Star Forge Titan

The First Witch King sent out his elite soldiers, more than 50% of whom were extraordinary.

This was the Silent Desert, not Lind or Elrond, the latter, in a sense, the culmination of centuries of extraordinary technological development. The challenges of rebuilding after the fall of the ancient empire blossomed and bore fruit in them, leading to further leaps forward.

According to the plot in Ivan's memory, these two countries can even artificially create high-level extraordinary people in the future, and finally achieve the production of "perfectors", a technological miracle that seemed almost unimaginable in the past.

Even in the new version of his experience before crossing over, higher-level clues have begun to emerge. Although the relevant plot is confusing, it highlights the idea that "I am a riddler, I don't speak human language."

But the sixth level, an evaluation level that undoubtedly surpasses the perfect ones, is clearly revealed to everyone.

A related name has been passed down from mouth to mouth. If the Perfect One is the ultimate perfection that reaches the limit of the material world, then those who go one step further can only be called - Transcendent Ones!

Retracting his thoughts, Ivan looked at Heidi, who continued to pour herself a drink. The sorceress's wrist trembled slightly as she picked up the bottle, and her lowered eyelashes also flickered slightly.

Presumably, the other person's emotions were far less calm than they appeared on the surface.

The First Witch King, a title that symbolizes the strongest person in the desert, is a huge threat to everyone.

Compared to ordinary people, transcendents can better appreciate the immense power inherent in this title. Not only does the Witch King possess unimaginably powerful strength, he also commands armies numbering in the tens of thousands, serving as the supreme ruler of an entire city-state.

To be its enemy is, in a sense, to fight against an entire city, which is far more powerful than mere human power can describe.

For centuries, anyone who opposed the Witch-King had faced destruction. Even the Fists of Freedom, a group that had resisted for decades, were nearly annihilated by the Witch-King and his army during the bloody Seven Days a dozen years ago.

Therefore, Alvin did not think that Heidi's current behavior was weak.

Instead, he was somewhat curious as to why the female sorceress would risk so much and try her best to obtain the powerful promotion ritual of the Witch King's Secret Technique.

Palladia is not the world in the novels about cultivating immortals, nor is it the mysterious world of the restraint system. Extraordinary people will not die if they do not advance. At most, their strength will remain stagnant or slowly decline with age.

Hate?

It's possible, but not very likely. Although Heidi's remarks just now were filled with anger, they were more of indignation at the other party's lack of fighting spirit. She was far from the extreme point of having to fight to the death with the other party.

money?

This was impossible. While the Golden Sands Chamber of Commerce wasn't the largest trade organization in the Silent Desert, it was undoubtedly a top-tier organization in Ismailia. As its owner, a female mage, it was unlikely to have financial problems.

power?

This was equally impossible. The amount of money gathered by the Golden Sands was definitely not small. Based on what Ivan knew about the market conditions a few years from now, purchasing an advancement qualification and the associated ceremony in the City of Thousand Towers would be a piece of cake.

But Heidi did not choose that way of advancement, but continued to wander in this cruel country where even the rain is firmly controlled by the rulers.

So, why is that?

The black-haired boy supported his cheek with one hand, leaned back in his chair, and stared deeply at the long-haired woman who was drinking strong liquor in front of him.

"Young fellow, why are you looking at me like that? Could it be that the little boy has finally grown up and begun to realize the charm of mature women?" Heidi chuckled, turned her head to take another sip of the sweet wine, and asked in a teasing tone:

Aiwen didn't care about these slightly provocative words and continued to sit in his chair:

"To be honest, you make me curious."

Chapter 89: Woman and Boy

"I'm glad to hear that, but I won't date a boy ten years younger than me."

As she spoke, Heidi filled the glass with the clear wine again and drank a big gulp of it as if it were water.

"Even after taking a swig of Grain Spring Brew Voka."

In response to the female mage's words, Alvin simply responded with a polite smile.

The so-called grain spring brewed Woka is the most common kind of wine in the North, or in the eyes of the Northlanders, it is water, a small amount of water.

Originally, this liquid was invented by a tribal witch doctor as a medicine, an external medicine to clean wounds and reduce infection.

Although the weather in the northern ice fields is cold and the probability of wound infection is lower than in other areas in most cases, the disease caused by wound infection, commonly known as "sword fever", is still a major problem that soldiers often face.

Extraordinary people can still rely on their physical strength to withstand the attack, but ordinary soldiers may not have the beast-like physique to withstand the various complications caused by wound infection.

Therefore, once the medicine that can reduce "sword fever" was invented, it quickly spread among many northern tribes.

Then, a fearless big brother appeared.

As for what this fearless brother did, it has to do with the production process of "Woka" and the raw materials used.

