Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  Meanwhile, it was a lively scene at the side of the battlefield.

  There were oceans of apprentices and pseudo-Adepts surrounding Messa who was eagerly shouting out their bets.

  “One hundred and seventy magic crystals! I bet on Mark!”

  “Two hundred and thirty magic crystals! Me too, will bet on Mark!”

  “Ninety magic crystals on Mark’s victory!”

  …

  …

  A large illuminated stone slab was erected at the side of the field, showing the bets on the fight. The number of magic crystals that had wagered on Mark was stacking up really fast, soon stopping at a total of 3680 magic crystals. On the other hand, below Greem’s name, it only showed merely 700 magic crystals.

  This actually included Greem’s own bet, otherwise, the bet would collapse with everybody only betting on one side.

  Today’s odds weren’t as exaggerated as yesterday. After being carefully considered and agreed on by everyone, Hulk had taken charge and hosted the bet, the ratio he gave out was four to one. With the odds like this, if Greem was defeated by Mark, aside from the pain and wounds he will be receiving, he would also have to owe a hefty debt. In that case, he would have to sell himself out to the camp, working restlessly in order to pay back his debt!

  For those fighting maniacs of the training camp, being able to profit or not was just a small matter. But pushing the newcomer off the edge was the entertainment they were all looking for.

  However, while the commotion was gradually subsiding and Hulk was about to announce the start of the battle, a deep and hoarse voice suddenly sounded through the scene.

  “Three hundred magic crystals, I bet on Greem!”

  Although the voice wasn’t that loud, it was like a cold breeze suddenly freezing the lively atmosphere. Everyone was stunned for a brief moment and only then did they remember to turn their heads and find out where the voice came from.

  Dark Wood?!

  It was Dark Wood!!!

  In that instant, everyone felt as if their world as they knew it, was suddenly turned upside down. This… how could this be possible? No one would find it strange even if everyone in the training camp had placed their bets on Greem, but it shouldn’t be Dark Wood! Didn’t he know they were actually helping him to vent out his resentment?

  Right when everybody still had their mouths wide open while gazing at each other, speechless, another voice came from the middle of the crowd.

  “I also bet on Greem, two hundred and seventy magic crystals!”

  Kevin! It was Blackhand Kevin!

  Everyone inhaled sharply while showing all kinds of expressions. As the host for today, for the first time, Hulk felt today’s sunlight was rather offending to his eyes. The magic crystals piled up beside him didn’t look so loveable anymore. Although he never had the time to study the art of prophecy, he still had the feeling that today’s wager had gone beyond his control.

  He glared at Dark Wood and Kevin then eagerly shouted with a loud voice.

  “The bet is decided and so I announce, the fight begins now!”

  Following the announcement of Hulk, both men standing inside the battlefield promptly moved.

  The burly man named Mark stretched out his arm, pulling out the giant axe from his back and then held it tightly with his giant palm. At the same time, cracking and popping sounds were heard coming from his body as countless blue electric arcs lingered around him.

  The electric arcs created a powerful chain reaction, causing Greem who stood a hundred meters away, smell the putrid odor of air being burned by electricity.

  Even though he had great confidence in the Demon Alligator Hunter, Greem still did not dare to wait for Mark to gather enough energy for a power strike. He quickly stomped his right foot, rushing the Demon Alligator Hunter to sink into the ground with the fastest speed possible.

  Having his strength accumulated to the maximum, Mark threw his head back and let out a raging war cry, striding with steps that shook the earth while charging towards the Demon Alligator Hunter which was descending into the ground. He didn’t use too much of his strength on his feet but every step he took would leave behind a shallow crater full of cracks. Also, despite not charging at them with big steps, Mark still managed to arrive in front of Greem before the Demon Alligator Hunter completely disappeared to the ground below.

  A strong gust of wind brushed past his face as the Demon Alligator’s bulky tail full of spikes and lumps swept by, landing right onto Mark’s axe that was covered with raging electric arcs.

