Badge in Azure

Saleen rarely drank. People from Sikeqinya and Tanggulasi liked to drink hard liquor. Until Saleen got to Bitter Water Prefecture, he would drink wine.

To a mage, hard liquor would affect the stability of mental strength but wine would not. When he was with Lex, Saleen had to maintain his form and only drink tea in front of the others. Privately, he would drink some wine occasionally.

He took the bottle out from his drawer, Saleen was not particular about it and threw it to Aini directly. The two of them had one bottle each and they drank up slowly.

“This is a good wine. We would need to try it in a narrow mouth crystal glass to get the taste. It would be best to leave it to rest for a while after popping the bottle.” Aini took a sip and he could immediately tell the character of the wine.

“I know but I like the coolness of taste.” Saleen raised his hands and showed Aini the water flame that was dancing in his palm.

Aini shook his head, “Using magic to change the character of the wine, this is such a waste of power.” He did not know that Saleen’s water flame required very little magic chords as it mainly used mental power.

“Aini, I remember the distribution of the cities in the north of the empire. There seemed to be less cities compared to the south. Within a hundred mile, there must be a location to build a stronghold fortress though. Lianyun City would go down, but it would not be easy for the invaders to go deeper into the Qin Empire’s hinterland. I was thinking about if Phoenix would really join forces with them.”

“Saleen, what is going on with you? Didn’t Lex tell you this? If the Grand Duke of Phoenix passes away and there is no next-of-kin, the duchy would be retrieved by the empire. The fate of the Phoenix nobles falls into the Grand Duke’s hands. If it was retrieved by the empire, they would be controlled by the upper and lower house. It would be very difficult for the nobles to be bestowed a title in the empire as many people laid their eyes upon it. These people had no foundation in Holy Rock City and the upper and lower house would divide up their ranks of nobility.”

“Then, we have no other way out. For at least half a year’s time, we have to just sit here and wait. To send people to go through the Chaotic Swamp, we still have to face the nobles in Phoenix. If they were to vote for a leader, they wouldn’t acknowledge Lex’s superiority. Lex couldn’t just sit and watch Phoenix cut off from the Qin Empire too.”

“I’m troubled by this as well. We have money on hand, we have material, we also have enough mages. We do not have people though. You want to build a fleet, but there are no laborers or sailing crews. There are no businessmen in the city, no farmers in the wild. We only have the skeleton of a city, but there is nothing that we can do.”

“Lex will return either in March or April. Looking at the situation now, it would be troublesome for her to bring over her army. Even if she didn’t mean to suppress a rebellion, those nobles wouldn’t believe it. Bitter Water Prefecture is tens of thousands of miles away from Phoenix. If she were to bring the swordsmen’s camp over, would anyone believe that she is only passing by?”

“Why not let Phoenix join Bitter Water Prefecture? Lex can guarantee the benefit of those nobles.”

“Lex laid foundation in Bitter Water Prefecture. If she were to do so, Holy Rock City would attack Bitter Water Prefecture first.”

“The King would fight against his sister?”

“King? Aini, you are not quite clear with what happened in Holy Rock City, right? The real power of Holy Rock City is in Prince Safilos’ hands.”

“So what? What a prince wants to do has to be under the king’s name. Otherwise, the local nobles would stage a riot. Saleen, we do not want to gobble up the entire Phoenix, we only want a pathway to go to Kroraina. Don’t we have three nobles from Phoenix that came to seek refuge? We might as well recruit more. The empire needs to face the eastern sea allied army and they would tacitly consent.”

“I am already doing that, I have buried a nail in Deep Forest Town. Piac will encourage his surrounding nobles. The things that I promised him will convince him.”

“It seems like we have to wait until the ice melts. Saleen, I am in a hurry.” Aini saw Saleen was as troubled, but he already did what he needed to do and knew that all he could now do was wait.

“Yes, when spring arrives, I would depart from here directly to Sikeqinya. I will buy some broken ships from Sikeqinya and fill them up with hired workers.”

“Sikeqinya built ship…” Aini shook his head.

“I can’t just go to Alchemy City, right? Lianyun City is in between. The eastern sea allied army has another three hundred warships on the sea. What if I run into them? I would lose everything.”

What Saleen said, was the truth. He wanted to buy pirate ships to transport the hired workers. They of course could settle these at Alchemy City but how could they return from there? His Pan’s Turtle alchemical boat could go through enemy’s line of defence in secret, but those were just normal pirate ships. If they ran into enemy’s warships, they would not be able to escape.

