Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  A prolonged, desolate howl by a magical wolf came from the ground as the witches continued their conversation. Mixed between the howls and the cries of the wolves was a hell of blades of ice and swords of snow.

  All the witches looked at the representatives of the Witches of Deceit when they felt the cold aura on the ground.

  Witch Rena was among these representatives. She was the mother of the approaching witch. Snowlotus, the Dancer of Ice and Frost.

  Pride and relief rose on Rena's face when everyone looked towards her.

  She had brought up such a powerful witch that could lead the Northern Lands in the future. It was natural that she was happy and joyous about this. Her mother was the leader of the Witches of Deceit. If her daughter became the leader of the Witches of Fate, wouldn't this herald the rise of a new and powerful clan of witches?

  And she, as the link between these two powerful witches, would undoubtedly go down in history as the witch with the most power in the history of the Northern Lands!

  Rena couldn't help but smile in confidence whenever she imagined this glorious future.

  Snowlotus, who had not appeared for some time, appeared before the Tower, wrapped in a cloud of chilling aura under everyone's gaze.

  Not a single trace of fear or panic could be seen on her face, even as several dozen wolves attacked her with strength rivaling that of adepts.

  An armor of ice hung upon her body as she casually strolled through the pack of wolves. Whenever a wolf charged to a side, an ice crystal one meter in width and height would appear. The wolves would be frozen on the spot if they even touched the cube.

  Even though the duration of the freezing effect was extremely short, it was more than enough for Snowlotus to kill it with a cone of ice. Or, she could slide away from the attacking wolf.

  It was thanks to these little tricks that Snowlotus had made it through the pack of wolves without taking any damage. She reached the gates of the Tower.

  Snowlotus lifted her head and looked at the witches from the various branches. A faint smile appeared on her snow-white face as she bowed respectfully.

  She locked eyes with her mother. Witch Rena subtly nodded her head.

  Snowlotus raised one of her beautiful eyebrows before slowly walking into the Tower as if something was on her mind.

  "Time should be almost up!"

  "Mm, another fifteen minutes and the Tower of Fate closes! Then those late fellows won't have any chance to get in anymore!"

  Some of the witches started whispering to each other. Meanwhile, their eyes turned towards the Death Witches.

  A massive rumbling came from the outer edge of Dragonblight as they were still wondering about the situation.

  Just then, a gigantic spider-shaped golem arrived in front of everyone's eyes.

  It crushed and stormed through all the magical beasts of Dragonblight without stopping. The spider golem continued with its clanging footsteps, dragging with it the blood and severed limbs of magical creatures as it marched towards the Tower.

  A muscular male adept leaped off from the back of the golem. Alice then poked out of the abdomen of the golem and used a small talisman to stow the massive machine.

  "I'll see you guys later, aunties and grannies!"

  The petite, eight year-old-sized Alice waved at the witches before diving through the barrier.

  The atmosphere suddenly turned awkward and solemn!

  Chapter 360 Lies and Deceptions

  The Witches of Deceit started to become restless when they saw the young adept standing beneath them.

  "Rena, let's capture this guy!"

  "Yeah! Such an arrogant man! To think that he still dares to show his face!"

  Everyone thought that Witch Rena would agree for her daughter's sake. Who knew? Instead, Rena betrayed a solemn expression as she silently shook her head.

  She sent mental messages to her companions in private.

  "There's no need to rush. We're at the Tower of Fate. Act without thinking, and we might go against the rules of this place. Moreover, if we were to assume the worst, and Alice succeeds the throne of the Witch of Fate, she will have become an individual on the same level as our leaders. If we caught him now and Alice asked us to release him later, do we release him or not?"

  The other Witches of Deceit fell silent.

  "Be patient! As long as Snowlotus is the one to walk out of the Tower, do you think this kid can still get away?"

  The witches of the other branches also conversed as the Witches of Deceit whispered to each other.

  "How is it, Sage Else? Can you figure out which one of them will be the final victor?"

  "My sisters, you think too simply of Fate! The true outcome will always remain hidden in the flowing river of Fate. It is difficult for us to grasp the flow of the world's fate from our narrow and lowly perspective."

  "Alright, alright. Stop giving us a lesson, Sage Elsa. Just tell us everything you saw just now."

  "Very well! I have categorized the candidates that walked into the tower earlier. The power of Fate in those two dozen witch-level candidates has already merged perfectly with their soul origin. If we were to think of the amount of their power of Fate as one unit, then the apprentice-level candidates only have shards of Fate within their bodies. Those apprentices have absolutely no hope of becoming the Witch of Fate!"

  "Then those three favored ones?"

  "If we were to take the power of Fate within the witch-level candidates as one unit, then Snowlotus would have four units, and Sofia would have eight. As for Alice…"

  "What is it?"

  "She would have nine units of fate within her!"

  "You mean Alice will be the victor?"

  "No, no, no. I have only described the candidates starting points. The Tower of Fate right now is more like a furnace of fate. All the candidates within it are both the hunters and the prey. As long as they can kill off others quickly, they will be able to absorb their opponent's powers of Fate. Snowlotus' fate might have been affected by her clan's actions, but as long as she can kill enough of the other witches and apprentices, she still has a hope to challenge the other two favorites."

