Badge in Azure Chapter 260

Chapter 260: Inherited (Part 1)
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Thirty-six magic towers worth of building materials?!
Lex was simply overjoyed. Out of all the buildings depicted on the alchemy blueprints which Jason had allowed her to look at, the most difficult ones to construct were the thirty-six magic towers located in the inner city. They complemented each other perfectly, forming a magical network, indicating how extremely demanding it was to build towers like this. The quality of materials needed to be perfect.
Even the construction of an ordinary magic tower required a mage to devote all their time and energy into finding suitable materials in order to successfully build it.
Most magic towers were built out of pyrophyllite, a replacement for conventional brick. Only wealthy mages would use black steel rocks to construct their magic towers. If they could not get their hands on black steel rocks, white steel rocks would do. They were considered just as rare as the former. According to Jason’s city blueprints, these magic towers required the use of obsidian rock.
Obsidian rock was far more expensive than any other steel rock in existence. This was because obsidian rock could be used to create magic weapons. Lex had hundreds of cubic feet of obsidian over at the warehouses in the Bitter Water Prefecture. Even then, it was not enough to construct an entire magic tower. The thought of building her own tower out of the obsidian stone had crossed Lex’s mind, but she never acted upon those desires as she simply could not amass enough material to build it.
Lex knew that Jason’s generous gesture was not solely because he wanted to show appreciation to her for giving him the Heart of the Sky. He had done this partly for Saleen as well. Although the city was constructed purely for the sake of the inter-dimension teleportation portal, the one who was in true control of the city was Saleen.
Jason activated the teleportation portal and teleported Saleen and Lex straight into Lancelot’s magic tower. Lancelot, who was still in the midst of moping, jumped nearly ten feet in the air when Jason suddenly materialized out of nowhere. Clearly, he was scared out of his wits. At the same time, he knew that Jason probably had urgent matters to discuss with him to be entering his magic tower like that.
“Lancelot, I need access to the warehouse,” Jason said. Lancelot replied instantly, “Just go, don’t worry about it.” Sregl Island was filled with warehouses. Plus, there was not really a need for Jason to seek permission from Lancelot to access them either since they were open to sorcerers like Jason.
“Lancelot, let me explain to you our situation…” Jason said, trailing off towards the end as he took out the ring that Lex had given him and placed it in Lancelot’s hands. Before Lex knew it, Lancelot and Jason were whispering furiously to one another.
Lex watched the two of them apprehensively, too afraid to use magic to eavesdrop on their conversation. As Lancelot’s grip on the ring tightened, he cast a surprised glance in Lex’s direction. After a long discussion with Jason, Lex saw Lancelot nod his head at something that Saleen’s teacher had said.
Saleen had taken in the sight before him as well. He thought, Teacher is right. Even if Lancelot is a grade-8 mage, he does not try to show off his prowess or attempt to appear intimidating. In fact, it is teacher who is leading the conversation.
Lex could not agree more. After gathering information about Jason’s movements in the Myers Mainland through the help of some spies she had hired, as well as how he had acted in front of Lancelot, Lex gained a deeper understanding of Jason’s character. Fortunately, she did not have bad blood with Jason. If she did, the grade-7 sorcerer would be one of the hardest opponents to beat. Jason had the guts to pick a fight with a grade-6 mage back when he had only been grade-5. What tilted the odds against him then was the fact that the grade-6 mage also possessed a magic tower. However, he had not done so out of impulse. In fact, it was a calculated move.
Through that battle, Jason had been able to push past the limits of a grade-5 mage and had advanced to a grade-6 mage. After two years of hard work, he had eventually become a sorcerer. Lex did not know how Jason had been able to do it back then. In fact, even with her current abilities, Lex knew that she would be unable to take on a grade-6 mage in a magic tower.
Throughout the entire conversation between Jason and Lancelot, the former had not bothered to introduce Saleen and Lex to the latter. In fact, as soon as they had finished their discussion, Jason left Lancelot’s magic tower, dragging Saleen and Lex along with him. Under these circumstances, Saleen deduced that if he were to build a permanent teleportation portal connecting Sregl Island and the interdimensional space, the mages here would be under the command of his mentor. His teacher had told Saleen that he would become a grade-8 sorcerer after three years. Saleen did not know if that was true, because if it was, his mentor’s advancement rate was terrifyingly fast.
