Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  Meanwhile, the strange blood coffin that had not moved in seven years trembled slightly with a slight creak.

  A short moment later, the movement from the blood coffin became increasingly prominent.

  As the person in the coffin struck with all her strength, the tightly shut coffin lid moved aside, revealing its contents.

  A white and slender female hand grabbed the edge of the coffin.

  Perhaps fed up with the dirty air in the coffin, the owner of the slender hand slightly waved in a fit of anger. The nearly half-ton coffin lid flew away and smashed heavily into the opposite wall.

  The naked Mary sat up from the coffin, grabbing her head as she moaned softly.

  Who am I? Why am I here? Where is this?

  A tide of memory and emotions surged out of her body, allowing her to find herself once again.

  I…I am Mary.

  Chapter 904 - Fight

  As Mary’s ruby eyes turned from confusion to clarity, a laid-back and deep male voice suddenly rang out by her ear.

  “The advancement succeeded? Come out and let me take a look!”

  It was Greem.

  Mary’s lips moved upward when she heard this familiar voice, revealing a strange, unpredictable smile.

  The next second, blood energy surged out of her body, quickly forming fine leather armor on her torso, along with a fancy fauld and a pair of red boots. Simple material modification like this was an easy trick after advancing to Third Grade. Apart from magical items and some special metallic substances, Mary could manifest any ordinary item through her blood energy.

  Such a high-grade elementium conversion technique was the unique ability of high-grade adepts. Compared to alchemical material modification, items created through alchemy had a more stable basic structure and were identical to the original material. Meanwhile, the basic items created through energy possessed the shape but lacked the same stability of the structure.

  Armor like this would disintegrate and turn back to blood energy within an hour if it left Mary’s body.

  Inside Greem’s room.

  Mary strode out with her back straightened, her face full of pride and unconcealable giddiness.

  Greem shut the thick magic tome in his hands and narrowed his eyes to assess Mary. Finally, he let out a sigh of relief, “Third Grade. You are finally Third Grade!”

  It had been seven years, and Greem’s appearance had not changed at all. He still looked as handsome and vigorous, as dashing and charming. However, with the passage of time, a trace of composure and elegance had faintly appeared on his young and lively face. There was also a sort of dominance and majesty unique to those who had held power for extended periods.

  Mary appeared to be somewhat dissatisfied with Greem’s reaction. She raised an eyebrow as a hint of anger appeared on her delicate and seductive face.

  “What is it? Were you worried I couldn’t make it past this threshold?” Mary grit her teeth, as if she were about to eat someone.

  “A little bit!” Greem smiled casually and replied honestly, “In all honesty, information related to the advancement of vampires is far too rare. Even I cannot guarantee that all the preparations I made would have worked or been useful. That’s why…”

  “That’s why…you are doubtful of my current power, isn’t it?” Mary gradually raised her voice, a trace of danger glowing in her eyes.

  “It’s not that I doubt your power; I’m just worried that the insufficient preparations might affect your future potential of development.” Greem wasn’t an idiot either. He immediately changed his tune when he saw Mary on the brink of breaking into a frenzy, like a female jaguar ready to pounce at any time.

  Sadly, he still underestimated how competitive and prideful Mary was!

  Mary let out a shriek and lunged forward. She grabbed Greem by the collar and dragged him outward.

  “You doubt my power? Let’s go and duke it out in the practice room now.”

  Greem laughed. He suddenly reached an arm around Mary’s waist and whispered into her ear, “No need to go to the practice room if you want to fight. Come along with me!”

  Flames burst out around them, and the two of them vanished from the spot.

  When they once again appeared, they were on a towering cliff somewhere in the Black Forest.

  The cliff was utterly flat, covered in green mosses and vines.

  If one were to look around, they would see a sea of trees waving in the wind, green until the edge of vision. It was the vast Black Forest that covered the entire land. Some unidentifiable yellow and green birds quickly flew across the canopy, extending their necks and letting out sharp, drawn-out cries.

  A trace of calm peace was contained within this breathtakingly pretty view!

  Mary might not have possessed as large a Spirit as Greem to capture every movement around her perfectly, but her Third Grade senses still allowed her to tell if there were any powerful magical creatures in the vicinity.

  “Where is this?” Mary lifted her head and gazed into the distance, looking at the bright red sun that was sinking into the horizon at the edge of the sea of trees.

  “Fire Throne is one hundred and fifteen kilometers east of here.” Greem smiled and said, “I call this place, Greencliff!”

  “The geography of this place is far too excellent. There is no way there are no magical creatures here!”

  “There used to be a wind eagle’s nest here, but I caught all the birds and brought them back to the tower.”

