Badge In Azure

Chapter 871: Elemental Stone Statue Soldier (Part 2)

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

“How did you once fight?”, Saleen asked Vinny directly.

Vinny did not answer Saleen’s question. The magic patterns across its entire body had instead begun to glitter and shrunk into a stone badge. All the other one-hundred and forty-four soldiers’ bodies began to shrink as well, and jumped into the stone badge one by one.

Saleen bent over and picked up the stone badge. The connection between himself and the broken jade was crystal clear in the badge. Saleen gave an order in his mind, which lit up the badge magically. A one-hundred yard tall statue soldier burst onto the s.p.a.ce in front of Saleen and stood before him.

Saleen’s mind calmed. Such a way to control them was identical to the ones he acquired before. With Vinny’s control over the statues being greater, the communication between it and Saleen also became easier. He was also capable of a.s.suming direct command over the grade-9 statue soldier before him, making the statue do what he needed it to do.

“This is just way stronger than the grade-7 stone statue soldiers! This is the elemental badge talked about in the legends? It is the equipment ancient humans used to control elemental creatures!”

Elemental badges blatantly disregarded the size of elemental creatures they controlled. The magic arrays within were arranged according to the number of elemental creatures. Each creature only took the s.p.a.ce of an elemental point. The badge was a form Vinny was capable of a.s.suming, and there were one-hundred and forty-four elemental points on it, without room for even one more.

The one-hundred and forty-four stone statue soldiers were more far more powerful than the ones Saleen created himself. They were definitely unaffected by inconvenient factors such as time limits.

Saleen contacted Vinny, which triggered the elemental badge to emanate overwhelming magic brilliance. The lights did not trigger any reaction from the magic arrays nearby. Elemental stone statue soldiers were, after all, guardians of the city itself.

The grade-9 soldier standing at one-hundred yards tall began shrinking its body, with the color of the green rock armor becoming increasingly dark and concentrated. When the soldier shrunk to the height of a mere ten yards, its elemental armor’s color turned entirely black. Saleen knew that the size of the soldier could not have been able to be compressed further, but that proved adequate nonetheless. The difference in height between it and the ones created by Saleen was less than one yard, making it entirely capable of being mixed with his own magic.

The black stone statue soldier’s combat capacity far surpa.s.sed that of the puppets created from the magic stored in his robe. The soldiers possessed their own consciousness, while puppets required him to pull the strings. If the puppets were to fight on their own, they would not have so much been a match for grade-8 adversaries.

Saleen recalled the soldier and set the elemental badge into the belt of the devil’s armor, instead of storing it inside his own Devil Ring. There were slots on the devil’s armor for equipping gear. The belt was something Joey crafted personally, which enabled a mage to have an extra of six equipment slots on their person.

Saleen came to realize something. Joey had definitely knew something about the skills of ancient mages. Saleen would not have been able to just set the elemental badge on it like that.

The six major elements all had corresponding elemental badges, and that had Saleen hoping to find the others.

When humans first learned to use elemental creatures as defensive measures for cities and troop units, humanity could not have possibly used only earth element creatures to do so. Be it water, fire, wind, light, or dark elements, every one of them would have been very powerful as well. While the humans back then would not have thought much about that, in the perspective of the dwellers of the current Myers Mainland, such badges were revolutionary equipment.

Saleen went straight back to the military depot. He swam to the second floor and looked at the half-broken ceiling, finding the broken pieces. The collapsed ceiling pieces ended up on a small bed. The bed was only three yards long: a length ancient humans loved. The three yard long bed was obviously not something meant for elemental creatures.

There was no body to be found on the bed, making it apparent that humans left before the city was destroyed. Even so, Saleen managed to find equipment belonging to humans.

A magic ring he found was pure black in color and made of unknown gems. The carving of the creature was something Saleen felt familiar with, which turned out to be a six-winged flying snake.

The six-winged flying snake was regarded as a powerful creature in ancient times.

Saleen checked the ring with his own mental powers, and found that he was unable to open the s.p.a.ce of the ring. He was a grade-8 sorcerer, whose mental powers had surpa.s.sed most grade-9 sorcerers. If the ring was one he was unable to open, then it was more than simply a spatial equipment; it was a sealing ring instead.

