Badge in Azure

Agares had been keeping many powerful alchemists around for the sake of his equipment, so he definitely knew what Saleen was talking about. That was precisely the reason why he was so surprised—that piece of 12-dimensional metal was the best material that he knew about.

Being able to manipulate it to such a high level of precision indicated that there had been few errors during the crafting process.

Saleen threw his own piece of the 12-dimensional metal into his Starline Ring, but gave the other fragment to Agares instead.

Agares looked at Saleen, feeling puzzled. Saleen explained: “We’ll have an exchange when I’m done crafting it. If I go back on my word, well, you’ll still have the other half of the material, which would be enough for you to craft your ideal weapon, anyway.”

Agares was speechless. Saleen smiled and elaborated, “What I mean is, I don’t know if I’ll get out of here alive. If I end up dead, I’ll have no way to fulfill my promise, no? Our contract doesn’t involve any other parties. My followers, children, wife, and others would inherit my wealth, but not the promise between you and me.”

Agares was relieved to hear that. If Saleen were to indeed go back on his word, there would have been little to nothing he could have done. He had agreed to this with Saleen because he knew that he needed the man’s help to leave the divine kingdom.

As for the matter of Saleen’s supposedly impending death, Agares did not bother giving it any thought. That was because, while the number of level-ten professionals in the world must have grown, there probably were not any who would be capable of killing Saleen in a one-on-one fight.

Agares knew what he was capable of, and if he himself were to set out to kill Saleen without help from anyone, he would probably fail.

Saleen had taken quite a lot of loot from the dragon’s lair. His Magical Element Tower had, indeed, been able to contact Metatrin City through the interdimensional teleportation portal.

Jason was unfettered upon hearing that Saleen was trapped. He wrote a long letter to Saleen, explaining, in detail, the rules of teleportation between planes.

That divine kingdom lacked a god to manage it, and so the Lord of Glory would not be able to arrive there personally. As such, it would be relatively easy for Saleen and his people to leave that place. They only needed an elementally stable environment to build a one-time-use teleportation portal.

He could, of course, have used the one inside the Magical Element Tower to get back to Metatrin City, but doing so would have left the tower in the divine kingdom without any way of retrieving it.

As for the 12-dimensional metal and the Genesis Stock Solution, Saleen had also sent some of those back.

Jason instructed Saleen to craft Agares’ equipment in the divine kingdom while he prepared the materials required to build the one-time-use teleportation portal back in Metatrin City, so as to enable Saleen to leave that place.

Jason then warned Saleen to refrain from killing too many of the divine kingdom’s beings, as it would attract the Lord of Glory’s attention.

Saleen was prudent enough to simply stay hidden within the Magical Element Tower while inside the dragon’s lair. That place had the lowest number of beings around, and they were not aggressive types, either. This was because there was a dragon there, and many creatures were reluctant to go near it.

Anyone who did dare to get close was stupid and had little offensive capacity to speak of, as such beings would seem insignificant to the dragon.

Saleen had also chosen that mountainous region because of the existence of powerful beings around. As long as he managed to take care of said powerful beings, there was no trouble in any other form to be found.

Saleen had the materials he needed to create a teleportation portal on hand as well, but they needed refining. He cast the Puppet Constellation and sent 500 thousand puppets out to search the nearby areas of the divine kingdom.

Those puppets were all neutral equipment without souls, and so would not be noticed by the Lord of Glory.

No believers in the divine kingdom would have bothered attacking anything that did not have a soul, either, so long as the puppets did not draw the first blood. The area within several hundred miles were picked clean by Saleen’s puppets.

Saleen remained within the tower and did not pay any heed to any low-level beings harassing it. He simply crafted Agares’ equipment in silence.

Saleen needed to be careful with that equipment, as 12-dimensional metals were precious in the extreme. There were two reasons as to why Saleen had decided to help Agares out.

First of all, it was said that all of the planes were only capable of producing such metals in very small quantities. Any that Myers Mainland might have produced had evidently been found a long time ago and used up, meaning that it was futile to look for any of the metal there.

Consequently, that fragment of 12-dimensional metal was the only piece that Saleen would be able to come by for a very long time.

Secondly, Saleen would make better use of the metal. He had a number of alchemical recipes, especially the ones that he had gotten from Gaine, almost all of which contemporary alchemists knew nothing about.

The 12-dimensional metal could be mixed with some metals that were even more rare using alchemy. With the Genesis Stock Solution that Nailisi had with her, Saleen could acquire more of those 12-dimensional metals.

In actual fact, Saleen would be able to multiply the amount of the material that was in Agares’ hand ten times over using said methods, which was why he had generously gave Agares half of the piece that he found.

When he was done crafting the dagger for Agares, the remaining 12-dimensional metals that he still had with him would have been enough to make equipment for Jola and Sul.

Of course, the most important use of the 12-dimensional metals, to his mind, was to craft true space equipment for Sika. That was why Saleen had been so anxious to get his hands on them.