The expense would be too high to hire mages in Alchemy City to escort them. Saleen would not be able to spare so much gold. Even if he could, he would not. If they were to be convoyed by the hired fleet in Alchemy City, the gold coins would be enough for Saleen to build his own strong fleet, including hiring the army on the ship.

“I thought my bad luck had reached its limit, but it is still continuing.” Saleen raised his head and took a large gulp of the wine to let himself relax entirely. Lying against his chair, the chair had water shield that he set up and formed a changeable back cushion. It was almost like he was lying on it. The consumed wine did not stimulate his nerves as he was wrapped up by water elements that were beneficial for his body.

“It is not bad luck entirely. I think, with the invaders creating chaos on the north, Holy Rock City will definitely think of supporting Lex. If Lex could take care of the nobles in Phoenix, Holy City Rock might give way to let Lex progress in her ranking.

“Progress? She’s already a county Queen, any further would be Prince, like Safilos.”

“They’re all from the Grukos family. The Grukos family has many branches, but very little domain. If Lex could concede and everyone would divide up Phoenix, it would be better than letting it turn into the enemy’s food foundation.”

Saleen did not quite understand this and Aini explain it to him, “Turning Phoenix into the Grukos’ domain, the royal family could kick the local nobles away by right and title. What is the upper house? It is a place to protect the royals. The lower house wants to get involved with Phoenix and send an army directly, so what’s the result? The local nobles stage a riot. The lower house has to come into mutual agreement with the upper house. Their responsibility is too big otherwise. Although Safilos represented the lower house, he was of direct line of descent in the Grukos family. If the King and Lex die, he could be the King.”

That was easily understood. No matter how huge the conflict between Safilos and Lex was, it was within their family. If Lex were to give way for the upper house to carve up Phoenix, Safilos would tacitly concede to it. Safilos would not let his son take up important positions because both his sons were not capable. What if he could get a huge territory in the north? Safilos would definitely be willing to. They were his sons after all.

Phoenix and Saleen’s current location was at a different geographical location. Phoenix was very suitable for farming agriculture. Every year one season of farming was like the harvest of two seasons in the south. It was good being a noble in such a place, even one without business talent. As long as they treat the farmer well enough, they wouldn’t lose money.

Saleen recalled the way Safilos fought on just grounds with The Great Chanake, he thought that the man might not act like how Aini described. The situation in the north had to calm down quickly as Kroraina was still waging war. If the war in the north could not settle down, the noble army that was fighting for the empire within Kroraina would immediately retreat to protect their own territory.

“Aini, would you blame me for dragging you here? If you were to stay with your family, you wouldn’t need to bother about this so much. All you needed to do was to practice magic in peace.”

“To practice magic in peace?” Aini took a huge sip of the wine as though it was hard liquor that came from Tanggulasi. His chest heaved heavily and he said, “Did you see my parents in Holy Rock City? Do you think they are practicing magic in peace?”

“No, they looked like they have many things to take care of.”

“Exactly, wait until I practice to a certain level, I have to rely on my family to be able to continue practicing. I need money, but once I accepted my family’s support, I needed to do a lot of things for my family. My parents’ talents aren’t any worse than mine, but look at them, do you think they could become grade-9 sorcerers?”

Aini’s tone was hidden with hatred but he also thought, “If you want it, it was impossible for you to ask your family to give unconditionally.”

“My real enemy was Holy See. Have you ever thought that even if we are sorcerers, we might die in this war too?”

“Holy See?” Aini smiled in disdain and said, “They couldn’t even be better than swine. Don’t you know? Those people couldn’t live without the instructions of God. How pathetic. A human, a kind that could challenge God back then, having to worship God in the end. Let them believe in it for another tens of thousand years, until God is gone. I reckon they would start believing in magic beasts.”

“If you dared to say this before the Pope, I am sold.”

“Wait until I can fight against the Pope, I will say it to him myself.”

What Aini said was bullshit, he would never be able to win against the Pope. The Pope had the ability of a grade-9 sorcerer and they had three holy items of Holy See on hand. Of course, one of them was with Saleen. Even without the three holy items, the power of the Pope was not one that mages like them could fight against.

There was not only one Pope. He had the entire Holy See to back him up. Saleen calculated in his head. The Great Chanake could possibly be as powerful as Joey but such a powerful person had been schemed by Holy See too. Saleen would not send the Tanggulasi Empire to death, Aini would not have the courage too.

Then, the two of them drank while nagging about the situation then and discussed ways to solve the problem. The day grew bright eventually. The table was filled with wine bottles and Saleen fell asleep on the chair.

Aini did not sleep. He took over the blueprints on the table and saw rows of magic formulas on the back of the blueprints. Alchemy spells. Aini touched the end of his eyebrows and took out a pen to amend the blueprints.