Badge in Azure

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

Metatrin City had been focused on the rebuilding of its fleet. The winged skeleton was not there either hen Saleen was gone, but the city still had a great number of mages nonetheless, especially the sorcerers numbering to thirty strong who were on guard at the city all year round.

Despite the number of ships mobilized from Sregl Island not being of a high number, it nonetheless brought a great many sailors from the island, which was the more important matter at hand. The sailors were the real deal, people who fought at sea all day every day.

Ever since Jason came to the city, he had the sailors train the troops of the city, by using whatever ships were left in the city in turns. Metatrin City was no longer lacking sailors.

Saleen's return brought the manufactured schematics of the magic power furnace, as well as detailed magic notes. Some of the magic power furnaces were coincidentally things that grade-9 sorcerers were capable of crafting. Saleen also brought the finished products with him in the form of power plants used for running the Ancient. The sorcerers boarded the ship and studied the furnaces onboard personally, enabling them to develop a certain level of mastery in the creation of low level magic power furnaces.

Saleen had to wait for ten days, which were meant for modifying the power plants of some of the warships.

The alchemic factory had been busy manufacturing parts of the Ancient. Some sorcerers went on to redesign ships of smaller scales based on the schematics of the Ancient Saleen brought home with him.

The smallest ship in the new fleet of Ancient warships measured between two-hundred to three-hundred yards, which was equivalent to the main warships of the day.

Mages from Sregl Island redesigned various ships of the fleet and had even went on to dismantle the ones brought from the island, to be resembled into new ships. They had no lack of materials. Almost all work was done in the alchemic factory, with the assembly done in the shipyards, performed by mechanical puppets. One brand new warship after another left for the waters at a frightening speed.

In practice, the toughest stages of building magic warships laid within design and manufacture of parts. Assembly was the easier stage of the whole task instead. While humans lacked the strength for intensive hard labor, mechanical puppets were capable of lifting up to ten-thousand pounds of material after all. Large scale magic equipment made everything flow smoothly like a meandering river.

Saleen gave the order to depart on the tenth day, and his entire new fleet finished assembly on the ninth. The mages of Sregl Island renovated Metatrin City completely. The huge alchemic factory saw the soaring increase in production quality and capacity. His production of war equipment had always been fast, and then, things were a hundred times faster than they used to be.

Of course, one major reason contributing to such advancement came from the large number of magic nuclei he brought home with him. Even the mineral veins at the mines of Demon City started seeing the production of crystals.

Crystals produced from the mineral veins of Demon City were equivalent to mid-level magic nuclei in terms of power. Saleen, at the moment, ended up having too many mages serving under him. It was fortunate for him that the mages of Sregl Island did not need magic nuclei distribution from him, or the hunt in the oceanic ice block every year would have never been enough to cover the needs of his own mages.

The flagship of the expeditionary fleet remained to be the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel. The Ancient was christened as Genga, which served as Saleen's main assault ship. Other than that, every other ship in Saleen's fleet was a high-speed warship of one-hundred and eighty yards long.

The dozen bone warships served as auxiliary forces of the fleet. Saleen confirmed the list of people following him to war, and the demon sailors were also in position. Saleen no longer fought using spirits that time, and that felt very different from before to him.

Eighteen warships powered by magic power furnaces and all had two-thousand demons serving as both crew and warriors. The bone twelve warships were filled basically by spirits, only eighteen warships had human soldiers and mages.

The Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel served as his flagship, with those serving directly under him on it.

The Ancient was following the fleet far behind, covering a huge area with mist, hiding their positions. The Mechanical Soul turned rather obedient at that moment and ceased trying to play any tricks in front of Saleen. He knew well that Saleen was able to have him suffer the wrath of hell anytime he fancied.

The Ancient also served as a logistical base for the fleet. The new ships had little space to hold cargo, and Saleen hardly brought any sorcerers with him. Almost all mages on the fleet were grand mages. Matters concerning supplies were then relegated to the Ancient.

He had knowledge of more than a dozen islands capable of serving as supply points on their southward journey from Metatrin City. Most of the islands would have fallen to the hands of Grand Duke Iron Blood by then.

The fleet departed. Six jade skeletons activated the new pan's turtle alchemical boat beneath the fleet, leading the way for twenty-four diving combat vessels to follow the fleet above them. The all-metal diving combat vessels had all been fitted with low level magic power furnaces. Their speeds were increased, and they were able to divert most of the energy generated to power their defenses. The depths capable to be reached were also increased by about one-hundred yards.

The command of spirits could have only been undertaken by the winged skeleton alone, and Saleen would not have been able to just hand his entire fleet to just the Winged Skull and no one else. As such, the expedition that time served as military training. True battles required him, Jola, and Nicholas to be in charge.

Saleen labored to craft Eternal Control shards aboard the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel. He delegated the command of the twenty-four ancient warriors to Nailisi, resulting in a sharp drop in his combat capacity. The combat capacities of his twenty-four ancient warriors combined rivaled that of over one-hundred Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers. Without humans being in command, elemental creatures would only be able to overwhelm their adversaries through superiority in terms of level difference. Once they encountered a human of their own level, they would hardly be a match for said human.

