Badge in Azure

Chapter 307: The Long-term Plan (Part 2)

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

Pasatilo and Kanuka took Saleen’s token and letter, then they left the city base at night. They were accompanied by a boat of sailors, and travel;ed on the same route as the one Lex had used as they made their way to Lianyun City.

Consequently, there were only two grade-4 mages and some low grade mages left in the city base. These two grade-4 mages were older in age, and they had zero chances of becoming sorcerers. They were also more experienced in life. Even though they might not have been of much help on the battlefield, they were proficient in management, and that was why Jason had asked them to assist Saleen.

The three kings might not have been reliable, but they were able to guarantee Saleen’s safety at the moment. As long as Saleen did not leave the shore, he would not need be afraid of the Holy See’s retaliation.

Back on the pan’s turtle alchemical boat, the winged skeleton had already executed all of the black armor warriors. When these warriors had died, some holy texts had been seen escaping from within their bodies. Under the winged skeleton’s control, only a minute amount of holy texts managed to fly out of the alchemy ship.

The Holy See would only receive some vague information which would convey the message that the believers of the Lord of Glory had been tortured by some spirit.

Nailisi had also gradually recovered from her injuries, because of the soul contract between Saleen and herself. In fact, even if the hell’s trial had destroyed her soul space, Saleen would still be able to help her recover. As long as Nailisi’s soul was not broken, it would be difficult for her to die. Now that Saleen had the winged skeleton by his side, Nailisi’s soul could also be converted into a spirit in the event that her physical body was destroyed.

However, Saleen did not want such a thing to happen. He wanted Nailisi to have flesh and a physical body. While he had been in that strange soul space, he clearly remembered seeing that Nailisi’s soul had already been transformed into the shape of a human.

The body of a demon with the soul of a human.

Currently, Saleen still had a swathe of construction materials. At the moment, Saleen could not build a magic tower, because there were no mages around to lead the magic tower. Saleen decided to involve the three kings in the building of the normal structures, since Judikaka would still lend a helping hand in this matter. Anyway, the ones doing the work were only a group of low grade spirits. On the other hand, the mages and swordsmen from Sregl Island would do the complicated work.

The people whom Jason had assigned to Saleen were also well-versed in construction. The city on Sregl Island would often undergo renovations, in order to help train the abilities of the mages. Saleen’s city might have been slightly larger, but the method of construction remained largely the same.

The temple at the center of the city had been constructed. The architecture of this temple resembled that of the Goddess of Myers’ temple. It was just that no gods were worshipped in this temple. Surrounding the temple was the city square which was filled with unfelled trees. All these trees segmented the city square into twenty-four smaller pieces.

The lower level of the temple was going to be used to house the teleportation portal. As long as Lex managed to identify and calculate the coordinates of the interdimensional space, one would be able to enter the hell of god’s punishment from this place. The only problem was that the coordinates might not be very accurate. There were weekly volcanic eruptions in the hell of god’s punishment. If one was teleported over at a time which coincided with the eruptions and their location was also in the vicinity of the volcanoes, then they would be in great danger even if they were a sorcerer.

Surrounding the temple, there were six positions marked for six magic towers, and the rest of the city was built around these locations. Saleen had a thought in mind. Since the temple would not be used for worshipping any gods, he decided that this temple would be a magic temple. In the future, Saleen was going to establish a land of faith for all mages. Alchemy City was too commercialized. It was no longer a paradise for mages.

The more threatened Saleen felt by the Holy See, the more rebellious he became. From Saleen’s perspective, the Holy See was tens of thousands of miles away, yet it wanted to extend its control to such faraway places. It was truly too greedy. Sooner or later, the Holy See’s greed would cause the mainland to be transformed into a bloody battlefield. The fanaticism of the believers could hardly be understood. If a person chose to believe in a religion, it was akin to giving up on themselves. They would only do what their god asked of them, and they would not need to think at all.

That was the flaw which humans possessed. By entrusting their future to a god, they would not need to think anymore and they would not need to work hard anymore either. With a religion, they would be able to enter heaven after death. The believers were courageous on the battlefield only because their god had promised them a passport to heaven, so they had no worries anymore. In fact, some of them even yearned to die on the battlefield.

Saleen was disgusted by this situation. When the Goddess of Myers had been around, she had never allowed the humans to make such wishes. Even though the humans of the past had also worshipped gods, they were never as weak as the humans of today. Lex was trying to help everyone regain their own identities, and that was why Saleen had become increasingly supportive of Lex’s ideas.

However, Saleen could not keep working for Lex, as he had his own ambitions as well. At this moment, he was not just seeking relief and freedom. He also hoped to do something for each and every mage out there, just as Raphael had.

Saleen’s teacher might have also possessed similar ideas. Looking at the map, this city would help magic unleash its full potential. As long as the city was built successfully, it would be a fortress comparable to Holy Rock City. When all thirty-six magic towers were stimulated at the same time, a gigantic space would be formed. Within the limits of this space, no one would be able to fly over it without prior permission. This meant that one could only attack the city using primitive methods. Warriors would need to leap over the city walls and tear down its defenses.

