<h4>Chapter 926: Setup at Lonestar City (Part 1)</h4>
Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Metatrin City had been focused on the rebuilding of its fleet. The winged skeleton was not there either hen Saleen was gone, but the city still had a great number of mages nheless, especially the sorcerers numbering to thirty strong who were on guard at the city all year round.
Despite the number of ships mobilized from Sregl Ind not being of a high number, it nheless brought a great many sailors from the ind, which was the more important matter at hand. The sailors were the real deal, people who fought at sea all day every day.
Ever since Jason came to the city, he had the sailors train the troops of the city, by using whatever ships were left in the city in turns. Metatrin City was no longercking sailors.
Saleen’s return brought the manufactured schematics of the magic power furnace, as well as detailed magic notes. Some of the magic power furnaces were coincidentally things that grade-9 sorcerers were capable of crafting. Saleen also brought the finished products with him in the form of power nts used for running the Ancient. The sorcerers boarded the ship and studied the furnaces onboard personally, enabling them to develop a certain level of mastery in the creation of low level magic power furnaces.
Saleen had to wait for ten days, which were meant for modifying the power nts of some of the warships.
The alchemic factory had been busy manufacturing parts of the Ancient. Some sorcerers went on to redesign ships of smaller scales based on the schematics of the Ancient Saleen brought home with him.
The smallest ship in the new fleet of Ancient warships measured between two-hundred to three-hundred yards, which was equivalent to the main warships of the day.
Mages from Sregl Ind redesigned various ships of the fleet and had even went on to dismantle the ones brought from the ind, to be resembled into new ships. They had nock of materials. Almost all work was done in the alchemic factory, with the assembly done in the shipyards, performed by mechanical puppets. One brand new warship after another left for the waters at a frightening speed.
In practice, the toughest stages of building magic warshipsid within design and manufacture of parts. Assembly was the easier stage of the whole task instead. While humanscked the strength for intensive hardbor, mechanical puppets were capable of lifting up to ten-thousand pounds of material after all. Large scale magic equipment made everything flow smoothly like a meandering river.
Saleen gave the order to depart on the tenth day, and his entire new fleet finished assembly on the ninth. The mages of Sregl Ind renovated Metatrin Citypletely. The huge alchemic factory saw the soaring increase in production quality and capacity. His production of war equipment had always been fast, and then, things were a hundred times faster than they used to be.
Of course, one major reason contributing to such advancement came from therge number of magic nuclei he brought home with him. Even the mineral veins at the mines of Demon City started seeing the production of crystals.
Crystals produced from the mineral veins of Demon City were equivalent to mid-level magic nuclei in terms of power. Saleen, at the moment, ended up having too many mages serving under him. It was fortunate for him that the mages of Sregl Ind did not need magic nuclei distribution from him, or the hunt in the oceanic ice block every year would have never been enough to cover the needs of his own mages.
The gship of the expeditionary fleet remained to be the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel. The Ancient was christened as Genga, which served as Saleen’s main assault ship. Other than that, every other ship in Saleen’s fleet was a high-speed warship of one-hundred and eighty yards long.
The dozen bone warships served as auxiliary forces of the fleet. Saleen confirmed the list of people following him to war, and the demon sailors were also in position. Saleen no longer fought using spirits that time, and that felt very different from before to him.
Eighteen warships powered by magic power furnaces and all had two-thousand demons serving as both crew and warriors. The bone twelve warships were filled basically by spirits, only eighteen warships had human soldiers and mages.
The Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel served as his gship, with those serving directly under him on it.
The Ancient was following the fleet far behind, covering a huge area with mist, hiding their positions. The Mechanical Soul turned rather obedient at that moment and ceased trying to y any tricks in front of Saleen. He knew well that Saleen was able to have him suffer the wrath of hell anytime he fancied.
The Ancient also served as a logistical base for the fleet. The new ships had little space to hold cargo, and Saleen hardly brought any sorcerers with him. Almost all mages on the fleet were grand mages. Matters concerning supplies were then relegated to the Ancient.
He had knowledge of more than a dozen inds capable of serving as supply points on their southward journey from Metatrin City. Most of the inds would have fallen to the hands of Grand Duke Iron Blood by then.
The fleet departed. Six jade skeletons activated the new pan’s turtle alchemical boat beneath the fleet, leading the way for twenty-four divingbat vessels to follow the fleet above them. The all-metal divingbat vessels had all been fitted with low level magic power furnaces. Their speeds were increased, and they were able to divert most of the energy generated to power their defenses. The depths capable to be reached were also increased by about one-hundred yards.
Themand of spirits could have only been undertaken by the winged skeleton alone, and Saleen would not have been able to just hand his entire fleet to just the Winged Skull and no one else. As such, the expedition that time served as military training. True battles required him, J, and Nichs to be in charge.
Saleenbored to craft Eternal Control shards aboard the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel. He delegated themand of the twenty-four ancient warriors to Nailisi, resulting in a sharp drop in hisbat capacity. Thebat capacities of his twenty-four ancient warriorsbined rivaled that of over one-hundred Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers. Without humans being inmand, elemental creatures would only be able to overwhelm their adversaries through superiority in terms of level difference. Once they encountered a human of their own level, they would hardly be a match for said human.
