Badge in Azure

“That is how things work theoretically, but what I can see now is that my combat power is reduced to what it once was.” Saleen had no choice but to change into his original devil’s armor. Six grade-9 magic spells were still fixed there nonetheless. The new devil’s armor had very high defensive capabilities, but the magic spells within were all erased by the Star Gathering Needle, making it utterly incapable of offense.

Saleen had the winged skeleton summon spirits after putting all six elemental badges back into the original belt, only to find that the passage to the spirit plane was completely cut off there. The winged skeleton was left with no choice but to unleash the ones stored within the Green Spirit.

With his mental powers advanced, Saleen felt that his magic chords had developed a tendency to continue growing. That was a good phenomenon, as once the feeling of one’s magic chords growing was developed, a mage would be able to advance within ten years at most, and one year at least, so long as the mage in question had enough mental powers.

The winged skeleton was reluctant to use high level spirits for scouting. He only unleashed low level skeleton soldiers. The compound Saleen was in did not seem to have new threats lying about, and he had no intentions of returning to the street filled with star charts.

Saleen and his group entered the compound next-door by climbing over the compound walls. Saleen remembered that there were no signs of danger lying within. He had skeleton soldiers went looking about inside, and not even one of the skeleton soldiers made it back. The winged skeleton was not even able to sense what actually destroyed the skeleton soldiers.

Saleen did not dare to linger in that compound, and simply crossed through it into the third one. Two large wooden carvings flew at them as soon as they entered.

Saleen had no time to stick around and tangle with things. As such, he simply led Soldier and Nailisi across the compound at a frightening speed to lose the wooden carvings. Seeing the intruders leaving the compound, the wooden carvings did not pursue and simply returned to their original position.

Saleen, Nailisi, and Soldier were hardly better than thieves, passing through one compound after another, closing in on the astrology tower through the astrologer’s manor’s backyard.

The astrologers did not leave any weapon behind and the backyards of their manors served as recreational gardens for the astrologers. That meant that those places hardly had any defenses installed. Saleen was able to make it to the astrology tower simply by intruding in one place after another.

If Saleen had been forcing his way through on the star road at the front, nothing would have happened to him as he had the key with him. The same was unable to be said for Nailisi and the winged skeleton though. If the winged skeleton and Nailisi ended up dead, Saleen would have had to keep their equipment with him. The great grandmaster had ill intentions, hoping to rob Saleen of his bonded creatures by getting them killed.

Doing so was rather risky. Some astrologers had peculiar temperaments, and their weapons would not have bothered with the nature of their intruders. They would have attacked with lethal intent so long as someone fell within range.

From the astrologers’ perspective, that was how fate worked.

Saleen took Nailisi and the winged skeleton climbing over walls for more than three miles. Some of the compounds they climbed over had things that kept howling and yelling even after Saleen and the duo have left their turf.

The vicinity of several hundreds of yards from the astrology tower was devoid of buildings. After climbing over the last wall and looking at the astrology tower far away, Saleen had an impulse to pray to the tower.

The astrology tower was one-thousand yards tall. It was one straight building from top to bottom and was made of wood. Even after being submerged in seawater and subjected to such high pressures for so long, there was almost no wear and tear to be found on the exterior of the tower.

Starlight circled the ancient, plain-looking building. It looked especially conspicuous under the pitch black undersea environment. Saleen looked up from below, taking in every detail of the tower.

“Is this some miracle created by humans?”

Saleen’s eyes searched around and found tens of doors of different sizes at the bottom floor of the astrology tower. Every door had one thing in common: star charts at its lintel still working.

One must have had a key to enter. Saleen took out the key hanging about his neck, wondering which door to go in through.

They should have had entered through the front door, but the great grandmaster sent them to the backdoor instead. Saleen was not able to help but think, “If I am here being prompted by fate, I shouldn’t enter through the front door then. Why should I put my fate in someone else’s hands though?”

If he were to enter through the front door, then it would be the astrologers taking the reins of his fate. With even the great grandmaster and everyone else back there saying that the astrologer’s words came true, how should he choose then?

“Master, what is on your mind?” Nailisi did not have the winged skeleton’s abilities. She had no choice but to ask after seeing Saleen hesitating to take a step forward.

“I’m thinking who should be the one deciding my fate,” Saleen said as he played with the key in his hand, looking at the dozens of doors of different sizes.

“You yourself of course!” Nailisi looked at Saleen and stuffed a gold coin in his hand.

Saleen laughed out heartily, finding himself to be overthinking things. He tossed the coin and said to himself, “Heads, front door; tails, backdoor.”

The place was filled with pale starlight. When Saleen’s coin fell after being tossed up, it went through thin lines woven by countless beams of starlight, before hitting the ground with a ding.

Saleen looked down and felt exasperated. There was no heads or tails; the coin was standing on its side.

Something like that would not have been near-impossible above water, as the coin would have spun mid-air. In an undersea environment, the coin was no longer spinning when it finally reached the bottom. The floors where they were at had gravity caused by starlight. The coin hit the floor almost without shaking at all and stood firm on its side.

