Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  "Perhaps it's only a delusion of mine. Don't worry about me. I'll be careful!" Leicester's crimson eyes glowed twice before he sighed and laid back into his coffin.

  As the two stone coffins once again creaked and closed shut, the fires on the torches extinguished.

  The room was plunged into deathly silence once more!

  Chapter 483 Soul Equipment

  Five months later.

  The first elite-level elementium golem had been sent back to the Sarubo Clan.

  The feedback from Adept Fügen stated that the higher-ups were extremely satisfied with Greem's obedience. They didn't at all suspect he had done something to the golem.

  After all, Greem couldn't hide the intense and periodic explosions from his alchemical lab from other people. That was why the clan was still able to keep track of Greem's activities through the spies they had placed in Fire Throne, as well as Greem's basic success rate at crafting golems.

  The intense explosions that happened once every two months, along with the occasional pseudo-adept and adept-level golems that appeared as rewards within the mission system of the tower, all pointed towards one thing; this once powerful combat fire adept had now invested all of his efforts into crafting elementium golems.

  That could be seen through the quantity and quality of the golems he was crafting.

  Even though it was a pity that some of the golems had fallen into the hands of wandering adepts and apprentices through the mission system, most of these golems would still end up in the hands of the Sarubo Clan through various means.

  Greem knew very well about this, yet he had the good sense not to interfere. He continued to insert a certain number of low-grade golems into the mission system on a monthly basis.

  Over the past six months of management, almost all of the apprentices within Fire Throne had managed to get their hands on one elementium golem. These cheap and powerful assistants were a massive boost to the power of the tower apprentices. They no longer needed to be as cautious as before when going in and out of the Black Forest.

  The two watchdogs that Fire Throne placed around Fire Throne–Three-Headed Demon Hound Unguja and Medusa Dana–were helping Greem keep a close watch on the perimeter of the Black Forest. All magical creatures that were permitted within three hundred kilometers of the adept's tower had all been carefully selected.

  Those excessively fierce magical creature tribes, or those that posed a threat, were all kept at a distance of five hundred kilometers. If any foolish enemies tried to force their way past the perimeter, Unguja and Dana would join forces and send troops to exterminate them. If the opponent was too strong, they could still call on Mary, who was constantly wandering around the Black Forest with her subordinates by her side.

  Three pseudo-Second-Grade blood knights, one powerful vampire adept, and a now pseudo-adept level Billis were enough to deal with any magical tribe that had yet to establish a foothold.

  If it weren't for Greem strictly restricting Mary from stepping out of the perimeter, she would probably have led her men and gone even deeper into the forest.

  Mary was fearless because she was ignorant. She didn't understand the true terror of the Black Forest!

  The five hundred kilometer perimeter to the north of Fire Throne that they now controlled was still at the edge of the Black Forest. The most plentiful creatures living here were all kinds of strange magical creatures. Their strength and grades were also at a level that Fire Throne could still deal with.

  If they went a little deeper inside, there was a high chance that they would run into those terrifying Second Grade magical creatures.

  Fire Throne's current power was still inadequate to deal with Second Grade magical creatures. If Mary recklessly drew a Second Grade magical creature to the surroundings of Fire Throne, they would probably have no choice but to hide within the tower. No one would dare to go out again.

  That wasn't an exaggeration; it was something that was very likely to happen.

  Much like how the human adepts liked to treat the magical creatures of the Black Forest as an endless supply of resources, why wouldn't the native magical creatures of the Black Forest treat the human adepts with hostility? If those high-grade creatures discovered that human adepts had snuck into the Black Forest, it was inevitable that they would pursue them at all costs! They would have to exterminate the adepts!

  Consequently, the severely restricted Mary became notably bored after having explored the area within the five hundred kilometer perimeter.

  To avoid Mary making trouble in her boredom, Greem quickly cooked up an idea. He tossed the tower apprentice Sabrina into Mary's care.

  He had heard Sabrina mention an ancient ruin when he took her under his wing. It seemed there were some valuable assets there. The only problem had been that Greem was too busy to find the time to go there. He decided to leave the issue to Mary and have her lead a team to complete Fire Throne's first adventure mission.

  After a round of selections, the core party members were decided to be Mary, Endor, and Meryl. Sabrina and Billis would also go along. This party seemed too small at first glance, but their hidden power was far more than an outsider could imagine.

  Mary had three pseudo-Second Grade blood knights under her command while being a powerful vampire adept herself. She and her subordinates accounted for more than half of the party's combat strength. As adepts of the tower, Endor and Meryl naturally carried several elite golems with them.

  At this point, it wasn't just them. Even the pseudo-adept level Billis and Sabrina each held an adept-level golem in their hands.

  If the entire adventuring party was to go full out, they could even be equal to a ten-adept combat party.

  Greem, on the other hand, was simply too busy. He was either in the midst of the 'degradation' of his body or Spirit and having to gorge for his nutrition, or in the midst of the sudden boost of his body and Spirit, when he would have to make preparations for the crafting of the next golem.

