Badge in Azure

Saleen was just as stunned. When Sika brought her staff down on him and he subconsciously took control of the ice spike to attack, he thought he would send Sika’s staff flying. He did not anticipate Sika’s staff breaking the ice spike.

Saleen was able to tell from Sika’s expression that she found the outcome a frustrating one. He laughed and shot two golden beams from his eyes at Sika, who felt very dazed and comfortable all over. The resulting damage from the recoil was completely healed by Saleen’s spell.

The spell seemed to be lightning magic, but it was actually a mix of water and light magic. Saleen had created it by taking notes from divine arts over the past hundred years.

Sika extended her hand and her staff flew back to her hand with a swoosh, startling Saleen. The ice spike pieces on the ground had finally connected with each other and become whole again.

Saleen took one step forward to prevent Sika from trying anything further. He took her hand. “Are you alright?”

Sika shook her head. “Fine, no big deal. I can heal it on my own.”

Despite her words, she felt rather dejected. It was the first time that her immense strength, which she took immense pride in, failed to work. And furthermore, she was being countered by Ice Spike. Isn’t that a ridiculously simple spell?

Saleen knew what she was thinking. “Do you know how powerful that one swing of yours was? That Ice Spike spell was level ten magic and took me half an hour to complete. When was the last time you saw me cast a spell that took more than a minute?”

“Half an hour?” Sika was speechless. While she was not a mage, she knew a lot of them. Nature priests had skills resembling magic and divine spells.

Anything that took more than three minutes to cast was incredibly powerful. She did not know that Saleen had prepared that spell for half an hour!

Sika’s mind finally calmed and she regained her confidence. Level ten magic that had been prepared for half an hour was only able to disarm her.

Saleen was not bluffing. The ice spike had to be cast from a distance to truly be powerful.

They were too close to each other and the ice spike was unable to gather momentum, making it about half as powerful as it would be. The ice spike’s impact could exceed any level ten spell.

Like Meteorite, the Ice Spike required quite a distance to fulfill its intended use. The speed of the Ice Spike would far exceed Meteorite.

If Saleen had been using the spell for ambush, no warrior, even if they were holding an indestructible shield, would come out as more than a messy pile of flesh and blood, unless they had strength comparable to Sika.

Her feat of breaking the ice spike had truly frightened Saleen.

Saleen took control of the ice spike and put it back into his Starline Bangle. The Starline Armament had finally shown offensive powers, instead of simply defending like in level nine.

Saleen did not bother concealing anything before Sika. 24 pale star charts cycled on the Starline Armament’s robe, as if a starry night sky had manifested onto Saleen.

The 24 star charts were capable of storing magic spells like a magic book. A mage capable of storing 24 level ten spells was far more terrifying than a holy master of the same level, even if the spells were difficult to impossible to be cast instantly.

Powerful magic spells required time to prepare, just like how powerful divine spells required prayer chants. Many divine spells could not even be cast by a single person.

In comparison, it was simpler to craft scrolls for mages, and divine scrolls had the advantage of being able to craft teleportation scrolls, which were difficult to craft.

Saleen took an immensely bold action. He melded the 24 magic array images left behind by the goddess and used a Star Gathering Needle to destroy any trace of divinity in the images.

Saleen did not care for the secrets in the magic arrays. Regardless of what they were actually capable of doing, Saleen only needed them for their ability to act as slots for storing spells. That alone made them more powerful than magic books.

In the same vein, the magic array images that Saleen had incorporated into the Starline Robe altered its attributes. While Gaine did not put any tricks into it that would act against Saleen, he was not being able to rest easy. He was afraid that Gaine would control his fate through the Starline Armament.

Even if such manipulation turned out to be benevolent, Saleen had no intentions of leaving his fate in the hands of others.

Saleen had finally become confident enough to use astrological arts after advancing to level ten. He put up the Water Shield and let Sika come in, sharing his senses with her.

The Water Shield did not look any different from the outside, as the changes were only on the inside. There was little more than pale blue bubbles when observed from the outside, but it was filled with lightning magic patterns and star charts.

Both were capable of defending against curses like prophecy spells. No holy master would be able to ambush Saleen when he put up his magic shield.

Mages had lots of ways to deal with curses, but doing so required ample mental power on the mage’s part, which enabled them to sense incoming curses. Power of curses originating from prophecy type spells were the easiest to detect.

Such attacks were limited in range, preventing them from being cast from afar.

The best way a mage could deal with such spells was to break the casting process of the one who was cursing.

Any interruption, no matter how small, would suffice to dispel a curse’s effect, like throwing a huge rock into the river of fate, changing the flow of its water .

