Over the next few minutes, the two Apprentices bargained hard with each other. Although one of them was eager to purchase, and the other was impatiently trying to sell off his items, neither was willing to give up their bottom line so easily. Finally, after two hours of intense negotiations, Greem sold all his organic materials in exchanged for seventeen Knowledge Points, three Magic Crystals, one ‘Screaming Tree Branch’, and one Invisibility Potion (weak).
As for the back scales, fangs, and claws of the Giant Alligator King, Anm showed no interested in them. Nonetheless, Greem considered selling them to some of the Apprentices who were preparing to take the path of Body Refining Adept.
If not because times were so rough, Greem had actually planned to extract the backbone and tendons of the Giant Alligator King, as both of them were in great demand among Body Refining Apprentices. But if he really rushed back to the scene, perhaps the corpse of the Giant Alligator King would have long since been cannibalized by the other Giant Alligators.
It took Anm a few trips to move all the materials, and once he was done, Greem immediately rushed to the library with his freshly obtained Knowledge Points.
He was looking for a good Fire Elemental defensive spell.
……
Inferno Force Field, a basic Fire Elemental defensive magic spell capable of forming a high-temperature field around the body, toasting any enemy that entered the region, and causing them to suffer a rapid loss of body water content. Effective circumference: 10 meters. (Note: This is a prerequisite magic spell for Ring of Fire, an advanced Fire Elemental defensive magic spell.)
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Fire Blast, a basic Fire Elemental defensive magic spell capable of laying Elementium orbs that spin around one’s body. Any enemy who touches the Elementium orbs will suffer a Fire Blast that inflicts 3-5 Fire damage. Effective circumference: 8 meters. Numbers of Elementium orbs: 17.
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Inferno Body, a basic Fire Elemental defensive magic spell capable of temporarily transforming part of one’s body into Elementium to avoid a deadly offensive attack. Significantly improved Fire Elemental resistance for the caster. Effective circumference: 0 meters. (Note: This is a prerequisite magic spell for Fire Elementium Modification.)
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Fire Shield, a basic Fire Elemental defensive magic spell capable of forming a small fire shield in front of the caster’s body. It is able to block most long-range magic spells and melee attacks. Any enemy who attacks the shield will receive 1-2 Fire damage. Effective circumference: 3 meters. Defensive strength: 35 points. (Note: This is a prerequisite magic spell for Inferno Shield.)
……
Inferno Shield, an intermediate Fire Elemental defensive magic spell capable of forming three spinning fire shields around the caster’s body. Before the shields are broken, it is able to block all long-ranged and melee attacks. Inflicts 3-5 Fire damage to melee attackers. Effective circumference: 5 meters. Defensive strength: 80 points. (Note: Requires Fire Shield as a prerequisite magic spell.)
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Ring of Fire, an intermediate Fire Elemental defensive magic spell capable of using a large amount of Fire Elementium to form a ring of fire around the caster’s body. Inflicts 5-7 points of fire damage every second to any enemy who enters the ring. Effective circumference: 15 meters. (Note: Requires Inferno Force Field as a prerequisite magic spell.)
……
……
This dazzling array of Fire Elemental defensive spells posed a difficult choice for Greem. All these magic spells had their own pros and cons, hence, in order to pick a suitable spell, he needed to carefully identify their differences and measure them against each other.
Also, as most of the defensive magic spells came in a set, some intermediate and advanced defensive magic spells required a caster to master certain prerequisite basic defensive magic spells. So, if he chose the wrong spell, and wished to learn other advanced spells, it would take him more time and energy.
Inferno Force Field and Ring of Fire were each a part of sets, and they were both field control spells. They didn’t provide any substantial defense to an individual, hence they couldn’t block against any long-ranged attack. But when faced with melee attacks, field control was pretty effective.
Especially the intermediate spell, Ring of Fire, which could inflict 5 to 7 Fire damage every second, for those enemies who only possessed melee ability, it was nearly impossible to face. Take Greem as an example: currently, he only had 14 Health Points. If he entered the Ring of Fire, perhaps he would be burned into a charcoal within three seconds.
And, what could he do within three seconds? If he hadn’t solidified any magic spells, perhaps, before he could cast any spell, he would be killed by the fire damage.
Imagine this: within a group of Beginner and Intermediate Apprentices, a Pseudo-Adept who had mastered Ring of Fire suddenly appeared, cast the Ring of Fire magic spell on these rookies, putting them in intense pain. Not only that, he might not even need to attack personally, as just the Fire damage would be enough to kill all rookies who had no Fire elemental resistance.
Whenever he thought of this breathtaking scene, Greem just couldn’t control himself and trembled in excitement. But, when he recalled that Ring of Fire couldn’t stop an enemy from attacking, his excitement quickly turned to dislike.
By contrast, Fire Shield and Inferno Shield were rather low profile.
Forming a shield of dense Fire Elementium and making it hover around the caster’s body in order to block any possible direct magic spells and melee attack, and if there was an enemy that dared to get closer before the shield completely broken, it could also inflict some nasty Fire damage.
