Badge in Azure

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

The Ancient made for the area where the floating ice was more closely packed together slowly. Magic shields of several yards thick were conjured on the more than three-hundred yard wide body of the ship. The pure water element shield swirled around the ships surface, which would only be drained when running into one of the pieces of floating ice.

When the ice and the shield of the Ancient collided, small pieces of ice simply drifted elsewhere, while larger ones were crushed.

The Mechanical Soul took the risk and turned on twelve magic power furnaces, activating the ship's defense mechanisms. The most rudimentary defenses had no weaknesses about them.

Nailisi shut herself in the hold and appreciated her prize from her hunt, the magic nuclei, one by one. The magic nuclei of the white bears were totally different from the beasts' on the mainland. They were sizes larger than anyone would have expected. That was due to the fact that living in places such as the oceanic ice block meant that one would have had to be able to fight drawn-out fights to survive. Being a grade-9 magic beast hardly guaranteed one's safety, as the mid-level beasts in the sea could have easily numbered in the tens of thousands. The beasts were ferocious when attacking in packs, and some came equipped with skills or properties capable of dismantling magic defenses.

The teeth of imps like Luoluokaluo were more frightening than those of dragons, and that was Luoluokaluo's only reliable weapon before maturing. If a dragon was said to be able to chew on metal without difficulties, then Luoluokaluo's could be able to grind crystallized metals to dust.

Nailisi usually hid her true imp form using ultimate shapeshifting, but the skill did not affect her demon form's powers at all. Her mouth was still capable of opening to horrifying levels, and the sharp teeth within were capable of snapping the throat of any large creature.

Cutting magic nuclei with her teeth was something Nailisi became very, very familiar with. The magic nuclei fished out from the sunken ships were never truly cut. Ancient humans only process magic nuclei when they needed to use them, as the standards of ancient magic arrays and equipment were so numerous and complicated that mages had headaches over them. As such, ancient mages only kept their magic nuclei in their primitive forms.

Mages helped the winged skeleton with managing the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel's defenses carefully in their respectively rooms. The very reason why Saleen brought the mages to sea that time was to enable thespersonal mages to get familiar with using warships in battles.

Saleen, on the other hand, was having a talk with the water puppet in the control room.

"Rossen, you did well this time. If you are to continue using the crystal finger skill however, your body will suffer irreversible damage again. You might end up losing yet another part of your consciousness in time."

"But my liege, Nailisi, she…"

"You have inherited my skills, and that made you a mage. The only thing a mage can trust, is their own magic. You should be like me, calculative. Don't try to be a hero when you are facing someone that you can't beat. Rossen, you aren't like me. While you can resurrect yourself indefinitely, every resurrection will take something important away about you from you. This is just like death to us humans, and it's irreversible."

"Lose something important about me?"

"Yes, you in the past were just like me, yet the you right now, cowers. That is because you are weak, you are stubborn, you are not confident of yourself."

"I have lost…true courage!"

"Yes, when death becomes the price you pay for victory every time you fight someone bigger and stronger than you, you will gradually lose courage. You will come to believe in fate. That is something astrologist believe, Rossen. You are a mage. You need to believe in yourself."

"My liege, let me think about this," the water puppet was still unable to forget what Nailisi said. When Saleen fought, there was an indomitable aura about him, which caused the water puppet immense envy. It wanted to also became such a person.

"Then think hard about this. This is a space ring I got from my teacher. Not something of high levels, but it should do you just fine. Take this mage robe, and the magic staff too," Saleen took out one equipment after another, and put them in Rossen's hands, before continuing, "From here on out, I will try not to summon you back to the Shenhe. If…if you like, consider yourself a human then. Humans, are afraid of death."

The water puppet mumbled to itself after sending Saleen off, "Humans…are afraid of death? Nicholas, so you are afraid of death then?"

Nicholas was looking at the winged skeleton controlling the vessel and avoiding the floating ice as best as they were able to, when the water puppet asked. Nicholas then answered, "Of course I'm afraid of death, except when protecting our lord."

"So you would not fear death when protecting our lord?"

"No. I'm afraid still. It is just that my future is tied to that of our lord. If he dies, my future will cease to exist. If that is the case, I might just end up dead," Nicholas answered in a calm manner.

The Winged Skull looked far away from the crystal window, thinking that he could finally hand the control of the ship to the mages. He had been listening to the conversation between the water puppet and Nicholas the whole time, and his head turned to give an eerie smirk.

"I don't quite care if Nicholas is telling the truth. The old guy is still better than Nailisi. At the very least, he is helping master to shape the water puppet's character." The water puppet existed as Saleen's weapon, and it should not have been a person. From the perspective of the winged skeleton, a mage's research interest and advancement needs, were nowhere as meaningful as having a reliable puppet.

