Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  A mechanical arm stretched out from this magical machine, clamped onto the magic crystal and placed it onto a hole located at the lower part of its body. Right after that, a strange mechanical voice echoed out in the room.

  “A mutated entry level energy crystal is detected. It can be used as energy source. Magical Kernel serial number 03768, estimated recovery of function reached 17%. Initiating now…”

  After that, following a series of peculiar noises, this Magical Kernel transformed from the white stone actually stood up, tilted a screen that was located at the top part of its body and pointed it right at Snorlax.

  A violent distortion of images flashed through the screen, and suddenly, an enormous glass eye appeared on it, followed by a noisy and hoarse voice.

  “Peculiar… this is peculiar… why did a Magical Kernel that had not show any activity for more than two hundred years suddenly activate? Hey, little guy, are you the one who activated this Magical Kernel?” Snorlax was certain that the language spoken by the voice came from the Magical Kernel was something that it had never heard or learnt before.

  “Who are you? How did you squeeze into this tiny object? This… what is this… what exactly is this object?” The naturally timid character of Snorlax had struck again. Judging from the size of the eyeball, Snorlax bet it must be a terrifying and enormous giant. If it jumped out from this tiny object, how could Snorlax escape from its death?

  Right at this very moment, Snorlax was seized with remorse. Why hadn’t it mentioned this discovery to its master earlier! Perhaps, only that miraculous master of its could save it from the giant mouth of this giant.

  Right as a fierce mental struggle was going on inside of Snorlax’s mind, the glassy eyeball on the screen backed off some distance, and eventually, allowed Snorlax to get a clear look at the appearance of the giant.

  Fancy that! The ‘giant’ was actually someone with a near identical appearance and build like Snorlax! It had a similar height of around one meter tall and had green skin, a pair of large ears, a long and pointy nose, and disheveled, fluffy, short yellow hair. The enormous glassy eyeball that Snorlax saw just now was actually a special goggles.

  Yes, this fellow was actually a goblin too!

  The goblin on the other side was clad in a dirty white coat, a drawing pen was placed in one ear, and it was wearing a high-power magnifier on its eyes. That was why it looked so strange. However, no matter how strange it looked, Snorlax was certain that this fellow was a… goblin!

  After bent over the screen and spending some time looking left and right, obviously, the goblin on the other side never expected it was also a goblin who had just sent a request for communication from a far distance plane. Therefore, after murmuring some complaints for some time, it finally became friendlier, and commenced a warm interaction with Snorlax.

  “You… are you a goblin too?” Snorlax asked timidly.

  “Little guy, you are now meeting with the greatest chief inventor of the Goblin Empire, Duke Gazlowe. So, before you ask any question, you better add in the proper honorifics!” On the other side of the screen, the yellow-hair goblin was seen waving its arms dissatisfied and speaking in a threatening manner.

  “Oh, the Great Duke Gazlowe, could you tell me what exactly is this object? Also, why is that I can understand your words?”

  “Damn you #%@￥%… it looks like you this little guy had not understand anything yet.” The yellow-hair goblin crazily cursed, before it explained to Snorlax with a helpless expression. “What you’re looking at right now is the Magical Kernel I invented: the Super Long Distance Magical-Mechanical Communication and Transmitting Machine. To put it simply, it is a little equipment that allows two goblins to communicate and transmit items across a super long distance.

  As for why you can understand my words, it is because you’re a goblin too! As long as you’re a goblin, no matter which plane you are living in, it is natural that you can understand the Goblin language, as it is one unique to Goblins!”

  Snorlax’s eyes went wider and wider, as it hardly believed what it had just heard.

  “If this machine was invented by you, why was it stranded in this place?” Snorlax asked wonderingly.

  “Since this machine is called Super Long Distance Magical-Mechanical Communication and Transmitting Machine, it is of course used to carry out trading of items between planes! When I was young, I produced a few hundred of them at one go, and randomly tossed them into different places in the multi-verse. So, when the local experts picked up this machine, they could become my customers. If my memory served me well, last time, it was a powerful Molten Giant who used this machine with the serial number of 03768 to communicate with me. But too bad, that giant was really poor, and didn’t own any good stuff that met the fancy of my eyes!”

