Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  However, this difficulty was nothing before Billis' intangible body of bugs that could scatter and reform as he willed.

  Greem had already drawn up a complete map of the Goblin Plane with the information he had gathered over the past few days. The capital Anvilmar was located right in the center of the entire plane. That place was surrounded by mountains and possessed steep and punishing geography. It was a stronghold that was easily defended and challenging for a siege. Ordinary creatures would find it difficult even to make it into the city.

  The goblins had used their powerful engineering abilities and machines to construct a city of metal in the most precipitous area of the mountains– The Steel Capital.

  Over one hundred and twenty thousand elite goblins lived there. It was a city of miracles and the capital of technology where goblin engineers, inventors, and alchemists gathered in hordes.

  Over the past thousand years, the goblins had practically hollowed out the belly of the mountain beneath the Steel Capital to fuel the advancement of their mechanical civilization. The literal mountains of coal and the steam that they produced from the resources were used to support the operation of the Steel Capital.

  Now that magic energy had appeared, the goblins had constructed a massive, ten-story-tall space furnace inside the mountain. They were using the magic energy extracted by the furnace to propel the goblin civilization towards broad-scale magic energy use.

  The goblins didn't seem to have the awareness to keep such information confidential. Instead, they even went about spreading the merits and advantages of magic energy to the general public, openly calling for more goblin engineers and alchemists to take on the research of magic energy.

  Sadly, the Goblin Empire's research on goblin runes was still too superficial and crude. The progress of the study on miniaturizing the space furnace was developing sluggishly. Otherwise, if every magical machine were equipped with a miniaturized space furnace, they would be able to break free of the limitations of magic energy batteries and become perpetual slaughter machines.

  The Goblin Empire had only successfully installed space furnaces on large machines like the flying warships at this point. These warships were used as power sources for smaller magical machines and supported the magical machine squads in their continued warfare and purges.

  However, there was still a matter of whether the goblin mechanics could keep up with the intensity of such frequent battles with their pseudo-adept level Physiques. After all, individuals who had gone past the limits of mortals were still a minority. Most goblin mechanics were still goblins with mortal flesh. They needed to eat, drink, excrete, and sleep.

  In fact, most goblin mechanics would face additional psychological burdens after an immensely bloody battle. That was something that even First Grade Goblin Mechanic Tigule couldn't avoid. What was there to say? He might have a supernatural body, but he didn't have a Spirit and soul to match.

  That was why the Second Grade Metal Goblin that First Grade Tigule piloted could just barely bring to bear the strength of a pseudo-Second Grade.

  Greem didn't look kindly upon the goblin capital that the Goblin Empire had spent so long and so much to construct. There was only one reason for that– these goddamned idiots had actually built the space furnace beneath the Steel Capital. Didn't this mean that the most elite goblins of the entire Empire were living right on top of a massive barrel of gunpowder?

  Moreover, they were continually stuffing even more gunpowder into the barrel!

  Of course, as a native goblin, they probably had hundreds and thousands of reasons to do so. The entire plane was trembling under the rule of goblin firearms and goblin cannons. You couldn't find a single enemy in the whole plane that could even vaguely threaten the order of the Goblin Empire.

  The massive Steel Capital also needed a clean and sustainable source of energy if it wanted to continue functioning for another thousand years. That was the primary way to ensure the legacy of the goblin civilization.

  That was why it wasn't surprising that the ruler of the Empire had chosen this course of action There were no enemies, and they desperately needed the energy. However, now that Greem and his crew had arrived, any weakness and flaw in the vast entity that was the Goblin Empire would be put to full use by the adepts. These flaws would become the first domino that toppled the goblin civilization!

  At this moment, the one thing that Greem wanted to do most was to sneak into the Steel Capital and lob a fireball into that massive space furnace that the goblins had so delicately constructed. Surely, that would be a gigantic fireworks performance that would shake the entire plane to its core!

  However, there were still many difficult tasks they needed to accomplish before they could achieve this goal.

  The only thing that Greem could do now was try his best to spread the plague's poisonsoul seed to every corner of the goblin empire. It would give their side even more leverage in future negotiations.

  There was no choice. Greem couldn't use destructive ways to obtain the Goblin Plane. Less than one-tenth of the living beings in the plane would survive once the plague had spread out.

  When that happened, the plane might lose its ability to put up a resistance, but it would also lose all of its fundamental strength. Where was Greem supposed to find that much free labor when he decided to excavate the resources of the plane then?

  Buy cheap slaves from the World of Adepts? Excavating a plane wasn't just a matter of several hundreds or thousands of workers. It demanded tens of thousands of strong adolescent slaves and a functioning societal system within the plane to breed and produce even more population.

  Greem needed to organize plenty of labor to dig the ground, excavate the metal ores, and bring them to the surface if he wanted to obtain all the precious metals. That wasn't the end either. He still needed to filter and select the ores for inferior materials before choosing the superior ores for smelting and refining into metal ingots.

  This process was often accompanied by the extraction and purification of precious metals.

