Badge in Azure

Chapter 1439: Training Hard for a Thousand Years (Part 1)

Saleen was very polite to the general due to his gratitude for him.

The general placed Nailisi’s crystal coffin right next to his own. He opened the coffin and set the crystal ball in Nailisi’s mouth. The general shrouded Saleen with his own territory and felt something minute shaking in his body. It took only a split second for the general to read everything in the contract between him and Nailisi, which was housed in his soul.

If the general wanted to, he could peer into all of Saleen’s secrets, including his family badge and three weapon spirits.

The general did not do any of that. He simply siphoned power into Nailisi’s body, after getting to know Nailisi’s soul brand better, to repair her soul and heart. The actions were done in tandem, as neither was particularly difficult to a level 18 professional.

The main thing about the ordeal was how peculiar Nailisi’s soul was. Only one-eighth of her soul was actually harmed by the double of the Lord of Glory. If Saleen were capable of repairing Nailisi’s heart, there would not be any problem with Nailisi resurrecting.

However, like the general told Saleen before, Nailisi would never be able to evolve into a luoluokaluo of a higher level if he did so.

Saleen learned the repair methods used by the general, which used energy to reconstruct Nailisi’s heart. The method came with a great cost, and the general had probably used a part of the power he had acquired from the broken divine persona to do it. While he was able to retain his combat prowess as a heroic spirit, he had almost lost all of his abilities to heal.

Not even the grandmaster was able to guarantee resurrecting Nailisi. It all depended on the power left by the god.

After he was done repairing parts of her heart, the general took out the double of the Lord of Glory’s heart, installing it into Nailisi’s chest cavity. The heart was very small and white. It gradually turned red after connecting to her blood vessels, and then purple.

Saleen was surprised. That’s all?

The general smiled. “The most difficult thing about it is to have her soul merge with her body. While your power of soul makes you invincible to anyone below level 13, you still wouldn’t be able to do all of that with your current level of powers.

Saleen acknowledged his lack of powers silently. He understood it very well at the moment.

“The god cursed you right before he died. I think the Holy See will give the divine decree to have you eliminated by the time you return to Myers Mainland. You won’t be able to do much against it with your equipment alone, Saleen. You need to keep advancing, at the very least, until the permissible limit of this plane.”

Saleen smiled bitterly. “General, I’m just as anxious in the matter of advancement, but...”

The general interrupted Saleen. “There is a Hall of Gods in the royal palace at the center of the imperial city. It was built using the remains of the 18 gods I killed. If you placed enough magic nuclei there, you would be able to adjust the passage of time to be different from outside. Go.”

The general gave Saleen a silver badge with a dragon head emblem. The top corner of the badge had a complex magic array written using magic language.

“I have synchronized your soul vibrations with the badge. You can enter holding the badge and be spared from attacks from the royal palace.”

“What about her?” Saleen pointed to Nailisi.

“Her injuries will heal in a month. You can stay within the Hall of Gods for a month.”

Saleen nodded. He took Nicholas and Rafel to the royal palace of the city.

The royal palace was towards the north. Rafel was a lot more active after she was saved. She looked at the statues along the way. “My lord, we should take the statues back with us.”

“What for?”

“You can decorate the city with them. They can be made into powerful weapons with just a bit of modification.”

“You’ve made up your mind, Rafel?” Nicholas interjected from the side.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not thinking about leaving anymore?”

“I’m not leaving. There is little else for me to do if I leave. There are always accidents with Lord Saleen around. It’s far more fun to just stick around than to look for something to do out there.”

Saleen smiled. Rafel was the strongest warrior serving him. As both of them had gone through life and death situations together, Saleen had an easier time trusting her. He had to be wary of the combat angel in the past, and he deemed such caution no longer necessary.

The walls of the royal palace were still in one piece. The royal palace was akin to Saleen’s Floating City, only somewhat smaller. The length of the walls were about 20 kilometers long.

Despite having the general’s badge, Saleen still dared not to scale the walls. The royal palace should be filled with all kinds of danger.

He entered from the gates at the side. There were still huge magic arrays on the gates watching what was going on below. Saleen held the general’s badge high. The magic array flickered for a bit before snuffing out the magic light around.

It was Saleen’s first time encountering a magic array capable of operating only when presence was detected. Black rocks lined both sides of the space within the gate. The rocks were carved to be tightly packed spikes. If they pressed together, no living beings would be able to run.

Rafel was rather frightened. “My lord, the rocks...”

