Badge in Azure

Saleen had a positive dream in the morning, but unbeknownst to him, Pope Theisio had a nightmare.

It was rare for a mage to dream, but even rarer for a pope to dream. A mage’s mental strength was concentrated and would not be affected by any external factors, while a pope’s mental strength was protected by their god. Theisio had not experienced a nightmare for over fifty years.

That was why Theisio paid attention to this event, that youth in his dream was leading an army from a foreign plane as they destroyed the Glorious Plains. “This is surely a reminder from God asking me to beware of certain people.”

The problem was no matter how much Theisio valued his dream he could not use a holy decree to disseminate his intentions. He had no choice but to think of another method to solve this problem.

Secretly contacting the people from the inquisition, the pope delegated their missions. The headquarters of the Holy See, the inquisition, and tens of thousands of people were deployed to infiltrate the other three empires stealthily. These people only had one mission; to look for an evil young mage and send information about him back to the Holy City. No one was allowed to act on their own and the target also could not know that the Holy See was searching for him.

The pope did not ask the seven oracles to help with his mission. Until now Fycro’s location was unknown and this caused Pope Theisio to be on guard.

To the colossal Holy See this incident did not send create many shockwaves as the current war was in a precarious state. Loulan was one of the biggest duchies and the Tanggulasi Empire and the Holy See had pumped in more than one-million troops into the battle. This army with more than one-million men, coupled with an even larger logistical support, still could not breach the borders of the Qin Empire despite battling for a long time. It was winter at the moment, which made the Holy See frustrated.

Fortunately, half of Titan Duchy had been seized. Cloudflow’s army had retreated, guarding the borders of Cloudflow tightly. Since Cloudflow’s imperial family did not have the ability to retaliate on land, they deployed three fleets to harass the waters surroundings Tanggulasi Empire. They stood ready to invade the coastal cities.

Back in Metatrin City, the construction of the city had been halted due to the frigid temperatures of the winter season. The population of the city had in fact exceeded five-hundred-thousand. This was a large number, luckily Saleen had already purchased huge amounts of rations and looted some from Cexing City. These free citizens could live a life free of worries.

Nailisi was in control in the temple and the issue of building a demonic city had begun.

The port south of Metatrin City was seven-hundred miles from Metatrin City, a normal warship would need to travel for a dozen hours to reach it. Even the dragon skeleton warship would require six hours of travel to arrive when traveling at full speed. The skeletal warships could travel very quickly, but it still took about eight hours of sailing.

The locally produced white rocks from Metatrin City were slowly taken to the site of the demonic city using Saleen’s Dimension Stones. Saleen then realized that the white rocks from Metatrin City were a kind of invaluable construction material. The toughness of them was comparable to that of steel rocks, the only flaw was that it was difficult to bless them with magic. The colossal number of skeletons summoned by the three kings became coolies, while the slaves purchased from the eastern sea were assigned to carry out the intricate work.

After Cuisi’s drawing of the demonic city was altered by the mages from Sregl Island the workload became increasingly larger.

There was a huge amount of rocks left from the development of Metatrin City because many gigantic rocks had to be flattened. A drainage system also had to be dug under the ground and massive underground warehouses were built. These rocks were stored in the warehouses, they could be used directly. The size of the demonic city was simply too huge, Saleen had no choice but to mine rocks outside the city and send them to the construction site.

The supply of rocks was definitely sufficient. The first structure to be built in the demonic city was a demon-summoning array.

Saleen did not seek Lex’s opinion regarding the construction of a demonic city because Saleen was very sure that Lex would not partake in it even if she nodded her head. Saleen provided all the materials needed for building the summoning array.

Saleen had many magic nuclei in his possession, however, he did not have many of the materials required for building a summoning array. Nailisi had to resolve this problem on her own. Nailisi had amassed more materials than Saleen, but she still had to borrow some materials from the winged skeleton in order to obtain all the resources required to build a demon-summoning array.

It was a summoning array with a diameter of six-hundred yards, such an enormous magic array had not been built on the Myers mainland before. This summoning array had to be fully sealed, which meant that a space spanning six-hundred yards had to be built on the magic array and it had to be a structure without any pillars.

Even a mage would find it challenging to construct such a structure. There was no choice. The core of the demonic city had shifted another dozen miles towards the mountainous region. A lofty mountain on the plains was selected and the demon-summoning array was built inside this mountain.

Saleen had to do this himself, but he also roped in all the mages from Sregl Island. After using magic to surveil the underground portion of the mountain, Saleen used the Current Cutter to cut out a hole in the core of the mountain, expanding from the interior of the mountain to its exterior. All the mages had to monitor the situation simultaneously to see whether the load bearing portion of the mountain was sturdy enough or not. They also had to use magic to reinforce the mountain.

As Saleen and the mages were developing the magic array Daniel led a huge number of spirits to aid in the construction.

