Throne of Magical Arcana

The dwarves had never seen anything like that before. The scene had exceeded their ultimate imagination.

The tall buildings made them feel so small, and the star-light lights made the city look even bigger and more splendid. The civilization that the city belonged to was way more advanced than Steam Civilization.

The dwarves felt that they were facing the boundless starry sky. They were deeply shocked by how insignificant and tiny they were.

This was the power of civilization.

After a while, the elder finally sobered up and kneeled down on the ground, prostrating, although the sand was still very hot.

“Our almighty God of Steam! Your kingdom is the domain where all the gods live. Your kingdom shows the ultimate power of steam!”

Hearing the elder’s prayer, the dwarves also kneeled down in an extremely devout manner, facing the city,

“Your blessing is as vast as the ocean; your stateliness is as solemn as the great mountain.”

The solemn voice arrived again, “My name shall not be revealed to the heretics.”

It took the elder a second to comprehend the words and then he quickly repeated leading the rest of the dwarves, “The name of Master shall not be revealed to the heretics.”

The solemn voice continued, “Traitors will all be devoured by steam.”

The dwarves followed, “Anyone who betrays us will be devoured by steam.”

The voice became ethereal, “Be my people. Be my willing servants. No more slavery.”

The dwarves answered together, “Your glory above!”

The voice slowly disappeared in the air. At this time, Harold saw the city swelling in front of them and then turned into bubbles and pieces of shadow.

In the bubbles and pieces of shadow, the strange vehicles became bigger and the inner complex structure was completely revealed, including the pistons and bearings, as well as the mysterious patterns, which were totally different from that of Steam Civilization. In the bubbles and pieces of shadow, the strange metal bird also went transparent, and its structure, wires, and gears were also revealed.

In the bubbles and pieces of shadow, the structures of the tall buildings, factories, chimneys, and the land bridges were all shown to the dwarves.

…

Feeling extremely dizzy, the dwarves felt that their head was going to explode since what they were looking at had gone way beyond their comprehension.

The bubbles and pieces of shadow surrounded them, and the entire world started to ripple and fall into parts.

“I have shown you what you want, and for the rest of it, you have to find it yourself using persistence, courage, and bravery.” This was the last message left by the solemn voice.

The elder still remembered to pray despite the great dizziness, “Respected be your name. Follow your path. We shall build up your kingdom on the ground!”

The desert had completely disappeared. The space started swirling, and the dwarves passed out. After a long time, when they slowly woke up, they found themselves lying on the ground of the familiar underground cave.

“What happened?” Facing the altar, the elder felt that he was still in a dream.

Looking at the thick book in his head, Harold was confused. He had just learned how to read after the elder for two years, and therefore, it took him some time to recognize the words on the surface of the book – Elementary Mechanical Forging.

“It was real! God of Steam saved us!” Harold blurted out excitedly.

The rest of the dwarves also noticed the book. They started to cry since they finally saw hope for the first time.

At this time, all the memory came back to them:

The dwarf rebellion force found the secret cave where the Civilization of Steam used to pray to God by chance, and thus they settled down to hide here. Also, they carried on the tradition to pray to God. Today, they were attacked by the vampires and many died in the bitter fight.

When the great desperation seized them, the dwarves’ God saved them from the vampires and led them to an underground palace where the dwarves’ frescos were everywhere. When they pushed open the gate of the palace, they saw the miracle city—Atlantis, their God’s kingdom!

The Elder sighed when his memory was still in a chaos, “So the underground palace, frescos, desert, oasis, and Atlantis… They are not real. The God of Steam made our soul see them…”

In the chaos, most of the people who more or less knew about magic would guess that their memory had been modified, but the dwarves were different. They believed that what happened was a miracle revealed by their God, and therefore, they saw nothing wrong with it.

Sometimes, how powerful an illusion spell was really depended on how the caster used it.

Atlant, the Eye of Curse, once put it in his paper, “By finding one’s weakness, one can easily put fake memories into a person’s brain, even without using illusion.”

“I don’t think so… your grace!” disputed Aquinas, the leader of the rebellion force. “It exists in the Steam Paradise! One day, the will of God shall be done on earth!”

Harold still remembered what the dream city looked like, and he murmured, “I… I thought the steam city was the ultimate miracle, the most exciting place in the world, but Atlantis… Atlantis is… incredible…”

Harold did not know how to put a proper comment on it.

Another dwarf cut in, “All of the machines there are so amazing. I guess that’s how Steam Civilization will be like when it peaks… No, no… Atlantis has way surpassed the power of Steam Civilization!”

The rest of the dwarves all agreed because they had seen it with their own eyes!

A dream city!

Harold looked very excited, with his hands clenching into fists, “Atlantis… Atlantis! My dream is to build an Atlantis on the ground, even if it is only one-third of a miracle compared to the real one!”

“I can never forget the river of stars…” Myrna murmured like she was still in the beautiful dream, “What a pity… We did not see the structure of the huge metal arrow.”

“That’s right…” The dwarves were quite disappointed. After all, the destructive weapon created by their God was so powerful that it was capable of completely destroying the entire world!

“Also… we did not see the other inner structures clearly,” said Harold, feeling upset. But he soon cheered up and said, “First, we should have a solid foundation!”

Harold raised the book in his hand and found that there was a piece of parchment in the book.

It was a compact, a compact with their God.

Finishing reading the compact, the elder excitedly announced, “The Almighty God of Steam asks us to sign the compact with the City of Atlantis, as we have peeped into its secrets.”

Of course, the dwarves signed the compact without any hesitation. The compact represented the future hope that the dwarves had to get rid of their destiny as the vampires’ slaves.

Light burst out of the parchment pact. Lucien, a distance away from the dwarves, slightly nodded and then left.

It took him a lot of work to move the dwarves to the secret underground cave that he found using magic. He reordered the dwarves’ memory and then interwove some fake ones into it.

Once the dwarves had accepted the memory, it was hard for them to tell the fake from the true.

Lucien used Alferris’ blood and constructed the desert and the city called Atlantis using the fifth-circle illusion spell, Fantasy. Lucien borrowed the basic design of a metropolis on the Earth and mixed it with a number of magic symbols.

After leaving the underground cave, he looked very serious. He knew that, since the vampire bride and butler had been killed by him, the count would not easily let this go. Sooner or later, the count would find the underground palace and the space joint.

Lucien had to take care of this.

Thus, he headed for the count’s castle.

…

On the next day, in the early morning, the dwarf slaves were already working under the threat of the thick whips. The constellations were still above them.

The supervisors were not worried about the fact that Madam Tess and the butler had not come back at all because they were informed that a group of rebellion force was identified. It was more than normal that Madam Tess and the butler had to spend a few days taking care of that.

In the dark basement of the castle, in the middle of many dark magic circles, there was a bloody coffin, from which black smoke kept coming out from time to time. This was the core of the castle, the place where Count Vlad slept and cured himself.

Every time when Vlad was about to go sleep, he would fully turn on all the magic circles and traps around him to protect himself.

According to Vlad himself, the construction and design of the castle took him more than a thousand years. It was impossible to break in without activating the magic circles, even for a vampire marquis or duke. The castle was like a masterpiece in defense.

Therefore, the castle showed a relatively lower power when it came to attacking its enemies.

Madam Tess, butler Galata, and another two vampire brides knew how to reach Count Vlad.

Therefore, the best way for Lucien to kill the count would be using the two vampire brides to get Vlad out of the core basement.

Count Vlad survived in the War of Dawn. He was not an idiot. Once Lucien made a mistake and missed the best chance to kill the vampire, that would be the end of him.

Lucien could not bear even a single mistake.