910 Capturing Figures Part 1 (1/2)

”Nailisi, if I were to just turn away now, I would face great difficulty advancing in the future. Grade-9 will become my limit. I didn't feel much getting in my way when advancing to grade-8, and that was because I had enough experience with things. Beyond grade-9, relying on experience alone would be meaningless.”

Saleen's words were extremely plain, yet Nailisi was rendered silent.

To practice magic was to walk an extremely arduous path. Ever since she began following Saleen, she had yet to see her master truly have any time for leisure. Saleen practiced magic with any free time he was able to get. He never went about enjoying himself, and never took long breaks. The way a mage took breaks was to meditate. A mage's constitutional toughness would be raised tens of times when advancing into the rank of sorcerers, enabling them to train for consecutive days and nights on end.

Practitioners of swordsmanship like Jola would have time to do something to enjoy themselves still, such as going about seducing the royal princess or such. There was basically no such luxury for mages. Once one entered the world of magic, everything else ceased to matter. If Saleen had not been braving countless dangers and coming out alive with Lex, their relationship would not have been what it was at that moment; their relationship would not have differed much from that between strangers.

”Master, since you have made up your mind, we will then follow your orders. What should we do then?” the winged skeleton simply asked, instead of trying to go against his master's wishes.

”Get rid of that figure. I have looked clearly. The figure did not absorb energy from the star chart, and that makes it a completely independent piece of equipment, just like the constructed puppet. Once the constellation powers of the figure get depleted, it will be no different from a child's toy.”

”Powers of grade-11, master. If we were to drain all the grade-11 power, it will take us a lot of time,” Nailisi said worriedly. She wished to leave the place quickly, as Saleen had gotten the magic nuclei he came for after all.

”That thing won't kill us, and that is our advantage over it. We still have elemental badges with us,” Saleen smiled and summoned Vinny's underlings. His underlings had been completely replenished by the great grandmaster, all one-hundred and forty-four Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers. All the soldiers were armed with large magic warhammers.

Saleen summoned six of them at one time. The soldiers stayed a height of twenty yards, instead of expanding their bodies to a height exceeding one-hundred yards. The astrologer's mansion was indeed huge, but it was nonetheless a house for human use still. The roof was broken as soon as the twenty yard tall soldiers made their entrance.

The female figure was right outside and was thrown into the air as the soldiers busted through the roof. The figure was unarmed, but hundreds of starlight beams flew from the ground as it danced about with its hands, disintegrating some of the soldiers. The elemental creatures were not ones to know fear. Their pieces simply flew back into the badge, while more flew out to take their places.

The figure would have cut all of the six soldiers Saleen released into shreds with starlight as soon as they hit the ground. As such, the offensive capacities of the starlight were very high. Saleen analyzed the beams and deemed that even his own grade-9 Darkness Shield would not have been adequate to completely nullify the attacks. If the Darkness Shield was broken, his own devil's armor would be able to hold out for a little bit still.

Saleen had no intentions of risking his own neck and had simply kept summoning the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers. He also unleashed the stone statue army kept in his robe, having them all flood the compound outside.

The Stone Statue Army was a grade-9 magic, and one which was able to summon six stone statue soldiers as well. The summoned soldiers were only six yards tall though. In an environment rich in earth element, they would have only been able to reach the size of nine yards at most.

The stone statue soldiers of the Stone Statue Army spell were forcefully created elemental creatures, and would not last long. Saleen, however, did not seem to mind at all. The stone statue soldiers created by the spell rushed into the compound and were also cut to shreds immediately by that figure. Saleen was learning the tactics of the figure. Starlight Cutting seemed to be a highly technical skill after all.

Saleen was reminded of his own Current Cutter. If the water currents were to be increased and then unleashed using the methods done with Starlight Cutting, Current Cutter would advance to grade-7 and would be equipped with a level of power exceeding grade-8.

He did not bother learning anything else, as borrowing the power of the stars was not something a mage would be able to learn. Saleen did acquire an astrologer's lineage, and whatever he was able to learn there would also be very limited.

The figure did not possess intelligence, and its movements became increasingly sluggish as Saleen kept conjuring elemental creatures. Eventually, some stone statue soldiers actually managed to get to its front and began beating it senseless.

The figure seemed to be made of cloth, yet when the soldier's huge fists pounded on it, one flew after another. Stone statue soldiers had no fear of death, and Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers were even less afraid. As the figure did not possess intelligence, it had only been attacking any elemental creatures getting into the compound or jumping out of the roof with starlight.

The constellation power within its body was limited, each and every attack it launched was something borrowed from the star chart on the ground. It worked in a manner similar to a mage consuming its magic chords. Only by using magic chords to manipulate the ambient elements, would the spell have been unusually powerful. If the spell conjured was dependent on magic chords alone, its effects would be no different from those dealt by normal magic weapons.

Saleen's Stone Statue Army spell was all used up, and one-hundred and twenty stone statue soldiers were lost. Seeing how the female figure no longer used any other skills like Starlight Cutting and had simply resorted to using its arms and legs to fight the soldiers up close, Saleen finally felt secure enough to charge at the pesky figure with Nailisi and the winged skeleton.

The ground of the compound was all but wrecked. The warhammers armed by the Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers were not for show, and the signs of their power were left all over the figure's ragged body. A swing with the magic hammer would be able to make craters in the ground after all.