  That was why a stable and existing societal system was a must for the mass excavation of metal ores and rare resources in a plane.

  If the natives of this plane were all exterminated by the plague and Greem was left to create a societal system from scratch, then it would be impossible to profit from the whole endeavor for another hundred years!

  It was because of this that Greem intended to create a tightly controlled plague in the Goblin Plane. He wanted an epidemic that could deal a devastating blow to the Goblin Empire without compromising the strength of the entire plane.

  Such an idea was simple in thought but complicated in practice.

  However, Greem had no choice but to try his very best to realize his ideas and beliefs!

  Fortunately, the Goblin Plane didn't properly belong to him yet. He could do as he wished with it right now. If the ruler of the Goblin Empire refused to capitulate, even after he detonated the space furnace, Greem didn't mind reducing the goblin plane to a barren land of death and decay.

  After all, only benefits that had been obtained were gains that belonged to yourself. If Greem couldn't get what he wanted, then he didn't mind smashing everything to pieces.

  Even if the meat rotted, it would rot in his pot!

  Another two days passed. The second poisonsoul seed appeared, and Mary left the party as well. She hurried to the west of the continent on her own.

  Yet, just two days after Mary had left, Greem, Sabrina, and Endor were tracked down by the swarming magical machine squads in a desolate land.

  However, the army of magical machines had retreated as fast as they had descended upon the adepts!

  The reason the goblins had so quickly given up on the enemies they had been pursuing for six days was due to the appearance of a new and terrifying adept that they couldn't deal with– Poison Witch Endor.

  After six days, the goblins had finally managed to catch up with Greem and the rest. The over one hundred ma
gical machines immediately charged at them from every direction.

  The first thing that greeted them was Endor's Poison Halo!

  Endor had set up a small altar in the wild and used this altar to amplify the radius of her Poison Halo, allowing it to go from its original hundred meter radius to the current five hundred meters.

  The pilots of every magical machine that charged into the Poison Halo were unknowingly poisoned.

  When Endor finally activated the poison rune, the sudden rush of poison damage instantly exterminated a hundred magical machines that were present.

  For a moment, magical machines fell from the skies like pouring rain.

  They crashed into the ground headfirst, and never moved again.

  The permeating poison filtered into the air vents of the magical machines, where it poisoned and killed the goblin mechanics within. It didn't matter how reliable the magical machines were. They were nothing but cold lumps of metal without the control of a mechanic.

  That was why there was no hope of survival for the goblin mechanics as long as they still needed to breathe!

  Greem and the others understood all the principles behind this, but the attacking machine army was utterly ignorant of it.

  The commander that led the army was still getting more of his subordinates to enter the battlefield to avoid the evil adepts from escaping. Yet, who could have known? A single green light from the hands of the ugly and evil witch and nearly a hundred of their combat machines fell to the ground as if they had lost their souls.

  It didn't matter how much the commander yelled and screamed at the machines; he would not get any feedback or response from them. The few machines that he sent in afterward also collapsed to the ground moments after they stepped onto the battlefield, without any signs whatsoever. They became unreachable as well.

  The commander almost went mad from the bizarre scene he was witnessing!

  He could understand dying in the midst of an intense battle. He could also understand perishing in a harsh natural environment.

  But a scene like the one before him, where everyone died with a single flash of green light from the enemy's hand... it was impossible for him to accept such a thing with his dull brain!

  The magical machine commander that had been paralyzed with fear of the unknown had no other choice left to him. He sounded the retreat!

  The over a hundred magical machines that had blotted out the sun earlier had almost all died here. Less than ten of them had managed to retreat successfully. The disastrous losses caused the goblins to be utterly heartbroken. They only dared to return to the scene and take away a few of the magical machines after the adepts had left the place.

  It was after the goblin doctors conducted an autopsy that they realized that all the goblin mechanics had died of poison.

  It was only now that the goblins realized that such a terrifying flaw existed in the magical machines!

  Chapter 510 Magic Energy Weapon

  Losing nearly a hundred magical machines before the battle had even started was an immensely painful loss for the goblins.

  Of course, they weren't heartbroken over the magical machines, but the goblin mechanics within the machines.

  The one hundred magical machines that had fallen from the skies could be put back into use after a quick repair in the factory. However, the dead goblin mechanics would remain dead.

  While the goblins were frantically escaping, the most excited of the adepts wasn't Endor. Rather, it was Mechanical Girl Sabrina.

  She possessed the ability to assimilate alchemical machines after she activated the mechanical core insider her body. The hundreds of magical devices crashed around them meant a hundred tiny treasure chests were waiting for her to open them.

  Sabrina was like a little girl that had unintentionally wandered into a mysterious treasury. She was so excited that she could barely speak. A colorful detection beam shot out of the mechanical eye underneath her silver mask. The beam wandered around the oddly-shaped magical machines while the eye itself scanned for the mechanical systems installed within the devices.

