Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  The more she thought of this, the angrier Alice became. She wished she could immediately rip his skin off and crush his bones, but she hadn’t got the information she was most concerned with yet, so she could only press down her anger and continue, “Is it a magical eye or some kind of special magic spell?”

  “It‘s a spell!”

  “Give it to me, and I’ll spare your life today!”

  “Can I trust your words?”

  “Hmm! It seems to me like you don’t have a choice! Don’t force me to pull your soul out. If that happens, I’ll tortuously dig through your entire brain!”

  Though Alice’s personal image had been completely eroded by the day’s events, her pride was still present, and the threatening, dominating manner of her words told Greem that she was not taking no for an answer.

  Greem quickly examined Alice’s current state.

  Either because she had taken so much damage, or that her Protection Barrier was in a latent status, but the Protection Barrier wasn’t anywhere to be found around Alice.

  Wasn’t she afraid of a sneak attack?

  I’ll just do it!

  Being over-cautious and indecisive in front of this extremely strong Advanced Apprentice was simply asking for death.

  A moment later, Greem flicked his sleeve, throwing out a small dark green bottle toward Alice’s face. Not needing to be activated any spell, once the bottle smashed to the ground, and the green substance was unconstrained by the bottle, a strange looking smoke exploded from the point of impact. A second later, an ugly slime man, who was around one meter tall, slowly stood up from the ground.

  This low-grade humanoid puppet was just a temporary product, as it could only last for seven minutes at most, and it’s only method of attacking was to surround the enemy, causing them to suffocate within its soft clay body. Of course, using such a temporary slave to attack an Advanced Apprentice was a joke, but it could keep even a powerful enemy occupied for a second.

  Meanwhile, Greem swiftly took a few steps back, both hands moving extremely through the air while reciting magical spells out loud. A Fire Arrow began to form in front of him. After the solidification of the Fire Arrow spell was completed, compared to it’s former casting time of more than 10 seconds, Greem could now cast it within 5 seconds. It was obvious that this was a huge advancement in combat power for him.

  But, too bad, what he did made no difference in front of this terrifying little girl. An invisible Protection Barrier instantly appeared between the slimy puppet and Greem, cutting off the Spiritual connection between them. In the next second, the slime man splashed to the ground and then simply disappeared.

  This was the biggest weakness of Summoning Magics.

  Once the Spiritual connection between the caster and the summon was lost, under the effect of this world’s Principles, no matter how strong the summon was, it was forced to return to where it came. Therefore, before this cheap slime puppet could do anything, it had turned into a pool of acidic liquid.

  As for the Fire Arrow Greem cast with great effort, Alice simply responded with an expression of disdain, she didn’t even try to stop him from casting.

  Right after the Fire Arrow left Greem’s hand, it instantly slammed into a tiny ‘Mirror Space’ hanging in the air in front of him. Blocked by this tiny Protection Barrier, which reflected energy, the Fire Arrow simply exploded.

  Clearly, this explosion was going off too close to Greem. In the next instant, the raging flame was reflected by the ‘Mirror Space’ and sent spewing towards Greem, swallowing the body of the young Apprentice.

  Although Greem could sense any changes in the area with his Elementium Vision, he was unable to react to this kind of sudden change in the space around him. He could cast a familiar magic spell in 3 to 5 seconds, but Alice could unleash her innate spatial magic in less than a second.

  The massive gap between them allowed Alice to sit down and watch as Greem completed his spell casting process. She had plenty of time to decide if she wanted to block it or launch a counter attack. Not only that, if she wanted, Greem would never be able to finish casting any spell that took longer than 3 seconds.

  As she watched the flame envelope the Beginner Apprentice in front of her, a scornful look appeared in Alice’s single remaining eye.

  How dare a Beginner Apprentice take the initiative to attack an Advanced Apprentice. This guy was simply asking for death!

  She suddenly felt something was amiss.

