Badge in Azure

Chapter 176: Unlucky Mage (Part 1)

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

"Let's continue forward. If we cross the two hundred mile mountain ranges ahead, we can walk one less day." Lex held the map and looked for the coordinates they were at, magnifying the image.

"There's a village here?"

"Perhaps. They might be gone. This is definitely the territory of the Guogan people."

"Or we could pass around them." Saleen did not want to cause any trouble. The Guogan people were a courageous mountainous tribe, and although the Qin Empire had conquered this piece of land, they had not managed to exterminate the Guogan people. No wealthy people were willing to come here. No matter how large of an area they would be conferred, they would need to be alive to enjoy it.

"It's alright. I can speak Guogan language and the people here treat mages decently. Moreover, in comparison, they hate the people from Cloudflow even more."

Saleen kept quiet. Prior to the Cloudflow Empire had been the Fourth Dynasty, and they had once slaughtered the people in the Guogan region. He had seen this before, and even though this hatred spanned a thousand years back, the Guogan people had not forgotten.

Lex marked the detailed path they would be taking and had Saleen memorize it.

Next was a check over their equipment. At Dragon Tooth Town, Saleen had depleted a large number of his low-level magic scrolls and the level-8 magic nuclei used to power the puppets were half gone. They would not be able to sustain a battle like the earlier one again.

The spells stored within Saleen's bronze magic book had been wiped clean as well, and he did not have time to replenish them now. Most of his mid-level and high-level magic scrolls were blank and Saleen could no longer write on them.

If they had possessed the time, Saleen could have still been able to write on the low-level empty magic scrolls, but now, he could only equip new magic nuclei into the witcher spider and hope that they would not run into any battles for the next few days.

Lex had experienced even greater losses. Now that she had used the god's ring, she could not use it for another year. She had also used the two magic spells within her magic staff and had no way of storing similar magic. Luckily, she had not used her silver magic book. The eighteen mid-level spells inside were the strongest powers she had remaining.

Storing magic within a combat magic book was easier than keeping it in a magic scroll. However, the time taken to seal it was substantial. The only advantage was that there was no need to worry that it would fail.

The flaws of a magic book were more obvious. The spells stored within it had to be stored by the user themselves, or else there was a high chance that the spells released would experience elemental dispersal, rendering the magic ineffective. Saleen still did not know the technique for writing into a silver magic book, and the six mid-level spells within the demon magic book had become his lifeline.

At least Sika and Nailisi were both unharmed. Saleen had no idea that Nailisi's entire body had been strengthened, removing some of the hidden problems that had been caused by the chalcedony.

Sika picked up Lex again and the four of them made their way downhill towards the cluster of mountains. Without the lack of roads and the slippery mud, if it had been any other team, their speed would have decreased tremendously. Saleen's team continued moving forward at twenty miles an hour, and after crossing a few mountains, a large village appeared before their eyes.

Saleen stopped. There were no noises coming from the village and there was a tower made from wood at the entrance. The tower was empty. Looking inside the village from the entrance, Saleen could only see shabbily built wood houses and an uneven road.

There was no one at all!

"Nailisi, go in and take a look." Saleen did not dare enter without caution. The size of this village seemed to have been able to house a hundred families, and yet at the moment it was completely quiet. Not even the breathing of animals could be heard.

Lex's injuries were not too severe and at the very least, she could still release magic. She had merely hurt her ribs and did not want to speak much. It was up to Saleen to command the team now.

Nailisi nodded. Even without entering, she knew that there was no one here. More accurately, there was not a single living being in the entire village. Now that Nailisi was an adult, she was much braver than before. Even if they met with a black mage, the consequences would not be too grave.

She entered the village and made a trip around before coming out.

The village of the Guogan people was simple. The wood houses above ground were meant to keep away snakes and insects. They did not engage in large scale agriculture and they stored their food together.

"Master, there is nothing."

"Nothing at all?" Saleen asked. "What does this mean?"

"It means nothing. No people, no food, no weapons, no magic beasts, no animals…" Nailisi was getting better at speaking the Qin language and as she continued, Saleen had to stop her.

"Is there any danger?"

"No, it's just an empty village."

Saleen nodded. He was being overcautious. This was not the Cascausus region and even though the Guogan people were courageous, they did not have the priests of the Cascausus people and the warriors among them rarely reached the standards of a swordmaster. The priests of the Guogan people had been wiped out long ago, during the Fourth Dynasty. The only thing they needed to worry about was the poison of the Guogan people. Even so, he was a mage and could detect poison.

"Let's rest a while." Saleen was incredibly tired and his nerves had constantly been strung up the past few days, always ready for incoming danger. One of his arms was broken as well, and it would take five to seven days for it to recover even with the help of the magic liquid. Normally, someone with a bone injury would need at least three months to heal.

