Badge in Azure

“You’re weird, Saleen. Aren’t you afraid that I’ll attack you with this weapon?” Agares’ question was obviously one that needed a satisfactory answer from Saleen. He was not convinced that the mage before him had not done anything fishy to the blade.

“Well, here’s how it is, Agares. I didn’t put anything in the blade that will harm you. I’ve written down every single attribute on a scroll and you can familiarize yourself with everything by reading it. That is, I have held nothing back in the crafting of this weapon. As such, it wouldn’t be strange at all to say that forging this thing has benefited me. So, if you’re planning to kill me with this blade in the future, it will be far more difficult than you’d expect it to be.”

“Good. 12-dimensional metal weapons were originally meant to kill gods. I’d only need a common weapon to kill a human.” Agares laughed.

Yeah, right. Wait till I acquire lightning magic chords, then. You’ll be sure to change your mind after that. Common weapons were utterly useless against the power of lightning. One hit and it would reduce them to a heap of scrap metal.

“You’re an honest mage, Saleen. Please, name my weapon.” Agares knew that the possibility of Saleen doing something fishy with the blade was slim. It would have sufficed for him just to be able to make the most out of the weapon. He had never thought of assassinating Saleen with that blade.

“How about ‘Snakerun,’ then? That’s the name of a renowned assassin, no?” Saleen replied somewhat solemnly.

That dagger that was to be called Snakerun was quite a weapon. Due to the properties of the material of its make, it was capable of being used against godly items. That was to say, it would have been difficult even for Saleen to melt it down and to reforge that weapon.

The possibility of the blade being damaged and broken in battle was infinitely small and it would stay keen for eternity without any need for sharpening.

Saleen took out a reading scroll after he was done and handed it to Agares. “Here are all the attributes of the dagger. Some of them level up as you advance.”

Agares took the scroll and began reading it on the spot. He read it twice within 10 minutes and made sure that he remembered every single detail, before crumpling it up and reducing it to ash.

“Get familiar with the blade. I’ll look for ways to get us out of here,” Saleen said, and left the tenth floor of the tower, returning to the 17th.

Metatrin City took a week to prepare all the materials for crafting an interdimensional teleportation portal.

If Saleen had not happened upon the dragon’s lair in the divine kingdom, the materials for constructing said portal alone would have caused him to incur huge losses. The cost of building a single-use teleportation portal was the same as that of a permanent one, but Saleen specifically had to craft one that could only be used once. Otherwise, the beings from the divine kingdom could appear in Metatrin City at any given moment.

The beings that were attacking the Magical Element Tower had apparently gotten fed up. Hardly any creatures had come near it for the past two days. The dragon was dead, and the air around them felt stifling.

Everything seemed perfect in the divine kingdom, but there was, nonetheless, still death. The Lord of Glory had yet to work on that particular realm.

If the Lord of Glory had been capable of entering that kingdom, melding it gradually into his own, death would never occur there. Saleen needed to leave soon, as the death of the dragon had caused the believers in that divine kingdom to waver. The Lord of Glory would take notice soon enough.

The interdimensional teleportation portal was quickly constructed with the help of the demons. They erected a huge metal ring inside of which was the teleportation platform, hovering at a height of 60 meters.

Saleen then called out Agares. They had been hiding in that divine kingdom for almost 10 days, and he had no idea how things were in Nature City. If Theisio had lead the attack personally, the city that Saleen had painstakingly built would have ended up being destroyed.

The interdimensional teleportation portal was set up. Saleen and the others walked up to it, but they did not depart immediately.

Saleen first said to Agares, “Do you want to leave something behind in this divine kingdom?”

“Sure.”

“I need the most potent of poisons.” Saleen was a mage and was adept at alchemy, but his skill in the art of crafting poisons paled in comparison to Agares’.

Agares took out a bead made from tremolite and handed it to Saleen. “This is the Grey Potion—it’s not suitable for coating blades, but it works well with airborne distribution. Break the bead, and you’ll be able to kill over a million in a city.”

Saleen peered into the tremolite with his Elemental Eye and saw that the rock held a drop of something in it, which was about the size of a grain of rice. The potency of the liquid’s poison was indeed frightening.

That speck alone could kill up to a million—which would prove far easier than bombarding a place with fire magic shells using metal flyers.

“Heh!” Nailisi summoned a rotten spirit and placed the Grey Potion bead into its fourth eye, covering it with rotten flesh.

The rotten spirit then leaped from the platform, heading deep into the divine kingdom.

Rotten spirits were the most contagious of all spirits. Their capacity for combat was average, but once they began to infect others, they could quickly create frightening numbers of spirits.

The newborn spirits would too be extremely contagious. Their only weakness was that they had short lifespans, amounting to less than a month.

