Badge in Azure

Chapter 1414: Coercion (Part 1)

The three elders of the Elemental Hand looked at it that way. If Saleen’s target was the Holy See, then there was little about the deal that they found unacceptable. It was due precisely to being overpowered by the Great Elder, that they were unable to send decent backups to the Qin Empire. If it had not been for the Great Elder, the few of them had long sent mages to attack holy masters of the Holy See.

The Great Elder had been blinded by power, wanting to become someone like the founding emperor of the First Dynasty.

Having great ambitions without the ability to match them, proved to be an apt description of the Great Elder. The powers of Alchemy City enabled them to reign supreme over a certain region, yet controlling the entire mainland proved too difficult.

“I need some time to take the Baldur’s Gate. You guys can’t stay here, hmm...”

“We have places to stay. These are the coordinates.” One of the elders was perceptive and keen enough to tell Saleen the coordinates right away. They still had 30000 mages outside of Alchemy City, which meant that they definitely had places to hide still.

Saleen was silent for a while and the three mages looked rather tense. Saleen smiled all of a sudden and said, “Oh it’s fine, I’m just thinking about some other things. The main force of the Holy See now is the Black Dungeon Island. This is one place that cannot be taken down, even with all of Alchemy City’s powers gathered.”

Seeing how the three of them feeling somewhat slighted, Saleen added, “The head warden is probably a level 13 professional and he never leaves the Black Dungeon. That probably means that there is an independent space there that isn’t restricted by plane rules of Myers Mainland. If he were to intend to leave, he would have to seal his power at level 13. It is possible that he is trying to break into level 14, so he wouldn’t leave Black Dungeon Island without very good reasons to do so. If we were to just storm the place, do you think you’d be able to take on someone who is near level 14?”

The three mages were rendered speechless right away. Such deduction was a product inspired by his teacher.

Jason was at level 13 as well. Due to his powers growing too much and he was unable to seal them, he had to remain in Raphael’s interdimensional space. Saleen recalled the past fights he had with the Holy See. While the Tribunal had indeed sent their forces to take him on, but everyone they sent seemed to have had nothing to do with the head warden. There were definitely reasons why the head warden refused to leave Black Dungeon Island.

After coming to such conclusions, Saleen knew that he still had a long away ahead of him.

Not even his weapon spirits would have been able to take on people at the pinnacle of level 13.

“As such, the Holy See would still be around for quite a long time. At the very least, the Tribunal would still stand. Use this as your excuse to rebuild the Elemental Hand. Our target is the Holy See.” Saleen had only recalled his elemental creatures, puppets and figures after he finished.

Saleen then turned around and left right away, leaving the three feeling puzzled.

The Great Elder had done a lot of things that irked the mages when he was around. If he were to be truly dead, things would have gotten a lot easier to deal with from then on out.

The three level 11 mages were not as difficult to deal with as Saleen imagined them to be. Having been overpowered by the Great Elder for so long, none of them showed much of any interests in resisting forceful people. If Saleen had been as gentle and amicable as he used to be, devoid of any forceful bearing about him, it would have been a lot harder for him to subjugate those three instead.

Saleen had given them some measure of freedom, yet his bearing still remained more forceful than that of the Great Elder, and those mages thought that to be normal instead.

However, none of them realized that Saleen was actually disappointed in such reactions from them.

Saleen liked independent, capable mages with an attitude, and none of the three Elemental Hand mages fit the bill. From the looks of things, they seemed more like conventional bureaucrats who just adhered to protocol.

Successes of such mages were destined to be limited.

Saleen was not wrong to think of it as such. While the Elemental Hand looked powerful, resources were all consumed by the core mages. If it had not been for the fact that they had been exploiting and taking advantage of the common mages, those people would not have gotten to where they were at that day.

Metatrin City had a better, more comprehensive design when it came to distribution of magical resources. If mages wanted to acquire resources, they would have had to pay for them by working in the alchemy factories.

Mages acquired resources, training and experience at the same time, preventing them from going broke.

While mages in Metatrin City at the moment were enormously rich people, but at the very least, every single one of them had never seen the daily supplies of magic nuclei cut off, and without having to venture outside to acquire them. Any special machinery and items required could have been requested from the temple. It would have taken only about three days to get them resources that would have proved satisfactory.

When consumables were concerned, mages were allowed to acquire them on credit. With the alchemy factories in operation every day, the mages were able to pay for them by working at the factories.

However, that was not how Alchemy City worked, as any mages in Alchemy City intending to work for the Elemental Hand would have had to pay a certain amount of money or material supplies, while not getting any pay in return for their work.

Everyone knew that alchemy burned through cash quickly and viciously, as well as the shortcut to enhance one’s magical abilities.

It was not that most mages did not want to learn alchemy, but that their finances did not allow them to. There were also few nobles capable of keeping mages around in the world. Ironically, most of that phenomenon was caused by the Elemental Hand monopolizing magical material supplies.

In theory, the worth of magic nuclei was something that could not have been measured in gold coins. The prices of magical materials monopolized by Alchemy City were an act that wrecked the balance in themselves. If the mages were to be allowed to practice free trade, even poor mages would have had chances to advance.

