Badge in Azure

Daniel thought carefully about what Nicholas said. What he said was right. Although Daniel was given a heavy responsibility in managing such an important city, the other followers around Saleen were closer to him.

It was the noble families that had tried to speak ill of him, so it did not matter as much. What would his Lord do if it were the other followers who did the same thing instead?

“Think about it, Daniel. You are a sorcerer, so our Lord should definitely regard you highly. Death sorcerers possess extremely powerful abilities.”

“I understand now, Nicholas. I will train hard and not forget your good intentions.” Daniel bowed deeply.

“No need to stand on courtesy, Daniel. Now, let’s discuss how we should stop those people that have been spreading rumors and killing the commoners.” Nicholas said with a smile. He was confident of dealing with such matters because the people in the Holy See controlled areas were not pure nor innocent either. Even disciples were not immune to committing crimes and many of the occupations in the Holy See were created in relation to these crimes. The most extreme of them was the Supreme Court.

Daniel began to cast a wide net to arrest the people that had been spreading rumors and hurting the commoners. As for how they would be dealt with after being caught, he could use Sika as a reference, the was she conducted a public hearing and used mages’ lie detection abilities to judge the innocence of the people.

Nicholas was cunning to suggest to Daniel not to rush into making a judgment quickly. Instead, he should first search for the archives of the laws of the fourth dynasty, gather people in secret to find the laws that would suit Saleen’s rule, then add them into the laws of Metatrin Kingdom.

Metatrin City was considered peaceful and orderly compared to the real chaos that was Alchemy City.

From the beginning of that year, Alchemy City had seen a surge of talents into the city. Right then, the number of sorcerers in the city was four times that of the past, while the number of grand mages was ten times what it had been.

As such, the Devil’s Horn and Hand of Mages each began to pull the new mages to their sides. It was the first time there was a hint of disharmony within Alchemy City.

The Hand of Mages was controlled by nine grade-9 sorcerers and was also the organization with the most power in Alchemy City. In comparison, Devil’s Horn and Sregl Island were slightly weaker. Devil’s Horn was the first to discover the surge in incoming talent and was able to pull many sorcerers over to their side though. It was possible that they might even have surpassed Hand of Mages.

The sealing off of Sregl Island was supposed to be for three years, but it was suddenly brought forward by a few months. The people of Sregl Island had appeared and were not afraid of making their presence known in Alchemy City.

Sregl Island was recruiting mages as well, but their requirements were different. They were looking for mages that were young, talented, but did not have an official teacher yet. Once they joined Sregl Island, they had to take the mage’s oath to pledge eternal loyalty to Sregl Island.

The requirements of recruitment were attractive to mages that desired to receive inheritance. Since Sregl Island specifically mentioned that they would not accept anyone with an official teacher, that meant that they were considering passing down real inheritance to those that had joined.

By doing that in such a high-profile manner, it was as if Sregl Island was openly challenging the Hand of Mage’s grip on power. At first, both the Hand of Mages and Devil’s Horn wanted to take over Sregl Island but then, it was Rance who was personally recruiting people over to his side. He had already advanced into grade-9 and had become a powerful sorcerer.

No one had the reason or confidence to take over Sregl Island. The latter could then activate Sregl Island’s enclosed array anytime they wanted. That meant that Sregl Island’s power had been greatly boosted.

In truth, not only had Sregl Island’s power been raised, they had also managed to capture the Fire Element Elves and used them to refine powerful Godly Items, instead of a few pieces of Semi-Godly Items.

There were more than thirty-six sorcerers on Sregl Island, but they continued to recruit mages because they had agreed for Jason to bring thirty-six sorcerers to Metatrin City for further development. The remaining sorcerers would be led by Rance.

For the thirty-six sorcerers that had left, they would only listen to Jason’s commands even though they still enjoyed some of the privileges accorded to anyone from Sregl Island. This was what Jason received in return for giving up Godly Items.

It was not that Jason did not want those Godly Items, but he was fully aware that his student, Saleen, had become extremely wealthy. With the fortune that Jason’s own teacher had left behind for him, he and Saleen would not need any Godly Items. They were more than capable of refining powerful equipment on their own.

It was a sign of outstanding talent that Saleen was able to pick up water flame alchemy so quickly. If the both of them managed to advance to grade-9, their water flame alchemy techniques would be able to complement each other. They would not need any help from a third party. As long as they had high-grade resources, both of them would be able to refine Godly Items on their own.

The thirty-six sorcerers that had been allowed to leave for Metatrin City were extremely important. The level of loyalty they possessed was rarely seen in the outside world as it could only be developed in an enclosed environment like Srgl Island.

