Two days after Ashes left, Maggie returned to Border Town unexpectedly and reappeared in front of everyone.

After understanding the reason, her return was warmly welcomed, and the Witch Union had a new member.

What moved her greatly was that the welcome banquet was held in the castle's back garden. The long iron racks were hung with all kinds of meats, which could be taken down and grilled at will. The seasonings were also very rich, including salt, oil, chili powder, pepper, and Roland's personally blended barbecue sauce – made by stewing mushrooms and whole chickens from the Misty Forest together, then adding salt, sugar, and wheat flour to stir it, which could make up for the regret of not having monosodium glutamate. Maggie almost stuffed her stomach before stopping.

In the afternoon, Roland tested her abilities.

According to Nightingale's judgment, her total magic power was at a medium level among witches. Her ability manifested as being able to transform into various birds – provided she had seen them before. The magic consumption during transformation was quite large, allowing her to transform 4-5 times continuously a day. Maintaining the transformed state consumed very little magic and was a summoning-type ability, affected by the God's Stone of Retribution. Her favorite bird was the pigeon, but Roland noticed that no matter what kind of bird she transformed into, her size would be much larger. For example, a sparrow, in his eyes, was about the size of an ordinary pigeon. As for truly transforming into a pigeon, it would be about the size of a bald eagle.

Maggie was also unable to transform into imaginary flying beasts, such as the Fènghuang, Griffin, and Kunpeng that Roland drew, which he found quite regrettable.

In addition, there was a point in Ashes' plan that deserved his attention: what abilities did the many witches summoned by Tilly possess? If there were auxiliary witches who could greatly improve farming efficiency, he wouldn't mind exchanging technology for them.

To this end, Roland decided to write a long letter to Tilly, first elaborating on the natural ally relationship between the two sides, then warning her of the church's intention to unify the continent, and finally extending an olive branch, expressing his willingness to help each other, cooperate, and make progress together. When Maggie went to Fjords next month, he would have her take it with her.

The next day, the prince received another good news.

The factory for producing steam engines was finally completed. The factory was located on the opposite bank of the Redwater River, on the western side, next to Leaf's experimental field. The entire site had been surrounded by wooden fences, and a simple road leading to the pontoon bridge had been leveled. In Roland's plan, this place would be the town's future industrial park.

In order to expand the building space as much as possible, the factory was built of lightweight wood, covering an area of about one thousand square meters. The machine tools manufactured by Anna had been transported in, namely two steam boring machines, two manual milling machines, one manual grinding machine, and one manual lathe. Although these machine tools were simple in principle, their workmanship was first-class – except for the base or pedals, which were made of wood, the other parts were cut from wrought iron or steel. It could be said that under the level of existing materials, the highest precision processing was achieved.

At present, the factory has only a pitiful ten or so workers. They were originally blacksmiths and apprentices from the town's blacksmith shop, but now Roland recruited them here with a high salary of fifty silver wolves per month to learn how to operate high-end machine tools. Their blacksmithing tools and blacksmith shop were also moved to a brick house outside the factory. Except for making some unimportant parts, the manufacture of steam engines would all be done by machine tools.

Roland held a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the entrance of the factory. In order to expand the momentum, he recruited a group of officials from the City Hall and delivered a short speech. In the simulated salute sound of Echo, Graycastle Industrial Company was officially announced.

In the following days, Roland, as the person in charge of the company, ran to the factory whenever he had time to personally demonstrate the operation methods of the machine tools and the manufacturing process of the steam engine. To allow illiterate blacksmiths to master how to process and assemble a steam engine, the best method he could think of was to illustrate the process, similar to the assembly instructions of a model, labeling the names, numbers, and dimensions of the parts one by one, and then depicting their installation sequence and connection methods in the form of diagrams. Soroya helped him a lot on this point.

The production in the first few days was as he expected, almost no parts met the requirements, let alone assembling a complete steam engine. However, Roland didn't care about the scrap rate. In Anna's hands, these defective products could be recast into new plates in the blink of an eye. He believed that after repeated

practice, it was only a matter of time before these blacksmiths mastered the new era's manufacturing methods.

In addition to the industrial factory, the prince transformed the firing room of the North Slope Mining Area, along with the backyard, into an arsenal, mainly for the production of revolvers and bullets – after Losuya, the "furnace expert" recommended by Karl, arrived in Border Town, the temperature of the new batch of bellows-equipped furnaces was greatly improved, and cement powder could be fired independently. The firing room was no longer necessary.

However, limited by the process, the production of revolvers and bullets was still completed by Anna. Roland was designing a steam press for stamping bullets. Although the efficiency was not as good as Anna's cutting and forming, it could at least reduce her burden.

To thank Anna for her busy work for nearly half a month, he decided to give her a gift.

*******************

"A gift?" Anna put down the cut parts in her hand, smoothed the strands of hair that had slipped to her forehead, and showed a bright smile. "Okay."

"Aren't you going to ask what kind of gift it is?" Roland teased her.

"Hmm..." She thought carefully for a moment. "I like all the gifts you give me."

After more than half a year of recuperation, there was no trace of the shadow of when Anna was first seen in the dungeon. The thin and weak her has now become slender and graceful, her blue eyes are full of radiance, and a plain dress looks fresh and neat, full of youthful vitality.

This is what a ten-year-old girl should look like.

Seeing the corners of the other party's mouth raised involuntarily, Roland's mood also became much more pleasant.

The "gift" was placed in the castle courtyard. To give Anna a surprise, it was covered with a layer of linen – he had this idea in his mind when making the Ashes Bringer. Since he was a prince, the gift had to be special. Finished products like jewelry seemed too insincere. He thought for a long time before he came up with this idea.

Roland uncovered the linen, and a wicker basket appeared in front of the two. The top of the basket was connected to many hemp ropes, and the other end of the hemp ropes was a huge canvas.

"This is... what?" Anna stepped forward and circled around it, curiously.

"A hot air balloon," he replied with a smile. "It can take you into the sky and overlook the earth like a bird."

"Fly into the sky?" She turned her head, her eyes flashing with excitement. "Can it really?"

Soaring into the sky has been a dream of mankind since ancient times. From gliders to hot air balloons, from airships to airplanes, people have paid a huge price in exploration and challenge, and have never given up on this pursuit. Although there are witches in this world, flying is still the right of a few. The scenery seen from a high-altitude perspective will surely leave a deep impression.

"Of course, just let hot air fill this balloon."

Roland asked Nightingale to find Lightning and Maggie to act as emergency personnel. In case of an accident, Lightning and Maggie, transformed into a large bald eagle, could at least protect the two of them and land safely. As for the other witches, he decided not to call them for the time being, especially Wendy and Scroll, who would definitely oppose any of his risky behavior – in their eyes, he must not have the slightest mistake.