There obviously was not a six-winged flying snake in the ring, and Saleen did not dare to imagine having such a luxury. Six-winged flying snakes were powerful creatures. They were also capable of developing intelligence. Even if a six-winged flying snake was indeed in there, Saleen would not be able to control it anyway. He would have ended up being eaten instead.

Saleen put the ring away. “The ring is obviously a sealing ring. If I run into a six-winged flying snake later, the badge might be able to subdue it. The Grukos family kept low level six-winged flying snakes after all, right?” The ring was obviously capable of sealing snakes of higher levels. The snake was a guardian being to the Grukos, but not to Saleen. Saleen would definitely think of a way to seal one such snake into the ring.

Vinny said that the city was twelve-thousand miles long, and eight-thousand miles wide. The place easily qualified as a large country. As Saleen’s chances of finding something diminished, there was little else he was able to do but enter the Imperial City of the Abyss and trying their luck.

“The Imperial City! Vinny said this place was an imperial city. Did that make it some fief bestowed by a king of somewhere!? The entire fief was one large city, but how did such a large city end up in an abyss? Were the early humans even capable of conquering the oceans? It is a possibility. The oceanic ice block is abundant with resources, which means that the region was extremely attractive to ancient humans.”

Human footsteps were found even beyond Stormy Seas, and there might have been even the descendants of ancient humans in the various countries in the eastern seas, instead of foreign races like was the case with subcontinent plane.

Humans of the subcontinent plane and the ones on the Myers Mainland were actually already two different races. The lifespan of humans over there was one-third shorter than those of the Myers Mainland. The ones on the mainland were able to live to the age of one-hundred and twenty despite having trained in no arts, yet the ones considered to have lived a long life on the subcontinent, lived only to about eighty.

Saleen had only wanted two things from the Imperial City of the Abyss: the elemental badge and bone remains of single-horned white whale. When humans conquered the seas in the past, they built a cemetery for those creatures, meaning that the whales were important to humans back then.

He had not dared to subdue anymore stone statue soldiers. The devil’s armor that Joey crafted for him only had six equipment slots at the belt. That was also the limit of Saleen’s mental powers. Even if more slots were to be added, he would not have been able to use them all at once. While he indeed possessed ma.s.sive mental powers, it was still within Joey’s means of calculation. Joey was even able to calculate what kind of capacity Saleen would reach even advancing to grade-9.

Saleen returned to the area nearby the wall and summoned the water puppet. Rossen appeared quickly and asked suspiciously, “Master, the stone statue soldiers around have disappeared!”

“I have subdued them, Rossen. Take this,” Saleen said and took out his crystal ring, handing it to the water puppet.

“My liege, what do you mean?”, the water puppet put on the ring without actually understanding Saleen’s intentions.

“I’m collecting elemental badges, but…there is something I need to craft for later use.”

“I see, my liege. What about Nailisi then?”

“She is outside,” Saleen did not say much. In Saleen’s mind, the water puppet had always been his equipment. Even though the water puppet actually possessed higher intelligence than most magic beasts, Saleen still had never truly treated the water puppet as a person. It was normal for mages to bring their equipment on adventures.

Saleen knew that if he wanted to enter the heart of the imperial city and search for the single-horned whale’s cemetery, he would need help from the elemental badge. The defense at the outskirts was actually mediocre. Many magical facilities simply broke down from the immense number of years pa.s.sed.

In the core of the imperial city however, operations of sorts were still running in a highly precise manner.

Saleen would be able to have great confidence dealing with most complicated situations when he was able to collect all six elemental badges. His intention was to simply enter the cemetery of the single-horned white whale, take away a great number of magic nuclei, leave, and come back for more another day. By then, he would be bringing a good number of followers with him, and would sweep the place clean.

As to how to bring his men in, that was where Nailisi’s Twelve Notes of Purgatory came into play. The number of demons he would be able to bring with him would have went up to tens of thousands doing so. There was no worries about the carrying capacity of the pan’s turtle alchemical boat.