  A loud boom rang out, immediately followed by dirt scattering in all directions. A mini lightning storm then suddenly exploded.

  Greem, who had his body hidden within the Demon Alligator Hunter, sank underground just in time, successfully evading the shower of debris and the lightning storm. However, the crowd clearly saw that before the Demon Alligator was able to completely sink into the ground, a large portion of its long had already disappeared making it look really miserable.

  Concurrently, Mark crouched down and forcefully jumped up with both of his legs, borrowing the force from it and leaped high up in the sky. While his body was still in the air, he let out another raging cry. He used all of his strength and threw his axe down, aiming at the very spot Greem had disappeared to.

  Another earth-shaking explosion could be heard. Carrying with it a dazzling lightning storm, the axe forcefully struck the surface of the ground, shattering the ground and producing a large crater half a meter deep. The exploding lightning storm kept flaring violently at the the bottom of the crater, burning all the dirt into pieces and shaping the sand into molten glass.

  It was such a vicious strike. Let alone resisting it directly, even the shockwave alone would be enough to kill a beginner apprentice.

  In the sensitive spiritual senses of the crowd, Greem’s life force had significantly dropped. In just an instant, he had already lost two-thirds of it.

  Fortunately, the earth had helped Greem block most of the damage, making him suffer only a fraction of the damage from the shockwave. And so, Mark’s thunder strike wasn’t able to defeat him within a few seconds. This made the crowd feel pity and shock then they all sighed.

  If Mark was able to move just a bit faster, or if only he could strike with an even stronger force, perhaps he had already killed Greem who was still in the shallow level under the ground.

  A beginner apprentice challenging an advanced apprentice? What a joke! If the strike landed right on the target, Greem wouldn’t even be able to withstand a single strike from Mark. Maybe only a useless fool like Dark Wood would be defeated by a mere beginner apprentice!

  Enduring the gazes of either wonder, mocking, or disdain, Dark Wood hid his face under the shadow of his hood, showing only a pair of pale green ghastly flames dancing unclearly. No one knew what he was thinking about.

  Only Kevin’s expression changed following the situation of the fight.

  The vicious first strike of Mark nearly scared away Kevin’s soul. His bet of two hundred and seventy crystals was his hard-earned savings for two or three years which he had hoped to use to buy a nice, enchanted dagger. If his rash decision caused all of his savings to disappear, he would be crying out loud.

  What kind of trump card did that Greem have? If it was that Demon Alligator, once it shows up again, it would only be crushed into a pile of clay by Mark’s formidable strength. Kid, oh kid, you better not cheat me, or else I’ll go and bother you every single day!

  At this time, Greem was hiding underneath the ground and spitting blood.

  The enemy’s powerful strike had given him serious injuries. If not because he was able to act just in time, hastily diving deep underground, maybe with just the first strike alone would force him out. Even so, the tremendous shockwave that he felt from the squeezing of the ground had him coughing up a few mouthfuls of blood, nearly making him unable to recover.

  While he was moving quickly in the darkness of the underground, Greem hid i
nside a small space created within the Demon Alligator Hunter’s body and hastily treated his injuries. After he was done with that, he had a ferocious expression on his face as he tossed out a new golem he had created from the strenuous effort of a whole night. He then drove the Demon Alligator Hunter to slowly ascend to the surface.

  Sure enough, Mark had been on guard against Greem’s sneak attack from underground. On his foot were a pair of strange leather boots that were able to unleash bizarre magical ripples, enabling him to turn the ground underneath his feet into a hard rock, effectively blocking all the earth element spells casted by the Demon Alligator Hunter.

  In the end, Mark simply sat down and crossed his legs while wearing a disdainful look and he shouted, “Kid, from now on, any attack of yours coming from under the ground is useless to me. If you wish to fight me, show yourself now! If you want to prolong this battle, I have no problem doing this with you. I don’t believe your golem will be able to let you hide underground for so long!

