Star Forge Titan

The Wisdom Slate, a portable, multifunctional control port modeled after a lepton terminal, is akin to a smartphone. It integrates the Titans' research on Titan artifacts. Furthermore, it serves as a symbol of high-level authority, effectively controlling most products of magical engineering.

The prerequisite is that the magical engineering artifact has remote control function, or reaches a certain level.

Currently, the Ancient Empire has developed very advanced magical engineering based on the technology inherited from the Giant Kingdom, but the theoretical basis of the two civilizations is not much different, or in other words, the underlying source code used is similar or even the same.

While it's unclear whether the Ancient Empire knew of this, traces of Giant Kingdom technology can be found in their remaining artifacts. The reason the Wisdom Slate in Ivan's hand can directly grant high-level management privileges to the Four-Winged Whirl Bee is because of the content written directly at the bottom of the fixed spell equation.

By the way, this miniature golden drone is actually a backup branch of the four-winged rotor bee's central system. It was originally used to build new drone factories, or nests.

Afterwards, engineering drones will use it as the core to complete the construction of the new factory, and this "golden bee" will be transformed into the command and management system of the drone team, and will be responsible for communicating with the main base to convey various specific commands.

Compared with the bee colony structure in biology, its positioning is the next generation queen of the four-winged whirligig bee.

But in Alvin's opinion, this little guy was quite unique and should be a suitable gift for a girl. Other factors were less important. As expected, whether it was a female dragon or a woman, the sight of something shiny and golden always made them lose their balance.

Besides, Ivan certainly wouldn't be so stupid as to go out with only one drone. You know, there are two girls waiting eagerly outside.

For Diana, beautiful and exquisite things are not so appealing, so someone directly took an unactivated "Soldier Bee" from the production line.

The real positioning of this thing should be a security drone, mainly used to maintain public security in the environment near the drone factory, so most of the weapons it is equipped with are non-lethal, with only a small-caliber magic gun installed under the fuselage.

"Oh, it's a new technology I've never seen before! It looks great too, perfect for putting it in a treasure pile!"

Grabbing the golden drone with her bare hands like catching a sparrow, Afrediya looked it over and gave a direct evaluation with shining eyes, without a trace of disguise or feigned indifference.

Honestly, when she wasn't acting like a demon lord, I was worried about her being deceived or something. Although I knew that was impossible, her straightforward personality and soft appearance were too deceptive, the kind of deception that could deceive people with strong special attack abilities.

As for Diana, she mustered all her courage and hugged Ivan, leaving Afredia, watching nearby, stunned. But before the Demon King could leap up and roar, the silver-haired girl flung the drone away, blushing. Then, she began to examine the unprecedented magical engineering artifact in her hands, as absorbed as a modeler who had just received a brand-new model.

"I can't even complain about this." Afrediya puffed her cheeks and kicked Ivan, who was also a little shocked. The latter touched his head and smiled, which made the former want to kick him again.

Besides these two, Ivan also brought a gift for Marian: a newly-made medical drone...with a first aid kit mounted on it. The little girl looked bewildered, a stark contrast to her mature, determined self.

"Thank you." Marian accepted the first aid kit awkwardly, with a conflicted look on her face.

"What's wrong? Don't you like it?" Alvin and Afrediya looked at each other, and then, encouraged by the devil's cheering gaze, deliberately teased the child.

"No, no! It's just that I feel like I didn't do anything, and this thing is very precious." Marian stammered in a low voice.

"I will do my best to be the tour guide from now on! There will be no problem leaving it to Marian!" The girl clenched her fists and looked very serious.

It can be seen that although she felt embarrassed, she really wanted this box of medicine, so she said this.

Ivan suddenly felt curious. Logically, the harsh and brutal environment of the Broken Sun Wasteland would likely make people extremely utilitarian, even selfish. This wasn't even a moral issue, but an inevitable trend caused by objective reality. So, encountering a selfish or utilitarian person wouldn't be surprising. However, Marian's moral values ​​and sense of right and wrong were much higher than he had expected from a wastelander.

She was only in her early teens, yet she was willing to risk her life rescuing a complete stranger. If it was just a bit of curiosity at first, after a moment's thought, Ivan quickly put away his joking expression.

Even with the loss of civilization, Marianne and her people hadn't degenerated into barbarians completely ignorant of propriety, morality, and honor. Such behavior was indeed befitting of the remnants of an ancient empire. But no matter what, she was still only eleven years old.