At this moment, a piece of information was relayed back by one of the spirits deployed by the winged skeleton. This spirit had discovered a secret resupply point along the eastern sea route. That was an island with a radius of less than one-hundred miles. This island was more than seven-thousand miles from the coasts of Qin, its position was closer to the perilous waters. In a year it would be afflicted with hurricanes for about ten months.

Even though Saleen still had almost ten warships at his disposal, he could not participate in Alchemy City’s mission to look for the route. He could only let the winged skeleton continue monitoring the situation and search for the next resupply point while he would lead the mages and develop the demonic city as soon as possible.

In the blink of an eye it was the end of the year again. The foundation of the demonic city had finally been set in place. Considering the fact that there were tens of thousands of spirits and slaves working at the same time it was actually very slow that the foundation was completed in about three months. Given the frigid climate, Saleen was pretty satisfied with the progress of the demonic city.

This was a city with a diameter of twenty miles, it was colossal. Almost every inch of the foundation was covered with traces of magic. Executing such challenging work, the abilities of Saleen’s mages got boosted by a large magnitude.

Saleen then understood the reason why Lex had set up the role of a lifestyle mage back in Bitter Water Prefecture. By fusing magic into a mage’s daily life, they would surely make progress.

In Metatrin City, springtime came in April and farming could only start towards the end of May. After the completion of the foundation he had the time to return to Metatrin City. The moment he returned he learned that Lex was going to leave.

Saleen dashed to Lex’s residence. In Lex’s residence the swordsmen were packing the luggage. They had changed into new armor, ready to set off anytime. Had Saleen come a day or two later Lex would have departed already.

In the study, Lex was organizing her books. She had been in Metatrin City for about a year now and was operating a few businesses. She had to delegate her work properly before leaving.

Seeing Saleen rush over, Lex asked someone to pour some tea while she stopped working.

“Are you leaving just like that?” Saleen was a little anxious. Metatrin City was currently facing a shortage of manpower. When Lex was around, she would render some help, frequently sending her officers to help Saleen. Given Daniel’s ability, it was impossible to govern such a huge city otherwise.

“Don’t worry. I will leave half of the officials behind, I will only take the elite swordsman’s camp. My ten-thousand men will help you guard the city. Including the fifty-thousand people you have trained in the past year, it will surely be sufficient.”

Saleen then calmed down, Lex was not going to leave for good. “Are you in a hurry to leave because of the issue at the borders?”

“Not really, I am going to bring these ten-thousand men to the borders. I will be returning to Bitter Water Prefecture. The Tanggulasi people in Loulan have launched an offensive, I am planning to use the small path behind Bitter Water Prefecture to attack the Holy See’s army from behind, so as to coordinate with the direct offensive at Loulan’s borders.”

“When will you return?” Saleen asked, feeling a little reluctant.

“Why are you so anxious? I will come back in about a year and a half.” Lex replied with a smile, but Saleen felt a sense of loss. After a year and a half his teacher was also going to arrive. Lex was hinting that the cooperation between the two of them would be perpetuated. Saleen did not want to hear things like that.

Lex smiled, then she suddenly cast the Ice Arrow Spell in an instant, aiming it at Saleen. Instinctively, Saleen used the Icicle Spell to negate Lex’s spell.

“Saleen, did you think that I would not be returning?”

Saleen’s face turned red. Lex’s actions made him recall the time when the both of them were in the hell of god’s punishment practicing magic together for a long time. Saleen had not forgotten it and neither had Lex. “So Lex actually has a place in my heart, but because of my identity, I don’t want to think about such things. Sika had long noticed it, so… so she got to me first. My reaction towards Lex is actually much more slow than Sika.” It had been a year and Saleen only had such feelings when Lex suddenly announced that she was departing.

“Saleen, the camp I left behind isn’t as proficient in field battle as compared to my elite swordsman’s camp. If an enemy tries to invade Metatrin City after I leave, use the perimeter fortresses to blunt their lethality, never go for a field battle. Your army is even lousier in field battles, just camp in the city. In the past year the commercial route from Metatrin to Phoenix has been opened. Some people are surely eyeing this route, you can simply find a random reason to start a war there. I have conquered Cexing City and Huoxing City. I have about five-thousand soldiers stationed there. If you have excess manpower, send some people over.”

“Got it.” Saleen could not think of anything else to say. “Even though Lex is leaving just like that, she still left substantial wealth for me.”

“Other than that commercial route in Phoenix Duchy, don’t touch the other cities. My troops are stationed in Cexing City. The moment any trouble arises you will be fine as long as you monitor the flow of information. Holy Rock City has organized an army with more than one-million troops to invade Loulan. Don’t put your forces in. The moment war starts, the most important thing is to continue developing the wilderness and build small towns so that you can receive the victims of the war.”

“What about yourself?”