I, the wizard, the foolish Buddha.

Grey Falcon City is a typical medieval city. Although the influx of refugees during the war has led to the construction of many new low stone houses, making some areas appear crowded and chaotic, its former prosperity is still evident.

Perhaps because winter is a frequent visitor to the city, the architecture of Grey Falcon City, like its people, has a rugged and bold feel of the North, yet it also possesses a very unrestrained and passionate artistic sense.

This reminded Roland of the artworks collected by the Dracula family.

The person who designed this city back then must have been an art master.

The magnificent and tall buildings were covered with snow, and in some houses, which were probably blacksmiths' workshops, there were still scorching fires.

Roland suddenly felt as if he were walking in Winterfell.

When he looked toward the East District, he saw that the sky there was shrouded in mist, which was clearly water vapor rising from the sky.

Although a large cathedral blocked the view, Roland guessed that there must be many blacksmith workshops there—the sky was brighter there, with many lights, but they weren't on fire; rather, they looked like there were many sources of light.

There must be many blacksmith shops there, which caused the snow to evaporate into mist.

A nobleman from Dracula once mentioned that although the count had issued a curfew, the furnace could not be extinguished due to the special environment by the river, otherwise it would be difficult to light.

So even though there was no one on the streets, the craftsmen were all working hard inside their houses.

Roland couldn't help but become curious. He said to Catherine, "Valeria is actually a small artisan town in the north. Although it's small, it has quite a few workshops. However, in medieval places like this, workshops are usually built near castles."

"Yes."

Catherine smiled meaningfully: "It's hard to imagine that a city from the castle era would cram all the blacksmith shops into one district."

Count Barr, who was standing nearby, shook his head with a complicated expression after hearing the two's discussion.

Roland asked Count Barr, "Aren't there many blacksmith shops in the castle? And I've heard there are many workshops underground as well."

I've seen them before; they're quite large, more than enough to meet the iron needs of Grey Falcon City's main force.

Why were so many blacksmith shops set up in the old town on the east side?

Count Barr remarked with emotion, “It was built by my great-great-great-grandfather—you know, four hundred years ago, when the reformists were in power.”

At that time, the Grey Falconers not only knew about the geological resources of various areas along the river, but also about many mines.

Therefore, the demand for iron products was quite high back then.

The city was much bigger back then than it is now.

There are also many workshops.

So, the church of that era helped my ancestors build a... well, I think it was a 'solar energy workshop'?
Anyway, it's a place that specializes in producing lightning.

It can meet the needs of the entire riverbank.

"A solar energy workshop that produces lightning?"

Roland looked at the crowded buildings and the muddy alleyways between them, and said, "Producing magical runes?"

Count Bar said, "I don't quite understand either. Those documents are too old, and there are many unfamiliar words in them. However, judging from Grand Scholar Merlin's interpretation of history, it seems to be related to touching the stars."
I suspect that in that era, the Dracula family must have known how to cultivate their offspring into Star-Rank (Third Rank) powerhouses.

Roland suddenly understood.

By this time, the group had already bypassed the cathedral that was blocking their view.

Roland looked curiously toward the old town, but he never expected to see a ruin covered in thick snow and ice.

The dilapidated buildings in the ruins were very strange; they were not in the medieval style, but rather square and neatly arranged like circuit boards.

Between these buildings are numerous rusty skybridges. These skybridges are densely packed like a spider web, yet they are orderly.

These skybridges and walkways covered the entire ruins, but there were no stone pillars supporting them underneath.

At the very center of the ruins stood an enormous 'workshop,' containing many incredibly tall towers. The steam rose from these towers.

Count Bar said, “My lord, according to the orders of the Papacy, the old town is not supposed to be entered or used. But as you know, the fighting on the riverbank is very fierce.”

Therefore, Grand Scholar Merlin suggests creating something that can fly, so that we can take you away... cough, so that we can take you to reunite with the wizards.

Therefore, after consulting with Sir Richard, the leader of the Crusades, we activated this…

Count Barr looked at Merlin.

Professor Merlin said, "A nuclear fusion low-frequency magnetohydrodynamic phase power station."

"?"

Roland was stunned for a long time before asking, "What do you mean by eating willow trotters?"

Before he could ask any more questions, Count Bart slapped his hand.

He said, "Yes, it's the willow trotters! It's the child of the sun god, and its divine power could support the needs of all the cities along the river for 'lightning' back then."

