The so-called World of Gods wasn't the same as the local deities of Faen. Instead, they were a faction of gods formed from powerful pantheons that commanded faith across multiple planes.
Regardless of how powerful they were, the gods of Faen only commanded the faith and belief of a single isolated group of people. Death was the only fate awaiting these gods should Faen ever be destroyed.
Meanwhile, most of the gods in the World of Gods had spread their faith to a minimum of a dozen planes. This way, the gods would have a massive number of believers and gain an amazing amount of faith power. The grade of their divine power was so overwhelming that it struck despair into the hearts of their enemies.
Moreover, these gods that commanded multi-planar faith could no longer be as easily exterminated; not with the destruction of a single plane, at least. These gods had no chance of dying before each and every one of the faiths they had spread had been extinguished.
If there were anyone within the multiverse who could live eternally, these gods who commanded multi-planar faith would be amongst them!
Moreover, the ones who were fighting against the World of Adepts this time were one of the stronger branches of the pantheons of the World of Gods– the Orc Pantheon. The main god of the pantheon was the God of Beasts that possessed the extreme power of Eighth Grade– Arugel. He also held the horrifying title of the One-Eyed Tyrant.
He was a vicious and violent person with a wild thirst for battle and war. Most of his believers were also barbaric races who enjoyed cruelty and murder. As he always appeared before his believers in the form of a one-eyed orc clad in heavy and crude black armor, his fanatics would often blind themselves in one eye to pay their respects.
Arugel also had nearly twenty gods of varying importance under him. Every one of them was an orc god who was skilled in battle and combat.
This time, a conflict had broken out between the mighty Orc Pantheon and the World of Adepts for unknown reasons. Both factions were fighting each other in countless rim worlds, destroying each other's satellite planes. For a moment, the fires of war burned across hundreds and thousands of medium and small-sized planar worlds.
Of course, as the land of origin of the adepts, the World of Adepts had been very carefully protected by the Great Adepts and had not been involved in the war. Still, the World of Adepts had sent large groups of adept armies to the various battlefields in response to the summons of the Great Adepts in the Outlands. They engaged in merciless battle across many material planes against the believers of the Orc Pantheon with no end yet in sight.
According to Alice, more than seven planes of various sizes had been headed toward collapse or destruction in just the past hundred years due to the effects of the war. Even if the lifeforms on each plane were counted by the billions, the number of lives that had been lost in the fires of war had reached a shocking number.
Even such a vicious and bloody war was only an insignificant wave in the massive multiverse. The other pantheons of the World of Gods and the other powerful races of the multiverse were merely watching this minor disagreement in the hopes of being entertained.
A hundred years and ten billion lives were no more than a back-and-forth game of chess in the eyes of those powerhouses, high up in their seats of power and authority!
The main reason Alice had leaked this information to Greem was in hopes that he did not misjudge the true power of the Northern Witches.
Most of the power of the Northern Witches had been tied up in this war over the past hundred years. As such, what information on the witch branches' power that Greem could usually glean did not reflect their actual situation.
Once the various witch branches started to recall the warring adepts stationed in the lesser planes, their power could easily swell by five or six times. If any Outland Great Adepts were dragged into the affair, their authority would be so immense that the Crimson Clan and the Fate Witches put together would not be able to do anything.
If Alice had not broken free of the manipulations of the first Witch of Fate, they would still have a powerful Witch of Fate behind them, supporting them from the back. Unfortunately, Alice had killed the puppet clone left behind by the first Witch of Fate, making an enemy out of her.
What Alice had always been trying to understand since becoming the new Witch of Fate was why the Tower of Fate had activated once again. Why had she been dragged into the Battle of Fate? Why would the first Witch of Fate leave behind such a fearsome puppet clone?
Alice had not been able to find an answer. She had found no response or feedback from the World of Adepts, even when she exhausted her life force to divine and scry. Yet, ever since Alice had advanced to Second Grade, it was almost as if she had broken free from an invisible chain of fate. Alice mysteriously obtained some vague hints from the world consciousness.
The activation of the Tower of Fate, the bloodiness of the Battle of Fate, and the appearance of the witch's puppet clone– absolutely everything had to do with the first Witch of Fate!
In all seriousness, the first Witch of Fate lost a great place to gather the powers of fate when she was forced to leave the World of Adepts. Unwilling to let this slide, she used the Tower of Fate and the Battles of Fate to start an easily constructed game of 'livestock.'
The cyclical collapse of the Fate Witches was actually all orchestrated by this first Witch of Fate!
She used the consciousness brand that she'd left in the planar laws of the World of Adepts to push forth a Battle of Fate every couple hundred years. She had gathered a large group of 'blessed champions' at the Tower of Fate and had her puppet clone be the host of the sacrificial ceremony.
This way, a 'new' Fourth Grade Witch of Fate would be instantly created!
Once this puppet clone stepped into the Outlands, carrying with her the massive reserve of the powers of fate that she had accumulated over the years, the first Witch of Fate would find her with her methods and devour her. This method allowed the first Witch of Fate to fulfill her goal of collecting the powers of fate from the World of Adepts.
