Badge in Azure

Chapter 1331: Becoming a God (Part 1)

Saleen had made his own plans for the arrangement of the Bitter Water Prefecture. If the continent fell into chaos, there needed to be a dwelling for humanity to rest and recuperate safely. His interdimensional space was undoubtedly a good choice, but it also happened to be his base. Once others entered it, significant problems would arise.

He was now selecting the candidates and establishing some prerequisites. First, the candidate needed to have a flawless record. A person’s past, and even the previous three generations, would have to be scrutinized.

Second, Saleen didn’t want professionals. He only wanted normal civilians.

Third, once professionals were able to enter the interdimensional space, apart from lie- detection spells, Saleen also had to use the Nature divine spells and astrology to conduct an additional battery of tests on each prospective candidate. These tests would ensure there were no loopholes.

After all, astrology had already vanished for too long. Saleen wasn’t planning on allowing any other astrologers to exist on the continent either.

The lie-detection spell could not be easily tricked unless the person’s strength exceeded Saleen’s by a wide margin. If that were the case, Saleen would not have to set up any defenses because he would not be that person’s match at all.

Bitter Water Prefecture originally had magic nets. Lex had initiated the construction of the basic facilities for them, but they had not been activated.

Saleen’s magic net had expanded the original net a hundredfold. The entire Bitter Water Prefecture had been covered by the magic net. The distance at which the enchanters could do battle was up to 25 kilometers outside the city.

In other words, Saleen had constructed a magic net in Bitter Water Prefecture that was second only to that of Floating City.

The construction was very quick. On this day, Saleen was directing the enchanters to add the last layer of protection to the castle walls, when Floating City suddenly began shaking.

Saleen was stunned. He immediately discovered that Floating City’s Weapon’s Spirit, which was located in the core of Floating City in the Magical Element Tower, had ignited its divine fire. Panic-stricken, Saleen hurriedly flew up to Floating City. He brought Rafel with him and headed directly to the Magical Element Tower.

Following his arrival, Saleen saw at once that the Weapon’s Spirit was still operating Floating City very honestly. It was just that when it ignited its divine fire, it had not controlled its own body.

Saleen’s mental power probed it slightly and discovered that the Weapon’s Spirit’s divine fire had been ignited within the broken jade. Whew. He was relieved: Had the divine fire been ignited outside, he would have lost control of this Weapon’s Spirit.

After its divine fire had been ignited within the broken jade, the Weapon’s Spirit strength spiked to level-13.

Saleen felt very proud of himself: His Weapon’s Spirit was a pseudo god.

The difficulty of this pseudo god’s advancement was not low. This was because all who believed in the God of Magic Nets were enchanters. Only a few hundred thousand of them were in Saleen’s grasp. Their powerful mental strength, however, still did not compare to the hundreds of millions of disciples in the Holy See.

Upon seeing that the Weapon’s Spirit had become a god, Rafel was dubious. She too possessed level-13 strength. Although suppressed, it should have been capable of igniting a divine fire. Could it be that she was lacking something?

She opened her mouth to question Saleen. He didn’t know anything about this.

Becoming a pseudo god was not as simple as attaining level-13. The Imperial City of the Abyss had had so many heroic spirits that had surpassed level-13, yet none of them had ignited a divine fire.

But Rafel had been born an angel and what she studied was divine spells. Becoming a god was probably the only way for her to advance.

Initially, she wasn’t bothered by this, but after seeing that even the Weapon’s Spirit had become a god, Rafel sank into deep, bitter thoughts.

If she could become a god, she would not need to entrust Saleen with the care of those metal angels. Things were okay now. The God of Demons had appeared, and the faith of the metal angels had begun to be absorbed by the magic nets. Henceforth, it would have no relation with her.

Seeing that Rafel was somewhat dejected, Saleen said, “Are you very worried I’ll use these metal angels?”

Rafel nodded. Saleen said, “Wait till they become devout disciples of the God of Magic Nets. I’ll allow them to possess a space to be revived in Floating City. When that time comes, as long as the God of Magic Nets doesn’t die, the metal angels won’t either.”

Rafel gave a bitter smile. If that was the case, the metal angels would still be Saleen’s hired thugs.

The angels were weapons of battle by birth. Only a minority existed for the sake of extolling the praises of their god. Being able to praise gods was not necessarily an honor. Any angels doing this would obviously not have a sense of self. They only knew how to pray every day. Once their god wanted to descend upon a plane that was difficult to reach, these angels would be the first ones chosen to be brought along.

Rafel hadn’t felt this way initially, but ever since she followed Saleen and saw his methods of creating gods, she felt an unspeakable hatred toward anyone praising the gods.

Neve-rending prayers, never-ending doctrines, gods...

What gods!

A hint of pain was palpable in Rafel’s golden eyes.

“Alright, we’ll get out of this place and go to Holy Rock City.” After Saleen said this, he called all the enchanters to stop any work they were doing and to stop adding magic to bolster the strength of Bitter Water Prefecture’s castle walls.

Holy Rock City was no longer a threat. The Weapon’s Spirit was now a god, and the defenses of the entire Floating City no longer occupied Saleen’s thoughts. Further, he might be the first mage who was controlling a god.

Previous mages had captured gods, but only for the sake of refining equipment. They had not done what Saleen had.

Emulating Saleen would truly express the power of the gods to the limit.

