Badge in Azure

Eleanor smiled. “There is no way I’d let her know. Arbola may be level ten, but she is more powerful than you are. The mark of the Six-Winged Flying Snake has far fewer limitations than your Thunder Dragon Blaster. I think she has that life-preserving trick like the great head inquisitor. Getting on her bad side would be way more precarious than offending Agares.”

Saleen nodded in agreement. Arbola would possibly advance to level 11. Her proficiency at combat would probably rival his teacher’s, and his teacher would not be able to advance as early as Arbola would.

He likened Arbola to Joey, and he had no intentions of taking her on any time soon. He had a clear goal, and that was to gain further mastery of lightning rules when he was still at level ten.

He deemed it imperative to master lightning powers before he advanced to level 13. His mastery of rules would be incomplete after surpassing level 12 otherwise, and that would prevent him from advancing further.

While Gaine was not a mage, he knew the taboos regarding mage advancements better than Saleen. Any experience Saleen had acquired from Gaine was more precious than any magic notes he found.

Saleen differed from other mages in that he learned some shallow, limited rules before he advanced to level ten. It would have made it easy for him to form his own territory, if the skills that he had advanced with were not lightning, which did not belong to any elemental magic categories.

If he did not master lightning rule, his achievements would always fall short of his expectations. Saleen’s current goal had long surpassed where Joey was.

Joey was the most powerful mage that he had ever met, but Saleen wanted to become more powerful. He wanted to take the reins of his fate in his own hands.

Saleen no longer held any taboo with Eleanor after teaching her Jalin’s magic. He even taught her his lightning rules. Eleanor had become like a family member. From there on out, ‘elf’ was no longer Eleanor’s first layer of identity.

Emotional fluctuations of elves were usually small, so Saleen had no worries about Eleanor leaking secrets.

Eleanor acquired earth magic skills and went off to train on her own, while Saleen continued looking into his Comet Flash. Elemental armor continued to appear and disappear. Saleen spent every single second he had on his training.

Saleen felt the pressure from his teacher. Jason had reached a height that many mages were unable to achieve throughout their lives, simply by learning and advancing through usual progression routes. Saleen, in comparison, had spent a hundred years to advance to level ten. If he slacked off, others would surpass him.

The magic tower continued to fly high in the sky, alerting powerful ones as it zipped past. The powerful professionals among the Cloudflow people mostly resided on islands or somewhere near the ocean.

Saleen was coincidentally passing by. Some level ten professionals were alerted of the Magical Element Tower’s presence, but they were unable to keep up and had to give up chasing after it.

Saleen was not doing anything to provoke them. The height he was flying at was not meant for scouting either.

Saleen had been deliberately flying at such altitude to see how many powerful people were in Cloudflow. The result of his findings were frightening. More than five level ten professionals were along the Cloudflow shores, and three more on the islands.

Level nine ones were in even greater abundance. The rise of powers throughout the mainland had apparently benefitted many people from Cloudflow.

Saleen was alarmed. He had been able to maintain an edge when everyone was level nine. Things became very different after he had advanced to level ten. Many would surpass him if he slacked off.

The one advantage of bringing Nailisi along was that she had no need of training, which meant that she could fight any time. She had a further advantage in that her 12 Notes of First Purgatory was capable of holding huge amounts of demons.

Demons made the best warriors, as they were capable of surviving in the horrid conditions of the demon plane.

While their powers were somewhat suppressed after coming to Myers Mainland, it was still a very comfortable place for the demons, which meant that they had some form of rebate in terms of powers.

All in all, demons were the rare type of creatures whose powers did not dwindle when they came to Myers Mainland.

Saleen’s magic tower reached its target—the Idle Mountains—seven days later.

The mountain range was not long, but it was large. Saleen found a place to land near the set coordinates. Saleen released Rossen the water puppet from the Shenhe and had him take control of the tower. He had Nailisi leave some demons behind to help Rossen while the rest of them ventured outside with magic compasses to begin looking.

Cloudflow in August was at its hottest, which made the cool mountains very refreshing.

Cloudflow mountains had a complicated terrain. There was no massive, regal feeling of the north. Rivers, jungles, and precarious places were literally everywhere. Any professionals below level four would have a hard time getting around.

Saleen carried all the others in flight, so the terrain had little effect on them. Nailisi held the magic compass as she continued to adjust their coordinates.

Shoop…

An arrow shot at them, which was easily deflected with a level one Icicle from Saleen. The arrow had been coming from their flanks, originating from the top of a rocky cliff. The cliff was completely bald but was covered with trees on top. The entire terrain there extended forward, blocking the sunlight above.

There was no way an arrow could compare to magic in terms of speed. Saleen’s level one icicle turned around in midair. The arrow clashed hard with the icicle and was blasted to shreds.

