Badge in Azure

When he thought of that, Saleen decided to let it go, then he told Lex, “Let’s split up. Other than the ashes of the oracles, gather the rest of the items, and we can split it amongst ourselves.”

Naturally, Saleen was a little indignant. The seeds of the four divine trees were of immeasurable value, but the goddess’ demand was an insurmountable task.

“Unify the Myers mainland? Luckily the goddess’ temples are all built on the mainland. If there were temples situated overseas, would that mean that the whole Myers plane would have to be unified? If the Holy See is not destroyed, the goddess’ religion cannot be popularized.” Having these thoughts, Saleen did not have any more reservations about plundering the goddess’ temple. “This temple cannot be demolished, and the ashes of the oracles cannot be touched. The rest of the items must be removed.”

It was not that Saleen did not have the intention to do so. Since there was a probability that the goddess could be resurrected, and she would realize that the ashes of her oracles had been removed, there might be dire consequences.

The five people immediately raided the temple, the goddess clearly did not leave any prohibitions. The size of Cuisi’s and Bain’s spatial equipment was limited, so they had to go to and fro to clear their filled spatial equipment. Saleen and Lex could simply empty the resources in an entire room. After Sika’s Ring of Gifts stored the four withered divine trees, the space actually got larger as though it was a nourished creature.

Back in the central temple, the enormous cavities left behind after the four divine trees were collected had begun closing up slowly, as though the four dead divine trees never existed. On empty land in the temple, more and more items were piled up one after another. Bain and Cuisi did not give much consideration. As long as something could be removed, they would transport it there.

In the past, the goddess used very simple items. In this day and age, humans could hardly obtain these materials anymore. Divinecherry wood was no big deal in the past. Humans only needed to travel to the First Abyss once to be able to acquire large amounts of divinecherry wood.

If possible, Saleen would rather pillage the palace of the first dynasty, the items there were really precious. Even though humans really adored the goddess’ lifestyle, the items accumulated were not really good. Except for the four divine trees of course.

Unfortunately, the palace of the first dynasty was rumored to have been flown to another plane. Some people also said that the first dynasty had conquered a godly nation, thus it had shifted there. Even the remnants of the second dynasty were very rare. Like the first dynasty, the second dynasty was also extremely luxurious.

The third dynasty was more low-key, but it had been a long time since it disappeared. Only the fourth dynasty had left behind a great deal of remnants. Amidst the chaos of war, the Cloudflow Empire had plundered the remains of the fourth dynasty, so all the items were sent to Cloudflow.

Cuisi and Bain did not stand on ceremony at all. They were extremely thorough, transporting all the removable items to the central temple.

When Lex and Saleen got back, they were very satisfied at the result of everyone’s efforts.

Like Saleen had expected, this temple had a large bank of magic nuclei. The Goddess of Nature was very fond of magic, so a number of her oracles were even sorcerers. Besides having protection by Divine spells, there was a variety of magic arrays in the temple, and all these installations had to be powered by magic nuclei.

The thing which made Saleen most glad was that most of the magic nuclei in the mountainous pile of them were a high level. Other than the seeds of the divine trees, everything was to be split into five portions. Saleen would take three shares, while Lex would take two. That way, the mages from the Sregl Island would possess sufficient magic nuclei for training. They would no longer be constrained by resources and be hampered in their advancements.

All of the magic nuclei were not segmented. Lex took out a massive weighing scale, measuring the mass of the magic nuclei. Then, they were split into five shares. A huge quantity of precious metals were also split. Today, humans could hardly obtain such metals on this plane.

Almost all the items had to be refined once more, with the exception of some weapons and armor. The goddess had divine guards, who formed the backbone force of the Nature Temple. The divine guards were all above the standard of a grand swordmaster, so they could also cast Divine spells. Their armor was not any weaker than the Spirit Snake Armor.

The goddess only had five-hundred divine guards though. Lex gave all five-hundred pieces of armor to Saleen, in exchange for the bows and arrows stored in the only armory found in the temple.

The bows and arrows left behind by the goddess were all magic equipment, they had a horrifyingly far range. If an archer could cast magic and stimulate the Icy Sight, they would possess a shooting accuracy of more than five-hundred yards.

In a normal army, soldiers depended on luck to hit a target who was more than two-hundred yards away. To an army, this batch of bows and arrows held significant meaning.

Saleen did not have high expectations of bows and arrows. He had Eleanor beside him, so he would possess the production method of an elvish bow. With a new design, Saleen could also muster his own magic bow army.

Saleen faced much challenge in crafting armor. His followers, including the demons, wore high level magic armor. The attributes of their armor were a result of the high level materials used though. If Saleen could only use normal materials to craft armor, he would not have the ability to produce armor like those donned by the divine guards.

What made Saleen extremely skeptical was that Cuisi had collected a pile of tableware. This tableware was made from wood, there were pots and pans, and some jars for seasoning.

Lex was overjoyed. She told Saleen, “These things are magic equipment, they weren’t considered special in the past. Look at this pot. It is made from wood, but it can steam food at high temperatures, because it utilizes the power of magic.”