Saleen kicked hard at the coin, which cut through the seawater around it with a whoosh. Given Saleen’s physical powers were equivalent to that of a grand swordmasters, the speed at which the coin flew was akin to an arrow shot by a normal archer.

The starlight on the ground burst vibrantly. More than a hundred beams of starlight shot at the coin he kicked. The coin melted within the burst of lights and turned into golden dust being cooled by the cold seawater around it, sprinkling all over the place.

Nailisi spoke all of a sudden. “Master, let’s go in through that door,” she pointed at the first door counting from the right.

“Why?” the winged skeleton asked. He was in favor of putting his fate in Nailisi’s hands.

“I lived in the peak of a great mountain when I was young. There was a platform several yards wide, where other demons weren’t able to reach. I was able to gaze at the starry night of the demon plane, just by lying down there. The stars back then looked very similar to the ones on that door.”

“Alright, we will go in through that door.” Saleen dispelled his Water Shield and headed for the astrology tower with Nailisi and the winged skeleton.

Saleen’s group did not trigger anything hostile for the next hundreds of yards. He took out the key and came to the door that Nailisi pointed at. There was a star chart right in the middle of the door. The center of the star chart housed a keyhole, which was surrounded by starlight spread over the chart.

Saleen stuck the key in without any hesitation, and the small door opened without making any sound. He felt the pressure behind his back rise all of a sudden, yet no seawater entered the door. He hung the key back around his neck and extended his hands, taking Nailisi on his left and the winged skeleton on his right, and walked through the door.

There was light inside, but there was no light source to be found. The door shut itself after Saleen entered. Saleen found himself in a hall, staircases right in front of him. They were peculiarly flanked by two rows of crystal counters. The counters were about three yards tall and were all empty. It was anyone’s guess what the counters housed once upon a time.

Saleen scanned the place with his Elemental Eye and did not find the place to be riddled with eerie floating starlight like the place outside the door. Any starlight found within the hall came from the walls and the floor, and they served as little more than internal lighting.

The hall looked as if it had a greater surface area than the entire astrology tower itself, which was a testament of the use of high level space rules. As the tower was capable of gathering energy, laying out things like magic arrays and expanding the space within would have proved far easier than crafting spatial equipment.

“Master, shall we go upstairs?”

“You had to ask.” Saleen let go of both Nailisi and Soldier and took the lead, walking up the steps in front of him. There were more than one-hundred steps, which split into two curved staircases later. Saleen took the left and found yet another one-hundred steps or so waiting to be climbed.

Saleen found himself in an even larger hall when he made it to the second floor. Tens of sets of staircases going downward lined the four sides of the hall. He only found out then that whatever he did on the first floor would have had him ending up in that hall in the second floor all the same.

Saleen came to the center of the hall and found a skylight above him.

The skylight was very wide. Given that the top of the building was almost one-thousand yards away, the skylight seemed narrow instead. The skylight itself was surrounded by railings on each floor, and bright constellations were found at the very top of the skylight.

That was no star chart phantasm. His Elemental Eye was able to tell that much. The constellations at the very top were an independent space in itself, one that even his Elemental Eye, which was able to see things more than a hundred miles away, was not able to see its end. It became apparent that the astrologer building the place spent a lot on it. Saleen however, was unable to understand how it was possible for that place to be linked with another dimension.

There was no way he could have believed that the starlit sky was something made using space-related crafting techniques. According to the mages’ research, the distance between stars would have easily measured to hundreds of thousands of miles. The distance between bright constellations would have measured up to billions of miles. No matter how powerful an astrologer’s art at manipulating space rules, it still would not have been possible to open the path to such a humongous region of stars!

“How do we get up there then? There are no magic arrays or stairs to be found going up.” Saleen was puzzled as to how the astrologers traveled between the floors in the tower.

Nailisi and the winged skeleton looked all over the place as well. The hall in the second floor did not have conventional walls. Transparent crystals lined the edges of the astrology tower, which were all shown to be shining with starlight. Looking out from the floor-to-ceiling crystal windows, the compounds they had just crossed to get there were all seen clearly. Saleen took a closer look and found the fronts of the compounds were all decorated with statues of different sizes. If he had been coming there through the front of the compounds, he would have never been able to make it to the tower.

“Master, what should we do now?” Nailisi looked up at the stars above her and became frustrated. She lacked patience, unlike the winged skeleton.

Saleen pointed at his feet. There was an independent star chart on the floor beneath them, which looked completely different from the ones on the floor surrounding the part where they stood. The one beneath their feet had the stars above illustrated.

Saleen was no astrologer, but his skills at observation told him that there was something about the star chart on the floor.

“Hold me tight,” Saleen said while taking out the key around his neck again, clutching it in his fist. He had no idea how to get to the upper floors, but he knew nonetheless that the star chart at the center of the tower served a similar function as teleportation portals. They could have entered through different floors, and all passages differed only at the first floor. Whichever way the entered, they would have ended up there. It was the only way forward afterwards.