Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  No one knew why, but even the reckless Alice showed up for this meeting.

  She put her hands on her waist and stood beside Greem. Her eyes circled the two female apprentices, darting about as if she was scheming something.

  "This is the first time we have met each other. Give me a simple report on your names and research direction!" Greem slowly spoke.

  The five apprentices looked at each other when they heard their teacher's instructions. The slightly scrawny male pseudo-adept was the first to step forward.

  "Kodar. Affinity: Dark Elementium. I just turned into a pseudo-adept last year. My main research focus is biological mutation. I have some understanding of beast modifications as well… "

  "Meryl. Affinity: Earth Elementium. I turned into a pseudo-adept this year. I intend to walk the path of an elementium adept. I do not have any secondary professions currently… "

  "Am. Affinity: Fire Elementium. Advanced apprentice. I know how to do a bit of magical material processing… "

  "Toril. Affinity: Illusions. Advanced apprentice. Also a potions master… "

  "Lena. Affinity: Water Elementium. Advanced apprentice with no secondary professions currently… "

  Greem listened silently, blue light flashing deep in his eyes.

  Using his elementium sight, he had already captured the bodily attributes of his apprentices. He had them do a basic report on themselves to make it easier to create a profile of them and complete their basic information.

  Thanks to the amazing information processing abilities of the chip, Greem got notifications from the chip on the five apprentices the moment they were done introducing themselves.

  Amongst the five apprentices, one has the potential the continue improving.

  Another’s potential has been completely depleted. The fact that they have made it this far is thanks to the help of potions.

  One of them has immense potential for developing in this direction…

  While he already had an estimate of his apprentices’ quality, Greem didn't show any emotion on his young and handsome face.

  "Now that you have been assigned to me, you will be considered as my apprentices from today onwards. I will even consider accepting anyone with good performance as my actual disciple." Greem looked at the apprentices and saw excitement in their eyes, "Also this is Alice. She is my personal maid, as well as your senior. You can come find her if you have any trouble in the future!"

  Upon hearing Greem's words, Alice instantly puffed up her chest as if she was the boss.

  The few apprentices looked at each other and bowed to Alice in unison. The two young pseudo-adepts looked a little upset about it.

  In the World of Adepts, the difference between an apprentice and a disciple was extremely large.

  The identity of an apprentice only meant that you had studied under an adept. When necessary, you could use your identity as his apprentice to receive his shelter and help. However, a disciple was entirely different. A master-disciple relationship was more akin to a magical contract. Both sides would have an even closer and more well-defined relationship.

  Sometimes, when an adept died of an accident, his disciple would have the right to inherit his property.

  Thus, most of the time, the adepts were unwilling to create more trouble for themselves. As a result, most adepts would have plenty of apprentices while having close to no real disciples.

  "According to the tradition of the Sarubo Clan, now that you are my apprentices, you possess the right to obtain free knowledge from me. Every seven days you will have a chance to ask me questions. Advanced apprentices may ask me one question while pseudo-adepts may ask two. Moreover, the subjects I am involved in include elementium golem creation, animism, dissection, nervous system studies as well as fundamental potions studies… if any of you are willing to be my experiment collaborator, you will be able to share the fruits of my research and have free access to my personal lab!" Greem spoke without expression.

  The few apprentices couldn't help but betray an expression of hesitation and thought when they heard his words.

  Even though they were all considered valuable assets by the Sarubo Clan, it was still a dangerous thing to collaborate with an adept in their experiments. Not anyone dared to try something like that.

  Most adept experiments include taboo and forbidden topics. The risk was obvious.

  Even though participating apprentices would be able to enjoy the fruits of the experiment and research, the damage to their minds and bodies was uncertain. No apprentice confident in their future would choose this path under normal circumstances. Only the fellows that had depleted their potential or were in desperate need of funds would take the risk and volunteer as experiment collaborator to attract the teacher's attention and favor.

  "O’ respected teacher, we were wondering what your experiment involved?" The pseudo-adept named Kodar couldn't help but bow and ask.

  "It is related to illusions!"

  All of the apprentices looked towards Advanced Apprentice Toril. He was the only one with illusion affinity among them. He was clearly the most suited to become the 'experiment collaborator' from their group!

  Toril felt the burning but intangible pressure from everyone and had no choice but to take a step forward. He bowed and said, "Teacher, I am willing to participate in your experiments on illusions!"

  "Oh… " A gentle smile appeared on Greem's face, "Are you doing this voluntarily?"

  "Indeed!" Toril put up a very reluctant smile that looked even more terrible than if he was sobbing, "It is my honor to be able to participate in your experiments!"

  "Very well then, let's sign a contract!"

  Greem nodded in satisfaction. He waved his hand and grabbed a scroll out of the air. This magical scroll, forged of pure fire, had appeared out of thin air and was slowly hovering before Toril.

  Toril rubbed his eyes, leaned against the scroll, and carefully read through every clause in it. After confirming that the content matched Greem's words, he carefully left his emblem on the scroll.

  The scroll crackled and disappeared in a whirlwind of fire.

