Badge in Azure

Saleen calmly used the two types of incompatible materials to create the shards of Eternal Control. Before he became a grade-10 mage, Saleen’s body was fragile. An equipment like the elemental badge carried great significance to mages below grade-9.

In order to refine the three yard long horn of the whale into a shard of Eternal Control that was only one-sixth the size of a card, the materials had to be compressed to an extreme extent. Within the white water flame, the whale horn was first shrunk into about a yard long, then the speed of compression was slowed down immediately.

Saleen was in no hurry. The broken jade that was created by Shanglan was floating right in front of him. Saleen used his mental strength to sense the rule changes within the broken jade while using the black crystal to put in place magic patterns and magic arrays in the white whale horn.

The black crystal was a little brittle. Saleen wanted to ensure that its quality remained unchanged so that it could fuse together with the soul. Such refining was extremely difficult. The horn of the single-horned white whale was hundreds of times harder than the black crystal, so it was already very hard to compress it. Now, in order to avoid destroying the structure of the black crystal, the amount of time needed for refining would have to be prolonged by more than thirty times.

Saleen was patient. He and Nailisi had agreed on three days and only a day had passed so far. There was still half a yard of whale horn left and it was still in the midst of being compressed.

Compressing materials was something that mages commonly did as they could create complicated and huge magic arrays from a very small piece of equipment. Saleen was probably the first to refine an equipment using two materials of very different levels of hardiness.

After the shard of Eternal Control was created, it would last longer than a century. To Saleen, that was enough. Within a century, he could even advance ten grades. Even as a grade-9 sorcerer, the quality of his water flame would change, and his understanding of Eternal Control would also deepen. By the time he had to refine the shards again, he would be able to use them to control any creatures with full confidence.

The only problem was that not all elemental creatures could produce souls. Saleen had no idea how long it would take him to piece together his elemental badge if he was to search the military depots one by one.

After two days, Saleen finally managed to refine the whale horn into one-sixth the size of a card. The prototype of the shard of Eternal Control had been completed and Saleen no longer needed to focus all his mental strength into it and there would be no security issues for the time-being. That was when he thought of asking water puppet to inform Nailisi so that she could rest assured. All of a sudden, there was a violent explosion of Elemental Vibrations at the city wall. Saleen swam over from the high tower and only heard the deafening sounds of explosions.

Saleen panicked.

Over at the city wall, Nailisi was holding her long lance and she was in her three-faced bone demon form. She created a huge crater in the city wall with her lance. An invisible energy from the tip of the spear pierced through the one-hundred yard thick city wall and Nailisi went through the city wall, only to see two stone statue soldiers charging towards her.

With one sweep of her long lance, the legs of the stone statue soldiers were cut off completely. Then, Nailisi pierced her long lance through the foreheads of the two stone statue soldiers. Even grade-9 creatures were no match for the power of the long lance. Their heads exploded and Nailisi quickly sprinted towards the military depot that Saleen was at.

By right, there were no stone statue soldiers around the city wall, but Nailisi had waited for three days and within that time, the stone statue soldiers nearby had come over to fill up the gaps. She had no idea what Saleen was up to, so she decided to enter the city by force.

If she tried to enter from the top, she would be attacked by magic arrays, but if she went through the city wall directly, she would only have to face stone statue soldiers. The city wall, which was one-hundred and twenty yards thick, was made up of rocks that were even harder than metal but was pierced through by the tip of Nailisi’s lance. That strike had already surpassed what silver line golden spearfish could do at their maximum power.

The two grade-9 elemental stone statue soldiers were defeated by Nailisi but in the blink of an eye, the ground elements seeped into their bodies and two huge heads grew out again. Nailisi did not turn back. She used her senses from the soul bond and sprinted towards Saleen’s location.

“Is Master in danger?” Nailisi knew that Saleen was still alive, but the three days that they had agreed on was up. Nailisi could not take it anymore and decided to enter the gigantic city. Nailisi no longer cared about what dwelled within the city. “Master has not appeared after three days. What if he is in danger?”

The stone statue soldiers pursued behind her. At first there were only two of them, but soon there were more than ten of them. There was a large number of stone statue soldiers in the Imperial City of the Abyss and most of them were in deep sleep. The moment some stone statue soldiers were destroyed or lost, new stone statue soldiers would immediately wake up to take their places.

For Nailisi to only trigger slightly more than ten stone statue soldiers in pursuit after entering the city forcefully, she was already considered lucky. No matter how powerful she was, as long as she did not manage to kill the leader of the stone statue soldiers, they would continue to pursue her until she was dead. This was why the ancient humans used elemental creatures to protect their cities.

In the ancient times, magic beasts were very powerful. If not for the elemental creatures that could not be killed, the magic beasts would have been able to climb over the city walls and killed the people living in the cities. As for grade-9 soldiers, one would need a large number of them in order to guard such a huge city.

