Badge in Azure

“Master, the spirits of the dead that I have created are all on the boat. Three Kings are around so let’s not waste our own effort,” winged skeleton laughed deviously. After being around Nailisi for such a long time, even the way he spoke resembled her now.

Saleen’s mood improved greatly. The Three Kings’ abilities could definitely summon a large number of spirits of the dead and could solve the issue of Metatrin City’s lack of defense. Right now, Lex’s men were there, Sika’s Caucasus people had settled down, Saleen had recruited many soldiers, and now spirits of the dead could help with the building of the city.

“Sika, I wonder how Sika is?”

Saleen became less frustrated once he thought of Sika. Sika was rarely troubled. The things she would be troubled over were usually trivial issues such as finding more food for Caucasus people for the coming winter. Ironically, she was able to maintain composure when it came to big issues.

This was the best mindset in life. One worried only because one felt insufficient. If one already possessed a lot and was still upset, then this person would never be satisfied. At this thought, Saleen began to smile.

One must strive, but to lose oneself in the midst of achieving certain targets was not what a mage should be doing.

“Saleen, are you still troubled over the lack of talent that you can utilize?” Once they had safely reached Metatrin City, Fellet was happy and relieved. It was reflected in the way he spoke. He knew that he was in possession of quite a few items. The elders in Holy Rock City only let him escape because of their carelessness. They must be regretting it now. There was nothing they could do once Fellet reached Metatrin City.

“Yes, Uncle Fellet. The winged skeleton is a powerful spirit of the dead who can help me to solve the issue of combat vessels, but I do not wish for my city to be full of spirits of the dead. Only a few of the people I recruited have proven to be capable. As for the rest…”

“How many people are there in Metatrin City now?”

“I’m not too sure. When I left, those that had settled down permanently were about two-hundred-thousand.”

Fellet was taken aback by this figure. It was not an easy task to build a city with a population of more than ten-thousand. Typically, new cities would take three to five years to be prepared for ten-thousand people. Metatrin City had only been built for a year and it already contained more than two-hundred-thousand people!

“Master, according to the latest records from the town hall, there are three-hundred and forty-thousand inhabitants and that is excluding the noble families and their followers that are seeking refuge here.”

Qin noble families usually took care of their followers. Even if the families encountered difficulties their followers still did not give up on them. Many of the noble families of Phoenix and Luolan had already sought refuge under Lex. Under her orders, a portion of them decided to seek refuge with Metatrin City.

These noble families had many followers. Lex helped Saleen allocate lands to them. The winter here was long and cold. The peasants were usually only able to harvest for one season, but the crops in that season alone was more than two seasons’ worth of crops in the south. Although life was tough, the peasants were satisfied and were willing to continue following the noble families.

These people were authentic peasants and their agriculture abilities were as valuable as the powers of a mage. These noble families each brought along at least more than ten peasant families and some even brought along close one-thousand. There must be at least one-hundred-thousand peasants in total. Many large plots of land in the north of Metatrin City had already been leased out to these peasants.

The noble families had gold coins while Metatrin City had manpower and spirits of the dead, the former were able to build quite a few castles. The north and west of Metatrin City was now filled with many villages.

Before that year’s winter came, the peasants had already harvested. The lands were not properly settled in for agriculture yet the peasants still managed to harvest enough crops to feed themselves. They were already more than content.

The noble families were also pleased that Sika had deployed Caucasus people to patrol around the villages. As a result, there were rarely any beasts for the past half a year. Population was becoming denser. In the near future no beasts would step foot into these areas even without the Caucasus people patrolling.

One could say that Metatrin City was like a city that a Duke would own. If the population continued to grow over to one-million it would be at the scale of a royal city.

“Saleen, there are more than three-hundred-thousand free people in your city. Surely there must be some swordsmen or mages looking for job opportunities. I’m afraid there aren’t any officials in your town hall that conducts screening of skills.”

“You’re right.” Realization dawned on Saleen after hearing what Fellet said. During the fourth dynasty, some big noble families would set up departments in the town hall to recruit talents and groom people from amongst the commoners. They could join the army or be directly promoted to become an official. Such an organization had been lost ever since the collapse of the fourth dynasty.

Only Cloudflow still had such practices, but it was very rare.

“You can do that…,” Fellet whispered into Saleen’s ear.

“I can do that?”

“Why not?”

“Master, it’s not a big deal to set up a fighting arena,” the winged skeleton’s voice appeared in Saleen’s mind.

“Arena, arena…,” Saleen repeated the word. His mind drifted to the historical records on the magic notes.

During the second dynasty, arenas were common and professionals would fight to the death against creatures of all dimensions in order to earn money, ranks of nobility, and honor. It was common for hundreds to die everyday. If a country had one-hundred cities, there would be ten-thousand deaths per day.

