Badge in Azure

When Saleen saw the wood carving of that monster, he was deflated. It was something created by mages to suck up all the rubbish in a room. Mages did not need equipment like that because they already had their cleaning spell. The was created for ordinary people and they were typically used in storage rooms or kitchens.

When Saleen saw starline papers in the storage room, he knew that the astrologers must be a group of very wealthy people.

“Master, we won’t be able to find anything decent in this place. Let’s go,” Nailisi nagged as she tried to urge Saleen into leaving. She felt uneasy staying in a place where astrologers dwelled, even though the was the place with the best environment in the entire Imperial City of the Abyss that far.

“No, we are safe here for now. We will leave only after the elemental stone statue soldiers have recovered. Soldier, deploy some low-level spirits of the dead to scout around this area. Nailisi, you will stay here.” Saleen wanted the winged skeleton to look around the residence to see if there were other things similar to the figure. Then, he took out the Star Gathering Needle and began to study it.

Saleen had used mental strength to enter the Goddess’ necklace before so this was not entirely new to him. He held the Star Gathering Needle in his hands and his mental strength gradually seeped into it.

Saleen felt as if he had fallen into the middle of a sky full of stars and was surrounded by colorful nebulae and countless constellations orbiting around him. Saleen began to sense the power of the constellations directly. The power was extremely complex and was not as simple as elements. There was no way Saleen could completely analyze and understand it with his mental strength.

Saleen did not dare to expand his mental strength to explore because the dimension within the Star Gathering Needle was simple too massive. Saleen’s instinct told him that if he fully utilized his mental strength, he would completely suck up the sky in the Needle. In order to resist that mysterious force of attraction within the constellations, he would have to merge his mental strength together.

Saleen’s mental strength moved around slowly, searching for the core of the Star Gathering Needle. No matter how massive the dimension might be, there must be a core that was controlling all of it and that was something applicable even if an astrologer’s techniques were unrelated to a mage’s.

Saleen used the most foolish method to search for the core of the Needle. The powers of the constellations within the Needle were immense and could be found between each gigantic star cloud. There was a mysterious relationship between both of those entities. Saleen decided to start from that relationship as his mental strength gradually crept closer and closer to the core.

It was a cluster of black substance. When starlight entered, none could escape as they were all sucked in completely.

Saleen already possessed some understanding of souls, so he understood the relationship between mental strength and souls. He allowed his mental strength to be sucked into that cluster of black substance. As long as his mental strength was not dissipated, it would still be attracted to his soul and he could still return to his body.

The black substance existed in a massive space, but Saleen’s mental strength was squeezed within a narrow passageway and entered the core of the black substance at an incredible speed. Within a frame of time, his mental strength had already been compressed to the maximum, so much so that there were almost signs of crystallization.

At that point in time, Saleen’s mental strength began to transform once again. The Star Gathering Needle had allowed his mental strength to break through the limit of grade-9. Saleen had no idea which grade his mental strength was at.

It was a chaotic mass of star clouds. All sorts of strange substances were floating and spinning within the chaos. Some of them were breaking down just as other new substances were also being formed simultaneously. The conversion of energy took place constantly but without any consistency. Saleen’s mental strength only experienced this for a moment before entering a space that was clean and pure.

There were 24 gigantic transparent crystals floating in that space. There were tens of thousands of words carved inside those transparent crystals. The words looked ancient and mysterious. They looked very similar to the ancient Myers language.

Saleen was immediately attracted to those 24 transparent crystals. Tens of thousands of words might sound like a lot, but those 24 transparent crystals were so massive that they would have been able to contain billions of words. The words were not carved on a flat surface. Instead, they were evenly spaced out and arranged in a way that resembled constellations.

Even if Saleen recognized the words, he had no idea where to begin.

“What wonderful objects!” Saleen thought to himself. All of a sudden, a powerful force that resonated between the soul and mental strength exploded and his soul pulled his mental strength out of the Star Gathering Needle instantaneously.

The force of attraction of the Needle might be powerful, but when Saleen’s mental strength resonated with his soul, there was an explosive thundering sound. The sound was so massive that even the immense power within the Needle was unable to eliminate nor seal it. The rule of lightning had overpowered even the rule within the Needle.

It was clear that the Star Gathering Needle had yet to truly unleash its power as Saleen did not discover any core controlling the Needle when he was in there. The 24 gigantic transparent crystals were just lineages left behind by the owner of the Needle.

Even though Saleen was unable to find out how to control the Star Gathering Needle, he was not disappointed at all. Without the core that controlled the Needle, that meant that he would not have to deal with any problems left behind by the original owner. There was too much equipment that could be retrieved by its original owners because it possessed such a core.

“Master, how is it?” The winged skeleton was concerned. He saw Saleen’s facial expression changing from joy to worry.

“No worries.” Saleen took out the figure’s head and began to sew up the wound with the Star Gathering Needle.

