Badge in Azure

Chapter 1360: Refining (Part 1)

“Rafel, how much time has passed?” Saleen asked. Rafel was puzzled. He had his own magic clock and yet he asked her instead.

“Counting from the moment we entered the tower, 206 days,” Rafel answered.

Saleen was startled and said, “What about them?”

When Saleen said “them,” he was obviously referring to his followers, together with Sika and Lex.

“Sika is in charge of the Floating City. She’s commanding Nailisi and Bing as no one else could. Lex is already emperor, and Ojarvis is dead. Lex sent people to request that you participate in the funeral, but I stopped them.”

Ojarvis is dead?

Saleen couldn’t believe it. That young dude who’d been chatting jovially around him seemed to have seen through fate. Saleen thought people like that would live forever, or at least longer than the gods.

But then again, that was all in his imagination: not even gods were immortal. Saleen wondered if the young emperor was really asking to be resurrected after his passing, or was he asking to be remembered that way?

“Since when did my magic chords grow to such an extent?” Saleen was baffled to find that he had advanced, but unceremoniously. Nothing special at all happened during the process.

It was no wonder Rafel had exerted herself when she was fighting him earlier. He had become adept at using more power of rules. Coupled with his formidable arsenal, and being that there was no Rafel who would have killed him, Saleen ended up backing her into a corner.

“Your followers have all returned to the Floating City and seem to be on bad terms with Lex,” Rafel added.

“Let it be. Lex has her own way of dealing with it.” Saleen then walked out of the magic tower with Rafel. People were waiting for him outside the door of the 17th floor.

“Saleen, I’ve advanced!” Eleanor said joyfully.

“I did too, Eleanor,” Saleen flashed a beaming smile, looking very happy.

Eleanor had the hardest time advancing and he finally knew why—she was using a human’s body. Humans had their souls outside their bodies and their levels were too low, resting in some mystical parallel space that could never be calculated using conventional concepts of distance.

It was possible to cover the distance between planes by flying, but unless someone was able to fly at the speed of light, that distance could never be covered in a lifetime.

That involved magic theories of higher levels and was mentioned in the secret arts of another crystal wall system. Saleen was puzzled about the way in which the concept was illustrated.

That was the difference in how two very different civilizations approached certain concepts; it had nothing to do with Saleen’s level of intelligence. It had more to do with what he came to know and accept since childhood bore little to no resemblance to how they were illustrated in another crystal wall system.

“Really? I can’t tell.” Eleanor studied Saleen with those green eyes of hers but still couldn’t find any signs of advancement in him. Saleen had definitely advanced, but he seemed exactly the same.

“Right, I was about to look for you, Eleanor.” Saleen took out his own Starline Armament and put in into Eleanor’s hands.

“This...”

“I’ve crafted the Lightning Armament and no longer have use of the Starline Armament. Even though I’m surrounded by mages...I’m not comfortable with any of them using it. You can have it.”

Eleanor acknowledged him and turned around.

Saleen was puzzled. He had never considered the Starline Armament to be a very personal set of clothing of his. Was it embarrassing to expect Eleanor to wear it?

But then again, he was a mage and didn’t concern himself much with such matters. To mages, any article of clothing would have looked and felt as good as new with a single Cleaning spell.

The truth is that Eleanor wouldn’t have normally given much thought to this. She wouldn’t have minded if a piece of clothing had been taken from some dead person. On the other hand, she had been with Saleen long enough to have fallen for him, so what he did made her feel awkward.

Saleen was only taking it as Eleanor having gotten quite a piece of treasure and had to go change into it as soon as possible. It was a sentiment he once had as well.

Rafel was unable to read much into any of that. She was created as a combat weapon. Her emotions were pretty much limited to the urge of wanting to keep taking care of the metal angels. They had been with her for hundreds of thousands of years and she simply couldn’t leave them to their own devices.

After gifting the Starline Armament to Eleanor, Saleen went to the top floor of the magic tower where he found Sika was on the 24th floor. Her frown indicated that she was in a predicament.

When Saleen approached her, Sika didn’t even lift her head. She simply shut the door of the tower after he entered. Rafel was fast enough to sneak inside, and Sika didn’t mind.

“Saleen, I think we’ve run into a problem merging the magic cube in here.”

“What?”

Sika then looked up and said, “The magic cube has been taken in by the God of Magic Net. The merging process has been going on for a month, and there’s been little progress.”

Saleen said, “Well, this is quite simple...”

He didn’t finish his sentence; something was off. He planned to bring the Floating City into the Imperial City of the Abyss. The God of Magic Net could have brought its full powers to bear without fear of invoking punishment from the rules of the plane.

There was no way something as huge as the Floating City could have fit into space equipment.

If he were to simply man the Floating City and fly all the way to the Imperial City of the Abyss, the place would have definitely come under fire by someone else.

Saleen had a rough idea about the magic arrays in the Imperial City of the Abyss, which would have unleashed attacks that were one or two levels higher than the intruder. He had dealt with attacks around level-10 back when he first entered at level-9.

