Badge in Azure

Chapter 318: Reuniting with Aini (Part 2)

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

"Hahaha…" Saleen could not suppress his laughter. Now that Aini had come, the pressure on him was relieved. In the letter that he had written to Aini, he had mentioned the special contract magic which Aini possessed. If Aini was not willing to tell him the secret of the magic, he would not have come here himself.

Another matter was the problem of the Holy See. Aini had nearly been killed by the Holy See and hated them deeply as well. The Clyde family did not have a good attitude towards the Holy See either, and even without Lex and his teacher sending any armies to serve as reinforcements, the Clyde family possessed decent strength as well.

A youth dressed in grey magic robes walked in, slightly taller than Saleen. It was Aini, who Saleen had not seen in years. Aini's face still looked slightly sickly. The curse from the Holy See was not completely lifted and unless his death magic reached the level of a sorcerer, the condition of his body would not improve.

Aini's looks had not changed much. His black hair was mixed with streaks of blue, and he had prominent facial features and a pair of blue eyes. The only thing that had changed was his aura. Back when Saleen had first met Aini, he had held an unspeakable loneliness to him. That was the aura of a deserted lone wolf. Now, however, he was grinning, almost as if nothing could upset him.

Saleen stood up and walked towards Aini. They embraced each other tightly.

"Cough… you are strong!" Aini could not help but cough.

"Is your body better?" Saleen asked in concern.

"It will get better. It's just a curse. The person might be grade-6 or grade-7. So long as I become a sorcerer, everything will get better," Aini said nonchalantly, almost as if his promotion to a sorcerer was just around the corner.

Saleen took a good look at Aini and asked, "Are you grade-5 or grade-6 now?"

"Grade-5. You?"

"Me too."

"Amazing!" Aini praised from the heart. He did not seem envious in the slightest. Under normal circumstances, his advancement would have been considered much quicker than Aini's. After all, Aini had used to be an elemental mage. He had already possessed a strong foundation in focus and magic control, while Saleen had to start from the beginning and needed to figure out many things by himself.

However, Aini had come from a distinguished family and was different from common mages like Walnut. He knew that to study magic in depth, in addition to having opportunities, one needed to work hard. Saleen could have the achievements he had now because he had given up much more than he had.

"How long do you intend to stay?" Saleen asked him another question he was concerned about.

"I'm not intending to leave anytime soon. Either way, I can train anywhere."

"Very good. Stay with me then. I won't arrange any other place for you."

Aini looked at the wide and spacious room. It seemed to be lacking in furnishing, for with the exception of the simple magic array on the floor, there was only a bookshelf and a table.

"Not a bad place. It isn't cluttered and is suitable for training." Aini was satisfied with the surroundings.

"If you're really staying, can you let me build a magic tower for you?" Saleen tried asking.

"I don't want to owe you too much." Aini burst into laughter. The favors he would need to repay for a magic tower would be too great. Even though he had a decent relationship with Saleen, he could not accept such a precious gift for no reason.

Saleen sighed in his heart. Aini was not someone who would follow just anyone. If Aini had agreed, it would mean that he had promised to help Saleen from now on and stay at his side. However, this was good too. Regarding someone like Aini, Saleen would be more at ease if he was only a friend. If Aini worked under Saleen, Saleen would have no idea what would happen either. After all, Aini was part of the Clyde family and the powers of a family were something that a commoner would not understand.

"Do you want to have a small competition?" Aini smiled craftily. Having become a grade-5 death mage, he enjoyed a similar status as his parents. His parents had also regained their freedom once he had advanced, and together with his uncles, this pillar of power had regained important authority within the Clyde family. Aini was confident now and laid down a challenge.

Back when they had been in Phoenix Duchy, Saleen had won their competition. He wanted to even up the score now.

"Sure, what should we compete in?"

"You're an elemental mage, I won't bully you. Let's pit our alchemy skills against each other. How about that?"

Usually, the alchemy skills of a death mage were inferior to those of an elemental mage. Saleen looked at Aini's sincere expression and chuckled before saying, "There's no rush. You've come from afar. Let's arrange for the people with you to settle down first. You guys haven't eaten, have you?"

"Pasatilo has made arrangements for my people." Aini evidently had a favorable impression of Pasatilo. Saleen had shown him respect. Two grade-4 mages had gone to his family to deliver the invitation. The Clyde family had placed this in high regard, and Aini had brought a large number of men with him.

A large family like Aini's was incredibly well-off in both wealth and manpower. Many times, these extra funds and power would be used in opportunities to make more money. Hence, when they heard that a new city was being built and the owner of the city was Aini's friend, the Clyde family had made a quick decision and had immediately taken out all of their riches for Aini to bring with him.

