Badge in Azure

“Myself?” Noticing the look of reluctance on Saleen’s face, Lex said, “The moment war starts, countless of victims will flow into Bitter Water County. Since I don’t have sufficient rations there, I will be have some difficulty. At the moment, I don’t wish to conquer Loulan’s land. I am going to seize the intersection between Titan Duchy and Qin, which is located southeast of Loulan.”

“It will… be difficult to coordinate logistical support there.”

“I am going to occupy it totally, the level of production of grain is very high over there. I am planning to rescue the victims of war in my own capacity and it will be impossible for me to take care of so many civilians just by relying on the barren lands in the county.”

At that point in time Saleen understood that Lex was going to lead an elite swordsman’s camp to war. Holy Rock City had requested for Lex to stabilize the border situation at Phoenix, Qin, Loulan, and Laiyin. This task was a little onerous, but Lex still agreed to it because it was a request from her brother.

There was no need to station so many troops at that place though. This just served to restrain the enemy. Eventually, Lex would only leave behind one camp of manpower, any additional manpower needed could be topped up using mercenaries.

Lex really could not leave too much manpower for Saleen, the places she was going to were the intersections between several nations. They were extremely difficult to conquer. Without sufficient elite troops Lex would be a lame duck.

“Bring one of my camps back, I need to train soldiers.” Without waiting for Lex to reject him Saleen professed his own reason. His soldiers endured the same level of training intensity as Lex’s swordsman’s camp, but many of them had never seen blood or fought on a battlefield before. In this aspect, Saleen’s army was inferior to Lex’s swordsman’s camp. There was a huge difference.

“Okay, but I will command them like my own army. If there are any casualties don’t blame me.”

“Of course, I also want to let Su follow you, he will be the commander of this camp.”

“Can you bear to let Su leave?”

“I cannot teach him the art of war, he has to train with you.” Saleen had steeled his heart by handing his Silver Grand Swordmaster to Lex. By doing so, his city would have one less key helper.

“Okay. I cannot guarantee the safety of your ten-thousand men, but I will make sure Su comes back in one piece. He will at least learn the capability to lead three camps worth of troops.” Lex’s brows arched up as she spoke to Saleen with utmost confidence.

“That is your promise.”

“Of course, if you want to train soldiers, then you need to have a plan. Besides Su, give me another dozen people who are at least at the standard of an intermediate grade swordmaster. They cannot be older than thirty years old. These people can live a long life on the battlefield, it will be worthwhile grooming them.”

Saleen agreed, but he still felt forlorn, “Lex is leaving and she will be away for more than a year.”

“I will hand Narnia over to you, treat her nicely.” Lex suddenly said and Saleen agreed to it. At this point in time the winged skeleton’s voice appeared in his mind, “Master, Nailisi has obtained something interesting, come over and take a look.”

Saleen then came to his senses, “It is useless behaving in this manner. Even though Lex is leaving she will come back sooner or later, it is more important to settle the official matters.” Quickly bidding farewell to Lex, Saleen made a beeline for the harbor.

Currently, the ice on the harbor was very thin, people could no longer stand on it. The pan’s turtle alchemical boat was berthed at the underground boat shed. When Saleen entered the underground boat shed, he noticed that Nailisi and the winged skeleton were together looking nervous.

“What is it you’ve found?” Saleen was a little curious. In the past Nailisi and the winged skeleton had discovered quite a number of sunken ships, they also found a huge number of good items. Objects which did not get eroded despite being underwater for so many centuries were basically high level materials. It was their first time calling Saleen over instead of taking such an item for themselves though.

The winged skeleton and Nailisi were Saleen’s contract creatures. Saleen was not afraid that they would plot against him.

“Take it out now!” The winged skeleton urged Nailisi.

Nailisi took out a Dimension Stone from her bangle, then took out the thing she wanted to show Saleen from the Dimension Stone.

The underground boat shed was humongous. The pan’s turtle alchemical boat floated in the water, while the space on the shore was dimly lit. Several crates were placed on the ground, Nailisi had hauled up all these items from the ocean. The thing Nailisi wanted to give Saleen was placed atop a wooden crate.

When this thing was taken out the whole boat shed lit up. Gentle golden light filled every corner of this boat shed. Placed atop the crate was a mechanical item with a height of one yard.

The whole thing was perfect. It appeared slender and had six corners. The microscopic lines on its surface were concise and no gears nor levers were seen. Its exterior was sealed with only a few magic interfaces. Its golden brilliance was not emitted by magic, it was naturally given off by the material of this machine.

“A metal crystal!” Saleen blurted, the surface of this machine was a whole piece of metal crystal that was gold in color. This was the essence of fine gold. Even an entire mine of fine gold might not be able to produce so many metal crystals.

Saleen fully unleashed the power of the Elemental Eye to observe this mechanical item in detail.

