Badge in Azure

The remodeling of Metatrin City was still ongoing. As the walls required no reinforcements or repairs of any kind, Jason focused on the layout of the city grounds. When the construction of all thirty-six magic towers had finished, the airspace three-thousand yards above Metatrin City would be rendered a no-fly zone.

Such measures would make the city’s defense on par with Holy Rock City’s. That meant that there would no longer be any grade-9 sorcerers capable of bombing the city from above, as the range of magic attacks rarely exceed three-thousand yards. Some physical attack-based magic spells were able to exceed such a range, unlike elemental attacks. Such attacks would still be rendered completely ineffective when they reach their targets.

Metatrin City became an orderly place after undergoing remodeling from Jason and other sorcerers. The vicinity of the temple was defended entirely by the temple guards. The south of the city was made into a residential area for Caucasus people and the families of the temple guards.

Functions of other places remained unchanged, but the roads were rebuilt. Magical facilities of sorts were also installed into every household.

The hunting fleet returned, suffering losses in the form of several bone warships, but the dragon skeleton combat vessels were able to take prizes in the form of high level magic beasts, which completely made up for the losses.

Two bone warships were even able to take out a severely injured single-horned white whale.

The single-horned white whale was a grade-9 creature, but had the combat capacity of more than a dozen grade-9 creatures. It was so fearsome that krakens would have hesitated to fight it. The creature had been near the end of its life, and swam with all its might to the oceanic ice block–its final resting place. It was attacked by tens of vampsharks on its journey. Killing these vampsharks took a heavy toll on the whale’s stamina, and thus the bone warships were able to take the prize.

The whale was the most powerful creature below grade-10, and the magic nucleus in its brain was incredibly huge, so much so that a spatial crate proved inadequate for storage. A magic nucleus of such a size was enough to be cut into one-thousand standard-sized pieces.

What did that mean? That meant that even if Saleen was to fight wars every day for the next several years, he would not need to fear running out of high level magic nuclei.

Spirits of the dead recorded the fight with the whale faithfully, and that made Saleen shudder. Grade-8 magic beasts were so much more powerful than expected. The whale would have been capable of feats way above grade-9 mages’. The creature still had enough left in it to destroy several warships and killed so many level grade-8 sharks, even being severely injured and nearing the end of its life. Worse still, the leader of said sharks was a grade-9 creature itself.

As he watched the battle with the dying creature and read information recorded on the magic compass, an unbelievable thought came across Saleen’s mind.

There was a cemetery of single-horned white whales in the oceanic ice block, where every whale nearing their end of their lives would go to wait for their end. If they were able to locate the cemetery, that would mean that they would have found a treasure trove containing innumerable giant magic nuclei. Each and every one of the nuclei would be items grade-9 or above. Each and every single-horned white whale of old were, after all, definitely very high level creatures.

Saleen was also clear of the fact that, without the powers of grade-9, there would have been no coming back once one ventured deep within the oceanic ice block.

Levels of magic beasts in the waters were different from humans. Magic beasts of grade-8 or grade-9 would prove to be tough opponents to even for grade-9 sorcerers. The creatures had the advantage of terrain. If humans were to dive deep into the ocean, the drop in combat capacity would have been proportionate with the depth.

Other than that, mining operations at the mineral veins north of the Demon City had commenced. Mages of Sregl Island had also provided the formula to create magic crystals. That meant that Saleen had earned himself another stockpile of supplies for war. While these resources were not renewable ones, they were nonetheless safer options than hunting expeditions in faraway seas.

A supply of slaves and demons would prove adequate to keep the ores flowing from the mines to the alchemic factories in Metatrin City.

The situation with the war on the mainland changed every day, yet there were no signs of bloodshed to be found in Metatrin. Lex finally brought five grade-9 sorcerers from the Hell of God’s Punishments when Nailisi returned.

Lex felt slightly jealous when she saw Sika’s children, the feeling of jealousy grew even stronger knowing that Saleen wanted to take them to train.

Lex kept all that to herself, as she kept telling herself that there would be a day when she would have children with Saleen too. She told herself that Saleen would love her most by then.

It did not take as long as she expected to advance into the rank of a grade-9 sorcerer. The winter was over and the time was May. Greenery was seen everywhere in the Kingdom of Metatrin. Lex composed herself and teleported Saleen, Sika, and Nailisi into the interdimensional space.

The two children smiled all the way under the protection of the God’s ring, ignorant of the pain they would have had to endure otherwise.

Only Jason was able to understand Saleen’s actions. From the perspective of everyone else, what Saleen did was no less than surreal. While it was not a weird thing to bring one’s maid along for repairs, it definitely was unbelievable to bring one’s lover and children along into such an ordeal. If one such mage was without doubt, he might become the most powerful mage the world had ever seen.

They were able to enter the magic tower effortlessly when he arrived at the Hell of God’s Punishments, as Saleen was equipped with the crystal ring. All three of them had been here before, and thus had no problem navigating their way to the tenth floor of the tower.

