Badge in Azure

Saleen quickly arranged a time for Lex to advance. Ever since he became intimate with Lex, he now dared to look at her with his elemental eyes. It was only through such an observation that he realized that Lex was already able to advance, but had been suppressing her powers.

Saleen had no intentions of advancing. His singular magic chord would require a lot more time than others in order to advance.

What frustrated Saleen the most was that he would require even more energy now in order to satisfy his badge. Ever since his twenty-four little lightning dragons devoured the magic nuclei and corpse of the grade-10 lightning dragon, they had been in a state of advancement. Their bloodline had advanced to grade-9, but now they had to continuously sleep and eat and shed their skin.

For the past half a year, Saleen had gathered more than a hundred complete pieces of lightning dragon skin. His badge was still empty though. Without the help of the lightning dragons, he would never be able to satisfy the amount of energy required by the badge in two to three years if he only relied on his own power.

Of course, Saleen could also allow other mages to take his place, but the problem was that as the abilities of the badge improved, the negative side effects had also increased. If not for the fact that Saleen has been used to replenishing the energy required by the badge, he would have to suffer in pain.

If an ordinary low-level mage used this badge, they would begin to hallucinate or even have his magic chords collapse. Saleen could not afford to take such a risk.

The only consolation was that the lightning dragons had already grown to twenty yards long. The skin that they shed could be used to make fantastic equipment. This was what every mage could only dream of; a magic robe that could resist electricity.

Mages dared not fly on rainy days for fear of being struck by lightning. If one wore a magic robe refined by the skin of lightning dragons, his safety was more or less guaranteed.

Mages utilized the powers of elements to fly. If they were to be struck by lightning, even very weak lightning, the elements would become chaotic and could become lethal.

Although Saleen possessed the ability of eye of lightning, he still dared not claim that he could fly without any worries. When he refined the fitting equipment for Lex, he also refined his own devil armor.

The benefit of the water flame alchemy technique was that it would not change the original attributes of the equipment, unlike using fire elements. The water flame alchemy technique allowed for all the attributes of the devil armor to be kept even as an entire piece of lightning dragon skin was refined into it.

Saleen did not dare to cross Eleanor’s path, so he only refined a special piece of magic tunic for her. This time around when Saleen came to Daliang City, he only brought along one set of wings of an elf. This was something that was difficult to refine and would also take a long time. There were less than ten of such wings in Metatrin City.

Eleanor adored the magic tunic that Saleen had refined for her. In order to experiment on the wings of an elf, Saleen even refined a crystal mask specially for Eleanor. Eleanor was a grade-6 mage, so she was able to fly. Her flying speed was much slower than wings of an elf.

Beside Eleanor’s small tower in the palace, another magic tower was being built. Eleanor sat on the wings of an elf and circled in the air. Her longbow, Seven Night, was on her back. Eye of an elf was her god-gifted talent. When her abilities reached the level of a grade-7 sorcerer, she could already see as far as a few miles away. The attacking range of Seven Night was all within her sight.

Eleanor smiled because it felt a little like home. The sky was cloudy and rain was almost there, but sitting on the wings of an elf that had been refined by thundercloud wood, Eleanor did not feel a tinge of fear. It felt so good to be looking down at the ground from above. Eleanor spread the gigantic wings of an elf and even as the wind blew past her crystal mask, her eyes were not affected at all.

Eleanor could see from above that a strong and muscular man was entering Saleen’s room. It was Gusion.

At the thought of Gusion, Eleanor felt intrigued. This follower of Saleen’s was too honest. Every time he saw her, he would blush to no end. For someone like him to survive in Sikeqinya for so long, he must have relied on no one but himself and worked hundreds of times harder than anyone else.

Gusion was gloomy as he entered Saleen’s room. When he saw any beautiful lady he would feel very uncomfortable. It was as if he was standing near a gigantic stove.

Unfortunately, there were many of such ladies around Saleen, such as Cuisi.

Of course, Gusion did not know that Cuisi was actually a male demon. When he entered Saleen’s room, he stood very formally at a spot that was near the door and was more than ten yards away from Saleen.

Cuisi was helping the Saleen to sort files into different categories. Ever since Lex entered the magic tower to try and advance to a grade-7 sorcerer, many of the administrative duties in Daliang City had been left to Saleen to handle. That was already the result of many officials coming over from Bitter Water Prefecture to help out. Saleen would not even have the time to refine magic robes otherwise.

Saleen raised his head. He saw Gusion and said, “Gusion, come over here.”

Gusion shuffled his feet with difficulty which amused Cuisi. If Nailisi was around, who knew how she would torment Gusion.

“My Lord!” Gusion’s voice was loud, which accompanied with his looks, left Saleen feeling pleased. This was a valiant general that did not have any bad habits. Although he was not as strong as Su and Jola, he was gifted in leading armies into battle. That was something that Saleen could feel assured about.