  “You… you are actually a Mighty Transplanar Merchant?” The greedy-in-nature, keen on receiving petty advantages Snorlax had its eyes pop out instantly. For Snorlax, obviously, compared to the status of Chief Inventor of the Goblin Empire, the yellow-hair goblin’s status of a transplanar merchant was so much more respectable.

  “Certainly! As the greatest engineer, inventor and transplanar merchant of the Goblin Empire, I, Duke Gazlowe, am well-known throughout the entire multi-verse!”

  “You’ve mentioned many times about Goblin Empire? This… what is it then?” Snorlax asked curiously.

  Gazlowe said out loud with a proud voice, “Goblin Empire is, of course, the empire of Goblins! It is a kingdom built by us, Goblins, after occupying an entire plane. In this kingdom, we, the Goblins are the true master of the plane. Since you’ve asked this question, presumably, in the plane you’re living right now, goblins have an inferior status?”

  Hearing what it said, Snorlax clenched its fists tightly in excitement, while both of its eyes were filled with tiny sparks of envy. However, it soon recalled its current situation and couldn’t help but lower its big ears dejectedly.

  Gazlowe sighed silently.

  It had seen many situations like this. In most of the material planes, Goblins were discriminated against and lived miserable lives being bullied by everybody. They didn’t possess any ability in fighting, and they didn’t have any extraordinary innate abilities. Even among all demons, their place belonged in the bottom of the food chain.

  Nevertheless, with regards to this goblin who had accidentally activated the Magical Kernel in another plane, Gazlowe expressed its extreme curiosity. After patiently questioning Snorlax, it was told that this dejected little goblin was actually a slave who served a mysterious Adept.

  And when Gazlowe couldn’t bear itself and suspected that Snorlax was just a penniless vagrant who owned nothing, the angry Snorlax opened up its waist pouch and revealed all its treasures to Gazlowe.

  Human fist-sized Fire Diamonds; Sapphire, Ruby, Green Agate, Topaz, and Beryl which sent forth a powerful aura of magical element, and rare Night-Eye Stones, Pyre Stones, Crimson Spinel Stones and other treasures which could only found in certain planes…

  A little, seemingly insignificant goblin actually took out so many rare gemstones in one go, this had made Gazlowe nearly dropped its eyes out. It paid no attention to those elemental gemstones, because at the plane where it was living, it could find plenty of them easily. However, the Night-Eye Stones, Pyre Stones, Crimson Spinel Stones and few other special gemstones and materials that Snorlax took out the last were something it had never seen before, and it took a great interest in a few of them.

  In the Goblin Empire where it came from, the one single most powerful creation was all kind of magical machines. And, the energy that drove these magical machines would be a huge amount of energy crystals and distinguished magical gemstones. If it could bring all these special magical gemstones back to the Goblin Empire, figured out the mode of existence and the method of sharing the special energies, no doubt it would bring a tremendous help to the development of the magical machine.

  Thus, the more this two goblins talked, the friendlier t
hey became with each other. By the end, they actually reached a trade agreement, planning to carry out a transplanar barter trade in secret.

  The trade list drafted by each of them was extremely long.

  For Snorlax, it had listed every single magical gemstone, magical materials and some unique Adept resources it heard or seen before in the World of Adept. As for Gazlowe, its list comprised all sorts of powerful yet dangerous magical machines and some local resources produced in the Goblin Plane.

  While browsing through the trade list provided by the other party, when one of them was interested in some random item on the other’s list, it would offer a price and started the negotiation process. Sure enough, Goblins deserved to be generally regarded as a race that cared about nothing but profit, and they were also the greediest race in the world.