  One could tell that the Goblin Empire had no concept of streamlined mass production. All of their magical machines looked like delicate and well-crafted pieces of art. Each of the hundred magical machines had a unique style and sparks of creativity to them. With one look you could tell that different master artisans made each of them.

  It was because the Goblin Empire had the machines crafted by craftsmen that a single goblin engineer would be responsible for all the mechanical parts of a single magical machine. They would even be in charge of deciding the ratio of metal used in the alloys. Even something as tiny as a metal screw would be decided by the goblin engineer!

  The benefits of this meant that every machine was carefully managed by a single expert. All of them would qualify as great pieces of work.

  Mechanical Girl Sabrina walked between these handcrafted pieces of art, trying her best to find mechanical parts that would be beneficial to her.

  Sabrina immediately gave up on the goblin firearms.

  There was no other reason for her decision. Their offensive power was just too low!

  There was no changing the fact that the goblin firearms were the lowest grade of weapons, even if used in a barrage. Of course, if Greem were willing to put in some effort and etch Explosive Runes and Piercing Runes on every single one of the bullets, then they would have some worth as long-ranged auxiliary weapons.

  Goblin flamethrowers were a weapon that the goblin machines often used for mid to close-range area suppression. The flames they blasted out didn't contain any elementium components. Instead, it was a combustion reaction that occurred from a kind of alchemical dust coming into contact with the air.

  Alchemical fires like this often had temperature limits. They could only reach a maximum of 2500 degrees, even after stacking their effects. Converted to the energy strength system used by the adepts, the attack would be worth no more than a hundred and twenty points of power. An attack of this level might be enough to threaten a First Grade adept, but it would be a massive joke to expect to use it against a Second Grade adept. Especially a flame immune fire-adept like Greem!

  That was why Sabrina regretfully gave up on the goblin flamethrowers after taking them off of the machines and playing with them for a while. However, she did keep the flamethrowing stones hidden inside them.

  Sabrina took apart seven or eight magical machines in a row and quickly became enamored by many of the delicate components within.

  XD-57 Circular Rocket Guidance System.

  GG-117 Miniature Rocket Backpack.

  Magic Power Regional Bomb*.

  Magic Energy Beam Gun.

  Goblin Auto-Balance Gyroscope.

  Goblin Energy Spectrometer.

  ……

  There were too many strange kinds of equipment, each with a unique purpose; Sabrina was utterly caught up in the sheer number of options. Greem had nothing to do, so he decided to run over and help her.

  First, diversifying Sabrina's means of attack was a necessary step in strengthening her combat ability.

  Given that case, the XD-57 Circular Rocket Guidance System was her best option for realizing ultra-long range attacks.

  The XD-57 stored five miniaturized goblin rockets. It had an attack radius of approximately 1200 to 2400 meters. This attack was almost four times beyond the range of an ordinary spell and was almost at the limit of enabling assaults beyond the scope of sight.

  Of course, the rocket's explosive damage could only reach seventy points. Moreover, most of the destruction relied on pure physical damage from the shrapnel. Adepts using their defensive spells would very easily defend against it.

  As the goblins had no such thing as proper long-ranged guidance or the ability to use Spirit to guide the rockets, the so-called Circular Guidance they came up with was mostly an estimation of sorts. The Circular Guidance had a deviation range of thirty meters within a firing distance of five hundre
d meters. This range would go up to a hundred meters when firing at a target a thousand meters away. If the enemy were two thousand meters away, you would probably be better off eyeballing it.

  That was due to the limitations of the goblin mechanic's bodily attributes. Even with the help of goblin enhanced goggles, the sight range of an ordinary goblin was only around fifteen-hundred meters. Any further past this distance and a goblin mechanic would become blind as a bat, even if their weapons could reach that far.

  Whether they could hit the enemy and whether they could strike them where they needed to had already become an impossible question that only the goblin god could answer!

  Naturally, Sabrina had no such problem.

  Even without the use of magic, Sabrina could easily sense everything happening in a one-kilometer radius with her Spirit and mechanical eye. If she used Magic Eye, then everything within five kilometers would be perfectly displayed before her.

  Sabrina could very likely perform ultra-long range attacks from beyond the range of the goblin's sight with vision like that. Of course, she would first have to perform some modifications to the goblin rockets. More importantly, attacks like these didn't exhaust her magic power at all.

  The ammo limit was a problem that the goblins hadn't solved. They could only bring with them as much as the machines could carry, and the machine would become a useless suit of armor once the ammo ran out. However, as a mechanical adept, Sabrina possessed plenty of spatial rings. That was why ammo would never be a concern for her.

  Sabrina couldn't wait to try the idea out once Greem had analyzed it for her.

  She couldn't help it. Even though she was in the Goblin Plane, the first imaginary enemy that she defaulted to when she started combat analysis was still an adept of the same Grade. Her mind would automatically abandon all weapons that couldn't be of lethal threat to adepts of the same Grade.

  However, she was currently in the Goblin Plane. This equipment might not be that useful against adepts, but they were appropriate as weapons against the goblins.