A soft bed, warm food, clean clothes, even if none of the above is available. What is suitable for a ten-year-old child is not a cold steel prosthetic limb.

"Is life hard for Amo Liren?" Ivan asked in a low voice.

"Hmm." Marian subconsciously glanced at the new prosthetic limb that gleamed silver. Although she only uttered one syllable, the meaning contained in it was extremely heavy.

"I understand." Alvin closed his eyes and said no more.

Marian hesitated for a moment, but in the end said nothing. She just bowed respectfully to Ivan and ran to pack up her luggage and other belongings.

After the girl disappeared, Afrediya, who had been pretending to study the golden drone, suddenly snorted softly. She tossed the drone into the birdcage and hugged the tall boy from behind.

"Are you going to casually take on responsibilities that don't belong to you again?" Although it sounded like she was blaming him, there was no blame in her words. Instead, her cheeks flushed slightly.

"Well, maybe that's my nature. Sometimes, I also feel like I'm a very troublesome guy." Alvin shrugged, still with a smile on his face.

"Sorry, Fleur, we might be back later."

The young Titan opened his eyes again and looked into the distance.

He saw the desolate land, the ruined civilization, and the hideous scars that covered the entire planet. Even after eighty years, blood still flowed continuously from it, dragging every living life into the dark vortex formed by endless difficulties.

"It will be very hard, right?" Fleur's gentle voice came from my ear.

"Yeah." Alvin nodded.

"Maybe it'll take a whole week."

"..." Hearing this, Frey's hands tightened subconsciously. The expression on her face was confused at first, then speechless, and finally helpless and somewhat numb as if she was used to it.

"You guy, sometimes you really have no self-awareness." His Majesty the Demon King gritted his teeth, feeling that all his worries just now were put on the dog, and finally he couldn't hold back the urge to complain rising in his heart.

"Huh?" Ivan, who was suddenly 'scolded', stood there in confusion.

"In terms of arrogance!"

Chapter 202: Praise of Wisdom

After a few moments of playfulness, Afrediya regained her composure.

"So, my knight, while you're picking beautiful 'flowers' for the lady, do you remember the dangerous place you first set out to? Haha." At this point, the deliberately pretentious Demon King couldn't help but laugh.

"Ahem, what's the goal of heading to that ruin?"

"Of course." Alvin shrugged, deliberately imitating the ogre's vague accent.

According to the tropes of adventure novels, it's not surprising that the Demon King's "knights" are ogres, right? At worst, they could be two-headed.

"How annoying." Feeling teased, Frey immediately fought back, slapping him on the back with a force that could have sent an adult flying.

"Anyway, something is indeed wrong." The unaware young Titan rubbed his chin, looking thoughtful.

"Oh?" Fulei raised her eyebrows, becoming more certain of her guess.

"When I first entered, I noticed that many parts of the hive looked exceptionally...new?"

"In other words, it might have been rebuilt recently?" Afrediya looked back meaningfully in the direction they had just come from, where the remains of the great beast god's head were located.

"Well, do you see that the color over there is lighter? It's at the foundation in the lower left corner, that area that's more than ten meters high and three meters wide." Alvin used his finger to draw an irregular shape in the air.

“It looks obviously different from the surrounding area.”

"Indeed." Afrediya nodded slightly. Thinking about what she had heard before, she realized that there was a deep connection between the two.

"I suspect something has been removed from this part of the ruins. Their motives aren't hard to guess. Even though the entire land is scarred by war, there are still ambitious individuals trying to access the power that once destroyed the world." Ivan curled his lips, then continued in a more relaxed tone.

"Of course, it's also possible that kind-hearted individuals hid those key items in advance to prevent ambitious individuals from exploiting the Great Beast God's power. The true situation, perhaps only God knows."

"My knight, you don't look worried at all." Hearing these words that were more like a joke, Afrediya, who was familiar with the other person's character, couldn't help but punch his shoulder and her tone also relaxed.

"Ah, because I have roughly guessed what the so-called Great Beast God is." Alvin smiled and said no more.

Afrediya was quite dissatisfied with his suspenseful behavior and began to act shady, but a fake cough from the side interrupted the pre-casting of the spell. The demon king turned around and glared at him, but saw the silver-haired girl pretending not to see and pointing at the restarted eight-legged stone chewer.

