Badge in Azure

After Myers Mainland connected to its neighboring planes, they would probably be all kinds of wars. Saleen already had thoughts about conquering the East Sea nations.

However, with the Stormy Sea standing in the way, there was no way for his fleet to carry huge amounts of space equipment to resupply, and it would require a huge number of mages to be assigned to the ships.

Saleen had been searching for purple-gold sea urchin, but he still was unable to acquire 100,000 of them. It was impossible for all armies to carry such equipment. The location of the temple was thus very, very strategic and convenient.

So how do I allow a place 20,000 meters underwater to deliver supplies to the surface constantly?

“Master!” Nailisi reminded Saleen that they reached their destination.

They passed through a courtyard full of weeds, and a four-story palace was right before them. Saleen was unable to fathom the materials the palace was made from even when he got up close. He only knew that building a palace with such materials was a huge waste.

The materials were far better than thundercloud wood. A piece of floorboard alone would serve as a magic shield and would be a waste when given to a level nine warrior.

Saleen saw a piece of cover screen when he walked up the stairs, which was a magic equipment. Saleen was barely able to keep himself from taking the cover screen for himself.

What a huge waste indeed. There was a drawing on the cover screen and a magic array was hidden in the drawing, which would allow the cover screen to form a barrier than was more powerful than level ten earth magic.

Twenty-four women were illustrated on the cover screen. All of them dressed plainly. The only common thing about them all was that they each wore a Ring of Gifts.

The oracles of the goddess then?

There was something like a living room behind the huge cover screen, and it looked very different from the palace’s layout. The inside of the palace looked like common residence.

Saleen had Nailisi shift into her human form instead of taking the cover screen. She held the Sword of Rules just in case. They entered from the side doors, passing through the living room.

There was a courtyard and a four-floored building. Saleen thought for a bit and headed straight for the building.

It was not a palace. Saleen found the study room and a garden behind it. The garden faced a huge window. There was a plant below it, keeping the room smelling fresh.

The fragrance from the plant repelled bugs from the room, and the books on the shelves looked clean, without even a speck of dust on them.

The ordinary, unassuming layout seemed designed by a little girl, without any hint of the regality of level 18 professionals.

Saleen walked behind the study table and sat. There was a letter on the table, sealed by a magic lock. The paper used to make the envelope was incredibly common. It was not that difficult for Saleen to put a magic lock on a table like that. What was difficult was maintaining the lock for over 10,000 years.

Saleen’s finger swiped at the magic lock and infused his mental powers. His magic amplifier was unleashed as well, and his Ring of Cosmos was mobilized.

Saleen’s mental powers raged as they were sucked dry by the magic lock, so much so that a piece of divine crystal that Saleen prepared in advance was reduced to dust.

Saleen slumped onto the table. Nailisi was frightened and went up to him. He stopped her, looking dead tired. “Hold on. I’m just drained.”

The advantage of training his mental powers all year long with his family badge became apparent. If any other mage had their mental powers completely drained, it would harm their bodies.

However, not only was Saleen’s body able to recover quickly, there was few aftereffects. All of that enabled his combat capacity to be kept at tip-top condition, while not affecting his training.

After seeing Nailisi look so worried, Saleen said, “just a small test. The more mental powers I send inside, the greater the benefits I’ll get. The contents of the letter differ according to the level of the one opening it. It was a method employed by mages, and it seemed that Myers did not forget her roots after all.”

Nailisi scoffed but said nothing. She did not want to offend the goddess on what was technically the goddess’ turf. The more temples Nailisi visited, the more apparent the fact that Myers was not someone to be trifled with.

There was no point in poking fun at the goddess. It would be far more satisfying to resurrect her and then kill her with one thrust from her spear.

Saleen regained some mental powers and took out a divine crystal to restore half of his mental powers. Then, he opened the envelope.

There was a magic paper within, and he was very careful with it, refraining from remembering the magic patterns on the paper, using the crudest way—his eyes—to try to read and memorize everything instead.

That magic pattern had been able to preserve the paper for such a long time and maintain its attributes, making the magic pattern extremely precious. The higher a mage’s level was, the higher their requirements of such magic equipment became.

However, high level materials did not come easily. Such methods of modifying common materials were commonly used by powerful professionals.

If the paper were used to make scrolls, they would remain intact for tens of thousands of years.

The words were written in Ancient Myers Language, making it easy for Saleen to read. The very first line was “Revered Sir Mage…”

The magic lock was very intricate. The way the envelope was opened determined the contents written on the paper. Saleen’s mental powers had been reinforced and, when forcefully unleashed, had reached extremely high levels.

The magic lock was incapable of telling that Saleen was just a level ten sorcerer and thought he was beyond level 13.