Amongst these deaths, at least one-third of the professionals would either die on the spot or suffer severe injuries so much so that they could no longer return to the arena. Those that survived would find it difficult to continue surviving against such strong competition for a long time unless they left early. Usually, eighty percent of the professionals that continued to stay in the arena beyond a year would die. Less than one percent of professionals would still be active in the arena after three years.

Saleen might not be able to search for strong creatures from every dimension to participate in the arena, but he had Three Kings who could summon very strong spirits of the dead. He also had Nailisi who would be able to summon demons so he could still set up an arena if he wanted to.

By doing so he would be creating a lot of unnecessary deaths and injuries though.

The mages at the temple had already gotten news that the pan’s turtle alchemical boat has entered the underwater dock. Nailisi could not wait and led some men to the port first. Saleen had only just left the underwater dock and was walking up the steps leading to land when he was embraced by Nailisi.

“Master!” Nailisi laughd. She used too much strength and almost choked Saleen.

Cuisi saw Nailisi and shivered. He had thought that he could get rid of Nailisi since he had advanced into a supreme demon. Unfortunately, the moment Nailisi appeared, he realized that she had evolved too. The fourth ability must have already appeared and Nailisi’s power had surpassed him again.

Cuisi lowered his head and looked at the ground. He was afraid that Nailisi might know what he was thinking.

Saleen forcefully pushed Nailisi away and coughed a few times before hitting her head and said, “Are you trying to kill me? Can’t you be gentler?”

“Sister Sika hugs you like this too, I saw it before!” Nailisi pouted but did not dare to retaliate. Her strength had increased by leaps and bounds and she was still unable to control it entirely, hence almost choking Saleen.

Saleen was stunned by Nailisi’s words. Nailisi must have secretly stalked them when Saleen was with Sika. It was only at that moment that Saleen was too distracted to sense her presence.

“Where are Daniel and Jola?” Saleen did not wish to continue the conversation and quickly changed the topic.

“Daniel is at the town hall and is extremely busy. Jola is training swordsmen at the campsite. Sister Sika is there too.”

“I want you to personally bring Uncle Fellet and Auntie Lanny to Aini’s mansion and settle them down, then ask Daniel and Jola to meet me at the temple.”

“Yes, Master,” Nailisi grinned and went to greet Fellet and Lanny. Saleen headed straight to the temple under the escort of Caucasus warriors. Three demons that had been following Nailisi set off separately to inform Jola, Daniel, and Lex of Saleen’s return.

Once he returned to the temple, Saleen did not rest. He instead headed straight to the third level to await the arrival of Daniel and the rest. Sika was the first to return with two young Caucasus people. The abilities of these two Caucasus people had drastically improved during the time that Saleen was away. He felt pleased. Jola had not been slacking and Metatrin City’s overall combat skill was still decent.

“Saleen, you are back so early!” Sika smiled, leaving Saleen gasping for breath.

“Isn’t it good that I am back earlier? Originally I had wanted to return in March next year.”

“Early is good, early is good.” Sika was smiling so widely her eyes could barely be seen. She pulled Saleen and said, “Why don’t you and I go to South Court first?”

“There are some things that I need to talk to Daniel about,” Saleen felt awkward and was thankful that Nailisi was not around.

Daniel came very quickly and there were two Sregl Island mages and a Sregl Island swordmaster with him. He had strictly adhered to Saleen’s instructions not to utilize people that were newly recruited.

“My Lord!”

“Ha, Daniel, you are at grade-6?” Saleen noticed that Daniel looked confident and assured. Although the elemental eye could not reveal the grades of death mages, it could roughly see that Daniel’s overall abilities had improved by more than two times since he left. This should be the hallmark of a grade-6 death mage.

“Yes, I have been busy with matters at the town hall so I have been training less. Somehow I advanced unexpectedly still.” Daniel was much older than Saleen. Being able to advance suddenly was good news for Daniel. Once death mages reached the sorcerer phase, the rate of progression would become much slower compared to element mages. Only those that advanced early would have a chance to reach grade-9.

“Daniel, after this, I want to you split up the work at town hall and I want you to take charge of only the important things. Other than that, focus on your training.”

“My Lord, we don’t have enough manpower!”

“There are magic apprentices in the city. Take some in and let Lex’s men train them. We can still begin to start our recruitment of army troops even though we are lacking soldiers and officers. By the way, I have decided to build a fighting arena. Please gather the necessary funds.”

“Fighting arena?”

“Hmm, Judikaka must be so bored. Let’s find some things for them to do to keep them out of trouble.”

At this point, Saleen’s mind was already made up.

When doing something like building a fighting arena, one must not turn back once the decision had been made. There were so many free people in Metatrin City and the number of noble families was many times greater than other big-scale cities so it should not be an issue finding willing donors. Although Saleen’s funds were insufficient for now, they could still come up with something. As long as Lex did not oppose it, this plan could be implemented as quickly as next year.