Badge in Azure

Mages usually did not care for the customs of the world, but Saleen and Lex were exceptions since they each governed a country. After the two of them had spent enough time with each other, Saleen dutifully returned to his task of helping Lex refine her equipment.

After the shared intimate experience, Saleen could now look at her body openly.

To most mages, equipment was easy to refine, but obtaining the resources was more difficult. Many alchemy techniques had been passed down over the years on the Myers Mainland. Although the water flame alchemy technique was unique on its own, there were thirty-thousand to fifty-thousand types of methods. They differed in speed, quality, and resources used. While Saleen was busy refining a fitting magic robe for Lex, she kept herself occupied by helping Saleen refine a magic staff too.

Lex’s skill in refining equipment was not as good as Saleen. Currently, she was using a ready-made alchemy platform and thousands of small components to construct a three-dimensional alchemy workshop. This workshop was more than three yards tall and a yard in diameter. If the equipment that she needed to refine was bigger than this workshop, she would have to think of other solutions.

Even so, what Lex was doing was quite simple. She was only refining low-level and middle-level death magic staffs.

Refining equipment demanded a lot of one’s mental strength. Lex’s mental strength was comparable to Saleen’s. There were tens of magic arrays in the alchemy workshop. More than a hundred magic nuclei would be used up every time she used the workshop. She was using the damaged magic stone artilleries given to them by Cloudflow to refine the magic staffs.

The magic stone artilleries were made from the bones of high-level magic beasts. Although all the magic arrays on the inside had been thoroughly destroyed, the materials could still be put to good use by mages.

Over in Metatrin City, close to two-hundred death mages were about to arrive. The death mages had all been forced over by the Tanggulasi Empire. The death magic staffs that Lex was refining were for these death mages.

Of all the different types of mages, death mages were the ones that were most useful to armies. They possessed similar offensive prowess to elemental mages, yet they could also summon spirits of the dead that could take damage in place of soldiers. The toxins of spirits of the dead, in particular, were contagious. Just before an undead soldier was about to lose his combat abilities, he needed only to unleash corpse explosion skill to affect enemies within a diameter of ten yards.

The corpse explosion caused those nearest to be seriously injured while those that were further away risked being infected by the fluids released.

As Saleen had refined a similar armor for Sika before, the way he handled the strands made from the tree bark of the divine tree was deft and familiar. Within three days, Lex’s robe was completed. This time around, Saleen did not overwork himself. He still felt extremely tired. After a good rest, he and Lex began to refine equipment for death mages together.

As Saleen had a mage like Daniel amongst his followers, he was very familiar with the equipment of death mages. The purpose of magic robes for element mages was to stabilize the six elements. For death mages, it was to stabilize mental strength instead.

They possessed powerful mental strength. Death mages had to be able to control themselves in order to cast death spells safely.

Lex depended largely on large-scale alchemy gadgets to refine the equipment for death mages. On the other hand, Saleen used the powerful water flames. Both methods were extremely fast, but Saleen’s water flame alchemy technique possessed a huge advantage; he did not require the use of any magic nuclei.

Lex’s method require the use of magic nuclei and also needed alchemy tools of good quality. The good thing was that as long as she had the necessary resources, she would be able to increase the required equipment quickly.

This was the concept behind alchemy factories. While these factories could produce equipment on a large scale, they were also more expensive compared than those a mage might produce. This was because the factory would use up a lot of materials wastefully.

As long as one had the money, the alchemy factory would be able to produce what one needed quickly. Alchemy City was the one that came up with this concept and it was picked up by the low-level mages in Bitter Water Prefecture. After that, Saleen’s apprentices eventually decided to join in as well.

The thing that amused Saleen the most was that Ojarvis had given more than half of the magic nuclei that he had bought from Saleen to give to Lex as wedding gifts. It seemed that Ojarvis did not utilize the national treasury this time around. Instead, the gift was gathered through the abilities of Ojarvis and his clan. The resources in the national treasury must be conserved to deal with the Tanggulasi Empire in the future.

To the west of Daliang City, a distance of more than twenty-two-hundred miles was covered by three cities of similar capacities that were less than one-hundred miles apart from each other. This served as an important defense mechanism. In total, there were about six-hundred-thousand men in these three cities, including auxiliary soldiers. At the same time, there were close to one-thousand of Lex’s mages and apprentices.

Over in Daliang City, Saleen and Lex were busy modifying the armor of their soldiers after completing the magic staffs for the death mages. They had no time to rest. It would be April soon, yet Saleen and Lex did not feel like their wedding was approaching. Instead, they barely slept and had to rely on meditation to maintain their energy.

They had no choice. The number of new recruits in Daliang City was approaching two-hundred and fifty-thousand. By the time April came, the number would surely be more than three-hundred-thousand. Saleen already had ten-thousand elite soldiers by his side while Lex had another one-hundred-thousand. They would form ten battalions in total.

They were no longer outnumbered by Cloudflow.

The only problem was the new recruits’ equipment. Almost none of them were suitable for battle. Out of two-hundred-thousand soldiers, only a few thousand of them brought along equipment that passed Lex’s criteria. If the Qin noble families had not given them so much equipment, she and Saleen would surely have to work themselves to death.

