Badge in Azure

When Saleen returned back to his bedroom, Sika was already waiting for him.

The purpose of Sika looking for Saleen this time was regarding South City and not about having a child. South City was vacant and was patrolled by Caucasus warriors day and night to ensure there was no trespassing.

South City would not stay vacant forever. As Metatrin City developed, South City would eventually be filled with people and this troubled Sika. Quite a number of Caucasus people had expressed their desires to stay and she feared that they might get into trouble with others in future and prevent Metatrin City from developing smoothly.

After hearing Sika’s concern, Saleen laughed and said, “In future, I will build many alchemy labs and factories in South City so there will not be any merchants’ mercenaries. You can rest assured about that.”

“Factories? Won’t it be dirty and messy?” Sika was worried.

“Those factories will be built underground of East City. Don’t worry, Sika. The residents that will be living with you and your people in South City will be mages or magic apprentices. Their subordinates will not dare to create trouble. There should be another nine magic towers in South City, Eleanor…”

“I like Eleanor’s elf magic very much,” Sika knew what Saleen was thinking.

“Then that’s good. Although elf magic may not be as powerful as element magic in terms of offensive prowess, it is very resilient and can be used in a variety of ways. Eleanor did not stop me from teaching these spells to others because they require natural strengths. I think you should be up to it?”

“If you want me to learn, I will give it a shot,” Sika replied with a smile. She was glad that Saleen was not hiding anything from her.

“Elf magic does not require magic chords and is activated by natural strengths. Some of them can manipulate elemental strength. Basically, it is something in between magic and sword aura,” Saleen explained to Sika. He used his own words to describe the gist of elf magic.

Saleen suddenly stopped in the midst of his explanation and said, “Sika, there is something wrong with your armor. Let me have a look.”

Sika did not understand, but little did she know that in the midst of his explanation, Saleen had suddenly recalled the strange rule within the book that Isabella had handed to him. Although the rule was not related to elf magic, there were some similarities. Saleen seemed to have gained a bit of understanding about it and wanted to test it out.

Sika took out her armor and passed it to Saleen. Saleen cast water flame and the temperature within the room dropped immediately. Saleen threw the armor into the water flame and as expected, the armor disintegrated immediately. As the temperature dropped, the materials that made up the armor were all broken down.

Saleen took out all the metals and discarded them. Then, he retrieved all the materials that he has studied before frome his devil ring and threw them into the water flame one by one.

Saleen managed to obtain the horns of all sorts of ancient magic beasts that have been gathered from the seabed from Nailisi. The horns of magic beasts were the strongest and most resilient body part, even surpassing their claws and teeth.

Saleen slowly refined the magic runes on the horns one by one and refined the latter into thin sheets of leaves. Saleen then took out four types of branches from the divine tree and peeled off their tree bark. The tree bark of the divine tree could not be refined by flame, but in Saleen’s water flame, their shapes began to change into fine filaments. Under the control of Saleen’s mental strength, these filaments formed a complicated set of three-dimensional magic patterns.

These three-dimensional magic patterns resembled those on Saleen’s clan badge.

Three-hundred and sixty pieces of leaves were continually absorbing new magic beast horns in the water flame. They became thinner and thinner until they were almost transparent.

The long rope that was refined from the bark of the divine tree was also becoming thinner until it became a strand of filament. Saleen used this filament to create a three-dimensional magic pattern. Saleen repeated this six times as he threw in bark from the divine tree and compressed magic beast horns that weighed more than ten-thousand pounds into transparent leaves.

Saleen used the strands of filaments made from the barks of the divine tree to sew into a set of clothes that was decorated with the transparent leaves. An armor was formed.

Due to time constraint, Saleen did not infuse any spells or create any magic arrays on this unique set of armor. This was a set of armor that was made from materials of high quality without any magic. It was made from thin strands of filaments and while the six major elements did not create any new powers, they were flowing with unusual harmony and balance.

This balance was very similar to the rule on the cover of Isabella’s book.

This time around, Saleen took out all his dimension stones and aside from twenty-four pieces which he kept, he threw the rest into the water flame. Sixteen dimension stones merged with the armor that Saleen had created. Combined together, they were refined into a belt.

The water flame was also absorbed into the belt along with the armor.

After refining it for more than six hours, Saleen finally stopped and took a deep breath. Unfortunately, he was only a grade-6 mage. If he was a sorcerer, he would be able to infuse magic into this armor.

