Badge in Azure

The Floating City appeared at night. Thick clouds floated overhead. The Floating City hovered at an altitude of over 30000 miles. All of this meant that, with the exception of some powerful individuals, no one in New Demon City had discovered the massive construct hovering above their heads.

The reason some powerful ones had been able to discover the Floating City was that the space vibrations resulting from such the massive construct jumping through space were very strong. Even powerful individuals who were over 1,000 miles away were able to detect the intense changes in space, let alone those who were in New Demon City.

Said changes quickly stabilized. The people who were far away were unable to see that far, but they knew well that New Demon City was not a place that they could easily peer into, so nobody continued to observe what was happening.

The Floating City continued moving upwards and Saleen did nothing to stop it. He only knew that he was able to control the Floating City like he controlled the Magical Element Tower. He let the Floating City keep climbing upwards. They would have attracted too much attention otherwise.

Just one jump consumed hundreds of Saleen’s elemental creatures. To pay such a cost was truly heart-wrenching.

Jason saw his student’s pained looks. He pointed out to him, “With this thing, you’ll be able to mobilize your armies as you fancy. You could even attack Holy City right away with it. Regardless of the fuel cost, it is worth it.”

“I know, I know…” Saleen kept repeating that, but he was unable to suppress his sour mood.

Jason was exasperated as well. His student was a decent person, yet he had the character flaw of being tight-fisted.

“Well, there is nothing around. How about we test the flight abilities of this thing for a bit?” Jason had no intention of saying more. A mage could raise their levels, but not necessarily change their personality and temperament. It was nonetheless a good thing that Saleen knew conservation and moderation. If he were to be unrestrained with his spending, no amount of wealth would have been able to keep him afloat for long.

Saleen was steeped in thought for a bit. If he wanted to fly, common magic nuclei would have sufficed. Magic power furnaces were capable of eating anything, regardless of energy levels. However, the cost of such a flight would be massive nonetheless, so he deemed it necessary to find a specific destination.

“Master, how about a trip to Alchemy City then?”

“No. The Floating City is still empty. I’d only head there if you’re capable of forking out tens of thousands of enchanters for me right now,” Saleen replied to Nailisi. There were only 3,600 enchanters in the Floating City, making it wholly inadequate for taking on Alchemy City. There was no way he and his teacher alone would be able to overpower all of the top-notch powerful people in Alchemy City, as their city was armed with a large scale magic amplifier.

As for the 500 thousand lightning puppets, while they would have all of the advantages if taking on common professionals, their limited lightning powers would only render a few mages in Alchemy City temporarily paralyzed. That limited power was not enough to kill their enemies.

“Master, isn’t this thing capable of doing space jumps?” Nailisi, of course, meant running away if they were unable to take down their enemies.

Saleen wore a bitter smile and gave Nailisi an answer without waiting for Jason to comment.

“This space-jumping magic array is not actually complete. In ancient times, humanity possessed detailed data regarding every space coordinate, but not even they would have been able to calculate how to move such massive equipment with pinpoint accuracy. If I were to use that magic array again, what would most likely take place is simply us getting teleported back to the interdimensional space. It would be lucky if things actually turned out that way. The worst that could happen would be us getting teleported to somewhere unknown. This is called sequential coordinates…”

“I get it…” Nailisi had begun to learn magic and had memorized countless magic terminologies.

Sequential coordinates referred to a set of coordinates a jump was made to if no specific coordinates were found, based solely on the memories of the Sky City.

The Floating City would most likely jump back to Myers Mainland in its first teleportation. That was something that both Saleen and Jason knew. This time, however, Saleen had no idea where the sequential coordinates would lead them to. If said coordinates prevented them from ever returning to Myers Mainland, it would be very troublesome. After all, Sky City was used specifically for traversing planes.

It was a common tactic of the ancient humans to have the Sky Cities carry the Ancients, transporting their troops to other planes.

Fuel costs for the Ancients were far smaller than for the Sky City, yet they were the most cost-effective standard equipment used for fighting within a plane. The standard operating procedure back then was probably to have one powerful human professional make it to the destination plane, who would then have calculated the detailed plane coordinates there, which were then transferred back to the Sky Cities.

Such coordinates were not meant for transporting several people, but landmasses at lengths measuring over 1,000 miles. Even if Saleen’s mental powers were boosted ten times over what they were now, he still would not be able to make the calculations all on his own.

Furthermore, such space-jumping magic arrays were actually the most energy-efficient method for teleportation between planes. Teleportation done within the same plane was actually done by traversing two planes consecutively, enabling the teleported thing to return to Myers Mainland.

Such a design was not unreasonable. It was simply done due to safety reasons.

Ancient humans were capable of simply throwing a broken divine persona in to serve as fuel for their magic power furnaces. However, Saleen could not afford to spend like that. He was reluctant to even spend captured elemental creatures like that, let alone using divine personas as fuel.

“My liege, let’s return to Nature City. Along the way, we can…” Eleanor gave Saleen a suggestion.