Saleen’s soul was more powerful than it had been before, and his understanding of the Eternal Control shards grew as well. He knew that it was not all that difficult tomand the ancient soldiers. As such, he no longer went wasting his single-horned white whale horns, recing those materials with the bones of other magic beasts.
The advancement of Saleen’s mental powers increased the number of ancient warriors he was able to put under hismand. Other than the slots avable for signing contracts, the number of ancient warriors he was able to control remained limited at thirty-six.
Saleen knew that such limitations would be broken once he saw an advance in his magic. Advancement in magic required opportunities of sorts. All his prior experience umted was spent on the advancement into level nine. If he wished to see his magic chords evolve further, he would need to re-umte his experiences. The umtion included new knowledge and developing new awareness about the elements.
J stood at the bow feeling rather bored. He had been on the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel before, but he was only there for visits back then. Going out to war on a warship personally hardly interested him at all. There were no beauties to be found on the ship, and J had no choice but to kill time fishing at the bow.
The speed of the Dragon Skeleton Combat Vessel was kept at more than one-hundred miles per hour. Normal fishing would not be possible. The rod in his hand was a very short one, and the hook on the line had no bait on it. He simply stood there and threw the hook overboard. He was able to end up pulling up a fish every time he threw the hook over.
Some low level magic beasts were caught at times. Those without magic nuclei were immediately thrown back into the sea. More than a dozen personal guards stood behind him, and all looked awkwardly at theirmanding officer. A golden grand swordmaster, hunting magic beasts below grade-3. There was hardly anything else that spoke better of his boredom at that point.
Nichs was feeling bored in the hold as well. His divine arts were unlike the mages, which required meditation and experimentation. His equivalent of those exercises was simply to keep inciting the souls in the soul bead and have them worship his soul brand. Doing so would gradually increase his level of power. With Saleen being busy crafting his equipment, he walked out of his quarters and went up on the deck, looking at J who was busy fishing.
“Old man, shouldn’t you be at our lord’s side instead ofing up here?” J asked as he put away his rod, sensing the presence of Nichs close by.
“Haha, J, just call me Nichs.” Nichs’ beard waved about in the sea breeze, which looked rather ridiculous.
“I know your name is Nichs.” J threw away his rod and sat on the deck. He was dressed in a set of soft magic armor, with his sword, Tears, hanging about his hip.
“J, why haven’t you gotten more gear for yourself? Did our lord...”
“I’m a swordsman. I hardly need anything else other than a sword,” J cut Nichs off right there. The matter with the old man wanting to draw Saleen’s followers over to his side and form a faction of his own was something that could have hardly been missed.
“Haha, J, I’m a holy master. While I possiblyck your capacity at offense, I would be better at protecting our lord than you would. I have simplye to discuss how to work with you and get this missionpleted.” Nichs hardly fretted over what happened. Even if the powers of the entire ne were to advance, there was no denying the position of a golden grand swordmaster being a supreme one still.
J was only several yards away from him. If J wanted him dead, not one of his lesser prophecy spells would be able to save him.
“Our lord’s power is now way higher than mine, Nichs. He only wanted his fleet to grow strong quickly. It is impossible for him to be the one leading the fleet every time we go on an expedition. There is still a lot to be taken care of on the maind. This mission is one without any difficulty at all. If the grand duke was here, he would end up dead soon enough.”
“You really shouldn’t be underestimating your enemies,” Nichs said in an earnest manner.
“Grand Duke Iron Blood is no enemy; he is a dead man.” J turned around and faced forward, leaving the back of his head to face Nichs.
“J, why hasn’t our lord been worried about Lonestar City?” Nichs saw no choice but to change the topic.
“I just returned from there. If that ce was truly dangerous, our lord would have given his all to mount a rescue. I didn’t even bother staying there myself. So, do you still think that Lonestar City is dangerous?”
Nichs was speechless. He had been feeling something peculiar about it. “J is a golden grand swordmaster. There was simply no need to have him to mount a rescue. There were also sorcerers and the Wings of an Elf at Lonestar City. It seemed to make more sense to leave the golden grand swordmaster behind instead. Was Saleen hiding something?”
Nichs felt rather uneasy inside. He truly decided to devote himself to following Saleen, yet he still found that there were things that Saleen kept from him.
J seemed to have detected what was going on in Nichs’ mind, and said with augh, “Old man, are you wondering right now, why our lord hasn’t exined anything about this?”
“He has his way with things, and there is no need for him to exin anything to us,” Nichs answered hastily. J’s words alerted him, reminding him that he was a follower of Saleen. His lord had no need toy out everything to him, unless it had something to do with the mission at hand.
“If you are really feeling uneasy about it, just go ask the man yourself,” J did not continue. Nichs turned around and left the deck. He reminded himself of Saleen’s temperament. It would be best for him to simply ask Saleen, should there be anything bothering him. Saleen hated people scheming behind his back. He felt the need to simply go ask Saleen directly. His mind would not calm otherwise.