Badge in Azure

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

Saleen had an incredible learning ability, which was one of his most notable strengths. When knowledge was accumulated to a certain extent, Saleen was also capable of creating his own spells. For instance, the hardly noteworthy Water Shield, as well as the ferocious Eye of Lightning.

It was precisely due to having developed his own understanding of certain measure of the rules to lightning, instead of learning the rules others created, that Saleen was able to quickly advanced into the rank of a grade-8 sorcerer. Advancing into grade-9 was too but a matter of time. His breakthrough not be too slow.

His fireball flew around in the air, killing seven or eight pests in a flash. He was overjoyed. It was but a grade-7 spell, yet it lasted for quite some time. Other than having slightly higher mental power consumption, the spell had little in the way of shortcomings to speak of. It was indeed an ideal spell for dealing with monsters with little intelligence.

He created two more fireballs without giving much thought to it. The water puppet still had not been able to grasp the workings of Saleen's element conversion. Having cut off their mental connection, the water puppet's combat capacity was not quite of the level it used to be.

"No need to rush," Saleen commanded his elemental stone statue soldier and three fireballs in a composed manner. Nailisi only needed to pick up the soul shards after the fireballs burned out. Such tactics were for the time being, of low risk. The elemental stone statue soldiers fended off many ways of assault, allowing Saleen composure to use his magic.

The twenty-four elemental stone statue soldier formed an impregnable barrier between the pests and Saleen. While there were some grade-9 monsters appearing among them time and again, they were hard a match to the soldiers which had the advantage in numbers.

Elemental badges proved to be powerful equipment, which mages could bring with them and use easily. Thanks to the protection provided by these elemental creatures, mages were able to attack their enemies without any concern about grand swordmasters or assassins getting within range.

Seeing how the twenty-four elemental stone statue soldiers were able to have the first floor of the tower under control, Saleen went straight to summoning another twelve to the first floor to keep them at bay. That allowed the speed that it took the monsters made it to the second floor be cut down, making it convenient for Nailisi to pick up the soul shards one by one.

The water puppet learned slowly from the side. It tried playing with element conversion before. It was able to convert the six major elements without problems when it was under Saleen's control. With only its own memories and mental powers to rely on, he had yet to regain the ability to do so.

There was nothing difficult with turning ice bombs into gas, but the gaseous ice bombs were still water element spells. Having the vaporized ice bombs burn however, required deeper and trickier skills, something that most sorcerers had never even attempted to learn. Out of those who did try to learn the trick, most never succeeded. There were only a handful of sorcerers capable of using element conversion skills. Those who were as capable as Saleen at the art, were very few and very far between.

Saleen was however, actually forced to do so. His body of water of element allowed him to pick up water magic spells very quickly, and use them with incredible effects and damage potentials. The other five elemental types would never be possible for him to learn, unless he was capable of element conversion. Without being able to familiarize himself with the other five, advancement would prove to be a great problem for him.

It was precisely under such stress that Saleen became capable of element conversion skills before becoming a sorcerer.

The water puppet had little idea of Saleen's past. As such, it was very frustrated over the problem of being unable to master element conversion quickly. It had, after all, experienced the energy vibration frequencies during element conversion personally, instead of knowing absolutely nothing of the art.

A huge ice bomb was conjured by the water puppet, with a layer of mist about it. The original freezing attributes of ice bombs were severely weakened by said layer of mist.

The water puppet controlled the ice bomb and it landed a hit on one pest. Recalling a water magic spell all of the sudden, the water puppet's mental powers fluctuated wildly. The ice bomb cracked and the mist dispersed, freezing the pest it hit.

Nailisi picked up the pest's soul shard and glared at the water puppet. The pests' bodies were essentially a collection of dust. Being frozen however, Nailisi needed quite an effort to insert her bone hand into the pest's body.

More than one-hundred pests were wiped out by Nailisi in the span of just little more than ten minutes. There were at least six soul shards in the bodies of each pest. Nailisi dumped almost one-thousand shards into her purgatories.

Nailisi rejoiced silently. The shards were capable of being used for repairing two of the purgatories in her collection. If she was able to collect tens of thousands of the pests' soul shards, she would be able to get one of her purgatories completely fixed.

"Nailisi, I will let more pests up," Saleen said as he conjured another twelve elemental stone statue soldiers and had them go downstairs and fill the first floor.

Nailisi nodded in acknowledgment. She quickened the pace of her soul shard collecting. "If only Nicholas was here!" Nailisi began to miss some of the good things about Nicholas at such moments. Fallen holy masters used soul beads to collect such shards, and the speed of doing so was thousands of times faster than what Nailisi was doing.

