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...
Ivan left the castle and promptly apparated to a vast underground warehouse. Dozens of individuals were actively engaged, using loading trucks to transport massive golden eggs. It was evident that this was the storage site for the Golden Legion, currently undergoing renovations.
Upon Ivan's sudden appearance, he immediately drew the attention of nearby guards. They hurried over, guns in hand, shouting, "Don't move! Raise your hands and squat in place, or I will shoot."
Those working were mostly startled, and the scene descended into chaos. Running and stamping sounds filled the air, catching the attention of other guards, and prompting an immediate alarm.
Realizing his haste, Ivan extended his left hand, and clicked his fingers, and the chaotic scene promptly quieted. Everyone stood motionless, seemingly held in place by some invisible force, their expressions frozen.
At that moment, Ivan's most trusted butler, Kerry, intervened. Equipped with a body protection magic item crafted by Ivan, he remained mobile and approached upon discovering the situation.
"Master Ivan? Why are you here? What's happening, and why is it so chaotic?" Kelin queried.
"Oh. I apologize, I arrived hastily and forgot to go to the separate office. These workers are mixed up. I'll erase their memory of me. Please comfort them; I'll wait for you in the office," Ivan explained.
With another snap of his fingers, Ivan vanished. As he disappeared, everyone regained their mobility, as if awakening from a dream, completely oblivious to what had occurred since Ivan's arrival.
"Alright, everyone did well just now. There will be plenty of rewards later. Now, let's continue working, and refrain from discussing this further," Kerry casually explained, leaving the others even more bewildered.
Kerry swiftly walked to the office and, upon seeing Ivan in the chair, promptly bowed and saluted. "Master Ivan, have you come to inspect the Golden Legion's transformation? You need not come personally; a simple order, and I would have reported to you."
Ivan shook his head, "This time, I came for some magic materials and acquired a superb magical item. Considering the substantial quantity, I thought of utilizing the leftover materials from the Golden Legion's transformation. After the transformation, the new Golden Legion will have flight capabilities, rendering its original mechanical legs useless. I need to determine how much I've removed for future use."
"Mechanical legs? That's it! Due to time constraints, only five hundred mechanical legs of the Golden Legion have been disassembled. Is that sufficient? If not, I can instruct the staff to expedite the process. Just dismantling the mechanical legs will take a mere three days to complete," Kerry pondered for a moment and promptly provided an answer.
"Enough. Provide me with all 500 pairs of mechanical legs, and keep the rest disassembled and stored. They might come in handy in the future."
"Alright, please follow me. The mechanical legs are stored in the warehouse at the back."
Leading the way, Kerry and Ivan arrived at a sealed warehouse after making two turns. After unlocking it with a key, Kerry pushed the door open, revealing a dense array of mechanical legs inside.
Ivan removed the backpack from his shoulder. Upon opening it, he gestured towards the mechanical legs, causing them to float up and fly into the backpack. Astonishingly, the small backpack managed to accommodate all 500 pairs of mechanical legs.
Though Kerry had witnessed this scene before, he remained astounded, marveling at the magical properties. A small backpack, enchanted with the Traceless Expansion Spell, could indeed hold an impressive amount.
After putting the backpack back on, Ivan bid farewell to Kerry, returned to the castle with the phantom, extracted the mechanical legs, and began the process of disassembling, burning runes, and reassembling. After three hours of work, he successfully crafted a cabin.
The cabin resembled more of a small pavilion, similar in size to an ordinary telephone booth. Originally golden, Ivan found it a tad ostentatious and opted to change it to black, adhering to his preference for a more low-key aesthetic.
Subsequently, Ivan invested hundreds of space energy crystals to expand the interior space of the Traceless Expansion Spell, transforming it into a vast area spanning tens of thousands of square meters.
Carved on the entrance of the small pavilion was the inscription "Devil's Cabin" in English, with a few lines below warning against interference with the devil's rest unless accompanied by satisfactory sacrifices. The consequences, it suggested, could be dire.