Generally speaking, it didn’t have any obvious offensive abilities, but possessed excellent defensive abilities.
Therefore, as expected, Greem borrowed two magic spell books: Fire Shield and Inferno Shield.
In this place, it required fifteen Knowledge Points to purchase the Fire Shield magic spell book, but it only cost three Knowledge Points to borrow it once. So, most Apprentices preferred to borrow it a few times and take their time copying it rather than spending so many of their precious Knowledge Points purchasing a book.
It was time for the Chip to shine.
Greem just needed to borrow the book once, and the Chip would be able to scan all the content it and store it in his mind. Then, he could spend his own sweet time studying them, thus saving a huge amount of Knowledge Points, which he could use to borrow more books.
Also, he couldn’t master a defensive magic spell by reading just this. He still needed to do a lot of preliminary studies. Gritting his jaw tightly and steeling his mind, Greem borrowed all the required books in one go.
……
‘The Influences of Fire Elementium Density Toward the Effectiveness of a Magic Spell’
‘Elementary Fire Control Techniques’
‘Analysis on the Usage of Fire Shield’
‘Characteristics of Fire Elementium Distribution’
……
……
Carrying a tall stack of borrowed books, Greem once again rushed back to his room. As he reached his room, he heard the door of his neighbor open up and saw Mary’s cool and elegant face poke out from behind the door.
“Where is my present?”
“Ugh…”
Suddenly, Greem was struck dumb and felt glued to the floor.
As he was busy with his summoning core, he actually completely forgot about Mary!
Staring at Mary’s gloomy face, and realizing she was going to rampage soon, Greem quickly let out a loud cry.
“One hour… just give me one more hour. The present is going to be ready soon!”
After that, he ran into his room.
Chapter 42
After making sure Mary was appeased, Greem was finally able to finish preparing for the upcoming mission.
In order to better protect his life, Greem had nearly used up all his resources adding all k
inds of items to his inventory, each capable of helping him handle different situations.
The ‘Screaming Tree Branch’ that he had received when trading with Anm was one of them.
The Screaming Tree Branch was a unique item produced by nature. If one cut a branch from it and tied it to their skin, it would let out a shrill scream when the holder was struck by a curse. The one Anm traded with Greem could still be used three times, and was vital for the mission.
Before leaving the Tower, he had to prepare quite a lot of similar items.
Blood coagulating medicinal paste, which made wounds heal more quickly; Purple Wistaria, which could reattach an amputated limb; basic antidotes for common poisons; Absinthe Powder, which could repel insects and snakes in the wild; a talisman that could detect spiritual creatures…
Being away from the tower, besides forgetting all those strange and unpredictable demons, beasts, and monsters, the most troubling of all were other Apprentice Adepts. who possessed all sorts of fanciful abilities. The more thoroughly he prepared, the more likely he could save his own life at a critical juncture. Therefore, during the preparation of these items, Greem tried his best to take into account all possible situations so as to be ready for anything.
Most importantly, as the mission was taking place underground, Greem purposely studied the information related to the Underground Cave. So he had gained a basic understanding of the location.
To Greem’s surprise, the underground of the Adept Mainland was not entirely hard rock and soil, but included vast networks of underground caverns and karst caves, and twisting tunnels that connecting them together. In this underground world, one could find glowing rocks, crystals, and phosphorescent mosses, lichens and fungi. Compared to the world above, strange plants were very common in this place. Without using any magical methods, it would be impossible to identify which of them were poisonous and which were edible.
However, these mutated plants and creatures weren’t the most frightening things in this underground world, but the countless monstrous, evil, dark creatures and Fallen Adepts who had separated themselves from the path of official Adepts.
Most of these Fallen Adepts had committed serious crimes against the Adept Mainland. In order to escape being hunted down by Adept Associations, they were forced to hide in the underground, choosing to live among all those ugly and twisted creatures. Some said that these Fallen Adepts had actually built a small city for themselves. It was a lawless place where evil ran rampant, a true city of crime.
As the underground world had a complicated terrain and countless tunnels, although the major Adept Associations had organized numerous clean-up operations, never once had they been able to completely wipe out these dark Adepts. Thus allowing these criminals to grow stronger. By now, this underground city of sin had several hundred official Adepts, and were considered an abnormal branch of official Adepts: the Fallen Adepts.
The Underground Cave, where Greem going to investigate, was just one of the entrances to the underground world, of which there were dozens. Although an Adept Tower had been built there, and was guarded by an official Adept, they still couldn’t stop those Fallen Adepts from trying to sneak through this cave with all kind of methods.
With the abilities of Apprentice Adepts, such as Greem, there was no way they could fight with those Fallen Adepts. Thus, they were only required to investigate the distribution of demon creatures within ten miles of the surface. Also, they needed to report if they found any traces of Fallen Adepts.
The first mission was easy, but the second one would bring them great danger. If they actually ran into Fallen Adepts during their investigation trip, even those Pseudo-Adepts would find it hard to escape.
Therefore, knowing he might face such a situation, Greem had to specifically prepare some unique items.
