……
As he dwelled on his thoughts, Greem was led through the outer outposts and across the apprentice area, before finally arriving in front of an underground cave.
A dark red barrier stood here, barring his way forward.
The lizard riders that had escorted them reined back their mounts and stood respectfully on either side. Only Greem and the Second Grade adept walked into the barrier of light.
It was like walking through a wall of water. There was almost no resistance.
However, as he walked through the barrier, Greem could feel four or five scan waves of various purpose rapidly and very faintly sweep across his body. Unfortunately, these probes were all kept outside by the layer of transparent flames on Greem’s body.
It seemed the adept had received a magical message from somewhere in the distance. The other adept smiled as he bowed and said, “Lord Fire, please come with me! Lord Karak is already waiting for you.”
The meeting location was a gray underground stone hall. A Third Grade and two Second Grades were already waiting here. Smiles appeared on their faces when they saw Greem arrive.
The Third Grade Lord Karak looked just like he did in the Spirit Illusion Realm: tall and skinny with a jade green gemstone embedded in his forehead. He was very welcoming to Greem.
“You must be that legendary fire adept clan leader from the Ailovis Region, aren’t you? So honored to meet you, Lord Greem!” There was a smile on Karak’s face as he nodded slightly at Greem.
The two Second Grade adepts were a pair of male and female adepts. They looked young and were secretly assessing Greem as they stood behind Adept Karak.
Everyone who could become a high-grade adept had excellent talent and exceptional luck. Still, being able to advance to Third Grade before he was two hundred years old meant unbelievable talent.
That was why these two Second Grade adepts of Molten Fire City couldn’t help but be excited when they saw this legendary fire adept whose name had been the talk of Zhentarim for a while. In particular, the young female adept’s eyes dazzled when she saw Greem’s handsome look and muscular body.
Greem wasn’t at all surprised that they had managed to investigate his identity.
He had already done some research before he came here. Molten Fire City was a famous major organization of the Center Region and was a mighty force. This much was evident from the fact that they could monopolize a vast region all for themselves.
The Skettis Region where Molten Fire City was located was simply too far from the Crimson Clan. The two parties couldn’t possibly have any conflicts over welfare and resources and, thus, there was a minimal possibility for any sort of unresolved resentment and hostility. Greem need not worry about his safety here.
That was why Greem was not at all surprised or concerned when Karak revealed his identity.
“I am also very honored to be able to visit Molten Fire City. Everything here is simply so breathtaking. It is obvious that your organization’s monopoly over the Skettis Region is no sheer luck.”
“Haha, Sir Greem, you praise us too much!” Adept Karak chuckled slightly, before shifting the topic of conversation, “We have invited two adepts for the mission we gave out. The other adept should arrive two days from now, so I will have to bother you to stay here at our place for that time. So, for these two days, I believe I should let Adept Freina accompany you and bring you on a tour!”
The Second Grade female adept standing behind Lord Karak stepped forward and smiled as she said, “Lord Greem, why don’t I bring you around for a bit first?”
This Adept Freina had pretty looks and a fairly hot figure. Her well-cut white robe further emphasized her pale skin and thin waist. However, Greem quickly looked at her and could sense slight energy radiation on her face and body.
It seemed her looks and figure had all been processed with magic.
Such a situation was prevalent among low-grade adepts. After all, beauty amongst female adepts was also a resource that could be taken advantage of. However, similar situations were rarely seen among high-grade adepts. Those who could become high-grade adepts were all individuals with strong will and determination. Such female adepts were often even more potent than male adepts in many aspects. How could they possibly ever do something as lowly as to offer their body in exchange for resources!
“Thank you!” Greem smiled and followed Freina out of the stone hall.
Once the sound of Greem and Freina’s footsteps vanished into the depths of the tunnel, the other Second Grade male adept asked, “Lord Karak, what should we do over at the mines? If Lord Greem intends to go into the mines with the mission as his excuse, should we stop him?”
The tall and skinny Kara lowered his head and thought for a moment before slowly speaking, “This Greem is here for the Queyras ores. As such, you must keep a close eye on Mines 2 and 3. When necessary, you can let him enter Mine 4 freely, but he must never approach Mine 2 and 3. Speaking of which, has that flaming tiger been around to cause trouble over the past few days?”
“It hasn’t attacked the mines ever since it was injured by Lord Dorian with the array last month. However, there have been signs of its activity around Mine 2 for the last two days. I suspect it is secretly scheming something.”
“Assign more people to Mine 2. We must not give it the space to break in. The last time it broke into Mine 3, it killed far too many miners. It’s already severely affected the production of eternium ore!”
“Understood, I will make the arrangements myself!”
“Mm. Do it well and make sure no incidents happen again. In addition, the sealing master we hired is arriving soon. Once all the people have arrived, we will immediately set off to capture and kill that flaming tiger. Before this, you will have to find a way to track that tiger’s location. It will be best if you can find out the location of its den.”