It was not that big a deal since Sika only needed a suit of armor that possessed strong defense and could repel magic attacks. Although Saleen’s grade was not high, the power of his water flame had even surpassed his teacher. The entire armor looked like something the guards-of-honor in the palace would wear; grand-looking, but defenseless. In actual fact, the materials that made up this suit of armor could repel any magic attack.

Although Sika did not possess elemental eyes, she could see that this suit of armor was something special. The magic beast horns were rare and high-grade magic materials. Each horn was as long as a finger and weighed tens of pounds. After being compressed by Saleen’s water flame and refined into residue, they became even stronger. Although they were so thin to the point of being transparent, their defense abilities were stronger than a heavy shield or even the magic tower shield wielded by big puppets.

Most importantly, Saleen had refined it with magic so the fabric was very soft and felt similar to a skirt. Sika was giggling to herself when Saleen suddenly collapsed.

“Saleen!” Sika caught Saleen in time and prevented him from hitting his head on the ground.

“Tired…” Saleen had wanted to say he was ‘tired to death’, but only managed to utter the first word before falling unconscious. The armor that he had refined for Sika this time was different from those in the past. The temperature of the water flame was kept to the lowest and the focus of his mental strength was terrifyingly high. Not only did he create a three-dimensional magic patterns, he also ensured that the six major elements flowed in balance between the gaps of the threads. This was something that not even sorcerers might be able to accomplish.

Saleen did it. His mental strength was at least on the same level as a grade-8 sorcerer, otherwise winged skeleton would not have been able to advance to grade-8 either.

What Saleen gained from the book far exceeded his expectations. Just by observing the traces of energies on the cover, Saleen’s mental strength improved and he even gained some power from the rule. This reduced the amount of mental strength expended and it could regenerate even as he was using water flame.

Although the speed of regeneration was slower than the expending of the mental strength, it was this ability that allowed Saleen to persist for six hours to finish refining the armor before finally collapsing.

Not even Saleen himself was aware that this meant that his mental strength would not be used up even if he used scrolls below grade-8. Only mages that were grade-10 and above could comprehend the method that operated mental strength in this way.

Spells that were more powerful than grade-9 had a wide range and required a lot of mental strength. Without this technique, even grade-10 mages would not be able handle such an enormous loss.

Sika was relieved to see that Saleen was only unconscious temporarily. She carried Saleen onto the bed before picking up the belt and gently putting it around her waist.

Sika began to chant a long string of ancient sounds and more than three-hundred black-colored runes appeared and fused into the belt. Instantly, patterns made up of black-colored runes appeared on the transparent and jade-like belt. Saleen did not cast any spells on the belt. Instead, Sika used a Priestess’ refining method to gain control of the belt.

The armor that Saleen refined for Sika began to appear above and below the belt and quickly covered Sika’s entire body. This type of magic equipment was something that Saleen picked up from Joey. No one else knew this method of refining. Although the powerful devils on the demon dimension also knew about this method, Joey was probably the only one on Myers Mainland to use it.

If not for the helmet that extended upwards from the neck or the intricate and transparent leaves, this armor would look like a dress instead.

This equipment was beautiful and Sika loved it. There was a hole at the back of the helmet that allowed for long hair to be let down in little bundles. These bundles of hair passed through the collar and the hole and fell naturally onto the shoulders. The holes at the back of the helmet intersected each other and ensured that there was no gap for enemies to attack from.

Such details made Sika feel extremely fortunate. Saleen knew that Sika was beautiful, hence the entire armor was created in such a way that fit her physique. One would only be able to do that if they knew the other person completely.

The suit did not come with gloves or shoes, but that was because Saleen had already collapsed. Once the wrists and ankles were fit with equipment similar to the belt, Sika would be fully protected from head to toe.

This suit of armor was extremely rare on the elf dimension. The Goddess of Myers’ divine trees did not exist in the elf dimension. Even if someone managed to refine a similar armor, it would not have the same level of resistance against magic.

Those transparent leaves were even able to repel arrows from crossbows.

Sika came to the bedside and caressed Saleen’s cheek. Her heart was filled with love. There were so many ancient magic beast horns that they could be used to refine more than 1ten high-level magic armors, but Saleen used them all on her. If Saleen was just a freelance mage then this would not be such a big deal. The fact was that Saleen had just built a kingdom and this was the time when he should be creating many high-level equipments for his own warriors.

This had nothing to do with money. Sika could feel her importance in Saleen’s heart. Sika recalled what Saleen told her back when she was severely injured. He had said, “I am not your Priest. Next time… don’t give up your life for me.”