Saleen deliberately slowed down and he was completely relieved to see the three mages catching up. While the submissive attitude displayed by the three irked him somewhat, Saleen nonetheless did not demand them to change.

Those three were still considered capable people, judging from the fact that they were still able to keep the Elemental Hand running. Not all geniuses and capable people were proud people. As a king, Saleen came to learn of that very much.

Prideful people tended to finish fast. Those who were capable of surviving were those favored by fate. If they were to be able to reach the pinnacle of allowable powers, they would not have been easily subjugated by the likes of Saleen.

Grand Duke Iron Blood was one of such proud people, and Saleen was only able to forge a temporary alliance with him. Wanting someone like that to subjugate to him would have been impossible.

Back then, when Saleen was trying to subjugate Ismail, the man had rather died than to submit. He had even cursed Saleen right before his death, which ended up with Saleen forever being marked by the God of Underworld. That meant that if Saleen were to enter the purgatory plane, he would have been hunted down by the gods immediately.

The following battles were far easier. With the order to surrender issued by the Elemental Hand, most mages had gotten reluctant to keep fighting. Safilos was baffled seeing mages lining up to surrender. He was utterly rendered speechless by the scene.

He never knew how Saleen managed to pull that off.

It was actually very simple. The structure of the Elemental Hand had been an insane one right from the start. The ones at the top had control of all the resources while those below had little to gain.

Things were different with Metatrin City. While Saleen had control of resources as well, but he would have distributed them according to rules set out after assuming control. The ones below, in turn, would have given their all to protect Metatrin City. That was because if Metatrin was lost, they would have lost the chance of getting fair payment together with it, losing the opportunity to acquire all manner of magical lineages.

Handicapped mages were not discriminated in Metatrin City as well, as Saleen had claimed that he only had water elemental magic chords, yet that no longer presented a problem once he made it past level ten.

If even the leader of Metatrin City himself had been of imperfect constitution, then the others would have naturally dared to set higher aspirations for themselves.

Even though none of those mages would have been able to achieve what Saleen had achieved throughout their lives, but the hope of achieving greatness was nonetheless around, and opportunities to reach such greatness were provided.

Saleen made good on his words as well. There were indeed mages like Saleen and had made great contributions to Metatrin City, and they were taken into the temple. Level ten mages were gathered to cast elemental skills to modify their bodies.

Such grace was definitely not something common and with precedents like that set out for all to see, more mages became willing to serve Metatrin City.

The very reason why Saleen left Alchemy City as it was, was to foster competition. Competition led to faster advancements, and it was not realistic for all mages he knew to be gathered at Metatrin City.

Furthermore, there were people out there who were out to do him no good. With Metatrin City remaining behind, such people would have been selected and singled out.

That was how kings and emperors do things and it was something Saleen learned from Ojarvis. Saleen came to learn a lot of things when Ojarvis was at his deathbed.

All surrendering mages were to relinquish their personal belongings and wealth. That was a demand from Saleen.

However, Saleen had also added that all of that would have been kept in record and the mages were to be compensated according to market rate. There were hundreds of thousands of mages from Alchemy City there. There were definitely people who did not like how Saleen was getting things done.

Saleen then summoned the metal angels and had them see to the problem instead.

The way metal angels see to their problems was through their swords. Level ten mages were not beings mages below level ten could have resisted.

Hundreds of mages attempting to play tricks and cause trouble were killed and Saleen felt that to be a waste deep down. None of those people were bad people, yet they had to die nonetheless. Or else, hundreds of thousands of mages would have revolted and half of the army he brought would have had to die to suppress the revolt.

Saleen overpowered the surrendering mages with an iron fist, taking space equipment of all of them. There were too many items among the mages’ private equipment that were left around doing nothing. Some mages were of low levels did not know what kind of magic equipment they had acquired, yet they were reluctant to take them out, as Alchemy City would have taken those items away otherwise.

Saleen wanted to take those items for himself as well, but he would have definitely paid.

There were items with special properties, godly items left behind in the mainland, as well as all manner rare materials. All of them were something Saleen was after. There was yet another reason for searching them. The quality of equipment possessed by the Alchemy City mages were of vastly differing quality. Most mages crafted equipment on their own while some others bought them at high prices. That would not have happened in Metatrin City. Mage equipment were things that would have been tailored to a mage’s personal abilities. Regardless if the items were meant to be used in synchronization with others or on their own, they enabled the user mages to bring the greatest of their powers to bear.

Having taken Alchemy City as his own exclusive domain, the hundreds of thousands of mages present were seen as his capital for attacking the Holy See. Mages in Metatrin City were meant for dealing with creatures of foreign planes, which meant that they cannot be sent to the frontlines.

Under Saleen’s coercion, the Alchemy City mages chose to submit.

It was something easy to understand. Those who refused to submit to Alchemy City had all gone to Metatrin City. Since those mages before Saleen had been willing to submit to Alchemy City, none of them were in any mood to resist, since Saleen was still willing to trade after all.

The body of the Great Elder was brought back and was projected for all to see using magic, with the image hanging high up in the air.