Chapter 498: 498
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Across the black desert, the two people walked side by side . They might have appeared to be traveling very slowly, but in actual fact, every step they took covered almost a mile . At such a speed, they were way faster than a mage who was flying . The flying skill of a mage tapped into the power of the wind element, while the two goddess' envoys were borrowing the power of the earth .
More accurately, they were not just utilizing the power of the earth . Earth, water, wind, light, darkness; these six elements were mutually convertible, none of them were dispensable . Located at the core of the earth was fire, coupled with rivers . On the other hand, the environment above the earth was enveloped by an endless supply of the wind element . Situated beyond the earth was space, where light and darkness was present .
None of these elements were ever separated . Yet, when a mage was at too low a grade, they could only cast spells containing a single element . It was impossible for them to fuse the different elements together .
Saleen had already grasped the initial stages of elemental conversion, but he only managed to do so because of his constitution and guidance from Joey . Even if he had become a sorcerer, he would still need to master these skills gradually otherwise .
When all of these had completely fused with one another to the point of zero distinction, then that was the power of the Goddess of Nature . Thereafter, the seventh power, life, would be created . After the birth of life, death would be subsequently derived .
After the two goddess' envoys left the temple, the towering black sand dune began sinking into the ground slowly . Eventually, the ground became flat . The temple had also sunk into the desert, leaving no traces behind . With the original position of the temple as the nucleus, countless microscopic runes quivered in the midst of the black sand particles, as though they were fish in water . These runes expanded outwards, eventually forming a region with a diameter of one-hundred miles . In this region, everything remained still .
In the blink of an eye, Gauf and Jessica had already walked hundreds of miles . They stopped at an area filled with gravel, where all the rocks were white in color . The sandstorms which occurred in the past ten thousand years did not erode them into powder . As a result, this white gravel looked extremely blinding against the backdrop of the black desert .
Gauf scanned his surroundings, before bending down in front of a rock which was one and a half times taller than a human . He then extended his hand and caressed the rock .
"It escaped from here . Seems like it hadn't fully recovered yet, it only regained ten percent of its power . For some unknown reason, its recovery process has stopped . "
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"Poor rock . " As Jessica gazed at this rock, her eyes were filled with sympathy . To the goddess' envoys, this rock also had life . After coming into contact with the Dark Sky Devil, its life had quickly ebbed away .
As if to verify her words, the rock burst open with a crack the moment Gauf lifted his hand .
"Since it hasn't fully recovered, it will go into hiding . It will be really challenging to locate it," Jessica said worriedly .
"Since we have left, we shouldn't be too anxious . It is a devil, it must have believers in order to regain more of its powers . " After a round of short discussion, the two goddess' envoys altered their direction of travel, they began walking southeast . Even though both of them claimed that they were not afraid of the believers of the god from a foreign plane, the two envoys did not want to get into a conflict for the time being . The scent of that god was very concentrated in the northwest direction, so the two envoys had to avoid that area temporarily .
After such a long time, they were clueless about the situation on the mainland . Other than that devil, which was extirpated in the past, giving them information about the current turmoil on the mainland, no one else had entered the Purgatory Desert .
South of the Purgatory Desert, within the Black Rock Mountain, Lex's camp had spent the past fifteen days and fifteen nights uneventfully . The ten swordmasters, two Black Metal Grand Swordmasters, Wild Bear, and Jola had already acclimatized to their new magic armor .
With the Spirit Snake Armor on their bodies, the swordmasters' actions were unrestrained, it was as though they were wearing normal cotton clothing . As the armor was almost weightless, the weapons of the swordmasters had also undergone some adjustments . As a result, they had to train for half a month before being able to adapt to the armor completely .
The swordmasters had changed their weapons, the Qin Eight-sided Swords were changed into the more suitable double-edged serrated knives . Short weapons included the armor-piercing short sword and an axe . The soldiers only had one long weapon, the double-bladed spear . This spear could be detached in the middle . Even if all the parts were connected, it was not very long either, less than three yards . The body of this spear was crafted from an extremely lightweight metal . The swordmasters would put the spear in a spear pouch and sling it over their shoulders .
Each person got an alchemical crossbow, while the skeletal warhorses were fitted with intermediate-sized metal shields .
The swordmasters' backpacks were filled with fresh water . Even if the swordmasters got separated from the mages, they could still survive for several days .
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Each mage was allocated hundreds of scrolls, Lex did not dare be thrifty at this point in time . As she did not bring along many people, she would lose a great deal of offensive power the moment any one of them died . The quality of her mages was very high, and they were not old either . In the future, some of these mages would definitely become sorcerers .
The magic war chariots were repaired . Saleen returned Eleanor her original robe, as her equipment had been seized by Nailisi . Saleen gave Eleanor ten level-4 scrolls, twenty level-3 scrolls, and one level-6 scroll .
Eleanor was grateful towards Saleen . Even if Saleen did not give her these items, it would not be considered a breach of contract . In an environment like the Purgatory Desert, it would be ideal to have the magic chords untouched though .
Logically speaking, Bifano had the worst luck . Saleen was obviously the one enjoying all the benefits, yet Eleanor hated Bifano .
In these fifteen days, other than learning holy prose from Eleanor, the only thing Saleen did was to produce a set of equipment for each of the four newly recruited demons .
This was Nailisi's request, which Saleen did not refuse .
