Badge in Azure

Chapter 1340: Gift (Part 1)

Ojarvis's words startled Saleen quite a bit. However, he somehow caught what Ojarvis meant between the lines—he intended to gift the magic cube to him, instead of losing it by Lex's hand. If he were to end up dead, then Lex, who was Saleen's wife, would have been spared considerable blame for not taking back the magic cube for the Qin Empire.

"Ojarvis, the magic cube belongs to the Grukos. You have no right to give it away." Lex was not dumb. She was able to tell Ojarvis's thoughts as well.

"How long can a clan stay intact? Those dumb*sses in the Golden Plains thought that the clan would have been able to live on for eternity due to the power they amassed. They have long lost the mind and heart for forging ahead." A tinge of sarcasm was seen in Ojarvis's eyes. The fact that a man who was about to die spoke of the Grukos in the Golden Plains in such tone was sarcastic enough, regardless of the expression shown on his face.

"Regardless, Saleen cannot have the magic cube. If you were to give it to him, then I shall take it back." It was rather surprising that Lex objected right away.

Saleen simply smiled and Ojarvis continued, "My sister, don't forget that I could strip you of your right of succession to the throne. I could do a lot in six days. Wait, no, it is already the fifth day now." Ojarvis's sickly face looked tremendously determined.

Ojarvis's words surprised Lex a great deal. She had never known her little brother to be so determined.

Saleen then said, "What is there to worry about, Lex? Are you afraid of Arbola? Or are you afraid of the nobles no longer backing you after hearing about this?"

"None of that. I'm afraid of doing something that would tarnish your reputation," Lex answered.

"I'm about to write history. If I were to succeed, no one would remember this by the time I die. Furthermore, the magic cube is incomplete. Miss this chance and it would be ages before this grand concept could eventually become a legend of the mages."

"The royal mages will object to this, Saleen. Without their support, we wouldn't be able to take control of the empire." Lex then continued after seeing Saleen still smiling, "Saleen, you can't bring the entire magic cube into the Floating City."

"And why not?"

Lex sighed and said, "The underground city wouldn't be able to hold off the invasion from the abomination plane for long. When all parts of the magic cube are almost prepped and ready for action, all magic arrays would be activated once it is fully operational. There would be a weapon spirit born in the magic cube and it would be one who would only acknowledge someone of the Grukos royal bloodline. Bringing the magic cube onto the Floating City will only get you into more trouble. I'm really afraid of the royal mages' objections, Saleen. If you're able to subjugate that weapon spirit, the mages' protest would be useless after all."

Saleen then laughed and said, "Well, it's precisely due to having to subjugate a weapon spirit that things could turn easy for me. I wouldn't be able to take such a big cube away otherwise."

Lex then continued exasperatingly, "Don't you know what the powers of the magic cube are like? How are you going to take this weapon spirit?"

"Lex, I haven't told you but the Floating City already has a weapon spirit, and one who has sparked divine fire."

"Wait, what!?" Lex was wondering if her ears were playing tricks on her.

"I'm saying that the weapon spirit of the Floating City is a pseudo-god, and a level-13 one at that."

"Don't you…" Lex bit down on the words before she finished. There was no way Saleen would have lied about something like that. No other mages would have believed that a god could have been used as a weapon spirit, but Lex believed it. If Saleen was not capable of such feats in the first place, he would not have been so confident about taking the weapon spirit of the magic cube otherwise. It was worth noting if something did go south when he moved the entire magic cube to the Floating City, then Saleen would have lost his most powerful equipment.

"See that, Lex? Saleen is indeed trustworthy," Ojarvis exhaled a long breath. Lex helped him up and put a pillow under him to cushion him. "Saleen, the matter with the magic cube is easy. I'm only worried about one thing."

"Please speak, your majesty." Saleen was very fond of Ojarvis, and it was not because the emperor agreed to help Saleen take the magic cube, but because he was Lex's brother.

"My sister here intended to build a nation of mages, but she failed. As such, help her out and see to it that her nation succeeds. This would be a very long task."

Saleen was silent but Ojarvis knew that Saleen would help Lex one way or another regardless. Why is he bringing this up then?

"A quarter of the world's mages are at Alchemy City, with another quarter at Golden Plains and yet another quarter at the Kingdom of Metatrin. Most of the remaining quarter is at Qin, spread among the nobles, Holy Rock City, and Lex's principality. Building a nation of mages would earn the ire of Alchemy City first and foremost, while the Golden Plains wouldn't just sit by and do nothing as well. You would have to end up going against half of the mages throughout the entire mainland. Are you sure you are up for this?"

Reputation… Saleen recalled Lex bringing that up and found that the term actually had deeper implications. While the mages could have kept quiet about him taking the magic cube, if he were to resurrect the Goddess of Myers, the mages would have attacked him using that fact. There was a logical relation to it all. The mages would have only been roused to attack him for resurrecting the Goddess of Myers because he had taken the magic cube. However, resurrecting the goddess was something that he had to do one way or another. If he were to have absolute power over the others, then reputation would not have mattered. The problem, however, was that he only had a quarter of the mainland's mages serving him, and that was only having the power of the mages at the highest hierarchy of powers taken into account. The low-level ones were not even worth considering in that case.

