Badge in Azure

Chapter 1465: Advancement (Part 1)

Saleen spent over 1,000 years training to use lightning magic in a rather boring way before seeing signs of advancement. The powerful beings he surrounded himself with were shocked. They gathered around him and wanted to see how a mage like him could advance.

"It's dangerous. Leave me alone!" Saleen barked. The only people left around him were the three weapon spirits and the Violet Angel. They wanted to say something to him, but he chased them all away again and again.

His followers knew he was not one to make a bigger deal out of things than they were. If he said something was dangerous, it was definitely something that could affect their lives.

This was why a mage's advancement was generally not witnessed by others.

If enemies observed the process, they would be able to assess a mage's true powers. If friends were watching from the sidelines, a failed advancement might cost them their lives.

Mages had no way of controlling their bodily states when they advanced. Everything came down to luck. That's why mages above level-6 spent all their advancement processes in magic towers: The higher a mage's level, the greater the changes from advancement.

For someone like Saleen who had only begun mastering the rules, there was no telling how great the magnitude of energies would be when released. If he were making breakthroughs at the highest levels, the energies would be commensurately high too.

With that said, now that Saleen was at the precipice of advancement, the entire Hall of Gods would be filled by lightning powers at the pinnacle of level-13.

Moreover, at the very instant Saleen advanced, those powers would jump to level-14.

No one would want to be around something that dangerous. The only ones who stayed near Saleen at that moment were his 24 thunder dragons. He didn't dare keep Dante, the god of lightning, around. Had he done so, it would have ended up absorbing his lightning rules, rendering Saleen's advancement incomplete.

That was the downside of having gods as subordinates. There were some things Dante was incapable of controlling.

The Hall of Gods darkened. Except for the faint light unleashed by the divine persona, only that bit of elemental energy was released naturally by the walls. That energy was stored inside the remains of the gods, which was seemingly limitless.

Saleen's water and lightning magic chords all extended outside his body. Those chords were transparent and had magic patterns coursed about them. The phenomenon made Saleen look like a mollusk, while those magic chords looked like his tentacles.

The image was obviously quite ugly, yet Saleen felt very tranquil at the moment. He was even thinking that if he built a massive magic net in some plane, none of those enchanters would want to advance this way.

Humans came in all shapes and sizes when they had reached the end of their evolution. Mages were still considered normal in that case. The minds of humans were probably even stronger than the gods'. There was a reason for this. Despite the short lifespan of humanity, humans had probably seen more changes than what the gods would see after more than 100 million years.

Uncontrollable.

Saleen recalled that magical term: The evolution of humans was uncontrollable.

No professionals could walk the exact same paths as their teachers. It was the same between Saleen and Jason as well as between Saleen and Truman.

Truman had balanced six elements while Jason preferred fire and water more than anything else. He, on the other hand, acquired lightning magic chords, making him more similar to Nailisi's human form instead.

The seven magic chords seemed to have turned into lightning as they danced in a frenzy in midair. As Saleen hovered, lightning exploded against a fiery blast in the Hall of Gods, with no corners uncovered.

Saleen was astonished to find that his advancement had triggered a multiple-target skill at level-15—Dance of the Lightning Snakes.

He never expected that would become his special skill.

He had wanted to acquire a single-target offensive skill like the Crystal Finger. When imbued with lightning properties, such attacks would enable him to kill something at a higher level.

Dance of the Lightning Snakes was a multiple-target spell. Although useful for attacking targets below level-14, it would be effective against targets not armed with powerful equipment.

Saleen stopped sulking shortly thereafter. The Dance of the Lightning Snakes had a very wide area of effect. If he were ever ganged up on by the thousands, that one skill alone would have allowed him to reduce those thousands to dust in the blink of an eye.

It was fortunate that he had chased all his followers away earlier. Otherwise, Dante probably would have been the only one left alive in that place.

Saleen saw his magic chords sticking to the walls of the Hall of Gods. They began sucking powers from there, discharging electrical arcs. Ah, trouble was brewing. It was entirely possible that his lightning magic chords would destroy the place.

Luckily the lightning magic chords had absorbed ample power about half an hour later. The walls were hardly scratched when they returned to his body. A place forged with the gods' remains was extremely resilient.

Saleen's advancement process only lasted about half an hour, though it felt longer than 1,000 years to him. All 360 million lightning runes coursed about in his mind once. The speed of the process was such that even a mage like him, who had commanded formidable power of the soul, felt as if he was about to break.

The cause of this discomfort was the sounds from the appearance of the lightning runes. The vibration frequency consisted of rules of thunder and electrical discharges.

That was to say, he had been forced to take in huge amounts of lightning rules within that half an hour.

Were it not for his advancement, a common level-13 mage would have gained nothing from that experience, even if he had managed to somehow stay alive. In conventional circumstances, level-13 was the first time a mage was able to touch the secrets of the power of the soul. Saleen's power of the soul, on the other hand, had already reached its pinnacle state.