Eleanor laughed. The arrow was simply too weak. She drew an arrow and threw it at the cliff.

A grumble was heard from the woods, and Eleanor was dumbfounded. The arrow did not kill their enemy.

“Let it be. It’s someone sent by Agares. I think the news is out and Agares will know that we’re here soon enough.” Saleen did not mind at all, as they were in Cloudflow territory.

Agares knew the rough location of every temple on his turf, which meant that he could send huge armies to wait for Saleen.

It was like if someone kicked up a ruckus in the Kingdom of Metatrin, Saleen would be able to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people to surround the enemy.

Agares was still the sovereign after all. Local nobles would cooperate if he only needed some men somewhere. While they were in the mountains, it was wrong to think that logistics would be a problem for the people.

Saleen had no intention of pursuing his assailant. The one sent there was not someone important to Agares. Being easily hit by an arrow also meant that the assailant was not powerful.

However, Saleen had Nailisi dispatch more demons to clear the peaks nearby. He did not want specific coordinates that he acquired to be found by anyone other than his own after all. If Agares somehow had means of contacting huge numbers of powerful ones, even contacting the Holy See, things would turn very dire for Saleen.

Nailisi opened up the purgatory of the devils and tasked two supreme demons with serving Cuisi and cleaning up the peaks nearby. Saleen came before a small pool of water. His Elemental Eye told him that it was about five miles deep, which was very rare.

Saleen turned around to look at Sika, who coincidentally was turning around to look at him. They recalled the first time they met. Saleen was practicing his spells in the water while Sika happened to pass by to take a bath.

Sika punched Saleen, who fainted. Sika had been dense enough to fear Saleen waking up soon and punched him again. The resulting black eye lasted for days.

They had gotten closer as they learned about each other. Sika wanted to earn money for her village, while Saleen had wanted little more than to have his belly filled and not be bullied by anyone.

They were very different now. The ideals had been long forgotten and both of them had children.

“Master?” Nailisi interrupted the warm moment between them, and Sika glared at her. Saleen simply jumped into the water. A depth of five miles fed only by a small river made the pool suspicious.

Saleen finally found an underwater current when he dove down four miles. There was an underground river passing by, but it was not the reason why the pool was so deep. Saleen saw a teleportation portal at the bottom of the pool.

It was a divine rune charm array, which required holy powers and power of faith to work. Saleen did not think things would be that easy. There were six springs surrounding the divine rune charm array, cold water gushing out of them.

Conventional logic said that when temperatures of water hit freezing, the water would become ice, but the water was far below freezing and flowed. Furthermore, it did not affect the underwater currents above.

Saleen realized that while the place was simple, it was difficult to find. Common mages would be able to see hundreds of meters below the water surface using skills, but Saleen was capable of seeing over ten miles.

If it had not been for the peculiar freezing water current, he would not have found the divine rune charm array.

There was a layer of cold water over a hundred meters thick above the array. Saleen stuck out his finger to check and found the cold bone-chilling. If he did not have a body of water element, the potent elemental corrosive properties of the layer of water would dissolve his flesh.

A protective layer resembling Water Flame!

Saleen was still not at ease. He took a level four magic nucleus and threw it in. The magic nucleus penetrated the layer of cold water, reaching about 30 meters deep before disintegrating.

Saleen was only able to be sure then that the temperature beneath was probably not all that different from Water Flame.

It was a divine rune charm array that only he would be able to stand on. If there was someone else going down, it would not do any good. They might have been well-protected enough by powerful equipment to enable them to stand on the teleportation portal, but the array required pure power of faith to activate.

It would not work if messy energies of all manners gathered. Worse still, it explode instead of being activated.

Saleen turned around and swam up. He stood at the surface. “There is a teleportation portal down there, but I’m the only one who can go through. You all get back to the tower. I’ll call for Nailisi when I’m back.”

“Do you need to bring the tower here?” Sika asked out of concern.

“No need for that. There’s no one who can get in but me.”

Saleen was right. The cold water current could disintegrate a magic nucleus at just 30 meters deep. Anyone who did not have Water Flames would die trying to get in.

Saleen turned around and dove after giving his orders. He came before the thick layer of cold water in mere moments. He put on his gloves and put his mask in place, before diving straight in.

It was fortunate that he had trained Water Flame Alchemy to level ten. Saleen felt rather lucky. The temperature beneath would exceed his threshold if he entered as a level nine.

Furthermore, it would be a predicament he would have to face even with the Starline Armament equipped.

Saleen dove until he reached above the divine rune charm array, holding back the cold. He poured power of faith from the Ring of Gifts into the array. Green light lit up in the water and Saleen felt his body disappear for a brief moment, before appearing before a huge swath of open field.

A lone temple stood tall faraway. Dazzling starlight danced behind the temple: a place seemingly without end.