Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  Hundreds of Adept clans are strewn about in the Zhentarim Association's territory in the center of the Continent of Adepts. Through means such as marriage, alliances, and mergers, these clans form various forces, both small and large, creating a complex political situation.

  Each Adept clan, academy, school, or alliance all owned lesser planes that belonged exclusively to themselves.

  The so-called lesser planes were, in truth, small or mid-sized planes that were still in the process of development. Although their resources and overall strength could not compare with a giant plane such as the World of Adepts, they were still material planes with complete world frames and power structures of their own.

  It wasn't out of the realm of possibility for them to become a new giant plane if they were given enough time to develop. But they would become lambs to the slaughter should their plane world be discovered by Adepts in the depths of the galaxies. There would be no avoiding their fate of being invaded.

  The overall strength of the World of Adepts was amongst the top of the material planes, as one of the rare giant planes of the infinite galaxies. The adepts would diligently assess the overall strength of another material plane once they found one in their travels through the depths of the galaxies. If there was benefit to be gained, they would return to the World of Adepts to gather an invasion force.

  Giant planes rarely go to war with each other. The difficulty of invasion was too high, and the invested resources would not see any returns for a long time. Thus mid and small-sized planes were the most common targets of plane invasions.

  Strong mid-sized planes require the strength of major forces such as the Zhentarim Association, the Northern Witches, the Adept's Association or the Silver Union to have a chance of a successful invasion. But an ordinary Adept clan would be enough for the usual mid and small-sized planes.

  Thus an important indicator of an Adept clan's strength is how many planes they have invaded, and how many resources they can squeeze out of these planes every year. The coordinates of each enslaved plane world are the most precious asset of every clan. They keep it as the most important secret, never to be known by their enemies.

  It's been said that the Sarubo clan owns 2 small lesser planes. However, both of these planes functioned on the less lucrative regional cooperation model. The returns were far less than what a complete plane enslavement could provide.

  The regional cooperation model was a model created by Adept clans with not enough strength to suppress internal rebellions of the invaded planes. To avoid further losses, the invading clan signs an agreement with the plane natives to trade with each other under than name of regional cooperation and joint development.

  Although the invading clan has to use currency recognised by both parties to purchase resources, once these resources were resold in the World of Adepts, they still provided very lucrative returns. The risk of war is tremendously reduced because of this, even though it's not as efficient and lucrative as domination and enslavement of the plane.

  The Sarubo clan ranks middle amongst all the clans in the Zhentarim Association precisely because of these 2 small lesser planes. And the upcoming plane war was clearly going to bring about the third lesser plane for the clan.

  Chapter 162

  The altar connecting the two worlds was located in Feidnan City's Adept's tower. This was to protect the world coordinates of the lesser plane.

  Half a year was not very long.

  After becoming an adept, the greatest change for Greem was the immense slowdown in the speed at which his powers increased. The meditation technique used by apprentices was meaningless for adepts. Greem's daily meditation only brought about an increase of Spirit of 0.0001 every time. Even Greem would have suspected his daily meditations to have lost all of its effects had it not been for the chip's thorough monitoring of his body.

  Of course the Sarubo clan had meditation techniques suited for adepts, but unfortunately, with Greem's current qualifications, there was no chance for him to get his hands on them. Greem could have a chance if he contributed a lot to the clan's plane war this time. Otherwise, he can only silently bear with the turtling speed of his Spirit increase.

  On the surface, Greem, Mary, and Acteon were all adepts of the Sarubo clan. But in truth, they were the clan's prisoners. The Second Grade Adept Sir Fügen had left a special curse in their mental world. They would instantly be killed by it should they leave Feidnan City at their own discretion.

  Thus the three didn't dare step a single foot out of the city even though they walked about freely in the City of Feidnan.

  On the other hand, Alice was mad at the fact that Greem and Alice had advanced into adepts.

  She kept suspecting Greem had intentionally sent her outside of the secret space, and let Mary take her place instead, causing her to lose her chance to become an adept. As for all the risks and dangers Mary had to experience in the process, Alice completely disregarded them.

  Anger makes people lose their rationality.

  Thus Alice has been clearing missions at an insane rate lately, accepting all of the most dangerous missions around Feidnan City. It was hard to catch her in the Adept's tower with how busy she was every single day.

  As for Mary. After becoming an adept, she rapidly became far more powerful. Mary became a terrifying killer on the battlefield with her super high speed, deadly melee attacks and her barbaric eye-for-an-eye style of fighting.

  Even experienced adepts more powerful than her would have trouble facing the wraith-like her if they didn't have special methods to control her movements. Otherwise, Body Refining Adept Kiel wouldn't have suffered defeat at the fangs and bow of Mary.

  But as Mary was beginning to catch the attention of people, Greem was once again keeping a low profile.

  Most of his prowess previously came from the golems. As the threat of apprentice level golems became smaller and smaller against future adept level opponents, Greem's advantage was diminished as well. Greem needed to increase his own powers, as well as find a means of obtaining numerous adept level summoning cores to regain his advantage in combat.

