Badge in Azure

Chapter 1362: Sacrifice to the Sword (Part 1)

A tall weapon spirit emerged from the ten-meter-long sword. Saleen unleashed it, seeing how it had been willing to submit to him. The weapon spirit bowed before Saleen and he gave his orders, “You shall control the magic amplifier and the swords.”

“Yes, master.” Golden armor began to coalesce on the weapon spirit’s body. It took hold of the sword and leaped, entering the ring that was the magic amplifier, and became a specter.

The magic amplifier hovered behind Saleen and he no longer needed to transform it into a necklace.

With all three weapon spirits taken care of, Saleen began feeling uneasy about those control methods acquired from another crystal wall system. He could easily manipulate powerful weapon spirits despite being only level-11 while all three weapon spirits were already level-13 beings.

Lacking sufficient energy, the weapon spirit within the magic amplifier had not ignited its divine fire. The other two had done so, however, since they had consumed a huge amount of energy.

If Saleen were to feed a corresponding amount of energy to the weapon spirit of the amplifier, it would have been no problem getting it to ignite a divine fire.

No one else would have believed that a level-11 mage would be able to control three level-13 weapon spirits; even Saleen felt the whole thing was unreal.

But then he had no time to linger on the sentiment. Saleen still had to supervise the enchanters working in the alchemy factories in the crafting of the Tainted Blood Armors after he finished his weapon spirit.

There were too many enchanters working in the alchemy factories, more than enough to have them all work at the same time.

They were churning out all types of weapons non-stop—magic armors, magic weapons, construction puppets, wedge-shaped underwater vessels, various alchemy crossbows, magic cannons, Wings of Elves, large-scale metal flyers, new combat puppets, magic chariots…

The alchemy factories at the Floating City were producing Saleen’s latest designs. There was no need to worry about secrets being leaked: Those who earned the right to get up to the Floating City and enter alchemy factories were people Saleen trusted implicitly.

Some might have worried about having enough troops. Not Saleen. He still had over 80,000 ancient warriors at his disposal. By the time all those warriors were done for, the training of the demon army would have been almost completed.

Furthermore, an unlimited number of demons could have been summoned; regardless of how long the wars lasted, it wouldn’t have been able a problem for him.

What Saleen lacked at the moment was equipment. While alchemy factories at Metatrin City were also producing goods, most of those weapons were meant to be sold. What Saleen was able to arm personally was limited to the temple guards.

Despite this, Saleen had a nagging feeling that something was lacking in that equipment. He was capable of grasping the secret arts this teacher imparted to him after advancing to level-11, which meant that he also had new ideas when it came to crafting equipment.

In general, all the original equipment had to be scrapped and redesigned. Since Saleen had an enormous number of enchanters available, it would have been easy to design what he needed. A single idea of his could have easily been made into hundreds of schematics from which he would select a handful.

Mass production could have begun once he experimented with crafting those designs personally and making detailed modifications.

Saleen supervised the enchanters to mass-produce weapons. Something was off. But what? Sika said she would contact him, but he had not heard from her since she returned to Metatrin City.

There shouldn’t have been any danger to Metatrin City. His teacher definitely would have contacted him if there had.

“Master, help me out.” The weapon spirit of the Floating City—the God of Magic Net—asked for help all of a sudden. Saleen had only realized that the God of Magic Net had sent the magic cube into the space that it carved out, yet it was unable to merge with the cube despite its best efforts.

The materials that the magic cube was constructed from were not of higher levels than those of the Floating City; however, the rules of the magic cube were not something the God of Magic Net was able to master.

Any being at level-13 would have been able to develop basics in mastering rules, but the level of rules of that magic cube far exceeded that of what the God of Magic Net was able to comprehend.

Saleen saw through all of that and said, “No time for slow crafting. Take this instead.”

He took out a bottle of fluid mixed from Six Elements’ Heavy Water and Genesis Stock Solution from his magic amplifier and handed it to the God of Magic Net.

The being was elated. It never expected Saleen to be nice enough to give it something like that.

The Floating City was like the god’s body. Saleen controlled it, but if he were to end up dead and someone else took over, that person had to be of Saleen’s lineage and familiar with the methods of controlling the broken jade fragment.

It would have gained freedom otherwise.

Such methods of control were far more relaxed than soul bonds. That was because of the way it understood it, Saleen’s lifespan would have definitely been shorter than its own. It did not mind being Saleen’s slave for the time being. After Saleen died, no one else would have been able to subjugate it.

The God of Magic Net chugged down a bottle of fluid that was potent enough to kill half the mainland’s living creatures. The weapon spirit of the magic cube that it had been unable to dissolve disintegrated immediately. The secrets of the magic cube were only gradually absorbed by then.

The value of that bottle of fluid would have been on par with the Floating City itself. The God of Magic Net began to focus and refine the magic cube. It breathed a thin mist from its mouth that contained Six Elements’ Heavy Water and Genesis Stock Solution.

