Chapter 2164: Way Back

The dead are remembered, but the living need to survive too.

While the old elf was pondering deeply on what to do, Althea took out several of her toolmaking tools and started making some protection charms.

It was her specialty and the easiest to make for her, and she needed to impress. Through this, she would showcase not just her toolmaking skills, but also show how different she was from other toolmakers because of her mastery of the arrays.

The dwarves stopped thinking and surrounded her, watching her movements in fascination and intrigue. At some point, some dwarves even gasped, some sighed wistfully, and one even cried due to emotions.

To summarize, it was when the lady showed impressive toolmaking skills and array magic that not just the elder, but every dwarf there, was completely won over.

Althea chuckled. She should’ve just done this earlier.

"You...are amazing!"

"Those movements...are you an array master?"

The differences between a typical toolmaker and an array master were the way they inscribed the arrays. As mentioned before, toolmakers received the inheritance of a premade array. They simply had to ’stamp’ it, though the process itself was far more arduous than that.

Someone who could draw arrays from a dot could no longer be classified as just a toolmaker.

"I am an array master," she said with a smile. "I have a team studying arrays. And we can really use expertise from your clan."

The Array Research Team and the various experimental teams, for one, had been clamoring to get more dwarves since they were really quite useful.

"It’s a win-win situation. If the masters decide to resume the project, wouldn’t more knowledge allow you to make better tools?"

Althea was determined to be the master of this tribe, primarily because she wanted to regulate the use of those bombs. She and Garan wouldn’t fear for their lives even if it exploded next to them, but that wasn’t the same with everyone else below level 30, which comprised probably 99% of the population.

In the end, Elder Vasto reluctantly agreed, and the rest of the dwarves cheered.

He added a lot of conditions among the dwarves. For example, they could go only after equipping the dwarves with various magic tools. Althea reckoned that one or some of these tools would ensure the dwarves’ safety, so she waited patiently until everyone was fully equipped.

Althea’s party had become several times larger than when they arrived.

For the Orcs, they had Bable and Buggy, and for the dwarves, they managed to pull six, which was already more than what they had hoped, considering everything.

These dwarves were in several generations. A third would be the teens, exploratory and with a lot of room for growth, while the others were adults who should be more stable, though they were definitely excited inside.

While the dwarves were deciding on who to send, Althea and Garan were left to rest in the rooms there, with the couple looking around and finding out more about the situation of the Eastern dwarves.

There were not many dwarves in the first place, and although their lifespans were long, many of them would still die through unnatural causes due to their slow speed, lack of EQ, and other things.

One of the things she found was the dwarves’ specializations. Though the eastern dwarves adapted a different mode and neglected most inheritances, it was the same with them.

The dwarves gain knowledge about a tool, and they tend to do that their whole lives. There would be variations and improvements, but generally speaking, the tools they made would be of the same family of tools. For example, some dwarves who were experts in making aether trebuchets might also learn how to handle the cannon if their talent permitted them.

Here, other than the bomb, they found that a lot of them were through mechanisms. Case in point, the elevator. It could only activate with the aura signature of a few dwarves and was designed as such, so thankfully Althea and Garan did not bother waiting around it before.

They were so slow and had short limbs. It was impossible for them to reach and settle at this height in such near-vertical mountains with those short legs.

Other contraptions included the cart rail, which was more than just a track over rails. It could magically increase speed a bit.

They were just what they needed for the theme park~

Of course, there were also other uses, but those depended on the research team. Anyway, no matter how many dwarves they took with them, they would definitely have a job immediately upon their arrival.

That said...they acknowledged that traveling with so many dwarves was akin to putting a target over their heads.

The dwarves all wore some coats and robes, to be carried by the orcs. Anyway, there were only six of them and were quite easy for the orcs to carry around as if they were backpacks.

It was the wild roots’ performance that was most impressive. Sol was particularly ravenous to make up for the lack of wood energy and treated even the weak monsters as ’bite-sized snacks’.

This applied to Truffles and Lily, too, except Lily literally had to be stationary since there was no pond around.

However, whenever there was a water source nearby, it was Lily who would react and lead them there. This made the logistics much more comfortable.

Whenever they neared a water source, Lily would jump at it. If plants could sigh in relaxation, Lily definitely would be doing so.

As for Truffles, it was practically a small digger monster in function. The soil on this side seemed softer and easier for it to travel around, so it really did spend much of its time underground.

Althea had lost track of it many times, but she just went on, knowing the Truffles would follow after her and find her eventually.

With the wild roots being so useful, the two orcs did not have to fight too much, which was good considering they were carrying three dwarves each.

Like this, the journey back was exceptionally smooth.