A sliver of the power of constellation flowed out from the tail end of the Needle and the wound on the figure’s head healed very quickly. That amount of power was almost negligible relative to the power contained within the Star Gathering Needle. Saleen estimated that if the power contained within the Needle was completely unleashed, it would be able to eliminate all targets, just like his clan badge.

After Saleen had repaired the figure’s head, he used the tip of the Star Gathering Needle to pierce where its eyes were supposed to be. As the power of constellation flowed out, a pair of clear and distinct black eyeballs merged together.

The figure’s head had been replenished by mental strength, and it suddenly spoke, “Master would like all of you to wait for a while. He will be here shortly. Don’t…”

Saleen threw the figure’s head onto the floor before summoning six elemental stone statue soldiers to smash it with their gigantic magic war hammers. A figure, who could not stop nagging, was terrifying. It just could not be shut up.

Nailisi began to laugh. It had been a long time since Saleen did something so childish.

Saleen raised his hand and looked at the Devil Ring on his finger. Saleen felt extremely uncomfortable that his current devil suit was refined by the Grandmaster.

When Saleen’s mental strength seeped into the Devil Ring, he saw tens of thousands of paths of magic patterns. There were plenty of magic arrays on such a small ring and was comparable to some of the bigger equipment. It was not necessary at all since the magic arrays in the spatial equipment were usually not so complex.

Fortunately, Saleen’s mental strength roamed around within the Star Gathering Needle and had advanced. He would not have discovered those complex magic patterns if his mental strength had not been made more resilient by the thundering sound. The Grandmaster must have refined such a mysterious item so that he could use it to control Saleen in the future.

The space within the Devil Ring was huge so it would be natural for Saleen to store all the most important items there. If the Grandmaster managed to control the Devil Ring, he would have been able to snatch away all of Saleen’s wealth whenever he wanted.

Saleen decided to cast water flame to try and refine this Devil Ring once again. He threw the Star Gathering Needle into the water flame as well. The Needle silently penetrated the Devil Ring and erased the mysterious magic patterns one by one. Once the magic patterns that had been put in place by the Grandmaster had been removed, Saleen began to refine his own magic patterns within the Devil Ring.

What he was refining were lightning magic patterns. The spatial equipment would either be controlled by mental strength or soul. This lightning magic pattern was capable of causing a lot of damage to mental strength and soul. After refining the Devil Ring, even though the Grandmaster was many grades higher than Saleen, the former would not be able to regain control over this Ring with only his mental strength or soul.

The Star Gathering Needle erased the magic patterns quite thoroughly. Saleen could not help but laugh. The Grandmaster was narrow-minded yet was of a higher grade than Saleen. The latter was worried that the former might have tinkered with his equipment. Now that the Star Gathering Needle could completely remove the trap placed in the Devil Ring and Saleen was able to put in place his own lightning magic pattern, the Grandmaster would not be able to trap him in the future.

It was while removing those magic patterns that Saleen realized just how powerful and annoying the Grandmaster was. Even with the close inspection of mental strength, the magic patterns only appeared to be barely significant and visible. It was as if they were part of the natural grooves of the materials used to make the Devil Ring. The original form of the magic patterns revealed themselves to be rows and rows of three-dimensional magic patterns wherever the Star Gathering Needle passed though. Each row of magic patterns could be further split into thousands of finer magic patterns.

If not for the fact that the Star Gathering Needle was of a sufficiently high grade, the magic patterns could not have been removed so thoroughly.

“Damn it. Just a Devil Ring alone already required so much effort. What about the other equipment?” Saleen recalled that his elemental magic tower was personally refined by the Grandmaster. His despise for the Grandmaster deepened.

Perhaps only the magic books had not been tinkered with.

Saleen’s devil suit included this ring and two layers of magic robes. The inner layer was figure-hugging and shape-shifting while the outer layer served as an armor. The devil mask, devil staff, and belt were all very similar to Saleen’s original equipment. Saleen would have to remove the magic traps embedded in the equipment one by one.

The more Saleen thought about it, the angrier he got. He decided to take off the entire devil suit and threw everything into the water flame. Refining equipment all over again was something that he had done quite a few times and he had thought that it would be a breeze. Without the help of the Star Gathering Needle, the other equipment remained motionless in the water flame, showing no signs of change.

The difference in grade between Saleen and the Grandmaster was too huge. Without the help of the Needle, there was no way his water flame could refine and remove the magic patterns left behind by the Grandmaster.

Saleen could not help but imagine what it would be like if he was to face off against the Grandmaster. Even if there was only a shred of soul left in the Grandmaster, as long as he activated the power of the magic patterns in Saleen’s equipment, the Grandmaster would be able to gain control of Saleen and everything that belonged to him would be taken away!

The Star Gathering Needle was really a blessing! Saleen could not wait to get a hold of the Grandmaster so that his elemental stone statue soldiers could smash him into elemental dust with their huge hammers.