After triumphantly bringing both the Spartans and the Pelasgians back to Sparta, Ares's divine avatar returned to Olympus, and the matter concerning the Pelasgians was naturally taken over by his subordinate, the Sparta High Priest.
On the Atlanteans' battlefield, the Pelasgians fought bravely, and their tribe had already lost many members while resisting the Athenians, so their numbers were not large. The number of Atlanteans killed by the Pelasgians on the battlefield had long exceeded their entire tribe's population. For this, Ares even used the weapons that the Athenians would never be able to use in their lifetime to exchange for the Pelasgian women and children who were slaves in Athens, working in production and daily life.
Upon arriving in Sparta, the High Priest promoted them to Spartan citizens and assigned them to various industries within Sparta according to their respective skills.
In this conflict between Athens and Atlantis, Sparta was undoubtedly the biggest winner. They dumped a large amount of equipment and armor in Atlantis, exchanging it for entire ships full of gold and silver. Then, under the employment of the Athenians, they went to Athens to help them beat the Atlanteans.
Although the Spartan mercenaries, in order to retrieve this group of Pelasgians, didn't even demand the Athenians' commission when they deployed, and even lost a batch of weapons, the Spartans suffered no loss at all. In this era of scarce human resources, talent is the most valuable resource; with manpower, a city-state's prosperity is a foregone conclusion.
Moreover, the commission given by the Athenians was originally small, far less generous than what the Atlanteans offered. The Spartans and Pelasgians, disguised as wooden barrels, risked their lives to infiltrate the Atlanteans' main camp, slaughtering many. The Atlantean captives and various spoils of war obtained from this War naturally also belonged to the Spartans.
It can be said that most of the weapons and equipment the Spartans had previously sold to Atlantis were seized back by the Spartans after this battle.
Furthermore, while Athena and Poseidon's energies were tied up in the conflict between their respective city-states, Ares was far from idle. He fanned the flames in Poseidon's Atlantis, and testing the operation mechanism of the Mechanical God was just one part of it. During this time, Ares visited every place he could remember where famous Greek Demigod Argo Heroes were born, and he even created a subordinate account to infiltrate as an informant.
At the same time, he also found Chiron, the centaur who lived in seclusion in the Pelion cave and would later become the mentor of many Argo Heroes, and established a good relationship with him, as a fallback.
Moreover, while Athena and Poseidon were fully focused on preparing for War, Ares and Hecate created a group of female warriors, named them Amazon, bestowed a special belt upon one of their leaders, and placed them in Thermodon, Pontus, in Asia Minor.
Ares did not pay too much attention to this tribe. After giving them the power to be self-sufficient, Ares allowed them to develop freely. Both the tribal customs and systems were formulated by these humans themselves. However, he allocated part of this tribe's faith to Artemis. Thus, the Hunting Goddess would naturally help him protect and bless this tribe of women.
However, despite this, the Amazons' primary object of worship remained Ares. If Ares were to rally them in the future, these Amazon female warriors would surely follow Ares's banner.
In addition to these matters, bards from Sparta also spread throughout the world, using the conflicts between various city-states or main gods to create many localized Wars on the land. The Spartans, just like they did between Atlantis and Athens, sold weapons in these Wars or directly sent warriors for training, earning a great deal of wealth.
Upon returning to the city-state, they kept the wealth needed for the city-state's production and development, and according to divine oracle, converted the remaining wealth into precious ores, which were then thrown into a deep well built in the very center of Sparta.
This deep well was personally designed by Hecate for Sparta. It directly connected to the Underworld. Below it was Hecate's Netherworld Magic Workshop, and this deep well led directly to an area for ore smelting. After the Spartans threw these ores in, Hecate would use magic to smelt them into molten metal slurry, which would be used for the manufacturing of Mechanical Gods.
Ares's four subordinate gods—Terror, Tremor, Panic, and Dread—which in Atlantis are called "Conquest, War, Famine, and Death"—these four Mechanical God prototypes have been successfully tested in Atlantis. It has been proven that Hecate and Ares's ideas were indeed correct. Therefore, the Goddess of Magic and the God of War have also put the manufacturing of second-generation Mechanical Gods on the agenda.
Among this batch of Mechanical Gods, there are not only several Mechanical Gods of the same specifications as the current four Mechanical Angels, but also a main god-level Mechanical Deity intended to replace the Olympian main gods in the future, which has been added to the manufacturing plan.
The normal height of this Mechanical Main God is about seven meters, and when fully unfolded, its entire volume can even rival that of the ancient Titan Giants. To draw the design blueprint for this thing, the Moon Goddess and the God of War spent countless sleepless nights, working tirelessly on the design until they finally completed it just before Atlantis surrendered.
For this, Hecate specifically opened up an imaginary space within the Netherworld Magic Workshop to accommodate the massive body of this Mechanical Main God.
A new generation of Demigod Argo Heroes is about to be born, and Greece's Heroic Age is about to enter its most brilliant period. Before this period, Ares's plan, Athena's plan, and the plans of various gods were all secretly progressing simultaneously.
...
A new day began, and the Olympian Main Gods' morning meeting started as usual.
Ares, who had been busy all night with Hecate researching various component specifications and capabilities of the subsequent Mechanical Gods, yawned as he entered the God King's Hall of Olympus.
He hadn't slept a wink last night, so he just came directly when he saw the time was right. Thus, he was one of the earliest Main Gods to arrive there today. As soon as he entered the God King's Hall, Ares saw Zeus and Poseidon squatting to the side, discussing something.
The two old men, who caused the greatest damage to the image of the Olympian male gods, were now gathered together, finally behaving like a pair of drinking buddies. Zeus had a somewhat lewd smile on his face, whispering something into Poseidon's ear, and Poseidon, who had been in a bad mood these past few days, finally showed a faint smile.
Curious, Ares walked over and asked:
"Zeus, Poseidon, what happy things are you two chatting about?"