If he were to fly the Floating City the entire way, it would have suffered attacks of about level-14 from the magic arrays.

That was a way to conserve energy. If those magic arrays were manned, the energy expenditure would have been even better.

“Well, since the cube is already up here, we’ll see if it could be eventually be merged. How are things on Lex’s side?”

Seeing that Saleen was not in a hurry, she said, “What do you think? The good news is that the repairs of Holy Rock City are going well. Except for the magic clock, all facilities and buildings have been restored.”

“Bad news then?”

“The Holy See has gathered an army yet again, marching east in Kroraina.”

“They’re going after Nature City, I assume?”

“Yeah. The Holy See army is moving really slowly this time. It’ll take them about two or three months to reach Nature City.”

“What about Safilos?”

“He went south, back to his own estate and refused to return to Holy Rock City altogether.”

South? Saleen did a quick calculation in his head. The mages from Alchemy City were probably still doing something in the south. The relationship between Alchemy City and Safilo was patchy at best. They had worked with each other before, but Alchemy City was still Safilos’s enemy.

If he was willing to let Lex take the throne, that meant that even if he felt dejected, he would have still refused to let Qin crumble.

Safilos was probably in danger of going south, but the Holy See army was marching slowly that time—a testament of their stability and resolve. The Holy See gave up on pulverizing Qin in one go and chose to start with Nature City instead.

It would have been easier to fool the believers if they were to take Nature City. So long as they got their hands on coin and grain, they could have fooled as many believers as they wanted.

The Holy See claimed to have over 100 million believers. Saleen thought that number was grossly exaggerated. But they definitely had at least 20 to 30 million: Believers were the greatest power the Holy See had at its disposal.

The Holy See would have been able to raze Kroraina slowly by mobilizing these forces and moving in on Qin again.

Since Holy Rock City of Qin had just been restored, it couldn’t spare any hands to take care of things in the north. The lands that Grand Duke Iron Blood slowly took were impossible to retake at the moment.

Saleen still had an alliance with Grand Duke Iron Blood, but now that Lex had easily become the situation was more complicated.

None of the problems that came to Saleen’s mind could be solved right away. He needed time.

“Wait a sec, Sika. I’ll go check on Lex.”

Sika was silent. Saleen wasn’t going to see Lex to get intimate with her. Rather, he was probably going to discuss something that would upset her; Sika knew about the deal between Saleen and Grand Duke Iron Blood.

If Lex were to attack the grand duke, there was still no way Saleen would have turned his back on the alliance.

Yet, what would the Qin nobles think if he chose not to attack?

Seeing that Rafel was standing around doing nothing, Saleen ordered, “Rafel, take 100 angels with you and come with me.”

“Acknowledged.” Rafel scurried out of the tower and came to the ground of the Floating City. They were not on top of Holy Rock City at the moment but stationed tens of miles away.

The Floating City had a larger area than Holy Rock City. If it were to simply hover right above Holy Rock City, it would have blocked out the sun and caused the city below to be shrouded in never-ending night.

Sika would not have done such a thing even if Lex was already an empress. That would have simply been too childish of her.

Saleen was gone barely an hour. Sika noticed he was not looking well and knew something must have happened between him and Lex.

“Saleen, how about if I talk to her?”

“No need. What she said was reasonable but...well, come with me to the Imperial City of the Abyss for a while. Only by merging the magic cube would I be able to obtain absolute power, and I’d then be able to defeat the Holy See army.”

“Head there first and contact me at any time. I’ll go back to Metatrin City and look after the kids.” Sika did not agree to go with him immediately. Saleen nodded and felt incredibly sad.

He had been running around so much he didn’t have time to see his children. He had also argued with Lex earlier. While the argument only touched on the matter at hand, it was the first time the two of them had conflicted so intensely.

It was hard to stand in each other’s shoes especially when both were under tremendous pressure. What’s more, Saleen and Lex had their own thorny issues to deal with in addition to their shared trouble in the form of the goddess’s contract.

Because of this, neither of them had any time to sit around and chill, which made talking to each even other problematic.

Was all that closeness back in the interdimensional space the last time we shared such tender moments?

Sika returned to Metatrin City through the teleportation portal in the magic tower. Saleen had Rossen take control of the Floating City and moved quickly northward. After the weapon spirit of the Floating City became a god, the flight speed reached a frightening 500 kilometers an hour.

The Floating City could fly more than 13,000 kilometers in one day. While the Imperial City of the Abyss was very far away, it nonetheless took Saleen less than a week to arrive.

The final leg of the journey meant having to travel underwater. It was impossible to maintain such speeds when submerged because of the Floating City’s sheer size.

Saleen was hardly tense returning to the Imperial City of the Abyss this time. Instead of entering through the underwater tunnel, he took a detour to the northern side of the city instead, which had a vast underwater plain.

The reason he dared not take such a route in the past was due to the presence of magic beasts over there, something he was ill-equipped to deal with.

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