Even at that point, they still had to take charge of the duties of the alchemy factories to modify the armor sent over by the Qin noble families. If there was no way to modify the structure of the armor, then they would change the color and add on Bitter Water Prefecture’s badge. No matter what, they all had to look standardized.

One-hundred-thousand elite soldiers, three-hundred-thousand soldiers of mixed specialties, and more than one-hundred-thousand craftsmen and farmers and family members. These made up the population within Daliang City. Although the enemy was Cloudflow, Lex did not feel nervous or worried.

With one-hundred-thousand elite soldiers to defend the city and another three-hundred-thousand auxiliary soldiers, what could the enemy do to overpower them?

By the end of March, the death mages had finally arrived from Metatrin City. Saleen was excited to see the outside of the city crowded with spirits of the dead. Saleen’s third and fourth battalions were the ones that had escorted the death mages over. No wonder these two-hundred death mages took such a long time. They were delayed by the armies that were escorting them.

Another two of Saleen’s battalions were now by his side. Although they were much weaker than Lex’s armies, they were stronger than the rest of the army. At least in the open field, Saleen was confident that these two battalions would be able to defeat an army made up of one-hundred-thousand soldiers of mixed specialties.

Lex also came to welcome the over one-hundred death mages personally. The proportion of commoners in Daliang City was low, so no one really feared the death mages’ arrival.

The north gate was opened to welcome the spirits of the dead into the city. Bringing up the rear were Saleen’s two battalions. The two battalion commanders immediately bowed when they saw Saleen. Saleen began to ask about Sika.

“Your Highness, the Regent is doing well. She has asked us to bring you a letter.”

There were teleportation portals connecting Daliang City and Metatrin City and could teleport items lighter than five pounds, but at a high cost. Sika decided to deliver a letter that way, but not because she wanted to save costs. She knew that Saleen preferred this method instead. Sika might behave very casually most of the time, but she was still a woman after all. After being with Saleen for so long, of course she knew his preferences.

Saleen tucked Sika’s letter carefully into devil’s ring before letting Cuisi lead his armies into the city.

There were a total of one-hundred and eighty-eight death mages, of which there was one grade-5 death mage and nineteen grade-4 death mages. The remaining were low-level mages.

Death mages advanced very quickly. Although these mages might not be of a high level now, that was because their soul flames were of poor quality. If their death flames could be cleansed again, these mages would advance very quickly all the way to grade-6. They would then be stuck at that grade and would need to take ten times longer than elemental mages to advance into sorcerers.

Even so, if these mages were able to survive the battle, their speed of advancement would not be too slow. Besides, their ability to survive was much higher than elemental mages.

Over at Lex’s palace, Saleen summoned these mages. Close to two-hundred death mages gathered and Saleen had to order people to bring them chairs. He had quite a lot to say so he could not possibly keep the mages standing throughout.

When these mages left Metatrin City, they had been receiving guidance from Daniel for a short while and were already full of respect for him. This explained why they immediately treated Saleen as their leader.

Not only was Saleen a King, he was also a grade-6 grand mage.

Saleen patiently asked for the names of these one-hundred and eighty-eight death mages and used spells to memorize them. Next, Saleen asked them about their equipment and their needs. The mages were very open about it. When they fled from the Tanggulasi Empire, they were forced to abandon many of their items. The highest level amongst them was only grade-5, which meant that none of them were able to use spatial equipment yet.

If not for the fact that each mage was able to summon skeletal warhorses to aid them in their escape, they would have arrived at Metatrin City completely empty-handed.

Although death mages were generally powerful, their opponent was also an important consideration. When the Holy See hunted for them, any lone death mage would not have the courage to put up a resistance.

There were too many mages to integrate them into the armies quickly. Saleen and Lex talked briefly and decided that they would form a regiment of death mages to be involved in any battles at the south gate.

After that, Saleen distributed the death magic staffs that he and Lex had refined. Each death magic staff could only store one death spell and it was most useful for stabilizing mental strength and increasing affinity with souls. To the death mages, the magic staffs that Saleen and Lex had created could definitely be considered high-level equipment.

According to the benchmark, an equipment was considered high-level if it could fulfil more than ninety percent of a mage’s needs. If some parts of it achieved perfection, then the equipment was categorized as a zun holy equipment, or more commonly known as a prop.

If every single aspect achieved perfection, then it was considered a holy equipment.

The equipment that Saleen had refined for Eleanor and Sika was beyond perfection. The resources used were rare and his bond with the two of them was so incredible that the equipment could be considered as semi-Godly items.

The death magic staffs were made of poorer resources so they could only be categorized as props.

The generosity of Saleen and Lex left the mages feeling contented. They would be staying in the palace for the time-being and were not allowed to wander around, lest their spirits of the dead scare the family members of the soldiers. Most of the people here were not from Qin so their immunity against spirits of the dead was not as strong.

After settling down the mages, Saleen returned to his room and took out Sika’s letter from his devil’s ring. With the letter in his hand, he almost could not bear to open it.