These four sets of equipment were not of a very high level, but their materials were precious . They were highly compatible with the fighting styles of the four demons .
Aiwa was given a set of heavy armor . Even though a single piece of metal was not even used, the shell of the red krill had been repeatedly refined . As a result, his armor was still dozens of layers thick . The whole set of armor was filled with a kind of thorn which was exclusive to the red krill . Even though the thorns were slightly brittle, they were razor-sharp . These thorns were the strongest attack this grade-4 magic beast could offer .
If the thorns broke off, they could always be replenished, wastage was not a problem .
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Aiwa's forte was his strength, Saleen specially produced a shield for him using the metallized steel rocks from the temple . The shield was almost as tall as Aiwa, it could withstand any straight line attacks .
Aiwa's weapon was pretty interesting, it was a meteor hammer . It actually was not suitable to pair this weapon with a heavy shield . Aiwa could wield the shield single handedly though . Coupled with the meteor hammer, he would enjoy both offense and defense .
Saleen thought of the Silver Grand Swordmaster who assaulted Lex's camp in the past . His meteor hammer was really mighty, so Saleen decided to imitate his weapon .
Luola's forte was long weapons, his skills were in no way inferior to that of humans . Saleen had imitated the Spirit Snake Armor, producing a magic armor which emphasized flexibility . Luola had another advantage over others; his leaping ability was really outstanding . With just one leap, he could jump even farther than Jola . With such agility, there was no need for him to use a long weapon anymore . Saleen crafted a horse-killing sword for Luola . A horse-killing sword could barely be regarded as a long weapon, but its method of usage was similar to that of a normal longsword, it could deal with targets clad in heavy armor .
The magic beasts in the desert would surely have tough shells, otherwise Lex would not have equipped her swordmasters with the armor-piercing short swords .
Tolesi's ability was immense mental strength . He could learn magic, but Saleen had no time to groom him, so Saleen crafted a set of leather armor for him . This armor would not affect his ability to unleash his mental strength . As a demon, Tolesi's strength was pretty great too, so Saleen made twelve pole javelins for him .
The javelins could be used for melee fights, or they could be tossed at the enemy . Given Tolesi's strength, him tossing a javelin would be more horrifying than an attack from a heavy crossbow .
Saleen spent the most effort making Cuisi's equipment because Cuisi was mightier than the other three demons combined . He needed costlier equipment .
Saleen had used his savings of rhenium gold to craft a set of metal armor etched with magic patterns . Luckily, Cuisi was slightly shorter than Nailisi . If he had an eight-yard tall frame, Saleen would have already gone bankrupt trying to produce his armor .
Nailisi told Saleen that Cuisi possessed outstanding martial arts skills and knew how to cast several inborn spells . This was the advantage a demon had over a human, they could possess magic and martial arts at the same time .
Saleen had never witnessed Cuisi in action, so he sought Cuisi's opinion . Cuisi actually gave Saleen a drawing which was annotated in the ancient Myers language .
Most demons knew how to write in the demonic language, but those who could write in the ancient Myers language were definitely high grade demons . Some of the powerful skills and knowledge of the humans had circulated to the demonic plane during the ancient times . Consequently, many demons had learned human skills, and thus learned the ancient Myers language .
When the bloodlines of these demons were passed down, their descendants almost dominated the demonic plane . Even though humans had declined, the powerful demons still had a tinge of fear towards them .
Such fear was only present in the face of mightier humans . In the eyes of a demon, the average humans were actually thought to be less delicious than a magic bug .
Cuisi wanted a soft whip as his weapon . On a real battlefield, no one was seen wielding a soft whip, but Cuisi still wanted it . All the annotations had proved that this weapon would be indomitable on a battlefield with tens of thousands of people .
The soft whip had a length of sixteen yards . Saleen had used colloid found on the red krill, this material was even smaller than a finger . The colloid was refined to become the main component of the soft whip . The mightiest part of this colloid was not its toughness, but its ability to repair itself . Even if the red krill had died, the colloid still retained its properties .
At the end of this sixteen yard long whip was a razor-sharp hook, produced from the teeth of a sea magic beast . This was not the main killing technique of this soft whip . Sharp horns were mosaicked onto the surface of the whip, with a finger spacing in between every horn . These horns originated from the horns of the tiago dragon . Saleen had used the Water Flame Alchemy to refine them into the soft whip .
If one was struck by this soft whip, even their magic armor would be torn to shreds .
After obtaining this whip, Cuisi became more loyal to Saleen, he was no longer as arrogant like he was in the beginning . He knew that it was extremely difficult refining the horns of a dragon in such a short time, even if one was a supreme demon . Saleen only used ten days to craft this weapon for him . In Cuisi's eyes, Saleen was considered a partial expert already .
Cuisi did not like using magic, but he had a spell which was very practical . It was the rare Arrow of Darkness, a dark spell conjured by tapping into the mental strength of a demon . For this spell, Saleen had mosaicked two tiny white crystals into Cuisi's armor, allowing Cuisi's mental strength to recover twice as fast .
Everything had been prepared, what was left was to set off . Metatrin City still had not sent any information over after a long time . Lex and Saleen were beginning to get anxious because the flying puppet recently spotted some cavalrymen from the Tanggulasi Empire nearing the periphery of the Purgatory Desert . If the enemy had discovered the team's tracks, people might be dispatched to this location, which would lead to an unnecessary battle .