Badge in Azure

Saleen left the area in a hurry, with the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel taking the lead, and the bone warships following behind. Nailisi had taken over the controls of the vessel, and the Ancient was placed in the middle of the fleet. Under the Mechanical Soul’s control, the Ancient was replenished with grade-9 magic nuclei, and its speed raised to eighty miles per hour.

The Ancient was capable of creating a massive area of mist, which prevented sensors from within from extending too far outwards. The magic compass failed as such. It also enabled the Ancient to be hidden effectively, even grade-9 sorcerers would have had a lot of trouble detecting them within the area of mist, which was hundreds of miles wide.

It was common for mist to form on the seas, and the Ancient did more than creating mist while traveling; it also made no sound at all. To put it in a more accurate manner, any sounds made by the alchemic machinery within were completely absorbed by the warship. Whatever sound the warship made that could have been heard from outside, were just the sounds of waves, enabling the ship to effectively blend with its surroundings.

The sounds made by the twelve bone warships and the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel were also muffled by the Ancient. As the weapons on the deck of the Ancient were all taken out by the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel, the Ancient had effectively lost all offensive capacity after being captured, as Saleen did not prepare to rearm the Ancient.

Control of the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel was given to Nailisi eventually. She took her spirit form and had the vessel taking the lead of the fleet. The vessel stopped emanating any overbearing aura, allowing more magic beasts at sea and fish to follow the fleet north, making their way to the oceanic ice block.

It was a given that there were ferocious high level beings among the fishes and magic beasts traveling with the fleet. Each and every one of them was traveling by the currents generated by the fleet, enabling them to conserve energy. As such, they refrained from attacking each other. They coexisted in peace for the moment, unless bloodshed happened.

The birds above failed to notice the fleet altogether. They were busy avoiding the mist instead.

The fleet was about eight-thousand miles away from Metatrin City, and the crew took a break near an island. The island itself had more vertical surfaces than flat ones, making it looked like a broken mountain.

While the Ancient was more than one-thousand yards long, it did not have a lot of its body submerged underwater. Any ship with a submerged depth of about sixty yards would not have had any problems parking by Metatrin City’s port. With most of the warship being empty, even less of its body was submerged underwater. As the island was more than five miles long, the Ancient simply parked right beside it, and it looked secured doing so.

The island’s rocky surfaces, even its dirt, were filled with metals. The magic compass failed altogether reaching the area. What made things even more eerie was that the sky itself was filled with mystical energies. All rays from the sky were refracted several times before reaching sea level, making it impossible to determine one’s direction using star charts.

The fleet simply depended on the pan’s turtle alchemical boat’s ability to find its way tracing underwater mountain ranges. It sent the directions to the fleet on the surface, in order for them to reach the island.

The fleet was to make for the region north of the island. There was a steady current there every week. It was only by traveling along such near-undetectable current, that the fleet was able to make it safely through a dangerous region, and keep going north.

The reason Saleen’s fleet parked there was to wait for the current to appear, to avoid some small creatures with terrifying corrosive abilities. The amount of sunken metal in the region was enough to form mountains, all of which were excrements of said unknown small creatures.

The creatures were red in color. The sea, about one-hundred miles north of the nameless island, was almost rendered red. Any ship intending to pass through that region would have been attacked, until said ship was completely disintegrated.

The red sea was an area covering more than three-thousand square miles. The north side was safe once one made it past that region.

The magic beasts, that had been following the fleet, had dispersed. They made their way eastward and entered deeper regions of the sea. The fleet began making repairs. The bone warships suffered quite a lot of attacks along the way, and required fixing. Human mages and warriors on board the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel all needed a break for several days.

It was only then that Saleen boarded the Ancient, and saw for himself what had he gained in their previous battle.

The Mechanical Soul’s doubles had all gotten stronger. There were a lot of Cloudflow metal puppets and even more reserved equipment onboard the Ancient, which the doubles helped themselves to. The Mechanical Soul had advanced to grade-9 and gained control of the entire ship. It even had some energy to spare for creating more doubles to serve as the ship’s guards.

These mechanical doubles were all of golden color, had four arms, and were a height of three and a half yards. Their weaponseapons were all hidden inside their bodies, which could have been taken out anytime for battle. The Mechanical Soul was still grieving over the fact that being under Saleen’s control prevented it from advancing further. It had little choice but to split its bloated soul flame to create more doubles.

The three topmost floors were modified by the Cloudflow people. Even the weapons installed were of Cloudflow design. The original weapons of the ship were taken apart and left on Dragon Island.

There were still fifteen floors underneath the topmost three that had yet been opened. It was not that Grand Duke Iron Blood did not want to open those parts; the Ancient was simply too strong. The rooms beneath were all hermetically sealed. Opening them by force would have proved costly. There was also the risk of dangers lurking beneath. For instance, the ancient warriors within some of the rooms would have revived once their rooms were destroyed, going on a rampage to kill all who attempted to enter the ship.