  An egg-sized pebble suddenly shot out from the rolling flame, rushing in Alice’s direction. At the same time, Greem also dashed out from the flame, both hands covering his head.

  The raging flame, obviously, didn’t distinguish between friend and foe, and thus Greem had suffered a great deal of pain when forcing his way out of the inferno. His body had been severely burned by the flame, and both of his exposed arms were covered with burn marks and blisters.

  With a cruel and hideous grin on her face, Alice gently waved her fingers, sending a few barely visible streaks flashing through the air. The flying pebble was sliced into four pieces when it came into contact with streaks. Violent blue-colored lightning spread across the air for a second and then disappeared.

  His attempt at using the Lightning Stone to attack had been a complete failure.

  Without hesitation, Greem pulled out another blackish object and threw it towards Alice. After that, he simply turned around and ran, as if trying to escape another explosion.

  “Didn’t you hear what I said before? You’re forcing me to chop off your legs! Well, if that is what you really want…” Alice spoke while sneering, but before she could finish, her expression suddenly changed and she immediately turned to face the approaching object, as it had just avoided one of her casually cast Spatial Cuts.

  A tiny bat had performed a swift turn in the air and avoided the Spatial Cut that came at her, flipping its wing at an incredible speed. She quickly arrived above Alice’s head.

  A summon? Was it a contracted creature or some kind of demon?

  Alice couldn’t immediately identify the source of this weird bat that came to her. Shrugging, she waved her hands, unleashing a couple of Spatial Cuts and completely sealing off any paths that the palm-sized bat could take. After doing this, she felt at ease, thinking that the bat would not be an issue anymore.

  But, in next second, something happened that made her cry out in surprise.

  Transforming rapidly, the tiny palm-size bat bloated up like a balloon, turning into a tall, slim human girl wearing a striking red dress. Not only that, she didn’t perform any dodging movements, and simply fell straight toward the Spatial Cuts, aggressively leaping onto Alice’s body.

  Relishing in Alice’s greatly terrified expression, claws appeared on the fingers of this red-dressed girl, becoming extremely sharp and pointy and indistinctly glowing like molten metal. Also, as she fell, the look of this young girl changed dramatically, as her green eyes turned bloody red, looking as if blood was going to drip out of them.

  As the red-eyed girl fell through the Spatial Cuts, the sound of flesh being torn apart by the spatial attack sizzled through the air.

  A huge amount of blood splashed out from the back of the red-dressed girl, and numerous crisscrossed holes could be seen on her body. The series of cuts had turned her body into a human mesh.

  But this red-dressed girl didn’t pause or back off as her bright red lips were opening wider and wider, and two frightening looking fangs poked through her lips. When she finally reached Alice, she simply bit into her exposed neck.

  Damn it, she was a Vampire!

  She, like everyone, had heard of these bloody beasts before, but, as an Advanced Apprentice Adept, Alice immediately realized what was faced with.

  Like a mosquito biting on her neck, a tingling sensation was felt, which quickly turned into a pleasurable feeling that made her feel like she was walking on clouds. Following the drawing of her blood, she clearly felt her life force was quickly fading away. He
r body felt drowsy and was so comfortable that she just wished she could let go of everything and fall into a deep slumber.

  But no matter what, Alice was an Advanced Apprentice who had a strong will, and she had high resistance toward the paralytic poison being injected into her body via the Vampire fangs. After being dazed for only a brief moment, she managed to regain control of her will.

  For the first time in her life, Alice felt like death was knocking at her front door.

  In her previous two battles, though he had managed to damage her, Evil Bugs was not her match. As for Sinbad, if they hadn’t fought in her swamp, the leader of Ghost Nanny would have been instantly slaughtered.

  But at this moment, Alice really felt the threat of death.

  If she didn’t properly manage her current situation, she, who would very likely become a great Adept, would die in this filthy land.

  Having no alternative, Alice gathered the very last drops of her strength and, once again, let out a frightening scream that shook the world around her.

