Badge in Azure

The mechanical core of the sky city fused with the four divine trees tirelessly, and Saleen began crafting lightning magic patterns outside the prototype of the tower. Lightning was thought to be the most powerful out of all magic patterns and rules known to Saleen, followed by rules of water, and then energy balance. He was also equipped with a kind of magic not known to other mages on the Myers Mainland: elf magic. He did not view such magic to be of any importance prior, and had only seen it as something to boost his knowledge, a footnote in his magic collection. Things were, however, different now.

Creating magic towers using divine trees required aid from elf magic, as elf magic was considered as an offshoot deriving from the fusion of all six major elemental magics. The trees might have been dead, but their attributes remained unchanged. When the construction of the tower was completed, it would be able to grow whisker-like roots at the bottommost floor, enabling the construct to stabilize itself on the ground, by literally rooting itself using earth magic. When it was in the air, wind element magic would be used to enable it to fly and levitate.

The same went with environments like volcanoes and oceans. So long as it was a world constructed with elements, the tower would be able to make a home anywhere.

That was where elf magic came in. The flying tower was not a flight-capable equipment, but something that was capable of functions like any other magic tower. It was also different from magic chariots, as the chariot’s capacity of any kind paled in comparison to the tower in any way conceivable. While the chariot was a movable construct, no mages had ever been said to use a vehicle to replace the roles played by a magic tower.

Nine dimension stones were fused with the magic tower, serving as the space of nine different floors. It was a pity that Saleen did not possess the ability to open spaces. He was not able to expand the space provided by the stones despite using their properties to the fullest. All he was able to do was simply cut the space into nine different spaces of smaller volumes, which were simply twice as large as a usual magic tower’s.

If Saleen was a grade-10 professional, he would have been able to completely fuse the stones within the tower, allowing the space of every floor to be tens of times larger than his own temple.

Such was the modus operandi adopted by ancient humans when they went about invading other planes and plundering each plane’s resources. It had enabled them to transport massive numbers of troops of alien races to fight for humanity. If Saleen’s magic tower was to be capable of such feats, he probably would have to wait until he had unified the mainland under one rule, dissolve his contract with the goddess, and advanced to grade-14, before having the ability to expand the space of the dimension stones.

The properties of the magic tower derived entirely from the sheer strength of its materials, and had little to do with how Saleen constructed it. Saleen’s only true original addition to the construct was the lightning magic pattern on the exterior of the tower.

As the lightning patterns grew in numbers and complexity, his understanding of the magic patterns gradually grew clearer as well. It was a pity that the twenty-four lightning dragons within the goddess’ necklace did nothing else but sleep day after day. They woke up only to molt, before going back to sleep again, making them unable to be of use to Saleen in any way.

If all twenty-four of the grade-9 dragons helped Saleen with crafting the lightning patterns, it would have saved him a lot of time. If they were indeed to help with the task, Saleen’s understanding of the patterns would not have become too immense. It would have been a waste of an opportunity to deepen his comprehension of magic.

Most materials would be destroyed when one’s crafting went wrong. The innate quality of the divine trees meant that failures were no big deal and one could easily start over with the same materials, unless the person crafting items out of them was a powerful person at grade-18. That was the very reason why Saleen, someone with only a grade-8 understanding of things, dared to craft something so powerful.

Saleen hardly ate throughout the time he spent crafting his tower. His only nourishment came from magic liquids, enabling him to replenish the nutrients required to keep himself alive. He stayed in the air for over a month working without rest. The trunks of all four trees emanated a pale golden sheen on the thirty-sixth day, and contracted within. The mechanical core had completely fused with the trees. With a thundering boom, the trunks rammed into each other to signify the completion of the fusion process.

Saleen had only realized then what a waste it was to have used the dimension stones to craft armor for Sika. Those stones could never be restored to their original forms ever again.

He did not regret his decision of doing so. The magical defense of Sika’s armor surpassed Saleen’s own devil’s armor. He was but a grade-6 mage back then, and he had been able to craft an equipment with defense capabilities beyond what a grade-10 mage would have been able to craft. He had nothing to regret, especially when the deed was done for Sika’s sake.

The somewhat crooked shape of a magic tower was formed when the trunks of the four divine trees rammed onto each other. The height of the tower was extended to one-hundred and forty yards. The cubic tower body only had a side-length of twelve yards. There were no windows on any side of the tower. The exterior was covered in layers of lightning magic patterns.

The patterns were connected with one another in intricate patterns, making the resulting image looking like clouds. Such massive equipment could only be stored with a dimension stone. There was no way he could have stored it in his devil ring regardless of how large the space within was. He did not have the mental powers to complete storage in one go.

Dimension stones were handy pieces of items indeed. When Jason had actually given Saleen fifty of them, he had then thought those powerful things were practically everywhere.

When Saleen had finally became rich and powerful, he had little idea of how to repay Jason’s kindness. He had initially wanted to gift his teacher with the precious notes of Raphael, but Jason refused. He had gifted him with even more materials for crafting equipment instead. Saleen had only realized that day how pure his teacher’s intentions were when dealing with him.

All Jason had wanted from Saleen was for his student to be able inherit his magical lineage, preserving his knowledge from the corrosive properties of the thing known as time. Mages were indeed selfish, yet could be so altruistic at the same time.

