Badge in Azure

Chapter 203: Magic Ship (Part 2)

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

“Yes it is, and it’s the farthest island. Without the ocean, Alchemy City would not have been able to amass so much wealth,” Sumano lamented. Since he was only a disciple, these things were too far out of his reach. He could only console himself by saying that he was also a member of Alchemy City, so all the glory and honor associated with the city would be related to him.

Saleen was very tempted. Hogina seemed to know everything about Alchemy City like the back of her hand, but she simply did not know anything about Saleen’s teacher. The only plausible reason was that Saleen’s teacher was one of the people who had come from those three islands.

To the people of Alchemy City, the three islands were shrouded in mystery. Aside from occasionally leading missions to those islands to supply Alchemy City with large amounts of materials, not much information was known about them.

“Such missions won’t be without risk, right?”

“Yes, but the mages from Alchemy City will not abandon you. If the mission fails, they will have to give you a refund.”

“Mm, help me look for groups which aren’t too big.” Saleen roughly grasped the difficulty of such missions. Missions which involved more than one hundred people were indeed risky, but those under one hundred people had never run into problems yet.

“Then I will help you find some information regarding Devil’s Horn.” Seeing that Saleen never brought up the issue of money, Sumano grew more at ease. Many mages were rich, and if they looked too much into it, they would realize that Sumano actually did not do much work. Since Sumano had accepted such a large sum of money from Saleen, this made him feel uneasy and he did not even dare to enter Saleen’s apartment.

“Alright, give me the information within three days.” Saleen was well aware that people like Sumano existed in every city. These people were struggling for survival on the bottom rungs of society, and no one really showed them any concern. One example was Decca, Saleen’s partner during his youth. Decca had eventually become a bandit as he had been forced down that route by other people. However, people like that also tended to have access to information which no one else would ever attain, so Saleen did not look down on Sumano in the slightest.

The mages in Alchemy City were all highly regarded and admired by others, so they would not give a hoot about this old magic disciple. It was safer for Saleen to extract information from Sumano, as long as Sumano did not go around publicizing it.

Lex was indifferent towards Saleen’s methods. Her agenda for coming to Alchemy City had been to locate Saleen’s teacher, and more importantly, to find out how many assets Alchemy City actually owned.

After autumn, the Tanggulasi Empire would launch an assault against Loulan, and the situation on the mainland would be altered once more. By then, the stances adopted by Cloudflow and Sikeqinya would have been revealed. If these three empires all declared war against Qin at the same time, Alchemy City would become a crucial factor. Until now, no information had been received from the sorcerers deployed by Alchemy City. It was still unclear what they were trying to do in the Tanggulasi Empire.

The Qin Empire had no choice but to have Alchemy City guard the coastlines. The foundation of the empire was built on magic, and the royal family itself had produced many mages in the past, so the empire understood the temperaments of mages very well. If the Qin Empire had carried out a forceful requisition or had chosen to groom mages solely within the royal family, then the empire would have been just another Cloudflow Empire and would not have possessed so much capital already.

At least now, in addition to Alchemy City, any other cities that were slightly larger had a magic tower. Anyone who thought of invading Qin would have to face the grade-6 mages or sorcerers in those magic towers first.

After one thousand years, the policies made by the Grukos family had taken effect. The fates of Alchemy City and Qin had been bound together. Any other dynasties would never have given Alchemy City so much freedom.

Two days later, Sumano delivered a huge stack of information to Saleen. He still did not enter Saleen’s apartment. There was an assignment for Devil’s Horn. This was a sixty mage mission to kill a finless whale.

Mages who came to Alchemy City did not bring too many swordsmen with them because swordsmen were seen as lowly in Alchemy City. For such a mission, a mage would employ swordsmen whom they trusted from the swordsman’s camp. Around one hundred and twenty swordsmen would tag along for this sixty mage mission.

There was also a minimum requirement for mages for this mage mission. A grade-3 mage like Daniel was the bare minimum. Such missions were given a duration of three months at most. After three months, the ship would have to sail back to the Alchemy Port for resupply even if the mission had not been completed.

Since Saleen’s group had three mages and two warriors, he could still hire four more swordsmen as a supplement.

In Alchemy City, hired swordsmen cost more than mercenaries. For this mission, each person had to pay nearly five hundred gold coins. This sum of money had to be spent because the swordsman’s camp in Alchemy City was definitely secure, and the hired swordsmen were more reliable than mercenaries. The swordsmen were pretty useful for hunting magic beasts. Furthermore, danger was greatest out at sea, and with some swordsmen around, those mages would be able to sleep more peacefully too.

After accepting the mission on the first story of the alchemy tower and going to the swordsman’s camp to hire four more swordsmen, there was still half a month left before the start of the hunt. Saleen and his team needed to familiarize themselves with the flow and rules of the mission.

The finless whale was a colossal grade-6 magic beast, and it would not be easy to hunt it at all. However, the finless whale was filled with valuable materials throughout its body, and just the whale oil alone could already fetch a fortune. The magic nucleus in the finless whale was not small either. After segmentation, the size of the magic nuclei would still be comparable to those of hundreds of magic beasts on land.

The whale skin was also a premium material for making magic armor. If the sixty mages were able to hunt three whales during these three months out at sea, they would make a profit. In addition to the mission reward, the mages would also get to keep whatever spoils they got from killing other magic beasts. Alchemy City would only take the commission.

