Age of Adepts c1-1513
Page 504
“Chip, display my latest data.”
[Beep. Body scan complete. New statistics are as below.
[Greem, Advanced Second Grade.
Profession: Elementium Adept (Fire Specialization).
Bodily Attributes: Strength 13+1 (20) | Physique 15 (21) | Agility 11 (9) | Spirit 28+1 (30).
Note: Attributes in brackets refer to post-transformation statistics.
Profession Skills: Body of Flames, Flame Fiend Transformation…]
Greem’s basic abilities had improved by leaps and bounds with the conclusion of his trip to the Fire Elementium Plane. Just thirty years after his advancement, he had reached the advanced level. He was only a stone’s throw away from the peak of Second Grade.
Moreover, his fire affinity was at its limit; it couldn’t be improved in the short term.
It was about time for him to consider Third Grade now!
Chapter 814 - Exchanging Conditions
“Chip, search for the conditions required to advance to Third Grade!”
[Beep. Order received. Starting a search of data library.]
Following a strange buzzing sound, the Chip soon returned with the content that Greem needed.
[Beep. According to the content in the data library, combined with the Host’s current bodily attributes, there are two requirements for the Host’s advancement to Third Grade.
[One. Spirit has to reach twenty-nine points. It is a necessary condition for advancement to the Third Grade.
[Two. Obtain the knowledge and resources required for advancing to Third Grade.
[Host currently lacks the necessary knowledge on high-grade methods of Spirit utilization and elementium conversion, along with an auto-construction model for the energy system and understanding of the high-grade magical characteristics of fire elementium. Concerning the resources, a detailed list has also been attached.]
The Chip started projecting some information into the depths of Greem’s mind, and a long list of sixty-three advancement resources slowly unfolded.
Greem took a brief look and quickly noticed many rare fire materials. Many of them were resources as scarce as the Essences of Fire.
The resources weren’t a big problem. With the prosperity of the World of Adepts that came from robbing tens of thousands of lesser planes, he could easily purchase any sort of resource that he was looking for. The only question was how many magical crystals he would need to spend.
Greem did a simple calculation and estimated that he only needed approximately 1.4 million magical crystals to purchase all the missing resources and materials.
The only thing that troubled him was the knowledge that he currently lacked.
Almost all significant clans and adept forces treated high-grade knowledge as their most valuable asset. They strictly classified and sealed away such knowledge. They might be willing to make a trade when it came to the resources, but even approaching the topic of the knowledge they possessed was a taboo. There was absolutely no possibility of coming into contact with this information without first signing a contract of servitude with them.
Greem might have dominated across battlefields over these years and amassed impressive wealth, but he was not making much progress in procuring information. All of the knowledge necessary for advancement listed by the Chip belonged in the high-grade category. Unless Greem was willing to abandon the Crimson Clan and join a major adept organization, there was no way he could obtain such knowledge.
Faced with such a difficult problem, the first person Greem turned to was Alice, far away in the Northern Lands.
Soon, with the remote connection between their two towers, Greem had managed to contact Alice.
Alice couldn’t help but frown when she heard Greem list out the list of knowledge he needed to acquire.
“The high-grade utilization of Spirit and the high-grade magical characteristics of fire elementium? We might have the related knowledge to these two topics in the Tower of Fate’s library, but I have no clue about the other two you mentioned. The Tower of Fate has been inactive for a thousand years after all. The resources and knowledge archives are severely incomplete. You might have to make a deal with the witch leaders if you want to obtain the last two pieces of information!”
Alice paused for a moment to think before continuing,
“I will try and think of something for you on this matter! Perhaps I might even be able to get something from the Death Witches. Wait for my news!”
Then the connection with Alice was cut off.
Greem might be feeling fervent about his advancement, but he knew that there was no rushing such matters.
Moreover, his Spirit was only at twenty-eight points now. It was an entire point away from the peak of twenty-nine points required for advancement. Don’t underestimate the importance of this one point. With Greem’s current speed of improvement through meditation, it would take him several years of hard work to achieve twenty-nine points.
As such, Greem turned his attention to the forging of the last three set pieces of Fire Throne after leaving the matter of searching for high-grade knowledge to Alice.
The primary materials for creating the Fire Throne set had been obtained after raiding the lair of the Fourth Grade wind dragon. Snorlax had also managed to gather most of the remaining materials. Thus, Greem took this rare opportunity to begin the preparatory work for the third set piece in his tower.
Greem chose the core component of the Fire Throne set as his third set piece– the Burning Suncrown.
The Burning Suncrown’s Ring of Fire could merge with Greem’s own, raising the intensity of the move’s fire damage. It was extremely helpful to his large-scale control over the flow of battle!
The experience of having created so many magical golems was beneficial to Greem when it came to creating magical equipment. Along with the help of the Chip, the chance of failure had been reduced to an unimaginable level!
With just thirty-seven days, Greem had managed to create the third Fire Throne set piece; a piece of equipment that solely belonged to him alone.
