Abe the Wizard

A feminine voice connected to Abel’s mind, “Flora awaits your order, Master. My name is Flora, the tower spirit, and I’m also the control center of the military fort.”

“When did you get a female voice?” Abel asked.

“According to the analysis in my database, I’ve discerned that Flora is a name that belongs to a female. Thus, I’ve selected my voice to be that of a female. If you don’t like it, I can change to the voice of a male.”

“Well, sure. I mean, just keep it like this,” Abel promptly said. Actually, he liked this new voice that Flora got. If she, or it, started speaking to him like a man, that would just sound weird to him.

“Yes, Master,” Flora replied.

“Now,” Abel commanded, “I want you to control every war puppeteer on this platform. For each one of them, I want you to equip them with one rapid-fire ballista.”

Soon, the one hundred war puppets all started grabbing their own ballista. When they were done, they waited for Abel to give his next order.

Flora reminded Abel, “Please charge the puppets in time, Master. Their current power storage can only last for two hours and twenty minutes.”

Abel had something he wanted to ask first; however, “Can we hide the puppets and ballistas now, Flora?”

“Yes, Master.”

When Flora stopped talking, a large area of the platform was lifted from the ground. Land about one meter thick was lifted by metal plates that were built underneath. One hundred pits were revealed, and all the war puppets and ballistas were carried into them.

Finally, the plates went back to their original spots. It was like nothing had happened.

Wizard Cyril screamed in bewilderment, “What! What? What! I didn’t know it could do that!”

There was a reason that Wizard Cyril was this surprised. For a huge portion of their history, the dwarves had been doing countless research on the hanging fort platform. If they didn’t think that they’ve known all there was to know, they would’ve never left it in a storage room without ever using it.

In fact, Wizard Cyril’s seen the research papers himself. As far as he knew, none of the research wizards knew about this “storage function” that the hanging fort platform possessed. Actually, he wasn’t even sure if how it fit all the war puppets and ballistas in.

Did the platform contain some sort of portal device? The war puppets were built to be smaller than they should be, but they were still about three meters tall. How, then, did they all fit inside the platform? It just didn’t make any physical sense. Thankfully enough, there were still five more of the same bases left inside the Goff Family storage. Once Wizard Cyril headed back, he could always tell his subordinates to do more research.

“What did you just do, Flora?” Abel asked curiously.

Flora replied immediately, “I’ve put the puppets and ballistas inside my army storage room. At maximum, I can fit about ten thousand of them.”

“If I want to deploy the puppets right away, how long would it take?” Abel asked.

“Do you want me to enter into battle mode, Master?”

Abel nodded in response, “Sure. Do it now.”

At the base of the hanging fort platform, one hundred pillars, as thick as a human arm, were raised from the ground. They were all evenly placed across the platform, and most importantly, it didn’t even take one second for all of them to appear.

Soon, metal balls started forming at the top of these pillars. The balls then started cracking, and the small-sized war puppets and loaded ballistas came out.

“So, this is a military fort…” Abel muttered. Flora was really built for this kind of thing.

Wizard Cyril, on the other hand, couldn’t hold it anymore. Right now, he had to go back to the dwarves to report about this. They had to start completely new research into these hanging fort platforms.

Still, there was something that Wizard Cyril missed. Without the same level of spiritual intensity as Abel, the tower would never be activated.

As for Lady Carrie, she did know a little about ancient times. That being said, what she was looking at had far surpassed the stories she heard about. That didn’t matter, though. As far as she knew, it was good enough that the fort could be used without a need to ruin the garden.

Lady Carrie said to Abel, “For the plants, Grandmaster Abel, we can simply move them all to the garden now. But, for the fountain and the statues on it, we need a lot of time for the masters to make them. I can’t give you an exact amount. If the estimates are right, it should take about one or two years.”

Abel couldn’t help but frown at that. One or two years? He planned on shutting this place down as soon as all the building work was finished. After that, he was going to send the tower to a secret location (with the large-sized teleportation circle, obviously) that no one knew about. This place was going to be his secret headquarters. He couldn’t just wait for someone to carry some statues over to him.

Abel thought of something, “So, the statues and fountains. If I happen to dig some over to you, Lady Carrie, can you install them now?”

“Dig? Lady Carrie said with a weirded look, “You mean steal?”

Abel shook his head, “No, no-no-no. I know a place that has the things you mentioned. There’s no one that owns them, so it’d be perfectly fine for me to take them over to you.”

“Sure, as long as you keep them whole,” Lady Carrie said, doubting how honest Abel was to her, “We have all the people we need.”

Abel smiled, “I’ll be getting them now, then. Won’t be long.”

As he said that, Abel walked into his magic tower. When he walked in, he saw that the elven circle masters painting the runes. Since their work needed to be delicate, he decided not to interrupt them. Instead, he walked straight towards the large-sized teleportation circle. After flicking through the right setting, he teleported himself to Harvest City’s Blacksmith Union building.

When Abel came out of the Blacksmith Union building, he summoned Black Wind and went to his yard in Harvest City. He started setting up his seclusion circle to enter into the Rogue’s Encampment.

So, statues and fountains. He knew exactly where to look for them. He remembered the areas he explored in the dark world. Out of all the treasures he saw on his quest, he just couldn’t bring himself to forget the fountain that had three female archers carved on it.