  In next second, space shattered, and everything around her was crushed into powder!

  Chapter 26

  This was the third time Alice had used her Spatial Shatter skill.

  As she had an innate talent for using space magic, although she was still an Apprentice, she was able to unleash frightening and devastating spells. However, obviously her body was not strong enough to withstand repeated usage of these high-level spatial magics.

  Therefore, after ripping apart and shattering everything within a fifty-meter radius, part of her body disintegrated as well, showing just how much damage she had taken over the day’s events.

  Taking the opportunity to escape while the red-dressed girl was being sliced apart by her devastating skill, Alice struggled and squeezed into a spatial tunnel that suddenly appeared behind her, disappearing without a trace.

  While blood was spewing from every inch of her body, Mary remained standing at where she was, her body broken. There wasn’t a single patch of undamaged skin on her body. In his enitre life, he had never seen anyone in such a miserable state.

  It was like she had just been thrown through a turbine, as all her skin was split and her flesh badly mutilated. Blood was flowing continuously from more than hundred wounds, of all sizes, dying her pale white skin a deep red. Underneath her feet, a small pool of blood was forming.

  Greem slowly moved closer to the battlefield.

  “Hey… are you still alive?” Greem asked in a shaky voice.

  The bloody figure trembled, moving her blood red eyes and stared at Greem. An extreme thirsty look fully filled her eyes, which were had become as crimson red as her blood.

  “Blood… I need blood… quickly give me blood…” The figure spoke with a deep and hoarse voice. If Greem hadn’t been paying extra attention, he wouldn’t have heard what she said.

  Just by speaking these few words, the movement of her lips made the muscles on her face tear again, causing more blood to gush out.

  “Don’t tell me you want my blood!” An unsightly expression immediately emerged on Greem’s face.

  Judging from the severity of Mary’s injuries, even if she drank every drop of the blood in his body, it would probably still not be enough for her to make a full recovery!

  Right when Mary nearly couldn’t control herself, and was preparing to leap on Greem, he recalled something. Without hesitating, he took out eight blood sacks, which looked like red beads, from a pocket at his waist. These were something he had ‘acquired’ from the Ghost Nanny’s nest.

  Mary instantly grabbed the blood sacks and started crazily swallowed them, one by one, proving how frightening Vampires, a species that inherited from the ancient era, could be. The terrible wounds all over her body starting to heal at an incredible speed, and the whole process was so miraculous Greem simply couldn’t believe his eyes.

  A second ago she was dying, looking like she could collapse at any time, but now, it was as if someone had just cast a magic spell that could turn back time. She was recovering at an unbelievable speed.

  After devouring three blood sacks, all the tiny and small wounds on her body had disappeared, and those bigger wounds had started stitching themselves together. After swallowing the fifth blood sack, not a single one of the dreadful looking wounds on her body remained, and, once again, her skin, albeit blood covered, became smooth and fair. After the seventh blood sack, her entire body started to glow blood red and, finally, Mary came back to life.

  When she was about to swallow the last blood sack, she hesitated, then turned around and threw it back to Greem. She had now fully recovered, so it seemed unnecessary to waste another blood sack. Looking at Greem’s heartbroken face, it was easy to tell that these blood sacks were, likely, very valuable.

  After throwing the blood sack, a multitude of tiny cracking noises came from her body. This was the sound of the crystallized blood on her body starting to crack, falling off from her slim and fit body and revealing her perfect, curvy, seductive, and incredibly naked body to Greem.

  Even though he had lived two lives, at this moment Greem blushed.

  Although he had tried his best, turning his face to the side and pretending he was coughing, the image of her breathtaking, magnificent form had been burned into his mind.

  Accident, this was totally an accident! This was in no way intentional!

  … Though it seemed that she really didn’t care….

