Badge in Azure

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

"That is nothing. Back then, the marquis… had already thought of something like that. I just told you as it is." When Eleanor mentioned her lover, she no longer experienced the sadness of the past. She led a pretty good life in Metatrin City, she had already advanced to a grade-6 mage. Without the bangle she had already regained her pinnacle powers on Myers mainland.

Saleen thought to himself, "Your husband better be dead by now. He is too scary, no wonder he could rise to prominence so quickly in a place like Tanggulasi."

Even though he harbored these thoughts, Saleen did not dare say them out. He told Eleanor, "Why don't you be in charge of this matter, what do you think?"

Eleanor said, "I am a mage and you are letting me do this?"

"No one around me other than you can do it. You came up with this idea and I would feel the most comfortable with it in your hands."

"Forget it Saleen, you know I won't be willing to do this. Tell you what, you choose a few people and I will teach them. They can master such trivial things in about half a month." Eleanor rejected Saleen's wishes.

Saleen was not surprised at all. If he had to do such a thing, he would also be reluctant. To a mage, having to spend so much time every day was a waste of their life. It was the best outcome that Eleanor was willing to teach others.

Since this matter had been resolved, Saleen began training in the temple.

A grade-6 mage already needed a magical tower so that they could gather the concentrated elements and increase the pace of magic practice to enter the ranks of the sorcerers as soon as possible. Without a magical tower a mage would have to expend ten times the effort in order to have a chance of becoming a sorcerer.

In terms of quality, Anthony and Frankie who had defected to Saleen were one-hundred times stronger than Saleen. They had no money to build a magical tower though, their training speed was average.

In fact, on the sixth floor of the current temple where Saleen lived in. The interior decoration was no different from that of a magical tower. The interior design could not be seen from outside the temple. Besides the mages serving Saleen, there was also a humongous alchemy laboratory on the sixth story. The whole architecture of the sixth story, coupled with the other five stories below, made up a colossal magic array.

The material of the temple was steel rocks and white rocks, but the critical material was still the steel rock. The concentration of the elements where Saleen lived was even sufficient for a grade-9 magical tower. All the mages from Sregl Island, Daniel, and Eleanor were assigned by Saleen to live in the temple.

There were not many rooms on the sixth story, so each room was large enough. Saleen had one room which was permanently closed, it had never been opened before. Even when Saleen entered the room he would use a teleportation portal. He was willing to waste a few magic nuclei. The whole room was completely sealed, only the ceiling had ventilation vents which linked to the outside world.

Saleen was in this very room right now, the entirely sealed room was flooded with water. Saleen floated in the water, his eyes gleaming with jubilance. Beside Saleen, a six yard long lightning dragon encircled him.

This lightning dragon had grown to a length of six yards inside the goddess' necklace. Very soon he could help Saleen in battle. The golden magic patterns were already very obvious on the pale green skin of the lightning dragon. As it swam, those golden patterns underwent regulated changes. As the room was not very big, Saleen only released one lightning dragon at a time to feed it.

The food he fed the lightning dragons was frequently laced with Restorative Water or even magic liquid. Within the spaces of the goddess' necklace the souls of the lightning dragons were growing normally. Their growth could even be considered as powerful, but due to the absence of combat found in the natural world the toughness of the lightning dragons' flesh was slightly inadequate. A lightning dragon was never a creature who fought melee battles, so the skin of these six yard long dragons still had a pale green hue.

Saleen was not sure about the habits of a lightning dragon and there was not any useful information in the magic notes either. It was only in recent times that Saleen realized that a lightning dragon loved to eat the tough shells of sea magic beasts rather than just meat. In the past, Saleen used to tear the meat into smaller pieces to feed them. Only recently did he allow them to eat meat in huge chunks.

At the moment, the skin color of these lightning dragons was pale green with a tinge of silver. Saleen knew that if a lightning dragon absorbed too little substances during its development process their growth would be adversely impacted.

Saleen had to organize one more hunt for this reason. This hunt had to take place in the Frozen Sea.

Teasing the lightning dragon, Saleen kept releasing tiny Water Shields. The Water Shields cast by him were only as big as a thumb, they formed chains of bubbles in the water.

Saleen used his mental strength to communicate with the tiny lightning dragon. It released bolts of silver electric current that struck each Water Shield accurately. Each electric current was not very powerful, but the Water Shields were destroyed by these mild electric currents.

This was the effect of countering magic which was the function of a lightning dragon's electric current. Saleen's Eye of Lightning had this effect. Saleen's body was not as tough as that of a lightning dragon, the electric current released by him had a range of barely ten yards.

To a mage, an attack with a range of ten yards and a magic-countering effect was too close for comfort. Saleen had thought about it before. Since his Eye of Lightning was not going to be upgraded, its range would never be more than fifty yards. He would not cast it for the time being. Even at this moment, the lightning dragons could aid Saleen in battle. Of course, the battle had to take place in water.

If twenty-four lightning dragons released their electric currents simultaneously, even a grade-9 magic beast's defensive spell would be utterly destroyed.