Sika always was in need of a totem pole, but she lacked the necessary materials, as not even the bones of ancient dragons would be resilient enough to craft such an item.

The mix of 12-dimensional metal, Genesis Stock Solution, and level 16 elementite in Saleen’s hands would be enough to craft something that Sika could use.

Crafting a dagger for Agares was simply a way of practicing his skills, as it was, after all, the first time that Saleen crafted something of such a high level. His success was not guaranteed even with the use of the Genesis Stock Solution.

Saleen chose to use molds—a method that he rarely used—to craft the dagger.

The elemental nature of 12-dimensional metals was very delicate. Saleen first used a piece of clean crystal to repeatedly chip out the shape of the dagger, before melting the elementite and wrapping it around the blade. At that moment, the crystal melted and the elementite congealed, yielding a precise mold.

Saleen used the Six Element’s Heavy Water to blend a tiny bit of the Genesis Stock Solution before cutting down a bit of the 12-dimensional metal and mixing it with all manner of precious metallic materials. He then threw the mixture into the Water Flame.

Saleen’s Water Flame alchemy melted and blended the materials evenly. 12-dimensional metals had the strongest attributes; the Genesis Stock Solution blended it in and added said attributes to the other metals in the mix.

In the language of the mages, the Genesis Stock Solution went by another name: Aqua Regula.

The Genesis Stock Solution was most precious to the gods; yet, to the mages, Aqua Regula was but a level-16 skill.

While it was impossible for a mage to craft so much Aqua Regula alone, they were capable of creating it by working with one another. If enough mages went at it for several hundred years, they would be able to create Aqua Regula as well.

After the liquid mix was successfully concocted, Saleen pour it into the mold, solidifying it into the shape of a dagger.

The Water Flame powered alchemy at low temperatures. By the time the metal solidified, it would have burst the level 16 elementite. Saleen would then have acquired a dagger. The strength of the metal was indicated by the fact that it was able to expand and crack level 16 elementite.

Saleen took a look and saw that he had only used one-eighth of the 12-dimensional metal piece that Agares had given him. He had never expected to be able to conserve so much. According to the ratio he had used, the weapons for both Jola and Sul still would not use up that half piece of 12-dimensional metal.

The reason why Saleen had used a mold for crafting was because the materials used to craft the item could not then be altered. If Agares wanted to re-craft the dagger, the weapon would lose its attributes, and the metals would be degraded.

As long as he did not re-craft that dagger, the magic patterns that Saleen had infused at the core of the weapon, which had a frequency that Saleen was capable of sensing, would make it impossible for Agares to use the dagger against him in the dark.

The dagger was too lethal for Saleen to not put some kind of safeguard on it.

Agares acquired the equipment he expected within six days—a dagger than was less than a foot long.

It was a dark blue blade in a wavy kris shape, with magic patterns covering every single part of it like the scales of snakes. On either side of its tip, there were eye-like magic patterns. The handle looked the way a snake did as it slithered forward. Agares held it in his hand and felt that it fit perfectly in his grip.

He felt, for the first time, that a weapon resonated with him, becoming a part of his body.

That alone was a testament that Saleen’s understanding of combat techniques had reached at least that of the Silver Grand Swordmasters.

“Do you like it, Agares?” Saleen asked, rather smugly.

While the dagger had only been the product of an experiment, it was nonetheless a very successful one. Agares nodded, and Saleen said, “There is a space crafted specifically for you on the handle—enough for an assassin like you. I’ve divided it into 12 parts. Your mental ability should be sufficient to take any item from any of the slots.”

Agares was elated. As an assassin, the only thing that truly troubled him was the problems of using space equipment. Any professional became able to use space equipment when they reached level ten, but the sizes that assassins were able to open proved problematic to them.

He would not have to target only what he found to be the most precious and give up anything else of less relative importance when he was raiding a dragon’s lair, with Saleen or otherwise.

“Saleen, I believe this is yours,” Agares said, and threw the remaining half-piece of the 12-dimensional metal to Saleen.

Saleen took it honestly and put it away in his Starline Ring before continuing, “The 12-dimensional metals cannot be imbued with poison, so I crafted magic patterns on the dagger’s blade. You’ll only need to stow poison at the hole at the tail end which you can then activate using your skills or mental powers, sending it to the blade.”

“Thank you, Saleen.” Agares had thanked him—a rare thing for the assassin to do. The damage dealt by the 12-dimensional metal would trump any kind of poison, but such attributes needed to be activated using skills nonetheless.

Things were different in the case of poisons, as he was capable of concocting brews capable of killing a dragon. He would only have had to cut an enemy’s skin to kill them.

“I saw that you dropped your dagger when you were killing the dragon. Such attacks were not ideal for assassins. Once you have gotten familiar with that dagger, you’ll realize that you’ve come to possess a weapon capable of attack at mid-range. The eyes on the snaky blade are capable of locking down on enemies.”