Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  Greem's decision to completely cremate Sak was the right one.

  If he had kept Sak's body intact, the Ximan Clan would likely have even risked war to retrieve Sak's corpse.

  Thus, this pair of Eye of Petrifications could be considered the most valuable parts of his body. Greem had been researching magical statues and magical puppets. He lacked this sort of magic gemstone with unique abilities. Thus, he used an organic protective solution with biological properties to preserve the Eyes of Petrification in their best state.

  A layer of red light appeared in Greem's eyes and cut off the petrification energies emitting from the Eyes of Petrification.

  Honestly, these energies had caused him tremendous trouble in the previous fight. If it weren't due to the Flame Fiend's exceptional resistance to all basic elementium, he would have been turned to stone as well.

  He might have won that fight and turned Sak into ground meat paste and grey ashes, but the extraction of the petrification energy had caused him a lot of trouble as well. The energies had even mixed with the abyssal aura at one point and created a massive mess for him to clean up.

  Greem had put a lot of thought into how to use this pair of eyes as well!

  He once again covered the container with the black cloth, and the slight feeling of numbness faded away as well. He didn't look down on this black cloth because of how inconspicuous it seemed. It was also a magic-enhanced item that obscured all traces of magic covered by the fabric.

  Greem walked to the second platform. The variety of metallic parts and mechanical constructs were strewn across this one. However, most of them were only semi-finished products. Even if someone were to put them all together, it was just enough to create the metallic arm of an animated statue.

  These pieces were Greem's handiwork and his preparation for the magic-powered war golem he was attempting to make.

  After this period of research and discovery, Greem had finally been able to gain a thorough understanding of the knowledge he had brought back from the Silver Union. He had also discovered some oddities because of this.

  Ancient adepts had defined the magic golems as metallic golems that could aid the adepts in combat when they first brought these entities into existence. The initial motivation for creating them had been for battle!

  This line of thought had caused all sorts of elegant and precise designs to become unsuitable for a golem. This reason was why magic golems were rarely ever outfitted with precise and delicate components similar to that of a human's body. The adepts had made the magic golems to be as practical and straightforward as possible so that they could be qualified meat shields and vanguards.

  Ordinary metallic golems often only had two clumsy and dense metal pillars as legs. They had none of the complicated parts of a human body, such as a divide between the thigh, leg, feet, and the toes. The more precise and the more delicate the design of the metal golem, the weaker its resistance to blows. It was far more practical just to forge a lump of metal using a magical alloy with the highest toughness.

  This simplicity was why most of the metallic golems that Greem had seen were incapable of complex battle techniques. They could only roll over and crush enemies with their impenetrable bodies and terrifying weight.

  The adepts weren't necessarily wrong in their thought process!

  After all, they only trusted their own powers. Creating golems was just to provide themselves with a way to be covered while they cast their spells. Most adepts built their golems per their needs, and never honestly treated the golems as an aid nor dedicated their efforts to research and refine their potential.

  Greem took a wooden box from a corner of the stone platform. He opened the box and revealed five crude wooden golems placed within.

  He took one of them out and assessed it.

  The wooden golem had with the rough anatomy of a head, a torso, and four limbs. All of this was carved out of hemlock timber. The different parts of the body had been fixed together with iron nails. Coiled wire composed the more delicate components such as the hands and feet.

  Greem even created a pair of wings out of wood flakes and snowrabbit fur on the back of the golem. He had merely pinned the fur to the back side.

  Frankly speaking, Greem's woodwork skills were non-existent.

  According to the golem creation manuals, a proper wooden golem had to be carefully carved by a professional workman, using specialized timber, to be considered a qualified and accepted product. The wooden golem in front of Greem had clearly not undergone any method of polishing either. The surface of the wood was rough, and a crack had appeared on the right leg. Anyone would be able to tell that this was a defective product.

  The creator of this golem had used too much strength when pinning the wire feet into its legs.

  Greem could only shake his head in disappointment at his craftsmanship.

  Well. It was meant for practice anyway. It was okay, even if it was a little shoddy!

  Chapter 317

  Greem pressed the wooden box slightly, and a hidden compartment appeared.

  A black stone rested silently within.

  Greem picked up the stone with his fingers and brought it before his eyes. The chip's powerful magnification and scanning abilities caused the black rock to become larger and larger in his vision.

  The first things that he saw were the fine lines and patterns carved into the stone. They circled and overlapped with each other, connected through the elaborate runic drawings. This method had created several small arrays on the item. Once wandering elementium in the air came into contact with the stone, it would merge with it and light up one or two of the arrays.

  The reason Greem could see this was thanks to the chip's powerful ability to magnify the image of the stone by a hundred times. Without chip's aid, Greem would only have been able to see it sparkling slightly without any direct way of observing the mechanisms behind it.

  Golem stones. These were specialized materials that the Silver Union had restricted from being sold to the outside. They were used to activate golem constructs temporarily. It was a consumable that esoteric adepts tended to exhaust at a tremendous rate!

