Badge in Azure

Chapter 284: Ghost Ship (Part 1)

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

The pan’s turtle alchemical boat laid on the shore, and its external appearance had already been transformed. When Saleen and Lex had refined this ship, they had not dared to alter the outer shell for fear of affecting the depths of which the ship could enter.

In reality, the turtle was a sea magic beast whose forte was not speed. Some useless portions of the shell appeared as part of the turtle’s growing process, and these parts affected the turtle’s speed in water. Some of the carapace was even useless for the turtle’s defenses. Under most circumstances, the live turtle would not have an idea to deal with this problem. It could only rely on the smaller sea magic beasts to chew away those redundant parts.

Judikaka had simply removed these extra parts, and the toughness of the alchemical boat was not affected at all.

Besides this, there were not many other changes to the turtle shell. The magic patterns still remained, only now having an extra layer of dim hue. Even if one stared at this boat at close distance, there was still a feeling of intangibility, as though this boat did not exist.

Judikaka had reinforced the entire alchemical boat with the Nothingness spell. The Nothingness spell was not elemental magic, but many mages could cast it. This was a type of skill where when one wanted to set a magic trap, the user would be able to conceal the crucial parts of the trap to avoid detection by the enemy.

However, the depletion by this spell was not minute. Most mages would only use the spell to conceal an area about the size of the palm, but this alchemical boat was almost thirty meters long. Furthermore, this spell was permanently reinforced onto the boat, something which human mages would never be able to do.

At this moment, the moonlight was strong, but if a place was not well illuminated, the boat would look like it was invisible.

Underwater, this effect would be effective over a long period of time. Even though a permanently reinforced spell would disappear, that was only in theory. At this moment, mages had never witnessed the disappearance of a spell yet. Such a disappearance was measured in thousands of years.

However, all these things were nothing. When Saleen saw the bow of the alchemical boat, he was utterly speechless.

On the bow, there were two slightly protruded horns, which imitated those of the pikoosi. This was still understandable. Hoever, on the original turtle’s head, the crystals which Saleen had fused were gone. They were replaced by a gigantic black crystal.

Saleen had not possessed this material. Judikaka had used his own materials to help Saleen refine the boat. Was the black crystal counted as a piece of material? Or should the segmented pieces have been counted using the standard units of measurement? Judging by Judikaka’s character, it seemed to be the latter.

Saleen did not feel like he had lost out, but it was far too wasteful to put the black crystal here.

The black crystal could be used to store death magic, and it would not even reject elemental magic. If Daniel saw this piece of crystal, would he immediately go insane?

“This…” Saleen pointed to the black crystal at the bow, and raised his head to look at Judikaka.

“It’s nothing. The attack power of soul corrosion is too weak, so you can store the spell into the crystal first. After casting it, you can then use the magic array to cast a second time, so it will be like a compound spell.”

Judikaka felt that Saleen was overreacting. In the death dimension, all intelligent spirits did this.

However, when Saleen heard this, he grew tempted. Why had he not thought of such a method? Now that Saleen’s magic chords were flawed, Saleen faced great difficulty trying to learn the other five branches of magic. If he could use scrolls to cast those five branches of magic and also cast his own spells, then there would already be more variations of compound spells.

“Furthermore, how will the bone spirits pass through if I don’t use the black crystal? Bone spirits cannot withstand normal teleportation portals.”

Only when Judikaka said that did Saleen notice that there was an unidentifiable magic array at the edges of this massive piece of black crystal. A death teleportation portal!

“I…” Saleen pointed at the alchemical boat once again. He was unusually depressed as he tried to say something. He realized that the teleportation portal on the back of the turtle had disappeared, and this boat had become very powerful. However, Saleen himself was human, and he would not be able to pass through the death teleportation portal. At this moment, Judikaka had completely sealed the alchemical boat, allowing only spirits to enter.

Judikaka secretly snickered. The way Saleen looked right now made him very happy. Seeing that Saleen was quite anxious, Judikaka then calmly said, “I have designed two unidirectional teleportation portals. The entrance is under the boat, while the exit is on the surface of the boat.”

Saleen heaved a sigh of relief. Such a design was great. When the boat was underwater, it would be difficult for anyone else to enter from the outside. However, if there was not anyone inside, would the boat have to be flipped over if they wanted to enter?

“Don’t you have a death contract creature?” Judikaka could tell what Saleen was worried about.

Saleen had a moment of realization. He still had the winged skeleton, and the winged skeleton was an intelligent death creature. As long as the winged skeleton entered using the death teleportation portal, the alchemical boat could be activated and float up to the surface, then Saleen would be able to enter from the bottom. This design was good. Other than a mage like Saleen, any other mages would find it challenging to gain access to this boat.

“I have altered the propellers so its speed is much higher now. Go and take a look. I am tired already.” Now that Judikaka had already stared at Saleen’s expression to his heart’s content, he waved at Saleen before leaving the shore.

