The Red Dragon Lord is OP, but Insists on a Pop Culture Invasion!

Chapter 257: Chapter 214: Senior University Study (Part 2)

Whenever she tried playing games, she found she wasn’t very good at any that required complex controls.

In a game like Mario, for instance, she couldn’t even manage the basic maneuver of changing direction in mid-air after a jump. She could only perform one action at a time; the controller in her hands could only handle one button press at a time.

’What? Press forward and jump at the same time? No way, that’s too complicated. I don’t get it.’

The only game she really got into was one where you run a shop selling burritos. All you had to do was wave the motion controller and keep clicking on the screen.

Take out ingredients, make the burrito, package it, hand it to the correct customer, collect the money, and occasionally, you also had to keep an eye on beggars trying to get free food and thieves stealing money.

After earning enough money, you could upgrade the shop’s equipment, which meant fewer and fewer things required manual operation.

Honestly, it was pretty boring, but for some reason, she became addicted to the cycle of making burritos, earning money, and upgrading. She played until her knuckles ached from gripping the controller.

Only after she had upgraded the shop to the point where no more upgrades were possible did she stop, and then she fell into a strange sense of loss.

’Thinking back on it now, I must have just been completely immersed in that simple process, unable to pull myself away.’

"No. While immersion is important for a game, it’s not the most important thing."

Priest Andrei refuted the idea.

"Is it a sense of achievement, then?" another Bishop said.

His favorite game was *Twin Tower City Blocks*. He loved watching the oddly shaped blocks pile up into neat rows, and then, as a long piece dropped into place, four lines would disappear and his score would increase.

He enjoyed the process of accumulating points, doing a little better this time than the last, and gradually climbing the leaderboards. It filled him with a sense of achievement.

Although his current rank on the overall leaderboard was just outside the top one hundred thousand, he was confident he could climb higher.

"A sense of achievement... you’re close, but that’s not the whole picture," Priest Andrei acknowledged.

"It’s the positive feedback loop of constantly overcoming challenges."

This Bishop clearly knew a thing or two about games, understanding the concept of a positive feedback loop.

He was a bit more studious than his colleagues.

"It’s the steady feeling of reward that comes from knowing your effort will definitely lead to achieving your goal," said another.

In his view, an important aspect of games was that no matter the quest or challenge, as long as you completed it, you received a reward. Your character would improve, ultimately leading to success.

But this was impossible in reality. In the real world, effort didn’t guarantee improvement, didn’t guarantee a reward, and certainly didn’t guarantee a good outcome. Reality was just too complicated.

"Imagination."

"Defeating opponents."

"The satisfaction of collecting things."

...

They all chattered at once, throwing out a heap of answers.

Once the Bishops had more or less finished sharing their opinions, Priest Andrei revealed his own answer with a kind smile.

"A sense of achievement, a positive feedback loop, the desire for accomplishment—they all depend on one crucial prerequisite: the difficulty itself, the challenge you must overcome."

Priest Andrei knocked sharply on the lectern twice.

"In my opinion, the core of a game is difficulty. It is failure. It is the painful process through which you finally achieve success."

The Bishops below all looked utterly confused.

Priest Andrei continued his sermon, "The Zog Group has already released far too many games that are purely for fun. As we introduce our network, we cannot compete with them in an area where they excel.

"For us, for the great collective of the Church, the games we create should be filled with difficulty and formidable enemies, just like *Holy Mountain Journey*. Through the process of repeated failure, one strengthens their inner self and comes to understand the Goddess’s teachings more clearly.

"And so, my brothers and sisters!"

Members of the Church addressed each other as brothers and sisters. This wasn’t about age, because with long-lived races like Elves, it would be odd to call a several-hundred-year-old Elf "brother" or "sister" based on age.

The title was about status. As long as their ranks within the Church were not too far apart, they were all brothers and sisters.

Since Priest Andrei was currently a lecturer, his status was temporarily elevated closer to that of the Bishops in the room, so using this form of address was fine.

It had to be said, this young Priest really had a talent for public speaking. He was full of emotion, his tone was rich, and his words were very stirring.