The Winged Skull and Nailisi felt what Saleen was thinking at the same time and was also aware of the changes in Floating City. They were flabbergasted. They originally thought that the advancement of the Weapon’s Spirit would just allow Floating City to advance along with it.

Floating City was a humongous chunk of magic equipment. That the Weapon’s Spirit of the magic equipment was a god or even a pseudo god was inconceivable.

Saleen sat securely at the center of the magical tower, anxious to go to Holy Rock City. It was Holy Rock City that had not returned any news all this time. This was strange. Even if Lex and Prince Safilos had fallen out, they still should have kept giving him information.

Initially, Saleen was prepared to complete the entirety of Bitter Water Prefecture’s constriction before going to Holy Rock City. After all, he had few guarantees. Now that Floating City’s power had suddenly increased to an extent to which even Saleen could not understand, he already had the guarantee of being able to deal with Prince Safilos.

Thus, whether Bitter Water Prefecture could defend itself was no longer the issue. He would take down Holy Rock City first; no one would pay close attention to this rural city, even if it was Safilos’s land.

Floating City shook above Bitter Water Prefecture in succession. The giant’s bone crystal flashed with a golden glow. Then, a mist shot out from Floating City, forming a huge, dark cloud with a 50-kilometer diameter.

This was Saleen’s Quickcloud Spell. Floating City’s Weapon’s Spirit had directly released it, causing the entire city to be enveloped in mist. It suddenly picked up speed in the sky and flew toward the east.

What Floating City adopted was Saleen’s style of flight. Its speed reached a terrifying 150 kilometers.

Even Saleen thought this was ridiculous. This was because the Weapon’s Spirit was making use of the divine fire’s power, not the burning of magic nuclei, in order to propel Floating City.

In other words, if Saleen wanted to move Floating City in the future, he wouldn’t need to burn magic nuclei at all.

All the magic power furnaces would only be used to maintain the operations of the magic nets. Even they no longer had the same level of consumption as before. The entire Floating City was now within the grasp of the Weapon’s Spirit: The enchanters would battle, and the Weapon’s Spirit would stay on the sidelines and observe, as well as provide them with supplies.

The limit of all the enchanters’ combat had risen to level-13.

The problem is that Saleen had no level-12 demons that could be used. None of the enchanters could release level-13 magic spells. There was no need to mention the magic net. There were no level-13 magic spells he could afford to store in it either.

The limitations of the magic nets lay in this. If there were no magic spells in the magic net, they would forever be unable to be released.

The current Floating City’s method of defense was the Quickcloud Spell. There were also layers of ripples within the cloud; these were all Saleen’s Water Shields. He had no way to increase the Water Shield to level-13. This was a magic spell variant he had created. Unless he advanced to level-12, nobody would know of the future trajectory of this magic spell.

Hence, these layers of ripples and the protective shield formed from condensed water elements were all merely grade-11.

The Weapon’s Spirit had grasped the power that Saleen had provided, allowing the entire Floating City to be enveloped in a bubble. If there had not been any clouds to block it, the people on the ground would still not be able to clearly see the appearance of Floating City. The gigantic bubble reflected sunlight and would form into a magnificent scene.

The strong people in Floating City had all sensed this change. The power provided to them by the Weapon’s Spirit seemed to be endless, so they thought. That’s how it was at their level.

Saleen felt a different type of feeling. The Weapon’s Spirit was using its magic, but there were still some flaws. For example, its power was much too strong.

This allowed it to understand where the gaps in its own magic lay. The things it previously had no means of detecting were now being verified one by one by Saleen with his own eyes under the demonstration of the Weapon’s Spirit’s magic.

“Master, I really want to find a target to test out the might of Floating City,” Nailisi said excitedly.

“There will be more opportunities in due time. Nailisi, what are you doing here?” Saleen saw that she had squeezed into the control room of the Magical Elemental Tower and said to her, “Go summon the demons. I need to take control of operations of all of Floating City.”

Nailise smiled bitterly and said, “Master, Floating City’s magic net has a total of three layers and it has been filled. It requires 3,600,000 enchanters. I cannot raise them all...”

“Idiot, the Weapon’s Spirit has become a god. Although it’s only a pseudo god, the imps can already gain power through prayer. They will not need so much of their normal food and drink at all!” Saleen knocked Nailisi’s head once and hurried her to get to work.

Originally, Saleen wouldn’t have been able to raise too many demons. For these enchanters, countless magic bugs had to be stored to act as their rations, and all of this had to be within Floating City’s spatial warehouse. Now, this wasn’t necessary. After these enchanters became a god’s disciples, the consumption level of their bodies would be reduced. They would be able to replenish their power while praying.

Essentially, the enchanters were being turned into angels.

Although they didn’t need much food and drink, the consumption level of the enchanters was not as low as what Saleen had spoken of. The Weapon’s Spirit was merely a pseudo god. Furthermore, it needed to stay concealed in the Magical Element Tower and could not leave at all.

The enchanters had to be in Floating City to gain what the god bestowed upon them.

What would the Weapon’s Spirit use to grant blessings to its disciples? Wasn’t it still Saleen’s magic nuclei? It was just that the energy that was portioned out from the magic power furnace would be absorbed by the enchanters in Floating City to replace their food and drink.

In the long run, these enchanters would become half-energy creatures, an existence similar to angels.