Badge in Azure

Chapter 373: Irene’s Suggestion (Part 1)

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

The red phosphorous prawn’s pincers were as hard as metal too. The magic beast’s material had an advantage in that it could not be replaced by metal, since metal could only hold magic after being mixed with other special materials. However, the shell of this magic beast was born as a magic material.

On the red phosphorous prawn’s head where the spike grew was a piece of hard shell which could be made into armor. Although the size was a bit small, Saleen was elated considering the amount they had caught.

“Nailisi, dissect it.” Saleen pointed at their prey on the counter.

Nailisi nodded, drew her dagger, and dissected the body of the prawn. Her movements were smooth and skillful. It did not seem as though it was the first time she had come across it, but as though she had worked with it more than a hundred times.

Nailisi removed the shell on its back and removed the standard magic nucleus from its brain. The magic nucleus was red and of decent quality. If they were to sell it at the market, it could be sold for six hundred gold coins or more.

Nailisi casually sliced off some of its meat and put it in her mouth.

“Master, this thing tastes good. It seems to be many times more nutritious than beef.”

“Oh?” Saleen tried a slice. He then said happily, “It’s really not bad. How fortunate for us.”

It was impossible for every prawn to have a magic nucleus, and even if they did, it would be difficult to guarantee their quality. However, with the meat and spikes, it had already been worth the risk of leaving the city. If they were to buy food, they could not buy much at once since most of the food was under the control of the local noblemen. With the prawns, Saleen had solved the issue of food. At least until Lex returned, no one would starve.

“Let’s work for now. The ship is travelling at five miles per hour. It will take at least another two days until we reach our next destination, and we cannot float up for now,” Saleen said, as he took out dozens of prawns from the dimension stone and a strong fishy scent filled the kitchen.

The school of red phosphorous prawns had been unlucky enough to run into Banchajanna. Otherwise, half of such a big school would not have immediately disappeared.

Needless to say, Nailisi could dissect a prawn in a maximum of ten seconds, including the retrieval of the magic nucleus. Sika was slightly slower, but her boomerang was extremely sharp. She slit the back of the prawn’s brain and twisted it lightly, and just like that, the prawn was dissected. Jola also used a dagger and dissected them with ease.

The more interesting ones were Saleen and Aini, the two mages. They were not slow either.

Saleen brought out the blue-green water current from his calabash. Controlling it with his mental strength, he could dissect two prawns simultaneously. Meanwhile, Aini was even more astounding. He spat out the death flames, summoned the floral death creature, and had the death creature release a low-level death spell – the Corpse Decomposition spell.

According to the concepts of elemental mages, death magic could only be considered level-0. From the abundant power of the floral death creature, it seemed that it could cast this level-0 magic constantly.

The five of them were equally fast, and thus they began competing.

Since Saleen’s hands were free, he segregated the items into three categories and put them into separate dimension stones. Once they were dissected and stored into the dimension stones, their meat would not rot, nor would the magic nuclei degenerate.

The quality of the school of prawns was fairly decent. There was a good quality magic nucleus in every ten to twelve prawns, but most of the prawns had yet to grow magic nuclei. Saleen also noticed that those who had yet to grow magic nuclei could not be made into good quality blades or armor either.

That was alright, since the number they had captured was immense. The armor that was not so great could also be sold for a few gold coins.

Their speed increased relative to their familiarity with the work, and they gradually became faster. Jola became depressed since he thought that he would be the fastest due to his experience in dissecting magic beasts, but the other four looked just at ease.

After four hours, Jola finally broke down and set down the dagger in his hands. He said, “Let’s take a break.”

Aside from Sika, no one listened to him. Sika was hungry. She removed the leather pouch on her waist and took out some seasoning. Then, she cut up a bunch of prawn meat and ate them with the seasoning.

Aini was casting death magic wholeheartedly and had used up half of his mental strength. However, he could recover very quickly given the supply of magic nuclei.

Nailisi looked to Saleen, so if Saleen did not stop, she would not stop either.

Saleen was submerged in an amazing feeling at that time. He was becoming proficient in manipulating the blue-green water current and it was not so rigid anymore. He felt as though the water current itself was a life with wisdom and would get a huge chain of things done if Saleen kept the thoughts in mind.

Since Saleen had previously been continuously facing formidable opponents, he had hardly thought about using the Current Cutter spell and thus the calabash had been left idle. His crystal finger had few achievements to its name as well, and when he released the water from the calabash, some delicate changes seem to have taken place.

It was synergized with him, completely parallel to his other magic. No wonder the value of the shenhe was said to be immense. Saleen lamented that if he had created water puppets with the water elements in the calabash, the water puppets could have grown with him. The water current could evolve with grade, but its attack power was limited. When he faced stronger enemies, the speed of the current would be its critical defect.