  The golem stone in front of Greem was only as large as a segment of his finger. It could only be used to activate some small golem constructs. He needed a mechanical heart if he wanted to activate a large or mid-sized golem construct like the metallic war golem.

  Greem wouldn't have received this particular restricted item if he hadn't visited the adept's tower belonging to a Senate member.

  "Chip, make sure to record everything!" Greem calmly ordered.

  "Beep. Fifth experiment file for the golem stone has been constructed. Beginning dynamic data capture.”

  Greem crushed the golem stone without hesitation.

  A sizeable cloud of white smoke blew out from the remains in a matter of moments.

  The white smoke seemed to possess intelligence. It didn't scatter around aimlessly. Instead, the smoke gathered together and hovered in the air. It soon discovered the existence of the wooden golem. The cloud of smoke started to stir and circle before finally diving into the body of the wood golem.

  The next second, the wooden golem suddenly sat up from the stone platform, as if it were a newly revived living being. It started coughing severely.

  At the same time, the various arrays that Greem had drawn onto the wooden golem's body using invisible ink started to glow and surface on the golem's brown body.

  Most of them were lit up.

  Of course, there were exceptions!

  The crack on the wooden golem's right leg had damaged the magic array on that spot. Crackling sounds rang out, and black spot started to spout from the golem's right leg.

  The golem rose to life and struggled as it stood upon the stone platform.

  It was evident that the terrible damage to its right leg caused its movements to become slow and dull.

  Honestly, Greem's craftsmanship was way too terrible!

  It didn't
matter whether it was the wire hands, the wooden frame wings or the body fixed together with iron nails. The entire thing looked like the casual handiwork of a toddler. It was so crude that it was hard to take it seriously.

  However, the activation effects of the strange white smoke seemed to improve all of these!

  The wooden golem finally stood up. It tried moving its creaking wrists, neck, and shoulder as it put an arm against its chest to bow at Greem, "So glad to meet you, my master! Billy, the wooden golem, reporting for duty!"

  There was a young voice with a hint of childishness to it.

  It wasn't the first time he had seen such 'trash' made of wood scraps, iron nails, wires, and cloth come to life. However, the elementary intelligence that they possessed truly filled Greem's heart with a strange and surreal feeling. Their intelligence was equivalent to an ordinary human after all.

  What a weird world to live in!

  "Give me a report on your body's condition!" Greem gave his first order to Billy the wooden golem.

  "Er…" Billy tried to move every part of his body. He even flapped the two 'wings' on his back to examine their condition.

  "Master, this body is pretty shitty."

  "There's something wrong with my heart. It's making it hard for me to breath." The wooden golem hit its chest with its 'iron hands' and wheezed.

  Greem shifted his gaze to the golem's chest. He could see a magic crystal embedded in the array underneath the wooden shell. The formations circulated power at an incredible speed and continuously drew energy from the crystal into the runic circuits.

  However, the parts where the arrays were connected were obstructed. Some arrays had power, while some other remained dim. All of this caused Billy's movements to become clumsy and choppy.

  "Beep. A scan of the energy control core has been completed! Thirty-seven points of failure discovered. Three are a result of technique failure. Thirty-three points are a result of shoddy workmanship, one is a result of deterioration of the material. Final assessment: 28% energy efficiency rate."

  "How much would the energy efficiency rate increase by if the craftsmanship was improved?"

  "Beep. After eliminating all material and crafting failures, the estimated energy efficiency rate could reach 57.33%."

  "How is it so low? The energy efficiency rate is barely half!" Greem asked in confusion.

  "Inferior choice of material caused severe energy overflow. To increase the energy efficiency rate of the golem, the following materials are recommended for the process of crafting: Ent's Core, magical alloy, mithril……"

  Damn! You get what you pay for!

  Everyone knew this.

  But wasting all of these precious resources on a practice golem was too extravagant.

  Greem quickly rejected the chip's suggestion.

  "Let me see you fly!" Greem ordered.

  Billy stood straight. The pair of ugly wings started to beat rapidly. Cold winds blew towards Greem as the wooden golem slowly hovered above the platform.

  Greem saw that the light from the wooden golem's energy core had increased by several levels through the use of his elementium sight. Some of the runic arrays that had conflicting energy circuits started to glow with blinding radiance.

  "Billy, stop flying right now!" Greem immediately gave the command when he saw where things were heading.

  Sadly, it was too late.

  A small explosion occurred, and thick black smoke immediately started to rise from within Billy's wooden body. Fine cracks had also appeared on its chest because of the blast.

  "Aaaaaah……I……can't……continue anymore……I'm going……to die!"

  The golem that had risen to Greem's eye level paused and distorted amid its screams and cries of terror. It then plunged downwards.

  Greem quickly extended a hand and caught it.

  The wooden golem coughed a few more times with its broken and twisted body before utterly stalling. The strange white smoke came out of the golem's body once more and dispersed in the air.

  Wooden golem Billy had indeed died!

