In this Adept Tower, where the hearts of men were incomprehensible, and where everyone was scheming against each other, there were nearly infinite methods of killing someone without being noticed. In the library, a wide variety of knowledge of Curse Spells and Poisonous Potions were available. So long as someone willing to put in the effort, it wasn’t exactly difficult to make an Apprentice Adept die an ‘unfortunate death’, with no one the wiser.
Within this eerie and frightening Adept Tower, Greem would never dare let the slightest drop of blood or the tiniest hair on his head fall into someone else’s hands. After all, there were countless bizarre spells which could be used against a person. The slightest mistake could end with him become a puppet controlled by someone else.
That was also the reason why most of the Apprentice Adepts lived in the seclusion of their own rooms, rarely having any intimate physical contact with anyone.
Sensing the hostile glances shooting at him from all directions, once again Greem felt speechless, and a bitter smile covered his face.
It seems he had found a great method for making a lot of enemies at once.
In the past, he was just a harmless low-rank Apprentice in other people’s minds. Even if he got in some minor arguments, no one would really try to find a method to kill him. But today, he had nearly offended every single Apprentice Adept in the tower without saying a single word.
Without having to think twice, he knew that, from today onwards, he had become a bird of a different feather among all the Beginner Apprentice Adepts. If there was anyone who tried to get in touch with him, either they were probing for Mary’s information, or they were plotting his demise.
Although Greem was complaining in his mind, right at this moment he had no other option but to put on a poker face and face these new hardships head on.
After delivered what she intended to say, Mary, who had established her authority, grabbed Greem and left the cafeteria in a rush. A moment later, the prideful and elegant Mary had, once again, appeared in front of Anm, who was still suffering from the shock of being thrown across a room.
“Give me the card of the Arena!”
Mary was showing herself to be a surprisingly domineering and tyrannical person. As she slammed her tiny palm onto the table, everything on it was knocked over. A slimy and ugly frog squeezed out from the pile of books while croaking continuously, quickly jumping onto Anm’s shoulder and angrily staring at Mary, who was the culprit of his discomfort.
It was a small frog, but it had a huge head, which was quite strange looking. It’s slimy back was full of lumps and blisters, which were all filled with green ooze. It had a huge mouth and its eyes were situated on two protruding tentacles, giving it a really bizarre look.
Frightened, Anm gently patted on the weird head of the frog, turning his head and speaking softly to it. The frog, unwillingly, opened up its mouth and spat out a special card, which was glowing with a golden glaze.
Mary snorted coolly, snatched the golden card off the table, turned around, and then dragged Greem away.
Before they left, Greem couldn’t help examining the strange looking frog.
A Companion Beast!
Perhaps this frog was Anm’s Company Beast?
Apprentice Adepts, like them, who were still struggling in the lower floors of the Tower, were all restlessly trying to strengthen themselves. No doubt, increasing one’s Spirit was the toughest path. Without a Magic Medicine that grew one’s Spirit, a top-grade meditation method, and without a formal Adept to answer all their questions, they could only depend on themselves to progress.
Therefore, any method that could possibly help one in improving their own power was worth it, and Companion Beasts were, undeniably, a good supplemental method for increasing one’s strength.
Companion Beasts were also known as Parasite Beasts. They were a unique type of demon that had been modified and breed with magic. Through a special magic ceremony, an Apprentice Adept could establish a binding between his soul and one of these beasts.
Of course, a method like this came with its own pros and cons. On the bright side, an Apprentice Adept could borrow the innate abilities of the demon, granting himself some special abilities that others didn’t have. On the downside, during the process of establishing the Companionship, the Apprentice had to cut part of his soul and transfer it to the Companion Beast. With that, if the Companion Beast was seriously hurt or died, the Apprentice himself would suffer the same fate.
If the beast was seriously injured, it might cause the Apprentice to suffer a permanent Spirit depletion, as his soul would be injured; There were known cases where an Adepts soul had broken, causing them to become a complete idiot.
It was a rule of thumb that an ordinary Apprentice Adept could only establish a relationship with one Beast. But, as in anything, there was always an exception. Evil Bugs, who was one of the three strongest Apprentices, had taken the path of binding with a Companion Beast. However, he actually broke through the supposed limit, and somehow had a lot of strange insects within his body.
As for how he did that, no one knew. Any Apprentice Adept who was taking the path of binding with a Companion Beast would kill for this knowledge, but none of them had the courage to spy on his secret. Because, in the end, anyone who tried to spy on him would end up dead in an ‘accident’.
Anm, who only had the capability of an Intermediate Apprentice, had chosen a Poison Dart Frog, who could, unsurprisingly, shoot poisonous darts, as his Companion Beast. Besides shooting poison, it also had a pretty good regeneration ability. Perhaps, this was the biggest reason Anm had chosen it.
……
When the main door of the stone room had closed up, Mary and Greem were left standing there by themselves in a large room.
This Arena was way bigger than the stone room Greem had rented previously, taking up a whole 200 square meters. Thus, this was not a place for Apprentice Adepts to practice their magic spells, but a miniature fighting arena.
