Badge in Azure

Chapter 1526: Lair (Part 1)

“Get up, Dante. It’s not your fault.” Saleen knew at that moment that Dante had been using some sort of divine spell that prevented its movements in embedding magic nucleus from being interrupted. If it had not been that the magic nucleus had been depleted at such a moment, Saleen would have only needed to remind Dante beforehand.

Saleen did not deem the loss of a level 17 magic nucleus a good enough reason to berate and punish Dante. The weapon spirit was not at fault. Despite being a god, Dante was not actually all that intelligent. If it was Rafel who was in charge of controlling the process, she would have definitely seen that Saleen was about to stop training, and as such, not waste any magic nucleus in the magic array.

Dante was embarrassed enough to turn invisible right there and then. The weapon spirit’s concealment skill was getting increasingly proficient. If it had not been for the frost dragon knowing for sure that Dante was within that space, it would not have been able to discover Dante while the weapon spirit was invisible.

Saleen was being concerned, however, he had only arranged for some lightning puppets to man the vessel. Seven days passed and if the frost dragon was no longer standing guard outside, any mishap would have probably been lethal.

However, Saleen was finally calm after taking a look at the remaining magic nuclei. Dante knew that Saleen needed high level magic nuclei, so it began with lower level ones. At present, all magic nuclei left were level 17 and 18 ones. There were also some dragon crystals left.

All lower level magic nuclei that Saleen had prepared beforehand had been thoroughly exhausted. However, only a god like Dante would have been able to be of such precise calculations, and able to stand guard beside the magic array for decades and not make a single mistake.

Magic arrays were capable of retaining some residual energy when a magic nucleus was depleted. However, the residual energy would definitely not enable it to stay online for more than half a second, especially when magic arrays of such high levels were concerned. Dante had been on guard duty for decades. The low level magic nucleus would have only allowed the magic array to work for about an hour, or even just minutes, yet Dante never made a single mistake.

If there were to be mistakes made, more magic nuclei would have been wasted and Saleen’s training would have been affected.

A level 17 magic nucleus would have enabled Saleen to train within the Hall of Gods for at least one whole day. The only thing that he was unsure of was how fast the acceleration of the passage of time would have been.

Magic nuclei were not divine personas, after all. While they were capable of storing ample power, they were unable to contain rules and were quickly depleted, so much so that they were not even comparable with broken divine personas.

Saleen had no choice but to stay in the Hall of Gods for a while longer. The magic nucleus gave him another three months in the hall. Saleen was rather surprised that a level 17 magic nucleus was actually able to accelerate time to such an extent.

Three months was nothing to magic training. At present, Saleen would have needed years just to truly master a skill that he was looking into. High level skills were all very complex. Saleen needed to research everything thoroughly before he was able to truly master the essence of such spells, allowing them to be cast in various tempos.

That was also a process of understanding elemental combinations. Developing deeper understandings of such processes would actually make understanding matter clearer.

As such, Saleen did not train. He used those months to craft several pieces of equipment instead.

He had no need for more equipment, but Guffen the frost dragon had nothing. After taking human form, Guffen only had a robe that it conjured.

Saleen crafted two short spears for it, which were crafted using the dragon horns of the frost dragon. If the frost dragon were to do it itself, the end result would not have been inferior, but the weapons would not have been as sharp.

Saleen infused lightning rules into the short spears he crafted, making the pair of short spears that the frost dragon wielded sharper than those wielded by Rafel.

The anti-magic attributes imbued it made Guffen love them to bits. The weapons were capable of doing harm to it, and it was very satisfied with that. The frost dragon did not need weapons to deal magic damage after all, as dragons hardly depended on equipment for casting spells.

To meet Guffen’s standards, the weapons only needed to be sharp enough.

After gaining Guffen’s trust with the pair of spears, Saleen used Guffen’s dragon scales, together with the dragon bones that he purchased, to craft a wedge-shaped flying device. That flying device was capable of carrying over a dozen people, and its construction referenced the Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship. However, given how that flying device was used for flying in the void, the materials used for its construction were many times higher than those used for constructing the Pan Turtle Alchemy Ship.

The flying device was named the Star Shuttle, and it could be manned either by Saleen or Guffen. No one else would have been able to use it. Other than that flying device, Saleen had also gifted Guffen a space bangle. The bangle, however, was only of average quality. He also threw in a set of dragon armor for Guffen, which, again, were made using matured dragon scales shed by Guffen, back when it advanced.

They sat inside the Star Shuttle, the exterior of which was wrapped in thick hard ice, making it look like it was covered in natural scales. The Star Shuttle was less than 20 meters long and was unusually durable. The hard ice on the exterior had magic patterns that were added when the ice manifested. That allowed the Star Shuttle to repel all kinds of harmful energies in the void.

The Star Shuttle was created using theories Saleen learned when developing Comet Flash. The core part was made to resemble veins of dragons.

While Comet Flash was fundamentally a compound magic spell consisting of both earth and water magic, Guffen was able to pick it up quickly. What it lacked magically was simply Saleen’s lightning abilities, so it had little problem manning the Star Shuttle.

