Badge in Azure

Gusion took a look at the contents of the bond and heaved a sigh of relief. It was the first time he was looking at a mage’s bond and he had feared that his soul might have to be controlled or there might be demands of him becoming a servant.

The terms and conditions that Saleen was setting for him were instead excellent. Saleen would be responsible for his high-level armor in future. He would not need to be involved in ordinary battles. They would be tasked to those of lower grades. His responsibilities would be to protect Saleen or lead armies into battles. He only needed to focus on training and would not need to worry about socializing.

Gusion’s strength was best demonstrated in battles. Taking on the role of captain had occupied most of his time as he needed to entertain the noble families and find ways for his men to make a living though. As he dripped his blood onto the bond, he felt a lot more relieved.

Over with Lex, she had also signed bonds with the two sorcerers. They finally arranged for the twenty-thousand mercenaries to enter the city.

Gusion’s men were given to Saleen while the remaining mercenaries would join Lex’s armies. The mercenaries were not suspicious at all, as those who had joined Dragon-slaughtering mercenary group at a later stage knew that the families of the mercenaries had already gone to Metatrin City.

The Emperor of Sikeqinya, Danny, did not send any fanciful gifts, but the twenty-thousand men were exactly what Lex needed. The mercenaries were not held in high regards in Sikeqinya. When they left, they had to use their own savings to buy equipment from Danny.

These mercenaries, who were allocated into Lex’s armies, were not favored in Sikeqinya. Even though they were now split up into battalions for new recruits, they had no complaints. They were aware that it was much easier to make money there than compared to Sikeqinya. At least food there was much better.

Saleen and Lex had their disagreements regarding this matter. Two grade-8 sorcerers and one silver grand swordmaster were considered a group of very powerful people. Lex was afraid that it might be a trap.

In the past, Saleen had wanted to deal with Earl Sufonso, so he had studied the aristocratic structure of Sikeqinya as well as the relationships between the noble families and mercenaries. He was not worried about this issue due to that. He knew Gusion too well. Money was the only thing that mattered in Sikeqinya, even amongst noble families.

For someone like Gusion, who was not good at socializing and gaining favors with noble families, was bound to face difficulties in establishing himself. He would not be given good missions, the place he stationed his men was always changing, and the moment there was a hint of trouble in his mercenary group, other mercenary groups would take over.

Gusion advanced into a silver grand swordmaster only in the last two years. Before that, he was only a black metal grand swordmaster. It was always going to be tough leading a mercenary group all on his own.

In Sikeqinya, only those with power and wealth had a say. For someone like Gusion, it was already a miracle that he had managed to survive. Qin noble families placed great emphasis on their behavior, compassion, and pride. This was not the case in Sikeqinya though. Even Tanggulasis people looked down on the Sikeqinyans’ lack of values.

As for the two sorcerers, they were bound by the bonds so there was no need to worry about them.

Generally, most mages did not possess good social skills and the two sorcerers were not exceptions. The teacher of the two sorcerers must have accumulated a significant amount of wealth before his death since the two of them were able to reach grade-8 before finally using up all the money.

What worried them the most was the mercenaries. There was no one that was too powerful amongst them, only a grade-4 mage and a few zun grand swordmasters. Such abilities were equivalent to that of a regiment in Lex’s army and considered to be above average for a mercenary group that was grade-7 and above.

If there were any Sikeqinyan spies, they would most likely be amongst those mercenaries that had been split up. They came from different mercenary groups and the small group only consisted of seven men, so they would not know each other very well. It would be easy to plant a few spies.

Lex needed those men. She needed experienced soldiers urgently. If she rejected these mercenaries, a negative precedent would be set. Those that might have wanted to pledge their allegiances to her would become more hesitant to do so. She and Saleen already had a population of more than twenty-million so recruiting soldiers would not be an issue. The only problem was that Cloudflow would be launching an attack during their wedding in April.

Cloudflow had already built a small city beside the Separation Sea and were prepared to station their troops there for the long-term. There was no point attacking them now. They could only wait for Saleen to find a way to defeat the fleets and block off Cloudflow’s route for retreat.

At the moment, Cloudflow’s logistics were constantly transporting resources over. Even if they were to attack this new city, they would have to pay a high price. Lex did not have as many soldiers as Cloudflow, so they could only afford to defend.

In the end, Saleen proposed an idea. As he was born a Sikeqinyan, he knew that power and wealth were the most important things to Sikeqinyans. He suggested that Lex construct a brand new corp, beginning from number one-hundred.

The more powerful the mercenary group, the higher their number. This one-hundredth corp might feel a little inferior if they were part of a conventional army, but would be very content if they were mercenaries.

After Princess Lex announced she was setting up a large scale corp, the mercenaries’ hearts were won over. They would train alongside the new recruits. Those that performed well would be allocated to the one-hundredth corp.

