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"Huh?" Daniel, confused, stopped in his tracks.

"And my bow too, where is it?" the elf added with a teasing smile.

This only added to Daniel\'s confusion, but then memories started to resurface in his mind. He remembered the day when his house was bombed by a bomber. He recalled using a card to create a universal pocket to escape, and that the metal scarabs had drilled a way out for him.

If he remembered correctly, the items inside the universal pocket would spill out the moment the \'Universal Pocket\' returned to his mindscape. Now, as he carefully thought about it, those armor and bow should have spilled out from the pocket, yet he didn\'t see them. This meant that someone had taken them.

"Shit…" Daniel muttered as he realized that his belongings might have ended up in someone else\'s possession. He remembered that he hadn\'t set the owner lock on the armor and bow, meaning that anyone with mana could use them.

He would worry about that later. For now, he needed to deal with the two upset customers.

"I sincerely apologize for not delivering the promised products. I will compensate you with custom-made items and a reasonable favor," Daniel said as he bowed apologetically to the two.

Seeing Daniel bow, the two customers were surprised. They never expected a mage of Daniel\'s caliber to apologize, let alone bow to them. They intended to receive some form of compensation, but had not anticipated this level of respect.

"Ahem... Danny, you don\'t need to bow to them," Envy said with a feigned cough before casting a resentful glance at the two. Though this was a harmless joke, she felt it undermined Daniel\'s dignity as a respected mage and craftsman.

The two customers exchanged wry smiles. They hadn\'t realized Envy would take offense to their harmless banter. They certainly wouldn\'t have joked like that if they had known.

"Um, sorry, Mr. Emberweave, it was just a joke. Please don\'t take it seriously. We understand you\'re very busy, so if you could deliver the goods within a few months, we would be satisfied, right, knife ear?" the dwarf said to the elf, who nodded in agreement.

"Absolutely, the shorty is right, please take your time, Mr. Emberweave," the elf agreed, yet took a playful jab at the dwarf who had spoken first.

"Damn elf."/"Shitty dwarf," the two quipped at each other, prompting Envy to let out a weary sigh. She decided to pay attention to Daniel instead.

"So… Danny, Is there anything you need?" She asked with a smile.

"Yes, I miss you, I need to see your face." Daniel smoothly replied.

Seeing this Envy let out a laugh. "Hahaha Very smooth, Mister, but you\'re lying through your teeth. Since you make me laugh, I\'ll forgive you for lying to me." She then gives a quick kiss to Daniel cheek as he sits down next to her.

"Well, it\'s like this" Daniel then began telling Envy about the Clockwork Enclosure, its features and that he needed some magical creature to be put in there for them to multiply and also some workers who will work in there as caretaker to take care of those magical creatures.

"I see… hm…" Envy uttered as she looked at the two guests as if thinking of something.

"Daniel, you might already know them, but let me introduce them. This is Queen Sylpharia Silverleaf, the Queen of the Elves, and this is Mr. Hargrim Goldgrip, the President of the Dwarf Community," Envy introduced the elf queen and then the dwarf in order of their status, as the queen\'s status is higher than the community leader\'s.

"Oh, Hello," Daniel greeted the two, then turned toward Envy. "Do you need me to step away first? In case what you\'re discussing with them is some kind of business secret," he asked.

"No, there\'s no need to. They\'re here because of our organization. They wanted to relocate their secret realm from Europe to the new Atlantis, and they\'re here to negotiate with us," said Envy.

"I see..." Daniel nodded, then glanced toward the two. He didn\'t know the specific terms Envy was discussing with them, or if she had finished her conversation, so he decided to leave it to Envy.

Seeing that Daniel didn\'t add anything, she knew that he had decided to let her deal with this, so she continued.

"In fact, you\'ve come at the right time, Danny. Any people who want to join our organization need to bring something to the table. So, I think her majesty the queen should be able to help you in this matter," Envy suggested.

Daniel nodded in agreement. The elf\'s reputation as the friend of nature is prevalent within the Curtained World, so it\'s natural that the elf would be able to help him take care of those magical creatures in the Clockwork enclosure.

"Yes, if it\'s about taking care of magical creatures, please leave it to us. We elves have a lot of experience in caring for magical creatures. Our most elite caretaker has centuries of experience in taking care of rare creatures, such as the Unicorn," said the elf queen.

[Huh? Are unicorns considered rare? Oh, maybe she\'s just being polite, thinking that I only have a unicorn since the Enclosure just opened,] Daniel thought to himself. His mind was still using the Magical Creature Encyclopedia book as a standard, unaware that this book is considered old and that unicorns are considered common creatures at the time the book was published.

It\'s important to note that Daniel only knows about common sense and advanced knowledge that\'s not considered technical in the Curtained World through the education Envy taught him and some other areas she taught him for fear that he\'d get scammed.

He didn\'t know about advanced knowledge such as magical creature caretaking, creature biology, or how to safely extract creature parts without harming them.

These are considered advanced technical knowledge in the Curtained World, similar to Artificing, which Daniel knows and most of the mages don\'t know like Daniel does.

The reason Envy gave the Encyclopedia to Daniel was not for him to learn, but for him to use it as a reference so he wouldn\'t get scammed by some scammer on the internet trying to sell fake magical creature parts or products.

"Hargrim smiled cunningly and pointed to himself, asking Daniel instead of Envy, \'What about me lad? Do you have any plans in mind?\' He hoped that the mistake Daniel made would give him a more favorable term.

Daniel ignored any underlying meaning and asked, \'What are you good at?\'

Seeing this, the elf queen let out a mischievous smile and said, \'Oh, you know, the usual: mining, smithing, crafting. Dwarves are good craftsmen, but so are you.\'

The queen\'s meaning was clear: the dwarf couldn\'t add anything significant to the table because all the things that the dwarf was good at, Daniel and Astral Corporation could do better. Even with smithing, she was sure that the dwarf, as of right now, had lost a lot of ancestral knowledge due to modern-day mana deficiency and couldn\'t craft an indestructible armor like Daniel could.

[This damn knife ears bitch!] Hagrim gritted his teeth, he really wanted to strangle the bitch.

Daniel made a complicated face. It\'s true that he needed more allies in his organization, but since the number of dwarves isn\'t much better than the elves, he thought that dwarf manpower during wartime wouldn\'t suffice. As for mining, he had Nexus Prime to program another A.I. subsidiary to take over the undersea mining task he was planning to start soon.

Regarding smithing and crafting, he could teach them, but he didn\'t trust them enough yet.

Seeing her beloved hesitate, Envy offered her advice. "Danny, I suggest letting the dwarves help with your artifact manufacturing or even robotic manufacturing and teaching them how to do so. Dwarves might be stubborn and prideful, but once you convince them, they are surprisingly loyal. Show them that your technology is much better than some of their arts."

"Some?" Daniel repeated, indicating that even with his Atlantean artifacts and technological advancements, there must be something he couldn\'t replicate from the dwarves.

"Yes, some. You might not know this, but Excalibur, Gungnir, and Mjolnir were forged by the dwarves. These weapons are the foundation of legends during many civilizations\' golden ages. There are theories that the Ring of Solomon might have been forged by the dwarves," Envy continued.

"The only reason they can\'t do that anymore is because of the mana deficiency problem plaguing the modern day, which has cut off their ancestral knowledge from the ancestral stone," Envy explained.

"Ancestral stone?" Daniel inquired.

This time, Hargrim answered instead of Envy. "You can think of it as a memory storage that can only be accessed via a memory link that only dwarves have. But mana deficiency is like a power shortage to us. We use all the mana we gain to preserve the knowledge within the stone but are unable to use it."