Badge in Azure

Chapter 1485: Dragon Plane (Part 1)

Saleen smiled. "Yeah, good thing you didn't go to my teacher. Things at Golden Plains are a mess. If we kill everyone now, it'll be a hell of a lot more difficult to find out who tried to assassinate Lex."

Lex knew, however, Saleen truly wanted to find out who killed Emperor Chanake.

Her father died an unjust death. It would haunt Lex until she had avenged him. While she had been in considerably better mood when the Holy See was crushed, finding out that there was more to the matter and that it was possible that Golden Plains was in bed with the Holy See, Lex was no longer able to just be happy about the Holy See's destruction.

Saleen did not want to go to war with Golden Plains immediately. The more planes he gained control over, the greater his power became, which would greatly accelerate Lex's rate at advancement, so much so that she would possibly get to level 15 before he does.

Lex had just gotten to level 13. According to the common rate at which mages trained and advanced, the next advancement would take one or two hundred years to accomplish. Saleen would need to train for over 1000 years to advance further, because of resources and his lightning rules being too difficult to master.

Saleen acquired the extravagant staff after taking care of the body. He knew what good stuff looked like, and there were extremely good materials for crafting magic staves in his Ring of Cosmos at the moment. However, when compared to that staff crafted out of a dragon horn, at the very least, the horn itself looked better than the rest he ahd.

It seemed due time for him to make a trip to the dragon plane. Saleen knew that it would be a lot easier for Grand Duke Iron Blood to get to the dragon plane, given how far Myers Mainland had advanced. Furthermore, the plane's existence was no longer a secret.

Saleen did not need anything from the dragon plane, other than a magic shield crafted by the dragons.

Humans were capable of using dragon scales to craft armor, but dragons themselves would never do such a blasphemous thing to themselves. Dragon language magic was powerful, and a magic shield crafted using dragon scales was more powerful than his own Water Shield.

His Water Shield was very useful for repelling curse-type skills.

He was no longer able to rely on the thunder dragons for defense. While the thunder dragons were very impervious to damage due to the soul armor, they were still auxiliary offensive weapons. It would be a waste to use them for defense.

However, he could not just have a good time with Lex and leave right afterwards.

Saleen knew that he had not been good to Lex in the past, so he was unable to leave like that.

"Once I've chased Golden Plains out of the city, you won't have much to do here. How about you go on a trip to the dragon plane with me?"

"The dragon plane?"

"Yeah, I have some remains of ancient dragons with me, and I think I'll be able to trade them for something useful."

"Who else would be going?"

"You, Rafel, Eleanor, and Nicholas." Saleen did not bring up Sika. Sika needed to stay back in Holy Rock City, guarding the city against anyone who wished to do it harm. That had been planned before they came. Saleen knew that Sika was doing it for him, and he was grateful for it.

"Let's go then." Lex smiled. She put the matters of the empire behind her and flew outside of the magic tower with Saleen.

"Sika, you're in charge of kicking out the Golden Plains mages." Saleen reminded before he left.

Arbola was being ambushed and any remaining mages no longer did not dare to be at odds with Sika directly. Saleen knew what he was doing. The Violet Angel took its golden dragon form and carried all the others as it followed behind Saleen.

They were heading to Grand Duke Iron Blood's territory. The Grand Duke had taken control of the shores of the Red River, but he was still dissatisfied, but Saleen promised to help him take down Cloudflow, and that promise had yet to be fulfilled.

The arrival of both Saleen and Lex made the Grand Duke very happy, but Saleen wanted to head to the dragon plane, which troubled the Grand Duke.

"Saleen, it's not that I don't want to help you, but…"

Saleen whispered in the Grand Duke's ear, and the Grand Duke's face brightened up right away.

"Alright, we shall make a move at once!"

"We're not heading back to Dragon Island first?" Saleen asked, intrigued. The Grand Duke simply flashed a mysterious smile.

The lifespans of Dragon Knights were comparable to mages because they shared their lifespan with the dragons. The two dragons that served the Grand Duke allowed him to live longer than Saleen. His ambitions had grown larger, and Dragon Island began to restrict him. He had gained the ability to head to the dragon plane on his own a long time ago.

But he would not do anything before gathering the necessary capital for trading.

Dragons were greedy, but it was still possible to trade with them. As a Dragon Knight, the Grand Duke had his duties as well, and collecting things for the dragons was part of said duties. The remains of ancient dragons were of little value to humans, other than to serve as alchemical materials for death mages.

However, if the bones were gifted to mighty ones among the dragons, they would be able to absorb some of the rules left in the bones.

The rules were of little use to humans, as it was pointless for anyone without dragon blood to absorb them.