Hundreds of pests rushed for second floor. Saleen nonchalantly conjured more fireballs. The grade-7 fireballs all had life-like images of thunder dragon on their surfaces. The fireballs were able to burn for hours. Even having spent large amounts of fire element in each attack, the fireballs were at least able to last for more than an hour.

Such was the power of element conversion. Normal fireballs would have hardly been able to last for more than half a minute.

The water puppet created a unique magic ice bomb. The ice bombs were quickly converted into another water magic, Frozen Swamp, when their surfaces began to mist.

Frozen Swamp was an area-of-effect offensive magic, which the water puppet compressed onto the surface of an ice bomb with a diameter of little more than one yard. The spell caused slowness and numbness once it stuck on a pest. The large sticky ice bomb was not something that could be shaken off. The slowed pest would then became easy pickings for Nailisi.

The blue ice maiden was right that water magic was hardly capable to damaging the pests, but such rules were hardly absolute to mages. With a demon like Nailisi, who was capable of picking soul shards around, a slowed pest was as good as dead.

The second floor also had large windows, and the space between the twenty-four elemental stone statue soldiers was very wide too. Saleen commanded the situation, having the fireballs dance about within the crevices, being pleased for finding out again what it was like to be a mage.

Control!

A mage's combat tactics laid within absolute control.

A diamond cut diamond situation was something not even swordsmen would have gladly put themselves in. The wisdom, skills, and experience of a mage became the determining factors deciding the outcome of a battle. Saleen was a grade-8 mage. If he had encountered grade-7 monsters in the number of tens of thousands, he would have done nothing else but run.

That time however, Saleen used the surroundings of the crystal tower to his own advantage, allowing him to leisurely kill the pests one by one. Saleen was able to run anytime if he wanted to. The reason why he stayed was because he knew of the immense importance the soul shards had for repairing Nailisi's twelve Notes of Purgatory. If it was on the Myers Mainland, he would not have dared allow Nailisi do something like that, as that would have been similar to what black magicians did.

Fycro dared kill one-hundred-thousand people just to create soul beads. If Saleen dared attempt something like that, his conscience would have eaten him inside out. These pests, however, were little else but materials walking up to Nailisi.

The adventure into the abyss gradually changed Saleen's way of thinking. In the past, he liked running away, unless it was absolutely necessary to fight or victory was promised. That time however, Saleen felt the rush of having everything under his control.

Such abilities came from wisdom, instead of some powerful magic chords.

Time flew and Nailisi had been killing thousands of pests. The number of monsters trying to enter the tower did not seem to be reduced though. Nailisi had an epiphany all of the sudden, it was a result of her demonic lineage. "Some unusually dangerous monster are getting near us!"

The danger that monsters posed surpassed the power of all the pests combined. The pests would have tore Saleen and his followers to pieces if they were in an open field. It was precisely because they were in such an enclosed environment that the pests were not able to harm even one hair on him.

"Master!", Nailisi shouted and took her demon form, the spear Saleen crafted for her in her hand. Saleen felt the approaching danger as well, which was an ability resulting from the soul contract between him and Nailisi, as well as the one between him and the Goddess of Myers.

The two contracts allowed Saleen's sense of danger to be on par with that of Nailisi.

"What is that?!" Saleen quickly retreated to the third story and looked outside. He was only able to see a huge humanoid shadow making its way to the tower from streets faraway.

The humanoid being was eight yards tall. Saleen's Elemental Eye opened at full force, and found that the long, black hair the being was dragging behind him was the same thing that made up the pests: dust.

The only difference there was that the dust did not flow and fluctuate, and behaved like true hair. Every single hair was clear, and swayed about in the water.

The being's face was vague, but he did have a human face. He carried a long double-edged blade in his hand. The blade's seven yard long body drew a broad path in the seawater. There was nothing standing in his way.

What was most eerie about him was that the being was naked from the waist up, with an even bigger face located at the spot where his chest met the stomach. The face opened its mouth wide, and it evil-looking eyes wandered about left and right.

The pests it had its eyes on were all monsters above grade-7. Once the face picked out a pest, the eight yard tall figure would just walk up to it and cut it to pieces with one slash, and then it swallowed the soul shards with its big mouth on his torso.

The mouth was filled with sharp teeth, which were all gray. Terrifying shrieks were heard with every soul shard bitten.

No pests were about to run. The figure was not quick with his movements. It was just that whenever he went, the pests were only able to kneel on the ground, waiting their turn to be slaughtered in a terrified manner.

Saleen immediately summoned Gloria. Regardless of how dumb she was, she would at least have some impression of the creature.

"Gloria, look. What the hell is that?", Saleen pointed at the creature killing the pests, and shared his own senses with her at the same time.

"Master, you are going to be rich. That is an Angel of Fear," Gloria answered, which unsettled Saleen.

"What is an Angel of Fear?"

"A grade-12 pest. Catch him, and your mental powers will grow immensely!"