Star Forge Titan

"By the way, have you chosen the destination for our first stop?" Afrediya asked cheerfully. Since this morning, she has been as active as an elementary school student who has finally made it to the day of the spring outing.

"Well, I studied the map yesterday. Our first stop is Lonely Mountain." Alvin raised his hand and pointed to a raised area on the surface of the distant blue planet that could be seen from space.

"Isn't that the location of the Dwarf Kingdom? Do you know anyone there?" Afrediya looked in the direction he pointed, and squinted her eyes slightly to see the terrain there clearly.

"I guess so. I mainly want to see the largest independent mountain terrain on the continent and take care of some things. And it's close to the north-south border of the continent, so it's very convenient to go to any country or region next time." Alvin explained, and then the two of them discussed their next sightseeing destination like a silly couple standing in front of a huge map in a subway station.

Having said that, with the eyesight of ancient dragons and Titans, they can indeed directly identify the surface image like an orbiting satellite equipped with high-precision observation and aiming equipment.

"They are truly a match made in heaven." The female magician sighed secretly and directed the maid and her fellow cat and bug sailors to transport the gifts onto the airship. The latter was also responsible for the operation of the airship.

In reality, Alvin chose Lonely Mountain, home to the Dwarven Kingdom, as his first stop not only because of a previous agreement with the Dwarves, but also to find the whereabouts of the last flawless gem. Of course, even if he had never been in a relationship before, he wouldn't have given such a dismal, unromantic reason in front of Fleur. I'm not stupid.JPG

Earth, fire, water and wind, four special man-made flawless gems related to Titans, three of which have been collected by Alvin. The Great Mystery Foundation, which is nearing completion, has already had an amazing effect. The Eternal Flame purifies the Titan's genetic factors, the Sea of ​​Miracles brings unimaginable magic reserves, and the Earth Echo, which exists as the foundation, stabilizes the entire system.

This made Alvin even more excited about the changes that would be brought about by collecting all four gems and completing the great ritual.

The power of King Uranus's soul, even a fleeting glimpse across the vast river of time, is enough to send a profound shock through the body and soul. Only such immense power could resist, and even destroy, the terrifying pure-colored superbeast that sought to devour the stars.

"Do they have names?" While Ivan was lost in thought, the delighted Afrediya had already taken his hand and dragged him onto the hot air balloon like a piece of luggage. Before leaving, the Demon King remembered that he had not yet asked the names of the two aircraft.

"The cats call them meow meow and meow meow meow."

"It sounds like there's no difference." Afrediya showed a speechless expression.

"Then let's call the airship the Traveler, and the hot air balloon..." Alvin turned his eyes and looked at the Demon King next to him, whose body was soft in every way and in some sense similar to a hot air balloon.

"How about calling it the Afredia?"

"No! It's too embarrassing!" Afrediya denied it repeatedly.

"Negation is invalid." Alvin said as he untied the cable that secured the hot air balloon.

"Afredia is setting off!"

"Wait, this is still space, how are we going to descend?" Afrediya exclaimed as she grabbed the hot air balloon basket.

"Magic, I added magic." Ivan laughed and waved his hand backwards. The power controlled by the secret of boxing - the force string was even more unreasonable than magic. It easily made the entire aircraft leave the deck and fly towards the planet Palladia, accompanied by the Demon King's screams and shouts in surprise.

When the group left the top deck in the airship and hot air balloon, the female shadow of Embra suddenly appeared there. She had become the central thinking module of the New Logillas and would be responsible for the subsequent operation of this ultra-ancient battleship.

However, Embla's gaze was now directed towards a region in the far-off Star Ring—the upper plane. As if communicating with someone or something, she whispered to herself.

"As you wish, the young ones have already started their journey."

"Yes, I will take good care of him until..."

"Ah, indeed, that is the purpose of the cradle, that is the raison d'être of Palladia."

Crossing his hands, Embra made a prayer gesture.

“May he thrive.”

Chapter 63: Simple Purpose

"Little Fire! Little Fire!"

"Pull it up! Pull it up!"

"It's going to crash! It's going to crash!"

"Stop interrupting my driving!"

"Hmm---"

……

"Are they playing some weird game?" Inside the airship, Heidi narrowed her eyes and looked at the hot air balloon bouncing up and down, looking thoughtful.

"Could it be that those two are just not good at operating flying vehicles?" Behind him, the sturdy maid Roberta made an uncertain guess.

"How could a strong man who can drive a super-large ancient war weapon be unable to handle a hot air balloon?" The female mage couldn't help laughing as she spoke.