Saleen could not see through it as the whole thing had an exterior shell of the metal crystal, it was likely that the components were like this as well. The strangest thing was the six magic interfaces. Saleen was not familiar with other alchemical parts, but these magic interface had not undergone much changes for the past tens of thousands of years. The whole exterior surface of the machine only had six interfaces. These six interfaces would be connected to six magic arrays, the magic arrays of the six respective elements.

There were no elemental vibrations coming from any of the six magic interfaces. The machine was very clean as if it was just taken out from an alchemy laboratory.

No, even an item taken from an alchemy laboratory would have been subjected to experiments, its magic interfaces would not be free of any hints of the elements.

The entire one yard tall alchemy machine was as clean as the nuclear portion of a dragonshard.

Such a situation was out of the norm. Saleen had never seen, much less heard of such a high level alchemical machinery. “I really don’t know the function of the components inside.”

Seeing Saleen in a daze, Nailisi extended her hand smugly using her long nails to gently tap the roof of this alchemical machine. Saleen wanted to stop her, but it was too late.

Silently, this alchemical machine opened up like the petals of a flower. Saleen did not even catch a glimpse of how such perfect metal opened. Logically, it was not strange that an alchemical machine could be opened using such a gentle method. This alchemical machine opened up so quietly Saleen could not even detect any noises.

Opening the interior of the machine, Saleen saw tens of thousands of minute components. Each one of them was crafted from metal crystals. A metal of such a level could only be crafted by a mage above grade-8. Saleen felt a little dizzy seeing so many components inside this machine.

“Master, look.” Nailisi pointed to the petal-like alchemical machine where there was an empty slot in the middle of it. Saleen’s pupils contracted violently, “That spot is used for containing a dynamic substance, it might be a magic nucleus, or it could be…”

Saleen suddenly recalled that the shape of this empty slot was totally compatible with an item he had seen previously. It was the core of Sky City which Lex had given to Saleen’s teacher.

“Could the Heart of the Sky be mosaicked into this machine? If that’s the case, then this machine is a component of Sky City and it is a core component.”

The part Nailisi touched was the machine’s switch. After the essence of a human was added in it would open up and one would be able to accept the Heart of the Sky. This machine did nott contain any offensive power, but it was extremely sturdy. Every single inch of it had been crafted from metal crystal, even high level magic might not be able to destroy it.

Nailisi touched the switch of the core once again and the alchemical machine closed slowly. Saleen could not see any crevices and could not detect any traces of elemental vibrations.

“Where did you get this thing?”

“From the boxes below.” Nailisi pointed to the pile of crates beside the ocean.

“What is else is inside?”

“Some machine components, the ones which I brought back have not corroded. There are a few hundred ships at the ruins of that shipwreck.”

“A few hundred! Have you found out which era they came from?”

“Master, I didn’t dare disclose this to the other mages, only the two of us have seen this thing. I think they are from the second dynasty,” the winged skeleton answered. Death magic also had alchemy magic and could determine the origin of an item. It was not as accurate as elemental magic though.

“A few hundred, a few hundred ships… don’t you feel that you have fished out too many items?”

Saleen looked at Nailisi and the winged skeleton as this spirit and imp nodded their heads. Of course they would feel puzzled because they did not just begin searching for sunken ships. The farther north they traveled the more sunken ships they discovered. There was no mainland in the north, so why were so many ships laden with cargo going towards the northern waters?

“Do you want to ask Eleanor? She has been on this plane for a long time, she might know a thing or two.” Nailisi advised Saleen.

“Eleanor…” Saleen hesitated, “On the Myers mainland, this elf trusts only me, but her lover might not have died. If that marquis returns alive Eleanor would most likely go back to him immediately. I shouldn’t let her know too many of my secrets unless her lover is dead and she sees his corpse for herself. The core component of Sky City holds a lot of significance to me because Lex had given Teacher the Heart of the Sky and a drawing. Even if the drawing of Sky City is present, Sky City cannot be produced because most of the materials required for building it are obtained from other planes. It is very difficult to obtain them now, but the hardest thing to obtain is this alchemy machine which is used to contain the Heart of the Sky. With this item it will still be very easy to craft a miniature flying installation even if the Sky City cannot be replicated.”

In Saleen’s heart, he really hoped to make a flying magical tower. With this core machine and the Heart of the Sky this wish of his could definitely come true.

“The two of you, draw a map of the route you used to retrieve all those sunken ships. Use a magic compass to deduce the water current and positions of the constellations. I want to do some calculations to find out the destination of these ancient ships.”

Saleen swiftly straightened his thoughts, “Even though I don’t know why these ships converged in the northern waters I can use the Figaro Formula to calculate their destination. This destination might just be the crux as to why there are so many sunken ships there.”