Moving on to the exterior design of the Devil's Cabin, Ivan turned his attention to interior decoration. Within the Cabin, he constructed a cutting-edge structure, showcasing advanced technology, and deployed hundreds of spherical robots under the control of the Red Queen for cleaning and customer service.
Originally planning a dark aesthetic to mask the devilish theme, Ivan reconsidered and decided to embrace a unique style instead. Thus, he installed numerous lighting fixtures, replicating natural sunlight, added grass screens, statues, and even a specially designed fountain to evoke a warm atmosphere.
At the pinnacle of the building, Ivan enshrined the golden balance, its distinctive rules governing the entire space. Signing a contract within its confines would bind parties to its terms.
The next and final step was to establish a channel connecting with the outside world for convenient access to the Devil's Cabin, facilitating deals with Ivan. Initially, Ivan designed the Devil's Cabin as a small pavilion for ease of movement, intending to use a car to transport customers. However, deeming it too arrogant, he decided to employ a space door for communication.
Standing at the door, Ivan appeared from the outside as a small pavilion under three meters high, with the door just over two meters. From the inside, however, the two-meter door was embedded in a wall over 100 meters long and tens of meters high, creating an initially dull facade.
Yet, soon it would not be dull. Uninstalled iron doors, identical to the Cabin door, flanked Ivan on both sides. A total of 100 doors, made from the material of the Golden Legion's mechanical legs, featured various magic runes. The smaller and more delicate runes on the door frame served as the foundation for the design, carrying the power of the living space. If neglected and severed by the space power, Ivan's plan would be in jeopardy.
Once prepared, Ivan wheeled over a machine with a discernible space energy crystal atop, indicating its purpose of opening a space wormhole.
Activating the device, a blue light shot out and struck the wall, forming a three-meter-diameter space wormhole. Ivan swiftly embedded a door as the wormhole shrank until it merged with the door frame. The runes on the frame emitted a strange light, resisting the shrinking space wormhole's power and forming a permanent space door.
As Ivan stared at the lit runes, relief washed over him as the wormhole stabilized without collapsing. The other end of the space door opened onto a small Queens alley in New York, offering access to the Devil's Cabin. Whether it could bring Ivan what he desired hinged on luck.
Boosted by the success of the first space gate, Ivan confidently repeated the process, opening and embedding gates until all 100 were successfully in place. Simultaneously, supernatural phenomena occurred worldwide as doors appeared inexplicably in various locations—a bar wall, a high-rise building top, a mountain.
With everything completed, Ivan felt relief. The allure of the mysterious space door was bound to attract curiosity, eventually leading people to discover the Devil's Cabin. Once they left, news of the site would spread, drawing those genuinely interested in transactions. For Ivan, it was harvest time.
...
Throughout the day, Ivan stayed in the Devil's Cabin, eagerly awaiting the first customer. However, he grew increasingly despondent as no one arrived.
Understandably, Ivan's space door was too peculiar, and the ominous moniker "Devil's Cabin" dissuaded anyone from casually opening the door. The uncertainty of what lay inside and the fear of releasing a group of devils deterred potential visitors. Those who found the space door hesitated, unsure whether to venture inside.
Bored, Ivan sought to pass the time and found a mirror. Standing before it, he smugly began crafting a devilish image for himself.
Opening the Devil's Cabin aimed to exchange mysterious items for unused resources, but Ivan intended to maintain anonymity, hence the use of a fake face. Embracing the cabin's devilish theme, he coated himself with nano-robots, constantly altering his appearance. Despite sporting pointed heads, scales, bat wings, and fierce claws, Ivan remained dissatisfied, deeming the devil's appearance too ugly. Ultimately, he settled for a pair of devil's horns on his head and incorporated the appearances of male stars from later generations, creating a fresh, youthful look.
As Ivan immersed himself in image creation, a Devil's Cabin door swung open, marking the arrival of his first client.