New Dunkirk Port was undergoing massive construction. More than two hundred thousand civilian laborers had been conscripted by military order, bringing their own provisions and receiving no compensation as they joined this enormously costly project.
Near a hill outside New Dunkirk City, several small knolls had been artificially leveled and excavated into deep foundations. Large numbers of earth-element mages used stone-from-mud spells to reinforce the foundation pits until they were impregnable.
Dwarf and goblin slaves wearing shackles roared loudly. Enormous furnaces stood upon the seashore, while equally enormous molds had been placed directly in the seawater. Fire-element and earth-element mages worked together, kindling towering flames within the furnaces and melting hard volcanic rock and equally hard steel into molten slurry. The rock and steel melted together, and amid the dwarves' booming chants, the mixed slurry was poured from the furnaces into the molds.
The tremendous boiling roar made timid children quake in terror. With the aid of the seawater, the red slurry in the molds cooled rapidly, forming huge bricks several meters long and wide. Battalion after battalion of metal magic puppets marched over with thunderous, heavy steps, lifting these massive bricks, each weighing hundreds of tons, from the molds and carrying them in great strides toward the bustling construction site.
Using a mixed slurry of molten lava and iron as mortar, one huge brick after another was fitted neatly into the great pits, without the slightest gap between them. Whenever a huge brick had just formed, magic-rune inscribers from the Abyss World would rush forward without regard for the heat radiating from the faintly glowing red bricks, swiftly using ink mixed from the blood of powerful Magic Beasts and powdered high-energy magic crystals to write all manner of magical runes across them.
"Hey-ha!"
"Hey-ha!"
"Hey-ha!"
Great numbers of human