For all the apprentices in the tower, their magical talisman was actually a token of their identity.
Chapter 5
After submitting his task, Tony immediately rushed back to his room, obviously intending to go to take a nap. After all, every inspection trip would push one’s nerves to the limit, and it really consumed your stamina. In contrast to Tony’s actions, Greem hesitated for a moment, then he turned around and walked toward the library.
It was around midday, so there weren’t very many apprentices inside the library.
It was a simple stone room with dozens of yellowed wooden bookshelves placed against the walls. On top of these shelves were all kinds of magic and spell books made from all kinds of materials and in all shapes and forms. The man who managed these books was a middle-aged, intermediate level old apprentice Adept.
For these intermediate apprentice Adepts, who had only barely reached this level with help from the experience of age, the Adept Tower would never put in any more effort to cultivate them. Also, this group of apprentice had given up their ambitions. They were not willing to take those overly risky missions, but, at the same time, they refused to return to the life of ordinary humans. Therefore, they became a unique group within the apprentice Adepts.
Although a librarian only received one Knowledge point every seven days, it was an easy job, and there wasn’t any danger at all. That’s also the reason why this task had been occupied by these senior intermediate apprentice Adepts. For someone like Greem, who had no one to depend on and was forever alone, all he could do was take on those dangerous missions.
Greem didn’t rush to the bookshelves in the deepest area, like he used to do. Instead, he was browsing through each bookshelf leisurely, occasionally picking up a book and flipping through a few pages. All the books in this library were books of magic. When they were not borrowed, only the introduction was visible to a reader, while all the other content in the book was perpetually covered with a layer of floating dark fog, making sure no one could read through it.
Greem never dared to underestimate this normal looking dark fog, because it was personally designed by the master of this tower, the frightful Adept Anderson. Without going through a treatment from a special magical formation, no apprentice could read the content of the book, not even a single character. If anyone started wishfully thinking of breaking this mechanism, they would trigger a hidden magical formation, attracting the ire of, and punishment from, the Great Adept himself.
Although the consequences could be quite dire, Greem still wanted to test to see if his Biological Assistance Chip could bring him an advantage in this situation. After all, Knowledge points were very difficult to earn, and currently Greem only had 7 points. Knowledge points alone were not enough to support his needed Spirit growth requirement.
He picked up the book, ‘The History of Adept’, and pretended he was seriously reading the intro. But in actuality, deep in his mind he was quietly issuing commands to the Biological Assistance Chip.
“Scan this book. Try and see if you can obtain the content without triggering the magical formation!”
*beep* “Command received, processing mission… starting deep scan…”
Greem lowered his head.
When the Biological Assistance Chip was scanning things outside his body, his eyes would take on a red tint. This required him to mask his eyes to prevent anyone from finding something abnormal through his eyes.
“Unknown protective force field detected… analyzing…” *beep* “Warning… force field is experiencing an unknown transformation… scanning terminated…”
Greem quickly closed his eyes and then the book.
It really didn’t work. Any tiny bit of interference from the outside world would be enough to trigger the protective magical formation on the book. It looked like his overly optimistic stealing mission had failed. Henceforth, if he wanted to obtain new knowledge, he had to be honest and exchange for it with Knowledge points.
But he had no regrets on this matter. Because, with the help from Biological Assistance Chip, he no longer had to use the traditional method of copying – by hand. Any book, as long as he could borrow once, he would be able to duplicate it exactly, without missing anything, into the storage area of the chip, and he would be able to read it anytime he wanted.
Even if he couldn’t master the book in a short period of time, he could still save them up and let the chip sort through and categorize them. Afterwards, he would be able to take his time and slowly study the content of the book. With this alone, the chip was provided him a tremendous boon!
He had no other choice but to put down the ‘History of the Adepts’. After that, Greem came to stand in front of another bookshelf. All the books on this shelf were related to the usage of the fire element, a very suitable section for him, according to his elemental affinity, and that’s the reason why this bookshelf was the one he visited the most.
‘The Behavior of Fire Elementium’
‘Controling Techniques of the Fire Element’
‘The Burning Hand’
‘How To Cast A Huge Fireball’
……
……
Some of these books were pure theory discussion on magic spells, some were simple insights into casting spells, some were orthodox models of elemental spells and casting techniques… among these books, the books about casting spells were able to help him master some necessary spells and improve his combat ability, but they were not enough to increase his knowledge storage. Only those books about the theory of magic had a possibility of improving his Spirit.
How to utilize his Knowledge points in the most reasonable manner. He needed to expand the number of spells he could use, thus boosting his combat ability and survivability, and, at the same time, he needed more books on magical theory, which could push him further into becoming an official Adept. This was a tough conundrum that really pushed his mind to the limit!
Greem became confused as he pondered this question while standing in front of the bookshelf.
Every magical energy system would definitely have their own respective theoretical foundation, and the power of Adept was based on the strength of their foundation.