“I have studied your sword aura.” Saleen’s words took Gusion by surprise. It was a given that mages were more powerful than swordmasters, but these were two very different fields. For Saleen to say that he had studied Gusion’s sword aura, could it be that Saleen was actually able to harness sword aura as well?

“It is too violent and the damage it can deal is more than sufficient. The weapon is not able to handle the aura though. In the future, don’t use the longsword anymore. Take this.” As Saleen spoke, he took out a dagger that was two-feet long. It was a Sikeqinyan dagger. Its design looked a little ancient and the tip of the blade was not sharp. The blades on both sides were shaped like water ripples as they extended upwards and ended in a gentle curve at the tip.

The metal was dark silver in color and was covered with magic patterns. There was a magic array on the sword handle and there was a place to mount magic nuclei at the very end.

A water magic sword like that was nothing if not wielded by a grand swordmaster. There were no threads or cloths on the handle of the sword.

“It is refined with gorilla metal, secret silver, ice island rock, and rhenium gold. Try it,” Saleen said to Gusion. Gusion felt so fortunate that he could barely stand properly.

Even though he had handled thousands and millions of coins in the past, they belonged to the mercenary group and had to be split up with everyone. What was left for himself was very little. He would never dare to imagine possessing a weapon like this.

In the past, Gusion would walk around equipment stores opened by Qin people when he was free. When looking at all the high-level equipment in the shops, he could only yearn for them, but never buy any. Now, the dagger that Saleen was giving him was more valuable than any equipment he had ever seen. Just based on the material and structure of the equipment, no mage had ever made something specially for him like that.

“My Lord!” Gusion, who had always been used to poverty, was emotional.

“Quick, try it.” Saleen nudged the water dagger forward. Gusion held it in his hands and could immediately feel the sword aura coursing through his body. It was like an extension of his arm and it did not feel out of place. As he swung his hand back, there was an explosive sound as the silver sword aura shot out from the blade of the dagger. With a crash, Saleen’s door was broken into pieces by Gusion.

Gusion blushed even more. He had wanted to stop the sword aura just before it reached the door then disperse it. He did not expect the sword aura’s range to expand so much!

Cuisi laughed and Saleen noticed that this made Gusion feel even more awkward. He took out the scabbard for the water dagger and said, “This is magic equipment that can produce separation and shattering effects. You need to be familiar with it first before wielding this weapon in battle. You will hurt your own soldiers otherwise. This is a scabbard that you can wear around your waist. It will be easier for you to take out the dagger when you need it.”

“Thank you, My Lord.” Gusion took two steps forward and carefully put the dagger in the scabbard. The dagger became much lighter after being put in the scabbard and did not hinder Gusion’s movements at all.

“There is another weapon.” Saleen stood up as he spoke and walked around the table until he reached an empty space. Then, he took out a war banner from the devil’s ring. The war banner was more than four yards tall and was dark red in color. Saleen did not seem very comfortable handling the banner, which he then dropped to the ground.

The pole pierced through the rocky ground without any signs of cracks surrounding it.

“This is the main weapon you should be using to fight on the battlefield.” Saleen released his grip on the banner as he spoke. Gusion grabbed the pole and with silver sword aura coursing through the war banner, he plucked it up with a single hand.

The war banner was blood-red in color and there were magic patterns on both sides. Gusion had no idea what material it was made from, but he recognized the picture on it. A huge green dragon was sewn onto the war banner.

“This is something I refined using the resources from Tiago, the gigantic dragon. In the future, you shall be the captain of my dragon-slaughtering corp,” Saleen explained calmly.

“Tiago, the gigantic dragon…” Gusion did not know what else to say as he was gently swaying the four yard long pole. He could control the silver sword aura in the war banner easily. It was as if the mage that refined the war banner was someone who could also harness the sword aura.

“Gusion, on the day of my wedding with Lex, Cloudflow will definitely attack the city. Everyone in the city will be deployed to fight this war, except you.”

“My Lord, why?” Gusion frowned. The muscles in his body tensed up, causing his armor to creak.

“Gusion, there are enemy spies in the city and there may even be thousands of them. We had to recruit new soldiers, but we cannot guarantee that none of them are enemy spies either. The armies will be fighting at the edges of the city. I will leave the safety of myself and Lex to you,” Saleen said with a smile.

“I… will not let my Lord down!” Gusion spoke the words after much difficulty. He finally understood the meaning of becoming a ‘follower’. He was the person closest to Saleen and so, his responsibility was also the heaviest.

“The dragon-slaughtering corp will consist of twenty-five-thousand men. Right now, you have less than six-thousand, but we can keep it that way first. There is no hurry. All the main forces of each corp are now distributing new equipment. The old equipment will be passed on to the battalion of new recruits. The five-thousand men that you have will follow me. On the day of our wedding, when Lex and I are in our bedrooms, you will protect us,” Saleen said slowly as Gusion nodded enthusiastically throughout.

“The dragon-slaughtering war banner is immune to magic attacks that are middle-level and below. I will send a few mages to train with you. You must be competent in this weapon before the tenth of April!”