  “Any creature that could build a nest here is probably no small fry! Second Grade or Third Grade?”

  “Third Grade.”

  Mary turned back and gave him a seductive smile.

  “It seems you’ve improved fast over these past few years! To think you can even take down a Third Grade magical creature so easily now.”

  Greem shook his head with a bitter smile, “Why do I not feel happy at all when I hear your compliments? You don’t actually intend to fight, do you?”

  “Of course, we are fighting! We must fight!” Mary ground her teeth lightly, “I said this a long time ago. If you can beat me, I’ll listen to you. Otherwise…”

  Greem opened his mouth to argue, but an extremely dangerous feeling engulfed his body.

  It wasn’t lethal, but he would not enjoy it if he didn’t dodge now!

  Without any hesitation, Greem’s body abruptly erupted, vanishing from the spot in a burst of flames.

  A crimson and slender hand slashed through the fire, leaving a trail of crimson marks.

  Fire flashed in the air two hundred meters away as Greem reformed his body with fire elementium. However, his expression froze the moment he appeared. He lifted his left sleeve and found three deep cuts on his forearm.

  Blood flowed from the wounds, dripping across his entire arm.

  What a fast attack.

  Greem frowned. He had never expected to be wounded by Mary with how fast he had dodged out of the way.

  Flames flickered on his arm as pure fire energy surged into the wounds from his powerful Flame Fiend’s heart. A series of crackling sounds could be heard as the flames washed away the blood energy clinging to his injury. The cuts slowly started to heal.

  Mary hovered above the cliff, licking the blood on her claws as she showed Greem a seductive smile.

  “How about that now? You won’t underestimate me any longer, will you? If you don’t be careful, you will have to suffer a lot more from now on.”

  Greem let out a chuckle and finally regarded this ‘duel’ seriously!

  Flames surged as the Burning Crown, Fire Emblem, Fearless, Ash, Fire Dragon’s Breath, and that armor of lava–powerful magical equipment of unique designs and tremendous energy–strated to appear on his body.

  However, Mary’s outline flickered before Greem could complete his preparations, vanishing into the air like a crimson shadow.

  Her silhouette had not actually vanished. Her speed was so fast that the dynamic vision of most adepts was insuf
ficient to capture her movement. Even though adepts had spiritual senses, the disruption of Mary’s strange phantom clones would cause an opponent to pick up on a dozen life signs around them, all of them belonging to Mary.

  Moreover, their spiritual senses were not enough for them to distinguish the real Mary from the dozen clones!

  However, Greem was no ordinary adept!

  Red dots had replaced Mary’s one dozen phantoms in his mind with the help of the Chip’s all-encompassing dynamic senses. Moreover, even though the intensity of these red dots were similar, there were slight differences between each of them.

  Other adepts might have difficulty recognizing this difference in an instant, and Greem couldn’t do so as well, but the Chip could!

  In his mind, the Chip had constructed a sense-space with the combination of his Burning Domain. It then connected the red dots, assembling a strange and unpredictable pattern of movement. The final target in the chain of dots was…

  Greem let out a roar and turned around abruptly. He pushed forward with both his hands and an Inferno Shield instantly formed and pushed outward.

  Boom! A muffled explosion rang out.

  A white and slender female hand pierced through the Inferno Shield and grabbed at Greem’s right waist.

  Without this shield that happened to stand in Mary’s path of attack, Greem would only have realized she had gotten closer after he was injured. However, with the jet engines on his armor, Greem was able to dodge Mary’s crimson slash by a hair.

  Moreover, the Inferno Shield he had pushed forward crashed into Mary’s body, giving her a small punishment for attacking him.

  One had to admit that Mary’s speed had experienced a breakthrough after advancing to Third Grade.

  Despite missing, she still had time to pull her right hand back, slashing the shield to pieces and vanishing from the spot before the flames could erupt.

  The ‘trap’ that Greem had so painstakingly designed for her had not managed to hurt her at all!

  “Chip, what’s going on? Why was there a mistake?” Greem silently communicated with the Chip as he quickly moved across the canopy.

  [Beep. Error in basic attribute collection. The earlier attack was designed based on Mary’s attributes in the past. It is different from target creature’s current attributes.]

  “Immediately gather target creature’s basic attributes and fix all mistakes! ”

  [Beep. Gathering target’s basic attribute sample. Estimated time required: twenty-seven seconds.]

  Twenty-seven seconds? It wasn’t exactly a long time, but it wasn’t short either. It would be a painful twenty-seven seconds against an ultra-fast adept.

  Greem let out a roar. The Burning Domain shot out of his body and engulfed the surrounding area. Lava Shields and Inferno Shields appeared, orbiting his body rapidly.