  "If there's nothing else, you may leave. Toril. Make some preparations and come over at seven tonight!" Greem was in a very good mood, having found an experiment collaborator like he had wanted. Even his smile was wider than usual.

  The apprentices bowed together and slowly left.

  Alice's rolled her eyes and quietly followed them out.

  One hour later she returned triumphantly, like a little fox that managed to steal the chicken from the farmer.

  "How was it?" Greem put down the book in his hands and asked lazily, "How many of them did you beat?"

  "Five! All five of them got beaten up by me." Alice spoke arrogantly and in disdain, "With what little prowess they had, I could take them on all at once!"

  Greem frowned when he heard this, "You didn't hurt that Toril, did you?"

  “Of course not!” Alice had been in a good mood ever since she got a spacestone from Greem, "I know he still has a job to do tonight, so I only trapped him in my Spatial Prison. He surrendered after realizing he couldn't do anything!"

  "The others?" Greem asked curiously.

  "I beat them black and blue! All of them are going back to treat their wounds." Alice waved about a small fist like she was the queen of violence.

  Greem tilted his head. He could totally imagine everyone's helplessness before Alice's impenetrable Spatial Barrier. Honestly, if it wasn't for his powerful golems, Greem with just his fire affinity would have an impossibly hard time suppressing Alice.

  With her unbelievably broken space affinity, Alice had unimaginable offense, defense, and mobility. Just these three were enough to make Alice nearly undefeatable against ordinary pseudo-adepts. They couldn't beat her, nor could they even run from her.

  People who battled with Alice were in for an experience of pain and agony!

  …………

  Dusk fell, and Toril had already appeared at
Greem's dwelling.

  Greem's task for him was extremely simple as well.

  He gave him a knowledge crystal used to store Spirit. There were ten extremely unique magic runes hidden within the crystal. What Toril needed to do was to write out the runes one by one, and as he did so, he needed to record his experiences.

  Greem had even set up a hidden room for this specific purpose, to have Toril finish this series of seemingly simple tasks. Of course, he had already hidden many monitoring crystals in every corner of the hidden room. These crystals would very clearly display Toril's every action to Greem, who would be sitting in the room next to this one.

  To encourage this advanced apprentice chosen to be his lab rat, Greem had even promised to provide Toril with three books related to potions studies.

  Thus, Toril unhesitatingly walked into the room.

  Chapter 261

  The experiment was extremely successful.

  Even more so than Greem estimated. In fact, much more so.

  Toril finally stumbled out of the room with a stack of scrolls in his arms. Apart from his pale face and his slightly dazed appearance, he seemed to be fine.

  Greem passed Toril the three books he had promised him and sent him back to rest. He then started to examine the scrolls Toril had passed him.

  As expected, two of the ten scrolls were completely blank, despite having runes inscribed on them prior to the experiment. Toril didn't seem to have realized this.

  Greem thought for abit. He did a quick reorganization of the eight verified runes and tried out their effects, successfully getting eight whole new runes that had never appeared in the runic system of the adepts.

  With these eight runes, today's experiment was not a complete failure. At the very least, didn't Greem manage to get something out of it?

  However he was still extremely curious about the two runes that had disappeared for no reason. He had a vague feeling that the direction of his research had gone off-track.

  In all seriousness, the new runes that had been engineered by the chip were all auxiliary lesser-runes. Not a single rune crucial to the merging of runic energies had been uncovered yet. As if… there was a deeper layer of secrets hidden within these runes that he hadn't grasped.

  What were runes?

  In the end runes were just a form, a manifestation of planar laws!

  The earliest recorded origin of runes began in the research of magic patterns. Some powerful magical creatures were able to unleash supernatural powers despite being ignorant of the knowledge and reason behind it. Magic patterns would naturally form on the bodies of such creatures.

  Adepts were originally an ordinary group of mortals. They started to notice the existence of magic patterns while battling against the magical creatures, and slowly started to use the patterns for their own might. First, they carved these same magic patterns onto their own bodies, allowing them to possess some unique supernatural powers.

  The encouraged adepts started to collect more and more of these patterns, accumulating them and starting to simplify and modify the patterns. After tens of thousands of years of groping in the dark, they finally managed to forge the runic system of the current age, indirectly reinforcing the dominance of the adepts in the process.

  Thus, in truth, runic studies could be said to be the subject of study that was closest to the true form of planar laws!

  These otherworldly runes from the knights' planes had yet to be deciphered after such a long time, especially those core to the entire runic system. Even basic rewritings of these runes had not succeeded. This was a clear sign that there was something deeper to the creation of the core runes.

  What was it?

  How profound could the runic knowledge be when it came from a group of low-level natives of a lesser plane? A lesser plane that hadn't even formed a functional system of magic casters!

  Wait a moment…

  Greem paused all of a sudden.

  Not all of the creatures in the knights' plane were low-level lifeforms… there were still high-level lifeforms from the outside… the green dragons.

  Greem's eyes gleamed. He felt like he had just discovered something important.