  Greem had to temper his Spirit in the sea of lava beneath Fire Throne once every month. For the fifteen days following a tempering, his mental space would experience continuous quakes and contraction. Still, this was only a temporary effect. As long as he supplied proper treatment and nutrition, Greem's Spirit would increase by 0.04 points once the quakes had stopped.

  This number seemed insignificant, so much so that even Greem would not have been able to detect his improvement through self-assessment had it not been for the Chip's detailed scans. However, this sort of growth was real and absolute. As long as Greem kept up his efforts, the days would accumulate and eventually all of his Spirit would be completely elementiumized.

  When that happened, the elementiumization of both his body and Spirit would reach a balance. The necessary conditions for his advancement to Second Grade would then be fulfilled.

  To fully utilize every bit of time he had, Greem always used voodoo poison to temper his body during the period of weakness following Spirit tempering.

  His body had already completed elementiumization. Greem's body of flames allowed him to be immune to nearly all damage from elementium fires. However, elementiumization had only increased his body's compatibility with elementium fires. It didn't fully excavate the hidden strength in his body.

  That was why Greem would always use voodoo poison to stimulate his body into releasing more of its potential. He would then follow it up with a carefully-prepared magical energy meal to solidify his body's foundation.

  His Spirit and body's attributes were slowly but surely improving under the precise help of the Chip.

  Thus, time slowly passed by under such a routine, day by day.

  The tower party that had gone to investigate the ruins had barely made it back to Fire Throne. The area they had gone to was the burial grounds of some ancient adept cult. After tens of thousands of years, that place had turned into a dangerous place rife with wandering souls, ghosts, and monsters.

  If it weren't for Poison Witch Endor'
s experience that allowed her to detect the abnormality, all of the party members might have been possessed by evil spirits. They would have spent the rest of their lives wandering in the dark caverns as that which was neither alive nor dead.

  The party had relied on their overwhelming firepower and used the elementium golems to forge a path out of that place. It was only then that they barely managed to escape that dangerous land. However, their reckless actions had also caused nearly half of the spirits in the burial grounds to escape. A decent-sized ghostly disaster had occurred in the area nearby!

  To avoid being stopped by the Zhentarim Association adepts that hurried to the place after the incident, the party immediately retreated the very night they escaped. They quickly headed back to the Fire Throne.

  The adventure this time had caused the female adepts to all receive varying degrees of spirit corruption, and much had to be done to help them dispel the effects.

  Still, the party hadn't come back empty-handed. They had discovered some strange runic stones in the first few graves they searched. Greem successfully extracted some ancient inscriptions and runes from those stones.

  Of course, most of the content was the personal biography left by some ancient adepts who were the owners of those graves. Naturally, the runes sang plenty of praises for these people. However, after removing all the useless trash, Greem managed to find some things that were beneficial to him.

  It was about Accompanying-Type magical items, or, as the adepts now knew it, Soul Equipment. They used to be the standard equipment in ancient times. There had been so many more of them in the past than there were now.

  However, the creation of Soul Equipment required the bloody sacrifice of thousands or even tens of thousands of people. If the ancient adepts had been allowed to do as they had pleased, the fragile human race would never have been able to withstand their wrath. That was also tremendous damage to the World of Adepts!

  A severe clashing of viewpoints passed between the ancient adepts and the world consciousness back then.

  The world consciousness had finally perfected the planar law system and forbidden the adepts from being able to manipulate the laws of this world directly. That indirectly weakened the ancient adepts.

  The conflict between the ancient adepts and the world consciousness had lasted tens of thousands of years, causing colossal damage to the entire world.

  The strength of the ancient adepts had significantly weakened. To avoid further backlash from the world consciousness, the most powerful of the adepts had no choice but to leave the World of Adepts. They stepped out of the realm and went to find new places and new planes to establish themselves.

  From then on, an unspoken rule was created in the World of Adepts. All Great Adepts that had gone beyond Fourth Grade had to leave the World of Adepts and proceed beyond the realm. It was only then that Great Adepts could be prevented from hurting the World of Adepts through their overwhelming power.

  The departure of those Great Adepts had caused many magical systems and ancestries to fall or even vanish from the World of Adepts. Soul Equipment was undoubtedly one of these systems.

  The Soul Equipment that could be found in the World of Adepts now was almost all left behind from the ancient ages. The adepts of the present had lost the techniques to craft and strengthen their Soul Equipment.

  However, what made Greem feel extremely fortunate was the fact that he found a clue in these records; a hint to strengthen Soul Equipment.

  Chapter 484 Of Monster and Man

  Time flew by in a flash.

  Sixty-seven years.

  Any ordinary human would have over half of their lives gone just like that. However, for adepts who had a fundamental lifespan up to two or three hundred years, this was no more than one-quarter of their lives, or even less.

  Those who had mutated their bodies, going down the path of bloodline mutations, or elementiumized bodies, even had lifespans up to four or five hundred years. Vampires like Mary could reach a thousand years easily.

  The same Fire Throne, the same adept's tower.

  However, the apprentices living within had undergone a massive change.

