Chapter 290: Quickcloud Spell (Part 1)
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Seeing Saleen hesitating, the winged skeleton explained, “Master, when Judikaka created this alchemical boat, he had a trick up his sleeve. If I don’t stay behind, any spirit can invade the ship and control it.”
“Oh?” Saleen raised his eyebrows, he knew Judikaka would not be that kind-hearted. The combat powers of the ship underwater had surpassed that of the Pan’s turtle when it was alive. Judikaka obviously had no idea that Saleen’s dead creature had intelligence and had left such an obvious backdoor for the future.
This boat could be brought back to the death dimension and there would not be the shell of the Pan’s turtle there. As for Judikaka, the value of this ship was enormous.
Luckily the winged skeleton had intelligence and could fill Saleen in on the flaws of this alchemical boat. So long as Saleen was more careful in the future, it would be hard for Judikaka to snatch away the ship.
“Once I have learned the water flame alchemy spell, I will make you disappointed!”
Saleen set his mind to it, he realized only the hot-headed Diyabannersa was easy to deal with; Judikaka and Banchajanna were incredibly troublesome. Diyabannersa was direct with his words, Judikaka on the other hand peppered his words with lies. As for Banchajanna, Saleen had no idea what he was thinking.
Upon reaching the shore and meeting the three kings, they chose not to mention about the lightning dragon nor the fact that Banchajanna had almost gotten Saleen killed.
The city’s blueprint was in Saleen’s hands, but he was no longer willing to take it out. He merely listed out the plans for the individual buildings and started discussing with the mages how to build the city. Saleen’s original idea was to build the magic tower first, but with the three kings around, he did not feel safe to do so. The materials for the magic towers could only be stored in the dimension stone first.
Only when he had enough power to suppress the three kings could Saleen take all of them out without worrying. The alchemical boat incident had taught him a huge lesson. Many times, even a bond could not restrict anybody.
As the weather turned chilly, the river towards the north had started to freeze. With the help of the three kings, Daniel had called upon a large number of death creatures to help Saleen build the city. This surprised Saleen. The three kings seemed to genuinely plan to stay there. These death creatures might not have much intelligence, but they were much more useful than humans when it came to laboring.
Daniel was squeezed tightly as his job everyday was to call upon more death creatures. As long as he called upon them, countless different types of death creatures would appear from the death flames. He would only stop when his focus could no longer hold on.
As the number of death creatures on the white beaches increased continuously, it seemed like Daniel was controlling an entire dead army. He was fully aware that all of them were the three kings’ and he had nothing to do with them. The three kings had made use of his death flames to confirm the coordinates of the death dimension. All the death creatures had entered the summoning array only after the kings had summoned them. If not with his grade, he could forget about summoning anything.
Daniel was getting increasingly worried as he went to find Saleen and said, “Saleen, those three fellows…”
“Daniel, I know about summoning the death creatures. Don’t worry, Judikaka has no intentions of expanding his influence here, he only hopes to quickly build the city.” Saleen said nonchalantly.
“But they have been summoning more than one-thousand death creatures every day, if these creatures formed an army…”
“Daniel, what are you worried about? These spirits want something different from us, even if they build up their army, would they snatch our land or food?”
“Saleen, aren’t you worried?”
“What’s there to worry about? If this city cannot be build, I would be worried.”
Seeing Saleen not heeding his advice, Daniel was a little dejected. Saleen laughed as he patted Daniel on the shoulder and said, “Take your benefits first, ignore what these kings are planning to do.”
Daniel was a little embarrassed, he had been getting quite a lot of benefits the past few days. He had only come to find Saleen to tell him something was amiss after he was almost done getting them. Saleen knew that, but he did not take it to heart.
Saleen no longer had eyes for the things Daniel had. He was not who he was when he first came from Ceylon City, he had a deeper understanding of benefits.
Saleen’s roots came from his teacher and Jason’s roots were in Sregl Island. Once the city was built, all the mages from Sregl Island would arrive and stay in the thirty-six magic towers within the city. By that time, the three kings would not be able to cause any commotion and things would only be disastrous if the city was not built.
Lex had already returned to Bitter Water Prefecture to gather resources and manpower. Once the city was built, they could consider looking for the coordinates for god’s hell. Building a teleportation array, the sorcerers of Sregl island could enter the six-dimension space to train and it would not take long for a grade-9 sorcerer to be born.
The only thing that Saleen needed to do was to follow Jason’s blueprint and build the strongly fortified city.
Without these death creatures, once winter came, the jobs of the mages would become much harder. The weather would become much harsher in winter and even the mages would find it hard to withstand. They would need to constantly release magic in order to continue working in such low temperatures. The death creatures could not care less about it and even in a snowstorm, at most they would be hindered, but their lives would not be in any danger.