She did not finish her sentence. By “along the way,” she no doubt meant raising Saleen’s status in the minds of the adherents of the Nature Faith. Furthermore, there were doubts about Baudelaire’s ability to perform as a pope. The very reason that Saleen did not get involved was to gauge Baudelaire’s performance.

“Sounds good.” Saleen felt the idea to be a decent one. Pompeii City was the nearest destination, but there were hardly any humans there, so it would be a waste of effort. There should have been hundreds of thousands of adherents at Nature City by then. He could deliver some subliminal messages to the adherents of Nature Faith by flying there with his Sky City. This would also make it easier for the adherents to fall in the future.

Floating City gradually began to move. It was a huge construct after all. The activation process of the Magical Element Tower’s flight abilities was extremely quick, but the Floating City was only able to fly at an initial speed of just over 30 miles per hour. It was fortunate that the fuel cost of such flight was far less than what Saleen had imagined it would be.

Activating one large scale magic power furnace within the Floating City would have enabled the Floating City to fly.

Furthermore, the rate of consumption did not change after the speed increased. The construct was only slow to start. Its fuel cost during flight was actually only over 20 times that of the Magical Element Tower.

If he were to be willing to let it fly slowly, the Floating City’s fuel cost could be reduced to that of the Magical Element Tower.

If Saleen was not in a hurry, he would have simply spent his time training on the Floating City while traveling over the entire mainland.

The Floating City’s cruising altitude continued to be adjusted until he finally deemed that 30,000 meters was the perfect height for flying efficiently. Above that, the air was so thin that it was almost non-existent.

If they were to stay in a true vacuum, their fuel cost would skyrocket. Flying in a vacuum required putting up an invisible protective layer around the city to keep the air from dissipating into the vacuum.

Getting the Floating City down on the ground would not cut fuel costs by a lot either. The entire Floating City was like a piece of land within an energy fortress. The magic arrays’ consumption did not stop simply because they landed.

When Saleen had first found the Floating City, the energy within had been depleted long ago. It had been necessary for it to sacrifice its own materials to keep it afloat. It could have crumbled otherwise.

As such, the Floating City he’d seen back then was nothing like how it now looked. The Floating City only regained its vigor after he had infused it with huge amounts of Six Elements’ Heavy Water, Genesis Stock Solution, and bone crystals of the giant. All the magic arrays on it were restored, again capable of being used in battle.

The Floating City measured 36 square miles. The height of its wall measured 900 meters. A city like that was on par with the likes of Holy Rock City.

The Floating City moved increasingly fast. It only stopped accelerating after reaching 300 miles per hour. Flying any faster, fuel consumption would double.

The northern and southern ends of Qin were about 20,000 miles away from each other. However, the two cities situated on either end were less than 10,000 miles away from each other. The Floating City simply required one day to travel over 7,000 miles. Saleen was above Nature City with his Floating City within just a day and a half.

Nailisi went about making their arrival a bigger deal than it would have normally been, sending a flying demon down dressed in temple knight garb to sneak into Nature City. Nailisi was the one who had designed the badges of the temple knights, so creating another one was an easy feat.

A complete religious structure had already formed within Nature City.

Baudelaire had proved himself to be very competent. Despite being an infamous figure, he had actually managed to become the pope. Don had become the leader of the temple knights, enabling him to expand the knights’ corps. As for Water Fox, she had naturally made it into Nature City as well.

Water Fox claimed to be a soul clone of the Goddess of Nature, creating her own oracle temple.

The core of Nature City was a true temple, so none of the adherents of the faith doubted anything. They fully affirmed and acknowledged the identity of those three.

Of the three, only Don was truly a human. That fitted well with the Goddess of Nature’s teachings. Where there was life, there was nature.

The believers received a divine omen when the sun rose. It was the second divine omen to appear to them since the establishment of the Nature Faith. The first one was only known to those who had betrayed the Holy See. There was no doubt that even that one had been faked.

This divine omen seemed rather weird. It had simply told the believers that when the sun rose to the highest point, they would receive…

There was nothing else said after the word “receive.”

However, all of the believers would have listened to and followed along with anything their God told them to do. There were almost a million believers gathered at the Nature City. Most of the believers were peasants, but there were also a handful of nobles, craftsmen, and soldiers among them.

Over 800 thousand believers waited at the great plaza of the Nature City. When the shadows of the pillars had almost disappeared, a massive construct descended from the sky.

Under the sunlight’s reflection, the golden Floating City glittered brilliantly.

It seemed as if the sun had fallen from the sky, yet it was not a scorching one. Saleen played his tricks and shrouded the area within a 120-mile radius with Lightning Constellation.

The “sun” disappeared and the stars circled around the Floating City. Blue electricity jumped among the shadows of the countless stars.

All the believers were stunned at this sight.

Saleen’s Thundering Sound said to them, “I’m Saleen. Saleen Metatrin. I shall assist in the goddess’ resurrection and repel the heretical gods of other planes. Pope, come see me right now!” Saleen’s voice could be heard throughout all of Nature City.