Saleen took the water puppet back to the military depot with him. The stairs there were wrecked by the stone statue soldiers, but other places seemed intact. Saleen searched for materials in his own Devil Ring, being very particular with it as he intended to craft Eternal Control shards.

The water puppet stood guard outside the gate. A witcher spider was right above its head. Despite being crafted anew, the witcher spider remained a mid level puppet, possessing only fair combat capacity. It served as a good tool for sneak attacks and digging though.

Saleen took out his last broken jade and began researching it in detail in a large room. He had to gain more understanding on the rules of Eternal Control, before grade-9 or even grade-10 creatures could be completely put under his thumb.

Controlling the stone statue soldiers proved extremely easy, as the broken jade used contained the soul flames of the three kings. Eternal Control shards crafted by Saleen himself might not have been able to control grade-10 beings.

The materials inside Saleen’s Devil Ring were rich and comprehensive, since he acquired a good number of horns of the single-horned white whales. The horns made good materials, but they alone could not be enough to craft Eternal Control shards. Saleen searched within his stores of gemstones, and picked out all the black crystals.

Black crystals were able to contain souls and Saleen had a lot with him. Most of the crystals were given to the death mages who swore their loyalty to him. The black crystals left with him then all came from the Temple of the G.o.ddess of Myers. The crystals were of very high quality and were meant to be used by grade-9 death sorcerers. Saleen had intended to give them away when there were any death mages of his advancing to such levels, but at that moment it seemed that such moments would never come, as his current needs came first.

The horns of the whales were of lengths measuring between one to three yards. Saleen took out five three yard long horns and threw them into the water flame, which he followed with five huge pieces of black crystals.

The black crystals liquefied instantly and seeped into the horns. The horns of the whales were impeccably st.u.r.dy, as the single-horned white whales were able to use them to both cast magic and plough right through hard ice to breathe at the surface. Ice sheets of thirty to fifty yards thick would not be able to withstand an impact from the whales. As such, the single-horned white whales were hardly limited by geographical factors of any sort. Even ice sheets hardly inconvenienced their movements.

The horns were white. As the black crystals liquefied and seeped into the horns, clean cut black magic patterns appeared.

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Chapter 872: Elemental Badge (Part 1)

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

Saleen calmly used the two types of incompatible materials to create the shards of Eternal Control. Before he became a grade-10 mage, Saleen’s body was fragile. An equipment like the elemental badge carried great significance to mages below grade-9.

In order to refine the three yard long horn of the whale into a shard of Eternal Control that was only one-sixth the size of a card, the materials had to be compressed to an extreme extent. Within the white water flame, the whale horn was first shrunk into about a yard long, then the speed of compression was slowed down immediately.

Saleen was in no hurry. The broken jade that was created by Shanglan was floating right in front of him. Saleen used his mental strength to sense the rule changes within the broken jade while using the black crystal to put in place magic patterns and magic arrays in the white whale horn.

The black crystal was a little brittle. Saleen wanted to ensure that its quality remained unchanged so that it could fuse together with the soul. Such refining was extremely difficult. The horn of the single-horned white whale was hundreds of times harder than the black crystal, so it was already very hard to compress it. Now, in order to avoid destroying the structure of the black crystal, the amount of time needed for refining would have to be prolonged by more than thirty times.

Saleen was patient. He and Nailisi had agreed on three days and only a day had pa.s.sed so far. There was still half a yard of whale horn left and it was still in the midst of being compressed.

Compressing materials was something that mages commonly did as they could create complicated and huge magic arrays from a very small piece of equipment. Saleen was probably the first to refine an equipment using two materials of very different levels of hardiness.

After the shard of Eternal Control was created, it would last longer than a century. To Saleen, that was enough. Within a century, he could even advance ten grades. Even as a grade-9 sorcerer, the quality of his water flame would change, and his understanding of Eternal Control would also deepen. By the time he had to refine the shards again, he would be able to use them to control any creatures with full confidence.

The only problem was that not all elemental creatures could produce souls. Saleen had no idea how long it would take him to piece together his elemental badge if he was to search the military depots one by one.