“What use does this have?”

“Speed!” Lex stared at the tableware, grinning from ear to ear. “It is still okay in normal environments, but the morale of soldiers is extremely precious in a harsh environment. In some places, it is difficult to make fire, and in some other places, we could be easily discovered by the enemy once fire is ignited. In order to maintain the speed of marching, soldiers will only consume rations that are prepared beforehand most of the time, and these rations taste horrible. Only the commanders have the right to eat rations prepared by a mage.”

At this moment, Saleen understood the importance of tableware. With a set of such equipment, it would mean a lot to the logistical support of an army.

“Can we let Eleanor study it first, before we imitate it?” Lex suggested.

Saleen nodded in agreement. He also had a large number of troops. If such equipment was made commonplace in the army, it would be tremendously beneficial to him too. Since this equipment could prepare good food swiftly, it had to have special effects too, just like the Restorative Water, which could reduce fatigue and heal injuries.

“It is said that the believers of the goddess do not fall sick, so I guess they use these items to consume their meals?”

Sika was the last to return. When she returned, Tourmaline, who was laying on Saleen’s shoulder, suddenly leaped off and snuggled into her embrace. Sika caressed Tourmaline’s head, then she took out a rice grain and fed it.

Almost half of the staple food Qin people ate was rice, just like the Cloudflow people. At a glance, Saleen had recognized that this green rice grain was a type of grain recorded in the picture chart. It was not produced in huge quantities, but it was very beneficial to a warrior’s body. Be that as it may, this rice was only produced in a small region in Qin and Cloudflow. It was tightly controlled by the imperial families of both empires, not even one grain was circulated around.

Giggling, Sika poured that green rice out from the Ring of Gifts, piling it over two yards high. That Tourmaline was full after eating just one grain. It burped once and decided to stay in Sika’s arms.

Lex got even more jubilant, she stored a portion of the rice, then said to Saleen, “This is green cloud wheat, it is grown only in special environments. When we get back, we should look for a place to build a magical house so that we can cultivate it indoors.”

If a magical house was used to set up a special environment to cultivate rice, the price of the rice might be astoundingly high. Based on the divine beast, Saleen also knew that a normal person might be able to fill their stomach with just a mouthful of this rice. To a mage, this might not be of much use, but to a warrior, it was the best food they could consume.

During battle, a warrior would deplete hundreds of times more stamina than a mage. The food consumed by Lex’s swordsman’s camp had also been altered by the mages, but its effect was nothing compared to this green cloud wheat.

“Seems like my foresight is still shallow and inferior to Lex’s.”

Originally, Saleen had a heart of vengeance when he asked everyone to pillage the temple. Now, it seemed like the items left behind by the goddess, even a toilet bowl, possessed some unique functions.

Saleen grew less interested in the issue of splitting the loot. Other than some disposable items like the magic nuclei, he and Lex could imitate the rest of the items. “I have Eleanor who can decipher holy words, while Lex has a colossal backing of mages. In one year, we will be able to produce large quantities of imitated equipment.”

At this juncture in his thoughts, Saleen whispered to Lex, and Lex nodded her head. Saleen then instructed Cuisi to remove the toilet bowls and the waste management building from the temple. He specified that these things could not be damaged at all.

Upset, Cuisi went off. Saleen split the rest of the items with Lex.

Saleen wanted to obtain those items on a whim, because people had obviously lived in this temple before, but it remained spick and span. The goddess definitely had a way of managing all that garbage.

The more people there were in a city, the worse the degree of pollution, causing the nearby rivers to be affected. Even an empire like Qin, who had an abundance of mages, was also like that. The nobles wanted the city to be clean, but they could only use magic to remove the rubbish. They could not make the city totally clean.

Metatrin City was itself a magic city with an effective drainage system. The problem was that the treated sewage would eventually flow into the ocean, so it would still cause pollution. The mages knew that this was not beneficial to humans, but they had no solution to deal with it yet.

It was clear that the Goddess of Nature had a solution. In the past, there were not as many humans, so pollution was not considered dire. To date, there were several cities with more than a million Qin people, and there were even more cities containing hundreds of thousands of people. If the problem of pollution was not thoroughly resolved, it was likely that Myers mainland might be filled with polluted rivers in less than one-thousand years. That would lead to serious adverse effects on agriculture.

This time around, the looting yielded substantial results. Lex and Saleen were very eager to go back, people were still waiting for them at the foot of the mountain. It had been around three months, and if they still did not return, those people down there might go berserk from all that waiting.

Just as they were discussing when to leave, Cuisi rushed back excitedly, then told Saleen, “Sir, I have discovered an entrance!”

“What entrance?”

“An entrance to an underground palace!”

Lex and Saleen were overjoyed. When they came here, they had realized that there were not many shocking items, other than the rich materials in the temple. Since Lex and Saleen had entered other temples, both of them felt that this temple was odd. As the core temple, it should at least contain some items which could not be found in other temples.

The moment Cuisi discovered an underground palace, their worries were dismissed. If there were no unique items left behind in the central temple, then it would be really abnormal.