“Let’s go. Hopefully, this divine kingdom will be able to purify that spirit,” Saleen said, laughing as he activated the portal. There were six of them, and the smallest of portals was enough for transportation.

The huge metal ring that crossed over the portal began to spin. As Saleen and the others disappeared from the divine kingdom, elemental chaos took place at the portal’s core, bringing an elemental storm shortly thereafter.

Divine kingdoms were built from elements, as well. Once an elemental storm formed, the resulting ripple would spread out, drawing the attention of powerful beings.

The rotten spirit took the chance to sneak out of that mountainous region and traveled all the way into densely populated areas, getting ready to create more like spirits.

Saleen and the others left the divine kingdom through the teleportation portal. It took one whole minute for them to be transported back to the temple in Metatrin City. Jason stood right outside the portal. Agares was rather shocked to see Saleen’s teacher, another level-ten sorcerer.

He put the Snakerun away immediately to avoid any misunderstandings with Jason.

“Agares, welcome to Metatrin,” Jason said to the emperor of the Cloudflow Empire with a smile.

Agares felt a chill on his sensitive skin. Jason’s smile made him shudder. It felt as if Jason was looking at a dish of food or something just as delicious which he was ready to throw into the fire. The territory that Jason had mastered did not need to be demonstrated to strike fear into the hearts of others. His terror was very real, and it was not restricted by level.

Agares snuffed the thought of committing the deed right there and then in Metatrin City. It would have been his only chance to use the Snakerun against Saleen. The next time that he got close, the mage would be able to detect what he was up to.

Saleen looked at the assassin emperor and thought that, having been frightened by his teacher like that, the assassin would definitely not dare to infiltrate the city from that point forward. If Saleen sent him off and killed him right afterward, he would have lost someone whom he could use for training.

Saleen did not think that it mattered if he let the assassin live, as Agares would not be able to use the Snakerun against him. It would be difficult to destroy the Figure of Fate using any other weapons, either.

“Well then, I had better not hold you any longer, Your Highness. Jola, send His Highness Agares off.” Saleen called Jola and had the level-ten True Might send the walking troublemaker away.

“Thanks for everything, Saleen.” Agares bowed elegantly at Saleen as a gesture of gratitude. The mage had let him into the Magical Element Tower and had saved him, after all. If he had passed through the portal on his own, there was simply no way that he would have been able to make it out alive.

“No need for pleasantries, Agares. Theisio seems to have subjugated that level-12 oracle, so I’d suggest that you stay clear of him for the time being.” Saleen reminded him out of “kindness,” and saw a smile in Agares’ eyes.

Saleen was baiting him, and it was a bait that he had no way to resist. Agares found Saleen to be an amusing and interesting target, one worth his time.

Theisio needed to die. While Agares loathed being emperor, he still had a bit of a sense of responsibility in him nonetheless. The Cloudflow royalty was weak, while the nobles were strong.

It was not something that he could do anything about, but he definitely would not allow the Holy See to spread their religion within Cloudflow territory.

Theisio was a truly exceptional pope, a rare find in the past millennium. If Theisio were to end up dead, the Holy See would probably find it difficult to get another pope within the next hundred or two hundred years with such an ability to consolidate.

As for the level-12 oracle, Agares now possessed the Snakerun, enabling him to kill beings of that rank.

Saleen only began to talk about the divine kingdom after seeing Jola send Agares away.

While he was spending most of his time within the divine kingdom, he had cast Puppet Constellation and used the 500,000 puppets to plunder the dragon’s lair, while also gathering a huge amount of information about the divine kingdom. It felt as if Saleen had accomplished all of that on his own.

Saleen gave Jason a bottle crafted using divine crystals, which carried Genesis Stock Solution. The gift was a hefty one, for, while mages were capable of creating something like that, they needed to be above level 15 to do so.

Furthermore, the final form of the magic amplifier that Jason intended to build was not something transitional like the Elemental Envoy. That magic amplifier required many hard-to-find materials. With the Genesis Stock Solution, Jason’s success rate in crafting said magic amplifier would be near 100 percent.

“And this, teacher, is the 12-dimensional metal.” Saleen took out the piece of metal and handed it to Jason.

“I don’t need that much, Saleen, and. umm…I know that you have your own plans, but don’t leave Metatrin City just yet. Now that we have so many materials at hand, let’s craft a batch of equipment together, including your and my magic amplifiers. As for the Elemental Envoy, just give it to Truman.”

“Teacher—are you saying that you can craft a true magic amplifier now?”

“Indeed. Furthermore, when I’m done crafting it, I’ll definitely be able to advance to level 11. Craft an identical one for yourself. When you no longer have a use for it in the future, give it to me. I’ll need it for something important.”