"You really like this machine." Seeing that the atmosphere was becoming dangerous, Alvin quickly changed the subject.

"Yeah." Diana nodded without hesitation, and then for the first time she spoke a lot of words, all professional terms like engine output and efficiency conversion, which was completely different from her usual taciturn appearance.

"If you like it so much, just live upstairs." Afrediya snorted unhappily. Instead of getting angry, Diana's eyes lit up and she lowered her head to silently calculate the possibility of building an illegal structure on top.

"Ah? Are you serious?" The devil stood there in a daze, even feeling a little guilty.

"It's not impossible." Alvin stood aside with his chin in his hand, his eyes showing an eager look.

"...Damn it, it feels like I'm the only one who can't do it." Afrediya stomped her feet, puffed her face and strangled Ivan from behind to prevent him from taking any further action.

The three of them dawdled their way back to the Octopus Stonecruncher. Diana glanced at the smug Frey with a hint of displeasure, then slammed the hatch shut and returned to the interior to pilot the machine. After completely formatting the automatic control system, she had to utilize the Armored Knight's magical resonance ability to force the machine into startup mode.

"Ah, so you're one of those serious types who's easily manipulated." Afrediya smirked, her cheeks twitching in a particularly 'evil' way. At this moment, she finally had some of the aura of a demon king.

"Don't lead the child astray." Alvin held his forehead and sighed. Marian next to him had a stern face, probably thinking about questions like 'what expression should I show at this time so as not to be rude'.

The area the three of them were in was directly above the head of the eight-legged rock chewer. This was supposed to be a temporary platform for people to ride on, and there was even a railing around it. Therefore, people could easily stand inside, and after getting used to it, it felt like traveling in an RV, albeit one with legs instead of wheels.

Leaning on the railing and gazing into the distance, Alvin thought for a moment and asked in a chatty tone:

"Marian, what are the particularly powerful forces in the Broken Sun Wasteland?"

"Huh?" The girl was obviously unprepared for this. She looked at Ivan in confusion but did not answer immediately.

"We come from a very remote place, so we want to know the general layout of the Broken Sun Wasteland." Ivan smiled, but the reason he gave was unconvincing.

But since he'd asked Xiangqian that question, he naturally didn't intend to hide his identity too much. Judging from Marian's reaction, she probably had some idea. He just didn't know if she'd misunderstood him, perhaps mistakenly thinking he was some kind of Sky-God...

"The surviving Amori people are divided into several tribes. Because they need to move to avoid the giant iron hand when they are close together, they only communicate when they meet by chance."

"But even though we are all human, bad things sometimes happen. That is, um, the information obtained through peaceful exchanges cannot be completely certain. Some information may be useful when heard, but it will be completely outdated in a few days." Marian did not remain silent for too long. Although she stammered a little, she still began to try to tell what she knew.

"My tribe is called the Sumuabum. We've retained some of the knowledge and skills passed down from before the war. Overall, life is pretty good. We're one of the larger tribes around here."

"Apart from nomadic tribes, do you have other forms of settlements here? For example, those that settle permanently."

"I've never heard of a tribe that can stay in one place for a long time. Some iron beasts, especially those giant iron beasts as big as mountains, have irregular routes of movement. If the 'eagles' scattered by the tribe find an iron beast approaching, the entire tribe must migrate immediately, otherwise..." Marian did not continue, but her meaning was very clear.

Iron beasts infected with the mad virus will attack all humans within their range. Even small iron beasts like the four-winged whirlwind bee are dangerous, not to mention other models that are countless times larger than them.

According to Marian, even the three-story-tall mountain spider beneath her, the engineering magic machine - the eight-legged stone chewer, was still no match for the so-called giant iron beast.

"In addition, some people will form gangs to rob everywhere. Those people are particularly bad, bad to the core. They will even kill all the women and children. You know, even if there is a war between tribes, the victor will not kill all the women and children of the loser." Marian stomped her feet in indignation, clenching her hands tightly. It was obvious that she was not only angry because of hearing about the atrocities of the gangs.

Alvin was tactful enough not to ask any more questions and changed the topic to something else.

"In that case, do the people of Amoli have anything in common to believe in? For example, the Sky-supporting God you mentioned earlier."

"..." Marianne gave him a very strange look, as if she couldn't help asking something, but in the end she said nothing, but just spoke slowly after a long silence.

