Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  The first sight that entered the eagle's eyes came as such a tremendous shock that it almost ran into one of the withered ancient trees. The eagle quickly flew in a circle and landed steadily upon the ground. It then returned to its human form amidst a series of strange contortions and transformations.

  Sov was a First Grade Druid from Skywater City.

  His daily mission was to patrol the one dozen elven villages around Irontree Forest. Rut'theran Village was undoubtedly one of those villages.

  Rut'theran Village might have a small population, but due to the neighboring Irontree forest, the Ironwood produced here was also a relatively important strategic resource of the elven kingdom. Ironwood was one of the main ingredients in crafting high-quality elven longbows. Its value was immense to the elven kingdom and its many archers!

  Sov would come here on patrol every four or five days, also taking the opportunity to visit some old friends for tea. Moreover, he had a crush on the archery instructor of Rut'theran– Faelin. He was in the midst of a mad pursuit, which prompted him to come here even more frequently.

  Yet today, when he arrived, all he saw was the sight of a ravaged land after a great battle.

  Almost all greenery within the valley had vanished.

  The ground seemed to have been utterly punished as well. Cracks and upturned dirt were everywhere.

  The towering ancient trees had all withered and died. Their roots were exposed, and not one bit of life force or energy could be sensed in them.

  An unusually tall tree had collapsed at the center of the village. Its broken body seemed to have been devoured by some sort of creature. The soft insides of the tree had been completely emptied, turning the tree into an empty husk.

  Azali; it was Azali, one of the two tiny treants of Rut'theran!

  Sov's heart trembled upon seeing the terrible state of Azali's death.

  If even Azali could die in combat, then the other elves would probably have an even lower chance of surviving!

  Then…then, Faelin…

  Sov, who knew the surroundings of Irontree Forest like the back of his hand, immediately identified that this wasn't an attack by some sort of ferocious magical beast. Instead, it was an attack by an outside force. Combined with the recent news from the elven military, Sov was confident that the culprits of this disaster were those savage and evil otherworldly witches.

  Under ordinary circumstances, Sov should immediately retreat from this village and return to Skywater City to report the situation. It was to have the elven commander assign more reinforcements, including more powerful Druid Masters, to investigate and track the location of the enemy.

  However, with Faelin's whereabouts in mind, Sov hesitated. In the end, he gritted his teeth and walked onto this terrifying battlefield.

  The enemy might have left quite a while ago!

  The signs of an intense battle could be seen everywhere upon the ground and on the trees, but it was hard to see any survivors at all. Not even a slightly larger animal could be found. That caused his Animal Speech class ability to be useless.

  Though he could communicate with the remaining grass and trees, these plants only had simple minds. Apart from the two simple words of "enemy…bug," they could not provide any finer details.

  Sov also picked up plenty of crushed black insect shells on the ground.

  He carefully kept these few 'clues' that the enemy had left behind and prepared to submit them to the higher-ups.

  Suddenly, movement came from the tree hall platform, high up in the trees.

  It couldn't help but make Sov nervous.

  He gripped the oaken staff in his hands tightly and cast a layer of Barkskin upon himself. It was only now that he mustered the courage to rush onto the platform.

  However, the sight on the platform caused his eyes to go wide open!

  This place seemed to have been the main battlefield of the battle. Blood and slash marks littered the wooden platform. In the corner of the platform, close to the tree hall, a female elf with one arm had had her clothes removed and had been pinned to the tree trunk with an arrow through her chest.

  She was youthful, and her skin was white and smooth, but her head hung limply downward, and her scattered hair had covered her face. The blood that flowed from her naked body pooled beneath her feet, forming a crimson puddle. Too much time had passed, and the blood had dried into a dark red blood stain, making a shocking sight for all who saw it.

  Apart from her, no other elven corpses could be seen on the platform.

  It was Faelin!

  Sov almost instantly identified this female elf!

  He rushed over agitatedly, but before he could even touch Faelin's corpse, two malicious gusts of winds came from above and beside him. Four or five black silhouettes lunged out from their hiding spots, striking right at the distraught young druid.

  Sov relied on the Nature Protection covering him as well as his oaken staff to defend the strikes quickly. Finally, he managed to struggle out of the magical mantises' ambush.

  He rushed to the edge of the platform and pressed his oaken staff against the ground while simultaneously tossing out a handful of strange plant seeds. As a beam of magic green light flashed by, the plant seeds scattered through the air and instantly swelled into fearsome thorned vines, binding all four pursuing magical mantises to the spot without exception.

  Of course, such a Thorn Binding could not trap the magical mantises for long.

  The magical mantises waved their scythe-like limbs and almost instantly cut the thorned vines into shreds.

  Sov relied on the short amount of time he had bought with the thorned vines to transform quickly. He intended to turn into an eagle and take to the skies once again.

  Just as his transformation was about to complete, a pungent gale came from behind him. An extremely sharp mantis limb pierced his right chest and pinned him to the platform.