Jason still remembered what Saleen said about that mysterious interdimensional space; the Six Elements’ Space left behind by Rafael. If he was able to possess it, he would be able to produce batches of grade-9 sorcerers easily.

There was an entirely independent space in the interdimensional space. Within that space, he would be able to develop many mages and build a country filled with only mages.

Since Jason was bringing away more than half of the sorcerers, Rance had no choice but to recruit more people in Alchemy City. The new recruits were in luck because once they pledged to join Sregl Island, they would really be able to receive magic inheritance.

Jason also needed to bring along many resources from Sregl Island’s warehouse. No one opposed that because the resources belonged to the sorcerers that was leaving with Jason anyway.

Jason has packed his luggage and was only awaiting Rance’s arrival, who was bringing along men to drive the combat vessels that would send them to Metatrin City. Jason’s student should have been doing well by then.

At this thought, Jason could not help but smile.

It was usually a coincidence that mages took in students. Jason was looking for his lodging when he bumped into Saleen, a child that was not suitable to learn magic.

Deep down, it was not that Jason sympathized with Saleen. Mages had no use for an emotion like sympathy. He only felt that his meeting with Saleen was such a coincidence, he wanted to test whether the apprentice rule would be broken by him. If Saleen turned out to be useless in the end, it meant that the mage that had come up with the rule was wrong.

After taking Saleen in as his apprentice, Jason could not help but sympathize with him. Such a hardworking child like him was unable to produce any magic chords! Since then, Jason treated Saleen like his own student and taught him patiently.

When he met Saleen again, the latter had become more impressive and had even managed to get himself into the company of an Empire’s Princess. It was then that Jason managed to obtain the Heart of the Sky. Under his research, he discovered that not only was the Heart of the Sky the thing that powered Sky City, it was also man-made and not some kind of mineral.

Jason could sense the power of the rule embedded within the Heart of the Sky. If not for the power of the rule, how could a small core like that allow a gigantic city to stay in the sky?

It was a pity that the present humans were no longer able to create a city like Sky City ,but fortunately, Jason was able to sense the rule within the Heart of the Sky more and more clearly. With that, he would be able to break through grade-9 and become a grade-10 mage one day.

Was it Saleen who brought him such luck? Jason’s smile grew so wide that even his followers that were familiar with him began to feel creeped out. Had Lord Jason thought of some terrible magic experiment?

The conflict in Alchemy City had begun to worsen. The Hand of Mages was aggressively against what Devil’s Horn and Sregl Island were doing, resulting in the latter two joining forces to push back against the way the Hand of Mages was controlling Alchemy City. Rance was also questioning the Hand of Mages why the culprit of the two sunken combat vessels that had been on their way to Lianyun City had yet to be found.

It was difficult for the Hand of Mages to answer to that because the two combat vessels were supposed to attack Metatrin City. There were tens of sorcerers on the combat vessels, yet none survived. Because of this incident, Alchemy City even sent out diving combat vessels to investigate. They discovered that the two combat vessels were sunk by single-target spells. There was only one gigantic site of damage on each combat vessel.

The mages that managed to observe the combat vessels up close all concluded that the attack was carried out by someone more powerful than grade-9. Such an attack was unheard of as such huge combat vessels were almost completely cut in half and finally broke off as they sank into the sea.

The grade-9 sorcerers of the Hand of Mages were fearful because it was something that was carried out by a grade-10 professionals. It was not that there were no grade-10 professionals in Alchemy City, but none of them belonged to the Hand of Mages, so they would definitely not assist the Hand of Mages in finding the murderer. Grade-10 mages would only be focused on their spells and their training everyday. They would never take even half a step out of Alchemy City.

Without the help of grade-10 sorcerers, the murderer would never be caught even with the combined efforts of the nine of them. That was because the murderer would be able to evade them easily.

Although a grade-10 opponent would be no match for nine grade-9 sorcerers, there could still be occasions where they might find themselves alone and that would be dangerous. The pursuit of the murderer had become an impossible task. The Hand of Mages decided to stop pursuing and give up any plans for revenge.

There had been many conflicts in the past that were never close to seeing blood being shed. Sregl Island and the Devil’s Horn managed to recruit many new recruits. The new recruits had been living in Alchemy City for a few years, but were never favored by the Hand of Mages, so naturally they were discontented with the latter. Since two powerful forces were recruiting them, they could care less about their pride and were all eager to join either of them.

Rance managed to recruit enough mages to fill up the voids left behind by Jason. It was already the middle of July when Jason heard that Saleen was not doing too well, so he quickly rushed to Metatrin City.

Just like that, Jason left in a hurry with thirty-six sorcerers and more than one-hundred grand mages. They traveled in more than ten combat vessels towards Metatrin City.