Badge in Azure

Saleen looked at the mages before his eyes, these mages were all older than him. They grew up in Sregl Island, which was a better environment to practice magic. He was far ahead of them, however.

“As all of you are here, I have something to announce. I am going to build an army of a thousand people and it will be divided into five teams. Kredian, when Francis and Basta return, the three of you will be in charge of my fleet. These five teams would be under Daniel. Pasatilo, Kanuka and Guise will stay back to assist Daniel. Don’t think too much, Daniel wouldn’t be giving commands to you directly. One more team, to be assigned under Jola. I reckon, in a few years time, I would promote to grade-6. By then, I wouldn’t purposely build a magic tower.

“Master Saleen!”

When the mages heard that Saleen would not build a magic tower, they panicked.

“Don’t worry. I am not building a magic tower because there are too many of you. Wait until I promote to grade-6, this temple will increase by two floors. The core of the temple is not any different than a magic tower. In the future, all of you will live here and there will be no need to head to east anymore.”

When Saleen said so, everyone relaxed.

“I will choose two hundred Cascausus people and separate them into the five teams, so there would be forty of them in each team. These Cascausus people know how to tame a magic wolf and their power of their throwing axes is comparable to magic. Please treat them well.”

“Master, Cascausus people are good. They can be trusted but the number of people is not sufficient.” Kredian said suspiciously.

“People can be selected slowly, you can pick some Barbarians and there are swordsmen that are brought over from the island. Pick those that are at least swordsmaster level. If the number of people is insufficient, it could be vacant as of now. These people require training all over again. All the warriors would be in five day rotation shift to guard the temple. The rest of the time, they would be resting at the area in the east.

Saleen built huge buildings surrounding the temple within a mile distance. The north was a library, the west was town hall, the south was a garden, and the east was a huge geometrical building. There they held the enemy from island nation from the eastern sea captive.

“Master, does it mean that I would only have a chance every five days…” A grade-3 mage asked the crucial question directly. As a mage, it would not be embarrassing to follow a mage that had a bright future. As a follower, there would be special benefits, such as being able to practice magic in Saleen’s magic tower. According to what Saleen meant, all the followers would be in five day rotation shift and they would only return to the temple every five days.

Saleen had yet to answer when Kredian scolded, “Master said that it would be a five day rotation shift, that we would be here on duty. Normally, when you want to practice, master doesn’t stop you either.”

Saleen nodded and acknowledged Kredian’s reply. His temple occupied a huge piece of land that could station an army. The core was like the magic tower, and could be used for practice. Even if he had as many low level mages as Lex, it could contain them all. For five days rotation shift, people around him would be able to receive pointers.

These mages had stable foundation but magic knowledge that Saleen obtained was precious and it could not be learned anywhere else. This included Raphael’s magic book and magic notes, it was the essence of experience of the people in the past. During Raphael’s time, sorcerers were nothing rare. The magic civilization was much more prosperous compared to their time. If there was not an outbreak of war in mainland, the world would not be like that now.

“Master, when Viscountess Lex returns, where will she stay?” A low level mage asked anxiously.

“Lex’s feudal estate is at Bitter Water Prefecture, she would only have a prince’s residence here at most. I would build it at the south of the city. There would only be us at the temple. Besides, it would required a team of people for city management and Lex will take care of. So in the future, you don’t need to worry about town hall.

The mages looked at each other in surprise. To have them take care of town hall to make money for Saleen would not be their specialty. There must be suitable talent around Lex, no doubt.

“Why do you all looked like this? When we built the magic tower and every mage from Sregl Island moves here, regarding town hall, whose hands do you think it would be in?” Saleen did not hide in front of his own troops. Actually, if the sorcerers from Sregl Island were willing to come, Lex did not mind whose city it would be. She only needed a safe entrance for herself to transmit to the hell of the God’s punishment anytime.

What attracted the strong was the sixth elements’ space that Raphael left behind.

Lex was already a grade-6 mage, one more step and she could practice in the six elements’ space. Even now, she could rely on the power of God’s ring to forcefully enter the six elements’ space. But the God’s ring was too important to Lex, she would not use the power within it frequently.

Saleen thought, if he had a few years’ time, teacher would become a grade-9 sorcerer and the city would be indestructible. Holy Rock City only had three grade-9 sorcerers and he could at least nurture another thirty-six of them.

