For-sale or not, Wizard Cyril got permission from Old Goff. Besides, Abel was an important friend of the family. He was not to be treated like the others.

And, the ballistas were just too normal of a gift. As strong as they were, they weren’t the best kind of bows that the dwarves could offer. The best ones were the ones with rune patterns on them. Not only was a portal device installed right onto it (which could hold about 500 arrows in total), it could also shoot arrows out consecutively.

It worked with metal gears. When turned, three bowstrings would pull at once. Three giant armor-breaking arrows were shot at once. After the arrows were shot, the portal device would automatically attach the arrows in stock onto the bow. It was a giant machine gun designed to defend a fort.

And that was the gift Wizard Cyril had for Abel. Since Abel wasn’t going to be an enemy of the dwarves, he decided that it was fine to give him this with the industrial puppets. In other words, he was ready to help him build a military that was just as strong as the one that the dwarves had.

When Wizard Cyril left, the butler took the receipt and showed it to Old Goff. A loud scream then came from the yard. Old Goff was furious, but Wizard Cyril was already back into the teleportation circle.

A few seconds later, Wizard Cyril was back at Abel’s magic tower.

“Isiah!” Wizard Cyril called out pridefully to Isiah, “Get rid of that stone in your hand! We can’t use that junk for Grandmaster Abel’s tower now, can we?”

Isiah almost fell off his puppet when he heard this. The “junk” Wizard Cyril referred to was a shine stone. Since when did shine stone become junk? It was a must-have item for every magic tower. Still, an order was an order, so he listened to Wizard Cyril and replaced it with a light stone, which was much more valuable than the piece he had before.

Now, then. Who was the richest race of the Holy Continent? Some said that it was the dwarves, who were the largest suppliers of weapons on the land. Some argued that it was the elves because the Double Moon Forest they lived in (and owned) was the biggest reserve of natural resources in the world.

To really figure out who was richer, look at Abel’s magic tower. Even the most insignificant part of the building was replaced with materials that were more expensive than they needed to be. When it came to the wood, the elves chose the best ones that they could fit. When it came to the stones, the dwarves would use ones that were more like gemstones than actual stones.

To be honest, Abel hadn’t seen this many treasures in his whole life. He had no idea how valuable these materials were, so he decided to take out the “Morton’s Observation Record” from his portal bracelet. Yet, when he compared the content of the book to the ones that he was looking at, he realized that most of them weren’t even recorded in the book.

When the book did mention these things, it was often described with words such as “extremely rare” or “unbelievable rare.” That was when he realized the competition. This was a battle of the rich. The dwarves and the elves were trying to top each other in a battle of their own resourcefulness.

In Abel’s magic tower, even the tiniest nail was made of meteorite iron. For the walls inside the building, they were all made of blue gemstones. If the royalties of the Duchy of Carmel were to see all this, they would probably forget who the real kings were.

Thankfully enough, all the expensive stuff was used for the interiors. After the dwarves had done their construction works, the elves would add their final touch by adding in the decorations. They were competing against each other, but they all had their own expertise that they focused themselves on. As for Abel, he actually couldn’t help with anything. Everyone was too professional in what they were doing, so he just sat and watched the entire time.

“Grandmaster,” Wizard Cyril smiled as he revealed the portal ring in his hand, “I have the iron puppets that you’ve requested. Of course, they were better than the industrial puppets that you’ve requested. I’ve also brought you the giant ballistas. They can all be reloaded automatically, and with enough arrows in stock, they can be fired continuously nonstop.”

“And, well,” Wizard Cyril touched his nose for a bit, “Forgive me, but you might have to give me more of that master’s wine. I need to have something that I can bring back to my master with.”

Abel said without hesitation, “I have plenty of the wine, Wizard Cyril. Give me a number, and I’ll have my butler prepare for you right away.”

“Oh, splendid!” Wizard Cyril laughed out loudly. He then took everything out of his portal ring. The war puppets. The automatic giant ballistas. After lining out a hundred of each of them, Abel had just got himself a new army.

Abel decided to take a closer look to see the difference between a war puppet and an industrial one. Unlike the industrial puppets, he realized that the ones he got were completely powered with the power of Will. While their movements might be more flexible, it’d be very hard for anyone to have the mental capacity to control them all at once.

And that was what the intelligence agency’s tower spirit was for. At best, Abel could only control ten of the war puppets on his own. That was him, including his druid spirit and dual personality. For regular wizards, their limit would be at two. However, with the super-spirit that he stole from Wizard Cliff, controlling one hundred would be no hard task at all.

So why didn’t the dwarves do the same thing as Abel was? Why didn’t they use their own spirits to control these iron puppets? Simply due to the cost and availability of the spirits. The dwarves simply couldn’t manufacture their own tower spirits, and even if they could get one from the Wizard Union, they just couldn’t find any ways to do the needed maintenance.

After checking the iron puppets, Abel decided to examine the automatic ballistas. He wanted to learn their mechanisms. Whether it was reloading, shooting, or supplying ammunition, these deadly weapons could do all of them on their own. If it wasn’t for how hard it was to aim with them, they would almost be perfect war machines.

Still, they didn’t need to be precise. Since the point was to shoot out a bunch of powerful arrows rapidly, a general area as a target was fine.