Badge in Azure

“Poor creature,” Eleanor said looking at the silverline golden spearfish being dismantled by Saleen, feeling rather exasperated. Such a powerful creature of the seas being set up and falling into the trap that was the purgatory of darkness. It eventually ended up helpless and was killed easily by herself.

“What is there to pity about the creature. It didn’t grow this big without killing a good number of magic beasts itself. Eleanor, being powerful, for some people or some magic beasts, is a sin. Every part of this thing is a treasure, and it bumped into me. How could I just let it go? We have Metatrin City and massive wealth, and get targeted by some others all the same. Everything we have will be taken away from us as soon as we lose power.”

“I am an elf,” Eleanor answered with some bitterness.

“It works all the same for elves too. It was said that the elves betrayed the humans back in those days and sided with the gods. Even if that was not the actual truth, the truth wouldn’t have been far off. The reason why the elves did that was for no reason other than for their own profit. What the gods promised the elves didn’t come true, did it?”

Eleanor answered calmly without any reservations, “That was hardly a betrayal. Humans and elves were different races right from the start. The war with the gods was something happening between humans and the gods. Didn’t the humans promise the gods a lot too? What humans and the gods did was actually the same thing. At least from the elves’ perspective, the nature of what happened was.”

Saleen was left speechless. Eleanor was not wrong, speaking from the perspective of the elves. To submit to the gods was something no mage would have agreed to though.

“My liege, I know that the gods aren’t good or wholesome. I was just thinking, there had to be reason why humanity failed after fighting wars with so many planes. A lot of planes were destroyed by humans, and that led to the dissolution of the alliance. Humans, giants, and demons were such an alliance that had a decisive edge against the gods. Why did the army of humans simply vanished? Wasn’t it because humanity had simply gone too far and suffered retaliation from the rules of each of these planes?”

“Retaliation from the rules of planes?”

“The elves think so. You see, the Lord of Glory didn’t even dare to step foot onto the Myers Mainland, simply stopping at spreading his faith and having humans fight each other. Doing so would ensure that the rules of the Myers Mainland would not have punished the Lord of Glory, no matter the outcome. What the humans did back then was different. They just went about tearing spaces and waging wars everywhere they went. Didn’t that kind of violate the rules of the planes?”

“Who knows,” Saleen sighed and continued cutting the fish’s flesh, and memorizing where the silver lines went, as well as the natural magic patterns within the fish’s musculature. “More rules exist above known rules. The rules governing each plane aren’t the ultimate ones. What humans did, was probably for finding even higher rules.”

“Higher rules, huh? What happens if these rules were found? Would humanity have shared these with the elves?”

“If it was up to me, yes.”

“No, you wouldn’t, my liege. You would only share them with me, not the elves as a whole.”

Saleen went silent for a moment before continuing, “Eleanor, if all elves out there were as straightforward as you are, I think I would like the elves as a whole.”

“No. It was precisely because I was being so straightforward, that I got sidelined by everyone despite being of royal birth. I wouldn’t have come to the Myers Mainland otherwise.”

The scales and bones of the fish were all good quality materials, especially the bones. The reason why the silverline golden spearfish possessed frightening speed had a lot do with its bone structure. The strength of its bones were stronger than any material known to Saleen. The bones were flexible beyond his expectations. Such a huge fish would not have been able to be so springy, nimble, or capable of exploding with so much power at a moment’s notice otherwise.

The bones were deemed to be top quality materials for making bows. If it was not for the fact that divine trees possessed powerful attributes, they would have been less suitable than the silverline golden spearfish’s bones when it came to crafting bows.

Being powerful was a sin. If the silverline golden spearfish had not been so powerful, Saleen would not have thought of hunting it down.

While Saleen busied himself with the dismantling of the silverline golden spearfish in the purgatory of darkness, the winged skeleton had taken the pan’s turtle alchemical boat northeast. One ridge after another passed under the ship. The ship was moving at incredibly low speeds, as the spirits onboard were busy packing up the massive number of pearls collected. Nailisi went choosing one by one with greatest interest, hoping to find something that suited her best.

She was trying to design a weapon for herself. The few previous battles made her understand the fact that if she were to keep using her fangs and claws in battle, she would not have been of much help to Saleen as a sidekick.

The hunt for the silverline golden spearfish had them killing thousands of daggers on the side. While Death Ripple was utterly incapable of affecting the big fish, the spell was incredibly effective against the daggers, dealing lethal damage.

Daggers made good prizes themselves, as their fangs could serve well as materials for crafting arrowheads and knives. They also came with mid level magic nuclei of decent quality.

Nailisi went picking away at the pearls, finding all of them to be of the same element: water. The water element pearls were most suited for casting ice type offensive spells — very monotonous. She had not been able to find anything capable of piquing her interest and was very disappointed. Her strongest weapon at the moment remained to be the Dragon Crystal Needles. No matter how powerful the needles were, they were irrecoverable after being shot, unless one did not mind sweeping the battlefield for them after the battle had taken place.

