Right now, Bernie Goff was standing right in the middle of the super-sized teleportation circle. He just received an invitation from the dwarves of the central continent for a learning session. He wasn’t sure why he was chosen, but he decided to accept since his father seemed to care a lot for it. He even had to get in his best clothes for this. He also traveled away from the Holy Continent on a super-sized teleportation circle, and he did it without anyone with him. That was strange, given how much energy the transportation cost when it was just him.
After consuming the potion for increasing stamina, he activated the magic defensive items he had before leaving. Once he woke up from the fatigue resulting from the travelling, he realized that he was sitting in a new place with vomit all over his fancy clothes. He did not expect this travel to be so painful.
“You must be Bernie Goff, little guy.”
A voice came over as he tried to wipe the vomit away. He raised his head to see that a dwarven wizard was already standing right next to him.
Bernie hurried to bow, “Honourable sir wizard! My name is Bernie Goff!”
Wizard Hutton smiled at the humbleness, “My name is Hutton. My tribe sent me here since this is your first time on the central continent.”
Wizard Hutton’s wide grin sort of startled Bernie. He was also quite confused, in a way. He did remember one thing. Before he left the Holy Continent, his father did tell him to not offend any law-defying wizard if he happened to be on the central continent. Here was one law-defying wizard standing right in front of him. His legs were already shaking since he had just barely recovered from his travel.
Bernie bowed again, “Respectable Wizard Hutton, please! You don’t have to come all the way here to do that!”
Bernie knew he was a nobody right now. He was a regular dwarf with no occupation whatsoever here on the central continent. He considered himself a talented merchant, but he wasn’t so narcissistic as to think that the dwarves here were welcoming him because of that. Honestly, he thought that there were plenty of better merchants other than him, but it should be his connection to Emperor Abel that won him an opportunity to learn how business and trade were made here.
Wizard Hutton suddenly opened his eyes and stared, “Don’t worry, Bernie! I’m welcoming you wholeheartedly. You know, I actually had to, well. Let’s just say let the other wizards leave when they tried to take this mission from me.”
Bernie was even more anxious now, “Sure, sure!”
“Anyways, let’s leave this place first, shall we?”
Not wanting to stay too long at the super-sized teleportation circle, Wizard Hutton grabbed onto Bernie and teleported right towards a giant city that was on top of a tall mountain. When they arrived, Bernie could see that they were in a city made entirely out of brown stones. From afar, they could see that every building here, together, looked like a giant furnace that was erected between the sky and the earth. He could see that the super-sized teleportation circle they originally were was just a few miles away from the city. That got him feeling worse now. He did not feel comfortable at all after being teleported for such a long distance.
That was until he realized what he was looking at.
“The Iron Furnace Fort!” he called out. This was the holy city of the dwarves, where the royal dwarves of the central continent built their palaces at.
“Exactly, the Iron Furnace Fort,” Wizard Hutton said, then activated his “instantaneous movement” to the middle of the city. Followed by more of Bernie’s screaming, they entered into a beautiful yard that was right inside of the fort. Bernie struggled to leave his grasp as they arrived, and the first thing he did was to vomit out even more excessive spew to get rid of the travel sickness.
Wizard Hutton shook his head in disappointment, “Drink this, Bernie. Come on, I’ve never seen a dwarf with a worse stamina than you.”
Bernie took a bottle of potion Wizard Hutton threw at him. He thought that it’d be something good, given that the person handing it over was a law-defying wizard. He didn’t hesitate to drink the thing, and when he did, he could feel immediately that his body was recharging energy extraordinarily quickly.
“Thank you so much, Wizard Hutton!”
Feeling so much better the next moment, Bernie quickly stood up and quickly gave a bow.
Wizard Hutton pointed towards the yard, “This will be where you live now, Bernie. Also, here are five servants that are going to help you.”
The five dwarven servants bowed, “Greetings, Master Bernie. Greetings, Master Hutton.”
Bernie did not know what to say. All five of these servants were extraordinary beauties of the dwarves. Just by looking at the yard and all the statues inside, he could tell how lavish this whole building was. This was the Iron Furnace Fort, after all. It wouldn’t be strange that there was an overly-abundant amount of things here.