The external medicine called 'Woka' is a clear liquid brewed from the scarce grains in the North and the spring water flowing down from the melted snow mountains.

It looks like water, but is actually completely different from water, so it is called "a small amount of water" by the simple northern people. Later, this also became the meaning of the word "Woka" in the northern dialect.

Northern witch doctors are responsible for many tasks including sacrifices, divination, medical treatment, and educating the next generation for the entire tribe. Therefore, they are very busy every day and need to use limited time to complete as many tasks as possible.

If there is a war, they will be so busy that they wish they could grow two more arms so that they can work with four hands like the legendary Winter Titan when he built the magnificent northern mountains.

Therefore, northern witch doctors often delegate simpler tasks, such as the preparation of commonly used medicines, to their apprentices or more dexterous and relatively intelligent members of the tribe.

The witch doctor apprentice naturally knew that under normal circumstances, if external medicines were put into the mouth, it would cause big problems.

But for the relatively "smarter" members of the tribe, this intelligence is relative.

Relatively, right? That is to say, smart but not completely smart.

Anyway, when a relatively "smart" brother was brewing Woka, he started to think about all sorts of things because he was bored with the repetitive work.

Woka is brewed with grains and spring water, and the production process requires multiple distillations and filtrations. Grains are edible and rare, and the spring water flowing from the mountains is also sweet and good.

As for the filtration method, the smart tribesmen knew that even turbid muddy water could be turned into drinkable clean water after being filtered by the witch doctor using bottles and jars.

it is good!

A new chain of logic began to be established in the head of the relatively 'smart' tribal leader.

Made with edible things and delicious sweet water, and filtered many times...that's good drinking water!

So he tried taking a small sip, a big sip, a second sip, and a third sip!

Oh my god, Odin! Brother, why are you drinking this?

Is it... is it delicious?

The apprentice cried out in surprise, and behind him were several Northern warriors who had come to get medicine after being slightly injured.

However, everyone was shocked by this scene, and some people couldn't help swallowing their saliva, and hesitantly raised the above question that led to various subsequent events.

Just like that, when the witch doctor grandfather finished teaching a cultural lesson to a group of tribal kids with a headache, what he saw when he came back was a completely empty Woka bottle and a group of tribal warriors lying on the ground with red faces.

The northern man, who had been drunk all day and had nothing to do, was beaten to the ground by the old but still muscular northern witch doctor with a crutch with a medicine pot hanging on it, crying and screaming, wishing he had two more legs.

But they all agreed afterwards...

Grandpa, this thing is awesome!

It’s more powerful than the shorty’s wheat juice and the Lind woman’s grape water!

Thus, the people in the north had new 'water' to drink.

Seriously speaking, Alvin has no interest in alcohol, just like he has no interest in cigarettes.

"I'm not interested in that sense." The black-haired boy shook his head.

"It's just out of curiosity of an ally. Or, you could understand it as concern?"

"Your view of the alliance is really strange. Shouldn't the alliance be a combination of interests? Curiosity doesn't increase its credibility." Heidi said mercilessly:

At the same time, she thought to herself, how could she, who came to the desert alone to build this career, need the care of fellow villagers who are so much younger than her.

However, after hearing such words, I seemed to feel a little... happy?

"Benefits? That's certainly true of most collaborations. But in my opinion, trust is, in a sense, more reliable than pure interests."

Looking at the fire that occasionally made a crisp sound, Ivan's face illuminated by the fire revealed sincerity without a trace of falsehood. He really thought so.

"What a childish idea." Heidi chuckled, but did not laugh at the words like others did.

Likewise, Ivan had no intention of refuting the other party. A person's perspective on this matter actually depends on the environment in which they were born and raised.

As a person who grew up in an Eastern ethical and moral society, my views on things are of course different from those of people from other countries and regions, not to mention people from other worlds with completely different historical and social backgrounds.

I can do things according to my own style and my own moral standards, but there is no need to use my standards to require everyone.

Of course, the evil party is not human, and to deal with those evil and crooked ways, we need to have more flexible rules of conduct.

"Secrets make women more attractive. If you want to know about me, you might as well tell me about yourself first." Heidi finished drinking the grain spring brewed Woka in the cup, but there was no sign of drunkenness on her face, as if she was really just drinking water.

"My story is a bit complicated." Alvin paused.

Then he told the truth.

"I used to live on the other side of the continent, far away from here. For some reason, I left my hometown and found a good job in Linde, where I could also learn a lot of new knowledge."

"That sounds good. It's a good thing for young people to learn more." Heidi nodded in approval, feeling a bit of empathy.

In a sense, she herself left the barbaric and backward northern ice fields and went to the City of Thousand Towers to study, hoping to find something she had always been pursuing.