Saleen's soul was more powerful than it had been before, and his understanding of the Eternal Control shards grew as well. He knew that it was not all that difficult to command the ancient soldiers. As such, he no longer went wasting his single-horned white whale horns, replacing those materials with the bones of other magic beasts.

The advancement of Saleen's mental powers increased the number of ancient warriors he was able to put under his command. Other than the slots available for signing contracts, the number of ancient warriors he was able to control remained limited at thirty-six.

Saleen knew that such limitations would be broken once he saw an advance in his magic. Advancement in magic required opportunities of sorts. All his prior experience accumulated was spent on the advancement into level nine. If he wished to see his magic chords evolve further, he would need to re-accumulate his experiences. The accumulation included new knowledge and developing new awareness about the elements.

Jola stood at the bow feeling rather bored. He had been on the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel before, but he was only there for visits back then. Going out to war on a warship personally hardly interested him at all. There were no beauties to be found on the ship, and Jola had no choice but to kill time fishing at the bow.

The speed of the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel was kept at more than one-hundred miles per hour. Normal fishing would not be possible. The rod in his hand was a very short one, and the hook on the line had no bait on it. He simply stood there and threw the hook overboard. He was able to end up pulling up a fish every time he threw the hook over.

Some low level magic beasts were caught at times. Those without magic nuclei were immediately thrown back into the sea. More than a dozen personal guards stood behind him, and all looked awkwardly at their commanding officer. A golden grand swordmaster, hunting magic beasts below grade-3. There was hardly anything else that spoke better of his boredom at that point.

Nicholas was feeling bored in the hold as well. His divine arts were unlike the mages, which required meditation and experimentation. His equivalent of those exercises was simply to keep inciting the souls in the soul bead and have them worship his soul brand. Doing so would gradually increase his level of power. With Saleen being busy crafting his equipment, he walked out of his quarters and went up on the deck, looking at Jola who was busy fishing.

"Old man, shouldn't you be at our lord's side instead of coming up here?" Jola asked as he put away his rod, sensing the presence of Nicholas close by.

"Haha, Jola, just call me Nicholas." Nicholas' beard waved about in the sea breeze, which looked rather ridiculous.

"I know your name is Nicholas." Jola threw away his rod and sat on the deck. He was dressed in a set of soft magic armor, with his sword, Tears, hanging about his hip.

"Jola, why haven't you gotten more gear for yourself? Did our lord…"

"I'm a swordsman. I hardly need anything else other than a sword," Jola cut Nicholas off right there. The matter with the old man wanting to draw Saleen's followers over to his side and form a faction of his own was something that could have hardly been missed.

"Haha, Jola, I'm a holy master. While I possibly lack your capacity at offense, I would be better at protecting our lord than you would. I have simply come to discuss how to work with you and get this mission completed." Nicholas hardly fretted over what happened. Even if the powers of the entire plane were to advance, there was no denying the position of a golden grand swordmaster being a supreme one still.

Jola was only several yards away from him. If Jola wanted him dead, not one of his lesser prophecy spells would be able to save him.

"Our lord's power is now way higher than mine, Nicholas. He only wanted his fleet to grow strong quickly. It is impossible for him to be the one leading the fleet every time we go on an expedition. There is still a lot to be taken care of on the mainland. This mission is one without any difficulty at all. If the grand duke was here, he would end up dead soon enough."

"You really shouldn't be underestimating your enemies," Nicholas said in an earnest manner.

"Grand Duke Iron Blood is no enemy; he is a dead man." Jola turned around and faced forward, leaving the back of his head to face Nicholas.

"Jola, why hasn't our lord been worried about Lonestar City?" Nicholas saw no choice but to change the topic.

"I just returned from there. If that place was truly dangerous, our lord would have given his all to mount a rescue. I didn't even bother staying there myself. So, do you still think that Lonestar City is dangerous?"

Nicholas was speechless. He had been feeling something peculiar about it. "Jola is a golden grand swordmaster. There was simply no need to have him to mount a rescue. There were also sorcerers and the Wings of an Elf at Lonestar City. It seemed to make more sense to leave the golden grand swordmaster behind instead. Was Saleen hiding something?"

Nicholas felt rather uneasy inside. He truly decided to devote himself to following Saleen, yet he still found that there were things that Saleen kept from him.

Jola seemed to have detected what was going on in Nicholas' mind, and said with a laugh, "Old man, are you wondering right now, why our lord hasn't explained anything about this?"

"He has his way with things, and there is no need for him to explain anything to us," Nicholas answered hastily. Jola's words alerted him, reminding him that he was a follower of Saleen. His lord had no need to lay out everything to him, unless it had something to do with the mission at hand.

"If you are really feeling uneasy about it, just go ask the man yourself," Jola did not continue. Nicholas turned around and left the deck. He reminded himself of Saleen's temperament. It would be best for him to simply ask Saleen, should there be anything bothering him. Saleen hated people scheming behind his back. He felt the need to simply go ask Saleen directly. His mind would not calm otherwise.