Technically, Saleen’s own advancement rate could be considered legendary as well. Alas, the flaws in his magic chords as well as the fact that he was still a low-grade mage meant that his advancement rate was not astounding enough. In fact, in the time that it took for him to get to where he was now, his mentor had already been promoted to the rank of a sorcerer. In the sorcerer stages, it was extremely difficult to improve or advance even after decades of hard work. Lex’s mentor was the perfect example of this. Even after a decade of honing his magic, he had remained a grade-8 sorcerer.
Jason, along with the two mages, bid farewell to Lancelot as the latter opened the teleportation portal for Saleen’s mentor. In the blink of an eye, the three of them were sent directly in front of Sregl Island’s warehouse.
The warehouse had been built directly on a large piece of volcanic rock. As Saleen and the others stepped into the building, they saw meditation rooms specially constructed for mages lining both side of the hallway. No sooner had Jason entered the warehouse did the mages come out of their trances, trying to figure out what was going on. However, as soon as they realized that it was just Jason, they resumed their meditation without so much as going outside of their rooms to greet him.
From a superficial glance, people might have thought that the defenders of this Sregl Island warehouse were useless. No competent defender would have stayed in their room after sensing the presence of a possible intruder. However, Saleen knew that they were not necessary anyway. Without the teleportation portal, it would be very difficult to make it this far. Everyone on the island knew each other well. Hence, there was no possibility of strangers trying to weasel their way into the warehouse by pretending to be some close friend or business partner. Moreover, Sregl Island was surrounded by vast oceans. To be able to infiltrate the area, one would have to enter the three magic array-fortified gates.
Jason led Lex and Saleen down the spacious hallway before entering a huge storeroom. Saleen and Lex followed suit. As soon as they entered the room, magical equipment and building materials greeted them. Saleen glanced around and discovered that the hundred-meter wide room was filled with shelves that reached over ten meters in height. They were filled with a variety of items. From what Jason had insinuated earlier, storerooms like these were not a rare sight. Sregl Island was indeed a wealthy country.
Within a thousand-year period, Sregl Island had turned from a barely-inhabited place to a densely populated area that housed over tens of thousands of mages. All mages would journey over to the mainland to collect materials to facilitate the creation of weapons. Just this storeroom alone contained a hundred times more magical materials than whatever Saleen had been blessed with by the goddess over at the temple. In fact, he would not be surprised if it was a thousand times more. Although the quality of these materials paled in comparison to Saleen’s gems, they definitely trumped his gifts in terms of variety.
“Saleen, Lex, take out whatever equipment or materials that you don’t need and leave them here in exchange for the equipment that you feel that you might need. One item can only be traded for a maximum of two here,” Jason instructed. Saleen started to regret not bringing Nailisi with him. Compared to the two bracelets which Nailisi possessed, the storage space in Saleen’s Ring of Gifts and demonic ring were pretty pathetic.
Furthermore, the two pieces of spatial equipment which Saleen had with him now contained important magical artifacts which he would not trade for the world. Lex, on the other hand, was stunned upon hearing Jason’s words, but only for a short while before she regained her composure. This Sregl Island warehouse housed only the excess materials or equipment that the mages here did not need, meaning that they would never deposit any truly precious artifacts here. As a mage herself, she could and would only trade magical items in order to get her hands on items that might even come close to the rarity of these truly precious artifacts. She would not resort to stealing or other underhanded means. That was just too beneath her. Jason was trying to be nice. It would not be very nice to reject his offer. If she did so, she would not be able to be as calculative in future transactions.
Jason had done this all for Saleen. Lex was a grade-6 mage who was not only the ruler of a country, but also the commander of over twenty thousand swordmasters. Saleen, on the other hand, was merely a grade-4 mage. Jason must have been afraid that Saleen was too weak to do anything about Lex, and thus the chances of him getting the short end of the stick when it came to any dealings with her would be higher.
Lex was not about to turn down Jason’s offer anyhow. Instead, she immediately retrieved large quantities of her own magical treasures in exchange for the equipment that was sitting prettily on the shelves. Upon seeing Saleen standing there like a deer in the headlights, Jason chucked before telling Saleen to follow him.
Saleen obliged, and allowed himself to be led by Jason to the end of the warehouse, where a teleportation portal was located. Both Jason and Saleen stood on the portal and allowed themselves to be teleported into a completely sealed off storeroom.