All floors of the tower had had their valuables picked clean. Saleen’s identity and wealth were different being there that time. He handed a good number of grade-9 magic nuclei to Nailisi to have the tower in full operation, while he went about setting down everyday items.

It took Nailisi a great deal of effort to come see Saleen. She would have missed the chance to come there if she were to arrive days later. Lex was not, after all, a driver who had all the time in the world to transport people here and there. Transporting just one more person took quite a bit of her ring’s powers.

As the journey had not been an easy one, Nailisi vowed to herself that she would dedicate her being to looking after Sika, just so that Sika would not get fed up with her and kick her out of the place. Nailisi knew that she was a sore thumb, more so then than she had ever been before.

When Sika was feeding one child, Nailisi had to keep the other in her arms, soothing the child while walking about. It was an eerie thing for a demon to do, as demon parents would simply throw their children out in the open fields for survival training. Human children were different; they were entirely helpless as newborns, and parents needed to look after them.

After Sika settled down, Saleen headed to the tenth floor to begin practicing. The elements there were very thin, but Saleen was surprised to find that as the magic tower began operating in full capacity. After the required grade-9 magic nuclei were set into place, the tower was connected to the peak of the mountain. Fire and earth elements were extracted from deep within the earth and sent into the tower one wave after another. The defense mechanism of the entire peak was activated in an instant.

It would not have been possible for anyone else to come up to the mountain at that point.

The tower was only equipped with the elements wind, water, light, and dark. They were all forced away from the tower. As the magic tower itself was equipped with elemental conversion capabilities, Saleen was entirely incapable of feeling that he was in the barren Hell of God’s Punishments. He felt no different there than he did back on the Myers Mainland.

Sika was rather happy to have Nailisi to keep her company, as she was not there for a honeymoon with Saleen. She was only there so that Saleen would always be able to see his children right in front of his eyes, enabling him to train without having concerns for them.

Nailisi brought Sika to the twelve Notes of Purgatory when Sika was pregnant, and so the children seemed to feel she was familiar. That must be why they did not cry at the demon’s presence.

While the babies might have been born just a short time before, their innate human instincts nonetheless told them that Nailisi would never harm them, so they learned to cuddle up to the demon. Saleen simply kept meditating where he sat.

The rules of meditation served to do more than recover one’s own mental powers. Saleen only felt the full weight of his lineage, both in terms of importance and preciousness, at that time.

The density of elements within the ten floors of the tower were such that normal humans would die as soon as they stepped foot within. The richness of elements in the tower did not cause Sika’s children any discomfort though. If anything, they seemed to be more vigorous there than they did back on the Myers Mainland.

Still, Nailisi refrained from taking out the twelve Notes of Purgatory. While the children should not have feared the dark purgatory environment in theory, such things were not something one should experiment with. It was saved for later.

Other than meditating, Saleen also read the book Isabella gave him with his Elemental Eye, studying the hidden power of the rules within. While the rules did not seem to be powerful ones, it was nonetheless very important to him.

Saleen knew full well of the huge price he had to pay if he were to gulp down the magic chord medicine, rendering him with only one type of magic chord. Advancement would prove very, very difficult if one’s elemental balance was out. Coming to look at things at that moment, while he had been more hardworking than other mages, had access to far more resources for practice, and seen a lot of action, he would have still been a grade-6 mage if he did not have all that stimulation to push him forward. He would have never been a sorcerer in the first place.

The mages who followed him from Sregl Island were basically grade-6, and white-robed mages were clad in gray robes. His advancement would never have been something to boast about.

The reason why he was able to become a sorcerer was due to the fact that the powers permeating the entire Myers Mainland grew. Saleen never thought himself to be a genius, and he never would have done so.

The rules to such energy balance were intricate; that boosted Saleen’s faith that he could make it beyond grade-9. While Joey had been his target, he knew then that his own teacher was a powerful one as well. At the very least, Jason was an indomitable person in terms of willpower and mental capacity.

Saleen had been unable to figure out those rules. As Raphael’s magic tower began operating, he realized something very important right then. Raphael was able to achieve elemental balance with the extraction of only two elements. Him having one did not seem to pose such a great problem to such achievement after all.

As long as his body was able to meld with his surroundings and perform elemental exchanges any time he wished, he would became a part of the world. That meant that there was no need to remodel his body of water element.

There was no such thing as eternal balance. That book he held, would one day be reduced to ashes too.

Saleen held the book in his hands as his Elemental Eye kept scanning the energy orbits within. Saleen felt that he was able to make sense of the flow of energy within the book without realizing it. He began to feel the influence of the magic tower, and both earth and fire element rushed into the cover of the book.

Saleen was shocked. The energy of the book was scarce, while the elemental powers within the tower were akin to the sea in comparison. His book would have been destroyed by such influx of power!

The boy child smiled at Saleen suddenly, which Saleen was able to see as he lifted his head.

Children had no skills and knew nothing of magic. They did not even know how to talk, yet they were still capable of staying inside the ten floors without any discomfort!

“Ahaahaha!”, the child shouted. Saleen stood up and put aside all the ponderings going about in his mind. He went over and picked his child up from Nailisi, cuddling the boy in his arms.