“Were crafted from the core of meteorites. Relax, we’re not here to stir up trouble.” Saleen was not saying that to console Rafel; he was doing so to console himself.

Regardless of how fast he could move, he had no idea what he should do if he was crushed by the spikes in such a narrow place.

Saleen and his party were right about their speculations. The rocks were indeed capable of being pressed together at very high speeds. Even a puppet made of pure metal would be crushed to pieces.

No one knew how many powerful professionals were killed by similar devices when humans conquered planes in ancient times.

The rough-looking rocks were made from cores of meteorites, and their weight alone was frightening. The only way to break them was through sheer brute force, which took time.

After walking through the long tunnel, they went into the barbican of the royal palace. There were still soldiers standing guard along the walls, all wearing rock-like armor.

Saleen held the badge high and walked further into the barbican’s gates, finding a small plaza. Plazas behind the city gates were used for gathering troops. There were many towers and residential buildings past the plaza, that remained standing, which meant the magic arrays of the royal palace were still working and were very effective.

Saleen took a detour around the straight path in the center of the royal palace according to pointers given by the general, coming before a tall building.

The building looked blocky and was surrounded by pillars. It bore a striking resemblance to Metatrin City’s temple, but it was taller and the outer parts looked more ornate and colorful. The materials used to build it were not geared for resilience or sturdiness.

Saleen saw the colors outside the Hall of Gods and a lot came to his mind. His Metatrin City looked too much like a fortress, and it seemed that the residents felt restrained and frustrated. He had not been aware of any of it, but it was clear the negativity did not facilitate growth of souls.

The buildings in the Imperial City of the Abyss were different. The stone was colorful and the carvings on the walls were all done according to the patterns and colors of the materials. It was art.

Art had the ability to soothe souls. Saleen had never looked into it before. The beauty in Nature City had been done out of Sallen’s intention to placate believers’ emotions and concerns about the Goddess of Myers. All of his other cities basically looked like steel fortresses.

Anything that clashed was reduced to dust.

“My liege, how do we get inside?” Nicholas was unable to see any door. Saleen scanned the building with his Eye of Souls and saw four entrances. All four of them were extremely intricately built. The magic arrays on them were difficult to notice regardless of angles used to observe them.

The general said that the Hall of Gods was used by royal members as training grounds. He was a royal member, so he was allowed to get near. Saleen thought about it for a bit and decided to let Rafel and Nicholas return to his magic amplifier, and walked to one of the entrances alone.

There was a huge statue at the entrance which resembled a human military officer. Saleen inserted the general’s badge into the slot found on the statue’s chest and pressed. A colorful wall opened, revealing a small doorway.

Saleen walked inside and found a huge hall.

The door closed behind him without making a sound. Weak natural light emanated from the rocks in the walls themselves.

The hall made it feel like time had stopped. Saleen walked to the center of the wall and found a magic array on the floor.

There was a place on the magic array where magic nucleus could be embedded. It was surrounded by a ring, and there were markings showing the time on the floor. Saleen thought for a bit, thinking about how long he would want to train there.

Level 12 was probably not enough. If the Lord of Glory showed up again and ambushed him, there would be no chance for him to run anymore.

He deemed it necessary to advance to level 13 before he had a chance to resist even a single strike from a double of the Lord of Glory.

Saleen took the divine persona of the water element god off of his Thunder Dragon Blaster. Even if the powers of his Thunder Dragon Blaster were weaker, there was no way he could avoid by paying the price of a divine persona.

He embedded the divine persona in the slot in the magic array on the ground. Intense light shot out from the divine persona, lighting up the entire hall.

Saleen looked at the markings on the ring around the slot. They all lit up with changing colors, until finally stopping on a dark red color.

It would be great to have a similar magic array in Metatrin City. However, he knew that it was impossible. The rules in the Hall of Gods were unleashed by the remains of 18 gods. There was he could take away even a single one of the gods’ remains, as they had all been fused together.

Crafting abilities of ancient humans might not have been as intricate and detailed as the contemporary humans, but they were able to tap into sources. There was no way Saleen would be able to destroy anything, given his lack of power.

The passage of time became very different from the outside world. Saleen took out a magic clock and placed in front of him. He scanned with his power of the soul, finding that time there passed 10,000 times more quickly than the outside world.

Power of a divine persona indeed! Even if Saleen embedded a high level magic nucleus, even level 16, he would never be able to achieve such an effect.