Badge in Azure

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

Metatrin City was very quiet. The three kings had called upon the skeletons again, continuing to build the city. The mages were gathered in the temple to train. The swordsmen and sailors from Sregl Island had started training the barbarians and Cascausus people, letting them familiarize with the ship and combat at sea.

There were over eight-thousand barbarians gathered in Metatrin City and they were all strong. Those that did not have anything going for them were long captured by the Holy See.

The Cascausus people had found a suitable settling location at the south of the city, they had all moved out of the South garden. The only ones left there were the older elders and Sika's guards.

The barbarians that have been trained and the Cascausus people started patrolling the sea on two combat vessels, preventing the previous misfortune from happening again.

Under the ice layer at the port in the Pan's Turtle alchemical boat, Nailisi and the winged skeleton were fighting again.

"You damn skeleton, when are you going to tell me the coordinates of the demon dimension?!" Nailisi did not care about being womanly or godly. Her eyes shone a bright green as she stared viciously at the winged skeleton within the giant crystal.

"Maidservant, your claws and teeth are no threat to me. Instead of blowing your top here, why not go find what I need?"

"You imbecile, aren't you afraid that I will tell your secret to Master?"

"Don't you have many secrets yourself too? Go get working, do not disturb me while I'm training." The winged skeleton stayed in the crystal, not in the least bit afraid that Nailisi would cause a stampede.

Unknowingly, he was already grade-7 and even if Saleen's contract did not exist, Nailisi would not be able to kill him in the ship. The entire alchemical boat had been processed by the winged skeleton into giant equipment and he was the core that controlled it.

In the ship, the winged skeleton had full control. No matter how strong Nailisi was, she could only hurt him if she destroyed the ship first.

"Those things that you want, god knows what places they are in!" Nailisi shouted angrily. The winged skeleton had not told her the coordinates of the demon dimension after so long and instead had commanded her to do countless things for him.

A demon was being tricked by a winged skeleton, how could she not be angry?

"Do not be anxious, maidservant, I have found another sunken ship. So long as you help me fish the things inside up, I will tell you the coordinates of the demon dimension." The winged skeleton coaxed her patiently.

"As if! I have already fished up dozens of ships for you, you haven't even told me what you want. If there still isn't what you want, do I have to continue doing this?"

Nailisi was not angry because of anything else, but the sea water being too cold. Even though an imp would not freeze to death, Nailisi that had already gotten used to the Myers Mainland, she would much rather enjoy herself than help a skeleton in the deep sea. There was danger present everywhere in the dark sea.

The damn skeleton was afraid of meeting with danger and hence had left her in charge of all these menial tasks.

"Nailisi, I am splitting Master's burden. Now that he has so little manpower, he has to use the barbarians to power up the combat vessels. They can't even tie a knot properly, how can they be good sailors? I will form a team of skeletons to help Master fight."

"Fight? Master is a mage, you must be crazy."

'What do you know? In any dimension, the powerful will always have more resources, only then can that solidify their position. We need to take down more territories for Master, only then can he train in peace and be as strong as a god."

"What are the gods?!" Nailisi thought back to the humans that had captured her way back and she shuddered. Up until now, she had not met anyone on the Myers Mainland that could even match up to a fraction of the humans then. Even the powerful oracle could only borrow the powers of the gods.

As for the humans that had captured her and a group of supreme demons back then, they had torn a hole in space to get to the demon dimension and to capture a large number of supreme demons back to the Myers Mainland. Even though she was not sure why these people were willing to service the Myers Goddess, she was very clear that the even the gods did not have the power to destroy dimensions. The gods did not dare do that.

The winged skeleton had gained intelligence because it had swallowed the memories of an unlucky mage. He did a little searching in the mage's memories and said empathetically, "That's right, what are the gods? Since they aren't much, you should get to work now."

"I'm not going unless you tell me what I'm supposed to be looking for."

The winged skeleton was stunned, he had not expected Nailisi to be this adamant today. She definitely was not losing her temper. Nailisi said harshly, "At most, I don't want a demon slave any longer, I can catch a human as a slave anyway. The thing you want must be more important than mine!"

"In theory that is true. Even without you, I can still get what I want slowly. You can only get the coordinates of the demon dimension from me, however." The winged skeleton patiently coaxed Nailisi. Seeing that Nailisi was not falling for it, the winged skeleton could not do anything and said, "I only want to build a skeleton army and I need a few leaders to replace me to take charge, if not I will still need to leave this ship."

"Skeleton army? Don't be funny, I can kill thousands of those shabby bones alone." Nailisi sneered.