  Then a powerful strike hit his head, and Soc fainted without another word.

  …………

  A broad, spacious tree hall platform was filled with all sorts of strange forms.

  Mary, who hadn't shown herself in quite a while, stood at the front of the formation in her crimson armor. Standing in a row behind her were the three Blood Knights with Soros in the lead. Old Fox Vanlier looked just like the middle-aged noble he had always been and waited by Mary's side with a big smile on his face.

  Nearly thirteen to fourteen elves were standing even further behind them. There were both males and females amongst these elves, and all of them handsome and charming. However, at this moment, their eyes were blood-red and filled with malice. Two sharp bloodsucking fangs protruded from their upper lips, giving them a wild look.

  This batch of forest elves that Mary had converted into blood slaves had been hand-picked. The weakest of them was First Grade, and two were Second Grades.

  Having undergone vampiric reconstruction, these elves' nature power within their bodies had now all been converted into blood energy. They were no longer the former forest elves. Instead, they had become a strange species never before seen in Faen– Blood Elves.

  The direct consequence of such a bloodline reconstruction didn't cause the blade dancers and elven archers to weaken. In fact, because of their new regeneration and bloodsucking abilities, their might in battle had increased exponentially.

  It was the casters, druids, or elven mages who lost all of their nature magic upon reconstruction into blood elves. They were only left with a pathetic Blood Bullet spell.

  It seemed Mary would have to give these fellows a bit more time to discover new blood magic if she wanted to have more spellcasters among her subordinates.

  Fortunately, Mary had converted herself into a pure-blood vampire when advancing to Second Grade in the World of Adepts. The bloodline shackles upon her had been largely removed. At least, she wouldn't have to worry about this problem before she advanced to Third Grade!

  The most significant benefit she obtained from converting i
nto a pure-blood vampire was her soul origin being able to tolerate two times as many bloodline descendants as before. The number of blood slaves she could create were as many as thirty, and the number of lower vampire spawn she could have was two hundred.

  If she let go of some of her authority and allowed her blood slaves to create vampire spawn of their own, then she could be the Blood Queen at the top of the pyramid, directly and indirectly controlling one to two thousand blood creatures.

  A single pure-blood vampire could control a terrifying bloodsucking army, while a family of vampires could even manage a medium-sized human kingdom.

  However, such behavior rarely occurred in the World of Adepts. The main reason for that was the difficulty of finding so many high-quality, intelligent species. Even if the vampires lowered their expectations and found ways to Embrace those frail humans, the massive army that they would be able to raise would not endure a single, large offensive magic spell from the enemy.

  Moreover, the Embrace consumed the origin blood of the vampire!

  Wasting precious origin blood on some inferior lifeforms would not only fail to help the vampire rise to power, but it would also even indirectly drag down the accumulation of their power.

  That was why one could lower expectations when creating vampire spawn meant for cannon fodder, but when choosing blood slaves to build bloodline connections with, one had to be extremely careful. The Embrace should not be used so casually.

  Chapter 660 Working Together

  At this moment, the tiny Rut'theran Village had already become a gathering place for vampires and black insects.

  A black sea squirmed on the ground while swarms of vampires wove between the tall canopy.

  The leaders of their respective factions were quietly discussing something upon the tree platform as they stood guard.

  Even though Bug Adept Billis had raised an army of tens of thousands of insects and had twenty-five magical mantises guarding at his side, he remained as respectful as ever before Bloody Queen Mary. He didn't betray even a trace of arrogance or pride.

  With this bug army and these combat insects that listened to his every command, Billis would have no problem challenging all of the First Grade Crimson adepts alone. Despite having such power, he still didn't dare to be disrespectful to Mary.

  That was because apart from being a Second Grade vampire, Mary's actions while Billis was still an apprentice had left a deep impression on his soul. Even now, when Billis saw Mary, he felt his limbs go soft and his hands sweat. He forced a smile on his face and appeared even more obedient than even Vanlier.

  After the past couple of weeks, the nearby elven villages had almost all been visited by the two of them.

  As their power increased exponentially, they were no longer satisfied with such small battles and having to sneak around. They had specially chosen to meet here to gather their troops and accumulate enough strength to assault Skywater City's outpost.

  It was a small elven town southwest of Skywater– Quel'Lithien Lodge.

  That place was nearly a hundred kilometers away from Skywater City and had a population of four hundred elves. It was one of the satellite towns of Skywater City and was responsible for providing the city with large amounts of fresh fruit on a daily basis.

  Most elves were vegetarians and never touch bloody meat their entire lives. That was why the fruits provided by Quel'Lithien Lodge could be considered the primary source of food for the citizens of Skywater City.

  It was in consideration of this factor that Old Fox Vanlier had been suggesting Mary and Billis work together and conquer this elven town of great significance. Once they captured Quel'Lithien Lodge, not only would their military force increase tremendously, they would also be able to interrupt the order of daily life in Skywater.

  It was a necessary step that had to be taken for two ambitious adepts that sought to achieve something on the west coast.