If Apprentice Adepts needed to resolve disputes, usually they would use this Arena as a last resort. Although this place came with a rule forbidding them from killing each other, if an ‘accident’ really happened, the killer wouldn’t have to pay with their own life. All they would have to do was pay a large fee as compensation.
Hence, many Apprentice Adepts had a great fear of this Arena, and, thus, it had earned the nickname of ‘Arena of Death’!
Mary’s slim figure stood opposite of Greem’s. She had an eerie smile on her delicate face, which Greem felt was both seductive and cruel.
“I don’t need a good-for-nothing subordinate. Show me what you are capable of!”
After announcing this, and without giving him any time to prepare himself, her delicate looking body swayed, leaving behind a row of afterimages. Her real body was mixed in with these afterimages, sprinting toward Greem at an incredible speed.
She really meant it? This Mary was really a girl of action!
Although Mary had been a rather glacial beauty in the past, she still had held the careful and low-profile character of your standard Apprentice Adept. How did she become so overbearing, arrogant, and aggressive after being let off by Adept Anderson?
Unfortunately, Greem had no time to ponder on this anymore, because Mary’s attack was fast approaching.
A series of rapid warning tones resounded in his brain, nearly making him lose focus.
“Warning! Warning! High-speed target approaching… Initial evaluation shows the target has the Agility which is greater than 13. Host, please move two steps to the left. After dodging, counter attack with a Burning Hand spell…”
As the solidification of the Fire Arrow was still in progress, Greem could only use one spell, Burning Hand.
The speed of the attack was extremely fast, and Greem couldn’t even see where was the real Mary was. What he could do was to lay all his hope on the guidance given by the Chip, move his feet, and step aside, quickly preparing a Burning Hand spell.
/> However, as they say, no plan survives contact with the enemy.
Greem clumsily fell to the ground while only half way through dodging. His shirt was completely torn at the chest, revealing three gashes. He struck out with Burning Hand, but his strike hit nothing.
Greem pressed his hand against his wounds, distraught at what had just happened. He raised his head and gave Mary an angry look. Meanwhile, Mary was standing leisurely to the side, sticking out her long flexible tongue, and licking the blood from her nails.
“So it seems you have decent reflexes… But your body is too weak. If this speed is all you have, perhaps you’re going to suffer today!” Maybe it was because she had tasted blood, but her eyes, which had been completely blue, started to take on a shade of red, making her seem so much more dangerous. “If you don’t want to die, you better move faster~…”
Mary briefly squatted down after she finished speaking, making her looked like a leopard preparing to pounce. In the next second, she was rocketing toward him.
Damn it, if this went on he really would die.
As her eyes began to turn red and her fangs began poked through her lips, warning tones went off like crazy in his brain. Unable to take care of the wounds on his chest, Greem let out a roar. He forcefully slapped both of his palms together. Three seconds later, two massive fireballs erupted from both of his hands, causing Mary to jump back.
“This is what I’m talking about! Hehe… you better watch out!~”
Mary’s voice was filled with excitement. She even giggled a bit. In the next second, she leaped forward, turning into a streak of blue.
Even with Greem’s dynamic vision, he was still only able to see Mary’s afterimages. He was completely unable to find her actual position. Therefore, in order to avoid her getting too close, Greem kept moving his body and adjusting his posture to keep the majority of her after images in front of him. Meanwhile, he was crazily waving his hands, attempting to use the burning flame to block off all the possible paths of attack.
Both fireballs were making sizzling noises while Greem was waving them about, pouring sparks of fire all around his body. Unfortunately, it seemed his attempt at defense was pointless. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t figure out where she was. Instead, from time to time, he would feel a sudden sharp pain coming from a new place on his body, and all these were making him more and more furious.
Chapter 15
As the fight progressed, Greem was realizing, more and more, what his weaknesses were.
His below average Physique was one of the biggest weaknesses. Even with the help of the mighty Chip, he found that he was not as strong as he had originally thought.
His Agility of 4 defined the speed of his reflexes, movement, and the flexibility of his body. Although the dynamic vision provided by the Chip allowed him to roughly guess where Mary was moving, his overly ‘clumsy’ and ‘slow’ body was having a hard time keeping up with the guidance of the chip.
Therefore, most of the time, even though Greem knew in advance where the attack was coming from, he was unable to defend fast enough. Often when the sharp claws passed his body, his flame was mere inches away, but he still couldn’t even touch the tips of the fringes of Mary’s dress.
Hence, within the huge Arena, Greem was restlessly waving two huge fireballs and doing everything he could to land even the slightest blow on his enemy. However, it seemed he was unable to do anything except receive wounds and groan as the pain from all the wounds added up. As for Mary, she was like a red ghost who drifted from place to place, seeming to blink in and out of reality as she dashed around Greem. Quite frequently, the dreadful flames almost touched her body, but they were unable to cause her any harm, as she was moving with great speed and agility.