  Before he finished speaking, Mark abruptly stood up and pulled out his axe again.

  At a spot nearly a hundred meters away from him, the Demon Alligator Hunter slowly emerged to the surface. Greem stared at him coldly.

  “Good kid, so you do know what you should do. Today, let your master Mark teach you what a true battle is!”

  After saying that, Mark covered his body again with countless arcs of blue lightning. He wielded his axe and charged towards Greem while howling out loud.

  “Didn’t you want to see what my trump card is? Fine, I’ll show it to you now”. Greem grinned. With both hands raised up, he shouted, “Show yourself, my raging fighter!”

  Following his summons, the ground on the battlefield crumbled.

  Chapter 67

  At this moment, the entire battlefield collapsed.

  In between the locations of Mark and Greem, a large portion of the ground suddenly crumbled and caved-in, revealing a large and terrifying pit. At the heart of this hole, one could see dirt tumbling violently while clouds of dust rose to the surface. A massive figure could be seen gradually emerging from the depths of the pit.

  Mark was forced to give up on his assault. A dignified expression was present on his face as he stared hard at the frightening figure that was slowly coming into view as dust settled down and it revealed its features.

  The first thing he saw was a bizarre looking pair of fiery scarlet eyes, and after that he saw that its body was made up entirely of hard rocks. The triangle-shaped snake head which was molded from Adamantine Rock seemed to be indestructible, while a narrow seam can be found on its pointed snout. In fact, anyone blessed with a sharp vision would easily be able to tell that this gigantic snake, which was constructed entirely from rocks, even had a thin tongue and a pair of very sharp fangs.

  Beyond the snake head was a strange body made from countless rocks of all shapes and sizes stacking onto each other, layers and layers of this formed the intimidating body of this giant rock snake. Since only a part of this snake’s body showed up from the cover of the dust cloud, no one could get a full glimpse of it with most of its body still hiding underground.

  But from what Mark could tell from the body parts that were exposed, looking at it from the ground up to its head that was held high up in the air, he estimated it to be at least twelve meters tall. If its entire body was truly made up of those rocks with high metallic content that were commonly found underground, then with just its frightening weight along with its indestructible body would be enough for it to become the greatest nightmare of most of its enemies.

  This… was this terrifying Rock Snake one of that guy’s golems?

  Before he could dismiss his thoughts from his mind, the super Rock Snake had opened up its mouth wide, initiating a long-range attack named Gravel Spray at Mark. A vast amount of gravel and dirt was extracted from the end of its tail, channeling through a long winding tunnel inside its body and afterwards it shot out from its mouth, splashing Mark with a massive wall of dirt. From what they could tell, this Rock Snake didn’t bother filtering the things it absorbed from the ground. There were many dried branches, grass and plant rubbish mixed in the dirt that was used in this nasty attack, along with countless underground insects, rats, earthworms and other unknown creatures.

  Such a filthy attack made Mark feel stressed out.

  While letting out an angry roar, he gathered up all of the thunder energy he has and directed it in front of his chest, forming them into a large web of lightning big enough to protect his body. The spray of dirt full of filth that impacted on the finely and closely woven lightning web produced a hissing noise that resounded throughout the entire place. A pungent odor of something burning lingered in the air afterwards.

  In the moment Mark was using all of his strength to hold back the Gravel Spray attack, the audience located at the sides of the battlefield suddenly let out shocked cries.

  “Careful…”

  “Quickly, put up your defenses…”

  …

  Since Mark’s line of sight was blocked by a huge amount of dirt, he wasn’t able to see beyond the Gravel Spray. However, in a small time frame within a split second, his formidable combat instincts and abundant fighting experience allowed him to react quickly, raising his axe and placing it in front of his chest.

  Puff!

  A muffled explosion sounded out as the web of lightning scattered.

  The terrifying and sturdy triangle-shaped snake head pierced through the dirt wall breaking the lightning web into tiny sparks. It then opened its large ferocious mouth and forcefully bit into Mark’s battle axe.

