Badge in Azure

Saleen thought about it and said, “I have the Ancient, which requires schematics for repairs. I will, of course, get the materials myself. I take it you will at least have the schematics, no?”

“Yes, of course I do,” the great grandmaster laughed, thinking the master of the demon was indeed more greedy than the demon herself! He took out twelve schematics and handed them to Saleen. The Ancient that Saleen spoke of was only the escort warship of his, but the great grandmaster had mistook him to mean the entire fleet, so he had simply given the entire series of schematics of the Ancient to Saleen.

Saleen did not say anything to correct him, and simply just put the schematics away. The great grandmaster re-crafted the elemental badges for him, all six of them, and Saleen had finally gotten his hands on a dark elemental creature leader. He changed into his new devil’s armor and put on his gloves, as well as the crystal ring of Raphael.

“Great grandmaster.”

“Do you need anything else?”

“Indeed. The skills carved on the gravestones. Can you help me rub them out? My current level doesn’t allow me to do something like that.”

“Not a problem. Just wait for a bit. I will get to you in a month.”

“Thank you, but, Soldier, get the pan’s turtle alchemical boat,” Saleen said to the winged skeleton, who then took out the ship and put it in front of the great grandmaster.

“Alright, I will get it fixed,” the great grandmaster seemed to have developed quite a good impression of the winged skeleton. “The pile of bones is prudent indeed. He didn’t even think of having me fix it despite it being such a big thing. That Saleen on the other hand, is really pushing it. He’s just like that darned demon.”

The pan’s turtle alchemical boat suffered damages several times, the worst of which was being hit by the Sigh of the Earth cast by a Cloudflow sorcerer. The entire exterior was thoroughly fossilized, rendering it impossible to be thoroughly restored. Soldier had repaired the ship with death magic, but the damage suffered on the shell was irreversible. While its defensive properties were enhanced, it suffered a drop in resilience. That made it rather brittle.

If the ship were to suffer another attack exceeding the defensive limitations of the ship itself, it would not just be severely damaged; the entire thing would be shattered completely.

The defense of a pan’s turtle was noted in terms of its resilience. Generally speaking, even if the creature was to suffer lethal damage, its shell would warp instead of being shattered. It was a phenomenon made possible for buffering the impact taken.

The damage dealt by a spell such as Sigh of the Earth was not something even the great grandmaster was able to reverse. A part of the shell was simply fossilized for good, making repairs impossible. The great grandmaster was able to see that the damaged pan’s turtle alchemical boat had even suffered a hard kick dealt by the constructed puppet, warping some of the structures within. The winged skeleton had yet to be able to find the time to look into it.

The great grandmaster sat on the problem for a little while, before reluctantly taking out a forty yard long turtle shell and crafting a new body of the ship for the winged skeleton. It was actually not impossible to re-craft the original pan’s turtle alchemical boat; it was just that metals would be needed to do so, and metals could be easily detected by magic. There was not even one gram of metal in the original ship. Even the magic compass within was something crafted using magic beast bones.

It was only natural for the great grandmaster to keep the ship’s original properties as they were. Since he had already spent so much material on Saleen, he deemed it would not make a difference to give him the pan’s turtle shell too. The great grandmaster had originally intended to craft shields for warriors using the shell.

The all-new alchemy ship had an interior layer which was newly grown, which was why the shell was so thick. He had initially wanted to wait until the shell dried out naturally back when they killed the pan turtle. The wait had lasted way beyond the death of their flesh body, and they were never able to craft shields with the shell.

The way in and out of the hold still used a teleportation portal, but the power was supplied by something else other than magic arrays — magic power furnace. There were two of them. Magic power furnaces had more stability than magic arrays and they cost less to run, but they came with the downside of being difficult to craft. One of the magic power furnaces installed was used as a back-up. One was more than enough to give the new ship specifications exceeding the old one’s.

As for the spirit pool, the great grandmaster crafted something of a smaller size. The pool was still capable of producing twenty-four bone spirits per day, but they were grade-7 spirits, and they all would have a lifespan of about a year. The bone spirits differed from the ones the winged skeleton made himself. They were something similar to the Mechanical Soul, as the spirits possessed mechanical bone structures. They were capable of sealing bloodstones within and would not explode easily still. When the bloodstones did explode, the explosions would be like those from the winged skeleton’s meteor hammer: focused and capable of being released in a very small space. That made them very effective against warships.

Other than installing two magic power furnaces to replace the power magic arrays for the ship, the great grandmaster did not add any other weapons to the design. Everything else was exactly how the winged skeleton designed it, but enhanced in a number of ways.

Saleen saw all that and chose to say nothing. Getting what their master wanted, the winged skeleton asked for a set of spirit armor and a death magic book.

“I have offended the great grandmaster quite a bit anyway, might just as well just go all the way and ask for more. I probably won’t get another chance to after this.”

Only then was Saleen somewhat satisfied. His followers had gotten almost everything they needed. “The person inside the demon’s equipment…about the right time to be come out, eh?” Was all the great grandmaster said after that.

Saleen thought for a bit and entered the purgatory of darkness personally to look for Eleanor. He then brought her out of the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.