Fortunately, Mary was just playfully evaluating Greem’s fighting ability, so all her attacks were only causing minor flesh wounds. If she had been serious, Greem would have long since been sliced into chunks of meat. But even so, having his body scratched by Mary’s blade-liked sharp claws, left Greem with countless scratch marks, and blood all over his body.
Although the wounds on his body wouldn’t get him killed, they brought Greem a great deal of anger and humiliation.
A month ago, this Mary was only a beginner Apprentice, and she was not stronger than him. Because of that damn mutation, caused by magical contamination, she was now able to twist Greem around her little finger, like he was nothing. This exploding anger was continually suppressed by Greem, as he knew he was unable to defeat Mary, but he was still doing all he could to chase her flashing red shadow with his raging flame.
Inwardly, Greem’s mind was still as calm as a glacier, and he was communicating with the Chip without showing any signs externally. Since he couldn’t catch Mary with his dynamic vision, he had to find a workaround.
Greem’s spirit was draining fast as he kept waving both of his hands restlessly through the air. The dreadful looking fireballs in his hands were becoming bigger and even more violent. While underneath his eyes, a weird looking blue dot was blinking dimly, marking an interception point which the Chip had vaguely calculated.
When Greem sensed Mary was attacking from his front, he slightly separated his hands, blocked off possible attacks from his left and his right, leaving a half meter weak point in front of his body.
Seeing this, Mary, who planned to attack from the left, simply let out a cold snort, stopped and stood straight, swaying slightly to the side to dodge the flaming red fireball. Not only that, she actually slipped into the slight gap in front of Greem’s chest.
“Hmm! What a careless boy, should I leave a mark on your face, or on your chest?~”
Mary, who still had time to spare as she lazily fought Greem, pondered why her instincts had hesitated at this very moment.
All of a sudden, her expression changed drastically, and she immediately retreated with an even greater speed than she had attacked with. Even so, her retreating body still couldn’t completely escape from the two fireballs that had suddenly changed their courses.
Two frightening fireballs came from the left and the right, slamming into each other and exploding, sending sparks of fire in all directions and creating a sea of flames in front of Greem’s body.
What happened made Mary cry out in shock. In the time it took to blink, she had moved herself 10 meters away from Greem, yet she still felt some pain from that attack. She lowered her head and took a look at herself. To her surprise, she found that her red chiffon dress actually been filled with burn marks, as those randomly flying sparks had fallen on her and burned holes in her dress, revealed what was hiding inside.
“You bastard… how dare you to damage my dress…”
Mary’s cold and pretty face became angry. With a cruel glance, she stared straight at Greem, who was dancing in joy.
At this very moment, Greem was struck with unspeakable excitement, as he was finally able to force Mary back. At last, he found out a weakness in this girl’s fighting style. When facing with this kind of high-speed enemy, who fought like an assassin, a weaker spell that covered a wide area was effective in limiting where they could move, while powerful, concentrated spells were unable to even touch them…
While immersing himself in the joy of his minor success, Greem suddenly felt an ominous killing intent. Shocked, he raised his head and saw a girl with a ferocious look on her face.
“I…”
Knowing something bad was going to happen, Greem quickly tried to explain his actions, but before he could say anything, a red shadow flashed in front of his eyes, grabbed him, and slammed his head against a nearby stone wall. The brutal and violent force of Mary’s hand pierced through Greem’s entire body, but, before he could feel the pain, his eyes went black and he fainted.
And the last thought that went through his mind was:
What incredible speed!
…………
When Greem finally regained consciousness, he felt a throbbing pain all over his body,
but he also felt a new pain. It seemed he was being dragged by someone.
A little, icy cold hand was holding onto his ankle, pulling him across the floor in a face down manner, which was how he was being brought back to his room. When he finally reached his room, his bare face had been fully covered in blood, which was the result of having his face scraped against the rough floor.
Greem dared not to struggle, as it seems like his last attack had infuriated the moody and petulant Mary. Therefore, all he could do was close his eyes and try his best to endure the pain he felt from all over his body.
Fortunately, he could still feel pain… It was better than having been killed while in a coma!
Greem had the chip perform a self-test, and a huge, frightening, red warning sign showed up on top of the report.
Ugh. He only had a total of 11 Health Points, and he had lost 8 of those. This literally put him death’s doorstep. If he lost anymore, he would be in trouble.
Although that damnable Mary hadn’t hurt any of his vitals, and just left a few scratch marks on his body in a playful manner, it was more than enough to reduce his Health Points to such a pathetic state. This really showed how huge was the gap between them was.
A moment later, Mary opened up the wooden door of Greem’s room and threw him inside. After that, her lovely voice said a very cruel thing, “Rest tonight, we’ll continue our training in 17 hours.”
So, it seemed Mary had noticed that Greem was awake.
Greem raised his head up, shocked that she had known. What he saw was his half opened wooden door, and the silhouette of the slim, curvy body of a young woman backlit by the candles in the hallway.
17 hours? She expected him to recover in 17 hours?
Greem opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but the wooden door was slammed closed, leaving him in the gloomy darkness of his room.
…………
Age of Adepts c1-1513 Page 13