Upon looking at the items stored here, Saleen became more convinced to take Jason up on his offer. The items outside this room, whether they were equipment or materials, were things that could be bought in Myers Mainland. This room, on the other hand, was only a little over twenty meters in width, and did not contain many tall shelves. The height of the room, from the ground to the ceiling, only spanned about six meters. However, the magical equipment housed inside the crystal cabinets could only be wielded by mages who were grade-4 and above. In fact, Saleen estimated that a whopping ten percent of the equipment here could only be used by sorcerers.
“No one usually comes here. This room contains items left behind by mages who have passed on. Saleen, I’m going to assume that you don’t have any good spatial equipment?” Jason said.
“Actually, I do, but they’re all with Nailisi. My grade is too low for me to use any large spatial equipment,” Saleen replied.
“You mean the two bracelet Nailisi has? Yup, yup, good stuff. But I think you can only use them once you’ve attained the grade of a sorcerer? Come here,” Jason said as he brought Saleen over to a corner where a few crystal boxes stood.
Saleen looked at the pink-colored crystal boxes with glee. These boxes could seal off the essence of anything and everything contained within them such that even sorcerers would be unable to tell what was hidden inside them.
Jason opened one of the boxes to reveal rectangular tremolites that were arranged neatly. Back in the Qin Empire, tremolites were also called nephrites. There were a huge variety of nephrites available, and all of them were very expensive. They were shaped just like tiles, with one side slightly hollowed out. The hollowed side had magical inscriptions engraved upon it. They were arranged in rows of eight, with a total of five rows stacked on top of one another. The forty tremolites glistened beautifully under the magical lights.
“Saleen, these are basic materials required for the construction of forty magic towers. Each tremolite provides enough material to build one nine story magic tower. You can store these dimension stones into the Ring of Gifts without worrying about their magic clashing,” Jason explained.
“Dimension stones?” Saleen inquired. It was the first time he had heard of such equipment. “Most spatial equipment is actually a result of elemental powers forcing their way through interdimensional space. Although the interdimensional space is stable, when it comes to this equipment, they cannot be stacked together. Otherwise, the interdimensional space will collapse and everything stored inside of this equipment will vanish forever. Dimension stones, however, are different. They carve out space inside of themselves directly within these rocks. Unless they have been damaged or destroyed, you never have to worry about space collapsing on itself. You must keep these dimension stones, and remember to never give them to anyone else,” Jason explained.
“What about these boxes?” Saleen asked as he pointed at another pink crystal box.
Jason could not help but laugh to himself at how greedy his student looked at the moment. These boxes, as well as the contents within them, were worth nothing compared to the dimension stones. Nevertheless, he nodded his head, giving permission for Saleen to claim these boxes as his own.
“Let’s go. Please don’t touch anything unnecessarily,” Jason said warily as he saw Saleen looking all over the place with his hands outstretched, as if he wanted to pocket everything and anything that he could see. Jason wanted to garner the support of all the mages on Sregl Island, meaning that he could not let Saleen leave a bad impression of himself. My very own student…. aye, maybe I should think of a way to broaden his horizons. Then maybe he would not be so touchy with these objects, Jason thought.
However, Jason was wrong. It was not that Saleen knew little about this magic equipment. It was that Saleen had become emotionally scarred from living in poverty since he had been little. Saleen had grown up coveting all things that were valuable and would not think twice about making any precious objects that he came across his, whether he needed them or not. It would be very hard to change this aspect of Saleen’s personality, unless he chose not to worry about his financial security or he managed to vanquish the emotional scars he had obtained when he was younger.
This feeling of insecurity was not something that broadening his horizons would solve.
Saleen did not understand the mages on Sregl Island as well as those in Alchemy City. How could they leave so much top-notch equipment rotting in these storerooms? All he could think was that if he could take these items out, he would be able to exchange them for money, other equipment, building materials… in fact, he could exchange them for anything and everything. He recalled Lex’s dream. Alas, even though there were many mages back on the Myers Mainland, their efforts combined would not be enough to amass even one set of the equipment here, let alone a magic tower worth of weaponry.
These materials could be used to groom tens of thousands of mages over on the mainland. The riches over at Alchemy City would be able to increase the population of the Qin mages by dozens of times.
Moreover, these mages were partly responsible for the gradual deterioration of magic energy