Badge in Azure

“How come I’ve never heard of this?” not one bit of anger was seen from the great grandmaster.

“That is because it was said by a grade-9 sorcerer. Your eyes obviously would have not seen such a low position. As such, you missed out a lot,” Saleen suppressed his urge to run, and elaborated his point firmly.

“Good point, but, what is…?” the great grandmaster lifted their hand and took off Saleen’s mask, revealing his face. The action broke the last bit of Water Shield on his head. They smiled, seeing the pale marking on the spot between his brows.

“Seems like you have quite a lot of enemies. That is a mark of hatred, I take it. Who gave you that?”

“An adherent from the purgatory plane. A believer of the God of the Underworld, I guess,” Saleen conjured another Water Shield on himself before answering. Saleen had to spend quite a lot of effort to speak underwater.

The great grandmaster did not pay any heed to the souls laughing in the cemetery. They titled their head and took a look at Flare, who was standing behind the winged skeleton. “Five elemental badges? Just five, not the complete set, eh?”

The great grandmaster discovered the Eternal Control shard used for controlling souls embedded in Flare’s brain, but they did take it out.

“Saleen, you are quite capable yourself. Right, Aragorn, what do you need me to do again?”, the great grandmaster stared at Flare, yet their eyes went through the fire elemental creature’s body and gazed meticulously on the Eternal Control shard. It was only then the great grandmaster had developed some fondness for Saleen. He had no understanding of the rules written within the shard, and was unable to see through it. Without Saleen’s guidance, he would have been incapable of studying it.

While the great grandmaster was unable to see through the rules within the shard, he was nonetheless able to sense the connection between the shard and Saleen. Given how the shard was crafted by Saleen, he deemed him somewhat worthy to be spoken to. At times, mages cared little for levels. What they cared more for was the depth and breadth of one’s knowledge.

“Huh, the thing that allowed you to craft a flying magic tower is this core, I take it. With your abilities, that wouldn’t have been hard at all,” the great shadow named Aragorn threw the core of the Sky City over. The great grandmaster took it and peered at it.

“The mechanical core of the Sky City? It’s just a magic tower without Heart of the Sky, seems rather easy. Alright Saleen, I will craft you a flying magic tower. It will be more powerful than the one you have now. Such a waste of good material. Grade-18 stuff, and still something is able to leave such a big footprint on it!”

“That is my work. You have any problem with it?” a green silhouette walked from a gravestone from afar, donning a set of savage-looking armor. There were hundreds of magic beast heads carvinged all over the armor. The being’s face was covered with a mask in the image of a devil.

The great grandmaster went silent after seeing the warrior’s soul. He instead drew a line with his finger in the air. It tore the space and the great grandmaster took a big pile of material from within. He then began crafting a flying tower for Saleen.

Saleen was astonished to witness such a terrifying scene. The great grandmaster existed only in the form of a soul, yet was able to tear spaces and extract things stored within. If such powers were to be used against him, Saleen would be unable to keep himself in one piece.

Seeing that the great grandmaster had yielded, the warrior’s soul retreated into the gravestone.

Saleen stopped paying attention to anything else, and simply stared at the great grandmaster crafting a flying magic tower. His Elemental Eye might not have been able to allow him to learn secrets, but it would at least allow him to pick up basics. Saleen was a man who greatly valued the basics of things. Being able to learn the basics of the great grandmaster’s art at alchemy would be a great reward in itself.

The great grandmaster’s alchemic methods were dizzying to watch for Saleen. The hundred yard tall great grandmaster extracted large amount of elements from his own dimension. He proceeded to press them into elementites with both his hands.

Elementites were materials that no longer existed in any plane, and mages created them simply by compressing elements. No elementite had been seen on the Myers Mainland for ages, making them effectively extinct. Despite that the great grandmaster was able to simply use its ethereal hands to press elements into such rocks. Saleen sighed, knowing that he would not be able to pick up even bits of such alchemic methods.

The elementites compressed using the six major elements were linked together, and then stacked in layers. Each layer made a nine yard tall floor. With the tower having twenty-four floors, the tower was two-hundred and sixteen yards tall. The nine yard tall floors of the tower differed from the Myers Mainland’s standard of six yards. Each face of the hexagonal shape was also nine yards long.

That was simply the beginning. Saleen then saw the great grandmaster taking out numbers of elementite that he did not bother counting, and threw them into the crafting process of the magic tower. The crevices between large pieces of elementite were patched by the great grandmaster using dimension stones. Doing so enabled the elementites to have independent spaces from each other. The crevices were no longer weaknesses, but internal spaces which could be expanded.

That was the first time Saleen saw such a magic tower. It was one that came with inherent expandable spaces without need for magic arrays.

