Chapter 1183: Research
Abel was stunned as soon as he entered the door.
He was in a huge cave, but all the walls were smooth like a room.
The area was 40 meters tall and covered thousands of square meters. There were also countless magic circles around to support it from collapsing.
However, what stunned Abel the most was what stood within 20 twenty meters tall iron puppets.
Abel saw many puppets in the past. Frankenstein’s body, for example, was a human-size puppet.
He also encountered some 10 meters tall puppets, but they were all nothing compared to what stood in front of him.
Not because of the height, but the material.
As a grandmaster Blacksmith, no one in the world knew more about materials than him. He could clearly tell they were the materials of his battle forts, an ancient wall machine.
Those 20 giant puppets were the remains of ancient wars, and they were most likely used in the front line considering their heights.
You could tell how scary the war of ancient times was just by looking at them.
“Grandmaster Bennett, these 20 ancient puppets are the most powerful war machines of us dwarves. It is too bad they are all damaged more or less during the Demon from Beyond’s first invasion. Although most damage can be repaired with gems, some of them can not!” King Gunther sighed.
“Majesty Gunther, I don’t know much about ancient puppets!” Abel shook his head.
“Grandmaster, we have been researching ancient puppets since the dawn of time. Although we still can not replicate them, we found some repairing methods!” King Gunther smiled.
Afterward, he bowed and suggested Abel approach the ancient puppets.
“We have 20 ancient puppets, but only 5 of them are in working conditions. 2 of them having lost their fighting power. The other 15 have lost all functions, but we finally found the reason for that!” King Gunther pointed and said.
“The reason?” Abel asked curiously.
“Actually, the spirits inside those puppets were damaged before we found them. But this also gave us the opportunity to study them. We invited many spirit makers, but they all failed to replicate the power of an ancient spirit. Finally, we are able to get them functioning again by replicating the spirit’s operating system with a manual operating system. Although it was not as powerful, it still allowed us to go to war with them.
“Because of our alteration, the original operating system of these puppets is lost and they can no longer repair themselves. After the war, we discovered that most of our manual operation systems were damaged. So, the only way to repair them is through a Grandmaster alchemist!” King Gunther did not hold back.
They were all secrets of the dwarves. They were what kept the dwarves at peace.
But with only 3 of them in functioning condition, they were actually nowhere as powerful as they looked.
However, the dwarves had no choice. If there was a spirit inside those puppets, they would not even be able to study them.
Once the spirit of an ancient war machine ran out of energy, they would shut off and forbade anyone from entering. The machine would basically become a piece of junk.
Therefore, the dwarves were lucky to have the opportunity to study them and finally grasped a method to control them.
Abel thought for a moment. Perhaps those 20 ancient puppets were all damaged at once by the same attack in ancient times. They were damaged very similarly.
As powerful as the dwarves were, they were still a little behind compared to the ancients.
Their alterations have drastically reduced the defense of those puppets.
From Abel’s knowledge of his battle forts, the weakness of an ancient war machine was their operation system. It was made with a special type of alchemy material, and it was the only thing that could regenerate once it was damaged.
Therefore, a war machine with a damaged operating system was a useless war machine.
It seemed like this was what happened to those ancient puppets, but still, Abel just didn’t have much knowledge when it came to ancient war machines. He was too scared to take apart a battle fort at the end of the day.
Although he was already a grandmaster alchemist, his knowledge of metallurgy was still behind the dwarves. He only picked it from the dwarves when he was making alchemy materials from the dwarves not long ago.
“Majesty, I’ll give it a go but I can’t promise anything!” Abel did not react. He was very interested in the thousands of years of research from the dwarves nevertheless.
“Haha, Grandmaster, I’m happy to hear that!” King Gunther laughed.
He was very confident in Abel, even more than Abel himself. He was the only grandmaster alchemist in the past thousands of years. If Abel couldn’t, no one could.
Suddenly, an old dwarf covered in dust jumped down from one of the ancient puppets.
Abel focused on him. He was an almost master Metallurgist, one that was on the brink of leveling up.
Abel never saw a metallurgist this powerful. Although he heard about them in rumors, he never believed someone could become a master just from metallurgy alone.
As you know, top-level materials were extremely rare. Unlike herbs for top-level potions, they could not be grown. Their numbers in the world were set.
The dwarves have been mining metallurgy materials since the dawn of time, but most of them were low in ranks.
This was why becoming a master metallurgist was almost impossible.
“Hobson greeting Grandmaster Bennett !” the metallurgist turned to Abel with his eyes sparkling in excitement.
“Grandmaster, please excuse him, he is a little too excited!” King Gunther gave Metallurgist Hobson a threatening look.
“No worries, greetings Metallurgist Hobson!” Abel didn’t mind. Instead, he smiled and gently bowed.
“Grandmaster, I’m sorry I’ve lost my manners. I was in retreat the last time you visited the Furnace Fort. I’ve regretted ever since, especially since you became a grandmaster alchemist after that!” Metallurgist Hobson stabilized his mood and said.
“Hobson is the most knowledgeable person when it comes to ancient puppets. He has dedicated his whole life to it!” King Gunther introduced.
“Metallurgist Hobson, can you tell me more about ancient puppets?” Abel turned and asked after hearing King Gunther’s introduction.
“Grandmaster, we have been researching for countless years and we have many conclusions. All the puppets you see today steams from these!” Metallurgist Hobson placed his hand on an ancient puppet and said.
Suddenly, everything became clear to Abel.
“To be honest, our understanding of them is still on the surface level. We still can not replicate their fundamentals. Just take their materials for example. We speculate that they are probably made from the bones of powerful creatures, but we just can not replicate them!” Metallurgist Hobson continued.
“How come?” Abel asked.
He was very curious. He, too, wanted to research them, but he just never had the time. Training was the top priority to him at the end of the day.
“We also found some bones in an ancient sight. Through our a.n.a.lysis, we believe they are the original material of the ancient puppets. But, do you know what creature they belonged to?
The metallurgist did not wait for Abel to answer as he immediately added, “A legendary level monster. If we try to hunt them down, we will just die!”
Abel couldn’t help but think of his ancient submarines. Maybe that was what it was for.
Perhaps the entire ocean was a huge area for resource exploitation in ancient times. After all, only the ocean had that many giant legendary monsters.
Considering the size of those ancient war machines and the size of a legendary wizard. They might not be able to make a single battle fort even if they killed all the legendary wizards in the world.
“What about the main operating system, what is it made out of?” Abel asked again.
“I’m sorry grandmaster, we couldn’t identify it. But a Grandmaster alchemist has the power to repair it!” Metallurgist Hobson said.
“Let me see it!” Abel gained a bit of confidence and said.
King Gunther smiled from the side, and he did not interrupt. Even metallurgist Hobson seemed to forget about him as he led Abel on an ancient puppet through a ladder from the back.
When they reached the top, metallurgist Hobson explained, “The weakness of the ancient puppet is not the head, but the back!”
He then reached out his hand and pressed on the back of the ancient puppet to expose the internals.
The first thing Abel saw was a cracked flat board with a tightly drawn pattern.
There was a normal magic operation board made out of ordinary material placed on top of the flat board.
It must be an alteration the dwarves made to the operation system, but Abel had no idea how long it took the dwarves to make them.
This really did affect the power of the original operating system. Once it was attacked, it would be damaged even more.
However, the dwarves did what they had to do. If not, these machines couldn’t go into war.