Currently, Saleen would spare some time every day to practice coordination with his lightning dragons. The twenty-four lightning dragons were grasping it. Whenever Saleen wanted to attack a target they would detect Saleen's intention almost immediately after. This meant that Saleen would have the ability to cast electric currents instantaneously.

"If only the lightning dragons could leave the water." Saleen caressed the golden patterns on the lightning dragon's body. The tiny lightning dragon prostrated on Saleen's body and Saleen could detect the simmering electric current in it.

"Aye, it cannot be forced." Saleen sighed, then stored the lightning dragon back in the goddess' necklace. Saleen felt that it was almost noontime already. After lunch, he still had to learn the methods one could use to practice magic in their daily life from Narnia. Saleen was going to impart these skills to the mages from Sregl Island in the future. At night, he had an appointment with Eleanor. He was going to learn elvish skills with Nailisi.

Saleen was going to learn elvish magic, while Nailisi was going to learn archery.

Since Eleanor was willing to impart these skills, it meant that she would not be enemies with Saleen even if she were to leave in the future. The abilities of an elf were almost extinct on the Myers mainland already. Eleanor's imperial archery and elvish magic were pretty significant in actual combat.

Other than Narnia, Lex also left behind a group of mages for Saleen. In fact, these mages were Lex's reserves. In case there were any changes in Bitter Water Prefecture, she would still have a group of mages to help her make a comeback.

Just like that Saleen practiced day and night every single day. In the beginning of June, there was news from the borders saying that Lex's army had run into the Holy See's expeditionary troops. Lex had brought along twenty-thousand of her men. Five-thousand of which belonged to her swordsman's camp while the rest were auxiliary forces who were relatively weaker in the aspect of offensive power.

Out of three encounters, Lex's twenty-thousand man army was defeated all three times. The loss of manpower was not great, but she had lost three towns. Being the defensive party, this twenty-thousand man army still could not match up to a one-hundred-thousand man army.

Lex did not lose many soldiers because of Saleen's intelligence. Lex's army did not engage in head-on battles. After depleting the enemy's power by a certain level, it would beat a retreat.

The Holy See's expeditionary army had entered Phoenix from Laiyin's borders. It advanced north by traveling along the western side of Phoenix. This route did not contain many developed cities, these small towns could never obstruct the progress of an expeditionary army.

Each time the letter pigeon delivered news, Saleen got more and more terrified. His sixth camp kept harassing the resupply route located at the rear of the expeditionary army. The losses were substantial though. Of the over ten-thousand people deployed, about one thousand people had died after a dozen days of battle. There were about three thousand injured troops. The army had to leave the battlefield, otherwise the injured would have died as well.

When the expeditionary army left God Grace Duchy, it contained around one-hundred and sixty-thousand people. One-hundred and twenty-five-thousand soldiers made up the combat forces while the remaining forty-thousand were the logistical support. At the moment, the logistical squad of the expeditionary army was almost fully wiped out, but the regular forces had only lost less than ten-thousand men.

Many of Saleen's injured personnel managed to escape because Judikaka was rendering assistance in the dark by summoning a huge number of skeletal warhorses. Looking at the intelligence report, it seemed that the Holy See's army was very powerful. Even though it was not a regular army which underwent constant training, it possessed an astonishingly high morale. The worst loss it sustained was from the logistical group that got assaulted by Saleen's men.

These logistical troops were unafraid of death. When they died, they were still smiling.

At this point in time, Saleen realized why the Holy See was so horrifying. This sort of enchantment power was more useful than any other magic out there. As long the believers were told that they would enter paradise after death, the believers would not care about their target or whether they would triumph or not.

Unlike what Saleen had expected, there was a huge number of holy masters within the expeditionary army. With these holy masters present the Holy See's soldiers could get back on their feet very quickly and continue fighting as long they did not die. Even though treatment-type divine spells would shorten a human's lifespan, it kicked in quickly and was really effective. It was stronger than normal magic.

Magic treatment would improve one's constitution and there were no after effects, but its treatment speed was much slower than that of a divine spell. On the battlefield, the soldiers' rate of recovery would have a huge impact on the army's morale.

The Holy See's expeditionary army charged past Phoenix, then it advanced east and was coming for Metatrin City. Saleen felt that he had underestimated the enemy this time around, he actually tried to use an army which was just assembled a few months ago to attack a bunch of lunatics who were not afraid of death.

The nobles within the city still could not gather their troops fast enough. Given the Holy See's marching speed, its army could cover these few thousand miles in a month.

"There is a fifty-thousand man army stationed in the western town, can they really stop these lunatics? Damned Fycro, he didn't even tell me the identities of the people who are at the core of power in this army. How many holy masters are there? The Holy See has more than one-hundred-million believers, if every single one of them fights in this manner, then when can they be exterminated?"

"Get Daniel over, we are going to distribute equipment to those nobles," Saleen told Luola helplessly. He wanted the nobles to assemble an army with forty-thousand soldiers, he could not allow those armies to die out. Saleen would surely not make it if he started training the soldiers now. He could only distribute higher level equipment in order to lessen the number of casualties.