Sazmin stood up from his seat, pulled up his long beard that hung down to his waist, and wrapped it around his wrist like a bracelet. Then, he placed the hand wrapped with the beard on his left shoulder and bowed deeply.
"Sazmin·Strong Helm, Ironhelm Kingdom the 10,345th king, surrenders to the great Arcane Grand Archon. May you protect our people and lead us to a better life."
Ian knew the etiquette of Dwarves, so he responded solemnly. He also stood up from his seat, walked to Sazmin, untied the beard on the other person's wrist, and wrapped it around his own wrist.
"Ian·Bones, the founder of the Arcane Empire, accept your surrender. I promise to regard your people as my people and lead them to prosperity."
The surrender ceremony was brief and efficient. None of the ministers present raised any objections, because they absolutely respected the king's decision. Moreover, they had been discussing the idea of surrendering to the Empire in order to survive the current era of Cataclysm in private for many years.
"Your Majesty the Grand Consul, do we need to prepare anything?" Sazmin asked.
"No need. However, you just mentioned that there is a traitor among you."
"That's right. If it hadn't been for that traitor, I wouldn't have fallen into that danger today." When mentioning the traitor, Sazmin clenched his fists with his thick hands.
"You don't need to worry about that traitor anymore. My intelligence department had already found out his identity and dealt with him secretly before you arrived at Thorpe Star," Ian said calmly.
Sazmin was stunned for a moment when he heard this, and then smiled bitterly. He once again experienced the outrageous and terrifying control power of the Arcane Empire.
In the following time, Ian and Sazmin conducted preliminary consultations on the details of Fusion. Due to the Empire's current extreme lack of resources, Ian is currently unable to provide large-scale territorial relocation for Dwarves, but he promises to first incorporate the entire galaxy where Ironhelm Kingdom is located into the Empire's absolute defense system.
Ian cast an extremely profound arcane spell to compress the entire galaxy where Ironhelm Kingdom was originally located from the spatial dimension. Then, he used the space traction force of Floating City to move the compressed galaxy to a safe coordinate point very close to the border of the Empire.
This galaxy is perfectly integrated into the defense matrix of "Grand Arcane Shield" and is also set up in a relatively isolated state to prevent any potential external threats or contamination from spreading to the Empire homeland.
After settling the dwarves, Lin An immediately mobilized a large number of the empire's top bloodline scholars. He planned to launch a grand "bloodline improvement project" to conduct an in-depth analysis of the dwarf bloodline data from the worlds of "Blessings for a Beautiful World" and "Black Clover", and try to integrate it with the dwarf bloodline of this universe.
Although Sazmin felt a little uneasy about this "genetic modification", he chose to fully cooperate after Ian assured him that it would not only greatly increase the average life span of Dwarvess, but also allow them to regain their ancient forging inspiration.
"You don't have to worry. I will personally assign Empire's most outstanding bloodline expert. One of my wives (Pheobe) is also a leader in this field. She will supervise the progress of this project throughout the entire process," Ian said with relief.
Hearing that the consul's wife was personally in charge, Sazmin's anxious heart finally fell.
One morning a few months later.
All Arcane Empire citizens no matter where they are, a heavy notification with dazzling golden light pops up on their magic terminals at the same time:
[Empire Arcane Library welcomes a major epic version update, and knowledge permissions are fully reduced and open to all citizens!]
When people clicked on the updated list with trembling hands and saw clearly the advanced magic knowledge that was once considered forbidden but is now labeled as "basic textbook", the entire Arcane Empire was completely plunged into unprecedented madness.
(The next chapter will unfold from the perspective of Chris·Qiu, please be prepared, it will be a long and grand story.)