After two days, Saleen finally managed to refine the whale horn into one-sixth the size of a card. The prototype of the shard of Eternal Control had been completed and Saleen no longer needed to focus all his mental strength into it and there would be no security issues for the time-being. That was when he thought of asking water puppet to inform Nailisi so that she could rest a.s.sured. All of a sudden, there was a violent explosion of Elemental Vibrations at the city wall. Saleen swam over from the high tower and only heard the deafening sounds of explosions.

Saleen panicked.

Over at the city wall, Nailisi was holding her long lance and she was in her three-faced bone demon form. She created a huge crater in the city wall with her lance. An invisible energy from the tip of the spear pierced through the one-hundred yard thick city wall and Nailisi went through the city wall, only to see two stone statue soldiers charging towards her.

With one sweep of her long lance, the legs of the stone statue soldiers were cut off completely. Then, Nailisi pierced her long lance through the foreheads of the two stone statue soldiers. Even grade-9 creatures were no match for the power of the long lance. Their heads exploded and Nailisi quickly sprinted towards the military depot that Saleen was at.

By right, there were no stone statue soldiers around the city wall, but Nailisi had waited for three days and within that time, the stone statue soldiers nearby had come over to fill up the gaps. She had no idea what Saleen was up to, so she decided to enter the city by force.

If she tried to enter from the top, she would be attacked by magic arrays, but if she went through the city wall directly, she would only have to face stone statue soldiers. The city wall, which was one-hundred and twenty yards thick, was made up of rocks that were even harder than metal but was pierced through by the tip of Nailisi’s lance. That strike had already surpa.s.sed what silver line golden spearfish could do at their maximum power.

The two grade-9 elemental stone statue soldiers were defeated by Nailisi but in the blink of an eye, the ground elements seeped into their bodies and two huge heads grew out again. Nailisi did not turn back. She used her senses from the soul bond and sprinted towards Saleen’s location.

“Is Master in danger?” Nailisi knew that Saleen was still alive, but the three days that they had agreed on was up. Nailisi could not take it anymore and decided to enter the gigantic city. Nailisi no longer cared about what dwelled within the city. “Master has not appeared after three days. What if he is in danger?”

The stone statue soldiers pursued behind her. At first there were only two of them, but soon there were more than ten of them. There was a large number of stone statue soldiers in the Imperial City of the Abyss and most of them were in deep sleep. The moment some stone statue soldiers were destroyed or lost, new stone statue soldiers would immediately wake up to take their places.

For Nailisi to only trigger slightly more than ten stone statue soldiers in pursuit after entering the city forcefully, she was already considered lucky. No matter how powerful she was, as long as she did not manage to kill the leader of the stone statue soldiers, they would continue to pursue her until she was dead. This was why the ancient humans used elemental creatures to protect their cities.

In the ancient times, magic beasts were very powerful. If not for the elemental creatures that could not be killed, the magic beasts would have been able to climb over the city walls and killed the people living in the cities. As for grade-9 soldiers, one would need a large number of them in order to guard such a huge city.

It was by some measure of luck that Nailisi managed to defeat the two stone statue soldiers. Her weapon would have been useless if she had been struck by their gigantic war hammers. Elemental creatures could not be killed, especially in an environment like that, where the stone statue soldiers could replenish their elemental power continuously.

As a demon in the form of a spirit of the dead, by right, she should not attract the attention of the stone statue soldiers since the latter were no longer controlled by humans and should not initiate attacks. The stone statue soldiers basically ignored spirits of the dead. What Nailisi did not know was that when she pierced through the city wall with her long lance, it activated the power of dragonshards. Even though the dragonshards had been removed from the bodies of giant dragons, it was still difficult to conceal the enormous life strength embedded in them.

All magic nuclei that had the ability to restore themselves must possess life strength.

With the help of the soul bond, Saleen’s location was like a fire-element creature opening its eyes in the darkness. They were about twenty miles apart. Nailisi was much faster than the stone statue soldiers, and within a few minutes, she had already reached Saleen.

When Saleen saw Nailisi sprinting towards him, he felt pained.