The crystal finger was strong, like a magic cannon in human form. But with Saleen’s magic chords, he could only use it twice before his magic chords were depleted. It would be very dangerous to battle with this spell.

Fortunately, the water current hardly depleted Saleen’s magic chords no matter how he used it. If he used the current during battle when he was full of mental strength, he did not need to be worried about how long the battle went on.

That was Saleen’s biggest motivator. As a mage, everyone had the same problem in their magic chords. A mage with exhausted magic chords was akin to a common since they would lose their battle power. With his water current, although it was not too strong, its capabilities in fighting long battles overtook that of many swordsmen.

When Irene came down to summon him for dinner, Saleen stopped and the water current returned to the calabash by itself.

Aini was exhausted. He leaned against the wall and complained, “Saleen, your mental strength is so strong. Are you hiding your true level?”

He had wanted to defeat Saleen using his unique skill to summon death creatures, but he had failed. His movements were of the same speed as Saleen, but Saleen had better endurance.

Jola stayed quiet since he could tell that the equipment Saleen possessed could be considered the natural enemy of a swordsman. Even if Saleen was approached by the swordsman, he would not be in danger. The speed of the current cutter was slow compared to instant magic, but to anyone below the grade of a swordmaster, Saleen was definitely at an advantage.

No way. I have to become stronger. If not… if not, in the eyes of the beautiful ladies, I will just be a swordmaster who does nothing, Jola thought in a huff.

Saleen and the others had been working continuously for nine hours and had dealt with more than twenty thousand of the red phosphorous prawns, which was about one-fifth of the total number. Among those twenty thousand prawns, Saleen had found one thousand and eight hundred magic nuclei over grade-4, which was a satisfactory result.

Looking at the magic clock, they were just in time for dinner. Saleen left two prawns for Jola to cook.

“Soldier, how is everything?” Saleen communicated with the winged skeleton.

“Master, we have avoided two batches of troublesome fellows. I suggest we stay low and advance. The further we travel north, the more dangerous things seem to get.”

“Alright, don’t panic. Look after the magic compass,” Saleen told the winged skeleton telepathically. All of a sudden, he felt uncomfortable. Recently, when I have been with Sika, has the winged skeleton known everything?

“Master, I won’t peep. As a spirit, I am not interested in those sorts of things,” the winged skeleton suddenly said. Saleen’s expression became quite strange, and he took a look at Sika.

Irene was sneaking looks at Saleen too. She felt depressed when she saw Saleen only looking at the Caucasus woman and said, “Saleen, now that we have this ship, we have actually saved a lot of time and can consider hunting the giant bear.”

“The giant bear? You mean the creature named pale earth?”

“Mm, that’s what it’s called in illustrated handbooks of magic beasts, but it’s just a bear.”

“A grade-9 creature. Very difficult to deal with.” Saleen shook his head. Banchajanna’s strength was very close to grade-8, but the pale earth was definitely at the peak of grade-9. It might have been easier to deal with than the tiago, but Saleen had not forgotten his encounter with the tiago. The dragon had been severely injured and was likely dying, but it had nearly killed everyone.

Irene smiled and said, “The giant bear is not very smart. If I had not been rushing for time every trip, I would have been able to fight it. Our ship can travel at a speed of seventy miles per hour while submerged. Although the giant bear knows how to swim, its speed is only about forty miles per hour. Even if we can’t beat it, we can flee.

Irene had not lied. Every time she had come, she had needed to first hunt for red phosphorous prawn since they were the easiest magic beast to deal with and could at least secure the money that she had invested. But there was a problem with hunting the prawns, which was that she had to avoid the big magic beasts that consumed the prawns as food. When she was at the border of the oceanic ice block, she was playing hide and seek with the magic beasts most of the time. With the magic compass, she could hide ahead of time.

There were times when they had been read to cast the net since the magic medicine had already blended with the seawater, but had to flee since there were magic beasts approaching. That was the reason why her hunting costs had stayed high. Saleen did not waste anything and the hunt started wonderfully with Banchajanna. Even if there were not any good targets, no one would be too disappointed.

“No way. There are variations of pale earth that can cast powerful level-9 water magic which attacks from a great distance. We don’t need to take the risk.”

Saleen refused Irene’s suggestion. Even though the value of a grade-9 magic nucleus could not be measured with gold coins, one needed to be alive to enjoy such a thing. He was different from before and he did not have to risk his life for these things anymore.

“Listen to my suggestion first.” Irene acted spoiled while trying to seduce Saleen with her eyes.

Nailisi saw the scene from the side and thought, This woman is in heat too, but I won’t help you.

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