After conversion, a single mission like this would enable each of the sixty mages to earn at least thirty thousand gold coins, provided that there were no unexpected situations. That was equivalent to a year’s work in a large mercenary group.

Alchemy City would not be in deficit either. They only needed to provide the ship, the funding, and several mages to ensure safety, and then they could simply sit back and wait for the harvest. Since the mages in Alchemy City would save three months’ worth of time, their progress with their training would definitely be faster than that of the mages who went out on the mission.

This was just like business. A rich businessman simply provided the capital, and no matter how much their subordinates earned, the businessman would still get the biggest cut of the earnings.

Whatever benefits and gains a foreign mage acquired by working in Alchemy City, a good half of it would go to the city itself. However, there was no solution to this. Without Alchemy City, these mages would not even be able to set sail. Alchemy City was in control of all of the rich resources found at sea.

Saleen and Lex were more seasoned and experienced, and Daniel was feeling the most excited. If this bankrupt mage had not met Lex and Saleen, he would never have been able to survive in Alchemy City, let alone take on missions like this which required collateral.

Each of the three mages needed to pay a collateral of fifty thousand gold coins. If the mission failed, the fifty thousand gold coins would be forfeited. The mages were not only interested in the gold coins, but they also had a chance of obtaining a grade-6 magic nucleus from the mission. Daniel hoped to be independent and self-sufficient. Currently, Lex was providing him with grade-3 magic nuclei in order to sustain his three training sessions each day.

If Daniel waited for his magic chords to recover by themselves, he would only be able to train once a day, and that would cause him to advance very slowly towards grade-4. If he managed to kill additional finless whales during the mission, then he would not need to rely on Lex’s assistance anymore, at least not anytime in the near future.

Saleen did some simple calculations. The collateral for this voyage was already much more than what some large cities collected in taxes.

Sixty mages and one hundred and twenty swordsmen gathered at Alchemy Port. A grade-7 sorcerer was in charge of this mission, but he would not do any hunting as his job was solely to ensure everyone’s safety. Executing the mission were two grade-6 mages. These two mages were used to such missions. They simply instructed the sixty mages to split themselves into groups of five before boarding the ship.

Hundreds of ships were docked at Alchemy Port, and the lengths of some were over two hundred meters. The hulls of almost all the ships were wrapped in metal, and this metal sparkled under the sunlight.

Saleen’s group was allocated into a smaller ship, but this ship was also about sixty meters long. The other two mages in Saleen’s group were not too old either. One looked like he was around forty years old while the other was only in his early thirties.

They were grade-4 mages. Under most circumstances, the two of them were already considered to be impressive since they had attained grade-4 at such an age.

The ship’s destination was Devil’s Horn. The ship did not contain cabins, and the second story was simply an open hall with dozens of tables secured onto the deck. The swordsmen and mages were seated according to their groups. The sailors from Alchemy City had already inspected the ship. Thus, they went to untie the cables immediately, and the ship left the dock under the command of the captain.

Saleen’s hometown was just beside the sea, so he was used to the ocean view. However, he had never travelled in such a large ship before. The fishing boats in Ceylon City were tiny and only allowed fisherman to fish in nearby waters. Once the weather turned slightly overcast, the fishing boats did not dare sail anymore. The only large ship in Ceylon City belonged to Viscount Gugger, but it was used for smuggling items.

The two mages noticed that Saleen and Lex were clad in grey robes, so they did not dare to underestimate them and began introducing themselves. These two mages were actually Qin people. They had been training together since they were young and had the same teacher.

When they had advanced to grade-4, their teacher had suggested that the two of them go out to explore and experience the world. Since they had come from wealthy families, they had chosen to come to Alchemy City without much hesitation.

It was never boring for mages to have conversations with one another. Furthermore, these two grade-4 mages had good temperaments and were knowledgeable, and they were even heirs. Very soon, the five mages began chitchatting with one another. The ship was also sailing increasingly farther away from the docks. The skies were clear, and oncoming strong winds blew into the cabin, accompanied by a slightly fishy smell.

Even though the ship was travelling against the direction of the wind, the captain did not give the order to start the alchemical machine. The ship gradually increased its speed and the shoreline disappeared from view. Flocks of seabirds flew above the ship, and crisp and long tweets could be heard from time to time.

“Andrew, Keegan, meet Mage Daniel. He is a rare death mage.” Saleen noticed that the two grade-4 mages had been somewhat aloof towards Daniel, and knew that it was because of Daniel’s grade. The boundary between grade-4 to grade-6 was not so pronounced, but between grade-3 and grade-4 was a barrier which some mages could never cross in their entire lives.

“Oh, that’s great! We’re so sorry…”

Once they heard that Daniel was a death mage, the two grade-4 mages began to treat Daniel in a friendlier manner, and Daniel could finally join in the conversation.

“Saleen, we will reach Devil’s Horn in a day. Once we’re there, you’ll be able to see the most unique ship on the face of the earth,” Andrew said enthusiastically.

“How unique is it?” As Saleen posed his question, he observed Nailisi and Sika, who were sitting with the other swordsmen. Nailisi was doing fine, but Sika seemed restless. The swordsmen were all striking up conversations with Sika, but none were harassing Nailisi. Nailisi was not uglier than Sika, but throughout the journey, most people were only interested in talking to Sika. Those spirited swordsmen seemed to be uninterested in Nailisi.

“That ship is the dream of every single mage. We call it the magic ship.”