American comics: Starting with Luke the Maker

Silent City.

Teleportation Hall.

"Hurry, hurry, hurry! Everyone, be faster!" A high-pitched voice filled with intense excitement shouted loudly, the sound piercing and grating, like a loudspeaker echoing through the Teleportation Hall.

The Teleportation Hall was now fully open. The interior space was layered upon layer, expanded into a vast area. The one shouting was a humanoid creature about three meters tall. It had disproportionate limbs and torso, and wore what looked like makeshift plate armor. Beside him were others of his race, all equally joyful, acting as repeaters for the former.

The Nine Realms Dwarves!

Since their homeworld was corrupted by the Abyss and banished to the void, their relatively small race had scattered throughout the reorganized Nine Realms. A very few settled in other places like Vanaheim, living in seclusion. The majority, some of whom valued rules and contracts, adhered to the protection agreement made with Asgard's King Odin, and resettled in the area Odin had designated for them within Asgard.

Another part of them had contacted Luke before this and settled down in Silent City. They believed that Luke and Odin, King of the Nine Realms, were allies, so joining Luke's forces was not significantly different from forging equipment and weapons for Asgard. Besides, Luke had never restricted them from forging equipment for the people of Asgard.

In fact, before any prohibitions were issued, the dwarves of Silent City were extremely free! They could forge equipment and weapons for anyone who came to them in Silent City. And business was booming.

Compared to those who valued rules and contracts, this group, while also valuing contracts, had a greater pursuit of forging skills and knowledge of more otherworldly materials.

Odin, the King of the Nine Realms, was a wealthy and generous leader, but Luke could offer them even more! At least they could access first-hand otherworldly materials, equipment forging techniques, and even forging tools and equipment faster than their brethren who had settled in Asgard.

Of course, many of these technologies and materials were relatively backward in their eyes, even insignificant, but there were always some that made their eyes light up, even exceeding their imagination, and were regarded as their highest ideals.

The dwarves' forging furnace had been destroyed and disappeared along with their homeworld, but soon, Silent City had found replicas for them. Moreover, with the dwarves' unreserved communication, the Heblon, who had thoroughly understood the dwarves' furnace technology, could also customize various types according to the dwarves' requirements.

Large factories, small pocket-sized ones. All kinds.

With the dwarves' reputation and forging skills, the customer traffic in Silent City was such that every dwarf in Silent City had endless orders to fill. To say they were rolling in money, among the wealthy in Silent City, was no exaggeration.

And the dwarves of Silent City, besides buying the psionic wine invented and brewed by Anun, threw most of the new currency they earned back to Heblon.

Compared to those in Asgard who were still sharing the old forging furnace, the dwarves of Silent City, who had become rich, dreamed of obtaining a custom furnace of their own.

After all, they were different from their brethren in Asgard. The Asgard dwarves only needed to serve Asgard. So they didn't feel there was any problem with sharing a furnace. They had been doing so for thousands of years.

But they were different. They faced all kinds of customers, from various cosmic races and even dimensional races. Their demands were also diverse, and the materials they brought were strange and exotic. In this situation, the processing of some materials and the forging of equipment placed considerable demands on the furnace!

The dwarves' old furnace was once a perfect set of forging equipment. It could single-handedly supply energy to forge a divine artifact, or it could forge batches of standardized equipment like a流水线 factory. It was fine when focusing on forging for one force or one person, as there was no need to worry about conflicting tasks or other factors. But when there were many customers from different camps, and the equipment to be forged was also very demanding, the old furnace's forging rules became somewhat impractical.

Public ones were public ones after all. If someone was using it, you had to wait in line. You also had to spend time adjusting it to make the furnace reach the level you were satisfied with, the level that could forge the customer's requested equipment.

Even though Heblon had upgraded the furnace many times and optimized many steps and processes, the dwarves still felt it was somewhat inconvenient. So, after the first dwarf who dared to try, who asked Heblon to customize an independent furnace for himself, stood up, all the remaining dwarves suddenly realized the truth, and they all took out their savings and placed orders with Heblon.

The dwarves were even very clever. After some communication, they differentiated their customized independent furnaces from those of other dwarves. For example, one group of dwarves was better at forging certain equipment, while another group was better at forging another type of equipment. So they tacitly differentiated the independent furnaces they purchased, thereby differentiating customer groups while reducing their workload. Moreover, the customized furnaces could be more refined and easy to use according to their needs.

For the dwarves of Silent City, their greatest hobby, besides studying forging techniques, was to constantly upgrade their furnaces. Even now, the level of the furnace was almost equivalent to the level of forging skill.

Of course, this was not 100% accurate. After all, upgrading the furnace required a lot of savings, and savings were linked to the number of orders and the customer's needs, either small profits and high sales, or private customization, one-on-one service. But dwarves with good forging skills would indeed gradually build a reputation among customers. And they would indeed have more demand, ability, and financial resources to upgrade their furnaces.

They also had their own set of judgment rules for the furnaces customized from Heblon. For example, the dwarves' forging furnace, and the furnace series upgraded and modified on top of the dwarves' furnace, were considered the first type of furnace, and were the most common. The best effect was nothing more than using them to forge some divine artifacts.

Higher-level furnaces could not only forge equipment, etc., but also be used to forge life, as well as some strange and mysterious things. After seeing this type of furnace in Heblon's technology customization, they were extremely envious. In their view, this was a higher level of forging technology, even something beyond the scope of dwarven skills. It was something that expanded their horizons and the upper limit of their skills, allowing them to climb to a higher level.

Expensive?