The water puppet was able to cast Crystal Finger in Saleen's place, which was his greatest attack other than the badge. If the water puppet was to fear sacrificing itself in the future, and had Saleen cast the Crystal Finger personally, the number of times such an eerie spell could be cast was probably less than half of the water puppet could. The power would also drop drastically.

Saleen was, after all, a creature of flesh and blood. The recovery rate of God's Left Hand was far slower than that of the water puppet.

Nicholas was actually using another method to get the water puppet to be loyal to Saleen. While it was true that the possibility of the water puppet betraying Saleen was near nil, Saleen's Shenhe was nonetheless able to take it back anytime. Regardless, if the water puppet refused to fight, that alone would be a great loss on Saleen's part.

The winged skeleton was unable to figure out the reason Saleen had the water puppet learn fear.

"My liege?", the winged skeleton was unable to help but asked, and called for Saleen in his mind.

"What is wrong, Soldier?", Saleen was surprised. It had been quite a while since the winged skeleton called out to him since he advanced.

"Rossen should have proved most useful to you when it didn't fear death."

"Soldier, one will only cherish something once they learn to fear losing it. Life is more than just offering oneself. I'm no god. I don't need believers," Saleen seemed to jump around the place with his words, but the winged skeleton understood nonetheless, and remained silent afterwards.

He thought some deep private thoughts to himself; "My liege, I do not fear death at all, yet I cherish things nonetheless."

Saleen walked to Nailisi's room, with several doubles of the Mechanical Soul behind him. Saleen was able to have the doubles do anything he wished, just like the Mechanical Soul. His will and whim alone were more than enough to determine the life or death of the doubles.

"Don't come along. Go help the winged skeleton out instead," Saleen did not bother turning his head to address them, refusing the mechanical doubles' protection. He was under the winged skeleton's protection no matter where he was on the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel. The entire ship was akin to the winged skeleton's extension. If any accidents were to happen to him on the ship, the perpetrator could have been said to possess combat capacity exceeding both his and the winged skeleton's combined.

The Mechanical Soul cursed on the Ancient following just three miles away from their ship. It was directing its anger at the Lord of Glory. It discovered that the act of directing its anger at Saleen when it cursed, even when it did so without cursing out loud, would make it suffer retribution nonetheless. It did not stop it from cursing at others instead.

That piece of broken jade seemed to be monitoring its actions deep within its soul flame without rest. The Mechanical Soul had circumvented such scrutiny by equating Saleen with the Lord of Glory. it stopped itself entirely from thinking about Saleen when cursing at the Lord of Glory, and doing so kept it from being punished. Or rather, Saleen was more willing to hear it curse at the Lord of Glory.

"Lord of Glory, you piece of good-for-nothing, why won't you just let me go peek at Nailisi? That woman, that demon! If I ever get the chance to do so, I will tear each and every one of you Holy Masters myself, and then rape her! Curse you, gods, demons, damned ones, pig scraps, rusted parts…"

The doubles were unable to enter Nailisi's room and so went somewhere else. They were spying on Saleen's people on the Mechanical Soul's orders, especially Nailisi and the winged skeleton. Everything on the ship was under the winged skeleton's control, and the mechanical doubles were unable to get any chance of snooping on anything.

The Mechanical Soul was unsatisfied at how Saleen treated it like a slave, but laws like Eternal Control exceeded its level by way too much. There was no chance for it to truly break itself free from Saleen's control, even if it was to advance to grade-10, grade-11 or even grade-12. As such, the Mechanical Soul began to concern itself with everything happening around Saleen, looking for ways for it to undo such control over it. What it was attempting was somewhat like what the Three Kings attempted. Despite knowing that the odds were insurmountable, they were willing to commit themselves to such attempts throughout their lives.

"Nailisi," Saleen walked into Nailisi's room and cast a Mute Enchantment, isolating the sound within the room from the outside world. Even if he did not to do so, the winged skeleton would have done it.

"Master?", Nailisi put down the large magic nucleus in her hand and stopped chewing. She put the magic nucleus shards aside, stood up, and came to stand before Saleen.

"I will let Rossen's case slide for now. Don't do it again. I need to see what it is like for a soul to be born. The secrets of the soul will prove important to my advancement. I need to become a grade-10 mage, just so that I can stay alive, and complete…," he had not spoke of the contract with the Goddess of Myers with Nailisi. He was not even allowed to breathe a word of it to her. Nailisi was nonetheless able to guess that Saleen was troubled by something huge, something that she was not allowed to ask about.

"Alright, master," Nailisi smiled like a child at him. She knew that Saleen never intended to punish her. While other demons might have taken advantage of this to try to control Saleen's emotions, Nailisi would not even considered such a thing.

"I want to take a look at the ancient warriors. The sealed rooms on the Ancient have a good bunch of them. If something were to happen, I wouldn't be able to protect the Mechanical Soul. I need to look into it."