“This…” An expression of hesitance and reluctance appeared on the face of the adept. However, he quickly gritted his teeth and said, “I will make sure to do so!”
The two adepts left the stone hall, and the place returned to silence once again.
Chapter 881 - The Lava Sea
Chapter 881 The Lava Sea
For the next two days, Greem toured all of the public areas in Molten Fire City, accompanied by the pretty Freina.
Molten Fire City’s scale was not small at all. If it had been built on the surface instead, it would have been the size of an intermediate city. However, the entire population of the city was no more than three to four thousand people. Moreover, seventy percent of these were servants that lived in the outposts of the outer areas.
The core area, which could sustain up to twenty or thirty thousand people, was populated by a mere two to three hundred adepts. Moreover, most adepts spent their time in the libraries and the laboratories. Even on the rare occasion that they emerged from their shelters, they would be occupied with business. It caused the massive central area to be a ghost town, void of any life despite all the pretty gardens and parks.
Greem could tell that Freina was lusting after him. In fact, he probably only needed to beckon with his finger, and this female adept would make her way to his bed at night.
However, Greem was occupied with his thoughts at the moment and was in no mood to play such a game with her. Thus, for the next two days, the resentment in Freina’s eyes grew until it was obvious to any bystander.
Greem honestly couldn’t be bothered to care. That was because the more information he obtained, the more of a strange feeling he got.
It was very likely that his ‘enemy’ on this trip was an acquaintance!
When he found out from Freina that the culprit was a Third Grade flaming tiger, his heart almost jumped out of his mouth. Moreover, when he saw the magical projection from Freina’s monitoring crystal, he was certain that it was the Third Grade flaming tiger he had smuggled over from the Fire Elementium Plane– Cindral.
Speaking of which, Molten Fire City was al
so an unexpected victim.
They had set up plenty of arrays and adepts around the underground mine when they first excavated it, all for the sake of preventing enemies from breaking in. Above the tunnel was the adept’s tower where the Fourth Grade adept resided.
The invasion of any enemy was impossible under such strict protection.
Yet, despite all their precautions, what they had never expected was for the enemy to come from the depths of the lava sea instead of the surface.
A Third Grade flaming tiger with extremely high intelligence emerged from the lava sea two years ago. It had invaded multiple mines in a row, devouring and taking with it large amounts of metal ores. It also caused the lava sea to flood into the mines and kill as many as six hundred miners.
From then on, the Third Grade flaming tiger seemed to have decided to make this place its home. It hid in the depths of the lava sea and snuck into the underground mines whenever it found the time to do so. After several of these incidents, the output of metal ores in Molten Fire City plummeted, and many of the miners they hired were injured or dead.
As the manager of the mines, the adepts of Molten Fire City would never sit by and watch as a magical creature wreaked havoc in such a core area of their clan. They had formed parties to surround and capture the flaming tiger, but it had always managed to slip away through the lava sea, which was everywhere around them.
If the adepts they sent were too few or too weak, they might even invite retaliation from the flaming tiger and suffer severe casualties. Send too many adepts, and the flaming tiger would turn and vanish into the lava sea.
Though Molten Fire City had a few fire adepts as well, they were all at Second Grade. Sending them to search for the Third Grade flaming tiger in the lava sea was like throwing a meat bun at a dog. While the other adepts could manage to fight somewhat if they parted the boiling lava with a magical array, they would be on a one-way trip if they went too deep into the lava sea.
Over the past few months, the adepts of Molten Fire City had to set aside their work and stand guard near the underground mines. It was a terrible affair that occupied everyone’s time.
They had no choice but to put out a high-grade mission to the outside world in hopes of recruiting a sufficiently powerful fire adept to capture and kill the tiger. Of course, concerned that a single Third Grade fire adept would be insufficient to deal with the flaming tiger, Molten Fire City also hired a Third Grade sealing master.
A Third Grade fire adept, a Third Grade sealing master, and a Third Grade from Molten Fire City. A force like this should be more than enough to exterminate that Third Grade flaming tiger!
After gaining an understanding of the situation, Greem couldn’t help but request that Freina bring him to the mines for a look.
Freina hesitated for a moment and requested permission from Lord Karak with a magical message. It was then that she brought Greem toward the tunnels deep underground.
After winding about the tunnels for half an hour, Greem could very clearly feel the concentration of fire elementium rise dramatically. The smell of sulfur in the air also became thicker.
Finally, in a vast underground stone hall, Greem saw the crowd that he had not seen above.
Here was a place that had to be passed by before making your way to the mines. The stone hall was packed with slaves of various races, their legs shackled together with tattered pieces of cloth the only thing covering their lower bodies.
They all had muscular bodies and tan skin. Their naked upper bodies were covered with grime and whip marks. They might be tall and ferocious, but their eyes were filled with numbness and sufferance as they formed queues to pick up their tools to venture into the mines again.
On the other side, there was a group of slaves that had just emerged from the mines.
They all carried wooden baskets on their backs, each one as tall as themselves, filled to the brim with black ore. The surface of the ores reflected the light of the glowstones, making them gleam with brilliant and beautiful color.