Wizard Hutton was very upfront, “You want to go inside? If you are unsatisfied with something, don’t hesitate to tell me about it.”
Without saying much, Bernie followed Wizard Hutton to the front entrance of the yard. This was where the hallroom was. All the decorations were the best of their kind. He was not going to miss out on any valuable objects that he saw. From rough estimation, he could tell that everything here had at least several centuries of history behind them.
Bernie was a bit hesitant, “So is this where I live, Wizard Hutton?”
Wizard Hutton nodded and spoke, “Of course it is! You must be tired, aren’t you. I’ll see you in two days after you’ve rested well here.”
Bernie was not comfortable with that, “Um, can you just not leave, Wizard Hutton? I won’t feel right if you don’t explain what I’m here for.”
“Uh hum!”
Wizard Hutton did feel like spilling it out right away, but the young dwarf in front of him had every reason to demand so.
Wizard Hutton spoke, “Well, if you’re planning on spending a few days enjoying yourself first, sure. I’ll show you the intel we have right now.”
Having said that, Wizard Hutton took out some parchment papers from his portal bag. He placed them on the table and waited for Bernie to finish looking at them himself.
“Just sit. Don’t rush to read it.”
Bernie sat down and began looking. As his eyes followed the content, his eyes started becoming larger and larger. The parchment paper was about Master Bennett and his mysterious entrance into the central continent. Since he was already the top potionmaster here, he became the very center of attention. He had a law-defying wizard as his servant, a Beamon giant beast that could take down several law-defying wizards at once, and the attention of the Moon Goddess so that he could form treaties with the tree of life itself. It was more than that. The tree men he summoned had killed a total of five thousand holy crusaders. After transforming into his dragon form, he killed four fanatic knights before they could resist for even ten minutes. On top of that, he was the lover of Sainte herself and had close ties with the lightning clan.
All in all, a lot happened in just a few months. All the details were on this very piece. Bernie didn’t think that it was the same person that he recognized. He never thought that Abel could become a big druid because he thought of him as Wizard Abel. He only realized how wrong he was until he saw the name Loraine. At the same time, he was starting to understand why the dwarves had him all the way over here. They wanted confirmation. They wanted to know what his relationship was with Master Bennett.
Bernie asked, “Is this about Master Bennett, Wizard Hutton?”
Wizard Hutton was not hiding much, “I won’t lie to you about it, Bernie. We had you here because you were known to have a close friendship with Master Bennett on the Holy Continent.”
Bernie asked, “Well, what can I do?”
Wizard Hutton wasn’t sure what to say, “So Master Bennett just had two super potions on the market. Even the law-defying wizards would benefit from drinking them, because that’s just how strong the effects were. The dwarves of the central continent tried to get our hands on them, but it was no easy job for us to reach master Bennett. We’ve already sent a few of our messengers, but he’s not even giving us the chance to see him.”
Earlier, when the “light recovery potion” was first sold on the market, the dwarven wizards weren’t the earliest to receive the news. They were late, and when the Wizard Union had all the products in their own hands, the dwarven law-defying wizards became very frustrated. They had no real ways of getting their hands on the thing. The Wizard Union would only distribute a selected proportion for those who fought on the frontlines, while other law-defying wizards had to buy the remainder with large amounts of points, and there was only so much they could earn monthly.
Now that Master Bennett was here, the dwarves just couldn’t hold themselves anymore. The two potions he was selling were just too much of a necessity for them. So, they did everything they could to investigate him. They realized that Master Bennett was someone from the Holy Continent, and he’s been working with the dwarves on multiple occasions while he was there. More surprisingly, he was seen to be more of an alchemist than a potion master at the time.
With that learned, they decided they would invite his friend and give him the best treatment they had to offer, and that’s a place to live right inside the Iron Furnace Fort.
“The clan has invited you over to make contact with Master Bennett. We want you to have the remaining amount for the two potions. From our understanding, Master Bennett has been someone who has very focused on his personal relationships. He’s made extra effort to ensure that he’s being impartial in the way he’s traded with the elves and the lightning wizard clan.”