That one phrase, "brothers and sisters," electrified the atmosphere in the church, as if everyone was about to dedicate themselves to a great cause together.

It was a good thing he wasn’t giving this speech in a beer hall, and that his topic wasn’t about the recent high price of bread...

"We, the Church, the Goddess’s most devout followers, need games like *Holy Mountain Journey*! Games that, through repeated blows, will temper the devout hearts of every believer and allow them to comprehend Her greatness..."

Then, Priest Andrei began to explain how to create these kinds of games—games filled with negative feedback, which only grant a moment of satisfaction after long intervals of struggle.

The elderly bishops scribbled furiously in their notebooks.

Even though more efficient recording Magic existed, making such a laborious method unnecessary.

But if they didn’t take notes diligently, how would anyone else know they were studying hard and listening attentively?

There was one exception, however.

In the last row of the large classroom—the place that typically gave rise to all sorts of "heroes and troublemakers."

A young woman dressed in a pure white robe, with not a single adornment, frowned, watching the eloquent Priest Andrei on the stage with a conflicted expression.

Within the Church, a person’s status could usually be easily distinguished by the various ornaments they wore.

Holy Rings, Blessed Earrings, Magic Pendants, Holy Necklaces, and so on—different levels of ornaments corresponded to the different levels of believers who were permitted to wear them.

A Bishop, for example, would typically have seven or eight rings on their hands and several loops of necklaces around their neck. If you took them all off and weighed them, they would probably be several pounds.

But one rank was different.

The Holy Son and Holy Daughter.

These were the candidates who could communicate directly with the Goddess.

Although in recent years, because the Goddess had hardly communicated at all, the function of the Holy Son and Holy Daughter had been somewhat diminished. But due to long-standing tradition and the uncertainty of when the Goddess might wish to speak, their status remained transcendent.

They wore no ornaments whatsoever, to represent their purity.

The rule about the Holy Son and Holy Daughter needing to be pure was most likely added by the Church itself.

From what Zog understood, the Magic Goddess likely had no such requirements regarding purity.

After all, back in the day, she wasn’t a very proper god, and stories of her various scandals were countless.

But those legends could only rot inside Zog’s big head. To speak of any of them now would be high treason, and he had no desire to get hit with an Eleven Ring Scroll again.

And right now, the one questioning Priest Andrei was Saintess Astrid.

’She had a nagging feeling that this young priest was going to lead the Church’s game development in a very strange direction.’

This judgment was based purely on intuition.

She didn’t know much about games herself.

’She just felt that games should be an upgraded version of playing house and roughhousing with friends as a child. If they were made to be all about suffering, would anyone really like them?’

’Would it affect the Goddess’s grand plan to introduce the network?’

The network initiative the Church was implementing wasn’t just about getting everyone to use it; they also had to produce content within this network system and become a force to be reckoned with online.

However, Priest Andrei’s game sales were indeed astonishing. And as a Saintess who had lived inside the Holy City since birth and never seen the outside world, she didn’t feel she could refute him based on intuition alone.

"Let’s go. We’re heading back."

Astrid stood up, preparing to leave the classroom. This was a perk of being the Saintess: if she didn’t want to listen to the lecture, she could leave. Even Bishops weren’t allowed to just skip class.

Beside her, a Holy Knight in pure white armor remained silent, following closely behind the Saintess as they left the classroom.

Astrid went to the lounge. It was her favorite place these days because a Magic Vision Device had been installed there.

It was a bit different from the Magic Vision outside, though. The programs were all broadcast on a delay. It was a feature of the Church’s Magic Vision Station that all content received from the Zog Group had to be reviewed first.

Any scenes deemed "detrimental to harmony" were not allowed to be broadcast.

Astrid sat in her usual spot, waiting for today’s episode of *Tom and Jerry*, which was a week behind the outside world’s broadcast.

But before the cartoon started, a new commercial appeared.

"Feilin’s Best Songs! Bring your creations and take the biggest stage!"

Watching the commercial, the Saintess blinked her large eyes.