But soon, she couldn't laugh anymore, because the hot air balloon in front of her erupted in flames from its top in full view of everyone. Then, the burned-out balloon quickly deflated, and along with the passengers' basket below, it plummeted towards the ground like a bird struck by an arrow.

As everyone stood stunned, the hot air balloon quickly rose again. However, the deflated balloon now hung limply on the side like a sheet drying on a balcony. Instead, it was Afrediya, blushing and clinging to the basket with her bare hands, who was creating lift.

Although his true form is that of a rare wingless ancient dragon, the Demon King actually possesses the ability to move in the air, a method of flying developed based on his unique ability as an ancient dragon.

Besides, apart from her dragon identity, she is also a high-level wizard after all, so casting a flying spell is no problem at all.

"It will be fixed soon. Come on, Frey, hold on a little longer." Alvin was repairing the burned airbag leisurely, and his speed was totally unlike that of a Titan who possessed the power of [Reshaping the World].

"Oh, please hurry up. I feel so ashamed like this." Afrediya whimpered like a puppy drenched in rain.

Just now, when the two of them were playing around, they failed to control the heating device of the hot air balloon properly, so the flame generated by magic power directly burned through the top of the airbag, almost causing a plane crash.

Well, considering the physical fitness of the two guys mentioned above, even if they fell directly to the ground without slowing down at all, I think there would not be any damage at all.

Aside from this incident, the landing operation (crossed out) launched from Torch Harbor went very smoothly. At this moment, the group was very close to the central mountain range where Lonely Mountain was located, and from a distance they could see the towering peak that stood alone from the surrounding mountains.

Lonely Mountain, the tallest mountain on the continent of Palladio, stands alone but has a stronger presence than the other nearby mountains. It is like a giant standing out from the crowd, extremely conspicuous.

As dusk approached, the dimming of the sky made the artificial lights around Lonely Mountain more conspicuous, but the tiny dots of light were no match for the huge flames rising from the mountain pass, just as the stars in the night sky are to the scorching sun in the daytime.

"Is that the Lonely Mountain and the legendary World Forging Furnace?" Afrediya lay on the edge of the hanging basket and looked at the huge light source in the distance that illuminated half the sky red.

"Yes, that's Lonely Mountain." Alvin stood beside her and could faintly smell the scent of her hair in the wind.

The scenery in the distance was like a beautiful painting, and the girl next to him was even more beautiful than the person in the painting.

The atmosphere suddenly became very good, and he couldn't help but want to...

hum-

A huge buzzer sounded from below, instantly breaking all the beauty of the small hot air balloon.

Along with it came the traditional loud voices of the dwarves and continuous flashes of bright light.

"Please slow down the aircraft above. We are about to enter the territory of the Kingdom of Lonely Mountain. Please stop at a fixed location and undergo immigration inspection!"

Well, today I have decided to use the power of Black Hammer Lemnos to completely raze this small lonely mountain to the ground.

The Titan descendant, with veins bulging on his forehead, coughed lightly to suppress his anger. Then he discovered that the flashing light actually used the communication method between ships at sea, that is, using flashes of different frequencies to transmit information over long distances, and the content was the same as the shouting he had just heard.

Two standard hot air balloons approached from both sides, their envelopes emblazoned with the symbol of the Dwarven Kingdom of the Lonely Mountain—a simple, bearded dwarf wearing a helmet. Considering the close exchanges between the Dwarven Kingdom of the Lonely Mountain and the Central Empire of Linde, and the relatively simple technical requirements for hot air ballooning, it was only natural for the Dwarves to develop their own aerial mobile forces.

Of course, due to limited development time, the Dwarven Aerial Force is still very rudimentary. Their aircraft still use soft airbags, which are slow to ascend and descend, with a limited payload capacity. Safety issues also need to be considered in windy weather. Communication between them is either through lights or shouting.

In addition, the severe cold at high altitude made the dwarves on board look as if they had gained three times more weight out of thin air, and even their ears were tightly wrapped in fur hats.

Moreover, if Alvin remembered correctly, the dwarves who had lived underground for a long time seemed to have a strange fear of the sky.

"Except for the branch of the Fire Realm, aren't all the dwarves of Lonely Mountain afraid of heights? They can actually find people to fly hot air balloons into the sky." Afrediya obviously knew this, and she couldn't help but complain the moment she saw the hot air balloon of the Dwarf Kingdom.

"There are always a few exceptions in every group. Considering the number of dwarves in Lonely Mountain, it shouldn't be too difficult to find some who are not afraid of heights." Ivan shrugged and raised his hand to reduce the power of the hot air balloon's heating device. The cooling of the gas inside the balloon also caused the hot air balloon's altitude to drop synchronously.