The one thousand years of extinction of the Fate Witches had to do with her excessively harsh and complete harvest of fate power during the last cycle. This act of hers had invited backlash from the planar consciousness and brought ruin upon the Fate Witches. Now, after a thousand years of silence, the first Witch of Fate sensed the powers of fate gathering once again. Naturally, she hadn't been able to resist the temptation to put into motion a new cycle of the Battle of Fate.
Sadly, due to the intervention of the planar consciousness, her puppet clone had unexpectedly died at Alice's hands. That undoubtedly delayed her plan to gather the newest powers of fate tremendously, whisking all future Battles of Fate onto a different path that she could not manipulate in the palm of her hands.
In fact, the mastermind behind this incident with the Witch of Deceit was this first Witch of Fate, who had her eyes set upon Alice.
Of course, as Alice's creditor and her future spouse, Greem was extremely curious about this first Witch of Fate. Unfortunately, Alice would not speak her name no matter how hard he pressed.
It seemed that this had to do with a specific strange ability of the Fate Witches!
Even far, far away, hiding in another world trillions of kilometers away, the Witch of Fate would be able to mysteriously sense everything to do with her if someone were to utter her name or even think of it.
It sounded ludicrous and odd, but the truth was simply that unbelievable!
As such, Alice would never spill her name to anyone before she could obscure her fate senses. Of course, this included Greem as well.
Eighth Grade Orc main god, the adept faction, the first Witch of Fate...
Greem couldn't help but shiver when he saw these terrifying words, even as he was securely standing within the perfectly safe harbor that was his own adept's tower. He couldn't help but be shocked at all the obstacles that stood in his way along his journey of fate.
If he were
only an insignificant being in the World of Adepts, he would not ever have anything to do with these lofty battles between gods. However, now, with his gradual steps toward greatness, and Alice's rise to becoming an irreplaceable aide, these seemingly intangible and ridiculous stories of legend had taken the front stage. They became poison thorns in his heart, making it hard for him to sleep or rest peacefully.
In the eyes of the first Witch of Fate, Alice and Greem were only wicked ants that had messed up a corner of her chessboard due to the manipulations of the planar consciousness. They were not worthy of treatment as equal opponents.
Moreover, Alice was still weak and posed no threat at all to her. That was why she couldn't possibly forcefully eradicate Alice's existence. She chose instead to use conspiracies and schemes to cut off her wings while pondering over how she should direct the chaotic state of the board back onto the 'proper' track by Alice's own hand.
One had to admit that becoming Second Grade adepts meant that Greem and Alice had broken free of the fetters of the lower class. The level of their world view had expanded and increased by an infinite degree. The secrets of the world and the Great Adepts that people so often talked about started to fill their ears as well, allowing them to understand the truths of the world hidden behind the layers of mist.
However, the more they knew, the greater the burden on their hearts. Even Greem, with all his power and confidence, could only try his best to survive in this strange and odd world.
Greem waved away the beautiful blood elf mage giving the report, sighed, and finally dealt with his breakfast proper.
There was a bit of a joke saying amongst the adepts.
Only adepts who could eat were powerful adepts!
The energy exhausted in the use of any supernatural power was incredibly amazing. One could not cast a destructive spell without a powerful body. And where did energy come from? Eating, naturally.
That was why Greem gave himself the order to eat; to eat as much as he could whenever he ran into difficult problems that he did not have the solutions to.
At the very least, this would make him slightly stronger than before.
Chapter 753 Crafting the Armband
Inside a secret magic room.
Bright–but not piercing–pure white magic lamps lit up every corner of the place.
Greem stood in front of a delicate alchemy platform, carefully and seriously pouring the molten Flameloathe Iron from the magical crucible into the metallic mold. Once it had cooled to a half-solid state, Greem lifted his carving knife and started to attentively carve patterns and runic lines onto the metal.
Flameloathe Iron was the best metallic material that Greem could use to forge this armband, and the melting point was as high as 9,327 degrees. Due to its excessive hardness and excellent magic resistance, Greem could only carve the lines for the fire arrays in the iron while it was half-molten.
Moreover, to prevent more accomplished adepts from rapidly reading and analyzing the contents of the arrays, Greem had to add decorative patterns and lines over the actual offensive and energy-gathering arrays to conceal their real powers.
The worst part was that he had to do all this while the molten iron was not yet solid.
Greem estimated that he had two hundred and ten seconds from the iron being poured into the mold until it completely cooled. Greem had to complete one offensive array, twenty-five energy-gathering arrays, four hundred and twenty-one support runes, and seventy-four magical patterns during this time.
He had to carve all of those lines onto a single metallic armband with a diameter of seventy centimeters and a width of thirty centimeters. It was easy to imagine how difficult a task it was. Moreover importantly, Greem had to finish the entire process in a single take; there could not be any pauses or breaks in between. Otherwise, even magical carving knives enchanted with Sharpening and Armor Penetration would not be able to leave a single mark on the armband once the metal had cooled.