That was why Saleen was able to endure the ordeal. The lightning rules were sealed deep inside his soul, at least for now.

The 360 million runes consisted of the general principles of lightning rules. If he were to familiarize himself with every single rule, there was no telling how long it would take. He had already reaped the greatest reward of the experience—advancing to level-14 and possessing a level-15 multiple target skill.

Saleen went out of his way to experiment with both, confirming them to be level-14 magic chords. But he was able to begin learning level-15 lightning magic.

After his magic chords changed, he initially thought he would have had trouble casting water magic. To his surprise, he retained the use of water magic.

That was not all. Saleen found that control of the other five elements was no longer as troublesome as it used to be. The advancement had finally gotten rid of the problem plaguing his body. The only shortcoming left was the mark of hatred left behind by Ismail, which still proved incapable of being scrubbed away.

Scrubbing the mark off through sheer force would have harmed his soul, and Saleen saw no need to do self-harm simply because he wanted to run from a God of Underworld. It was really hard to repair a damaged soul.

The 24 thunder dragons were unharmed when Saleen's Dance of the Lightning Snakes was in full effect; in fact, they were very excited. Their master's advancement resulted in some seals that were placed on them bursting open. True scales began to form on their bodies; their horns extended and split into prongs. This meant that the thunder dragons began to gain true skills instead of having to instinctively charge before using electrical attacks.

By this point, Saleen was only able to tell that the walls in the Hall of Gods had been damaged. After that, they were doing self-repair. The divine persona, which should have lasted another four to five hundred, had its brightness reduced by half.

Saleen had more than 200 years left in the hall. How exasperating! His advancement harmed the walls on the hall, and his divine persona was used instead to fix the damages. He learned by then that mages really should not be cheapskates.

The three weapon spirits burst out of the magic amplifier and shouted in an agitated state.

"What are you guys doing?" Saleen was thunderstruck! He sensed that the powers of the three weapon spirits had risen exponentially. It was therefore not surprising that they hadn't been able to advance before—Saleen was the one to be blamed.

He only came to understand more about the jade fragments' abilities by then. There was no need to be concerned about his actual level when he was in control of those weapon spirits when they were at level-13. Demigods, however, at level-14 were no longer beings that could be controlled solely through the jade fragments. He needed to be at level-14 himself before control would be safe.

He began wondering what kind of a lunatic genius had crafted the jade fragments to the extent that they could keep powerful beings on a tight leash.

Even if I set a trap for Myers, would I still be able to control her?

Saleen dismissed those thoughts right away. There was still a level-18 scroll in his Ring of Cosmos, a gift from the Goddess of Myers. If that scroll ever detonated, not even 100 Figures of Fate would keep him alive.

In the two remaining months left, Saleen had his followers in the magic amplifier emerge outside for training. Two-hundred years were not all that long to such powerful beings after all.

Saleen began to train in lightning magic below level-15. He tried many times with the Ring of Cosmos but was still unable to extract the Aqua Fulgur within at will. He knew he was of an insufficient level and wondered what level the water was at. Despite having advanced to level-14, he still couldn't use them as he pleased.

It was fortunate that the Ring of Cosmos was extremely daunting in its capacity to enhance power of the soul. That was considered the most powerful equipment in Saleen's arsenal.

Saleen did not fiddle with equipment after that but trained in silence. He enhanced his Water Flame skills and familiarized himself with spells between level-13 and level-15. Doing so cost him considerable time. Over 200 years passed and the divine persona on the magic array, which had once been a perfect piece, had finally broken up into six pieces.

Saleen put the pieces of the broken divine persona away. He was considered quite a loser in that case, for he initially had powerful rules that he could have had access to, but at present, those rules ended up in six broken fragments.

Broken divine persona and a whole piece had totally different values to them: This was akin to the difference between a pile of dirt and a mountain filled with gold ore.

"Master, may I have a piece?" The Violet Angel went up and asked Saleen. It had learned many skills for the past 1,000 years or so. Too bad it still couldn't advance. Advancement was too difficult for one such being. If it had no extraordinary encounters, it would probably stay at level-13 until the day it died.

Saleen threw a piece to the Violet Angel without saying a word. The Violet Angel's soul was locked within a lightning cage. It was impossible for it to escape his control. Further, that thing seemed to be enjoying its current status very much.

Saleen considered the Violet Angel a lunatic but knew it would never betray him. Hmm, I wonder…

Puzzled, Saleen took another piece and handed it to Rafel, saying, "If you want to advance and become a demigod, eat this. If not, embed it onto a piece of gear."

Rafel saw no need to be polite. She took the piece and embedded it on her spear. The Inferno Spear had been completely reworked by then. Red colors crossed with greens, yet it did not look to be anything less than tasteful.