"Yeah, I think so too. Unfortunately, there are always people who can't stand the peace and tranquility of the world. They just want to see the flames burning." Ivan's voice lowered slightly, and his eyes flashed with a majestic dark golden light as he looked at the flames.

Heidi did not agree with him. At this time, simply listening was better than unnecessary words.

"I really don't understand why some people find chaos more interesting than order? What makes them think that destroying everything will allow them to gain everything?"

"If destroying something that's wrong can be considered part of the New Year's greeting, just as farmland needs to be weeded and plowed to produce more wheat seedlings in the new year, then destroying the peaceful and stable lives of most people is simply evil!"

"Sometimes, I really want to kill them all without caring about anything."

Ivan chuckled. His tone was not intense and even sounded like a casual complaint, but Heidi felt that the thoughts churning in this young man's mind were actually extremely serious.

He truly wanted to kill all the evildoers he disliked. In a sense, this was indeed very much like the Northerners' way of doing things. However, for the country and society, wasn't this actually a major security risk?

It's just... a bunch of righteous thugs running around.

"Anyway, there was a bunch of bastards who came out to stir up trouble, so I just…" Ivan clenched his fists and said with a half-joking smile:

"They were all bombed down."

"Then how did you end up in the quiet desert in the east of the continent?" Heidi asked softly, her chin in her hand and her eyes narrowed.

"There were some...little problems." Alvin scratched his cheek, looking a little embarrassed.

"Lastly, that group of people wanted to open a permanent space gate that connected to the Outer Realm Deep Hell. To destroy this gate, I drove my vehicle to Deep Hell and played a big trick on them by self-destructing my vehicle right in front of the Great Demon. While destroying the space gate, I was also sucked into the turbulent space-time flow, and thus ran here."

Are you kidding me?

Heidi expressed this meaning from her eyes to her expression.

Northern men tend to get drunk and brag after drinking Voka, and they can say anything at that time.

But I'm the one drinking Woka now, not you, right? How come you're already bragging before even taking a 'little bit of water'?

"Well, actually, there was an old, insane superhuman who wanted to stir up trouble, and there were conspirators behind him who were trying to use him to stir up even greater chaos. I couldn't stand them dragging innocent people into this, so I intervened. As a result, when a piece of magical equipment exploded, I was caught in the spatial turbulence and ended up in the Silent Desert."

After pausing for a second, Alvin turned his head slightly to look to the side and repeated his words from another angle in a dry voice.

"That's more like it, little boy. Do you know what the big devil is like? Don't joke about that kind of thing." Heidi glared at the black-haired boy in front of her, and then advised him seriously.

"Well, you're right." Alvin looked up at the ceiling. At this time, he didn't know what to say.

"Okay, ma'am, now it's your turn."

"Men who ask too many questions are not welcome." Heidi snorted in annoyance, but did not refuse directly.

"Originally, I came here because I was assigned a troublesome research task." As if recalling someone she disliked, the female mage frowned and poured herself another large glass of Woka.

"In the City of a Thousand Towers, research missions sent to remote areas are usually forcibly assigned to the least popular individuals."

"As for what kind of people would be unwelcome?"

"Ha, of course they are people who have no money, no background and are unwilling to please their superiors." Heidi sneered loudly, her tone revealing strong disgust.

"The mission itself is actually nothing special. It's just to investigate the local hydrological characteristics. Yes, to an area like the Silent Desert where there is not much rainfall, to investigate the hydrological characteristics here." A mocking expression appeared on the female mage's face.

Hydrological characteristics typically include a river's runoff, sediment content, flood season, freezing period, water self-purification capacity, ice-storm occurrence, flow velocity, and water level. These are not uncommon research topics for geographers.

However, studying hydrological characteristics in the desert is much more difficult than running to the river to measure flow.

This doesn't mean that hydrological characteristics can't be studied in the desert; it also contains groundwater, and traces of ancient river channels can be studied. In fact, the five desert city-states, including Ismailia, were built along ancient riverbeds, which increases the probability of finding groundwater.

In addition, asking a young female scholar to go alone to a remote remote area to study local hydrological characteristics does not seem like a purely assigned job at all.

It's like a former office worker in Tokyo who suddenly gets kicked off to the Hokkaido branch by their boss because they stepped into the office with their left foot first. Even if it's not the most vicious persecution, it's at least a bit like exile.

"But it's nothing. Look, I'm living a good life now. I have my own chamber of commerce, and I'm even planning to compete for the secret ceremony of the fourth-level crown wearer." Heidi spread her hands and smiled, as if she didn't care at all about what happened in the past.

"..." For some reason, although the other person was clearly smiling, Alvin felt that she didn't seem to be laughing, but rather crying.

"After I finish dealing with things here, I'll help you beat him up." The black-haired boy said seriously, saying stupid things that only high school students would say.