The mist diffused widely and eventually encased the magic cube.

The magic cube seemed to have been melted down and disappeared altogether within the world that the God of Magic Net had opened up.

It had only been gone for several seconds before reappearing. The God of Magic Net’s world contracted all of a sudden and frantically put whatever Saleen had stored within into other spaces within the Floating City. The magic cube, on the other hand, expanded instead.

Though the Floating City was quiet, everyone was able to hear a loud bang in their minds.

The re-materialized magic cube shattered in an instant. Its materials were indeed resilient, but the durability of the Floating City was never calculated using levels in the first place. It would have otherwise had holes all over it for banging into birds and whatnot.

Fortunately, it was Saleen’s Genesis Stock Solution that allowed the magic cube to once again materialize and expand outward. The process repeated itself several times, and everyone heard at least nine loud bangs in their minds before the magic cube finally merged with the Floating City.

The space that the God of Magic Net opened appeared in the rooms of the magic cube and was cut into sections. There was a total of 10,000 rooms in the magic cube by then.

Every single room was hundreds of square kilometers. The rooms’ attributes were similar to the original magic cube. It constantly shifted its set of coordinates, making it possible for only Saleen and the God of Magic Net to enter and exit at will.

No one would have been able to lock onto the location of the magic cube without their permission.

The true use of the magic cube, after being merged into the magic net, was to enable the enchanters to finally be free from the risk of attacking enemies from buildings at the lower side of the Floating City. They only needed to be inside the magic cube to attack whatever was outside.

From that point on, defense of the Floating City became very simple.

Generally speaking, a magic building had a difficult time balancing offense and defense. If occupants attacked, they would have had to expose their weaknesses. If they were to defend, their offensive capacities would have been drastically lowered.

With the magic cube and the Floating City merged into a single entity, all enchanters could live in the magic cube indefinitely.

They could rest within the magic cube after their mental powers were exhausted, without having to worry about being attacked by enemies. With the addition of the magic cube, it became very easy to mobilize the magic net.

The weapon spirit of the Floating City—the God of Magic Net—no longer needed to be present to man everything. It could have emerged to fight personally simply by letting the magic cube run automatically.

In addition, when the God of the Magic Net advanced further, it would have been possible for it to create a true divine kingdom within the spaces of the magic cube. By then, the number of rooms would have grown by tenfold, even over 100 times.

Those rooms were capable of serving as the largest warehouses Saleen had at his disposal just as they were now.

Mages at Saleen’s level came to have little need for things like space equipment because they could have easily created them anywhere at any time. But such equipment placed high requirements on their users. When it came to war, the most troublesome thing was logistics.

Saleen’s demon army required massive upkeep as well, requiring great numbers of magic bugs to feed them. Doing so, in turn, also meant having to find places to keep all those bugs. It was unthinkable to always have Nailisi by his side in every single battle.

The Floating City would have served as the most powerful weapon of war, capable of supplying anything an army would have needed regardless of where it went.

Saleen came to develop a deep understanding of the magic cube after it merged with the Floating City. Of course, this was possible after he became capable of such feats.

The magic cube itself was an offensive object, but the cost would have been staggering and defense would have become a problem.

The Holy Rock City addressed this by burying it deep underground and concentrating its defense at the front of the magic cube. It was then made to draw power from the earth to serve as the main source of power for its operations.

The Floating City was a huge mass of energy on its own. The bone crystals of the giant, which consisted of a huge part in the Floating City’s construction, could have been used as consumables at any given moment. Furthermore, the magic furnaces on the Floating City were capable of dissolving anything thrown into it.

The combination of the weapon spirit of the Floating City igniting a divine fire and having a large number of believers meant that the power of faith would have supplied the magic cube with massive amounts of energy.

“Rafel…”

Rafel interrupted Saleen before he could finish his sentence. “My lord, 58 days have passed, which means that we were two days away from having spent two months here. We should head back to Nature City. The Holy See’s army should be at Qin’s borders by now.”

“Yeah, great,” Saleen answered without care… and let the God of Magic Net man the Floating City and take it outside as quickly as possible.

The Floating City slowly rose underwater and headed north. With the magic cube merged inside, it became extremely easy to man the Floating City. Plus, the distribution of energy became reasonable and the fuel cost was also considerably reduced.

That huge tentacle did not attack on the way back. It only twitched and kicked up a lot of dirt underwater after Saleen’s Floating City zipped past, seemingly having forgotten the score over a month ago, and went back to sleep shortly after. Saleen ended up not using any of the measures he prepared.

He originally thought of killing that huge magic beast before leaving just to open a path there in the future.

But the beast refused to attack again and Saleen didn’t want to look for trouble in the fissure. That magic beast would have been at its most powerful within the fissure, after all, so Saleen simply abandoned the idea.

The God of Magic Net immediately suppressed its powers to the pinnacle of level-12 after they left the abyss, not daring to delay even a single second.