  When it came to the price of the item, this pair of Goblin brothers who were happily chatting with each other moment ago immediately turned into someone as mean as a miser, fighting over the smallest trifles. Because of a difference in one or two magic crystals, they would rage at each other, cursing loudly all the familial relatives of the other goblins, and portray a fierce look of ‘take it or leave it’.

  Therefore, Snorlax didn’t sleep for the entire night, spent all its effort and more than twenty hours fighting with Duke Gazlowe, who was a greedy, stingy, shameless, selfish, narrow-minded… goblin. In addition to that, it also paid no attention to hygiene and carried a pungent body odor. As for the result? Two transplanar deals that were worth less than five magic crystals.

  And yet, in order to maintain the smooth communication, Snorlax had literally spent three magic crystals in just one night.

  But with regards to this, none of them actually felt strange. Snorlax was dancing in joy as it was able to negotiate a discount of one single magic crystal for the deal. On the other side, Gazlowe was seen roaring furiously, cursing Snorlax as the most shameless and despicable green-skinned goblin it ever met.

  Finally, both ended their first communication in such ‘friendly’ atmosphere!

  Chapter 136

  Three months later

  When Greem woke up from a long period of meditation, he couldn’t help and have a worried expression on his face.

  “Chip, how efficient is this meditation?”

  “Calculating… Spirit has increased by another 0.007. According to the current progress, in order to reach the maximum of 20 points, an estimated 139 days will be needed.”

  The muscle near the corner of Greem’s lips twitched.

  His body had turned into Flame Body and he had also used his authority in the Adept Tower to make himself a room with abundant Fire Elementiums. In addition to that, his daily meals were all magical energy foods that would bring great benefits to his body and Spirit. Even combined with the Fire Diamond pillow and Deep Sea Flower, he had actually just gained an increment of 0.007 in a day. Compared to the past, where he could easily gain 0.05 increment in every meditation, Greem felt it difficult to adapt to the situation.

  Since he had become a Pseudo-Adept, Greem had discovered that the increase in Spirit brought by basic meditation and studying magic spells was not as significant as in the past. Because he had the help of the Chip, he was able to detect the increment of his Spirit on a daily basis. Yet, for those Pseudo-Adepts who didn’t own such ability, their productiveness was ten times lower than his. What was the thing that they relied upon in order to go through this painful period?

  Greem closed his eyes and pondered for a brief moment. Only then did he realize something.

  It seemed like those Pseudo-Adepts rarely stayed in their own rooms and meditated days and night. Instead, they spent most of their time bustling about, training themselves laboriously through different missions. In the past, Greem had thought they did this for the sake of getting more resources. Now, looking back and pondering deeper, it was more likely that due to the slow progress in their Spirit, they were pushing themselves to the brink of death as a method of stimulating their Spirit.

  This might not be a bad idea!

  “Chip, you spent quite a long time doing analysis. Have you found out why there’s such a slow progress for Spirit?”

  “Beep. The modeling of the mission has been completed. The result shows that during the period of apprenticeship for humans, the primary task is to arduously increase the density of Elementium in the body and strive for a qualitative change that comes from quantitative accumulation. The ultimate goal is to rise and become a magical creature: Adept.

  After entering the grade of Pseudo-Adept, the increase of Spirit becomes slower because the accumulation of element energy is approaching its bottleneck. Due of the lack of traction from a vital core, and because of the characteristics of elements, the energy accumulated in the early state will cause an unpredicted distraction to the energy that comes in later. This causes the efficiency of energy accumulation in the later state to weaken significantly.”

  The Same-Element Attraction and Universal Repulsion of element energy?

  Both of them were elementary theories of elemental magic spells that had long been known by all senior Adepts. To put it simply, among the different types of Elementiums, it was easier for the Elementiums with the same element to gather together and produce a homogeneous region. The Adepts referred to this phenomenon as Same-Element Attraction!

  However, there was a limit to such aggregation. Once it reached or exceeded this limit, Adepts had discovered that it would become extremely difficult to bring in more Elementium of the same element. It was as if there was a powerful repulsive force between those Elementiums of the same element which caused them to reject each other. As a result, Adepts had referred to this phenomenon as Universal Repulsion.