The basic unit of Qin was a battalion which was made up of ten-thousand main soldiers and between five-thousand to ten-thousand with five-hundred auxiliary soldiers. During battles on open plains, auxiliary soldiers would not be deployed. Only battles that involved the defending or attacking of cities would use the auxiliary soldiers. A newly formed large-scale corp would consist of thirty-thousand men without differentiating between main and auxiliary soldiers.

This decision encouraged even more soldiers to come forth and pledge their allegiances. Lex already possessed enough money, equipment, and most importantly, sufficient grain to support armies. These soldiers that had come forth to pledge their allegiances were mainly from Luolan.

The situation in Luolan was complicated. There were many small troops of soldiers that every country was trying to recruit.

Saleen and Lex never imagined that taking in the Dragon-slaughtering mercenary group would have such a great effect. Daliang City already had ninety-thousand elite soldiers, seventy-thousand auxiliary soldiers, and new recruits. After taking in the Dragon-slaughtering mercenary group, they had close to two-hundred-thousand men. Subsequently, close to a total of one-hundred-thousand soldiers came forth to pledge their allegiances. That was even after selections. Now, the population in the city, including craftsmen and soldiers and citizens, were close to four-hundred-thousand. At the rate that they were recruiting soldiers, it would not be a problem reaching five-hundred-thousand.

What assured the both of them the most was that the number of low-level mages in the city had increased drastically. Most of the low-level mages were groomed by Lex. After leaving Bitter Water Prefecture and splitting up to different places in Qin, they had ended up back in Bitter Water Prefecture along with some middle-level mages that were in Alchemy City previously.

Aside from Lex, Saleen had mages coming forth to pledge allegiance to him. News had arrived from Metatrin City that more than two-hundred death mages had fled from Tanggulasi Empire, Cloudflow Empire, and Sikeqinya Empire and arrived at the city to lend their services.

These death mages knew that there were many spirits of the dead in Metatrin City, so they could roam around the city with their own spirits of the dead.

Now that the Tanggulasi Empire was openly hunting down death mages and the people of the Holy See were infiltrating different empires to assassinate them, these mages had all fled to Metatrin. They heard that the King was fighting in Bitter Water Prefecture, so many of them quickly rushed over.

This was because Sika had set very favorable conditions. If the death mages were to perform meritorious deeds in the battle at Daliang City, their death flames would be given another chance to be cleansed.

Most death mages did not possess death flames of high quality, so it would be difficult to advance. If they were given another chance to cleanse their death flames, the death mages would have an easier time advancing. As for how to cleanse the death flames, that was a problem for the winged skeleton to solve. In any case, he had already absorbed the soul flames of the death kings so this should not be too difficult for him.

These death mages were very trusting because the latest that they had heard a death sorcerer had appeared beside the King of Metatrin. As a result, they completely believed Sika’s words.

Mu En had no idea that he had been used in that way. Every day, he would be in the bone castle being guided by Isabella and the winged skeleton in learning death magic and swordsmanship.

Learning these two skills was more difficult than learning elemental magic and swordsmanship at the same time. Fortunately, the winged skeleton had a death flame that was very suitable for Mu En, so he became a grade-1 death mage very quickly.

What Isabella was teaching Mu En was how to merge the two skills together without them coming into conflict. Since Mu En was already a high-level swordmaster, he would need to slow down the progress of his swordsmanship to allow his death magic abilities to catch up.

There were too many resources from Qin and at least half of them would have to be retained by Bitter Water Prefecture. The gifts from the noble families shocked the officials in Daliang City. These noble families were not so enthusiastic even when the Prince left on an expedition with his army.

There was sorrow in Lex’s heart. Her father did not only resort to brute force to establish good relationships with noble families. After his death, there were still many people that thought fondly of him.

The noble families that were closest to Grand Emperor Chanake were those that sent the most gifts. On the gift list were cipher texts that only Lex could understand. Some key resources could not be written directly on the list.

Lex also understood that these people were betting on her. Once she expanded her lands into an empire their future generations would have another path to advance on after all. Nevertheless, the risk was high, so they must have chosen to do so largely because of her father. These noble families were taking a gamble. Even if they lost, at least they had not let the dead Emperor down.

Once she had the numbers, Lex immediately built a small town that was to the east of Daliang City. The small town was only fifteen miles away from Daliang City and was near the mountains. There were two small paths leading to Bitter Water Prefecture through the mountains that connected the Prefecture to Daliang City.

It was because of these paths that Lex was able to take over the fertile lands of Luolan so quickly and build up Daliang City. The expansion of Daliang City utilized resources transported from Bitter Water Prefecture. The straight-line distance was only over four-hundred miles. If one took the road through the mountains, it was only just over six-hundred miles.

The only troublesome thing now was that too many people had come forth to pledge their services, so they were beginning to face some problems managing them. The new recruits were not of good quality so fighting incidents were common. Fortunately, Lex had many mages, so things were still under control.

A magic apprentice was repairing the sewer when he discovered that a tunnel had been created underneath the city wall. Lex was immediately on high alert.