Saleen’s lightning patterns came, not only from the hides of the lightning dragons, but also from his family’s badge. The intricacies inherent within his badge’s lightning pattern was way more profound than the lightning dragon’s. The lightning dragon’s patterns had the advantage of having high capacity despite having slightly weaker offensive powers though. In Saleen’s perspective, the magic patterns of the lightning dragons were easy to master, yet he had only been able to replicate a portion of the three-dimensional patterns of his family badge. He was utterly incapable of even replicating them, let alone actually understanding the entirety of the art.

The exterior of the tower shimmered with crackling blue electricity running all over the construct. The four trunks fused completely as one. The phenomenon lasted for more than half an hour before the lightning jumps subsided.

Saleen did a rough calculation. He had been casting the equivalent of a level eight magic spell when he fused the lightning patterns, and that had cost him half of his magic chords. With the electrical effect lasting for more than half an hour, he deemed the initial stages of the tower’s construction to be completed.

“Master!”, Nailisi flew up to Saleen to greet him anxiously as the structure of the tower was completed.

“Nailisi, what do you think of this thing here?”

“Very nice, but master, if you were to bring this thing back to the Myers Mainland and use it…”

“When I do put this thing into use, I guess I will have to kill every single one of my enemies then,” Saleen patted Nailisi’s head and smiled.

Saleen, of course, knew of the importance of the magic tower. Even when not used for crafting equipment and simply used as common firewood, a standard-sized piece of a divine tree wood would last for two centuries when used as such. The energies inherent within the divine tree were terrifying. That was the reason why they could attract the attentions of powerful people in the first place.

“Master, how about you fuse my Twelve Notes of Purgatory in it as well. That would be feasible with your water flame alchemy. If anyone dares to sneak inside, we will have a greater chance of killing them!”, Nailisi steeled her mind, readying herself to give up her most precious piece of equipment.

Saleen laughed and pulled Nailisi to the ground. He quickly replenished Raphael’s tower with grade-9 magic nuclei, as his masterpiece of blood and sweat would have been wasted if the space within collapsed.

Only within such a magic tower that elements were in abundance in, and only with such conditions fulfilled, was Saleen able to craft equipment of such capacity.

Sika’s children were able to stand on their own. While Caucasus children were born late, they matured quickly. His children rushed at him when they saw him. Saleen picked them both up one in each arm, and said to Nailisi, “I will give you some materials to repair your Twelve Notes of Purgatory. My tower will one day become something surpassing godly items. There is no need to waste your stuff.”

“Master, this would not be a waste!”

“Heh, Nailisi. Saleen isn’t the type who would be modest when asking for stuff from you,” Sika said, “We will need to go home soon. If your Twelve Notes of Purgatory were to be fused with this thing here, we would have lost one powerful equipment indeed.”

“But master, this thing you crafted–!”, Nailisi was at a loss for words.

“My teacher told me that my lineage of magic practice has no room for retreat. The creation of this tower served as a symbol of severing any means of retreat to me. I will not back down from anything from here on out. I will head to the oceanic ice block and look for the single-horned white whale cemetery. Then I will make this tower fly, and then, hehe…”

“And then, you will become the biggest piece of meat that everyone will fight for!”, Nailisi said glumly.

“Well, I can’t think of anyone who would dare fly in thunderstorms. I will go look for their lair of anyone who dared cross me while flying in thunderstorms. With this tower, I will be able to take on grade-9 mages, even killing them. Tell me, Nailisi, have you ever seen mages carrying their towers with them?”

“No, I haven’t,” Nailisi finally submitted.

“I will truly break through and advance into grade-8 when I leave this place. Nailisi, the powers of everyone on the Myers Mainland are growing. No matter how good we are, there is no way we can be better than everyone else. Please work hard, as I will still need you to protect me.”

“I…I know,” Nailisi recalled that she had not been doing much in bettering herself as of late. She felt a tinge of frustration for it.

“Right, these are the materials I have crafted for you. Add them to your Twelve Notes of Purgatory. With your abilities of restoration alone, you will probably not be able get it fixed in three or five-thousand years,” Saleen dumped a big pile of materials in front of her as he elaborated. Branches, dried leaves, and bark of divine trees were among the pile of material. The main materials of the divine trees were all used up by Saleen, but the huge branches were still in great numbers. The enhancement of the Twelve Notes of Purgatory required incredibly sturdy materials to enable it to stabilize the space within.

“Pa…pa!”, Saleen’s son spoke and he sounded like an angel.

Saleen turned to look at his son, whom he had just handed over to Sika with a surprised look, and pointed at the boy’s face, “He speaks now!?! Wow…”

“You find this surprising?”, Sika asked smugly, “Descendants of Caucasus priestesses are of course smarter than everyone else’s kids. If I was a nature priestess, these kid here would probably be able to get knowledge directly transferred to him. Now we will probably have to wait until he is a teen before he starts developing abilities of those sorts. No worries. Our boy here will definitely be a good mage.”

“You’re not planning to have him become a priest?”

“What priest? This kid here will be the second Caucasus king. I will let the girl be a mage too, instead of having her walk the path I have walked,” Sika’s eyes were shimmering with hints of tears, but looked adamant nonetheless.