The grand duke had spent a lot just to clear the three topmost floors and clear the way leading to the core power room. As such, he had opted to go with things gradually instead of daring to rush exploring the floors beneath.

The way the Mechanical Soul intruded on anything was a skill possessed by no other living being. It was capable of devouring all types of metal and assimilating them into itself. The Mechanical Soul also possessed the ability to devour souls, flesh, and even some magic nucleus powers alike.

As such a being was capable of devouring with reservations yet had no need for excretion, their lack of restraint would have eventually killed themselves. As the soul flames of mechanical souls were powerful and special, by the time they reached self-destruction stages, they would probably be able to take a medium plane with them.

Saleen had no need to worry about such things. The Mechanical Soul had an avaricious nature, but being under his eternal control meant that the being needed his permission to advance. Devouring the entire warship would have enabled it to advanced to grade-10. The metals of the Ancient were all more expensive, rare, and possessed stronger properties that any he had known for shipbuilding.

The number of doubles created was currently fourteen-hundred and sixty. three-hundred and sixty of them worked under the Winged Skull to help with the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel’s defense. eleven-hundred were stationed aboard the Ancient. Such was the way the Mechanical Soul limited its own progress at advancement. The soul flame of any dead double would disperse, never again being able to be reabsorbed into its body.

The doubles, after all, all possessed weak soul flames individually, preventing their fires from being truly undying ones.

The deck of the Ancient was repaired using information acquired from the ship’s schematics. While the schematics were little more than copies of the originals left behind in the ancient ruins, they served their purpose adequately nonetheless. The Mechanical Soul repaired the three topmost floors and made copies of weapons originaly installed on the deck, according to the structures provided by the schematics.

The worst of the ancient weapons required at least grade-9 magic nuclei to activate. When fully equipped, the Ancient would possess the combat capacity equivalent to a dozen fleets’ from Cloudflow.

The schematics alone were enough to make Saleen very rich.

Saleen also took a look at the flying equipment copied by the Mechanical Soul. It was a metallic construct of more than thirty yards long, with a pair of gigantic wings. It was equipped with four seats and some room for carrying equipment, and finally, a magic stone cannon.

The magic stone cannon copied by the Mechanical Soul had less firepower than the miniaturized magic stone cannons that Saleen acquired. The magic stone cannon required a grade-9 magic nuclei to work, yet had damage potential which was only somewhat better than a catapult. It had range of about ten miles.

The magic stone cannon’s power allowed for adjustablity, but as the Mechanical Soul was only able to recreate the magic patterns on the copied schematics roughly, it was unable to make the equipment more powerful.

Saleen was aware that he was being rather greedy. While the Mechanical Soul was not able to recreate the equipment in its truest form, it had nonetheless committed the schematics to memory. That allowed Saleen to take his time doing research on them, and even crafting them himself. The mages in Metatrin City numbered to about one-thousand, and that was counting only those above grade-3. With so many mages being assigned to such research, it was only a matter of time before they would develop equipment comparable to those from the first dynasty.

Mages hailing from Qin were like weaklings like Tam’enm. The most notable strength of the Qin mages was that they were incredibly knowledgeable. Few Qin mages studied magic only to fight.

Cloudflow mages on the other hand, were infamous for seeking near-instant gratification, hoping to gain incredible combat capacity while often neglecting to research the foundations of magic. Cloudflow mages would rather spend time practicing powerful offensive spells than conducting magic experiments to verify magical theories of any kind.

Grand Duke Iron Blood might have had more than one-thousand mages at his disposal, but they were nonetheless unable to research and make sense of the original weapons installed on the Ancient. They resorted only to taking them apart and installing their own magic equipment on the ship.

What Saleen truly found surprising was that the magic stone cannons of the first dynasty fired entire magic stone shells, which only exploded violent when said shells hit their targets, instead of exploding near the enemy according to the calculated firing distance. The range of that magic stone cannon from the first dynasty had a range of more than ten miles. True first dynasty equipment would have had a greater range still.

The cannons had a very long range, high firing rate, and huge damage potential. The cannons were paired with elemental calculation constructors, which allowed the shooter to directly aim at targets quickly. They did not even require mages to work the cannons themselves.

The magic stone cannons which Saleen possessed then had one glaring weakness: they required control from mages or they had no accuracy to speak of. The elemental calculation constructors could be said to allow Saleen’s ranged weapons to evolve into sharpshooting equipment.

Other things found onboard could wait. The elemental calculation constructor was one that Saleen deemed necessary to be copied as quickly as possible, which would then be equipped on his elite troops.

“Genga, give me a copy of all the schematics. I want the most precise of these papers before we leave the island,” Saleen told a mechanical double as he walked to the stern on the deck for further inspections. The weapons on the deck all emitted cold lights. A row of iron arrows that were seven yards long were aimed at the sky, seemingly prepped and ready to shoot any airborne enemy down.

“Yes, master,” the Mechanical Soul answered lethargically.