That was not a problem! As long as there were still customers who came to them for help in forging things, they would have a steady stream of new currency flowing into their hands. They were richer and much more affluent than their brethren in Asgard.

But the only thing they were not as good as their Asgard brethren was that they were really a bit busy and competitive. Busy meant there were many orders, and competitive was not in terms of orders, but in terms of technology. Once you closed your doors to build a car for a period of time, without communicating with your peers, you would be in a relatively confused stage for a period of time in the future.

There was certainly no shortage of orders. Even if they couldn't get the best orders, there would be a vast number of standardized orders, such as those from the Time Administration Bureau, S.H.I.E.L.D., and other organizations, which they couldn't finish. But the fact that they couldn't keep up with their companions' thinking and technology was a torment for all ambitious dwarven craftsmen if they couldn't keep up with the first echelon and were left behind.

Just like a new set of manufacturing equipment in human society requires a set of supporting operating methods and a period of learning operating knowledge, if you want to perfectly master, utilize, and use a new furnace, you naturally need to learn new supporting knowledge.

For example, forging life? Perhaps they could forge some strange life forms that met their imagination based on their previous experience and knowledge, but this would not be able to exert the maximum effect of the new furnace at all.

For example, the new furnace called the Origin Furnace in the Heblon Pavilion could even forge powerful life forms at the level of gods like Asgard in the hands of those who knew how to use it, but in your hands, you could only forcibly forge some deformed species with many advantages and disadvantages and unstable life forms by relying on the powerful effect of the furnace. You couldn't even stably forge a race-like life form.

Therefore, the dwarves of Silent City were now in a busy and fulfilling state all day long, taking orders to forge equipment, earning new currency, upgrading their furnaces, and learning more knowledge to expand their forging field.

In the dwarven race, where status and identity were determined by forging skills and technology, the former dwarven king, Eitri, was undoubtedly at the forefront. He handed over the throne to a certain dwarf in Asgard and joined Silent City as a craftsman. He was among the first dwarves to come into contact with Silent City. For him, apart from the continuation of the race, he didn't care about his identity and status. Compared to Asgard, he was more willing to live in Silent City. At least here, he could occasionally drink with an elderly Luke and discuss their respective skills.

After conquering the world of Azeroth, obtaining the Titan technology of the Origin Furnace there, moving it back for analysis and reconstruction, extracting and peeling off the internal technology, and making a replica of the Origin Furnace, Eitri took the lead in taking out a loan to purchase the new furnace. Taking the dwarves of Azeroth as a template, he used the Heblon version of the Origin Furnace to create several burly, but not tall, little dwarves.

They inherited the dwarves' forging talent, could easily get started with all forging-related work, and even had their own thinking and inspiration, which could provide dwarven craftsmen with various forms of intimate assistance during forging. They were not good at fighting, but their strength was amazing, and their resistance to various energies was also extremely high. Overall, although they were not a powerful mythical life form, they were an extremely suitable helper race for dwarven craftsmen.

Their brains were not very good, but they were intimate and easy to use enough!

This was the unanimous evaluation of all the dwarves who had experienced these little dwarves! With them, they even solved many of their problems, such as the lack of manpower and clumsy apprentices. Some less important orders that didn't require high standards, after a period of training, the dwarves could even completely hand over to this group of little dwarves to forge, in order to free up their time.

Eitri's little dwarves made all the dwarves who had experienced these little dwarves extremely envious. They almost couldn't wait to place orders with Eitri, wanting him to forge more new dwarven lives and then trade them to them. Many of them even wanted to order the Origin Furnace like Eitri and then forge forging lives comparable to the little dwarves.

Unfortunately, except for Eitri, they all failed the Origin Furnace purchase qualification exam and were eliminated. But Eitri, who had passed the exam, was also somewhat helpless in the face of the little dwarves' orders, because the appearance of the little dwarves was based on various coincidental factors. Although having a template to refer to reduced a lot of difficulty, it still took time to reorganize in order to replicate it again.

However, the little dwarves had been listed in Heblon's "Life Forging Equation" list, waiting for him to sort out all the furnace data and submit it as a patent.

What the dwarves were thinking about day and night now was to pass the purchase qualification exam and upgrade their furnaces to the Origin Furnace. But today, they got even better news. Heblon revealed a higher-level furnace.

The World Furnace that can forge worlds!

Eitri knew that Heblon had a plan to build a World Furnace. He had even visited the prototype furnace under the leadership of that elderly Luke, whose body was hunched like a small old man. In his words, this furnace could forge worlds, but mass production was still somewhat difficult.

And today, a new world had appeared with a World Furnace that could wholesale forge universes, and it was about to be moved over. It was conceivable that once Heblon thoroughly understood the technology of this furnace and merged it with Heblon's World Furnace, it might be the pinnacle of all furnaces. It was also the ultimate furnace that these dwarves dreamed of!

Of course, the time span might be very long. Just mastering and upgrading the Origin Furnace was enough for them to spend a long time in their lives chasing and learning. But this did not prevent them from pursuing and believing in a higher furnace. Only they dwarves would be particularly delighted and excited about this news.

So at the moment, they spontaneously showed amazing organization, preparing everything busily in the Teleportation Hall to respond to and receive the arrival of that World Furnace.

They didn't even know if that furnace looked like a furnace at all. After all, neither the dwarves' forging furnace nor the Origin Furnace had much to do with what people recognized as a furnace. They didn't even know if it had a physical form, but this couldn't stop their imagination and joy.

A blazing halo opened in the sky, and with the full power of the Teleportation Hall's Dimensional Rainbow Bridge, vast energy filled every inch of the surrounding space. A very oppressive large object seemed to be struggling to cross over.

(End of this chapter)