With tens of thousands of death creatures working together, they quickly dug out the underground foundation of the city. Saleen started focusing on cutting away stone materials near the coast, building the pier first. There were still many reefs underwater and the coast was not even, so they could not dock a ship. The stone materials that Saleen had cut were used directly in the construction. There were thousands of death creatures waiting for Saleen every day to move the huge rock that Saleen cut down. There were hundreds of death creatures waiting to transport it.
A winch was set up by the coast and the stone materials within the sea were tied and dragged up ashore.
Seeing the three kings were not making an appearance, Saleen started digging a cave beneath the pier. He was preparing an underwater pier for the Pan’s Turtle alchemical boat. He was incredibly familiar with the controls of the current within the calabash by now and he could cut out two-square meters of rock within ten minutes. The waters there were incredibly deep and the shallowest region was almost a hundred meters. Saleen knew that the largest combat vessel would need at least ten meters of water and the cave he chose to hide the Pan’s Turtle alchemical boat in was near the bottom of the sea.
An alchemical boat like that needed to continue building in the future. Saleen dug inland from the coast for several hundreds of meters before expanding the radius.
In the middle of October, the snow slowly rolled in. The swordsmen and pirates from Sregl Island were staying in houses made from white rocks and they were no longer working. Over the entire coast, only the mages and the death creatures were toiling away daily. The trees that had not been chopped no longer had any leaves and as the wind blew, snow rolled across the ground like dust. Besides mages, a normal human would find it incredibly hard to be active in such an environment.
It was tough on the mages too. They put up their invisible shields and controlled the puppets to cooperate with the death creatures. They moved the stone materials to build the base. The square at the city center had been laid, but a temple had not been built on the enormous white square. Snow quickly gathered to a depth of over a meter.
Saleen worked continuously underwater, not suffering much. The temperature underwater had not changed much and Saleen had no need to put on any magic shield. He had already dug out the boathouse underwater. By that time, water creatures had started appearing near the coast. With the lightning dragon dead, this place was no longer a restricted ares for other creatures.
Saleen continued digging inwards, this boathouse needed to be accessible from within the city and be well concealed. The longer he controlled the currents, the more Saleen felt the exquisiteness of water type magic. The most malleable substance was water. When the water element vibrated rapidly, any cutting power it had was something even metal could not withstand.
The current within the calabash did not require any magic chords to control and this led to Saleen having an illusion that he was no longer a mage, but a swordmaster. Saleen still could not release the current too far way, around eighty meters and Saleen felt that he was losing control. Even so, it was much more powerful than the sword aura a black metal grand swordmaster released.
The sword aura was sharp as ever when it was attacking from a distance, yet it was not as durable and changeable as the currents. The attack from a sword aura was explosive while the durability of the currents was like an alchemy weapon.
Saleen felt his magic chords about to advance. If he found an appropriate opportunity, he would be able to surpass the limit of grade-4 and become a grade-5 mage. Saleen was controlling the speed of his advancement, however. Since going to Sregl Island, Saleen realized that his foundation was not considered strong. Compared to his teacher and the other disciples, those mages were the true mages.
Even though the current from the calabash was incredible, Saleen had not delayed his magic training. His flying magic was almost perfect and he had named it the Quickcloud spell. This name was very fitting since every time Saleen flew, a giant cloud of mist would envelope his body.
Saleen had introduced an attacking method into the Quickcloud spell. The air current formed from the water element could attack like a wind blade and could condense into an icicle. He could us an ice arrow or ice blade at any time. The water shield was also concealed within the cloud of mist, changing its size at will. The smaller it was, the stronger its defensive abilities were.
As Saleen’s control over the water element got better, he had formed a complex magic pattern on the surface of the water shield. It started imitating the golden magic pattern on the surface of the lightning dragon’s body.
The surface of the water shield would release a blue electric current occasionally. It was enveloped within the cloud of mist and could not be seen from outside though.
Even though Saleen could start imitating the lightning dragon to release the powers of an electric current, they were not usable in battle. A water shield used up magic chords like a level-3 spell. With the new magic patterns, every time Saleen released an electric current, his magic chords would be wiped clean.
Even though it was a level-5 spell, Saleen could only release it twice consecutively. This meant that it used up more magic chords than a level-5 spell and with Saleen’s abilities, he would not be able to finish this attack.
Saleen only dared to train this magic in water. He was afraid that if the three kings saw him starting to attempt to control electricity, they would form an unfavorable impression of him. Lightning caused the greatest damage to the dead after all.