“Nailisi, Nicholas, I have found it!”, the winged skeleton suddenly stopped and had the ship floating near the bottom of the ice sheets. They had been evading a good number of grade-9 magic beasts along the way, and finally found tracks left behind by single-horned white whales twelve miles in front of where they were.

“Master!”, Nailisi went to call her master as soon as she heard that the winged skeleton found tracks left behind by the whales, before recalling that Saleen was inside one of the purgatories.

“Hold on for a second!”, Nailisi went into one of the purgatories as she spoke. There was little else but a pile of bones of more than ninety yards long on the floor. Saleen had finished dismantling the fish, and all that was left to be seen were the bones.

“Master, master!”

“You found the target?”, Saleen stopped what he was doing and put two giant pieces of gills away, ceasing the crafting process with the water flame.

“Just tracks.”

Saleen thought for a bit and said, “Tell Soldier to look for it slowly, and be careful. I’m going to craft a true weapon for you, Nailisi. If you happen to see the whales, don’t do anything.”

“Master, you are not in a hurry anymore?”, Nailisi peeked at Eleanor who was standing nearby, wondering if her master was up to something involving the elf.

“No use rushing things. I’m concerned about running into a whale coming to the cemetery. It wouldn’t be a problem if there was just one, but more than two and I would have to use the badge’s power. Using it once will have me unable to use it for half a year. The cost is just too great. You just wait for me to make you a spear, one that can definitely kill a single-horned white whale.”

Nailisi left the purgatory of darkness while casting suspicious glances at Eleanor.

Eleanor was sharing senses with Saleen at that moment. As Saleen had been in a calm mood, Eleanor herself failed to notice the weird glances from Nailisi. She simply spoke, “My liege. You don’t need me here anymore, so…”

“Eleanor, how far can you see in this purgatory of darkness?”

“Without your Sensory Sharing, not even a yard away,” Eleanor told the truth as it was.

“Train here then. Without being a grade-9, your combat capacity won’t even be one percent of what it should be, in such an environment.”

“My liege, we are running out of time, I…”

“I didn’t let you into the six element space. Didn’t you feel that was rather…unfair?”, Saleen asked out of the blue.

“Why would I? I have a long life. There will be plenty of time in the future for advancement. Entering the six element space would have allowed me to reach grade-9 quickly, but it wouldn’t have done me any good if I wanted to advance further than that. Or rather, it would have proved counterproductive.”

“Glad that you know of that. Your abilities were being limited worse in this purgatory of darkness. Advance here, and you will be able to overcome similar environments.”

Eleanor smiled and nodded, “Alright, my liege. I shall train here. If you needed my bow, just call me out anytime.”

Having shared senses with Saleen had Eleanor confirmed that he did not care for her just because she was a pretty being. That had Eleanor feeling relaxed, yet a bit down.

Back when she was fighting the heavenly angel with the water puppet on the Wings of an Elf in Daliang City, the water puppet protected her with its own body. She was in a rather confused state at the moment, feeling that the water puppet was Saleen himself, holding her in his arms and protecting an elf who had been wandering in foreign lands.

That moment had Eleanor feeling quite a bit of heartache, but happy at the same time. She even felt that she would not have had any regrets dying in battle fighting for him.

Right then however, Saleen’s mood was still like the water element, one without ripples at all.

“This is the most Saleen will ever do for me then…”

Having completely cast off her longing for the marquis, she had made herself a home in Metatrin City. While she felt relieved, and knew well that Saleen would not have bothered her with feelings of love, she nonetheless felt rather distraught.

Her heart seemed empty.

Through the Sensory Sharing, Saleen knew well how Eleanor felt. He took a piece of dimension stone and stored the bones of the silverline golden spearfish within, and said to Eleanor, “Eleanor, I’m your lord, I…”

“Saleen, you are good man,” having shared Saleen’s vision, she was able to see Saleen’s face in the dark, and spoke gently, “This will be the last time, I’m calling you Saleen. From here on out, I will only address you as my liege.”

“Well then, my follower. Please don’t ever leave Metatrin, even if…the passage to the elf plane is opened. You would stay even then, would you not?”

“Yes, indeed, Saleen, I mean my liege…,” Eleanor said as she cut off the Sensory Sharing between her and Saleen. Two tears ran down her face from the corner of her eyes, dropping onto the ground below.

Powerful dark element within evaporated her tears mid-air. Eleanor was but an outsider within the purgatory of darkness, just like she was on the Myers Mainland. She was just a lonely elf.

Saleen was still able to see the tears on Eleanor’s face despite her having cut off the connection. He sighed in his mind. He took out a ring and stuffed it into Eleanor’s hand.

“This is a spatial ring, containing all the equipment I have for you. Go train. Anything you will need, you can find it inside the ring. If…if there are no untoward incidents happening, I will come pick you up when you have advanced into grade-9.”

“Yes, my liege,” Eleanor answered, clutching the ring tight in her hand and walking far away.