The Suncrown appeared like a slowly flowing ring of fire.
It was a crown forged of Flameloathe Iron, with plenty of fire runes created with winding metal twines entangled around its structure. The Firemarrow Diamond embedded at the front of the crown not only possessed a dream-like beauty to it, but also the miraculous ability to amplify the intensity of fire spells.
As Greem excitedly placed the Burning Suncrown on his head, the three set pieces he was wearing instantly resonated with his soul. A faint red light shrouded his body.
This halo of flames could remain on the surface of Greem’s body to passively increase his fire resistance. Furthermore, it could be expanded like a Ring of Fire to form a giant dome one hundred meters in diameter. Any creature or substance engulfed in the dome would have to endure burning damage from the magical flames constantly.
Greem shut his eyes and performed some estimations. Upon assimilating with his own Ring of Fire, the Burning Crown’s Ring of Fire could increase the damage to one hundred and fifteen points of damage per second. Greem had only achieved this level of destructiveness after he reached intermediate First Grade.
However, an intermediate First Grade adept needed to weave signs and chant for three to five seconds to unleash a spell of one hundred and fifteen points of intensity. Moreover, Greem’s Ring of Fire was a passive area-of-effect effect. He could still cast another spell while the Ring of Fire was burning the enemy.
Any enemy that walked into Greem’s Ring of Fire would be under the equivalent of constants attacks from an intermediate First Grade adept. If the enemy’s magical defenses couldn’t defend against an onslaught of this intensity, the flames would reduce them to ashes without even requiring Greem to lift a single finger.
If Greem were to ever run into a large group of First Grade adepts in the future, he only needed to leap into their midst with a Fire Teleportation and activate his Ring of Fire. The entire world
would be purged in less than five seconds!
Greem also obtained a new set ability after activating the third set piece of Fire Throne.
Fire magic exhausted half as much Spirit!
It was an extremely practical combat ability. It could double Greem’s capacity to put out damage on the battlefield. Moreover, this ability applied to elementium golems as well.
That meant that Greem could simultaneously support two Second Grade golems in a fight with his current Spirit. If he were to include himself, then there would be three powerful Second Grade fire creatures simultaneously appearing in the battlefield.
Who among all Second Grade adepts could survive the mad bombardment of three Flame Fiends of Terror?
Greem became unbearably excited at the very thought of that barbaric scene of flying fireballs and splashing magma.
Fire adepts were always the eye-catching focus of every single battlefield!
It was only on a true battlefield that fire adepts could unleash their destructive might!
Perhaps it was a butterfly effect triggered by his thoughts, but Alice personally arrived at Fire Throne while he was caught in his grand dreams of ravaging the battlefield. She had brought along the two books she had talked about, along with some groundbreaking news.
Given how well their cooperation had gone last time, Death Witch leader Khesuna agreed to Alice’s request and lent Greem the two pieces of advancement knowledge that he so urgently needed. However, as compensation, Alice had to support the declaration of war that the Death Witches had announced.
A declaration of war?
Alice had no choice but to patiently explain the matter to Greem when she saw how confused he was.
Not long ago, a lesser plane belonging to the Death Witches was attacked by the beast gods of the World of Gods. The entire plane had been defeated, and even the Third Grade witch stationed there had not managed to escape in time. She had died at the hands of the invading beast gods.
Such an act undoubtedly meant another war for the Death Witches.
That was why Death Witch Leader Khesuna had announced a strongly worded declaration of war against the beast gods during the witch council. She swore to exact bloody retaliation against the pantheon of the beast gods and called upon the other witch branches to join them in battle.
It was under such circumstances that Khesuna had agreed to Alice’s request. However, in exchange, Alice would have to actively support the declaration of war that she had set out.
That also meant Alice had to organize a sufficiently powerful expedition army and follow the Death Witches as they invaded other planes and fought for the glory and honor of the Northern Witches!
The Fate Witches under Alice had only just undergone the bloody battle of Faen. The number of official witches they had had been reduced to four. They would not be able to restore their numbers to their former peak without a few decades of rest and restoration.
It was already complicated to accomplish many things within the Northern Lands with so few witches, not to mention invading a different world altogether. As such, Greem had to put together a powerful combat force and join the Death Witches’ expedition under the banner of the Fate Witches if he wanted the two remaining pieces of advancement knowledge.
Greem fell completely silent.
After three days of examining and weighing all the pros and cons that he knew, Greem finally decided to join the planar war of the Northern Witches. Greem also spent a lot of effort thinking about the participating members of this war.
The Crimson Clan was fully established now. Their lands included the Zhentarim area and the Northern Lands, both of which required high-grade adepts to defend. Greem could no longer call upon all combat adepts within the clan like he used to.
The clan would experience a power vacuum if he did so and the assets near Fire Throne and White Tower were very likely to face invasions from unknown enemies.
