Badge in Azure

The main reason Saleen visited the temples was to take them apart, preventing others from acquiring the luck bestowed by the goddess. Saleen had little interest in whatever secrets the temples held. He deemed it sufficient to not let anyone else gain any help from the temples.

Saleen decided to head straight for the prize. The way that temple was designed had the halls arranged in a straight line, and the best was stored in the last temple.

There were paths on the flanks of the halls. Saleen took his people on the left path and reached the last hall quickly. The path was straight, and there were statues on both sides of the path, arranged close to one another.

The statues were all modeled after creatures the goddess liked to keep, no statues of humans to be found.

Saleen flew close to the ground, his feet between less than a meter away from the ground. He was shrouded in mist, which took a form and enveloped everyone following. Saleen had four wind dragons leading the way.

Wind Dragon could be learned at level eight, which meant that in order for a person to learn the spell, they had to be a level eight sorcerer. Two wind dragons kept the path congested.

If Agares intended to intercept them, he would have to break the Wind Dragon spell. The wind dragons were not something Saleen conjured, but a product of the wind elemental creatures in his badge.

The wind dragons were very durable. Until the Tempest Dragonmights that conjured them were dead, the Wind Dragon spell would last for as long as required.

The magic bugs were still invading one hall after another, taking up every spot they passed. The path was more than a dozen miles long, but Saleen’s flying was so fast that it only took him over a minute to reach the last hall.

The 24th hall did not look any different from the ones before. It had huge pillars, steps and wide gates. Saleen dispelled Quickcloud and took everyone up the steps and peered inside the hall.

There is actually something on the altar of this hall!

Saleen had been to several temples. With the exception of the undersea temple in the northern waters of Sikeqinya, there had never been anything on the altars. Furthermore, what he found in the undersea temple was a shackled believer who had betrayed the goddess.

However, what he saw in the hall before him was equipment.

Saleen came before the altar and walked up the steps to the top. Sika and Nailisi followed closely, holding tight on their weapons and getting ready to strike. Saleen’s eyes were fixed on the set of equipment, his Elemental Eye working hard to analyze it.

It was a peculiar set of magical equipment, with something resembling a puppet placed in the middle at a height of about 5 meters. It was apparent that there was a seat in the puppet, and magic patterns were etched in the walls.

Saleen was unable to comprehend the secrets of the magic patterns. He was only able to tell that the puppet could house a person and was made of very precious materials.

The remaining metal weapons were of all shapes and sizes. Under the Elemental Eye’s scrutiny, Saleen found that every piece corresponded to the puppet, which meant that all of the 18 weapons laid out were made specifically for the puppet.

Saleen gave up thinking, as he remained incapable of comprehending the secrets. He took out a piece of dimension stone and bagged all of the equipment on the altar. Even if there was something afoot with the puppet, it could not destroy the internal structure of the dimension stone.

Saleen only scanned the internal space of the hall after bagging the puppet and its peripherals. The hall resembled the temple that Saleen had first visited. It was unnecessarily spacious and there were small rooms at the rear.

“Get on with it. Sul, Cuisi, and Nailisi, barricade the gates.” Saleen summoned his ancient figures, beginning to take apart the internal structures of the hall. Saleen took control of the figures and Sika commanded the demons that Nailisi summoned.

As it was not their first time, they were able to quickly take everything in that hall apart like locusts swarming a field. Even the stone floors were not spared.

Regardless of what Agares was looking for in the temple, Saleen had taken apart the last temple, which guaranteed that Agares was prevented from taking away the most important pieces within the temple. There might have been material and equipment that Saleen was unfamiliar with, but he did not need to choose. He had enough manpower to take everything he saw.

There were never secret passages in the halls. Everything worth bagging was laid out right before their eyes. The true test was how to find the entrance of the temples.

After Saleen finished taking apart the last hall, he took everyone to the 23rd hall. He took apart one hall after the other until he reached the 12th, but he was still unable to find Agares. However, with the exception of the last three halls, the altars on every hall were empty.

The portal led straight to the temple. Saleen was able to find large quantities of alchemical materials, and they were not inferior to the ones given to him by the grandmaster. In fact, some were even better quality.

However, the very reason he was able to acquire all of the materials was because Saleen was walking off the beaten path. He had taken to cutting up and bagging every single thing found in the halls, throwing them into dimension stones.Not even the goddess had anticipated it.

Saleen had taken apart half of the halls within the temple in a very short amount of time, which frustrated Agares, who was lurking in the dark. There was nothing he could do. The magic bugs that Saleen unleashed were all over the halls in the front, which made it excruciatingly difficult for him to lay traps.