  The only adept level golem Greem currently had was the Fire Lord. Besides that, he also had a Second Grade Molten Giant core waiting to be processed. But it was way too hard to deal with an Elementium crystal core of this level with his current skills. Thus in the remaining time, Greem became a hermit, diligently converting crystal cores into battle golems of various attributes.

  He was trying to increase the numbers of the golems, striving to create a golem army with golems of different specialisations, given that he cannot increase the quality of the golems in the short term.

  Besides crafting golems and his daily meditations, Greem also collected other resources, seeking to fix the magic rune suit of Flame Fiend transformation onto his body permanently. In his remaining time, Greem examined the Scroll of Voodoo that had been soulbound to him.

  Greem had never heard of such a mysterious adept equipment. Now he was trying to uncover the uses of the Scroll of Voodoo bit by bit based on the information he could find in the library.

  Soul Gear?

  Greem first heard this odd name from Anderson. With this clue, he quickly found related information and got an initial picture of the uniqueness of Soul Gears.

  Soul Gears are a kind of magical item! And they were a unique magical item that could grow alongside its soul host!

  Besides its ability to return to Greem's side after a certain distance, its greatest help to him was the six spell storage slots. 6 powerful spells that took a single second to cast. This was more than enough to give him the combat initiative and advantage when facing enemies.

  Greem found a new method of using the Scroll now that he had advanced into an adept.

  Plague Curse!

  Write the name of an enemy onto the Scroll using their blood, and the enemy will constantly be inflicted by the Plague Curse. This attack is autonomously done by the Scroll of Voodoo and didn't require any ad
ditional Spirit or energy on Greem's part.

  Thus, buried in his daily meditations, his golem crafting and his examinations of the Scroll, half a year passed in the blink of an eye. It was now the start of the clan's plane war.

  …………

  Half a month before departure, the Sarubo clan's adepts returned to the tower one after another.

  There were now seven clan adepts in the tower!

  It's important to note that the total amount of First Grade Adepts of the Sarubo family was only seven before the addition of Greem and the others. The fact that seven adepts had shown up reflects how important this plane war was for the Sarubo clan. They were sending almost all of their active forces.

  The Sarubo clan adepts had returned to the tower in the most secretive manner to avoid being discovered by enemy clans. Had they found out about the power vacuum of the Sarubo clan, trouble might occur. Their departing location was on the 10th floor of the Adept's tower.

  The party was led by Second Grade Adept Lord Fügen, which included a total of 7 adepts.

  Fügen looked coldly upon the party as they stood before the teleportation array. Calmly, he spoke:"Prepare yourselves! Later, we will be transported to the outlands, and regroup with the other parties there. This teleportation will break through plane barriers. This is an ultra-long range transportation. Those who have never experienced it should guard their own mental self. Do not extend your Spirit outside of this teleportation array! "

  Fügen drew a magic rune concentrating a terrifyingly cold aura in the air with a single hand and sent it into the array beneath his feet.

  In a series of flashes, the adepts within the array disappeared.

  Even though Greem had well expected the terrors of an ultra-long-range teleportation, but as his body was stretched and compressed within the teleportation array, Greem truly experienced the pain and torture of having his spirit origin at the mercy of Spatial Energy.

  Mottled and blurred patches of color took up all of his vision. Everything before his eyes looked like they were obstructed by a thick stained glass. It was all blurry.

  Even worse was the nausea of space flipping up and down.

  Greem had no means of telling the direction with the limited vision he had and the feeling of space bending in his mind. Of course, there was the possibility that there was no such thing as direction during the spatial transfer!

  It was hard to determine how long the ultra-long-range teleportation took. Greem had completely lost all sense of time and space.

  When he finally appeared at a teleportation array on another end, he shut his eyes and recalibrated for half a minute before he was back to usual.

  The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the bright and boundless galaxy.

  Never had there been such a moment where Greem felt so at peace and his mind and mind so relaxed. Above his head, high above the skies, was a thick transparent energy dome. Outside that dome was the boundless galaxy and the exhilarating energy sea of the multiverse.

  The sky is boundless. The stars are countless.

  Looking at the starry skies without the interference of the plane barriers, Greem felt like his entire being had sunk into the dark but shining night sky. The barrier between man and the world had disappeared. It was all so fantastical and beautiful.

  Greem drew his line of vision away from the night sky with much effort. Only then did he have the chance to survey the teleportation platform he was on.

  This was a massive pseudo-plane floating in the depths of the galaxy.

  The inside of the pseudo-plane wasn't the most commonly seen continent form common to the material worlds. Rather, it was a mountain peak so massive it was beyond imagination. Steep cliffs. Forests of stones. There were terrifying peaks everywhere that stood tall like unsheathed swords.

  And the teleportation array where the party was was located on the top of such a peak. Someone had sliced the sharp peak, turning it into a flat platform. Looking from atop, numerous holes had been dug in the peaks. Countless flying creatures that looked like two-footed dragons were weaving in and out of them.