It was by some measure of luck that Nailisi managed to defeat the two stone statue soldiers. Her weapon would have been useless if she had been struck by their gigantic war hammers. Elemental creatures could not be killed, especially in an environment like that, where the stone statue soldiers could replenish their elemental power continuously.

As a demon in the form of a spirit of the dead, by right, she should not attract the attention of the stone statue soldiers since the latter were no longer controlled by humans and should not initiate attacks. The stone statue soldiers basically ignored spirits of the dead. What Nailisi did not know was that when she pierced through the city wall with her long lance, it activated the power of dragonshards. Even though the dragonshards had been removed from the bodies of giant dragons, it was still difficult to conceal the enormous life strength embedded in them.

All magic nuclei that had the ability to restore themselves must possess life strength.

With the help of the soul bond, Saleen’s location was like a fire-element creature opening its eyes in the darkness. They were about twenty miles apart. Nailisi was much faster than the stone statue soldiers, and within a few minutes, she had already reached Saleen.

When Saleen saw Nailisi sprinting towards him, he felt pained.

The three-faced bone demon looked terrifying and the soul flames in Nailisi’s six eyes were dancing wildly. Saleen sensed that they were dancing at the same rhythm as Nailisi’s heartbeat.

“Master!” Nailisi saw that Saleen was not in any danger. When she saw the water puppet laughing to itself by the side, she pointed her long lance at it. She was not jealous, she only felt wronged.

“Why did Master choose to bring this water puppet and not me? Is it because I never tried to train up my human form? Did Master trust this water puppet so much because he wanted to become a human so badly? But I genuinely like Master!”

“Nailisi, come here.” Saleen forcefully cast a spell and a ball of black fog appeared in the water and formed a row of enormous words.

Nailisi put away her long lance. Even though water puppet’s expression remained unchanged, its heart was already beating wildly.

He was also an elemental lifeform, but if he was pierced by Nailisi’s long lance, he would lose all the memories that he had painfully accumulated. Once he lost those memories, it would be even more difficult to grow his soul. Although he possessed the power of a grade-8 mage, he has still yet to figure out the relationship between body and soul.

He did not possess all of Saleen’s knowledge. For things that must be realized, he would have to rely on himself in order to understand them slowly.

The three yard tall bone demon stood in front of Saleen. Nailisi was not sure how best to express herself. They were underwater, so even if she could speak, Saleen was not able to.

“Master, please don’t chase me away again!” Nailisi lowered her head and looked at Saleen. His face was concealed by the devil mask and both his eyes were covered by crystals, so his expression was indecipherable.

Saleen nodded his head and patted Nailisi’s skeletal thigh. The thigh of the three-faced bone demon was unlike that of the winged skeleton. It was extremely thick and was covered with a layer of red muscles.

Nailisi put away her long lance and squatted down. She used her palm, which only consisted of four fingers, to hug Saleen’s shoulders.

Saleen pointed at the twelve grade-9 elemental stone statue soldiers behind Nailisi who were charging towards them. The deafening trembling sounds caused the hundreds of sculptures that were squatting on both sides of the street to turn around and look in their direction. The sculptures were supposed to guard over their own courtyards. If Saleen did not antagonize them, they would continue to watch over the doors, as if they were real sculptures.

Saleen could not bear to blame Nailisi, since she had risked her life to come there. Not every soul-bonded creature would be willing to break through the city wall’s defense and fight against grade-9 elemental creatures, especially if the soul-bonded creatures were demons.

If Saleen had not obtained the elemental badge, Saleen would have chosen to run away from the twelve elemental stone statues because they could not be killed. Dismantle Element was only a temporal dismantling. In an environment like that, where elements were rich and dense, the dismantled stone statue soldiers would be able to restore themselves in about ten minutes.

Saleen stretched out his hands to stop Nailisi. His mental strength trembled slightly, and he gave Vinny a command. Twenty-four grade-9 stone statue soldiers leapt out from within the elemental badge and stood in front of Saleen and Nailisi.

All three of Nailisi’s mouths were wide open. She stared at the badge on Saleen’s waist and momentarily felt that her wait had been worth it. “Master has begun to control elemental creatures!”

Saleen did not really have any solutions when facing elemental creatures, but he did possess the elemental badge, so things became much simpler. He had twenty-four stone statue soldiers, they outnumbered the enemies by a ratio of two to one, so they should be able to pin those twelve stone statue soldiers down.

Saleen made a gesture and Nailisi acknowledged it and immediately sent the twelve stone statue soldiers, who had been pinned down, into the Twelve Notes of Purgatory.

When the twelve stone statue soldiers were sent to the Purgatory of Ice, they lost all connections to their leader and they began to attack violently and aimlessly. Nailisi allowed them to do so. In any case, there were no ground elements in the Purgatory of Ice, so they would lose their powers gradually. Although the entire process might be slow, Nailisi would not even have to move a finger.

Saleen felt a tinge of regret. The actions of the stone statue soldiers were controlled by him, but the twenty-four stone statue soldiers were about to reach their limits. If that was the case, then his goal of leading tens of thousands of elemental creatures into battle would never come true!