So, what exactly did Magic represent to Greem?
Giving no reason, Greem gave the chip a nearly impossible long term mission.
“Chip, gather all the foundational information related to magic and find out the source of it. Also, give me the leveling path which best suits my future development!”
*beep* “Command received, processing mission… constructing long-term observation project: The Source of Magic… lacking information, failed to construct a complete model… constructing short-term evaluation project: The Host’s Path to becoming an Adept… lacking information, failed to construct a complete model…”
The continuous blare of warning noises made Greem feel another headache coming on. What could he do? The Biological Assistance Chip had just awakened, so its database was nearly empty. If he didn’t find a way to gather some basic books on magic, it would impossible for it to come to any reliable results.
Fortunately, he had copied several books over the past six years. He would find a way to feed them to the chip when he returned to his room. Then the chip would, at least, have something in its database. Not like now, where it wasn’t able to do anything.
Turning around and leaving the library, Greem first went to the canteen and cured his hunger. Only after he was sated did he return to his own room.
Upon opening the door and entering his room, the first thing Greem did was throw a glance at the floor beneath his feet.
Right on the floor near the door was a weak rippling of fire elemental energy.
The energy came from fire elemental particles purposely placed near the door. They didn’t have any major functions, but when someone passed by that spot, the elemental energy around that person would inadvertently alter the arrangement of these fire elemental particles. With that, Greem
would easily be able to tell if anyone had entered his room while he was gone.
People in this community of Adepts rarely showed their true faces. Those who were not proactive in their preparations and self-defense wouldn’t last long in this tower.
Gently closing the door, Greem impatiently dug out all the Magic notes he had copied over the past few years. After a serious calculation, Greem figured that he currently owned five complete Magic books.
The first book was definitely the ‘Glossary of All Things”. It was the elementary book for all apprentice Adepts.
Greem sat down in front of his wooden table, meticulously reading through this ‘Glossary of All Things’. Although the majority of the content within had transformed into his memory, but unavoidable he still forgot some, especially the tiny little details.
At first, he did his best to recite the book as he went through. He was having the Biological Assistance Chip copy all the knowledge content via his eyes into its storage, sorting and storing them according to his specifications.
As time went on, Greem stopped wasting his energy on thinking or even reading. He simply turned himself into a human copying machine, his eyes continually flickering as they scanned over every single word, magical inscription, and image… they were all being copied at high speed.
In less than fifteen minutes, the ‘Glossary of All Things’ had been completely saved in the Chip’s memory!
Even Greem himself couldn’t control his shock at this extreme speed.
As the core elementary book for all apprentice Adepts, this ‘Glossary of All Things’ recorded over ten thousand different races and unique creatures that had been discovered in the Adept Mainlands. It also held records of most of the commonly found plants, animals, minerals, special magical materials… As a whole, this book had over thirty thousand entries.
During his first two years here, Greem had spent a whopping 17 months copying and memorizing the entire book, But now it took him less than fifteen minutes to save it completely.
While getting over his shock at the Chip’s amazing speed, Greem closed the book, and slowly started recalling the copied memory into his mind. Information on any species, fauna or flora, would appear in his mind as soon as he thought of it. The Chip would also project any related information and data into his mind. This would, indeed, save Greem a lot of time.
Good. This was really useful! He would never have to worry about struggling to memorize that hard to understand magical knowledge.
Being completely overwhelmed with excitement, Greem didn’t pay any attention to the growing pain in his brain. He couldn’t wait and quickly took out the second book, starting to duplicate it using the same method.
‘The Beginning of Spirit Force’, an orthodox book on Magic Theory. It mainly explained the raw source and application of the Spirit energy used by Adepts. It also contained some simple methods for exercising one’s Spirit Force.
After he finished copying the second book, Greem gently touched his head. He felt incredibly nauseous and tired at the same time.
These… these were the symptoms of Spirit energy depletion!
As an apprentice Adept, he was extremely familiar with this situation. During the period when he had just learned the Burning Hand spell, as he still couldn’t master the output of his magic energy, he had always depleted his pitiful store of Spirit energy.
In the later stages, when he got more familiar with the casting of Burning Hand, he finally gained a level of proficiency over Spirit energy usage without being taught by anybody. When one controlled magical energies, their Spirit energy was proportionate to the strength of their soul. The stronger one’s soul, the more Spirit energy they had to use. Thus, that person would be able to cast more magic spells.
Take Greem as an example! He had a Spirit of 8, and his Magical energy was ten times his Spirit. In this case, 80 points. There were some Adepts who liked to call this Magical Energy ‘Adept Energy’.
Anyway, these 80 points of Adept Energy were all Greem’s current abilities afforded him.
Chapter 6
A simple Burning Hand magic spell would require Greem to expend approximately 20 Adept energy points, which meant that Greem could cast four Burning Hand spells in a row. But, of course, that was just in theory, as it was extremely difficult to achieve that in reality.
