Badge in Azure

The effects of training was exceptionally obvious. Saleen mastered the method of using the mask very quickly and the mental power required had already reduced to about one third of its original amount. When he was leaving the border of the Oceanic Ice Block, Saleen could wear the mask for a total of one hour time.

The only grief was that Saleen had yet to find the technique that would stop the mask from absorbing his mental power. Once he wore the magic mask, it would constantly absorb his mental power. If he was any other grade-5 mage, the mask would be life threatening. Even if one mastered how to use it, another mage would not last more than forty seconds.

Saleen was glad that he never slacked. Even when his mental power had surpassed other normal mages, he still continued his training using the badge every day and his mental power had a steady growth.

What Saleen did not know was, the mask was originally made for sorcerer and it was for a grade-9 sorcerer. His mental power had went through special training and experienced a magical transformation. He grasped the essence and only managed to reduce to the mask’s minimum expenditure.

If other grade-5 mages were to put it on, it would paralyze their brain that instant.

Shanglan who made the mask back then had already surpassed the peak of a grade-10 mage. The equipment in his hands was made for humankind of back then, not for human then that had already degenerated.

Any equipment must correspond with the user’s capability. Saleen’s white crystal ring given to him by Jason was like that. The ring was very good, it used the highest quality white crystal and the magic array was carved within the white crystal without showing.

The amount difficulty to make the magic array was inverse of its size. The smaller the magic array, the more difficult it was to make. Ring equipment was always the most difficult to make.

The white crystal ring was suitable to Saleen as there was no burden for him back then. Even though there was only one single function, it was very valuable.

No matter how good the equipment attributes were, it would be rubbish if there was no way of using it though. The Giants’ holy stone armor was an example.

The armor only existed in the Giant dimension, the physical and magic defence was terrifying. The armor would not even be damaged one bit even if is was under attack by a sorcerer. Even a curse would be hard pressed to completely tear the holy stone armor open. The armor also had a self healing function and the speed of the healing definitely outdid the armor that Saleen made.

The problem was, humankind could never wear holy stone armor. When the Giants were born, they were already seven to eight meters tall. The body size of an adult was even more ridiculous, some were taller than a hundred meters. Most of the creatures were like small lizards to the Giants and they could easily smack them to death. They would only used the holy stone armor when they were fighting against a strong opponent.

Human’s today were just like a badge in front of the holy stone armor. There was no way of them wearing it.

Saleen did not use the collection of elemental magic books because he was only able to use water magic back then. The collection provided eighteen magic positions that were balanced. The six elements took up three each. To Saleen the bronze magic book equaled the chance to release three extra spells corresponding respectively to grade-1, grade-2, and grade-3 magic.

Until Saleen learned about element conversion and mastered the ability, the elemental magic books were useful. Even so, Saleen did not use the elemental magic books to fight. The element conversion magic needed to be recorded in the magic book beforehand and it might not be useful during the battle.

Saleen owning the mask was dangerous too. If Saleen were to lose his moving power when he took down the mask, without the attack of enemy, the mask would have taken away his life. It was not impossible if he were to be frozen for more than an hour with water magic or petrified by fossilization spell.

Sika had a decent harvest. The set of body armor a had a very strong defence power and it was mainly directed at magic attack. The reason why most of the magic armor’s defence power descend was because there were not enough magic arrays carved into the armor and Saleen made the magic array directly into the dimension stone. He could make as many as he wanted as long as the dimension stone could take it.

It was an extremely extravagant matter. If other mages knew what Saleen did, they would be more than willing to exchange some better magic armor for those dimension stones.

Saleen did not care about that kind of waste. With those dimension stones, he could upgrade Sika’s armor anytime.

Sika’s harvest was not small. She could then control the defence power on the magic armor easily and her arm ring that Saleen gave her could make a water shield at anytime. It was a pity that she was not a mage, the water shield could only appear on a fixed position at her left side and there was no way to economize.

Nailisi learned some low level magic, from grade-1 to grade-3. There was not much that Saleen could give her. Saleen might as well have taught Nailisi the element conversion magic. Saleen only knew the fundamental principle of the other five element’s magic, but to demonstrate, he might need the other low level mages to teach Nailisi directly.

