CHAPTER 68: THE MOTHER MACHINES OF INDUSTRY

The Dawn Kingdom only had seven top ministers total, each position representing centuries of carefully maintained political balance and aristocratic tradition. The Hand of the King wielded the most comprehensive power, serving as the kingdom’s chief administrator and the monarch’s primary advisor in all matters of state. While the other six ministers each commanded different spheres of authority—military affairs, foreign relations, internal governance, judicial matters, trade regulation, and financial oversight—they were all beings who had climbed to stand at the kingdom’s absolute peak through decades of political maneuvering, noble birthright, or exceptional service to the crown.

The Finance Minister controlled the national treasury’s income and expenditure. All the country’s major spending and revenue were in his grasp. Even the king couldn’t easily change things.

Nobody had expected the Dawn King to suddenly choose to hand financial power to Roster, just a minor viscount. Even though this minor viscount now controlled massive wealth and industry... how could class barriers be so easily raised?!

A small noble suddenly becoming one of the kingdom’s peak figures...

Viscount Roster really wanted to ask if he was joking, but ultimately didn’t speak up. He just didn’t know why, but he suddenly felt a sense of familiarity from the Dawn King that was completely different from when he’d first entered!

No, it wasn’t familiarity.

Familiarity and disgust—two completely unrelated emotions somehow appearing simultaneously here.

"What? Viscount Roster, are you unsatisfied with this position?"

The Dawn King’s voice rang out again, making Roster freeze for a moment, but he quickly reacted: "I’d be very happy to serve the kingdom."

"Good. Berion, I’ll leave the rest to you. I’m going back to rest first." The Dawn King was in some unknown state at this point. He gave a direct order and hurried toward the exit, as if wanting to escape.

As the distance kept growing, finally, the continuous Enlightening Fire disappeared. But now, the God of War’s corruption on the Dawn King had also reached an extremely weak state. It seemed like the energy supporting the Dawn King’s actions had been mostly consumed too.

"The Dawn King’s body has strong rejection toward the God of War’s corruption, but seems almost defenseless against your invasion. But after all these years, completely devouring all that corruption in a short time isn’t easy." The Goddess of Magic looked at the projection in the image and said somewhat helplessly.

"Yeah, completely removing it would be too difficult. But if I went all out, it should be better than now, though I don’t think that’s a good idea." A smile appeared at the corner of Ren’s mouth. "Anyway, in the short term, it’s almost impossible for the God of War to control him to do anything."

Two divine power corruptions appearing in the same mortal’s body was very rare. The information wasn’t complete, and the Goddess of Magic had no experience in this area. But just now, Ren had already discovered that he could actually use the Dawn King as a springboard to send divine power to the God of War.

If he had enough divine power, he could use the Dawn King to corrupt the God of War!

The Goddess of Magic seemed to realize this too, and her gaze toward Ren held some additional inexplicable meaning.

"Since this matter is settled, you should first tell us what machine tools are!" Betty, who had been waiting impatiently, finally spoke up.

Machine tools—the mother machines of industry.

Industrial products specifically made to create industrial products.

Though they couldn’t be as convenient as Ren directly controlling various materials, they were enough to get on a path of healthy development. Even now, mortals could manage to produce some low-precision machine tools.

And low-precision machine tools were fine for producing ’magic power engines,’ because pistons and pipes and such didn’t need to be as precise as in his previous world using gasoline or diesel combustion for power—they used magic rune propulsion instead.

Ren quickly explained his idea, which seemed to activate the Goddess of Magic’s inspiration: "Actually, I can also create a magical creature that can control various materials. This way it can handle everything from scratch. If you can grant it part of your authority, or treat it as a cleric and bestow divine magic, the effect would be even better."

Divine magic was actually the strange magic where deities gave specific groups partial usage rights to their authorities. Since Ren mastered the authority to control various materials, he could naturally let people who believed in him have divine magic to control various materials...

"Magical creature? Like the book?" Ren paused, quickly reacting: "Since I’m granting it divine magic, why don’t I just grant it directly to my believers?"

"Because magical creature can work 24 hours non-stop, as long as magic power supply is sufficient. In other words, in your self-charging arrays, it can work continuously, producing non-stop." The Goddess of Magic showed an expression like ’I understand you.’

Since becoming a god, her understanding of Ren seemed to have increased a lot. In her perception, transforming the world into that state would probably require many, many people constantly working. This magical creature working 24 hours would definitely have huge advantages for him.

Besides that, another point was that clerics didn’t become powerful immediately after having divine magic. As faith became more intense and positions in the church rose higher, divine magic’s power would grow stronger and stronger. This would similarly limit many believers.

They couldn’t have someone like Viscount Roster, who was already responsible for many things, doing production, right? In comparison, magical creature was more reliable.

As long as these settings were configured during creation, it would naturally become the optimal believer.

"Then let’s create such a magical creature." After a moment of silence, Ren nodded. "One will be enough—let them progress step by step for the rest."

"Good, now that this problem is solved, let’s focus on the previous issue. How can we make the piston quickly return to its original position without huge costs?" Seeing that things had basically concluded, Betty turned the topic back to the magic power engine.

At the same time, her gaze toward these two deities held a barely perceptible change.

But the Goddess of Magic spoke up: "Let’s research this magical creature first. Nurturing a magical creature also takes some time."