Sika was immediately able to understand the intricate parts of the spell when she shared senses with Saleen. She had been most concerned for Saleen’s safety.

Nature priests had skills far more vicious than divine spells. Sika was better than anyone at defending against such attacks using ancient shamanic arts. When the level 11 divine spell caught her, only her weapon was tainted, and she was completely unscathed.

Saleen only stopped sharing senses with Sika when the mental powers within his ring were completely drained. Sika pondered quietly and stored what she felt to memory.

What she sensed when she was indirectly using a level ten professional skill would prove immensely precious. It inspired Sika when she first encountered such workings, furthering her knowledge of level ten professions.

What they did had such an effect on her because Sika was not only a warrior. Jola and the others would be able to learn something using such methods, but they were incapable of learning as much as Sika did.

Such enlightenment would work only once. It was impossible for Saleen to replicate the experience for Sika.

Sika went into deep thought. Saleen walked out of the Water Shield and let her stay inside to ponder on her own.

There were signs saying that the altar was about to collapse. The passage of time was still stable. The divine spell had sacrificed duration to keep the space stable, allowing the ones to come into the temple to train in peace.

If the temple fell apart, it would simply injure the people in it instead of triggering a terrifying time turbulence.

Saleen knew that Sika would need quite a lot of time to digest what she had just learned. He took that time to check his equipment. He had been to too many places and had acquired too much gear. Saleen had lost track of what was inside his Starline Ring.

The things that Saleen had been most careful in crafting were his elemental badges. He coerced the six elemental creature leaders to sign coexistence contracts with him and then re-crafted six Eternal Control shards.

He added lightning starlines on his elemental badges. Saleen was wary of territorial powers. Strong territorial powers would prevent him from being able to summon his elemental creatures while he was caught in the territory.

After the re-crafting processes, Saleen could draw elemental powers from the elemental badges without having to summon the elemental creatures. Even if he were stranded in a place devoid of elemental powers, Saleen would still be capable of fighting for quite some time using the elemental badges.

The most valuable thing about the elemental creatures was that they possessed huge elemental shells. After Saleen advanced, he was able to learn the magic skills possessed by the elemental creatures and cast them.

The six elemental badges enabled Saleen’s conversion of water magic chords into the other elements to become more fluid. It also shortened preparation of spells by a considerable margin.

Saleen retrieved the broken jade pieces left behind by Shanglan. One of the pieces contained the angel of fear and its linked soul. The two souls were crafted into the War Drum of Fear by Saleen. The war drum was his most powerful group attack equipment.

It was the only piece of equipment in Saleen’s possession that was capable of telling friend from foe. In most cases, cast spells were incapable of doing so. Only mental attack skills could be fully controlled by a mage to spare allies.

The War Drum of Fear had an offensive range of 20 miles, which was a large battlefield. Conventional troops were utterly incapable of withstanding the angel of fear’s powers within ten miles from the drum.

The most valuable equipment remained Raphael’s Crystal Ring. Saleen became able to somewhat cast the Crystal Finger without having to worry about recoil. A level ten mage would barely be safe casting the spell, and that made Saleen doubt the claim that Raphael was only a ten level mage.

The Crystal Finger skill was created by Raphael; a spell without level limitations that became increasingly powerful as a mage’s power level rose.

The family badge was the most powerful equipment in Saleen’s arsenal. The badge had expanded several times in the hundred years. Saleen was dejected to find that in order to charge the badge fully, enabling it reach casting threshold, would require another half-year.

The only good thing was that the badge was able to store greater amount of power, and its offensive capacity became significantly greater.

Saleen remembered the time when the badge unleashed its most powerful attack was when it killed three powerful beings when they passed by the mountains in Kroraina. Saleen had no control over the power the badge had absorbed.

Saleen was pleased with the ring he had gotten from Arbola. The ring was slowly regenerating. It was capable of expanding his mental powers by 12 times. The ring still retained that ability even after Saleen advanced to level ten.

It made Saleen think that he had gotten a good bargain by trading for it with the Six-winged Flying Snake mark.

It was a pity that he remained incapable of using the Signet of Silence. He had traded the Lance of Order for it. Saleen was only able to observe it for a certain amount of time every day, familiarizing himself with the rules hidden within.

It was also unfortunate that he was of insufficient level, limiting the secrets he was able to learn.

The only equipment of his that had been upgraded was the Thunder Dragon Blaster. Saleen had crafted all the bones of the level 15 thunder dragon into it, enhancing its offensive capacity by a considerable margin. It had added one more lightning icicle.