These were all rough, unprocessed ores. Though the metal content in these ores was fairly high, it was hard to tell what the primary metal content was without further crushing and filtering.
The ones responsible for examining, weighing, and recording the mined ores were all adept apprentices. A large group of human mercenaries gathered around them. They were responsible for the order in this underground hall. Meanwhile, the two adepts stationed here were lying on wooden chairs at a side of the hall. They were drinking tea while joyously talking about something.
Naturally, the pathway used by the slave miners and subordinate mercenaries was a separate and distinct one. The one that Freina brought Greem through was a tunnel that only adepts had access to.
The two First Grade adepts hurriedly stood up, went over, and bowed in respect when they saw Adept Freina arrive.
“The beast hasn’t come here to make trouble over the last few days, has it?” Freina might act like a clingy little bird in front of Greem, but she carried herself with plenty of dignity and authority in front of these low-grade adepts.
“No, no, not at all.”
“Then open the tunnels. This esteemed guest of ours and I are going into the lava sea to take a look!”
“Yes, madam!”
With Freina leading the way, the two stationed adepts had no objections whatsoever.
Under their lead, Greem and Freina dove into a barren tunnel. They took a few turns and arrived at a stone wall, smooth as a mirror.
The two stationed adepts both took out a strange magic wand and pointed at the center of the wall in unison. A peculiar magical flux shimmered across the wall, and a massive stone door appeared in the center of the gray stone wall. The stone door silently slid apart, revealing the crimson lava flowing beyond the light barrier.
A barrier had risen here the moment the doors opened, keeping the lava outside.
Even so, the temperature of the tunnel rose rapidly, quickly reaching over a hundred degrees.
An ordinary human would probably be fully cooked in three to five seconds if they stayed in an environment like this. Even the two posted adepts couldn’t help but start wiping away the sweat on their foreheads.
Greem’s eyes swept across the lava, and the Chip scanned the crimson lava sea that filled the world beyond the barrier.
“The environment in the lava sea is a bit more complicated. I will accompany you inside!” Freina smiled as she said.
Greem shook his head and said, “I won’t be going far. I will just take a look at the environment nearby. It will give me more confidence in the battle to come.”
Having said that, he spared the courtesies and strode toward the light barrier. A scarlet magical barrier suddenly appeared around him before he slowly passed through the wall and entered the lava sea.
The lava sea might seem static, but its viscous liquid was continually flowing. It was only because the entire space was filled with boiling lava that it gave people the illusion that it was unmoving.
Greem had just passed through the light barrier, and the barrier around him immediately sustained a crushing force of over five hundred kilograms. The sizzling lava was pressing toward the center of the sea. Naturally, Greem had to endure this strange force as well now that he was in the sea.
He hesitated for a moment before slowly retracting the barrier back into himself. The boiling lava around him instantly pressed down and enveloped him.
The boiling lava made contact with his warm skin, but it did not sizzle; instead, warm surges of energy coursed through Greem’s body. It was such a comfortable sensation that he almost moaned.
If he were still Second Grade, he might have been able to endure the extreme heat, but he would never have been able to endure the terrifying pressure. Now that he had advanced to Third Grade, his body’s affinity for fire elementium had reached an extremely high level. Not only did he feel no pressure while immersed in this sea of lava, he felt as free as a fish in water.
However, Greem still had to separate a portion of the fire energy within him to protect his robes. Though he could endure the extreme heat, his clothes could not.
He would have to protect his clothes with fire energy if he didn’t want to run about naked!
Other adepts might find traveling through the lava sea a difficult matter, but there was no such problem for a fire adept.
Greem chuckled as his entire body immediately dispersed, turning into a humanoid cluster of fire as he traveled through the lava. Greem dashed about the depths of lava with flame jets of various angles, moving at speed several times that of his flight in the air.
For a fire adept, fire was truly their home field!
Chapter 882 - Old Acquaintances
Greem returned to the underground tunnel after two hours in the lava sea.
Moreover, it was obvious that these two hours of investigation had not exhausted too much of his power.
Freina expressed genuine marvel at this.
With her intermediate Second Grade powers, she could barely remain in the lava sea for fifteen minutes. The few Third Grade adepts of Molten Fire City might be able to last longer, but they too could only barely survive in the lava sea. They wouldn’t be able to use ten percent of their power if they were to run into the Third Grade flaming tiger in that unique environment.
Low-Grade resistance potions did fine against ordinary flame environments, but they were inadequate against an entire sea of flowing magma and a viciously sly flaming tiger.
If it wasn’t for this, the dominant Molten Fire City would never have exposed their weakness and went to the outside world for help.
Thus, Freina was genuinely glad when she saw how free and easily Greem moved through the lava sea.
“I have a basic understanding of the environment here now; let us return!” Greem looked very relaxed, causing smiles to appear on the faces of the Molten Fire City adepts as well.
Age of Adepts c1-1513 Page 544