Time was what mages lacked the most. Even if one become a sorcerer, they would still have to race against time. Learning magic was like sailing against current, one could not even rest for a minute.

After Saleen comforted the mages, he delegated the recent tasks and signed follower contracts with each and every one of them. It was already evening by then.

More news was found out through interrogation, Saleen received concrete news. The eastern sea allied army sent sixty warships and two hundred and forty armed commercial ships. Every armed commercial ship contained about two thousand soldiers. The amount was far more than what Saleen had expected.

Among the soldiers, less than half of them were militia. In other words, there were actually three-hundred-thousand actual soldiers and that did not include the navy on the warships.

There were so many soldiers on the armed commercial ships, their supply was at its extreme. The secret stronghold island with its savings for over a century was emptied along the way. Once the army entered, they would plunder like locusts. Otherwise, the expeditionary force would be starved to death.

Saleen heard the news and he was half happy and half sad. He was happy that the enemy did so and there would not be any nobles that surrendered. He was also worried about the same thing. These invaders had no turning back, they had to be extremely crazy.

The Great Chanake had formed an expeditionary force of a hundred thousand people, but the entire Qin Empire was giving supply. When the expeditionary force got to Lianyun City, the food on the ship would probably be finished. Even though the mages’ spatial equipment could be useful, only the sorcerer’s equipment would come in handy. Dimension stones were not something everyone would have.

Among the expeditionary force, there were thirty sorcerers and one of them was taken down by the three Kings and they brought back four grade-6 mages. The three Kings were heavily injured. One could only imagine with such concentrated strength. Unless people from Alchemy City took action, they would not be able to withstand without relying on local nobles.

The north would be devastated! In Sikeqinya, the war would be decided very quickly, but outside of the bigger cities of the Qin Empire would likely be magic towers. These mages would not be involved in matters related to nobles normally. When there were invaders, the magic tower would be a part of city defence.

With these magic towers, the war would become even more brutal.

If the mage in the magic towers did not leave, the expeditionary force had to pour in ten times their strength to be able to ruin the magic tower. In other words, if there was a seventh floor magic tower at the outside of the city, the expeditionary force would need to have ten sorcerers to be able to win against them.

The stronger the defence, the more brutal the attacks would be. Saleen was not from the Qin Empire, but he did not have any good impression of war. If the north became devastated, whose money would he be earning? He would be without money and without a commercial team. Unless he depended on his yearly hunt in Oceanic Ice Block to sustain the expenditure of the city.

If so, he would not stand a chance to expand his army. By the time when Holy See came, he would not have much defence power.

Very quickly, Sika sent over two hundred Caucasus warriors and all of them would remain in the temple. Everyone of them had a magic wolf with them and these wolves had a ferocious look. Looking at Saleen, they settled down. Saleen was already a grade-5 mage, even without using magic, he would be able to disrupt the element stability around him. A magic wolf was a type of magic beast that had good evolve power. They were very sensitive towards elements and they knew that the human before their eyes was strong.

Due to infertility of the Caucasus area, a lot of younger generation would leave home and seek a living outside but Cascausus people’s reputation was very good. Looking at these selected warriors, Saleen felt delighted and he distributed the prepared contracts. After they signed the contracts, he got some help from Aini to measure each and everyone of their bodies to prepare to make them brand new equipment and armors.

After more than a week of bustling, Nailisi returned from the sea with the dimension stones that Saleen had given her. She heard that Saleen built a troop of followers and she complained, “Master, regarding this, how could you leave me aside? It’d be great if you let me manage them for you.”

“My followers are not meant to be sent to death, Nailisi. Just stay by my side honestly.” Saleen was rude but he was in no doubt of the little demon’s loyalty towards him. The fundamental problem was that Nailisi’s temperament was even more impalpable compared to Banchajanna. If he were to let Nailisi manage these followers, who knows when she would feel a sudden urge to eat everyone up in order to get her a new power.

Nailisi laughed. If it was before, she would bug Saleen to at least give her dozens of people to be her underlining. Currently, she had her mind on what she promised winged skeleton. If she were to get the demon dimension coordinates, she had full confidence that she could hoodwink a few demons to be her underlinings.

Nailisi was in a good mood. With her mental power, it would not be a problem for her to control dozens of demons. Every demons would be able to control a few little demons. Then below the little demons, there would be spirits. Below spirits, there would be magic bugs.

“If I were to abduct a few million magic bugs, master wouldn’t need to be bothered by safety issues anymore, right?”