Nailisi’s human form had normal skill, but she could still release scrolls at that state. She could still use the spatial equipment. She could also release her gifted ability, such as the power of the giant dragon and the lightning guardian. With these abilities, Nailisi’s human form was not weak. At least she possessed a degree of ability to fight hand to hand.

Without the strong body of a demon as foundation, Saleen dared not let Nailisi use her dagger or soft whip. These weapons were powerful, but the risk was high too.

With such a dagger, the distance between one and the enemy needed to be close to stab them. Fighting against one with long weapons, those who used daggers had to take the risk to shorten the distance. It was also incredibly difficult to manipulate a soft whip, it might be the most difficult one among all the weapons. If there was a miscalculation, one would be hurt.

Besides training these skills with Nailisi and Sika, Saleen retrained his witcher spider. The witcher spider had a phantom magic array, but Saleen wiped it off and added a lot of new material to its body. All the material had the same attributes, which were their toughness. The material that did not turn into powder form during battle of the magic beasts obviously fell under that category of toughness.

The witcher spider, before transformation by Saleen, was eight legged and all eight legs had piercing magic properties. Once mixed with other material, they would lose their special ability. Saleen was satisfied with the material of the puppet. If the dimension stones were not that precious, he would have inlaid one in the witcher spider’s body.

Saleen had mastered some of the high level skills to make magic equipment. He used water flame to inlay a dragon shard debris into the spider’s body. In the future, when the spider used phantom magic, there would be no need for him to worry about the nuclear magic being used up to quickly. Saleen did not decide to remake an offensive phantom magic and instead he used a harmless water magic.

In witcher spider’s body, there were three magic arrays overlapping one another and also a spiritual imprint magic. Among the three magic arrays, two of them were driving magic while the dragonshard was only used for phantom magic. The other intermediate magic nuclei inlaid were enough for the witcher spider to fight a long battle. Saleen was getting wealthy again so he might as well give the purest grade-6 magic nuclei for the spider.

Saleen remade the phantom magic, which was a more complicated water magic. The magic did not have a fix name, only lifestyle mages learned it. The magic used water element to mock the natural environment and the natural environment was independent so it could use its mockup surroundings to hide the human or object in the magic array.

If in the wild, the magic array of the witcher spider would make its body disappear into the surroundings of its natural environment. In the city, the witcher spider would mock the surrounding buildings such as houses.

Saleen’s intention was not to perfect the witcher spider’s surprise attack. He thought the room in the Pan’s Turtle alchemical boat was too narrow and living under such environment for a long period of time would negatively affect human psychology. With the magic array, Saleen could create a phantom anytime in any corner of the ship. Even though it was fake, it could create a natural scene that would make people feel comfortable. The phantom looked extremely realistic, if one’s power was not high and one did not intentionally probe, no one would realize it was a spell.

Saleen knew that it was useful. When he had enough ships in the future, he could consider providing such resting places for his warriors.

There were many factors that affect an army’s fighting power and the psychology factor was the more severe one. When an army was defeated, the fighting power would decrease and a large number of soldiers would be cornered by an enemy with a smaller number. After living in such compressed environments for a long time, it would affect soldiers greatly. If on land, Saleen could use some gold coins to build a large enough army camp, but the space on a ship was limited.

Saleen did so in an impromptu way, but it helped to turn the witcher spider into a more treacherous surprise attacker.

After leaving the border of the Oceanic Ice Block, the winged skeleton buoyed up the alchemical boat to three-hundred meters away from the water surface. At such a depth, even sorcerers would find it difficult to trace the alchemical boat.

Generally speaking, a mage was used to probing danger using mental power. When a human probed underwater, the distance would reduced by ten fold. If a sorcerer were to search using the same way as a probing water element, then he would find a space of a few hundred cubic meters at three hundred meters underwater without water elements. The alchemical boat would then be shown.

That kind of probing that was at the level of microscopic view consumed too much mental power. Even a sorcerer would not be willing to spend their mental power that way.

At a depth of three-hundred meters, it was not possible for the alchemical boat to travel too quickly as the water pressure there was terrifying. The five mages and the winged skeleton took turns to drive the ship and the average speed was kept at about fifty miles. The time to return to city base would be lengthened to ten days or more. Saleen did not urge the winged skeleton to go faster. If there was any trouble when they returned, he would not want the five mages under him to fully master the skill to drive the ship yet.