But there was no mistaking the profession. The way that Saleen used his mental powers was how mages did.

The contents opened with an idiom that Saleen was familiar with: one shall pay for what one desires with an equal price.

Sir Mage, being able to get here means that you’ve put in a lot of effort. As a former mage, I admire your resilience. Your efforts shall be rewarded.

A map was drawn below the paragraph, which showed the small interdimensional space, including some =buildings underground. Everything in the space was drawn on the map. There was a list of items below the map.

Saleen looked and found it to be a huge warehouse. Everything in it was meant for mages. The grandmaster was stingy in comparison. The materials tailored for mages stunned Saleen for quite a bit.

He would not be able to acquire all of that if he was of insufficient level. If he were an assassin, it would display another map instead and there would be a set of coordinates written there. The interdimensional space was prepared for mages.

The Goddess of Myers did not play tricks. Her method was one that mages had been using for tens of thousands of years. Saleen knew that very well.

The warehouse beneath the palace consisted of independent spaces opened by the goddess. There were no suits of armor or weapons, only magic nuclei, crystals, scrolls, pharmaceuticals, gems, and many other rare materials.

The goddess probably only needed to plunder one plane to acquire everything. In comparison, Saleen would probably not be able to amass that much wealth even if he spent 100 years.

Saleen was in desperate need of the materials in his upcoming war with the abomination plane.

“Master, are we going to take the place apart this time?” Nailisi asked.

“Do you have to ask? Of course we’re not taking it apart. We’ll keep this place and use it as a fortress.” Saleen gestured for Nailisi to head to the goddess’ warehouse with him to move its contents. At the moment, Nailisi’s space equipment was far larger than Saleen’s.

The 12 Notes of First Purgatory had space to spare. While there would be problems if they carried living beings, it was ideal for carrying cargo.

There were 24 huge warehouses in the interdimensional space’s underground locations. Saleen speculated that every single warehouse would probably be larger than his own dimension stones.

He had other uses for the dimension stones and had begun to use them sparingly. He let Nailisi move the materials in a frenzy, to prevent the materials from being carted away by others.

His magic power furnaces could make do with magic nuclei from level four red krill, but the ones that he distributed to his mages to be used in battle needed to be different levels.

Saleen rummaged through the magic nucleus warehouse and eventually found two different things.

One was magic nuclei capable of storing divine power, which probably originated from the bodies of magic beasts from divine kingdoms. The other was what Saleen had looked forward to—lightning magic nuclei.

There were more than 600 crates of them and every crate had a capacity of eight cubic meters. Saleen put all of the crates of lightning magic nuclei into his Starline Ring, feeling rather satisfied.

The number of lightning magic nuclei was the smallest in the magic nucleus warehouse. It seemed that even the goddess was not able to hunt too many magic beasts with lightning type powers.

The lightning magic nuclei would enable him to forcefully use the Thunder Dragon Blaster should the need arise. A broken Thunder Dragon Blaster could be repaired.

Most importantly, Saleen could begin to research lightning type magic arrays. Such arrays were incapable of being powered by magic power furnaces; they needed lightning magic nuclei embedded in them.

The goddess had been generous. Saleen’s army could be far larger, and he would still be able to maintain the upkeep.

There were then more than 10,000 mages working at Metatrin City, and Saleen needed to maintain upkeep for at least half of them.

While the mages were all capable of creating value themselves, most of their products were required in battlefields, and they were not allowed to be sold or traded for necessities of the mages. Saleen needed to use his own stores to provide help for the mages.

The mages did not require payment, but working for Saleen meant that they would require magic nuclei for their daily training. Their training would be slowed if there was a shortage of magic nuclei, and that would be something that no one would tolerate.

Even the mages who did not need maintenance from Saleen were unwilling to leave Metatrin City. The prices of magic nuclei that Saleen sold to them at were about one-fifth of the cost in Alchemy City.

All of them had enough of Alchemy City ripping them off, so even though Saleen was able to earn a small profit, the mages still had no intention to leave Metatrin City. All of them signed magic contracts with Saleen.

There was no need to worry about becoming jobless as a mage in Metatrin City. Saleen had too many schematics with him, so much so that despite having over 10,000 mages working on them, it still looked rather inadequate.

It was especially so in times like that. Benefits acquired by the mages were raised by over 30 percent. Saleen’s alchemy factories were online all day long, producing hundreds of suits of armor every day.

“Master, we’re rich!” Nailisi’s comment was straightforward, but Saleen was unable to think of any other way to say it.

He was indeed rich. The amount of wealth was left by the Goddess of Myers as gestures of gratitude for Saleen.

Saleen felt rather reluctant to kill the goddess. Could we actually consider not killing Myers? The goddess is so generous and friendly!