  He had brought plenty of valuable information and history texts back from the Runeforge drafting room. However, all of his attention had been focused on the rune-related content, never ever really reading through the kingdom's history.

  Now that Greem realized the potential link, he immediately corrected his mistake and spent the entire night rearranging the so-called 'history' of the knights' kingdom.

  As expected, Greem uncovered some hidden secrets behind the back of the kingdom's history.

  The profession of witcher-knight had only appeared after the green dragons became the patrons of the kingdom. Moreover, high-grade witcher-knights always seemed to be related to the dragons in one way or another.

  This gave Greem sufficient reason to suspect that the true source of the runes weren't the natives of the plane, but the dragons of the Dragon's Plane.

  Having suddenly understood this, Greem didn't give it a second thought. He immediately used his right as an adept to move all the information and books that the Sarubo Clan had about dragons back into his room. This tireless study might have been an arduous process, but it greatly completed his knowledge of the dragons.

  As a powerful race that dominated many material planes, the adepts kept a detailed research record on the dragons. As a result, the chip's progress on deciphering the runes became even smoother after the inclusion of this data.

  The chip could churn out some whole new runes almost every day by reverse-engineering these otherworldly runes. As for which of these runes were valuable and which of these were useless, that was a job left for Toril to determine.

  As expected of an advanced apprentice that had illusion affinity, he had extremely powerful illusion resistance. Even though the fragmented runic illusions often put him in a daze, and certainly had on one occassion nearly trapped his spirit consciousness in an illusory dimension, he still managed to pull through.

  Moreover, the large number of books and free resources that Greem had provided him with spared him from the trouble of running everywhere to scavenge for resources. He could stay within the safety of the tower and calmly progress with his research. However, the price he had to pay for this was the testing of four or five new runes every single day!

  That said, as Adept Greem's experiment collaborator, he had the opportunity to meet Greem almost every day. Thus, he was no longer limited to a certain number of questions per week. If one were to speak just in terms of his treatment, Toril's status was almost equal to an actual disciple of an adept.

  And this seemed to be the main reason he was willing to stay, despite the risk!

  Alice, on the other hand, had quickly become the boss of Greem's apprentices. Moreover, after bringing her group of lackeys to beat up the other apprentice groups in the tower, she quickly became the boss of all of the apprentices in Feidnan's adept tower.

  Alice's terrifying space affinity ensured that all the other apprentice adepts, even powerful pseudo-adepts in their ranks, would not be able to the beat her. Apart from the actual adepts, who could crush her with absolute strength, there was no match for Alice's powers. She had undoubtedly entered the ranks of the most powerful pseudo-adepts.

  Meanwhile, the goblin merchant Snorlax, that had succeeded with Greem’s blessing, continued to lean more and more towards him as his fame as the Flame Demon continued to spread.

  The World of Adepts was also a chaotic world where strength ruled supreme!

  Most businesses such as trade companies, trade unions, and arcane shops were owned by adept clans and forces of all sizes. As a lonely outsider, Snorlax had to endure being pushed about by these organizations even as he tried to set up shop.

  Thus, Snorlax only dared to maintain his business within Feidnan City. If he took even a single step out of this area, his small business would instantly be devoured by h
is competitors.

  However, with Greem’s increasing status in the Sarubo Clan, Snorlax had increased his efforts to butter up to his apprentices.

  Greem's apprentices enjoyed the cheap resources Snorlax provided them with, while Snorlax indirectly drew a large group of bodyguards and martial power around himself. The two parties benefited from each other and quickly formed a symbiotic little group.

  Greem didn't really about all of this and left them to their own devices. He himself was completely devoted to the deciphering and verification of the runes.

  Two months quickly passed by and Greem had successfully deciphered six of the twenty-eight new runes. This sounded like a very small amount, but it was more than enough to extend his knowledge on merging runic energies to the level of the Second Grade radiant knights.

  This meant that Greem had completely mastered the secrets of the Second Grade radiant knights. He could start forging an army of powerful runic knights if he so wished.

  That said, the strength of the Second Grade radiant knights was found in themselves. The runic system only served an auxiliary role. Thus, even if Greem had forged a set of runic equipment with capabilities that matched the Second Grade, he still wouldn't have the men to unleash its powers and use its powerful offensive abilities.

  Even without this, Greem seemed to have plenty of Second Grade-level resources at his disposal!

  The Second Grade Molten Giant core he got from the Underground Lava Ocean, the Flame Fiend's Heart that Lord Sarubo had bestowed upon him, and the corpse of the radiant knight he had killed in the knights' plane. Unfortunately, Greem wasn't a professional Necromancer. Otherwise creating a couple of powerful Undead would be a simple matter.

  With this runic knowledge in his hands, Greem started to get busy.

  The resources he asked Snorlax for were already here and his treatment of the Flame Fiend's Heart was quickly underway. There were still four adept-level elementium cores and a Second Grade molten giant core waiting to be dealt with. Meanwhile, upgrading the Flame Fiend Transformation runes on his body with the new knowledge he’d acquired had become his top priority.