The magic tower became different as elementite was used in crafting. The great grandmaster installed the mechanical core of Sky City onto the tower’s sixteenth floor. The core did not take the entire floor that time, but simply took three yards of height. Mechanical whiskers of crystallized metal seeped deep into every floor of the tower. Under the control of the great grandmaster, one-hundred and forty-four magic arrays were formed.

There were six magic arrays on every floor, representing each of the six major elements. The magic arrays of all twenty-four floors were formed by the core’s metallic machinery, which the great grandmaster then added tourmaline to.

The amount of tourmaline supplied by the great grandmaster was too great. It caused the exterior of the tower to take a blue-green color. The magic arrays with the tourmaline pieces were all formed by elementites.

The great grandmaster then added something that Saleen had dreamed of in the sixteenth floor of the magic tower right after: a magic power furnace.

The equipment was still one made of dimensions stones and elementites. The furnace with a diameter of six yards was set right in the middle of the tower. The furnace was hexagonal in shape. Magic arrays serving as feeding ports were set in every side. By throwing in material suitable for disintegration by the magic power furnace, the equipment would be capable of extracting and refining the energies store within. It would then be used as fuel to power the tower.

The great grandmaster then asked Saleen, after almost finishing the structure of the tower, “What kind of flying skills are you good at?”

Saleen simply cast a Quickcloud spell as an answer. Thick mists formed from high concentrations of water element enveloping him. Wind Dragon, Wings of Flame, large Ice Spikes, glowing balls of light, and pitch black magic patterns swirled in and out of each other.

The flying skills of six elements were all showcased within one spell by Saleen.

The great grandmaster gave a satisfied expression, and then set magic arrays on both the top and bottom sides of the tower. The two large magic arrays were intertwined with each other. They could be controlled in any of the floors.

The dark greenish sheen on the exterior of the magic tower disappeared, replaced by pale green vapor. The vapor looked weightless, yet it was able to repel seawater as it engulfed the tower. Saleen’s Elemental Eye was able to discern more than one-hundred layers of defensive magic arrays being installed in the layer of vapor.

While the vapor moved about, the six elements within were in balance instead.

The great grandmaster thought for a bit, and then tore the space open again. He took out a variety of things from within and stuffed them into the tower. He then spoke to Saleen, “I have given you quite a bit of my collection. Your tower belongs to us now. Equivalent exchange, they call it.”

“No, it is not. It is because I have no options but to accept your exchange, and that has nothing to do with equivalent exchange,” Saleen was satisfied, but he would not admit so just yet.

“Little mage, you can’t ask for more. My collection isn’t something that junk in your tower can compare with.”

“I won’t be more familiar with the controls of this one than with my original one though. I need a bit of firepower to ensure that when I go back to my own place I won’t be killed along the way.”

“Great grandmaster, just help him out,” Aragorn spoke. The being seemed to be the leader of the group of souls.

“Alright, alright,” the great grandmaster said impatiently, “What else do you need?”

“Scrolls, weapons for my contracted creatures, and ample amounts of magic nuclei. I still need to run the Ancient, and there are just too many furnaces on that ship. I will also need skills to repair the magic power furnace,” Saleen did not ask for much more. He knew well that his requests would be ignored if he asked for too much.

“You need too much. If you would really need all that, I’m afraid…”

“What else do I need to pay?”, Saleen asked after reading the mood.

“Aragorn, tell him,” the great grandmaster took a step back and Aragorn spoke.

“Saleen, we will need you back here one more time. Within the next millennium, bring us more things with the power of gods.”

“Such as?”

“Divine equipment made by the gods.”

“That would be rather difficult. One-thousand years here is probably only about one-hundred out there where I came from. I’m a grade-8 sorcerer, and there is no way I can acquire some equipment that powerful. The faith of the Lord of Glory is very strong in this plane still.”

“Saleen, it is only us who can provide you with what you need. One-thousand years is the limit of what we are able to tolerate. Of course, if you agree to it, then sign a contract with us. If you don’t come by then…”

Saleen’s mind raced with calculations. The possibility of him acquiring something like Seal of Divine Power was close to zero. He still had seeds of the divine trees with him — two on his person, and two with Lex. “Any one of the seeds would be enough to move them, no? I’m just curious, what do they need so much divine powered things for?””

“It seems like we have an agreement,” Aragorn extended a finger. Tearing the space, he took out a contract.

Saleen scanned the contract with his Elemental Eye, seeing shimmering constellation drawings between the ancient scripts written on it.

“What kind of contract is this?”

“A Contract of Fate. We will be signing this with you. The sooner you get here, the more rewards you will be getting. If you fail to come i one-thousand years, your fate will take a turn for the worse, and there will be no turning back.”

” An Astrologer’s Contract!”

Saleen glared at the contract floating in the water, and felt very reluctant to write his name on it. It was not due to the contract itself, but that the paper the contract was written on. It contained the secrets of astrologers