Badge in Azure

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

Saleen ignored Aesop's pleas and threw him to Nailisi directly. Saleen knew that Nailisi was very picky with her food now and would not care about the meat on Aesop, she probably had other uses for him.

Nailisi was smug, when she wanted to summon any demon in the future, she would need an excuse. Aesop had come from tens of thousands of miles away in the east, no one knew him on the Myers Mainland. So long as she signed a double magic contract, she would be able to control him completely, making him sign a slave contract with the demon she summoned.

Very soon, there would be a powerful mage on the Myers Mainland that summoned demons. This mage was her soul slave, however. By then no one would doubt her status, right?

Saleen had a simple reason for throwing Aesop to Nailisi, he could not do everything by himself in the future if not he would not have a chance to become a sorcerer. No matter how unstable Nailisi was, she was very good at managing those around her and any property of hers would be taken care of well by her.

Saleen was relieved, Aesop would live, perhaps even well.

The last combat vessel had managed to escape and he could not do anything about it. He had not had time to explore this region of the sea and the effect of the magic compass was very weak. It was okay if it was gone, at least that combat vessel would not return to the south immediately, it must be worried that he was blocking over there.

"Aesop?" Saleen called.

"Yes."

"You can tell me the general location of the mineral vein now. Nailisi has promised to keep you, she will ensure your safety." Saleen did not explain anything to Aesop and he almost cried out.

Could the woman named Nailisi even protect herself? Could she even kill a chicken?

This mage Saleen seemed to be very smart, why would he be affected by lust? If he had known, he would have given him one-hundred virgins in exchange for his freedom. It was too late now, he had revealed the mineral vein and had mentioned that he could provide the sea route of the Eastern Sea. Saleen would not let him leave now no matter what.

As he had no choice, Aesop told Saleen truthfully the location of the mineral vein.

He even took out a rough stone for Saleen to analyze. Saleen held it in his hand, it felt familiar. This was indeed a type of calcite. From its structure, it was very similar to a cordierite.

A cordierite was a low-grade gemstone. Even though there was a lot of it, it was not cheap because this gemstone was suitable for all mages, from grade-1 to grade-6.

Some abominable people would even use it as a Youlian rock. Their difference in price could be up to tens of thousands of times different.

The rough stone in Saleen's hands now had a crystal structure similar to a cordierite, almost like a type of barite.

"This was a leftover stone!"

Saleen finally remembered that even though a cordierite could be used throughout the year, it could be damaged and lose its properties. These gemstones that had lost their properties were known as leftover stones.

A leftover stone was not entire useless though, it could be used to make magic medicine and different types of magic powder. There were many similar ingredients and using these leftover stones to process the ingredients was too time consuming, however. Many mages would just sell these leftover stones to the wealthy.

The wealthy only cared if the gemstone was pretty or not, they could not care less about its properties. Selling these leftover stones to them would be enough to buy related magic ingredients with the gold coins.

"Leftover stones could replace magic nuclei?" Saleen asked Aesop and he told Saleen that to get them to replace magic nuclei, they needed to be processed and even though it was troublesome, it was much cheaper than buying magic nuclei. If there was an alchemy factory, hundreds of magic disciples could produce enough pseudo-magic nuclei to get a family rising rapidly.

Saleen did not care about the loophole in Aesop's words. If one had hundreds of magic disciples, would he need to use the word rising?

"Do you have the formula to create these rough stones?" Saleen only asked the crucial question. Such techniques would definitely be kept a secret in Alchemy City.

"All the mages in the Eastern Sea know how to process these rough stones, many mages cannot afford to buy low-grade magic nuclei." Aesop laughed bitterly.

Saleen was shock yet again but he remained expressionless.

The Myers Mainland had plentiful mineral reserves and there were many places to mine gemstones. In most mineral veins, the gemstones that could be used were less than one in one-hundred-thousand, the rest were leftover stones. Not all of these leftover stones looked good and could be used to fool the wealthy.

The prices of gemstones were incredibly high because the cost of mining was huge.

Now that so many mages from the Eastern Sea had appeared on the Myers Mainland, they would definitely start collecting leftover stones. It would not take long for the mages on Myers Mainland to discover this secret.

This secret was not much to other countries but for the Qin Empire, it would definitely affect the fate of the country. The Qin Empire had eighty percent of all the mages on the Myers Mainland and many of them were low-grade and did not have enough magic nuclei. They could not exercise their powerful combat powers because of that.

A grade-1 mage could only release twelve grade-1 spells. It was not because he did not have enough focus but because he had insufficient magic chords. When he finished releasing them, he would need to take up to six hours to recover. With enough magic nuclei, one could use a large number of low-grade mages to set up magic arrays or to write scrolls.

