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“Oh!”

“Really?”

Siris and Russ, having long observed how Silan was deeply self-conscious about his naturally frail physique, were genuinely delighted and congratulated him warmly.

“Good for you, Silan!”

“That’s great! Congratulations, Silan!”

With bright smiles, Siris and Russ, and in the middle, Silan, who seemed almost ready to dance in joy.

Meanwhile, Tilla and the other dwarves looked on, utterly baffled.

“Why are they so happy?”

“He grew taller.”

“But why are they happy about that?”

“I don’t know. Do humans only recognize worth if someone is tall?”

Recalling the dwarven perspective, Siris quickly translated.

“So for a dwarf, it’s like having their shoulders widen by one centimeter.”

At last, the dwarves also offered their heartfelt congratulations. “Oh! You must be pleased! Amazing! Congratulations!” and so forth.

For dwarves, manliness was symbolized not by height but by the breadth of shoulders and chest thickness. Likewise, while women appreciated fuller chests and wider hips, they showed little interest in height.

In the midst of these celebrations, Russ suddenly asked.

“But what about your brother?”

It was a reminder that they should first inform the creator of this miracle(?). Silan pouted in response.

“Well, as usual.”

“Ah, is he still there today?”

Recalling the reason they had been staying in the Grand Forge for a month, Russ nodded.

A month ago, upon returning from meeting with Makelin, Repenhardt declared.

-I’ll be staying in the Grand Forge for a while.

When asked why, he explained that a device necessary to replenish his depleted magical energy was located here, meaning he couldn’t leave for some time. Since then, Repenhardt had been spending most of his days inside the massive steel tower at the center of the Grand Forge. He only emerged to eat, sleep, and occasionally train to prevent the decline of his physical and martial skills.

Nobody was particularly upset about the delay. After all, there were no urgent schedules to keep. Silan was pleased to have the chance to build his muscles. Russ was also enhancing his skills by regularly sparring not only with Repenhardt but also with other dwarven aura users. Tilla and Siris were improving their martial skills and gaining experience through hunting magical beasts. It was a fulfilling time for everyone.

However, there was still lingering curiosity. Silan tilted his head in wonder.

“What exactly is he doing in there?”

When entering the steel tower, Repenhardt had firmly declared that no one should approach it. He had made sure that his companions, as well as the dwarves through Makelin, could not come near. It was unusual for Repenhardt to prevent even Siris from getting close; his behavior did not usually align with such restrictions.

Russ suggested a possible explanation.

“It is said that a warrior who has reached a certain level of mastery needs time alone for reflection to attain enlightenment. Even a minor external disturbance could be problematic. I don’t know much about magic, but perhaps it’s something similar?”

That seemed plausible. Silan nodded in understanding.

“Ah, is that it?”

Located in the central part of the Grand Forge, the towering steel structure, which housed the residence of the High Priest Makelin at its upper levels, was the heart of this vast underground city. The Grand Forge was powered by geothermal stones, which were crucial for its operation, laid out in arrays every hundred meters. The magical energy that powered these geothermal stones flowed from this steel tower.

In other parts of the continent, enslaved dwarves managed their villages with human magicians regularly recharging these geothermal stones. However, the geothermal stones in the Grand Forge were not powered by dwarf magic. Humans, fearing the dwarves’ ability to create powerful magical tools, had done everything to sever their knowledge of magic.

Thanks to these efforts, the Grand Forge currently had no one who possessed knowledge of magic, although it did have priests capable of casting divine spells of Al Fort and warriors awakened to aura.

The ability to wield aura was clandestinely preserved, primarily through the motions of smithing, building, and mining with a pickaxe. These movements were concealed as part of everyday tasks, a practice not uncommon even among humans, who often disguised traditional martial arts as dance forms to ensure their transmission to future generations.

Religious faith, more a domain of wisdom than of mere knowledge, has a profound depth but is not informationally dense. Essentially, possessing a single scripture of Al Fort could suffice to sustain the teachings. Hence, despite being enslaved, dwarves were able to maintain their faith through oral traditions passed down from their ancestors.

However, the knowledge of magic is vast. While some dwarven magicians survived, most were of low proficiency, and unlike priests, a magician cannot enhance their skills without substantial knowledge. Unfortunately, much of this magical knowledge had been buried by human efforts.

