
He named the world’s first Magic model for processing Shadows of Evil "Red Stone Drawing Shadow."
"Drawing Shadow" pointed to its function and origin, referring to the painting-like operational method of the Elf Memory Spell.
Redstone was a type of rock from the island where Zog was born that could be used as a natural flint. Yes, the very same flint he used to fake his Dragon Breath back in the day.
It had great sentimental value.
Holding a flint in his mouth to spit fuel had once been a famous laughingstock among the Dragon Race. However, as Zog’s fame grew, the other Dragons’ opinions on the matter began to change.
"Look at that Xiaozhuo from back in the day. He couldn’t learn Dragon Breath, but he still tried to breathe fire with a flint. Look how hard he worked! And now, look how majestic a Dragon he is."
"And then look at you! So lazy all day, you do nothing but eat and sleep. With all this free time, why don’t you go out and do some pillaging, capture some underlings? The way you’re going, what young female dragon is ever going to be interested in you?"
"You still want roast sheep? Eat, eat, eat! You’re the one who’s starting to look like a roast sheep..."
This was how many dragon mothers educated their little whelps later on.
And so, the name "Redstone" would serve as the prefix for a whole series of productivity Magic.
The goal was to build the complete Redstone product suite.
Projects currently established included Drawing Shadow for processing Shadows of Evil, and "Phantasm" for processing photos, as video and images had a lot in common.
Future plans included an audio-processing Magic, "Zogdio," and one for book typesetting, "Elegage."
Of course, these were all still purely in the vaporware stage.
Once these productivity Magic spells could be released to the market, he would launch a professional version requiring an annual subscription, then secretly release a pirated version himself for promotion.
He’d leave a backdoor in the pirated version for monitoring. Once everyone got used to the pirated software, he’d sue any team he found using it to create commercial works.
He’d rake in a fortune from infringement lawsuits!
As for Drawing Shadow and Phantasm, which were already in development...
Many Magic spells from the Elf Transformation School could be directly adapted for image processing.
Since the technology for digitizing images was already complete, the development of Phantasm was proceeding even more smoothly.
The problem of how to fully digitize the images within a Magic Crystal Stone and transfer them to the Divine Remains Network still needed to be solved.
Therefore, for the time being, Drawing Shadow required users to construct the Magic model themselves, a task only a Level 8 Mage or higher could accomplish.
To ensure the smooth production of *Frozen*, Zog temporarily recruited a group of high-level Transformation School Mages to learn Drawing Shadow from El.
This also marked the first successful online recruitment drive.
Zog posted the job opening directly in the knowledge section of the forums, with Zog and Old El conducting the interviews personally.
It was a true "Direct-to-Boss" hiring event. No awkward chats with HR or outsourcing companies; applicants met the bosses directly.
Old El didn’t want Zog using his name for recruitment. He was unwilling to ruin the detached, above-it-all persona he had cultivated for years. Collaborating with the Zog Group sounded far too opportunistic.
Though, in truth, he was indeed cooperating with Zog for very opportunistic reasons—the future of the Elf Race.
Zog agreed.
So, the job posting read: "A certain anonymous Legendary Elf Mage, proficient in all Schools, with personal instruction from a current elder of the Mage Guild."
It was true; he hadn’t used the name Eldron.
Old El suddenly felt that Zog wasn’t much like a pure-blooded Dragon. He was more like the ultimate fusion of the most shameless parts of the Human and Dragon Race souls.
In any case, the Feilin Continent’s first batch of film industry grunts—no, that’s not right—the first team of outstanding Shadow of Evil special effects designers, was haphazardly assembled.
The team’s first battle would be producing the trailer for *Frozen*.
Of course, he couldn’t let the new team start on the main feature. What if they botched it?
The main feature would first be shot according to the original plan, as a backup. Minor continuity errors in the castle scenes were acceptable.
The current Shadow of Evil market was a complete blue ocean; people would watch anything that was produced. *Holy Mountain Journey*, which had been released for almost a year, could still fill theaters everywhere it was re-screened.
Striving for perfection was merely a personal requirement for Zog.
After the civilian-grade small Spirit Body cameras hit the market, all sorts of poorly-made, self-produced short films also managed to attract a sizable audience.
However, because the content of these self-produced short films was a bit too unrestrained, Priests from the Church were running around, demanding that all nations enact laws to restrict the content of publicly distributed Shadows of Evil.
「At the filming site for the *Frozen* trailer.」
Inside a cleared-out factory building.
A massive green screen covered an entire wall.
The trailer would be shot entirely using methods better suited for post-production.
If this method proved viable, they would reshoot the parts of the main feature that required processing.
As for the trailer’s content, not a single frame would appear in the final movie.
A deceptive trailer!
The trailer was simple, featuring only two characters.
A snowman Golem controlled by Furin—likely the first Golem in history designed specifically to be cute, and also the one with the most expressive face.
And Little Deer in his reindeer form. Because he hadn’t mastered the Magic to make his clothes vanish during transformation, he had to find a changing room every time he changed shape.
The amazing thing was that Little Deer’s personality also seemed to change drastically in his deer form. He lost the timidness of his human self and was completely at ease playing a character meant to provide a lot of comic relief.
The trailer revealed none of the plot. It showed the snowman sneezing his carrot nose off onto a frozen lake, and the reindeer trying to get it back, with the two of them crossing the ice in all sorts of ridiculous poses.
Because the movements were difficult to perform on ice, they were filming indoors. The green screen background would be keyed out later and composited with an outdoor ice-scape.
Of course, the details were more complex than that. The reflections and shadows on the ice would need to be created as separate Illusions.
"CUT!"
The final shot was complete. Little Deer, with the carrot in his mouth, pressed it back onto the snowman’s nose.
His small, short tail wagged furiously.
’How did he manage to act so much like a deer with the soul of a dog?’
"Will this footage be easy to process?" Zog asked El, who was reviewing the clips.
Good pre-production filming makes post-production much easier.
He had El check it to avoid having to reshoot any parts that couldn’t be fixed.
"Very easy to process," El replied.
In fact, it was even easier than he had imagined. He had thought that Shadows of Evil would require complex effects, but the difficulty of modifying memories to fool the mind, a feat the Elves performed, was far greater than what was needed for a Shadow of Evil.
"It should take about three days to process," El said, giving a relatively generous timeframe.
"Excellent," Zog said, turning to his assistant. "Contact the theater managers everywhere. It’s time to start the promotional campaign."