The three-faced bone demon looked terrifying and the soul flames in Nailisi’s six eyes were dancing wildly. Saleen sensed that they were dancing at the same rhythm as Nailisi’s heartbeat.

“Master!” Nailisi saw that Saleen was not in any danger. When she saw the water puppet laughing to itself by the side, she pointed her long lance at it. She was not jealous, she only felt wronged.

“Why did Master choose to bring this water puppet and not me? Is it because I never tried to train up my human form? Did Master trust this water puppet so much because he wanted to become a human so badly? But I genuinely like Master!”

“Nailisi, come here.” Saleen forcefully cast a spell and a ball of black fog appeared in the water and formed a row of enormous words.

Nailisi put away her long lance. Even though water puppet’s expression remained unchanged, its heart was already beating wildly.

He was also an elemental lifeform, but if he was pierced by Nailisi’s long lance, he would lose all the memories that he had painfully acc.u.mulated. Once he lost those memories, it would be even more difficult to grow his soul. Although he possessed the power of a grade-8 mage, he has still yet to figure out the relations.h.i.+p between body and soul.

He did not possess all of Saleen’s knowledge. For things that must be realized, he would have to rely on himself in order to understand them slowly.

The three yard tall bone demon stood in front of Saleen. Nailisi was not sure how best to express herself. They were underwater, so even if she could speak, Saleen was not able to.

“Master, please don’t chase me away again!” Nailisi lowered her head and looked at Saleen. His face was concealed by the devil mask and both his eyes were covered by crystals, so his expression was indecipherable.

Saleen nodded his head and patted Nailisi’s skeletal thigh. The thigh of the three-faced bone demon was unlike that of the winged skeleton. It was extremely thick and was covered with a layer of red muscles.

Nailisi put away her long lance and squatted down. She used her palm, which only consisted of four fingers, to hug Saleen’s shoulders.

Saleen pointed at the twelve grade-9 elemental stone statue soldiers behind Nailisi who were charging towards them. The deafening trembling sounds caused the hundreds of sculptures that were squatting on both sides of the street to turn around and look in their direction. The sculptures were supposed to guard over their own courtyards. If Saleen did not antagonize them, they would continue to watch over the doors, as if they were real sculptures.

Saleen could not bear to blame Nailisi, since she had risked her life to come there. Not every soul-bonded creature would be willing to break through the city wall’s defense and fight against grade-9 elemental creatures, especially if the soul-bonded creatures were demons.

If Saleen had not obtained the elemental badge, Saleen would have chosen to run away from the twelve elemental stone statues because they could not be killed. Dismantle Element was only a temporal dismantling. In an environment like that, where elements were rich and dense, the dismantled stone statue soldiers would be able to restore themselves in about ten minutes.

Saleen stretched out his hands to stop Nailisi. His mental strength trembled slightly, and he gave Vinny a command. Twenty-four grade-9 stone statue soldiers leapt out from within the elemental badge and stood in front of Saleen and Nailisi.

All three of Nailisi’s mouths were wide open. She stared at the badge on Saleen’s waist and momentarily felt that her wait had been worth it. “Master has begun to control elemental creatures!”

Saleen did not really have any solutions when facing elemental creatures, but he did possess the elemental badge, so things became much simpler. He had twenty-four stone statue soldiers, they outnumbered the enemies by a ratio of two to one, so they should be able to pin those twelve stone statue soldiers down.

Saleen made a gesture and Nailisi acknowledged it and immediately sent the twelve stone statue soldiers, who had been pinned down, into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.

When the twelve stone statue soldiers were sent to the Purgatory of Ice, they lost all connections to their leader and they began to attack violently and aimlessly. Nailisi allowed them to do so. In any case, there were no ground elements in the Purgatory of Ice, so they would lose their powers gradually. Although the entire process might be slow, Nailisi would not even have to move a finger.

Saleen felt a tinge of regret. The actions of the stone statue soldiers were controlled by him, but the twenty-four stone statue soldiers were about to reach their limits. If that was the case, then his goal of leading tens of thousands of elemental creatures into battle would never come true!