"Most people regard the legends of the Sky-Bearing God and the Gate of God as mere stories. As for the gods worshipped by the tribe, they have always been the God of Wisdom from the beginning to the present."

"Huh?" The familiar name made Ivan immediately serious, and Afrediya also gave him a surprised look.

"Does this god of wisdom that you believe in have a specific name?" Alvin asked the question cautiously.

The ancient god of wisdom worshipped by the Palladian Church of Knowledge doesn't have a specific name, but rather simply refers to himself as "Wisdom." So, what name would this being known as the "God of Wisdom" have in this unknown land where the ancient empire once migrated?

"Oh, are there other gods of wisdom somewhere else?" Marian was extremely surprised.

"In short, the God of Wisdom worshipped by our Sumuabum tribe has only one name."

The little girl raised her hand and drew a square pattern in front of her, which seemed to represent books.

"Praise the light of ancient wisdom..."

"Praise Ishtori!"

Chapter 203: Smoke of War

"Huh?" Afrediya immediately turned her head to look at Ivan, obviously recognizing the origin of the name.

"This is really a..." Alvin scratched his head, but did not seem too surprised.

"That's the expected answer."

To be honest, he had already speculated about the identity of the God of Wisdom. The information he learned from the survivors of the ancient empire only provided decisive evidence.

Thousands of years ago, the fifth stage was still just a concept, and the path to transcendence itself was still in its infancy. However, the more powerful fourth-level upper-level transcendents could easily survive for hundreds of years.

Considering the Giant Kingdom had collected a considerable amount of Titan relics, even if most were of no importance to Titans and were stored in the Third Heritage Agency, it was possible that some were circulating. Ivan wouldn't be too surprised if some of these items granted their owners a long lifespan.

In addition, there seems to be a reasonable explanation for the fact that the technological development of the Ancient Empire was able to break away from the old technological barriers of the Giant Kingdom and advance magical engineering into unprecedented new areas.

Was Ishtarri guiding the development of subsequent civilizations? And why? One question was answered, but it only raised more questions. Ivan silently took all of this to heart, waiting to meet the riddler in person to thoroughly question him.

"A few kilometers ahead is the settlement of the Sumuabum tribe." Marian suddenly stood up and pointed ahead.

"Well, I'll go tell that thieving cat behind the wheel, lest this thing startle the locals." Afrediya opened the hatch and jumped in, causing Ivan to worry about a fight breaking out inside the cab. But the Demon King was too quick, and before he could even come up with an excuse, he'd already escaped.

However, this point does require some caution. Considering the sheer size of the Industrial Magic Machine Octopus Stonecruncher, the vibrations caused by its daily movements alone are enough to cause panic. While our moral standards aren't saintly, they're at least above average. Furthermore, they're here to gather intelligence, not to intimidate the locals. Fear brings no benefit, and only unnecessary trouble.

Do not add entities unless necessary.

Soon, the eight-legged rock chewer, hypnotized and brainwashed (the fog), came to a stop beneath an overpass. The Stonenet Wasteland was dotted with these elevated urban transportation networks, resembling an eerie urban area stripped of its skyscrapers and left with only the highways.

Afredia and Diana left the engineering magic machine one after the other. Aside from a slight hiccup due to one person's prominence, no other problems occurred. A closer look revealed no bruises or scratches on either person's face. Anyway, it was good that they didn't fight...

"To be honest, I suspect this mountain spider has been spotted by the 'eagles' sent out by the tribe," Marian said with a bit of hesitation.

"It's nothing. We just don't want to alarm the majority of people. It doesn't matter if a few people know about it." Alvin was very relaxed.

"Yes, rather, that would actually be more conducive to negotiations." The pink-black Demon Lord said with a smile:

Diana remained silent, her gaze darting towards a distant overpass. A fleeting flash of light could be seen there, likely a reflection from the telescope's outward-facing lens. After hearing the conversation between Ivan and Afrediya, she averted her gaze and removed her hand from the magic spear tucked at her waist.

"Okay." Marianne nodded, not quite understanding.

The group walked along the shadow of the viaduct, where the temperature was noticeably lower than it had been on the overpass. Ivan noticed that although Marian was wrapped in a patched cloak, the edges showed obvious signs of wear and tear, with threads dangling from it, like a lich's robe, worn and threaded for countless years.