Badge in Azure

None of those godly items was below level-16, for level-13 was the beginning of godly miracles. The mages would have been barely able to use any of those items when backed by equipment, provided they were compatible.

If they reached level-16, they would be able to use all six at once.

The six godly items were the Book of Gaia, the Well of Stars, the Dimensional Staff, the Scorching Candle, the Deathly Night and the Tears of Light.

The Deathly Night was the core of the six godly items, which corresponded to the power of dark element. It was also the most powerful. It was also important, however, to take the enemy's environment into account.

If fighting in the sky, the Deathly Night would have been the most suitable choice, but since mages were deep underground where earth element was the most abundant, they would have been able to bring out more of the power of the Book of Gaia.

Saleen's attacks were unusually potent. He was capable of laying waste even without the help of the Floating City. Under the effects of his magic amplifier, Saleen, a level-11 mage, would have been near-invincible all the same.

The cost of magic chords was negligible since he had undergone long-term training when he was at very low levels. This is what enabled him to break magic using magic.

What's more, Saleen's Elemental Eye could see through an enemy's weakness, and attacking a level-9 mage did not necessarily require the use of level-9 magic.

Saleen finally came to understand why someone would need to compensate for the difference of one whole rank by using the equipment. It was absolutely impossible to rely solely on one's powers to cover the difference.

A level-9 mage died right before Saleen. That mage had put up a Fire Ring of Resistance but was quickly reduced to dust by a Fireball that Saleen cast.

Saleen's Fireball, a transmuted magic spell, was only a level-4 skill. At the very least, there would not have been anything wrong judging from the cost of magic chords.

A level-4 transmuted magic spell that cost two level-4 magic chords to cast ended up killing a level-9 sorcerer.

Such a level of consumption was the very lowest to a mage. Of course, there was also the power of Saleen's lightning territory to take into account.

The lightning territory was different from the territories of other mages. For one thing, the pressure from territories of conventional mages who reached level-11 would have been extremely powerful. Level-9 mages would not have been able to lift a finger if they were caught in it.

Saleen's lightning territory lacked that powerful pressure altogether, but the area that the lightning territory encompassed was ridiculous. It could expand to cover a 60-kilometer radius even without being bolstered by the magic amplifier.

With the magic amplifier put to work, the lightning territory stretched over 100 kilometers.

The largest battlefield could not have been bigger. Saleen managed to diminish the effects and lower the defense of all magic towers in the mages' castle using his power. By comparison, his lightning territory would be considered ridiculously powerful instead of weaker than usual.

Then again, if Saleen were to shrink the area of the lightning territory to little more than 100 meters, the effects would be quite different. Anyone entering the area would have been attacked by tight bolts of lightning.

Those minute electrical discharges could be converted into lethal weapons. Getting being bitten by an ant was hardly a concern. But getting bitten by hundreds of thousands of ants at the same time would kill the likes of the behemoth.

There was even a combined spell called the Magic Ant. If over 10,000 mages were casting Magic Ant simultaneously, they would be able to easily kill a mage who was about level-10. And to think that the Magic Ant spell was but a level-1 spell.

However, that was only a theoretical magic spell: Even if Saleen, who currently possessed magic nets, found such spells problematic to pull off.

Saleen killed his way through the Mages' Castle with his army without breaking a sweat, splitting the castle in the middle. The power he had brought with him was some of the most formidable to be found on the mainland. Alchemy City was formidable too, but the mages in Alchemy City were too scattered.

In addition, Saleen's chain of command was provided by Safilos. His own army was equipped with magic equipment that enabled him to relay orders into the ears of every single unit.

Such efficiency was godlike compared to how the mages in the Baldur's Gate operated.

The Baldur's Gate would have been able to achieve such an effect as well, but the Elemental Hand did not develop immediately because of the conservation of energy. It would have required at least three months before all mages could gain access to such abilities.

The Elemental Hand was in too much of a hurry to make the Baldur's Gate portable, and it had forgotten entirely that it would have been attacked and needed to fend off enemies.

Such pride had been fostered in Alchemy City during a longer period of time. The loss the city last suffered had not been bad enough. It retreated actively, thinking it still had the advantage.

This was something that hardly happened to one mage: the effect was spread to the entire group. Those mages still had not realized what was happening to them.

Having the power to influence how things work on the mainland for too long, they had forgotten that mages were humans too and that there were also powerful ones outside Alchemy City.

Saleen's attack came at an untimely moment—right before the combat capacity of the Baldur's Gate was developed to its fullest. If Saleen had shown up several months later, he would have lost at least four to five times the number of men in the battle.

Saleen attacked the center of the Mages' Castle and saw a huge, black building in front. He was in awe. It resembled the Holy Rock City but was fashioned out of black metal.

There were no signs of connections being made; that was something not even the Melting spell employed by an alchemist would have been capable of.