Since the place was filled with rough, twisting tunnels and caverns, any creature from the surface world would find it hard to see things in the dark. So, the first thing Greem had to solve was how to maintain his vision when traveling underground.
In order to solve this problem, there were two solutions.
The first solution was to purchase some crafted items which came with the effect of Low-light Vision. Of course, it would be better if it carried the function of Dark Vision. But taking his finances into consideration, Greem had no choice but to lower his expectations.
Low-light Vision allowed the bearer to maintain normal vision in a dusky environment, and Dark Vision was an enhanced version of it, allowing the bearer to have a perfect vision, even in total darkness.
The second solution was to implant an ‘Eye of Void’ or ‘Thousand Eyes Bug’ in his body.
Using some techniques from biological modification, replacing one of his eye with an ‘Eye of Void’, which was an eyeball modified with a magical spell. With that, he would possess the ability to see invisible objects and vision in total darkness. But as this method involved biological modification, the purity of his bloodline risk being contaminated.
As for the latter, he had to swallow a ‘Thousand Eyes Bug’. After that, the bug would live in his body, and a compound eye would grow on his forehead. After the Thousand Eyes Bug integrated with a body, it would form a symbiotic relation with the host and thus the host would gain its special vision: Infrared Senses.
This parasitic method did bring an amazing effect, but, at the same time, it came with some irritating side effects. Every day, the host had to consume moth larvae, which was the favorite food of the Thousand Eyes Bug. Without it, from time to time, the parasite bug would feed on the host’s blood essence and flesh. According to the description in the book, those larvae looked nearly identical to silkworm in his past life, which made Greem nearly thrown up when reading about it.
After taking all situations into consideration, Greem felt his priority would be on those supplementary crafted items. If he really couldn’t find anything, then he would have to force himself to use the Thousand Eyes Bug.
After taking care of his vision problem, Greem started to ponder about the issue of mobility.
That place was underground, fully surrounded by wet soil and hard rock. Any intense fights could cause a devastating collapse. How was he going to rescue himself if he was trapped in a pocket cavern?
Greem’s mind was deeply troubled by this question. However, the Chip gave him the answer. The Clay Golem!
Greem’s elemental affinity was Fire Elementium, but the Clay Golems he owned now both had an affinity for Earth Elementium, and all Earth creatures were experts in traveling underground. With help from the Clay Golems, there shouldn’t be any earthen place that could trap Greem.
But after all, this supposed to work theoretically. In order to get first-hand information, he had to test it out himself. Therefore, after meeting with Danny and telling him he was looking for a Low-light Vision talisman, Greem once again snuck out from the Tower.
To be honest, after the compulsory mission was announced, most of the Apprentice Adepts were busy preparing. Hence, the inspection mission of the tower had temporarily been halted. With that, Greem didn’t have to worry that someone would disturb his practice.
Following the familiar path that led to the outer perimeter of the swampy area, Greem found himself a flat field, planning to practice the offensive model he envisioned. The reason he chose this pace was because Sinbad, the leader of Ghost Nannies, had been killed. Without their leader, and with all the recent deaths, no Ghost Nannies would come and disturb him.
He casually threw out the two Clay Golem summoning cores. When they touched the ground, two totally different looking Clay Golems immediately appeared in front of Greem. The core obtained from Sinbad summoned a human-shaped golem that was nearly two meters tall, and the newly crafted Giant Alligator King core actually brought forth an alligator shaped golem. Aside from being smaller than the real Giant Alligator King, they looked nearly identical.
Greem narrowed his eyes and pondered on this for a brief moment.
Of course, as this body was formed with Earth Elementium, as long as Greem gave a precise order through the Mind Control Imprint System, the golems could still change into any shape Greem wanted, by adjusting their distribution of Earth Elementium. But this process would consume a certain amount of their energy reserve.
Staring at his two subordinate golems, standing side by side in front of him, Greem couldn’t control the excitement growing in his mind. Three days ago, he was still a lone wolf that no one seemed to care about, but now he had completed the first steps of building a loyal army of golems. Although the number of his subordinate was still small, he still took heart in his progress.
The Chip had gathered statistics on this new golem, so Greem focused his attention on the data.
As expected, as the Giant Alligator King was way stronger than Sinbad, as the attributes of the Clay Alligator Golem totally surpassed his first Clay Golem, excluding Agility. Also, all its fighting skills were perfectly matched with Greem’s abilities. At a glance, it looked like it was perfect for melee battles.
But Greem didn’t bring them out to show off their muscles, as he wanted to practice the first combat tactics he had envisioned in his mind.
Taking a brief moment to calm his mind, Greem howled, giving a battle command to both golems.
“My golems! Use your braveness and fearless to open up the path to victory! Now, follow my command! Combine!”
Chapter 43
Following Greem’s order, the humanoid Clay Golem trembled, like a statue that had its internal supports taken away, and collapsed. At the same time, an earthy yellow dust exploded from the back of the Clay Alligator Golem, which quickly molded itself into the shape of the humanoid Clay Golem.
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