Thus, after much thought, Greem decided to leave Bug Adept Billis in Fire Throne and assign him two blood knights and two blood elves. He was to maintain the aggressive offense against the Kamala Clan. Meanwhile, Dragonborn Zacha was stationed at White Tower. Safety was not a concern, especially with the emerald dragon and green dragons who were staying near the tower.
Chapter 815 - Planar Door
After some thinking, Greem drafted up the following list of combat personnel.
Third Grade: Thunder Dragon Arms.
Second Grade: Greem, Alice, Mary, Tigule, and Split-Off Brain Gru.
First Grade: Wind Adept Deserra, Medusa Dana, Berserk Witch Sofia, and four newly recruited adepts.
Magical machine army: one hundred Shield Defenders, three hundred Archers, thirty magic energy chariots, two hundred eyeball fighters, ten goblin engineers, fifty goblin technicians…
It was the entirety of the military force that the Crimson Clan could currently mobilize!
Still, this force was distinctly stronger when compared to the one that had entered Faen.
Death Witch Leader Khesuna might have put out a declaration of war, but the actual fight was delayed until six months from now. It couldn’t be helped. Crossing worlds to invade a stronghold planar world without sufficient power and preparation was practically putting oneself on the chopping block.
As such, the Death Witches had to be very careful in their choice of target even though they had already sworn to exact bloody vengeance upon the beast gods. They would also have to make feints and prevent the enemy from finding out which world was their real target.
A massive planar door was being hastily constructed in Werning.
The Death Witches became increasingly active with each passing day, using all sorts of means to search for and locate planar world coordinates possessed by the beast god pantheon.
Supposedly, such planar world coordinates were classified secrets. No outsiders should know of these coordinates apart from the higher-ups of the beast god pantheon. However, the World of Adepts had been at odds with the World of Gods for tens of thousands of worlds. Both sides had gained a comprehensive understanding of each other through their constant battles and exchanges.
As such, the Death Witches only spent some magical crystals to easily obtained seventeen planar coordinates belonging to the beast gods from the Silver Union and the Adept’s Association.
These planar coordinates were not half-developed primitive planes. Instead, they were planes of faith and belief filled with powerful locals and beast god believers. The Death Witches had publicly announced that they were giving up on all profits from this planar incursion. Their only purpose was to douse the arrogant fires of the beast gods and take revenge for their dead sisters.
Therefore, this planar invasion was not a war of subjugation, but one of utter destruction!
The Death Witches weren’t trying to destroy a tribe or an empire, but an entire plane.
They wanted to slaughter an entire plane’s worth of beast god believers to return the deed of humiliation that the beast gods had done to the Death Witches.
The Death Witches even sent out large numbers of witches to sneak into these planar worlds and create a false sense of complete mobilization and all-out war to trick the enemy. However, most of these witches were only pawns to confuse the enemy. Only a select few of them were carrying powerful locating devices on them.
Once the Death Witches had determined their target, they could connect the planar door with the enemy’s world based on the signal transmitted from the locating device. That would open a portal that led directly to a plane of beast god believers.
When that happened, the army gathered by the witch branches would only need to charge in and slaughter everything in sight!
Of course, utterly destroying a plane was a colossal task. The witches would have to find a way to destroy the plane world’s origin.
Greem might not possess the means to do so, but the Death Witches did!
The goal of the Death Witches in invading the plane was to destroy
their plane origin. Meanwhile, the responsibility of Greem and the others was to slaughter as many beast god believers as they could and extinguish the enemy’s faith nodes. That would disrupt their plans for reinforcement and provide the Death Witches with more time to perform their rituals and sacrifices.
Thus, the Death Witches began six-month-long psychological warfare and feints against the beast god pantheon surrounding this planar invasion. The number of high-grade individuals who had died during this endeavor had reached double digits for both sides.
One hundred and thirty-one days after Khesuna declared war, the planar door was complete!
It was an exceedingly tall stone door.
The entire frame of the stone door was made of an unknown dark black stone, and countless magical runes had been etched onto its structure. When powerful magical energy was injected into the base of the stone door, all of its runes lit up.
A brilliant layer of light slowly unfolded from the center of the stone door.
Strange light ribbons of various colors drifted out of the door, twisting and dancing in the skies above. They were connected and severed here and there, floating and shimmering in the air, much like the pretty lights that you would see in an area with strong magnetic fields.
Signs of severe gravitational disruption also started appearing near the stone door.
Many pebbles, dirt, and even carriages were no longer bound by gravity and started floating into the air. Meanwhile, gravity abysses that couldn’t be identified with the naked eye had also appeared in other areas. The horrifying gravity instantly crushed any lifeform that set foot in these gravity abysses. Their bodies and organs would be compressed into delicate mincemeat.
Moreover, areas of gravity disruption like these tended to be random and ever-shifting. There was no pattern to be spoken of.
All apprentice adepts had already retreated from the teleportation plaza. Not a single one of them dared to get close to the planar door. Even high-grade adepts like Greem didn’t dare to walk in areas of obvious gravity, space, time, and magnetic field distortions like these. Otherwise, they would risk the chance of being injured.