He intended to build a magic nation. If his reputation were to be ruined and no mages bothered coming to his side, and, worse still, Alchemy City attacked him by spreading the fact that he intended to resurrect a god, then his magic nation would have been little more than a pipe dream. The most terrifying thing in the world was the hearts of men. The best outcome that could have resulted from him taking the magic cube was Alchemy City getting in his way, while the worst outcome would have been the royal mages of Holy Rock City rallying against him.

"Your majesty, I've set the Principality of Bitterwater up for the task. If the mages of Holy Rock City don't sit well with this, then I shall do it at the principality," Saleen told Ojarvis his thoughts.

Ojarvis nodded and said, "I have given all my wealth to Lex. However, you're not allowed to use it unless one day you're cornered and at wit's end. While I agree to fulfill your wishes, I'm nonetheless a Grukos. The wealth shall be used to rebuild the Qin Empire."

"Rebuild?""

"Indeed. Lex could control the empire but she cannot forever be the empress. Even if she were to make it out of the most difficult centuries in the future, she would have to relinquish the throne one day to a new emperor, and the new emperor would not be able to handle all of that."

"How did you come to learn all of that, your majesty?" Saleen was puzzled at Ojarvis's words. Astrology could have been used to deduce an empire's rise and fall, but the prophecies could not have had such pin-point accuracy.

"I've watched a lot of periods of time using my clan's secret arts." Ojarvis then continued with a smile, "It is not to say that it would all come to be without fail, but things would happen nonetheless. In all those projections I've seen, there were many versions of you, and only one version of you made it out of it all alive."

Ojarvis then elaborated further after seeing Saleen having a doubtful expression, "My intuition is more accurate than the secret art. I think that the you that made it out alive would be the true version of you. There are countless possibilities in the future, and most of your future would probably end up with you dead. There is only one in a 10,000th chance that you'd end up achieving great endeavors, as a magic emperor."

"What kind of great endeavors are you talking about!?"

"Wouldn't you consider making the entire Myers Mainland a pure magic continent great enough?"

Saleen recalled his Floating City all of a sudden. If the Floating City were to expand indefinitely, or that the weapon spirit of the Floating City were to advance to level 18, then he would have been able to provide magic powers to all enchanters throughout the entire mainland. By then, even those who lacked talents would have been able to manipulate magic. The entire Myers Mainland would have been covered by the magic net. Those thoughts alone proved rousing enough.

"You make the call then, Saleen." Lex stopped objecting. If the weapon spirit of the Floating City had became a god, then there would have been some certainty of it being able to devour the weapon spirit of the magic cube.

Saleen then looked at Ojarvis and said, "Your majesty, could you do magic?"

"Would level zero count?" Ojarvis asked in a joking manner.

"It counts." Saleen said as he took out his family badge and put it in Ojarvis's hand, "Cast any spell onto this. Hold it tight."

Ojarvis looked at Saleen's family badge and the mysterious magic patterns on it felt familiar to him. There were lots of ancient artifacts in the royal warehouses of his after all. Ojarvis cast Disperse from his hands. It was some magic spell that could have been cast even by a magic apprentice, and one that would have only worked on creatures with little mental powers. Even though the spell's level was an appallingly low one, Ojarvis' mental powers were completely drained once he cast the spell.

Saleen's family had to absorb everything from Ojarvis in a frenzy, including the elemental poison in his body. While the elemental poison was potent, it was not something developed for the purpose of killing people in the first place. It was a form of pure mental energy. The effects it would have had on powerful mages ingesting would have surpassed that from ingesting divine crystals.

Gulp…

Ojarvis let out a peculiar sound and Lex was extremely tense. Saleen waved his hand, telling Lex to not worry. His family badge would not have taken people's lives. Ojarvis was subjected to immense pain after he was poisoned, and that pain was on par with the ones Saleen suffered when training his mental powers.

"It is comfortable indeed…"

Saleen then cast Spring Rain. Ojarvis opened his eyes and wiped the blood at the corners of his mouth. His mental powers had basically been drained, and there was nothing else the family badge would have able to absorb from him. It stopped working altogether after absorbing some elemental poisons that could have been expelled from the body. Ojarvis was not subjected to as much pain and as Saleen expected, Ojarvis even felt a tinge of pleasure.

A mage once said that when a person was in intolerable pain, then they would have proceeded to accept the pain and made it a source of joy. There were masochistic tendencies in the realm of mental powers. Ojarvis enjoyed the pain that Saleen's family badge brought. It was harrowing and yet not dull. It was better than having to endure having the elemental poison corroding his soul at all times. Every minute felt longer than a day to Ojarvis at present.