  The witches finally understood. A trace of graveness appeared in their gazes towards the Tower.

  If everything before this had been the preparation to allow candidates to be one step ahead of their competitors, now was the moment where they could only count on themselves!

  Slaughter. Slaughter was the only real theme within the Tower of Fate right now!

  …………

  Within the Tower of Fate.

  The radiance of a teleportation spell flashed in a grim corridor. A small and frail silhouette dropped out of the air.

  Ow.

  Alice had no time to rub her hurting ass. She held up the Orb of Deception in one hand and grabbed the golem talisman in the other. Her cute and big eyes opened wide as she looked at her surroundings like a sly gopher.

  Fortunately, the place she had teleported to was utterly silent. There didn't seem to be any danger.

  After another dozen seconds, Alice had confirmed the absence of any enemies as well as any magical traps. It was only now that she relaxed a little. She put away the treasures she had been holding and started examining this place she had landed in.

  She stood in a short and narrow corridor. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all made of stone. A layer of dust clung to them. Both ends of the hall were thickly shrouded with darkness. Still, with Alice's vision, she could see that the corridor turned into another direction twenty meters away.

  At the end of her vision were two light yellow walls.

  Moreover, Alice also saw four or five stone doors spread across this short corridor.

  Should she open one of the stone doors and see what's inside? The most important thing was figuring out her position!

  Having settled on an action plan, Alice tilted her head and thought for a while. She then took out a golem crystal from her storage tool and summoned he
r old friend– the Infernal Tyrant.

  The five-meter large body of the Tyrant was unsuited to this small environment. Fortunately, the Tyrant was an elementium golem. Its body could make adjustments by changing the elementium concentration and distribution of the energy nodes in its body.

  After a period of struggling, the Tyrant painfully compressed itself into a three-meter-tall giant of flames.

  This body was still a little large for the corridor, but at least it wasn't a complete hindrance now.

  The Infernal Tyrant walked to a stone door under Alice's orders. An expressionless human face surfaced on the dusty stone door, perhaps because it sensed the aura of a living being.

  "Password or key tokens? If you have neither, you will be forbidden."

  The monotone voice of the magical door didn't manage to finish. The flaming fist of the Tyrant bashed the face into the door.

  The door creaked, and a muffled explosion rang out. The magical door finally opened after being ravaged by absolute violence.

  There was a small stone room behind the door. Apart from a simple stone bed, stone desk, and some wooden boxes and closets that had completely rotted away, there were no other items of value.

  Apprentice dormitory!

  Alice identified the purpose of this room with a single look.

  Most adept towers would keep apprentice dormitories at the lowest level. Judging from this, Alice was likely at the very bottom of the Tower. It would be a long journey before she could reach the core of the Tower!

  Frantic and chaotic footsteps sounded from the left side of the corridor, right when Alice exited the stone room.

  The next second, a young witch with a sweet appearance charged out of the corner and sprinted towards Alice.

  A wolf-shaped voodoo beast kicked against the stone walls and leaped towards her.

  A candidate and a tower guard?

  Perhaps Alice's existence had surprised the young witch. The witch couldn't help but stop her running feet and tripped as a result. She rolled across the ground. The wolf voodoo beast also leaped down from the stone walls and slowly closed in on the two of them with its steady footsteps. Its salivating and fanged mouth was opened wide. The wolf's resonating growl was its way of intimidating prey.

  "Save me, please. I don't want to die…" Pincered between the wolf and Alice, the young witch shivered in fright as she pleaded, "As long as you save me, I will listen to everything you say afterward. You can even plant seals and restrictions in my body."

  A sweet smile appeared on Alice's face when she saw the frantically begging young witch and approaching beast.

  "You are so cute, sister! Who would ever be willing to kill you? Hide behind me; I'll deal with this voodoo beast!"

  An expression of utmost gratitude and relief appeared on the witch's face when she heard Alice's words. She couldn't even stand up. Instead, she immediately crawled towards Alice as fast as she could.

  A flash of evil intent appeared on her lowered face as she closed in on Alice.

  Five steps.

  Four steps.

  Three steps.

  Almost there. Just a bit more and I can kill this naive little girl.

  The young witch slowly edged close to Alice's side with feelings of nervousness. She reached for the poisoned dagger within her robe when she bowed to thank Alice.

  Sadly, the roiling flames that suddenly ignited on her body caused her smile to freeze on her face.

  The flame giant standing behind Alice extended its massive hand and shot out a stream of burning fire, which instantly engulfed the witch in a sea of flame.

  The temperature of the fierce flames reached two thousand degrees. It dealt up to seventy points of damage.

  Such an attack was lethal to a witch that had yet to erect a defensive barrier!

  Every article of clothing on the young witch had ignited. If it hadn't been for a few stress-activated magical items on her body, she would have died already. She endured the pain from all over her body and waved her poisoned dagger wildly in her moment of blindness. Of course, she didn't hit anyone.