  A golem lifeform with elementary intelligence had reached the end of its lifespan in less than a hundred and twenty-six seconds!

  The primary cause of its death was the poor craftsmanship of its wooden body. If Greem had been slightly more careful in creating this wooden golem, he might have been able to obtain the wood golem Billy as his subordinate.

  However, a golem with a crude body like this one had no combat ability or special powers. Greem would even have had to switch out the magic crystal in its frame periodically. Honestly, there was absolutely no point in having a low-level golem lifeform like this one!

  Greem wasn't a kid that needed a tool for a companion. He didn't feel a thing at the death of an artificial golem lifeform like this one!

  Greem quickly gathered and collected part of the white smoke before it completely dispersed.

  He had gained a complete understanding of the foundational knowledge of golem creation at this point. The only thing he had yet to figure out was the mechanisms of the golem stone and the composition of the white smoke.

  How did it seep into the golem's body? How did it then take control of the runic system? More importantly, where did the elementary intelligence come from?

  These were the actual core questions that Greem was trying to figure out with his repeated experiments!

  He had already experienced a planar war. He knew that the true nature of a planar war was exploitation and robbery!

  Why did the adepts put so much effort into looking for multiple plane world coordinates in the infinite galaxy? Was it to drop by and say hello to the locals? Was it to drink some coffee, talk about the weather, and exchange their ideas about life?

  Only weaklings would have such childish and idealistic dreams!

  What drove the adepts to cross hundreds of thousands of billions of kilometers through the universe, risk the danger of suppression from the planar will, and endure the siege of the locals were the attractive resources and the mountains of slaves that these other planes had to offer!

  Once they conquered a plane, all of the resources and population of the plane were at the behest of the adepts.

  If such wealth and resources fell into the hands of one adept, it would allow them to rise to power quickly. They no longer needed to travel tens of millions of kilometers in pursuit of small amounts of resources. Nor would they need to explore fearsome ruins to earn magic crystals for their research purposes.

  Truthfully speaking, most of an adept's life was exhausted on their journey over the continent to gather knowledge and resources!

  To avoid this from happening, they had to have sufficient strength to conquer a plane.

  Individual strength was one way to do it!

  The strength of a group was another!

  For Greem to invade a physical plane with what little power he had at this point was a suicidal act!

  Even the weakest material plane was home to domineering individuals with Third or Fourth Grade strength. They might not be able to compare with the powerhouses of the World of Adepts, but they were more than enough to crush a small First Grade like Greem.

  Thus, Greem's personal goal was to rise to Second Grade.

  Once he reached Second Grade, he would have reached the lowest possible required power level to invade a lesser plane!

  And his most significant aid in the invasion would undoubtedly be the economical but powerful golem army. Only these loyal elementium lifeforms and golem lifeforms would never betray him. They were the only ones he could use without any reservation.

  For an extended period of time after this, Greem planned to enhance the strength and numbers of his golems apart from his own powers.

  Mary, Alice, and Snorlax were champions that Greem was trying his best to win to his side.

  It wasn't possible to conquer a massive planar world with only a single person's existence. Greem needed to find some worthwhile and trustworthy assistant
s!

  Chapter 318

  Greem placed the broken wooden golem back on the stone platform. What came next was a complete and detailed dissection.

  Since it was hard to decipher the secrets contained within the golem stone directly, Greem had to approach the subject from another angle. He examined the traces left behind by the white smoke and saw what mysterious changes had happened within the wooden golem after it awakened its elementary intelligence.

  If the wooden golem's simple body were hardware, the white smoke was the software system that managed the entire thing. Greem was curious about the nature of the white smoke. Was it a magical effect, or the soul of a lifeform that had undergone memory washing and treatment?!

  Greem had already suspected this to be the case when he first tested the golem stone. It was very likely that the white smoke was composed of soul fragments that the Silver Union had extracted from certain intelligent creatures. It would have to be humanoid creatures for them to achieve such levels of intellect.

  For example, the native 'humans' of lesser planes.

  The Silver Union's reported internal price for a low-level golem stone was fifteen magical crystals. In truth, its price reached upwards of forty magic crystals in some black markets. Greem had done a simple calculation. Because native human souls were often weaker than the humans of the World of Adepts, successfully crafting a low-level golem stone required three to five native human souls to be successfully crafted.

  These native humans from lesser planes were not worth anything at all. It was easy to purchase thousands of ordinary slaves with a single magic crystal.

  Sadly, only slaves with unique abilities and unique talents were worth bringing back to the World of Adepts. Otherwise, their worth might not even pay for the cost of transporting them using the ultra-long-range teleportation arrays. That was why it was rare to see combat slaves from other planes in the World of Adepts.

  Very rare, but not wholly impossible.

  There were master architects and blacksmiths of the dwarves, the gourmets of the halflings, the beauties of the elves, the fairies of the Fairy World. Some powerful adepts even kept succubi, lust demons, dark elves, and other slaves of the sort in their towers.