Time and money waited for no one. This keen sense of opportunity was something which the other families did not have. Sikeqinya people were born businessmen, but those from the Qin Empire were not lacking business sense either.

"Then let us compete," Saleen said nonchalantly. The power of spirit alchemy was entirely dependent on the grade of the death flames. Aini seemed confident of winning against an elemental mage of the same grade, so his death flames must have been of a high grade. However, Saleen had witnessed Judikaka's alchemy skills and knew that no matter how skilled in spirit alchemy one was, it would never surpass elemental alchemy.

The Water Flame Alchemy spell that he had learned was of the highest level of all elemental alchemy, and with their similar grades, Saleen did not believe that he would lose to a death mage.

"Let's compete in processing arrowheads. How about that?" Aini said as he took out the necessary ingredients from his bracelet. The first time they had competed, they had used arrowheads too. Back then, he had used a solidified magic array to process the arrowheads and caused them to be defective. Now that he had his death flames, such things would not happen again.

"Alright, let's compete with those. There'll be a time limit this time." Saleen was touched by Aini's attention to the details. Saleen was in the initial stages of building his city, and in regards to defense, he would still need to count on bows to prevent losses. For an army, alchemy arrows were extremely valuable. Looking at the increasing pile of ingredients which Aini took out from his bracelet, he must have come prepared.

If Saleen's city came under attack, he would need a large number of alchemy arrows. Low-grade and mid-grade arrowheads had an effective period. Low-grade ones could be stored for a year while mid-grade ones could be stored for two to three years. As for high-grade arrowheads, if they were not used, they could be stored for hundreds of years.

Saleen could not spend all his money on arrowheads. With that money, he might as well have processed them himself.

"We shall both process fifty thousand mid-grade arrowheads. Whoever takes the shortest time wins. No using magic arrays and no adding magic medicine." Aini took out boxes of metal arrowheads from his bracelet. With the exception of being processed by magic, the rest of the steps had been completed.

This competition would give Saleen one hundred thousand alchemy arrowheads. Aini wanted to both regain the face he had lost the other time and to prepare defensive weapons for Saleen's city. However, using solely magic to process the arrowheads would require great elemental control from an elemental mage. Similarly, Aini's death flames could not process that many arrowheads at once. This would be a test of their patience.

When the mages from Sregl Island heard that Saleen was about to have an alchemy competition with Aini, they all gathered in the temple, surrounding the enormous room that Saleen was in. Aini was not afraid either as he split the ingredients in half and said, "There are exactly fifty thousand arrowheads here. If a single one of them is destroyed, you lose."

"You be careful too!" Saleen said. The blue water flames appeared in his hand, and at the same time, hundreds of arrowheads were swept within them.

Aini saw Saleen using an unconventional method. It was different from the alchemy he knew and he did not dare waste any time. He spat out a green ball of death flames and mixed them with two hundred arrowheads.

The mages from Sregl Island gasped with shock. Aini had spat the death flames from his mouth, which already left them reeling with shock. Furthermore, these death flames could process weapons like elemental alchemy, and could target hundreds of arrowheads at once. As for Saleen's method, the mages from Sregl Island were incredibly familiar with it. It was a unique skill of Sregl Island - Water Flame Alchemy.

It seemed like Saleen had received guidance from Mage Jason and could move to Sregl Island in the future!

To people who did not understand magic, this battle might have seemed boring. There were just two balls of different colored objects wrapping around arrowheads and burning like flames. In reality, Saleen's water flames were a special form of the water elements, and even though the death flames could burn up materials on their own, they were not flames, but the essence of death.

Alchemy like this was entirely different from the alchemy found in the magic arrays on a normal laboratory table. This tested the mage's control of their magic chords or death flames. Alchemy with a magic array required focus from a mage, but drew most of its energy from magic nuclei. Such pure alchemy methods did not have any other factors.

Saleen had not finished training his Water Flame Alchemy spell and was incredibly nervous now. He was afraid a single mistake would cause him to destroy an arrowhead. A normal arrowhead was made of metal and was of fairly good quality, as steel was only needed for clasping at certain crucial areas. Processed arrowheads required steel and copper, and in addition to that, numerous metals which could store elemental energy would be added as well.

The amount of these metals was incredibly sparse, yet were the key to the alchemy process. If the temperature was too high, these metals would evaporate away. Steel and copper could not store elemental energy, and no matter how many magic patterns were carved onto them, they would be useless.

However, Saleen's water flames did not have such a problem. The water flames made use of low temperatures to rearrange the structure of the metal, adding magic patterns and miniscule magic arrays to increase the destructibility of the arrowheads.

The arrowheads that Saleen and Aini were processing were the most practical ones available and they had only two properties: the ability to pierce armor, and to explode.