“Great grandmaster, this is another of my followers, an elf.”

It was Saleen’s order to have her put her bow and arrows inside her ring. With his Divine Tree Magic Tower given away, all that was left was some of the divine tree’s branches. There were to be no more of those material to be found anywhere else.

“I know, bows and arrows, some gear for replenishing health, and a set of magic armament. She is an elf, though. I don’t have any magic books of those kind.”

“Naturally,” Saleen did not ask for anything else seeing how the great grandmaster simply deciding to give him equipment without him asking.

Eleanor was thoroughly confused. She returned to her training in the purgatory of darkness after getting her new equipment. The great grandmaster began crafting grade-12 magic paper for Saleen then, as well as rubbing out the skills etched on the gravestones. Saleen had all twenty-four of his ancient warriors collect the papers one by one, and had them handed to him.

The great grandmaster insisted on refusing to swap out the tainted blood armor worn by the ancient warriors. While the armor was hardly more than armament issued for elite troops and were not of really high levels, they were nonetheless fitting gear for combat for grade-9 professionals.

Everyone boarded the alchemy ship once it was finished, except the twenty-four ancient warriors. Saleen himself did not stay outside either. He entered Nailisi’s collection of purgatories and took out the tower the great grandmaster crafted for him. He then went inside the tower and took out everything else the great grandmaster had chucked inside for him, and stored them into his Devil Ring.

He searched the inventory of his new Devil Ring after getting the materials. The great grandmaster had supplied him with the magic nuclei he requested, and some things that a mage would require were also put inside the Magical Element Tower. The twenty-four floored magic tower was ready for use. Its super-high defensive capabilities aside, the tower would allow Saleen to perform at his fullest. It was as if he was in a nine-floored tower.

Magic beast bones were also supplied in abundance by the great grandmaster, and all were of high levels. There were no single-horned white whale skeletons though.

Half a month passed in the blink of an eye, and Saleen was called out from the alchemy ship by the great grandmaster. Another ring was thrown into his hand as the great grandmaster spoke, “All skills above grade-10 and below grade-16 in the cemetery were all rubbed out and put in there. If you have needs for low-level skills, go rub them out yourself. If you have no intentions of doing so, I will see you off at once.”

Saleen had been researching the magic power furnace in all those days and had not been minding the passage of time. It was only when the great grandmaster told him that it was time to leave that he realized that he still had a kingdom to run, and staying there to train forever was not an option.

“Hold on,” Saleen extended his hand and stopped the great grandmaster.

“What I gave you was more than enough to cover the worth of your magic tower. Saleen, you are no demon. Don’t be too greedy, alright,” the great grandmaster said in a calm manner instead of lashing out at him.

“No, there is nothing else I need from you, but I can give you this,” Saleen said as he took out the seed of the tree of taboo, and handed it to the great grandmaster.

The moment the seed reached the great grandmaster’s hand, four beam of light flew up from four gravestones. A beam of light flew up from Saleen’s head as well. The beams merged and disappeared.

“That is a grade-18 divine tree seed. Our contracts are fulfilled. Oh, and where is the key you promised?” Saleen asked calmly.

There was silence in the cemetery for quite a moment, then Aragorn, the great general, walked out of his gravestone and stood before Saleen.

They took out a second Astrologer’s Contract and said, “It seems that the astrologers’ words were really accurate, Saleen. This is a mutual non-aggression contract. Sign this, and we will never able to do you any harm ever.”

“Let me have a look,” Saleen did not sign the contract immediately. He took the contract and read every single line of its contents carefully.

The contract was a really fair one. After signing, all undying heroic souls serving under the four major leaders of the Imperial City of the Abyss would never be able to do Saleen any harm. The protection was even extended to cover Saleen’s relatives, subordinates, friends, and even Saleen’s slaves. The undying heroic souls were not even allowed to instruct other parties to do Saleen harm, and that included hiring assassins.

“Why?” Saleen waved the contract in his hand and asked Aragorn.

“If we do not sign this contract, you wouldn’t show up to sign a third one with us one-thousand years later. You have offended the great grandmaster, and I need to keep you assured.”

“Is that so?” Saleen looked at the great grandmaster.

The great grandmaster had a bitter smile on his face holding on to the tree of taboo’s seed. They had not expected that Saleen had something demanded by the contract on his person. With the contract fulfilled, Saleen actually had no further need to return. If Saleen were to not return again, their plans to leave the Imperial City of the Abyss would be reduced to nothing, as there would probably not be another person stepping foot into the city again for tens of thousands of years to come.

To put more aptly, given that Saleen had offended the great grandmaster, and he would likely not allow others to get anywhere close to the Imperial City of the Abyss. That meant that the undying heroic souls would remain trapped at the cemetery for eternity.

“This Saleen is really something. No wonder he wanted to add another line on the contract, which was to have Aragorn see them off safely.”

“Since you people have no way of doing me harm, why should I return?” Saleen smiled and looked at the great grandmaster. He had posed a very serious question. If he was not able to get a satisfying answer, Saleen would not even sign the second contract, and he would definitely not return to the cemetery ever again.