When an Adept had a full ‘Energy Pool’, his mind was performing at its best. No matter whether he was pondering over hard questions or casting spells, he would perform the best when his Energy Pool was full, but when an Adept’s Energy Pool was at ⅓ its max, his mind would become fatigued. The most significant expression of this would be dizziness and the swelling of certain tissues in the brain, causing the Adept to feel sick and start throwing up.
If he tried to cast a spell at that moment, even a spell that would normally only take him five seconds, he might not even be able to cast it in ten seconds, and there was a good chance he might not even be able to cast it at all.
Therefore, when any Adepts were required to frequently cast spells, they did their best to conserve a portion of their Spirit energy so that they could avoid all the negative side effects of Spirit Fatigue.
From the symptoms Greem was having, it was clear that his Energy Pool was at less than 5%, and thus he was suffering from Spirit Fatigue. The only solution for this was to get a good night of sleep. After all, sleep is how a brain relieves itself.
The Chip was great, but it consumed a large amount of Greem’s Spirit energy when it was operating. Hence, once he realized that he was suffering from Spirit Fatigue, Greem struggled to his bed, threw himself onto it, and immediately fell asleep.
The rest of the day passed as he slept, and the darkness of night settled over the swamp. Now the moon had raised itself high up into the dark sky, though its face was rarely seen through the dense clouds and fog. A deep silence reigned over the quiet Swamp Tower as many of its residents went to sleep.
During this time, a tall and bizarre dark shadow suddenly appeared beside Greem’s bed, bending over him and quietly staring down at him.
As the result of nausea from his severe Spirit Fatigue, Greem didn’t sleep well. Even though he was in a sleeping, his brows were tightly knitted in a frown and his face was filled with distress.
The bizarre looking human figure had its back toward the moonlight, so its entire body was immersing in an indescribable darkness. No one would be able to clearly see its face, but no one could ignore the pair of blood red eyes flickering on this unseen face. These eyes would make anyone who saw them shiver in fear.
“Blood… blood… I need blood…”
The dark shadow tremblingly stretched out both arms, as if to grab Greem’s neck, but, for some unknown reason, it always retracted back, as if it was reluctant to do whatever it was trying to do. Its behaviors seemed to suggest that it was experiencing a fierce mental battle within itself. Also, it kept mumbling the same words over and over again, showing the intense struggle happening within.
After a few minutes, it seemed to gain control of itself. It paused for a moment, then stared at Greem, who was completely unaware as to what was going on around him. A few moments later, it turned around and jumped out of the window.
This window was on the outside of the tower. This meant that there was a formidable Magical Formation attached to it, which would make it impossible for any outsider to roam freely in this place. But, strangely enough, when this dark shadow grabbed onto the tower wall outside Greem’s room, it never actually triggered the magical formation surrounding the tower.
If Greem had seen this, he would have realized that this being was an Apprentice Adept, as only Apprentice Adepts had the Magical Talismans which would let them freely travel through the magical formation.
The dark shadow was climbing around the outside wall of the Adept Tower at an extremely fast speed. Its movement was swift and agile, yet seemed effortless as the shadow flowed around the vertical face of the tower. This was an impossibly i
mpressive feat of strength and dexterity, and would have stunned anyone who witnessed it. Surprisingly enough, it seemed like it purposely moved through the dark corners of windows and ledges, where moonlight couldn’t reach. This made its movements even more impressive, yet also hard to see.
Its movement was swift and graceful, and it didn’t make any noise over the course of its journey. Also, it seemed like it was searching for something specifically, as it purposely avoided the rooms which were still lit by candlelight. After searching for a while, it seemed to finally find whatever it was looking for.
It hung on the side of a narrow window, tilting its head slightly to one side and listening for a moment. Only after making sure that the sound of breathing coming from inside the room was stable and lengthy did it carefully climb through the narrow window.
For a while, nothing could be seen or heard inside the room. After a few minutes, it finally left the room, the faded smell of blood hovering around its body.
It was obvious that the dark shadow was satisfied with itself. Before it sneaked away, it squatted on the narrow window and casually turned its head upward and looked at the sky. Right at this moment the clouds cleared just enough for the moon to shine through, pouring its silver light down from the sky above, and lighting up the face of the shadowy figure.
What was seen was the youthful face of a teenage girl. Her face was fair and beautiful, but if one looked closely, they would see two sharp incisors sticking out slightly from her upper lip, and if they looked even closer, they would see blood staining these teeth.
The beautiful young girl used her tiny tongue and gently licked both teeth clean. When she withdrew her tongue, she pursed her lips, as if she were tasting a delicious fine wine. Only after sitting there for a moment did she leaped out from the window and disappeared into the dark shadows below, where the moonlight could never reach.
…………
The next day, Greem was woken by a rapid knocking at his door.
Age of Adepts c1-1513 Page 7