Saleen agreed to give three to the Grand Duke: two for the Grand Duke's steeds and one for a Dragon God.

Such benefits allowed the Grand Duke to provide the dragon plane's coordinates to Saleen. If he delayed the sale any further, the coordinates would be useless when the dragon plane became connected to Myers Mainland by an apparent portal.

Furthermore, the Grand Duke knew that Myers Mainland was no longer just a single continent. It served as a hub linking many subcontinent planes. He was out to conquer the subcontinent planes: worlds with boundless mineral deposits and totally devoid of any competitors.

If Saleen were up to no good, he would have nothing to gain from it.

The location where the teleportation portal would be was a subcontinent plane that the Grand Duke conquered. The most powerful professional on that plane was at level ten, who the Grand Duke had taken care of. There were no forces from Dragon Island involved in that plane.

The Grand Duke did not bring any mages with him. He brought two level 12 true mights who were his most formidable subordinates. Anyone stronger was on Dragon Island, and the Grand Duke was too doubtful of any of them to bring along with him.

In a manner of speaking, he was the spokesperson of his family, but he did not own Dragon Island. The true leaders were the elders of his family.

Entering dragon plane was not as perilous as he thought it would be. With the exception of Lex, everyone hid within the magic cube. When Saleen, Grand Duke Iron Blood and Lex went into the dragon plane, there were four dragons watching over the teleportation portal.

The four dragons extended their huge claws, seeing the Grand Duke bring strangers to their place.

The Grand Duke carefully put a pile of gold in each claw. It was gold ore. Gold coins in circulation were all refined by alchemists until they became alchemically worthless.

Dragons did not want that kind of gold.

The four dragons flashed amicable expressions and asked the Grand Duke, "what are you bringing strangers here for, little one? If you go out to catch wurms, we could help you out."

Saleen realized that the dragons were totally different from what he imagined them to be. Elegant, imposing, cold—none of that seemed to actually apply to them. Instead, he found them very straightforward and easy to talk to.

But both he and Lex were of levels comparable to the four dragons. One of the four was level 15, while the other three were level 14.

"No, I'm here to see the Dragon God."

That level 15 dragon frowned and turned to Saleen. "Human mage, you need to be mentally prepared if you see the Dragon God. If your offerings are deemed subpar, there is a possibility of you being killed. It wouldn't do you any good to be this guy's friend."

"Thanks for reminding me." Saleen emulated what the Grand Duke did and took out a pile of gold, giving it to the dragons.

The gold was not much to Saleen. He, however, never expected that he could use it to bribe the dragons.

That dragon seemed to have read Saleen's thoughts. "Mage, I'm just using these as bed sheets. What do you think we need them for?"

Saleen was embarrassed. It was true that some dragons loved laying out their beds using hard materials, as their scales would be comfortable. Unrefined gold contained aura that could be continuously absorbed into a dragon's body. The dragons were actually capable of refining the gold to be purer than alchemists. The gold was less of a bribe and more of just a gift between friends.

The four dragons were nice. Saleen followed behind the Grand Duke, heading in the direction the sun rose.

Everything was huge in the dragon plane. Peaks of over 10,000 meters were everywhere. They hardly saw any powerful dragons along the way, but saw many wurms hidden in the mountains.

The wurms were middle class creatures on the dragon plane: capable of capturing and killing most magic beasts but served as food or slaves for the dragons. Unintelligent ones served as food while intelligent ones served as slaves.

Grand Duke Iron Blood stuck close to the ground as he flew, and they flew over 300 kilometers. Saleen finally saw the Dragon City after scaling over a very tall ridge.

The Dragon City was tall and magnificent, almost indescribable. It far surpassed any city he had seen.

The city wall was carved in the image of a winding dragon. The carving itself was a ridge, and Dragon City was probably only somewhat smaller than the Imperial City of the Abyss.

The Grand Duke said, "No teleportation portal will work inside Dragon City. Rules were laid down by the Dragon God."

Saleen was rather puzzled. The dragons lost as well, but it seemed to him that the plunge of the dragon plane's powers were not as great as told in legends.

The Grand Duke's badge was still effective. He brought Saleen and Lex into the city through the gates that were several hundred meters tall. The guards were humans instead—two human professionals, who were probably level 12 true mights, standing guard at the gates.

The two humans were envious when they saw the Grand Duke's badge, before waving to let them pass.

It seemed like the dragon plane wasn't as fearsome as told in the legends.

The Grand Duke murmured to Saleen, "we're going through the west side, which is the safest region and the closest to the city. There are still some powerful magic beasts in the plane who are not as nice as the dragons, but they are more or less as powerful as the dragons in combat. Why do you think the dragons built cities in the first place?"