  A Halo of Repulsion appeared, and her burning body stumbled away from Alice. The witch eventually fell before the wolf.

  Oddly enough, the wolf voodoo beast didn't attack her. Instead, it leaped in front of her and fired a black ball of light at the Tyrant.

  Frantic chanting rang out in the corridor, and gray mist spread out from within the witch's body, which successfully extinguished the flames.

  The witch, already burned black by the flames, endured the intense pain and stood up by grabbing onto the wall. She hissed, "You evil brat! Did you see through my deception or had you been planning to kill me all along? Was there anything that gave away my performance earlier?"

  Alice snorted in disdain while hiding behind the Tyrant. She snapped her fingers, and two great Magma Fireballs hurtled in the witch's direction.

  There was no room for the witch and her voodoo beast to dodge in this narrow corridor. The Magma Fireballs took up more than two-thirds of the space of the hallway.

  Boom.

  Two burnt corpses remained in the corridor after the gigantic explosion. Half of the hall had also collapsed under the massive impact of the fireballs.

  From under the protection of the Tyrant, Alice split apart the sea of fire. She appeared at the charred corpse of the witch and coldly commented, "Your performance was impressive. I didn't see any flaw in it. That said, your voodoo beast is a poor actor. I have the Orb of Deception on me. If it truly were a guard of the tower, it would have ignored me and attacked the Infernal Tyrant instead. So your death was not without reason!"

  Having said that, Alice brought the Infernal Tyrant along with her and left this place without ever looking back.

  Chapter 361 To Each Their Own

  The path in front of her spread out in every direction like a spider's web. There were turns at every corner, and many rooms could be seen on both sides of the stone wall.

  If this had been an ordinary adventure, Alice wouldn't have minded taking her time to advance towards the core of the Tower cautiously. However, today was different. A strange and mysterious mist obscured everything.

  Alice didn't even know the name of the witch she had just killed. She felt like she had absorbed some sort of unique energy substance from the witch when she died. Even Alice's mind had seemed to be sharper and quicker than before.

  Deep in her heart, Alice had a feeling that this was a slaughter contest. Whoever killed the most weaklings and absorbed the most of this unknown substance would have the advantage when everyone met in the core of the Tower.

  This feeling only existed as a vague sense of intuition for most of the witches!

  However, for Alice, this feeling felt like a directive from fate itself.

  Alice immediately ordered the Infernal Tyrant to plow forward, unlike her usual cautious attitude. In fact, she specifically commanded the Tyrant to create as large of a commotion as possible as they knocked down the walls and facilities around them.

  As expected, the uproar attracted enemies.

  They rounded a corner and found themselves face to face with five apprentice witches that had been waiting in preparation.

  All sorts of support spells glowed with various colors around their bodies. They held magic wands and scrolls with different effects and powers in their hands. A small army of stone golems, dirt statues, razor boars, savage wolves, ironback eagles, and other summoned creatures and golems stood before them.

  With their preparations, as well as the uniquely restricted environment, they might have been able to drive away an ordinary adept.

  Sadly, they had to meet Alice and the Infernal Tyrant with her.

  The Infernal Tyrant continued to step forward despite the sight of numerous enemies. It extended its arms, conjuring a blinding wall of fire right in the middle of the army of summoned creatures.

  The fire swiftly spread.

  The eighty points of fire damage fro
m the wall of fire were not something that the apprentice-level creatures could endure!

  The tight formation of the crowd quickly broke down into disarray and chaos.

  Countless beasts and monsters were burned to death in the field of fire and reduced to glowing sparks in the air. Only the stone golems barely struggled and clung on to life with their magic resistance. However, their bodies that had been baked by the intense heat crumbled into pieces before they made it out of the flames. Even the dirt statue couldn't survive the attack from the Tyrant. It melted into a pile of mud.

  The faces of the five apprentice witches blanched. They silently started retreating.

  With their limited knowledge and experience, when had they ever seen a summoned flame giant of this power?!

  "Run."

  No one knew who it was that shouted first, but all of the apprentices turned and ran without looking back. Two of them even cast Godspeed and Haste on themselves to get a lead on their companions.

  A whistling Explosive Fireball flew into their ranks and exploded.

  The violent waves of fire filled the narrow corridor. The apprentices could never outrun the flame shockwave regardless of how fast they could run on their feet.

  The five apprentices' defensive barriers broke under the strain of multiple flame shockwaves. All of them collapsed around the corridor. The two corpses at the center of the explosion had reduced to ashes. Not a single shard of bone remained. Only the apprentice witch that had barely made it to the end of the corridor managed to have something resembling a corpse. The fires had utterly charred even her body.

  In human society, these apprentice witches were individuals that every local noble would fight for to be able to invite them to their banquets. Here, they were no more than targets that were easily disposed of. They didn't even manage to defend against a single attack of the Infernal Tyrant. In fact, they hadn't even gotten to keep their corpses in death.

  The path that fate had chosen for them was a complete dead end!

  However, Alice had already given up on such lamentings and pity when she was ten. Ever since she had stepped upon this path towards becoming the Witch of Fate, she had no other option but to continue forward.