  Moreover, the strongest person in Quel'Lithien Lodge's garrison was only Second Grade; there were no Third Grade powerhouses present. Assaulting a place like this wouldn't put them in too much risk at all. Mary and Billis couldn't help but be moved after listening to Vanlier's analysis and presentation.

  It was the benefit of both parties working together. They could immediately put to action any of their plans once they had come to a decision.

  The moment they made their promises, Billis took to the whistling winds and vanished into the forest with his rumbling insect army. The sound of beating wings came from Mary's side as a swarm of a thousand vampires gathered into a massive crimson cloud and flew into the distance, hovering right above the canopy.

  A short moment later, this ravaged valley finally regained its peace, with only deathly silence left behind.

  …………

  The isolated island.

  The flying ship was still floating above the island. The tinkering sounds of hammering and the sizzling of welding continued to echo, along with metallic ringing all the while.

  The massive battle from last time had left far, far too many wounds upon the flying ship both hidden and not. For the sake of all future campaigns, Greem had to honestly stay upon this tiny island, regardless of how impatient he was. He had to wait for the moment the flying ship's repairs were completed.

  At this moment, all sorts of construction machines were working inside the flying ship under the instructions of goblin technicians and engineers. They ceaselessly repaired the space furnace and all internal damage suffered by the vessel, as well as patching up the horrifying marks of battle marring the deck.

  The scale of the project was so stunningly large!

  It was fortunate that sufficient metal ingots and alloy materials had been stored inside the flying ship before they invaded the Faen Plane. It was only then that they had a way of fixing all these damages. Otherwise, they would have had no choice but to return dejectedly to Shadow Island and ask for help from the Pale Witches!

  All of the adepts clearly couldn't bear such a noisy environment. All of them chose to move down to the isolated island. There, they could use this temporary break between battles to continue experiments and research they were interested in.

  Greem also ordered people to dig out a small stone room beneath the prison within the island. He then excavated a temporary laboratory there.

  What he badly needed to research now were those forest elves!

  Humans, elves, dwarves, beastmen, halflings, gnomes, kobolds, goblins; large deviations would happen to the same species when they appeared in different places. As an adept, Greem believed himself to be plenty knowledgeable about the elves already. However, all that knowledge had come from the books of the World of Adepts.

  Just the elven races that Greem had heard of through the books included the wood elves, gold elves, sun elves, moon elves, gray elves, wild elves, plains elves, and forest elves. Whenever an elven race was placed in an extreme environment, they would even evolve into entirely unrecognizable new appearances.

  For example, the dark elves that lived underground (also known as drow), the sea elves that lived deep in the sea (also known as naga), or the fallen elves that lived in areas of demonic magic (also known as satyrs).

  These elves that lived in Garan called themselves forest elves due to them taking up home in the Fantasy Forest. They fundamentally still held the legacy and tradition of the elves, establishing themselves through their exceptional archery skills. All forest elves, be they male or female, had slender bodies, intelligent minds, pretty appearances, graceful movements, and sharp eyes.

  Their favorite activities were poetry, literature, and music.

  They often lived deep in the forest, and their largest tribes rarely exceeded two hundred elves.

  The hidden villages of the elves blended miraculously with the forest without ever harming the wood itself.

  Almost all forest elves were vegetarians and only relied on harvested natural fruits as their diet, rarely killing or hunting the creatures in the woo
ds. Thus, they also wouldn't fell trees or burn grass to farm as the humans would.

  It was because they assimilated themselves perfectly to the Fantasy Forest that they won praise and titles of 'Children of Nature' and 'Friend of the Forest.' They relied on their unique racial talents to travel in the thorn-filled, tree-dense, and magical Fantasy Forest without leaving behind any traces.

  The massive forest that was difficult to traverse for an outsider was no problem for them at all.

  They could even converse intimately with every flower, every blade of grass, and every tree in the forest. That was why trying to track an elf in the Fantasy Forest was a nearly impossible task!

  That was basically all that Greem knew of the forest elves. Apart from this, he only knew the basic classes of the elven army and their respective specialties.

  In general, Faen Plane was only a mid-sized plane with decent development. It didn't have the qualifications to be compared to the World of Adepts. The grade classification of the lifeforms here might be very similar to the World of Adepts, but the quality of each grade was simply too different!

  After the several battles he had gone through, Greem had obtained a fundamental estimation of the situation. The grades of the lifeforms here were about half a grade lower compared to the World of Adepts. Which is to say, a beginner First Grade combat profession of Faen would only be slightly stronger than the advanced apprentices of the World of Adepts. They were barely equal to pseudo-adepts.

  Most of the time, the First Grades of Faen couldn't even compare to the more powerful pseudo-adepts of the World of Adepts!

  That was why it wasn't hard to see how Greem could fight multiple Faen Second Grades as a beginner Second Grade fire adept and absolutely crush them in battle.

  However, the forest elves of Faen weren't only full of weaknesses. They also had their advantages and strengths.