  The array on the top of the sharp peak wasn't the only one. In Greem's vision alone, there were three to four more teleportation platforms exactly like the one beneath his feet. Teleportation light flashed there as well. There were up to three other parties that seemed to consist of adepts as well.

  "Come with me! We need to first regroup with the others! " Fügen called out and took to the air.

  Almost anyone who became an adept had their own unique method of flying.

  Some summoned flying creatures out of beast-slaving rings. Some grew an odd pair of wings. Some called upon the wind Elementium particles to surround them and help them fly..... Greem summoned the Lightning Giant, and had it carry him and follow behind Fügen towards a platform with several other people.

  It was hard to tell how huge this pseudo-plane was, but when they flew high up in the sky, Greem's pupils couldn't help but shrink. This……this was a pseudo-plane so huge it could be called a small continent of its own!

  Chapter 163

  The night sky hung low. The countless stars were spotted across it.

  The familiar stars seen from within the plane now hung directly above in the boundless skies, so close it seemed one could just fly up and pluck them.

  But Greem knew that each of these stars represented a plane world that carried the lives of hundreds of millions. Although they seemed really close, in truth, it would take at least a hundred years to cross the infinite sea of stars to reach them.

  The term 'sea of stars" was not a metaphor. It was a description.

  Any two planes within the multiverse were separated by an extremely long distance. It is not emptiness that was between them, but rather energy tides so strong and powerful it's hard to even imagine. Where there were energy tides, there were high tides and low tides. There were times of storms and times of calm seas.

  In this seemingly empty space, chaotic energy flows were everywhere. The first thing any being needs to do when they enter the infinite space is to protect themselves from the damage of turbulent energy flows.

  Space was not empty. Energy reigns there.

  Energy tides flowed aimlessly in space. Sometimes they gathered in a place, forming powerful and terrifying energy storms. These stormy areas easily extended up to hundreds of thousands of miles wide. The large ones even went up to millions of miles large.

  The energy corrosion strength at the eye of the space storm could go up to a shocking 10000 points. Even a Fifth Grade Adept would die if he was pulled into such a storm. Even at the edge of a storm, the strength of turbulent energy flows could reach up to 100 points.

  What this meant for any adepts that breached into an energy storm was that their energy shield had to constantly bear energy corrosion of up to 100 points. This……this was equal to the normal damage of an actual adept!

  Once the adept's energy shield is broken, a First Grade Adept would be minced into tiny particles within seconds by the energy flows. The particles would then be swept away by the energy tides to any corner in the multiverse.

  Thus a First Grade Adept would have trouble surviving in the sea of stars once they left the protection of the plane barrier behind. To rely solely on bodily strength to travel across space, this was something only Grand Adepts could do!

  The pseudo-plane slowly drifted in space.

  Sparkling fireworks could be seen everywhere on the world membrane that protected the pseudo-plane.

  That was the result of friction between the turbulent energy flows and the membrane. It looked beautiful from afar, but the strength of the energy contained was no weaker than the strongest attack an advanced apprentice could fire. If someone left the protection of the world membrane and entered the infinite galaxies, their protective shield had to constantly bear no less than 50 points of energy damage.

  And this was the energy tides at their most calm.

  Even with G
reem could only stay within the infinite galaxies for no more than 15 minutes with his current power.

  Greem's temporary quarters was within one of the exceptionally tall stone peaks. It was a small room dug out of the stone. He has already been here for three days, but there was nothing to do. Everyday Greem could only meditate, stare at the stars or speak with the adept that lived nearby.

  He had thought the 7 First Grade Adepts in the party this time had been all of the Sarubo's clan active forces. But when another three adept parties appeared before him, Greem realised that the Sarubo had hidden some of its adept forces. These adepts usually were hidden in those lesser planes.

  This was a need born out of reality.

  Lesser planes were smaller planes enslaved by adepts through barbaric strength and bloody means. The adepts' ruling structure would easily be toppled if they lacked the necessary numbers to defend.

  Thus, tall Adept's towers were built in every lesser plane, stationed with numerous adepts. This was to ensure that the exploitation of the lesser planes' resources would proceed smoothly.

  This was the true core profit that every adept family needed to protect.

  The clan outpost in the World of Adepts, on the other hand, was no more than a source of fresh blood to keep training new adepts. Of course, the value of the source of fresh blood could not be replaced by any lesser planes. The clan could continue to produce new adepts and strengthen itself as long as the clan's roots in the Continent of Adepts were never destroyed.

  Thus many adept clans have extended their reach to all over the infinite sea of stars even though their roots remained in the World of Adepts. Every time they found a material world weaker than themselves, they would find a way to invade, and squeeze the sweet sweet nectar out of it, making their roots stronger, making them more powerful……

  The adepts that regrouped with Greem's party were adepts reassigned from the two lesser planes that belonged to the Sarubo clan. If these experienced adepts were the main combat forces of the Sarubo clan, Greem's party were only a bunch of rookies. A bunch of rookies that haven't experienced the grind and refinement of plane wars.