Behind them, the Voyager airship performed the same maneuver. However, unlike the hot air balloon Afredia, the method for a rigid airship like the Voyager to lower its altitude was relatively complex, often requiring the onboard mage to summon pure water from the water elemental plane to fill the water storage chamber, thereby increasing the hull's mass and using gravity to descend.

The advantage of this approach is that it doesn't require frequent inflation and deflation of the airbags. The disadvantage is that the descent speed is limited by the spellcasting level of the onboard wizard, and it also takes up some of the carrying capacity. Fortunately, Heidi's spellcasting level is obviously very good.

Then, the two vehicles landed one after the other at the designated location, a special area circled by an indicator made of glowing fluorescent stone.

"Are you... tourists?" The dwarf civil servant who came over to register their information couldn't help but feel a little surprised when he saw the two people on the hot air balloon with empty hands and without any gifts.

After taking a look at the Voyager that landed later, he showed a look of sudden enlightenment, and sighed in his heart that young people nowadays are really good at romance.

In addition, the cat-and-bug sailors pouring out from the Traveler also caught the dwarves in charge of registration there off guard.

The scene was very chaotic for a while until an old and steady dwarf shouted loudly.

"Everyone stop! Those of you who don't know the furries stand on the left, and the humans stand on the right. Take turns registering!"

Ivan and Afrediya exchanged a glance and couldn't help but smile. Although they were both high-level transcendents, they accepted the inspection and registration quite normally. This was a sign of respect for the established and reasonable order and a manifestation of personal upbringing.

However, something unexpected happened during the immigration registration process. Afrediya smiled sweetly and casually said it was just a "honeymoon trip." But after a moment's reflection, Ivan looked at the dwarf elder with a serious expression.

"If I said that the purpose of this trip was to maintain the Creation Furnace, would you believe me?"

In an instant, the entire checkpoint fell silent.

pat-

The old dwarf was stunned, and the pipe in his mouth fell out of his hand and hit the ground, splashing a cluster of sparks.

Chapter 64: Citizen Avenue

As early as in his previous life, a good brother warned Alvin, who was still a student at the time, not to think about being in the spotlight when doing things, or to put it more directly, not to show off.

This statement does make some sense. If you want to stand out, you may take an extreme approach and tend to make choices with high uncertainty, thus ignoring the success rate of the matter itself.

But the situation is different now. Alvin is just a stranger to most dwarves. To use game terms, his reputation level in the Lonely Mountain Kingdom is not high enough and is still at the indifferent level.

Imagine a stranger entering a country for the first time and asking if their nuclear power plant is about to explode? Come on, I'm good at waxing, polishing, and maintaining nuclear reactors.

When a normal person sees this kind of thing, their first reaction is definitely disbelief, and then they will most likely choose to call the police or call the hospital, um, call the mental hospital.

So, sometimes it is necessary to show off one's prowess in front of others...?

By the way, the reason why the good brother made that advice in the previous life was because someone cheated and refused to admit it during the National Robot Competition (also known as Carrot Master). As a result, Alvin, who was a young and energetic student at the time, wrote an OS on the spot and let the participating automatic engineering robots perform a manual version of the Mechanical Crisis on the spot, that is, robots beating people and chickens.

The medical examination documents issued by the hospital afterwards proved that even though the robotic arm was originally used to clamp ping-pong balls, it could also clamp other spherical objects with the same precision and strength (pinching five fingers.JPG).

"So, this is why a statue of me suddenly appeared on Central Citizen Boulevard, causing traffic congestion?" Oriogo, the then Dwarf King nicknamed 'Golden Beard', was looking at the cabinet minister below who was hesitant to speak with a look of toothache on his face.

"General Grip, who is in charge of the border guard, did report it this way." The dwarf cabinet minister named Docot sighed.

Through the window of the Dwarf King's study, the two could vaguely see an exquisitely carved stone statue that had suddenly appeared on the Central Citizen Avenue in the distance.

Its appearance is so lifelike that the dwarf king Oriogo could tell from a distance that the statue's shape was based on the first batch of dwarf gold coins with his portrait printed on them, which were issued more than 30 years ago.

"Well, at least the person who did this has excellent skills and acceptable aesthetics." Oriogo shook his head. Although his tone revealed helplessness and fatigue, the corners of his mouth subconsciously rose slightly.

As the Dwarf King, he is also a dwarf. No dwarf would not like exquisite stone carvings and exquisitely crafted metal products.

