As Dawn City developed, the residents who had once lived in hardship were quickly becoming prosperous. Moreover, Dawn City was safe and comforting. Now, their quality of life was rising rapidly.
Compared to the lives they’d led before on the frontier, this place brought them more joy than the legendary worry-free Divine Realm.
And the one who had given them all of this was the great Lord Kachar.
Therefore, the residents all held the highest reverence for this great ruler.
Because of this, no matter what decision Li De made, the entire population of Dawn City would follow him with fanatic devotion. No one could slander or defame the great Lord Kachar within Dawn City, he was the treasure the Creator had bestowed upon them.
Li De looked around with great interest, observing everything nearby.
Not far ahead, a spot crowded thick with heads caught his attention.
“Emi, what’s happening over there?”
“Your Majesty, they are watching the dwarves and vampires melt stone.”
Melt stone? Li De’s eyes lit up, and he stepped forward at once.
When the crowd saw Li De approaching, they immediately grew excited, each of them pressing a fist to their chest and bowing, greeting him with fervent gazes.
“Good day, respected Lord Kachar.”
“Lord Kachar.”
Li De smiled and nodded to the residents, then, under their respectful eyes, he stepped into the center of the area.
The scene that unfolded before him immediately piqued his interest.
In the middle of a wide open space, the dwarves had erected a massive furnace, and beneath it blazed an intense blue-green fire.
On top of the furnace sat a large cauldron, where bubbling lava was rolling and churning.
Around it stood dozens of vampires, ceaselessly casting spells toward the furnace. Small fireballs burst and crackled, billowing waves of heat pouring forth.
Such a crude and forceful scene left Li De quite astonished. So this was how they melted stone, wasn’t it a little too violent?
Did they not even light firewood? Just Small Fireball all the way??
When the lava inside the cauldron finally came to a full boil, a vampire saw it wasn’t full enough and simply picked up a chunk of green stone nearby and tossed it in. As soon as the rock dropped into the bubbling lava, it instantly melted away.
The dwarves weren’t idle either. They were carrying over all kinds of metal materials for the vampires to throw in.
Who knew what material the cauldron was made from, lava could melt everything, yet the cauldron remained perfectly intact.
After boiling the lava for just a few more minutes, the vampires stopped casting. Then, twenty vampires at once cast Mage Hand. Under everyone’s watchful gaze, they lifted the entire cauldron of scalding lava.
Nearby stood more than ten gigantic pipe-shaped molds, each with a diameter of two blades and a height of three blades. They were hollow, with walls half a blade thick.
The vampires deftly controlled the cauldron with Mage Hand, pouring the lava into the molds.
Hiss~
The material of these gray molds was extremely heat-resistant. Even the boiling lava could not damage them.
One large cauldron of lava could fill about ten molds.
After the lava was poured, the cauldron was set back onto the furnace, and the vampires began casting again.
Small Fireball couldn’t inflict any damage on the furnace walls, which were thicker than half a blade. On the contrary, the sealed furnace could raise the temperature to an astonishing level.
Watching this scene, Li De’s expression was wonderfully vivid.
Why did this look so similar to making molds with cement? The only difference was that cement had become lava, and the laborers had turned into vampire spellcasters.
The entire operation had become unbelievably intense.
And Small Fireball, did they really have no fear of blowing the whole furnace up by using it as firewood??
After the first round of pouring, the lava quickly cooled inside the molds, while the second round of heating began anew.
With the aid of magic, the rocks thrown into the cauldron swiftly melted into lava again.
Once the lava solidified, the dwarves stepped forward and used special tools to open the molds. The molds were so smooth that no lava stuck to them, and they shed their shells easily.
The once-molten lava, now turned back into stone and still radiating heat, emerged before everyone’s eyes as gray stone pipes.
Several human mage apprentices, looking a bit clumsy, used Mage Hand to lift the pipes.
Then they carefully walked to the deep trench the cyclopes had dug, stepping on the soft yellow clay and slowly placing the stone pipes into the channel, joining them to the already installed sections ahead.
Ten pipes were laid one by one in the leveled trench, fitted tightly together. Each pipe had a projecting clasp at the front that locked perfectly into the previous segment, a very clever design.
When the second cauldron of lava came to a boil, the mage apprentices used a container the size of a bucket to scoop out lava. Under the dwarves’ hand-by-hand guidance, they began to pour lava onto the junctions of two pipes.
The dwarves used a special half-round tool to limit the lava’s flow, then quite miraculously fused the two joints together.
The whole process was extremely smooth, as if they had collaborated like this countless times before.
Li De was utterly amazed.
The wisdom of the working people was truly endless.
Ordinary residents carried stones, the vampires lit the furnace to create the molds, then human spellcasters manipulated the pipes for installation, while the dwarves commanded and assisted at the side.
Watching these scenes was truly fascinating.
The construction procedures were almost the same as building houses on Earth, mixing cement, pouring molds, and so on, but the entire process was infused with a sense of magical wonder.
Li De watched with great enjoyment.
Indeed, every man has a dream of operating an excavator…
“Your Majesty, at this pace, in another week the main districts of Dawn City will have all the pipes laid.”
Li De nodded. “And the control valves, faucets, all of that?”
“They’ve all been produced. Forged personally by the dwarves. With the precedent of the livestock farm, these were not difficult to manufacture.”
Emi’s eyes carried a hint of admiration. “The dwarves also improved the faucets and control valves to make them even easier to use. I don’t think there are any craftsmen more suited to making such equipment.”
Clearly, this blasphemer had been completely convinced by the dwarves’ craftsmanship over the past few days.