Saleen, of course, did not forget to install two magic power furnaces into the Star Shuttle. They had no idea how long that flight would take, after all.

Saleen only activated the Star Shuttle after everything was ready, leaving their location slowly. It was fortunate that no true dangers had appeared during the eight days they spent there.

Guffen asked Saleen while the Star Shuttle was in flight, “Where did you get so many dragon materials?”

“I bought them on the dragon plane,” Saleen answered.

“The dragon plane needs to sell things like these now?” Guffen sounded rather anxious and restless.

“That’s nothing. The nearby planes surrounding the mainland plane have seen considerable drops in power for the past ten thousands of years. The dragon plane is actually one of the few that are considered powerful. The Dragon Gods are still alive, but they are unable to leave their palaces.”

“Good to hear.” Guffen was relieved that Saleen did not get all those materials by killing dragons. If he were to be such a person, Guffen would have been at a loss of what to do. Getting Saleen to nullify the contract would have been unthinkable. Penalties dealt by the power of contract aside, as a noble bloodline of the dragons, violating contracts would have been embarrassing.

The Star Shuttle first flew in a normal manner, using the boundless earth elemental power between the stars. It flew like it was jumping about, skidding forward all the time, every jump covering tens of kilometers.

As the speed reached the highest it was able to achieve, which was at about 10,000 kilometers per second, Guffen took over the piloting. The ice on the exterior of the Star Shuttle became even thicker under the work of magic. The center was wrapped in hard ice that was tens of meters thick. With ice around the craft, the Star Shuttle would not have burned even if it ended up crashing into the atmosphere of any celestial entity.

The power of the frost dragon was brought to its pinnacle as the unfamiliar magic was invoked. Guffen had an easy time manipulating magic, bringing the speed of the Star Shuttle to unbelievable levels.

Earth magic naturally formed at the front of the Star Shuttle, which was known to be gravity-stripping, also known as a repulsive field. The magic effect caused anything within about 100 kilometers from the craft to be repelled, preventing them from crashing into anything in the void.

It would have been lethal to crash into even a pebble at such speeds, after all.

The flight was an easy one as they had no set destination; it would suffice to simply get as far away as they were able to from the edge of the crystal wall system. As such, the drain in power of souls was almost negligible. The Star Shuttle’s auxiliary magic array also enabled Guffen to reduce the drain of his dragon power to the lowest.

Guffen was even able to chat with Saleen.

“Mage, the Goddess of Myers...”

“Perished once, and I was the one who resurrected her. However, it is difficult to pin-point where her powers are now. She remembers everything, including all rules that she used to have mastered. However, she seems to be around level 15 at present. Don’t go looking for trouble with her until you’ve reached level 18.”

“I understand.” Guffen saw no need to put up a farce before Saleen. The mage knew the dragons well enough to tell how they behaved.

They kept flying for over 20 days, and Saleen grew anxious as a month almost passed. Just as he was thinking if they would have been able to fly faster if he were to take over the controls again, the Star Shuttle was pulled by some massive force, heading straight for a star.

Guffen took a look at Saleen, who shook his head, telling the dragon to not resist it.

He was able to tell that the star had life on it. That place should have been at the edge of the chaotic void, and it seemed that they were about to make it out. Laying down a magic array in such a location would have been considerably less dangerous.

Saleen had intentions to just keep flying. The so-called edge they were at was probably tens of millions of kilometers away after all.

The frost dragon rescinded Comet Flash. The skill had very little drain when used in the void, but when entering an atmosphere, the drag would be massive and there was no need to continue using the spell.

A star usually only had an atmosphere about 100 kilometers thick. Even the thickest of them all would not have exceeded 1000 kilometers, and not even a main plane would have had an atmosphere that was overly thick.

The layer of ice on the exterior of the Star Shuttle was reduced by more than half of its previous thickness after they stopped using Comet Flash.

The intense gravity caused the Star Shuttle to dive straight into the star’s atmosphere and flames were ignited. That was a defense mechanism on the Star Shuttle, which was only released after it burst into an atmosphere, wrapping the ice with a layer of low temperature fire. The flames were imbued with wind magic, reducing the drag to the minimum.

The Star Shuttle was a piece of flying equipment, enabling the people within to see outside clearly. Guffen had originally intended to adjust the flight path, enabling the Star Shuttle to land steadily. Saleen, on the other hand, simply pointed to a black dot on the ground that was almost invisible to the naked eye and said, “Crash onto it!”

“Crash?” Guffen looked at the human mage and thought him to be crazy.

While the Star Shuttle was no doubt sturdy and was slowed somewhat, if they were to simply crash into something like that, they would suffer one way or another. Is Saleen not afraid of getting injured?

“Yes, crash!” Saleen was both nervous and excited. That dot was amplified by his Eye of Souls, and he saw a monster with the head of a monkey. That monster’s body looked like a spider yet it had the head of a monkey. Saleen recognized that face—it was the face of the Heretic God.

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