  The characteristics of Same-Element Attraction and Universal Repulsion existed within all Elementiums at the same time. The key was the regional density of the Elementium. If the density was lower than the limit, they would portray the characteristics of Same-Element Attraction, but when it was higher than the limit, they would show the characteristics of Universal Repulsion. The Adepts didn’t know the details and exact theory for this phenomenon, or perhaps they did have a conclusion but magical knowledge of such an advanced degree was not something Greem had the right to know right now.

  “Chip, do you have any workable methods that can solve the current problem?”

  “Beep. Data analysis complete. There are two workable solutions:

  Solution number 1: Core Transplant.

  The Spirit of Apprentice Adepts is scattered, as it is not bound by a vital core. Transplanting a Fire element core into the brain can reduce the repulsiveness between Fire Elementiums.

  Pros: Able to solve the issue of having Spirit increase at a slow rate, and eventually increase the success rate of official Adept Advancement Ceremony.

  Cons: The transplanted Fire element core cannot compare to the Element Core formed by oneself and it will restrict the possibility of future development.

  Solution number 2: Stimulate the Spirit.

  Bypass the weak stimulation toward the Spiritual Domain which is caused by the accumulation of Elementium. Instead, use a more direct approach which can stimulate the source of the Spirit, using the method of reducing the tenacity of the Spirit to obtain increments of the Spirit’s maximum limit.”

  Greem knitted his brows in a tight frown.

  Ugh, restricted to the knowledge mastered by the Chip, Greem didn’t like either of the solutions it provided. The first solution was a method that attended to the superficials and neglected the essentials; it was the lousiest approach that could destroy his future totally, and was only useful to those Pseudo-Adepts who had no more hope of becoming an official Adept. As for the second solution, it wasn’t too dependable either. It was still unknown whether this method could really cultivate an official Adept, but it for sure could give birth to a freak.

  Since the crooked ways weren’t feasible at all, Greem had no choice but to focus all of his
attention on the source of Adepts.

  Spirit!

  The reason for human Adepts to set 21 points of Spirit as the basic threshold of breaking through the limits of humans and becoming official Adepts was most probably because 20 points was the maximum limit of Spirit a human’s body could ever achieve!

  Once they stepped over this threshold, there would be some essential differences between a human Adept and an ordinary human, as the human Adept would become more like a magical creature. Therefore, the reason why there was such a huge gap in the overall strength between an Adept of 21 points Spirit and a Pseudo-Adept of 20 points Spirit was most probably because the basic data of their bodies had become totally different!

  With the aid of so many outside advantages, without the need to participate in any life and death training, Greem could still achieve an increment of 0.007 in his Spirit on a daily basis. If this was known by any other Pseudo-Adepts, for sure they would be extremely jealous. For Greem, however, it was still very slow!

  Because… because the recent transformation of Evil Bugs Acteon had made his heart tremble!

  Initially, he had thought his progress had gone beyond all other people. Thus, catching up or even suppressing Acteon was just a matter of time. But, after he had accidentally bumped into Acteon in the Tower a few days ago, such thoughts had become rather inconclusive!

  That Evil Bugs nearly had a new transformation every single day and his massive Spiritual pressure had become more visible. After having the Chip perform a scan on him, Greem knew that it was highly possible Evil Bugs’s Spirit had gone beyond the half-mark of a Pseudo-Adept. That meant his Spirit must have reached beyond 20.50. Yet, he had only become a Pseudo-Adept less than half a year ago!

  This proved that the increase rate of Evil Bugs Acteon’s Spirit was not weaker than Greem’s.

  Of course, it might be the result of Acteon visiting the fifth floor of the Swampy Tower every couple of days. From the scan results of the Chip, it was highly possible that Adept Anderson was performing a bloodline infusion experiment on Acteon, because the Chip had detected the familiar scent of blood from Acteon’s body.