  …………

  Horus.

  An advanced apprentice belonging to Fire Throne.

  He had a pale and smooth complexion, a tall and muscular figure, and always wore a gray short apprentice's robe draped on his body.

  As an outsider, he had been recommended into the tower by a staying adept twenty years ago. That staying adept was also his only relative in this world.

  Unfortunately, that adept hadn't succeeded in returning from an invitation to a mysterious adventure. Thus, the Horus who had lost the only person he could rely on had no choice but to lead a lonely life in this strange, yet foreign, adept's tower.

  Fortunately for him, the owner of this tower was wise and compassionate. While he looked a little sinister, he had created an excellent and relaxed living and learning environment for the apprentices of the tower. Perhaps it was due to him having been recommended by a staying adept, but Horus even managed to obtain an excellent job as a librarian.

  This way, Horus was able to easily obtain a monthly income of thirty magical crystals and ten contribution points, without needing to take risks and go into the Black Forest with mercenaries. That was already more than enough for him to lead a peaceful life inside the tower!

  There were approximately seven or eight individuals in a similar position as him inside Fire Throne. Most of them were apprentice adepts with nowhere else to go who decided to treat this tower as their home.

  It was a pity, but their excessively peaceful lives also slowed down the speed at which they learned new spells and mastered incantations. Consequently, most of them were stuck at the advanced apprentice level; they hadn't improved in many years.

  There were many times when Horus couldn't help but wonder to himself if he should abandon this sort of tranquil life and follow in the footsteps of those combat apprentices. Perhaps he should follow the mercenaries deep into the Black Forest and refine his combat techniques under the claws and fangs of magical creatures.

  Only one pseudo-adept had successfully advanced to adept in the past ten years, and that person had become the ninth stationed adept of Fire Throne. On the other hand, there were as many as three pseudo-adepts who died in their advancement ceremonies. Horus had only attended two of their funerals. The third one's family lived too far away from the tower. Horus also had duties in the tower. Consequently, he couldn't send off his companion in person.

  That was also the main reason for Horus' depressed mood over the past six months.

  The success rate of apprentices advancing to adepts had never been high. It was good enough for one out of every four or five to advance to adept.

  Fire Throne, on the other hand, had managed to maintain a rate of one adept advancement per every ten years. It would already be a shocking number if it were announced to the public!

  Currently, Fire Throne had nine stationed adepts and twelve staying adepts. This number was sufficient to overshadow more than half of the adept's towers in the center of the continent.

  The numerous adepts also drew many apprentices to come to the tower.

  The current Fire Throne had a total of two hundred and fifteen apprentice adepts, seventeen of which were pseudo-adepts, seventy-eight of which were advanced apprentices, and the rest who were beginner and intermediate apprentices.

  As the number of adepts was plentiful and all of them were well-versed in varied and strange fields of magic, most of the known basic magical courses had been set up in the tower. A master's lecture open to the public would be held every two or three days.

  These masters were all powerful adepts who had reached enviable achievements in a specific field. For example, the melee-expert female adept Mary talked about the offensive techniques of a combat adept. Witch Endor, who specialized in synthesizing poisons, lectured about voodoo poison and toxin mixing. The strange Adept Billis g
ave lessons on entomology. The gentle and beautiful female adept Meryl taught techniques on instant-casting spells. The mostly modified robotic adept Sabrina taught magical mechanical constructs.

  Horus, on the other hand, was extremely lucky. He was able to have close contact with all of the tower adepts. He was indeed able to see the power of adepts.

  However, something had been deeply troubling Horus recently.

  Adept Eva, who had been responsible for teaching magical botany, had suddenly stopped all her lessons. She had called off several planned public lectures and vanished without a trace. That undoubtedly caused several students who were taking her classes to take note.

  Horus was one of them.

  Adept Gargamel has also been missing for a few days. Perhaps I should inquire about Adept Eva's situation the next time I run into him.

  Horus thought to himself as he diligently organized the library.

  He had no idea that something that had never before happened in the World of Adepts was currently underway on the fifth level of the tower.

  …………

  The fifth level of the tower.

  A small, secret room had been taken out for use as a temporary delivery room. Heart-rending screams were occasionally let out, pulling on the heartstrings of everyone present.

  Gargamel, who was so skinny and frail that he looked like a giant mouse, was stroking his beard and pacing about outside the room like any other ordinary human husband. Several times, he lifted his leg with the intent to go in, but then hesitated and put it down.

  The one hidden inside the delivery room and giving birth was the forest spirit Eva, who had been carrying her baby for as long as sixty-nine years. She was also that mysterious, cold, and pretty Adept Eva that the apprentices knew.

  At the moment, the female adepts were the ones who were busy going in and out of the delivery room. They were Mary, Meryl, Endor, and Sabrina.

  Still, while they had magical knowledge that far surpassed the smartest of mortal scholars, as well as cruelty and savagery that trumped even a bloody butcher, none of them knew what to do with the strange baby inside Eva. In fact, they were often panicking more than Eva, who was screaming at the top of her lungs.