Roland said with an "Oh," and then said, "You startled me. I thought it was a nuclear fusion low-frequency magnetohydrodynamic phase power station. It turns out it's just some kind of mysterious artifact."

Catherine remarked from the side, "It truly is a mysterious object."

The count laughed and said, "Besides eating the mysterious and exotic Willow Trotters, there are many other good things. Grey Falcon City is named after them."

The tradition of eating willow trotters has been restarted. The base beneath the old city will be able to produce... uh, that Merlin mentor? What's that thing that can instantly fly to the heavens and unleash the brilliance of the stars using the power of the sun god?

Mentor Merlin: "Grey Falcon-type high-energy ion plasma bomber."

"???"

Roland, looking completely bewildered, asked, "What lychee?"

Mentor Merlin said, "They can't produce anything anymore. Those fools in the old guard only kept the blueprints. What's the use of just keeping the blueprints?"

They don't even know what the word 'materials' means, so what can they possibly leave behind?
I wanted to go inside to find something, but I couldn't even open the door.
Miss Helena helped open the door, which allowed us to restore the underground base.

Fortunately, those conservatives were foolish enough to only destroy all the magic matrices and storage crystals. Without these, we wouldn't know how to use the equipment anymore.

Roland, his face still a mess and not yet able to process what he had just thought of: "."

After a pause, Mentor Merlin sighed and said, "The technology of the ancients, although it is roughly in the same direction as the path we are taking now, is too far apart. So we don't understand those things and don't know how to restore them."

Catherine, who was standing nearby, suddenly blinked and said playfully, "But it can be fixed with magic—although we don't understand it, restoration spells can turn them back into something brand new."

At Catherine's prompting, a senior apprentice hurried forward. Flipping through the documents, he said, "Since the proposal to resurrect all four was rejected, the project's efficiency has greatly improved."

If the 'Usak' mentor arrives tomorrow and joins the engineering team, then this strange city will recover to over 95% within the next 72 hours.
The remaining 5% of the repair work is extremely difficult, mainly focusing on those small unidentified flying objects called 'Grey Falcons'. These require the help of a magic divination matrix to decipher, therefore, it is expected to take one to two weeks.

"and many more!"

Roland interrupted, "Does Instructor Usak know these things?"

The advanced apprentice said, "I don't understand, but he does understand magic."

Catherine added, "Mystical magic." Roland understood. Four hundred years ago, Grey Falcon City was originally an industrial park that produced UFOs.

At that time, the reformists followed a 'modern' technological route, which was extremely materialistic, so the things they secretly researched were incomprehensible even to wizards.

It's fair to say that these things have extremely high technical barriers to entry; if you were to start researching them from scratch, it would take hundreds of years to repair them.

However, although the wizards couldn't understand these things, they could use magic to restore the entire park to its original state in a very short time.

They can even repair UFOs.

The advanced apprentice continued, "The project on the Land of the End, overseen by Instructor Usak, is almost complete. According to our divination, the mysteries here, though somewhat complex, are far less significant than those in the Land of the End."

Therefore, it's not a problem for him to lead the project here.

Catherine interjected, "Usak Tower is actually here to oversee many mysterious research projects at 'Angel River,' but since he's here, let him manage the old town as well."

He understands engineering better than any of us, and he can communicate much better with Professor Merlin and the others.

After a pause, Catherine asked Roland curiously, "Are those things called Grey Falcons really that amazing?"

Roland said with a very complicated expression, "It's remarkable."

Catherine asked, "How amazing is it?"

Roland said, "It can fly to the distant sky and emit a radiance as intense as the sun."

Four hundred years ago, we would have witnessed a magnificent celestial phenomenon, like a shower of falling stars, before being evaporated completely in a sky full of scorching light.

If there are enough of them, the ocean will begin to boil. Even the whole world will turn into a burning glass sphere.

Roland's words sounded a bit too exaggerated, so much so that Catherine only believed it after seeing her mentor Merlin nod.

Catherine was utterly shocked. She murmured, "Isn't that even more powerful than our Forbidden Angel?"

Roland shook his head and said, "Not at all."
They were far inferior to our punk spaceships, but they could certainly inflict devastating damage on us four hundred years ago.

In fact, Roland exaggerated somewhat.

He underestimated the wizards' methods and mystical magic, and overestimated the Church.

The church did indeed reach this point four hundred years ago.