"That's why I want to create some special skeletons. They cannot be summoned from the death dimension, but they need to be created directly on the Myers Mainland. Only then will they not be influenced by the rules of the dimension. They would be able to grow quickly and have intelligence."

Nailisi's mouth moved, she held back her jeers. If she looked down on the winged skeleton's intelligence, would she not have been an idiot for having done so much for him?"

"The aura from the dragon remains have all dissipated and there are no mutations either, maidservant. All I want is the skull of a human elite and it must have been around for thousands of years and have not been destroyed. Look at me, how am I different from before?"

Nailisi held back her anger upon hearing the winged skeleton's words, she came in front of the crystal and observed the winged skeleton.

There were three pairs of wings at the back of the winged skeleton, they could fly around freely. His skull that used to be a dark red now had green magic symbols on it and it was much thicker. He looked taller than before too and was over two and a half meters.

"It seems… your color has faded; did you take a shower?" Nailisi asked suspiciously.

Do skeletons need to shower? This was unimaginable to a demon.

The death flames within the socket of the winged skeleton started jumping around. He was angered by Nailisi, however, it was not intentional.

"Look at my head!" The winged skeleton lowered his head in the crystal. Nailisi wanted to try piercing her tail within the crystal and make a hole in the winged skeleton's skull. She was sure that if she moved, the winged skeleton would be able to feel it though. She could only suppress her desires as she studied his skull patiently.

Under careful observation, Nailisi did find something unusual. The skull of the winged skeleton had started turning invisible, almost like a giant crystal. There were infinitely complicated magic patterns within the crystal and some of them seemed like natural magic patterns, the rest were messy.

"Your skull has become transparent?" Nailisi was curious, she had not heard of a skeleton undergoing such changes before.

"Yes, I just need you to find such transparent skulls, the purer the better." Seeing that Nailisi understood, he raised his head.

"Does it have to do with the magic patterns within?"

The death flames in the winged skeleton started darting about again, Nailisi was right. After many bodies had died, their skull would change and become transparent. For them to evolve intelligence, they needed the natural magic patterns within.

The winged skeleton had gained his intelligence because he had swallowed a soul. The changes on his skull had only been produced recently and only then had he stumbled upon the secrets of creating a skeleton soldier.

The skeleton soldier he wanted to create had to be stronger than a grade-3 human warrior. It had to be flexible and fast, but the one commanding these skeleton soldiers had to be an intelligent spirit.

"You aren't looking to create a doppelgänger, are you?"

Nailisi's words had left the winged skeleton shell-shocked. He was indeed looking at creating another copy of himself, how did Nailisi guess that?"

The winged skeleton was stubborn by nature and he was afraid that the spirit he created would not listen to Saleen. He considered creating another copy of himself. To do so, it involved some ancient mysteries, however.

"Even if you do so, it isn't much. Master is on opposing ends with the Holy See anyway. Even if the gods were angered, master wouldn't blame you." Nailisi did not think much as she made the joke.

"Then will you help me?" The winged skeleton changed the topic.

"Tell me, do you really know the coordinates of the demon dimension?"

"I swear on master's name that I do know a detailed coordinate of the demon dimension and it definitely can be used to summon demons. Nailisi, if you help me create the crystal skeletons, I will help you summon the demons. Even though this is the Myers Mainland, it would be hard for you to deal with a demon alone, right? Let us summon one right here in this boat, so long as the demon is summoned from the summoning portal, we can knock it unconscious directly."

"That is a good promise! I will go now!" Nailisi was incredibly excited.

Summoning demons was a technique that humans had managed to research only in the past one-thousand years. Before that, if humans wanted to enslave a demon, they would go to the demon dimension to capture one, saving all these troubles.

There was a special feature with summoning magic, one's focus had to be stronger than the thing being summoned. If not, one would not be able to control the living creature. Such powers included intelligence too.

Demons were incredibly intelligent creatures and their focus went without saying. If a grade-9 sorcerer wanted to summon a demon, he could still find ways to force the demon into submission. If it was even one grade less, he would not have any good outcome when summoning a demon.

Usually, the fate of a mage had to do with the mood of the demon. Sometimes, a demon would pretend to be very obedient and help the mage before eating the mage up when they were about to leave. Sometimes, they would just get rid of the mage that had summoned them directly, wandering around for a while before returning to the demon dimension.

Most mages believed this was an uncertain magic and the results were unpredictable because of that. Nailisi understood that so long as one could defeat the demon with brute force, the demon would still follow one obediently. She had wanted to call on Sika for help, but now that the winged skeleton had offered his services, he was much better than Sika. At least the winged skeleton could keep a secret.