From behind, Saleen called out from behind, “Hey! How do I get it back into the water?”

“Solve it yourself. This is not something which I should be doing.” Judikaka held back his laughter, and waved at Saleen with his back facing him. Saleen was even surer that Judikaka was definitely related to humans after seeing him behave like this.

Teasing me, right? Saleen looked at the giant alchemical ship, then hollered, “Nailisi!”

“Here, my master.” Nailisi jumped out from the darkness. She had indeed been in the vicinity.

“We have to get this thing back into the water.”

“Master, you can ask Daniel to do this!”

Saleen slapped his forehead. He had been far blinded by anger. Daniel’s death creature might not have been very intelligent, but it was huge and possessed immense strength. The ship was only dozens of meters away from the shore. With another six fully constructed puppets, it would be easy to get the ship back into the water.

Daniel had been asleep, and he became very upset when Saleen summoned him. Daniel was no mage master. His mental power would surely be adversely affected if he did not get enough sleep.

Even so, when he saw the new transformations to the alchemical ship, all his fatigue disappeared. Seeing that there was a colossal piece of black crystal mosaicked into the bow of the ship, Daniel lost all his composure and pounced forward.

For the black crystal, I gave up the winged skeleton. How many portions of materials could be segmented from this piece in front of me right now? Hundreds or thousands of portions? Why is Saleen so wealthy while I am so impoverished?

Daniel caressed the black crystal in a depressed mood. He very much wanted to cut a small piece out, but he knew that it was impossible. Unless one had special alchemy cutting tools, most crystals would not be able to be segmented. In the past, some extravagant nobles had crafted a set of armor out of crystal. This armor could protect its wearer from any attacks from bows, but the wearer was killed by a grade-1 mage during a battle.

The physical defensive ability of crystal was extremely high, but if it was not treated, it would not have any defenses against magic. Instead, it would amplify the lethality of magic.

“Daniel, hurry up. This thing shouldn’t be seen by many,” Saleen urged. Besides the mages from Sregl Island, even the pirates had never seen the alchemical boat. The pirates only knew that their ship had been used to drag a gigantic item behind them, tied to a giant metallic chain.

Only if the alchemical boat remain classified would it be able to unleash the largest effect. Once enemies discovered this boat, they would begin researching countermeasures. Saleen still wanted to produce more of such ships, and if people knew about this in advance, then the whole project would already lose its meaning.

The pikoosi was released by Daniel from the death flames. Together with six fully constructed puppets, the ship was pushed back into the water. Saleen immediately allowed Daniel to go back and rest, but Daniel could not bear to. He wanted to go onboard to take a look.

“Why are you so anxious? You will be able to steer this ship in the future.” Saleen dismissed Daniel. In truth, he did not need to hide anything from Daniel. However, if he wanted to enter the alchemical boat, then he would need to summon the winged skeleton. Using the winged skeleton right in front of Daniel could put a strain in their relationship.

Even though Daniel did not regard Saleen as anything, Saleen did not want to worsen Daniel’s pain. Daniel would eventually forget about the winged skeleton, so Saleen did not want to continue provoking him right now.

After entering the water with Nailisi, the alchemical boat could not be found. Saleen was not worried. The alchemical boat had been concealed by the Reinforcement spell. This Reinforcement spell did not deplete much energy, so the boat would not be totally invisible. Following the position where the alchemical boat entered the water, Saleen slowly made his way to the front of the alchemical boat.

At a distance of about five meters, Saleen could finally spot the appearance of the alchemical boat. When Saleen came to the bow of the boat, he called out to the winged skeleton in his heart.

“Soldier, go in and take a look. Do you know how to activate the magic array?”

“I can do it if it’s just a magic array.” The winged skeleton quickly responded to Saleen’s calls and came out of the green spirit before standing on the bow of the alchemical boat.

The winged skeleton had never been a magic creature, but after absorbing the soul of a human mage, the winged skeleton had gained intelligence and could learn about a life of magic. However, the winged skeleton did not have magic chords. He could practice death magic, but not practice elemental magic. Thus, he could only help Saleen activate the magic array.

The winged skeleton pasted himself on the black crystal. The four parts of the magic array on the black crystal lit up at the same time, causing the winged skeleton to be teleported away. Not long after, the alchemical boat floated to the surface. Saleen knew that the winged skeleton was not very deft at controlling the magic array. He could only make the boat float to the surface.

Saleen led Nailisi and crawled into the alchemical boat through the abdomen of the turtle shell. The design of this teleportation portal infuriated Saleen. During the transportation process, he saw countless images of spirits dancing about in his mind. Those mournful noises caused Saleen to be nauseous.

Is this Judikaka’s hobby? Right, Judikaka hasn’t demanded remuneration yet. This old spirit is really scheming. By doing so, I will be embarrassed to deduct his rewards.

Nevermind. Since they are helping me capture the lightning dragon and have refined such a weapon, it will be worth it even if I give them a batch of magic books.