Hoover was gone. He didn’t even get to stay till the end of this gathering event.
As calm as Abel appeared to be, he was absolute fuming on the inside. He didn’t become a baron by cheating. He had to risk his life many times for it. He fought against the orcs. He had to sacrifice his own men. He went through all that, but all the rewards he got were taken away from him.
Obviously, he knew that this whole “operation” was not run by Liandre George himself. As dumb as that king was, he would’ve never tried to cross a wizard/ master blacksmith like him, especially given how connected he was to multiple important figures across the Holy Continent.
Abel couldn’t help but remember the red-cloaked wizards that he saw before. That man was an underling of Wizard Cliff, and as soon as he was banished out of Cina City, this started happening. There was no way that could be a coincidence.
“Am I behaving too much? Is this what I get for being too much of a law-abiding citizen?” These were the questions that Abel kept asking himself. It’s one thing to have the entire nation coming after you, but having your family, friends, and people who trusted you being forced to stay as refugees in the duchy of Carmel; that was more than what he could ever tolerate.
Conflicts between wizards were not supposed to influence the people that were related to them. It was an unspoken rule that had existed since societies were established. If revenge was taken on the families of the wizards, then human civilization on the Holy Continent would’ve been destroyed a long time ago.
Due to the unusual event that took place in the duchy of Carmel, the master blacksmith’s gathering event was forced to call for an early finish. The master blacksmiths were all having a good chat before. They were all in a good mood, but now it was replaced by the great dissatisfaction they had for the royalty in the duchy of Carmel.
Soon, when more rumors appeared, it became more evident that it was Wizard Cliff that was going after Abel.
“I’ve something important to tell you, Master Robin,” Abel decided to tell Master Robin first by visiting his residence, “I’ll have to leave now. This is something that I have to take care of myself.”
Master Robin said anxiously, “Before careful out there, Grandmaster Abel! Advanced wizards are very scary. Don’t let your anger get the best of you.”
“Yeah, about that,” a cold smile appeared at the edge of Abel’s mouth, “You can trust me. I don’t do things that I’m not confident of.”
Master Robin whispered after he looked around, “If you really want to kill Cliff, make sure you tell me about it. I might not be all that important, but I can still try to call for an advanced dwarven wizard. Wizard Cliff is level 16. Their price is a bit high, but there’s going to be someone who’s willing to do the job.”
Abel never expected those words to come out of Master Robin’s mouth. He didn’t know how much the “price” for hiring an advanced dwarven wizard would be, but as far as he could tell, that might just trigger a full-scale conflict between humans and dwarves. That was not something that he’d like to see.
Most crucially, advanced wizards were among the hardest people to kill on the Holy Continent. In fact, people have been saying that they were immortal and that their “instantaneous movements” could stop them from every possible danger. Like Black Wind, advanced wizards could use the power of electricity to get away from any attacks very quickly.
Abel still appreciated the offer, though, “Don’t worry about it, Master Robin. If I go after Cliff, you’ll be the first one to know about it.
Master Robin nodded, “Glad that you understand. Remember, you are a grandmaster blacksmith. You have accomplished more than any of us that are alive today. If you want trouble for Cliff, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to do that in the near future.”
“Yeah, I’ll remember that, “Abel said, then handed the backfire magic staff over to Master Robin, “Take this for yourself, Master Robin Since I’m a wanted man right now, I’ll have this staff under your possession for the time being. It’s a little help I’m offering to all the fellow members of the Blacksmith Union.”
Master Robin’s hands started trembling as he took the magic staff over. What Abel did for him was simply phenomenal. Now that the blackfire magic staff was offered to be studied by society, they could easily learn to replicate the techniques that were used to make it. More specifically, they could now learn to create magic staffs by connecting them to external power sources.
Master Robin said respectfully, “Thank you so much for your work, Grandmaster Abel. Rest assured, whether it’s the humans, dwarves, the elves, or any other race, now that I am in possession of this blackfire staff; they’ll all receive the same opportunity to learn from me.”
After Abel said his farewell to Master Robin, he went to where the communication circle was at. He contacted the staff that was in charge, and he requested to contact Bernie of the Goff Family.
The Blacksmith Union was very quick about it. Soon, they got the information about which city Bernie was in, and then they connected the call from the local blacksmith union to Bernie himself.
“Grandmaster Abel! Wow, I didn’t expect it, well, I didn’t expect you to call me so quickly after you become a grandmaster, but thanks a lot!”
As casual as Bernie tried to sound, Abel’s current status was making his tone kind of stiff.
Abel didn’t mind, though. For him, nothing had really changed.
“Bernie, I’ve got something that I need to ask from you. I’ll cut straight to the chase. I don’t want any outsiders hearing this.”
“Wow! Oh, okay! Geez, I thought you’d act a bit high and mighty now that you’re a grandmaster, but it’s good to see that you haven’t changed. So what are you after?”
“I need a special set of items to be made for me. I need your family to do it. Where are you? I will teleport there right now.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure. I’m at Moon Guardian City, right now. You know where to find me.”
Once Abel had White Cloud and Flying Flame in his portal beast ring, he rode Black Wind back to the Blacksmith Union headquarter. Then, by using the giant teleportation circle that was in the building, he teleported himself to Moon Guardian City.
When he was there, he saw Bernie was already waiting for him. Lord Ivan was also there, and he seemed very humble for the ruler of a city.
Abel gave an illustration to Bernie, “Bernie, this is the blueprint of the stuff that I want. Listen, I need a lot of this type of iron piece. You have to give me ten thousand pounds of it.”
When Bernie took the paper over, he saw that the stuff was quite simple. It was just a sphere the size of a fist. There were several flat surfaces on it. Apart from that, there wasn’t much that was special.
Bernie asked, “You need this immediately, or…?”
Abel didn’t say too much, “Yeah, as soon as possible. I’ll be waiting in Moon Guardian City for them.”
Ten thousand pounds. That was, by no means, a small number at all. Could the dwarves handle such a huge demand? Well, let’s take a look at how many dwarven blacksmiths there were.
Due to their instinctual desire to handle metal, most dwarves aspired to be blacksmiths since they were little. And once they did, the numbers of dwarven blacksmiths were so high that it wasn’t possible to get a statistic on them.
With that in mind, a lot of dwarven blacksmiths were connected to the Goff Family. Once they received the order, they all had to cast away their current work to start making a type of odd, multi-surfaced iron sphere.