The cavaliers from the Holy See had been killed at Holy Rock City in this manner. Holy Rock City had rendered the high grade holy masters unable to fly in the air. Hence, the Holy See had only been able to use its cavaliers to crash into the city walls. However, those walls were as tough as mountains, thus killing the best cavaliers from the Holy See.

Even though the city designed by Jason was different from Holy Rock City, the logic was the same. A normal city would rely on dense formations of alchemical crossbows to defend itself against any flying mages or flying holy masters. However, Holy Rock City relied on a colossal magic clock. The moment a sorcerer stimulated a sound from the magic clock, neither the mages nor the holy masters would be able to fly over Holy Rock City.

Saleen was full of admiration for his teacher’s design. The entire city was under the protection of thirty-six magic towers. As long as there was a sorcerer in each of the six magic towers, almost half of this city’s power could be unleashed, which would already be enough to secure the skies. Even if there were no sorcerers, having thirty-six grade-6 mages would also be able to achieve the same effect.

Furthermore, the city walls utilized the Dante Sequence, which would make the city harder to invade compared to Holy Rock City. Unfortunately, a huge sum of money had to be used to build the Dante Sequence, and as a result, the city could not be too large in size. However, Holy Rock City was the imperial capital of the empire while this city only belonged to mages. Even if it was smaller, it would already have enough space.

Since Daniel had previously been angered by Banchajanna, he was now closer to Saleen. He was not as petty as he used to be, and was now busily working as he was fully focused on helping with the construction of the city. Daniel also knew that if this city was successfully constructed, he would receive immense benefits because he was Saleen’s follower.

Even though Daniel was from the Tanggulasi Empire and was more afraid of the Holy See than any other Qin mage, he had no other choice. If he was captured by the Holy See, he would be burned alive. In such a situation, anyone else would have also been loyal.

As the city became bigger as time went by, there were many more buildings surrounding the temple now. There were too many white stones, and these were premium construction materials. At the shore, the exterior appearance of a port had already been formed. After large quantities of rocks were extracted, a bay with a faint white hue had been formed.

At the northern side of the temple, Saleen had built a colossal library. Only the Cloudflow Empire had amenities such as a library. However, only the nobles went to the library. Saleen had built this library to cater to the mages. As many mages were poor, they could not rent magic books. Hence, they could only see their time being wasted, and could not learn any new knowledge.

Of course, the library designed by Saleen was not free either. Furthermore, the books could not be brought out of the library. Borrowing a magic book from the library was at least ten times cheaper than if one were to borrow from the empire’s library.

If one wanted to borrow a normal magic book, they would have to spend at least two hundred gold coins to do so. Saleen thus decided to maintain the price at around a mere twenty gold coins. This price would be much more manageable for mages. Saleen never thought of making the books free. If one wanted something, they would have to pay for it. Who would cherish something which was obtained for free?

At the eastern side of the temple, which was also in the direction of the shore, Saleen had carved out a rectangular structure from an enormous white rock. This rectangular white structure was also designed according to the Dante Sequence. Visually, the structure looked like it had been constructed from many pieces of giant white rock. However, it was actually one single body.

This structure was over three hundred meters in length, and was conjoined to the rocks underground. It had been built with a tremendous amount of effort when the drainage system was being built. Saleen planned to house his followers in this structure, and in the future, various amenities would be installed in it. Even though a building which was carved from rock was very sturdy, it could become a little cold inside. Hence, a huge amount of magic patterns were carved inside every room, in order to improve the living conditions.

Even though this building could not amplify the power of mages by dozens of times unlike a magic tower could, it would eventually function like a gigantic magic tower as Saleen recruited more followers.

At the southern side of the temple was a garden. As it was winter, the garden only had a rough appearance. In principle, some ancient dead trees had been conserved, and houses had been carved out of those dead trees. The remaining trees and flowers had not been planted yet, and only an artificial lake had been dug out. As the city was near the sea, it was not realistic to dig a well. The lake was used as a water reservoir. In the event that a war broke out, this artificial lake would be able to guarantee a constant supply of water for the citizens of the city.

At the western side of the temple was a nine story tall building. This building functioned as the administrative center for the city. A city of mages also needed to be managed, similar to how Alchemy City had an organization like the Elemental Hand. The building would be responsible for the operations of the government. And when business delegations arrived in the future, this building would also be used as a meeting venue.

After all these buildings and the six magic towers surrounding the temple were built, the temple would be fully protected. It would be challenging for outsiders to enter the temple. A teleportation portal would be established at this location. Those six magic towers could be used to conceal the elemental vibrations produced by the spinning of the teleportation portal whenever it was utilized.

This was the part of the map which Saleen had altered by himself. He had already meticulously considered all of its aspects. Now that everything had been prepared, Saleen only needed to wait for Viscountess Lex to bring her money and manpower over. Otherwise, the Holy See would definitely arrive here by springtime next year, and a war would be inevitable. Saleen clearly remembered the word which the black bishop had hurled at him – heretic!