In the whole Earth-Dividing Basin on the Holy Continent, there was the Holy Crown City. It was where the dwarven royalties lived. Apart from the dwarves, no one was allowed to be inside this city, built on top of the Holy Crown Mountain. It was the only dwarven city that banned other races to enter.
According to the myths, the entire Holy Crown Mountain was hollow in its center. There was, apparently, nothing but the city located there. On either side of the mountain, there were shorter mountains that were about fifty miles away from it. One was called Mountain Moga, and the other one was called Cina Mountain. To protect the Holy Crown City, which was the capital, the dwarves also built two cities on these mountains. They named these cities from where they were built, so one of them was called “Moga City,” and the other one was called “Cina City.”
Cina City was built to be a surveillance station. That being said, it was also where the main headquarter of the Holy Continent Blacksmith Union was located. In fact, it had the highest concentration of master blacksmiths throughout the entire continent. There was even a blacksmith grandmaster that lived here for several years, which just showed the area’s prosperity.
Since Cina City produced about half of the Holy Continent’s top-level weaponry, the security measures that were placed here were extremely tight. It was the same for Moga City. Both cities had a super-large magic defense circle cast over them. The circle was the largest in all of the Holy Continent, which prohibited even the strongest fighters from disturbing the local authorities.
If you wanted to start a fight in Cina City, you could always go to the fighting stadium to settle whatever business you had. That was what the place was built for, so there would always be some hot-headed dwarves that were taking all the spots.
Abel wasn’t very fast when he was riding on top of Black Wind. Bartoli was riding on top of a war horse, which Abel had to spend a lot of money when he saw a human caravan several miles in the wilderness. It was a funny story, actually. He originally planned to bring a war horse out from Miuah City, but it fainted as soon as it saw White Cloud and Flying Flame.
Right now, Abel had an undead crow flying around his left hand, which was holding his crescent small shield. Like his wizard spells, his “shield attack” technique was placed inside his skill tree. Obviously, it was in a branch that was different from his wizard spells.
When he activated the “shield attack” technique, a white light started hitting towards the undead crow. It started to faint on the ground as it got knocked away, but it quickly recovered and flew back towards him. It was ready to be hit by the same attack all over again.
Abel was “training” like this for a reason, of course. When he made the spiritual contract between him and the undead crow, the deal was that it would “help him get his technique to max level in exchange for one bottle of the soul potion.” As for what the technique was, since it was never specified, this crow would have to be stuck with him until all his techniques were at the max level.
What a sly master he was. Right now, his “shield attack” was at level three. There was still a very, very long way before the crow could be freed from this spiritual contract. Since it was an undead creature, it’s not like death could free it from the cursed contract it was forced to agree to. Luckily, it was immune to basically everything, so it would always come flying back to Abel when he needed it to.
There was one possibility that the undead crow could die, though. If it was stuck somewhere and couldn’t get back to its master, the master could always summon a new undead crow for himself. The original one would automatically die, of course.
“Cina City is just up ahead, Master!” Bartoli reminded Abel. Even after Abel gave her the “leaf” rune pattern magic staff, she was still carrying the blackfire magic staff with her. The rune pattern magic staff was simply too advanced for this era, so it was for the better if she hid it until she really needed to use it.
Abel tilted his head. He had been too focused on practicing, “Wait, we’re already here?”
When Abel saw the giant fort that was in front of him, he put away his undead crow and crescent small shield, then tidied his wrinkled clothes for a bit. He was going to see some people soon. Since undead crows were meant to be the summoned creatures of the druids, it was for the best if he tried to behave normally from here on.
The closer he was to Cina City, the more he understood the high-level security. On the outer layer of Fort Cina, there were six magic towers with more than ten floors. The tallest had 18, which was the most that Abel had ever seen.
For a moment, he was completely captivated by what he was looking at. It was like he came here to visit a superhero or something. From his understanding, a level 18 advanced wizard was rare. Even Wizard Cliff was only at level 16, so just how “unworldly” could a level 18 wizard be?
On top of the fifty-metre tall walls, there were large metal pipes pointing towards the outside of the fort. The dwarves probably placed a bunch of ballistas over there. Only the dwarves had the craftsmanship to make so many ballistas in one place. And the absolutely devastating power of those things. Even the wizards would not survive if they were hit by one of the arrows.
When Abel took out his master blacksmith badge at the front entrance, he saw a middle-age man run up to him. This man was in a long white robe, and he was welcoming him with a nobleman’s greeting.
“Welcome to Cina City, Master Abel,” the man said, “It’s an honor to see you here. My name is Rawl, a staff of the Blacksmith Union.”
Abel asked as he returned a bow, “You know me?”
As far as Abel knew, there were a lot of people who hadn’t seen him before. He was a young man, after all, and this was the first time going to a large event like this. If anything, after he became a master blacksmith a long time, he’s never really made an appearance in any public area.
Rawl replied with caution, “No, sir, but I do recognize your mount. It is very rare for a human like you to ride on top of a mount wolf. Besides, Thorin has already told us about your arrival. He’s told me to wait here for you.”
“Oh, that’s right. Thank you,” Abel smiled and thanked Rawl, “Very well, then. I’ll have you lead the way.”
For reasons Abel wasn’t sure of, the Blacksmith Union was taking his arrival especially seriously. When he looked around, he was even more confused about the way he was treated, because apart from him, no one else was being welcomed by a staff member that was wearing a white robe.
Anyways, he followed Rawl into the giant castle that was ahead of him. From here onward, all the steps he had to take were going up. The buildings on the side were like separate dormitories, which had stairways that would just keep on extending upward.
The creature Rawl was riding was called “chocobo,” a species of a bird typically found in the Dividing Earth Basin. It was one of the most preferable mount creatures for human wizards, mainly because of how good they were with walking on stairs. Obviously, Rawl’s status wasn’t high enough to own his own chocobo. The one he was using was owned by the Blacksmith Union.On the other hand, Bartoli’s war horse wasn’t doing so great. It never had to walk on the ground that wasn’t parallel before. Not Black Wind, though. It was the king of the beasts, so the angle of the ground it was walking on never really made a difference.
“Hey, Rawl,” Abel couldn’t help but to ask as he went up, “I noticed something. The higher we go, the grander the buildings start to get.”
Rawl explained with as much detail as he could, “As you know, Master Abel, Cina City is a pacifist city. A lot of peace-loving humans, elves, and dwarves have all considered this place as their safe haven. There are also many who’ve come here to escape from their enemies.”
“A problem arose when this started happening More inhabitants started to flood in, which helped to create hierarchies and inequalities. The lower the altitude of your home is, the lesser your status is, and the higher your house is located, the more powerful and noble you must be.”
“One important reminder, Master Abel, is that you must be a great contributor to the city to be recognized. First-timers can only gain temporary residence when they are here. Without the proper amount of “contribution,” they will not be granted the right to live here permanently. That, and the right to purchase your own property.”
“A pacifist city, huh,” Abel sighed as he murmured the words, “Only the super-large magic circle could do something like that.”
There were barely any human cities that were covered in city-sized defensive magic circles. In the first place, humans never had a good tolerance for mana. This was why when the wizards built their magic towers, they would always build them in the outer layer of whatever community they were in.
But “a pacifist city” was really something else. Not even the elves could achieve something like this. There were the three major elven cities that were all covered in giant defensive magic circles, but none of that could be compared to what Cina City was protected by. After all, as long as you weren’t activating your mana or your combat qi, it was very easy to get past the defensive circle’s security measures in any elven cities.