With no need to rush, Sika set Lex down and said, "You all go inside. I'll go up the tower."

She placed her cudgel on her back and climbed nimbly up the tower, not going through the door but through the window instead. Just as her shadow disappeared into the window, a large sound emerged from within the tower.

What followed was an angry roar from Sika. Something had broken and a black shadow flew out, landing on the ground. Saleen always had his icy sight activated and saw that the object was a skeleton.

The skeleton landed heavily on the floor, but Saleen did not ignore its gloomy gaze. He immediately released a Swamp Illusion spell to entrap the skeleton.

Ka…ka…

The skeleton opened and closed its lower jaw, struggling to climb out. Sika's voice came from the tower. "Don't let it move about."

The skeleton stopped moving soon enough. Sika peered out from the window and said to Saleen, "I have caught someone."

"I thought you said there were no people?" Saleen glared angrily at Nailisi.

Nailisi said pitifully, "There were not any in the village. This…"

"Catch!" Sika threw someone from above. The person flailed about wildly in midair and screamed. Lex released a Binding spell and he landed lightly on the ground.

This man was unkempt. There were holes all over his robes and a shoe missing from his feet. He had been bound by the Binding spell, and his face was facing Saleen and the others. It was an honest face, almost like that of a hardworking farmer in Sikeqinya.

Even the pope had exclaimed before that in Sikeqinya, if a person was willing to farm, they absolutely needed to have a pure soul.

"Don't kill me. I have no money and I'm poor. I…" The man began squealing like a pig about to be slaughtered. His square face had thick eyebrows. With tears in his eyes, he looked as pitiful as could be.

Saleen walked forward, lowered his head to the man, and asked, "Mister death mage, if you don't have any money, how can you possess a skeleton from the death dimension?"

The skeleton suddenly lurched forward, about to pounce onto Saleen. A white light shot out from Saleen's hand as an icicle was fatally shot into the chest of the skeleton. The skeleton was frozen by the icicle as Saleen said, "If it moves again, I will use an icicle to blast your brains apart."

The death mage who was bound did not dare move any longer. He realized that Saleen was wearing a grey robe with two lines of magic symbols on it. A grade-5 mage?

He was mistaken. This magic robe had belonged to Lex, and Saleen was only a grade-4 mage.

"Death mage, I'll need to inconvenience you." Saleen waved his hand and had Nailisi carry the death mage, walking towards the village.

Seeing that Saleen had been able to release an instantaneous spell without any warning, the death mage gave up any hopes of fighting back. The skeleton that had fallen on the ground was following behind the four of them. Sika did not come down from the tower.

Finding a clean wooden house, Lex laid out a carpet on the floor and sat down to rest. Nailisi threw the death mage onto the floor while the skeleton stood at the entrance. Without any commands from the death mage, it would not attack anyone.

Saleen looked at the skeleton and said, "It's a beautiful skeleton. Too bad it's missing some parts. Death mage, there's no one in this village. Did you kill everyone?"

The death mage was not a black mage and would not kill innocent people for no reason. However, death mages had bad tempers, and when they became angry, the things they would do were perhaps difficult to speak of.

The honest, youthful death mage blinked his eyes, knowing that Saleen would not be easy to handle. He looked over at Lex, who was meditating, unable to speak of the pain he held within his heart. All he had done was find someplace quiet to rest, and now he had been captured to be interrogated. Other mages were so well respected. Why was he so unlucky? The Binding spell was an easy spell and it lasted a longer time. However, the user needed to be at least two grades higher for it to be able to last this long.

Damn it, two grand mages!

"Death mage, only I would speak this patiently to you. If I lose my temper, it will not be a good thing for you."

"I…" The death mage thought for a long while. Thinking that he should not lie to them, he said honestly, "Master, I am but an insignificant mage. I would not dare kill anyone. When I came here, the place was already empty. I could not even find a bone. Master, do you have anything to eat? I am going to die from hunger."

Seeing his weak body and that his skin held a tinge of yellow, Saleen shook his head and said, "Being a mage, you are a failure. I don't have anything to eat unless you tell me the truth. Don't tell me you are poor. The cheapest death flames cost millions of gold coins."

The death mage was crying as he said, "Because of that, I am poor now. If I could call upon a skeleton army, I would have become a royal mage by now. I would not need to run around."

"Skeleton army? With you alone? Do you think I don't know anything? That is, unless you've found a stable passageway to open up the death dimension at anytime."

Saleen did not want to make things hard for this death mage, but he was simply infuriating. Not a single word of truth had been uttered from his mouth. If only he had been as straightforward as Sika. Then, Saleen would have given him some bread by now.