The magic bugs were incapable of flight and would not be able to do him any harm. But if he killed the bugs, it would alert Saleen and the others of his position. Any traps he laid would be exposed. Agares grew intrigued about Saleen.

He had long put the matter of losing his chance with Lex behind him. To Agares, it was something hardly worth of holding grudges over. While it was difficult to find a woman who would be able to surpass Lex, there were still quite a number of people of notable bloodlines to be found on the mainland.

Agares cared little about his own bloodline. He deemed it enough to let his brother take his place and shoulder the burden of passing on their genes. What mattered to him was the growth of his powers.

His chosen profession—assassin—was incredibly difficult to advance in after level ten, which made it impossible for him to rival mages at the speed of advancement. Unless he was able to find the lineage of the assassins, one above level ten.

The profession of assassin had declined. It was a true decline, unlike the mages who were still able to find huge numbers of notes left behind by their predecessors. Even if they were left without guidance from teachers, they would still be able to keep advancing.

Agares wanted very badly to advance, carving out a path that belonged to no one but himself. Creation felt more satisfying than learning.

The problem, however, was that even after advancing to level ten, an assassin’s lifespan would still merely be several hundred years, which paled in comparison to mages. The time that Agares had was almost ten times shorter than Saleen.

If he were unable to advance to level 11, Agares would age very quickly.

Assassins had too many skills that required them to burn their lifeforce in exchange for powerful attacks, which worked like Eleanor’s elvish life arrows. Agares had used some skills like that before he advanced.

Even after advancing to level ten, he had only a little more than 300 years left, which was half of what an assassin usually had at that stage.

It was fortunate that he still was able to find something. Agares had acquired special metals in the fish’s stomach, which could be used to make equipment tailored for assassins. He had also reached the temple before Saleen and managed to bag the inventory in the first several halls, which he deemed to be a satisfactory result.

He was unable to open the peculiar portal. The Ring of Gifts that he had acquired was inferior compared to Saleen’s. He did not have help in the form of power of faith, and it was impossible for him to open an extremely unstable portal.

Saleen was still unable to find Agares even after taking 12 halls apart. He had an idea and used a magic skill. “Your Highness Agares, how about we have a chat, man to man?” His people continued to take apart the remaining 12 halls counting from the front.

It was difficult for Agares to get into every hall with the magic bugs getting in the way. He had no choice but to watch Saleen gather materials and taking structures apart.

He would still be able to deal a lethal blow to Saleen if he ambushed the mage, but doing so would mean that he needed to contend with the two women beside Saleen in close combat, and he wanted very much to avoid that.

A shadow gradually coalesced at the square of the 12th hall before Saleen. He took a good look and found it to be an illusion. However, it surprisingly packed offensive capacity of level nine, which drastically changed Saleen’s opinion of Agares.

This emperor is something indeed. If Saleen created magical illusions, they would have the prowess of a level seven sorcerer at most.

The illusion conjured by an assassin was able to reach level nine while the main body was a level ten professional. Furthermore, both parties were able to synchronize with each other at the highest level. Agares’ powers had indeed been greater than what Saleen had anticipated.

The mage, however, was unafraid. There were 24 very potent magic spells in his Starline Armament. If Saleen ran into a head inquisitor, he alone could take them down.

However, it would require a very long time for a level ten mage to store level 11 magic in all 24 star charts. If Saleen wanted to restock, he would need to ask for his teacher’s help, so he had no intention of wasting them on the assassin.

Agares’ illusion lifted his head and looked at Saleen at the top of the steps. “Your Highness Saleen, I heard that you hail from Sikeqinya. So you wish to trade?” Agares’ tone was sarcastic, ridiculing Saleen’s birth.

Saleen did not mind. Cloudflow people are all like that. If you were angry over something like that, even Emperor Danny would have to kill himself.

“No, Your Highness Agares. I’m just curious. The Cloudflow Empire claimed to be the descendants of the Fourth Dynasty, so why ally with the Holy See? I remember that during the founding days of the four empires, the Sikeqinyans were the ones in bed with the Holy See. Cloudflow and Qin were staunchly against such pacts.”

Agares’ illusion laughed. Saleen was able to feel that there was soul projection within the illusion, which meant that the illusion was not merely an illusion. It would function like a true level nine assassin, bringing level ten offensive capacity within an instant.

“Your Highness Saleen, I’m just an emperor. You said it yourself, I’m a descendant of the Fourth Dynasty, but the Fourth Dynasty did not crumble because of the Holy See. To tell you the truth, I have no control over the southern nobles of the empire. If they wished to ally with the Holy See, my protest would amount to nothing.”

Agares took a jab at Saleen’s birth, and Saleen returned the sarcasm, but Agares looked indifferent, which enabled Saleen to understand something about the emperor’s personality.