Magic nuclei could speed up the restoring of a mage's magic chords, that meant less usage and faster effects. If the Qin Empire started mining leftover stones and creating rough stones from them, their powers would soar rapidly.

Lex had hundreds of mages with her and they were mostly low-grade mages.

Seeing that Saleen had quieted down, Aesop was afraid something was wrong as he quickly said, "It is easy to process these rough stones, even a magic disciple could do it, master you do not have to worry."

"I am not worried, I am only thinking… of building a second city quickly. Let's go, we will return to Metatrin City." Saleen did not even take a look at the mineral vein that Aesop had pointed out, it was near where he had chosen to build his second city.

Saleen was not very enthusiastic about building the city at first. He had built Metatrin City to get a safe teleportation place for him to teleport between the Myers Mainland and the hell of god's punishment safely.

Once an interdimensional teleportation portal was built, it would not be able to change location. If the teleportation point was not safe enough, he could be killed directly by someone, even if that person was only a normal magic disciple.

Now, Saleen knew that the leftover stones could be processed into rough stones and be used to replace low-grade magic nuclei. He immediately understood the importance of gaining territories. If he found a mineral vein near his city, he would immediately have the ability to nurture a large number of mages.

Using the rough stones to replace low-grade magic nuclei, the middle-grade ones could be gained from the Oceanic Ice Block. With these, Saleen would have the capital to pit himself against the Holy See. It was not that he must deal with them, but the Holy See would never let him go.

It was his luck that he had the powers left behind by the Myers Goddess in his left hand.

The Dragon Skeleton combat vessel raised its shadow sail again and sailed forward. There were over seventy jade skeletons and the combat vessel could move along continuously for twenty-four hours so long as Saleen provided sufficient magic nuclei.

Back at Metatrin City, Saleen immediately brought Aini and the rest back to the temple. He had no intentions of hiding this from Aini, after all, Aini was his friend. Why should he hide from his friend something that all from the mainland would know sooner or later? Aini's family had dealings with gemstones too and might have a large number of leftover stones.

In the temple, all the mages were incredibly shocked when they heard the news. The leftover stones that they had taken as useless could actually be processed into something that was of equal value as a low-grade magic nucleus.

The mages from Sregl Island were especially shocked, their theory knowledge was too broad. Once they heard this, they immediately connected the dots. So long as they improved their alchemy skills, it would not be a problem creating rough stones from these leftover stones. Alchemy was not unchanging and all alchemy skills were constantly improving and evolving.

The reason why such alchemy skills did not evolve on the Myers Mainland was because it was too big. Even though magic nuclei were expensive, mages could still obtain them. As for the countries in the Eastern Sea, they had to sail into the sea to obtain magic nuclei. The magic beasts in the sea were incredibly strong and the price to obtain them was unbearable for most.

Under such circumstances, the mages from the Eastern Sea had to find a replacement and hence, had researched an ingredient like rough stones.

Even so, the land in the Eastern Sea was too small and there were not many mineral mountains. As for civilization in the countries in the Eastern Sea, they were all founded on magic and hence they wanted to invade the Myers Mainland.

All the people under the roof were mages, besides Nailisi. Even Sika was not able to stay there. The news that Saleen had brought back left them silent.

This was not just an opportunity. It seemed like the Qin Empire would immediately become powerful, but in actual fact, it could be the demise of it.

This was because Alchemy City was in the south-east of the Qin Empire along the sea. Alchemy City had always maintained an independent stance and not given the emperor a single gold coin in taxes. Alchemy City was still under the Qin Empire on paper, however. The mages in Alchemy City were not sufficient to control the mainland, hence they were willing to be under the Grukos family.

The Grukos family were not just the three sorcerers in the palace, there were over tens of thousands of royals and most of them had chosen to study magic. This was a tradition of the royal Grukos family. So long as one studied magic, the palace would give one opportunities. Even if one did not have much achievement, he or she would not need to worry about food and lodging.

After thousands of years, there were less high-grade mages in the Grukos family, but more low-grade mages.

Alchemy City did not intend to fight with the Grukos family for the royal position, it was pointless. With the rough stone, Alchemy City could expand infinitely and nurture hundreds of thousands of low-grade mages. This was an immensely destructive force.

In history, all the demise of the four dynasties had something to do with mages. Now that Alchemy City was trying to destroy the situation on the Mainland, they only needed one condition; that was sufficient mages.

Saleen was a little confused too, he had no idea what the future held. Suddenly he had a thought, if the astrologers were still alive, what hint would they give?