The dwarves, having lost their great magicians and much of their magical lore, found salvation in the sacred underground sun of Al Fort, Magrim.

In a massive stone chamber sealed on all sides, with magical conduits sprawling in every direction, hovered a large orb of fire about 8 meters in diameter. Pulsing like a heart, this fiery mass sent massive amounts of magical energy through the pipes to various parts of the forge. This was Magrim, the lifeblood of the Grand Forge, not just a source of energy but akin to a living entity.

Standing before the vigorously pulsing Magrim, shirtless, was a young man. His well-toned, bronze muscles glistened with sweat, softly illuminated by the glow of the fire orb. As he wiped the sweat from his forehead, Repenhardt muttered to himself,

“The Silver Age was indeed remarkable…”

Though named the underground sun of Al Fort, Magrim was actually an artifact from the Silver Age, not a sacred creation by Al Fort himself.

The divine power of a god is influenced by the influence of their followers. As the dwarves’ prominence on the continent diminished, so too did Al Fort’s ability to intervene in worldly affairs. What Al Fort could presently do was merely to awaken the slumbering heart of the Grand Forge, Magrim, with his divine power.

This in itself was a miracle that no modern magician could achieve, so it couldn’t be said that the dignity of a god was compromised. The dwarves’ reverence for Al Fort as the underground sun had some justification.

‘Well, I know how to operate it too…’

Repenhardt chuckled ruefully, scratching his chin. In his past life, he had spent nearly a year studying Magrim, and he had eventually managed to control even this supposed god-only artifact at will. Inspired by this, he had also created the 10th circle ultimate destruction magic, Nuclear Burst.

‘I did seal it away after firing it just once, shocked at its power.’

Though there was a penalty of spending at least a month in spell calculation and mana charging, this supremely powerful spell could obliterate the capital of a sizable nation in one strike, a power that even Repenhardt himself found terrifying. In his past life, he had used Nuclear Burst in actual combat only once. It was merely to break the morale of his enemies by annihilating a couple of uninhabited mountains during the destruction of the Vasily Kingdom. Even the mighty Repenhardt could not bring himself to unleash such brutishly extensive destructive magic on people.

‘Thanks to that, the Vasily Kingdom was easily destroyed, but the aftermath was no joke.’

He had instantly earned the notorious title of ‘Demon King’ across the continent. Previously cautious nations turned ashen and united against him. When an army of two million marched against him at the end, he didn’t have time to prepare the magic and couldn’t use it.

Reflecting on his past life’s memories, Repenhardt clicked his tongue.

Repenhardt, still immersed in his thoughts, finally felt his body’s magical energy replenished. It was time to resume his magical practices using Magrim.

He sighed deeply, his frustration evident.

“Ah…”

Then he looked down at the ground, up at the ceiling, and wore an expression of utter exasperation.

“I’ve been doing this forever, but I still can’t get used to it.”

Currently, he was engaged in using the power of Magrim to transform Teslon’s body into one more conducive to magic.

His computational abilities had improved somewhat thanks to using the voice of Elucion. The next challenge was filling the deficiencies in magical power. Despite his efforts to manipulate magic, the capacity of this body to hold magic was frustratingly unresponsive.

There were many ways to augment the lacking magical power. He had artifacts from the Divine Spirits of his previous life, and even if not those, there were artifacts from the Silver Age that could drain mana. By diligently scouring his memories for relics and collecting artifacts, accumulating magic itself was feasible.

However, no matter how much water one could scoop from a lake, it was pointless if the container was only as big as a small jar. The container itself needed to be expanded.

Repenhardt had opted for a method that involved resonating his own magic with a powerful magical entity to increase his capacity for magic. This required highly delicate manipulation of magic, a challenging task, but not overly so for a grand sorcerer like him. Initially, he planned to perform this with the Mana Core Yudram in the ruins of Dalkas in the southern continent, but Magrim was equally effective.

The challenge lay in the need to make as much contact as possible with the magic entity to improve his body’s constitution. An even bigger issue was that for the resonance of magic, not even the slightest foreign substance could be present between them.

Yes, this ritual of bodily improvement had to be performed completely naked.

“Ah, how embarrassing…”