But soon, a heavy look of worry returned to Oriogo's face. The extinguishing of the World Forge and the overflowing of the magma river beneath Lonely Mountain—these unsolvable problems weighed heavily on the Dwarf King.

The Longbeard Council has recommended mobilizing the most elite dwarven warriors to form a death squad, risking their lives to penetrate the inner layers of the World Forge and investigate the anomalous events there. If this proves impossible, the dwarves will be forced to abandon their long-standing homeland and embark on a long journey of migration.

Perhaps sensing the Dwarf King's concern, the Chief Cabinet Minister calmly changed the subject.

"Indeed, I noticed this when I was passing through Central Avenue. Although the people were complaining about the sudden appearance of a giant stone statue on the road, they also praised its exquisite craftsmanship."

"Then, my Lord Know-It-All, please go in person and invite in the outsider who claims to be able to solve the problem of the World Forging Furnace." Oriogo's tone sounded very hesitant and conflicted.

"Although it sounds like the ravings of a madman, if what the visitor says is true, perhaps the kingdom will welcome a noble man of unparalleled dignity." Recalling the intelligence he received a few months ago, the Dwarf King's expression became more solemn.

"Oh?" Cabinet Minister Docot, who was nicknamed the know-it-all, couldn't help but raise his gray eyebrows.

"That's really something to look forward to."

Of course, Alvin, who had already crossed the Central Citizen Avenue, was unaware of the conversation that took place in the Dwarf King's Court.

At this moment, he was surrounded by over 200 heavily armored dwarf warriors. But just like the border guards, these people were completely unable to stop the Titan's bloodline's advance, so the scene looked less like a siege and more like an escort.

Furthermore, even fully armed with enchanted steel shields and clad in heavy dwarven defender armor that revealed only their eyes, hundreds of seasoned warriors remained uneasy and agitated. Considering how Ivan had previously fashioned a thirty-meter-tall stone statue with his bare hands and then flung it onto the central avenue with mere physical strength, without causing any casualties, the dwarves' current behavior was entirely understandable.

They directly judged that the other party was most likely a strange and powerful person who had reached the level of a fourth-level crowned person.

"If I had known that your 'something' would turn out like this, I would have sent a diplomatic note directly in the official name of Elrond." Afrediya, who was also surrounded, sighed. It seemed that her plan to tour the Lonely Mountain Kingdom like an ordinary tourist was ruined.

"Then we have to follow the process step by step. I don't know the specific situation of the World Forge Furnace right now, but since we have decided to solve this problem, time is of the essence."

Ivan was the type to knock out his summer homework right at the start of the holiday. That was why he planned to tackle the World Forge problem before visiting the Lonely Mountain Kingdom.

Because the situation was unclear, Heidi and the other cats and bugs remained on the Voyager. In the event of a magma eruption beneath Lonely Mountain, they would immediately evacuate. As for the ancient dragon and the Titan left behind, they were likely able to swim out even if they were submerged in the lava.

At this moment, the scenery around them was filled with exotic scenery. Everywhere they looked, they could see various ingeniously designed stone cave buildings and sharply dwarven-style sculptures. In fact, the latter were not simply decorative. The dwarves often integrated various common devices into the sculptures, such as being able to open a locked door with a snap of the fingers.

Furthermore, after a long period of development, even the massive Lonely Mountain has been dug out by the Dwarves, leaving it practically a hollow mountain. For example, above the main city area, where Central Civic Boulevard is located, the Dwarves have used their ingenious skycraft to carve a massive "skylight" large enough to allow direct sunlight to stream in. Combined with the surrounding metal reflective layers that diffuse the light, this is enough to allow daylight to reach the underground Dwarven Kingdom.

By the way, it was from there that Alvin threw the stone statue directly into the main city area, shocking a large number of dwarves in one fell swoop.

Well, maybe you could call it intimidation...

Click click click.

Suddenly, uniform heavy footsteps were heard from the front. They were a group of warriors whose equipment was better than that of the dwarf heavy defenders.

The Iron-Footed Guards, the Dwarf King's personal guard, though limited in number, were all transcendent beings who had completed the rite of ascension. Behind these guards followed several massive war machines that belched black smoke and white mist. These were heavy chariots designed and developed by the Dwarf Kingdom after adopting Linde's magical engineering. While not as adept at magical technology as Linde's, they utilized superior steam engines and were equipped with large-caliber alchemical cannons.

As for the front of the queue, there was an old dwarf riding a goat.

Unlike the others, this old man was not dressed in armor, but in traditional dwarven attire. He wore almost no metal objects on his body, except for a few beard rings made of gold, silver and ceramic on his beard.