The words spoken by the Sage before his departure had left a profound impression on Maxwell, and this dedicated Earl, who guarded the frontier, resolved to shift his attention towards their neighboring countries.
Due to limited transportation and poor information flow, Maxwell hadn't paid much attention to the steam technology mastered by the Dwarves before he was reminded; after all, he was human, and from a human perspective, Dwarves were inherently a race fond of tinkering with machinery, and whatever novelties they came up with were not worthy of much attention.
Moreover, although there had been frictions between Golan Kingdom and Kaelonde, the two had always had envoys and stable trade. Golan exported textiles, grain, timber, and other human-world goods to the Dwarves, who in return brought their ores, machinery, and steel to Golan, maintaining peace between the two nations for a full century—with almost everyone believing that this peace would continue indefinitely.