  An earth-shattering explosion echoed out to the surroundings. The Rock Snake clenched its huge mouth, using the sharp fangs made from tiny pointy rocks to tightly clutch onto the thunder axe, all the while taking advantage of the powerful thrusting force to crazily knock Mark far into the distance.

  If it was another advanced apprentice and not Mark, this tremendous body slam alone would be enough to break their bones and crush them into a meat paste. Fortunately, Mark was a rare apprentice Body-Refining Adept of this training camp, his overall strength second only to Hulk, who was a Pseudo-Adept. Therefore, instead of being turned into a human paste, he could be seen letting out continuous wild roars. His body being stimulated by berserk strength resulted into cracking and popping sounds that could be heard coming from his own bones, and his muscles started to expand and become more robust at an incredible rate. Countless thick snake-like blood vessels crazily twisted and crawled under his metallic muscles…

  The frantic Mark had one of his legs slightly bent down at the front while the other leg stretched out straight to support him from behind. His burly arm which had suddenly doubled in size held tightly on the axe. He had successfully blocked the full force of the Rock Snake’s thrust.

  Although he had succeeded in holding his ground, the land underneath his feet failed him.

  Following the violent thrust of the Rock Snake, Mark’s body kept being pushed backwards. His legs that were like pillars went through the hard ground, producing an increasing pile of dirt being accumulated behind him.

  When the violent strike of the Rock Snake finally had its strength depleted, Mark’s body had already been pushed back for more than twenty meters. The dirt that had piled up behind him became so tall it nearly drowned out his big burly body. The lower part of his body became completely submerged in dirt though.

  “You must have used up all your strength already, huh? Now it’s time for you to taste mine!”

  Mark suddenly raised his head up staring right in front of him at the frightening head of the snake which was still biting on his axe while making eerie sounds. He roared out loud as fury welled up within him.

  He forcefully knocked away the giant Rock Snake, and took advantage of the opportunity when its head drew back slightly. Mark suddenly jumped up with both feet while holding the axe with both hands, brutally chopping into the forehead of the Rock Snake.

/>   Just like before, another loud explosion exploded out which sounded like metal striking metal ringing through the air. The giant Rock Snake had a ring-shaped body with a circumference of two meters which was entirely composed of Adamantine Rock that can be found underground. The snake was forced back by Mark’s rapid chopping attacks causing huge amounts of rock fragments, dirt and sand to fall from its body like a waterfall.

  Together with the audience, Greem’s face twitched after witnessing how a muscular giant of a mere three meters high kept striking down on the gigantic rock monster which was many more times bigger than Mark. If this Rock Snake was a living creature, all of its bones would have been broken by now. It was a rock monster though and obviously not a living organism. Thus, that amount of damage wasn’t enough to kill it.

  Accordingly, under the long-distance control of Greem, the Rock Snake crazily twisted its body, coiling up into a dirt pillar that towered up in the sky. While that was in action, it retracted its body back into the dust cloud then prepared for another vicious thrust.

  Mark, who had been able to attack it unceasingly before, wouldn’t just let this go. He roared wildly and formed a lightning storm over his body as a protective shield, bending down and then sprinting right into the dust cloud to continue the intense fight he had with the Rock Snake in a chaotic fashion.

  The massive dust cloud was stirred up and wasn’t restrained anymore.

  The air was full of dust that covered everything, blocking the vision of everyone. The chaotic and violent clash of Earth Elementium and Mark’s lightning storm produced disruptions in their surroundings and isolated everything inside from the audience’s spiritual senses. No one was able to bypass those by-product barriers which made them unable to find out the actual situation in the heart of the battlefield.

  From time to time, large chunks of rocks would shoot out from within the dust cloud and sudden explosions of thunderclaps could be heard as well. Judging from these, the audience could infer indirectly how chaotic and intense the fight must be inside.