However, four hundred years ago, wizards had already applied mystical magic to the level of 'Cthulhu magic civilization'.

If a war had broken out between the two sides four hundred years ago, the church would not have been fighting the natives, but rather an unnamed ancient god.

It remains to be seen who will win and who will lose.

However, it is undeniable that throughout history, the church has often outpaced the wizards.

But they all gave up halfway, falling into an endless cycle of civilization.

In fact, the church has an exceptionally strong advantage if it wants to plant a tree of wisdom.

Most of the forbidden ruins are in the south, and divine grace is something even more idealistic than magic, so there is no barrier to their emergence of ancient technology.

Wizards need to rely on research to advance their technology. But the church can simply grant wishes.

Even if they can't find the forbidden ruins, the gods could easily crush the wizards with just a little something slipping through their fingers.

But the gods would not allow the Tree of Wisdom to grow in the Garden of Eden for the flock.

So whenever this sapling just begins to sprout, that giant hand called faith crushes it.

The gods didn't even need to lift a finger; the conservative followers were enough to stifle their own civilization.

Looking at the ruins before him, once so glorious and magnificent, Roland couldn't help but recall a sentence that Senior Sister Catherine had inadvertently uttered in the 'Twilight Territory Sea Fortress City'.

That day, as the two stepped onto the main street of Seaburg, Roland was very curious as to why something from the steam age would appear in a medieval city.

Catherine, however, said there was nothing to be curious about; more advanced things had appeared many times before.

The wizards didn't follow an 'extreme materialist' path, and Roland wasn't involved in magical technology, so he didn't have a direct perception of how advanced the magical civilization of the Eastern Realm was. He couldn't see how the wizards had been progressing steadily and indirectly.

However, the situation in the Southern Church was far too obvious. They were not only dealing with things Roland could understand, but they were not moving forward in a roundabout way; they were simply going in circles.

In this vast city of Grey Falcon, to the left lies the incredibly advanced old town, while to the right is an ignorant medieval city inhabited by believers in evil gods.

The two are only a step apart, yet they are separated by an entire civilization.

Mentor Merlin said that the people in the church don't even understand what 'materials' are.

indeed so.

In the eyes of the church, materials are ores, wool, cotton, and other things that can be used to forge longswords and armor.

In Professor Merlin's eyes, materials are high molecular polymers, superconductors, and things that can be applied to nuclear fusion magnetohydrodynamic power plants.

At that moment, Roland's mind was filled with countless thoughts.

But in the end, only one voice remained in his mind—that without completely shattering the faith in the gods of light and shadow, a person can never truly be a person.

The gods drew a strange circle on the earth, and the church began to endlessly circle itself, gradually turning into a docile and foolish flock.

Now, the gods have drawn a circle for the wizards and showered them with incredibly tempting desserts.
If the wizards eat these desserts, then no matter how advanced their civilization has become, no matter how advanced their current ideas are, they will become another united church of the gods of light and shadow.

Their civilization will revert to the primitive era, and their minds will revert to ignorance.

At this moment, Roland felt he could understand his father-in-law's hatred of the gods even more.

The park near the cooling tower has been partially restored. The ground is a smooth asphalt road, and the buildings and factories with glass curtain walls look very familiar to Roland.

At this moment, Roland couldn't help but recall the 'gymnasium' he had seen in the Crimson Shrine, built by O'Reilly herself.

Roland wondered to himself, 'What was this world like seventy thousand years ago?'

There were many people in the old town, and everyone was busy, not stopping their work because of Roland and the others' arrival.

They were all wearing the winter clothes worn by the soldiers of Greyfalcon City, but many were clearly wizards. Others were also clearly not real soldiers.

Seeing Roland's puzzled look, Catherine said, "They are certainly not wizards and revolutionaries; they are a private army recently recruited by Greyfal City."

Count Barr chimed in, “Indeed. The banks of the Angel River will become a neutral zone between the North and the South.”

The forces of the Church of Light and Shadow and the Dawn Society will withdraw from this place, and black market merchants, cultists, and black wizards will flood in.

Although I joined the Dawn Society, Edward, the new lord of the Dracula family, was unwilling to see this place become a lawless land.

Given the limited military strength of Grey Falcon City, Edward began recruiting new soldiers yesterday afternoon.

After a pause, Count Barr added, "My son Edward is a staunch skeptic, and this new lord will maintain absolute neutrality between the Church of Light and Shadow and the New Order of Dawn." (End of Chapter)