"Lower the temperature of the magical flame by seven degrees…"
Greem split off a bit of his Spirit and connected it to the central control crystal on the alchemy platform to lower the 9,800-degree magical flames by an imperceptible seven degrees.
"No.3, assist with the activation of the arrays."
Greem split off another bit of his Spirit and adjusted the settings of the platform based on the Chip's instructions.
"Magic injection of carving knife complete."
After activating the Sharpening and Armor Penetration effects on the carving knife, Greem lightly placed the tip of the blade against the surface of the shockingly hot molten metal. Under the light movements of his wrist and the agile manipulations of his finger, the carving knife glowing with yellow light started to move and turn along the surface of the armband, almost imperceptibly.
The lines it carved were as thin as spiderwebs, yet they were connected without breaks and ran all over the armband in intricate patterns. An ordinary man would not even be able to see these lines clearly without a powerful magnifying glass, but Greem often had to carve a perfect three-dimensional array on an area the size of a grain.
The depths of Greem's black eyes shone with a blue light as bright as a star. He had activated the Chip's scanning and magnification abilities to their limits to complete this gargantuan task.
The thirty-centimeter-wide surface of the armband had been magnified three thousand times by the Chip. This was already wide enough in Greem's eyes for him to carve freely. However, correspondingly, the initially thin magical carving knife now appeared to be as thick as a stone pillar and just as clumsy to wield.
Greem used his agile fingers and wrist to control the carving knife, making it wrap around the surface of the armband rapidly according to the blue lines projected by the Chip. During this process, Greem's wrists and fingers had to apply a consistent force. Otherwise, the lines drawn by the knife would have varying depths, severely affecting the functions and effects of the future product.
At this moment, the bottom of the armband was still at the terrifying temperatures of six or seven thousand degrees. If it weren't for Greem being a Second Grade fire adept, he would have had trouble persisting without incident, especially with how much contact he was having with the armband.
Due to the magical characteristics of Flameloathe Iron, it had excellent resistance to heat rays, forcing Greem to carve the patterns personally. Thankfully, with his past hundred years of experience in cutting magical golem cores, Greem still managed to finish the product without any mishaps.
Greem let out a breath of relief as he carefully put this half-finished product in his left hand. He pinched some golden quartz sand and scattered it over the armband's surface. The armband absorbed most of the powder in a blinding golden light, turning its surface an eye-catching bright yellow.
Quartz was a more common energy-gathering material used in the creation of magical items. It could also perfectly assimilate with Flameloathe Iron and would not cause an elementium rejection effect.
It was only when all this was done that Greem finally started assessing this incomplete Emblem of Fire. Indeed, this wasn't the final form of the Second Grade armband. Instead, it was only a half-finished product.
It was an ornate armband created with crimson Flameloathe Iron as its base material. The energy-gathering substance within it resonated with the wandering elementium in the air, causing it to continually be shrouded in a thin veil of bright red light.
Its ornate design and appearance was a model that the Chip had decided upon after examining tens of thousands of similar pieces of magical equipment, while its complex magical arrays had undergone hundreds and thousands of optimizations and corrections by the Chip before being applied.
Greem reveled in the beauty and perfection of this art!
He played with it for much of the day, unwilling to part with it, before finally and reluctantly placing it on the velvet cloth over the platform.
The base of the armband was now comple
te. All Greem needed to do now was melt the fire agates down and embed them into the sockets of the armband using a special technique. Of course, before this, Greem still had to concoct a neutralizer from the fire dragon's blood. That was a particularly troublesome task!
A quick estimate showed that he would have to work for another month before he could complete the Emblem of Fire. After his last adventure, Greem completely understood that his plan to explore the Fire Elementium Plane was best done after he equipped the two set pieces of Fire Throne.
Greem rubbed his temple as he dwelled over his daily routine for the coming month. His head hurt and stung a little.
Though the carving process had been a brief two hundred and ten seconds, he had spent them in a state of extreme tension and focus. The job of carving itself had also exhausted much of his Spirit. As such, Greem felt the fatigue now that he was finally relaxed.
He waved his hand and extinguished the magical fires on the alchemy platform. He then cut off the magical energy supply to the platform and left the tools where they were, in all their mess and chaos. Greem yawned and rubbed his eyes as he walked out of the laboratory.
It was time to get a good rest!
…………
Serpentfowl Cliff.
The afternoon sunlight shone down through the canopy upon the grassy land below the cliff.
Three serpentfowl hatchlings were playing on the grassy green land, while two other hatchlings were curled up in a nest and having a good nap.
Most of the adolescent serpentfowl had gone out looking for food. Only two female serpentfowls were still keeping watch over the nests on the cliff. They crouched lazily inside the caves of the cliff and bathed in the sunlight, occasionally peering out to look at the hatchlings below.
Seven or eight white serpentfowl eggs with light yellow spots lay in a nest in the innermost corner of the cave. Some bones that had been picked clean were scattered around the nest as well.
The forty-kilometer area around the cliff was the hunting ground of the serpentfowls. The more ferocious magical creatures and beasts had already been driven away to further away places. That was why these two serpentfowls weren't concerned about the safety of the cliff, even though most of the adults had gone out hunting.
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