It looked like a tower chiseled out of an entire block of metal. The only reason why something like that was done was to lower resistance to magic in a formidable piece of metal, enabling the internal magic patterns to be unchanged during energy transmission.

Saleen came to like that design right away, but it was simply too hard to acquire such a large block of metal to work with. That was probably not some metal forged by humans but a residue of stars mined from somewhere beyond the skies.

The alchemical measures used were so formidable that not even Saleen's alchemy factories on the Floating City would have been capable of executing them. This would have been impossible until he and his teacher had advanced beyond level-16, becoming able to expand their Water Flame and envelope their entire tower.

When he came before the tower, Saleen was in no hurry to enter. Instead, he had his warriors attack the flanks and charge into the depths of the Mages' Castle.

The armies of the Qin Empire approached. Safilos stood at Saleen's side, looking at the tall metal tower and said, "This is a star core. It would have taken even ancient mages over a hundred years to work on it before they were able to build one such tower out of it."

"How did you know that?"

"I'm a general and I've always been interested in researching anything that has to do with warfare. Back in the day, the demon mages of the Second Dynasty liked making huge tools of war, roaming the planes riding them."

At that point, Saleen wondered how humans came to enjoy fighting wars so much, just like the gods.

"Saleen, how do you suppose we attack the tower?"

"I'll need to do some experiments first." Saleen cast a level-7 Icicle, the highest level he upgraded the spell to. With lightning magic patterns etched onto it, the sharpness of that icicle was hardly different from a Dimensional Blade.

The skill, however, was not as varied as Dimensional Blade in terms of changes. In comparison, a level-7 seven Icicle cost less than one percent of the cost in magic chords needed to cast a Dimensional Blade.

The icicle lodged into the metal tower's wall with a crack. Saleen was surprised that it could not pierce or puncture everything. Nonetheless, it was extremely hard.

In most cases, the icicle would have simply bounced off if it couldn't shoot through something; it would have retained its sharpness, though. Someone could have even installed the icicle on a stick and used it as a spear for as long as the spell lasted.

That icicle made a dent in the wall of that metal tower before breaking completely!

That hole then ejected the shard of the icicle and gradually healed.

Saleen cast Thundering Phantasm and the illusion walked around the metal tower to relay any information to Saleen. The metal tower was tall and straight and there were only windows found at heights above 30 meters.

There were no doors!

Thirty meters was a height that the likes of Saleen would have been able to climb with great effort. Magic was entirely unnecessary. But with the façade of the tower so sturdy, breaking it through sheer brute force seemed hopeless.

Saleen deemed it to be a good thing though since he would have taken the Baldur's Gate sooner or later, and it was only a matter of time before the tower became his.

Safilos frowned instead. He waved and an officer behind him came. Safilos then whispered to the officer and had the Qin troops circle the tower and attack what was behind.

Saleen had absolutely no intention of stopping Safilos. It was vitally important to clean up the other places. He would not have had Safilos assemble the troops otherwise.

The population of Alchemy City numbered about a million; everyone was capable of putting up a fight. If Saleen fought all of them, no one would have known how long it would have taken for him to win the battle.

With the forces of Qin present, Saleen would have only needed to focus on the leaders of the Elemental Hand.

Brown magic patterns appeared on the wall of the metal tower when he was still thinking about how to break the metal tower. The pattern formed quickly. Despite Saleen's incredible reflexes, he was only able to cast a level-10 Water Shield on all the people around him.

Saleen had advanced to level-11, making a level-10 Water Shield an instant cast spell.

He then buffed Safilos with Frozen after casting the Water Shield. The Frozen spell was that delayed activation and would not have been completed immediately.

Safilos didn't move. He neither evaded that offensive magic from Saleen nor try to break it.

The Water Shield was frozen over, and dark yellow light of earth element formed a ring and spread out from the metal tower. The expansion continued over 1,000 meters.

There were still 30,000 Qin troops in that vicinity.

A harrowing scene took place later. Everything was fossilized as the ring of light from the earth element swept out. The effect was instantaneous, with only a handful of targets able to escape.

Those people happened to be his followers, the very ones he had buffed with a shield beforehand: the two level-10 mage trainers at Safilos's side, some golden grand swordmasters, and true mages who possessed powerful equipment in the army.

The 30,000-strong army was almost completely wiped out.

The offensive magic on Safilos came into effect, penetrating the Water Shield; however, given that Frozen was a low-level spell, it was unable to harm Safilos and had diminished the effect of Fossilization over a dozen times.

The magic that Saleen cast that time was extremely intricate, like something cast by level-12 mage trainers at peak level.

Magic spells affected each other. Saleen determined that it must have been an earth- elemental magic attack and went on to attack Safilos using water element. The magic spells that worked at the same time attacked each other. That had nothing to do with the level of magic spells used.

If Saleen had used those two spells to attack his enemies, the effects would have been diminished instead of stacked.