  For some unknown reasons, the Chip actually completed a deep scanning process by itself. Although Greem only took a short glimpse at the report, every single piece of data related to Mary had been saved in his mind. Also, the ‘thoughtful’ Chip had saved a 100% accurate and realistic model of Mary’s current appearance…

  Ugh… just by reading these ridiculous numbers, Greem felt his heart was going to stop beating.

  Her Agility was 17, meaning she had extraordinary reflexes and was why she was able to move so fast. It was no wonder that, even if she wasn’t moving that fast, she could still produce numerous afterimages to confuse her enemies.

  In contrast to that, her Strength was her weakest stat, but it was still quite strong.

  With a Strength of 9, she could easily wield a two-handed bastard sword in a single hand, and could send a large man flying with a single punch.

  While Greem was immersing himself in the world of data, Mary had put on her striking red dress. In fact, her method of dressing herself seemed impossible. With just a snap of her finger, the blood underneath her feet started to coil up her body, moving around, like a wave flexible snakes. When they finally stopped, a gorgeous red dress had appeared on her body.

  A round object thumped against Greem’s chest.

  Startled, Greem lowered his head and looked at the object. He was instantly taken aback by the twisted, ugly, frightening looking face in his hands, and nearly threw it away, out of fear. But, in the next second, he realized that it was Sinbad’s head.

  “That girl had to make a hasty retreat, but she left this behind. Let it be the compensation for all those blood sacks you gave me!” Said Mary, showing a carefree expression while curled up her lips like she didn’t care.

  “You… after suffering such a huge loss, did you even get what you were looking for?” Greem couldn’t hold himself from asking. When he thought of how body and disfigured she had been a few seconds ago, his heart almost stopped out of shock.

  “Hehehe…” Mary burst out an extreme pleasure laugh when Greem mentioned this, blinding him with an incredible smile and saying, “I devoured some of the blood essence of that little girl, so it will take her at least two to three months to recover! Besides, I have a feeling that the blood of that little girl will help me make significant progress… haha…”

  Greem was shocked, he was finally gaining a clear understanding of why Vampires were considered so incredible.

  From what the Chip had detected of Mary’s attributes, her Physique was 10/11, and here Spirit was 17/18. The first n
umber was her current attribute, the second value was its potential. Originally, Mary had a maximum of 10 Physique and 17 Spirit. Now that she had fed on the blood of that frightening Alice, she was able to quickly raise these stats.

  Although they were currently still the same, as long as she continued her training over the next few days, she should be able to make both her Physique and Spirit reach her potential maximum, and only then would today’s harvest be considered complete.

  A female Vampire who could increase her personal attributes just by sucking other people’s blood… Just thinking about this made Greem feel dizzy. Once again, it proved how powerful innate abilities were!

  Judging from her appearance, that terrifying loli, Alice, was, at most, thirteen or fourteen years old. At this age, if she didn’t have an innate talent for Spatial Magics, perhaps she would just be a rookie who had just stepped into the level of Beginner Apprentice. But reality was quite different, as she was a frightening little loli with a high intelligence, but low emotional control. Because of her innate talent for Spatial Magics, she became an elite among all other Advanced Apprentices.

  If not because she was at the bottom of fortune’s wheel, and thus met with freaks like Evil Bugs, Greem, and Mary, with her abilities, perhaps she could easily sweep through all the apprentices in the tower.

  It was same for Mary.

  Before this, she was only a Beginner Apprentice who had merely mastered two magic spells. But, after she was mutated into Vampire, her overall ability immediately skyrocketed, and she had become one of the strongest Advanced Apprentices.

  Analyzing the data, Mary had 60% chance of beating Hawkeye and a 30% chance of beating Madwoman. As for Evil Bugs, Mary had a less than 10% chance of defeating him.

  After all, no matter how incredible her vampirism ability was, it would only be effective when she had a supply of blood. Also, her desperate fighting style could be used against Hawkeye. If she broke through his defenses, no matter what kind of injuries she suffered, she would be able to recover.