  A slashing sound could be heard as a crimson form charged into the Burning Domain, piercing through five Inferno Shields before quickly disappearing from the Burning Domain and vanishing into the slowly dimming sky.

  Her speed was way too fast. Greem might have captured her path of movement, but the two Vicious Fireballs he fired had been easily dodged. The Fire Dragon’s breath that Greem spat out chased after Mary, extending all the way out of the Burning Domain.

  Apart from shattering a bunch of afterimages, the breath couldn’t even reach her sleeves.

  However, Mary wasn’t completely unharmed either.

  Greem’s Burning Domain had now reached two hundred points of fire damage. Mary would not be able to avoid the damage as long as she was in the red barrier. Domain-type fire damage like this could not be avoided with high speed.

  Chapter 905 - Time Freeze

  The same tall cliff.

  Mary’s tall, slender body once again appeared.

  However, compared to her casual composure last time, she appeared to be in a much more awkward, roughed-up state now.

  The right hand that had pierced through Greem’s shield was now scorched black, while there were similar burn marks on her delicate body and crimson armor. Though these marks vanished amidst a cloud of blood energy in less than five seconds, frustration still emerged on Mary’s pretty face.

  “That damned Burning Domain!” Mary shouted resentfully.

  If it weren’t for the all-encompassing Burning Domain, Greem would not have been able to hit Mary with his spells, all of which relied on his vision or spiritual guidance. Moreover, those powerful area-of-effect spells took too much time to chant. They gave Mary too much space to assault Greem.

  As such, he had no chance of harming Mary as long as she didn’t run into Greem’s defensive spells. Her speed was almost beyond the limit of spiritual senses.

  Unfortunately, all of this was ruined by the damned Burning Domain!

  Mary had no chance of defeating Greem unharmed while the Burning Domain existed.

  She would have to continually concentrate blood energy to resist the effects of the Burning Domain while she was within its radius. Mary would have to give up on her assault, regardless of how good of an opportunity it was, if she sensed her blood energy being run down by the Burning Domain. She needed to retreat from the domain and recover her blood energy before continuing her attack.

  That gave Greem the chance to rest and repair his shields!

  That was why, in Mary’s eyes, Greem was like a monster covered in spikes. She had to endure the terrifying sensation of being buried in spikes if she wanted to get a shot at him.

  She had always been Greem’s ally in the past. Naturally, she had never needed to be the receiving end of this unpleasantness. However, now that she was his enemy, Mary felt just like all his past foes. She hated nothing as much as she hated Greem’s Burning Domain.

  Fire Resistance Talismans, Scarlet Crystals, Fire Flowers, Fire Dragon’s Hide.

  I will buy all of these things after this fight, even if I go bankrupt!

  Mary shouted furiously in her heart as she unfurled her wings and began circling rapidly around Greem.

  She knew that Greem’s flames could apply fire poison and Coldflame to his enemies at any time. If the Coldflames froze her, she would not be able to endure the attacks that came after.

  The tremendous offensive power of a Third Grade fire adept would be enough to turn her into ashes within seconds. As such, Mary had to be careful when choosing her angle and position of attack. She could not provide Greem a single chance to retaliate.

  It might look like she had the initiative in this battle, where she was able to retreat and attack at any time while Greem could only watch. That said, if she were to make any small mistake, this battle for her pride could end in an instant. There was no such thing as luck.

  However, where was her chance to win if she only circled and never attacked? The only way to create a possibility of victory was to continuously risk herself and go on the offense, using her endless offensives to force Greem to show a weakness.

  However, attacks like these were double-edged.

  At the same time as it brought danger upon Greem, it placed Mary herself in jeopardy.

  However, with her personality, there was no way she would ever be fearful of a little danger.

  Mary transformed into a lightning-fast crimson silhouette, weaving through the forest like a blood-red phantom. It was undoubtedly incredibly tricky to continually track the movements of such a speedy shape.

  Mary was able to break free of Greem’s spiritual tracking every time he hesitated before she broke into the Burning Domain from an unexpected angle. She would then charge to Greem’s side and wreak havoc.

  Moreover, when Greem’s Spirit finally caught up, Mary would escape from the Burning Domain like a gust of wind, circling in the air like a crimson phantom once more.

  Every time this happened, Greem would hastily reform his magical shields, while Mary quickly healed her burn wounds with blood energy.

  The lack of strength to end the battle in a single strike meant that the two of them
were stuck in this meaningless war of attrition. Both Mary and Greem started to become impatient and frustrated after a few rounds of such exchanges.

  One was an exceedingly fast Agility adept, while the other was a fire adept with shocking firepower.

  Both of them had their advantages, weaknesses, and expertise. It was tough to decide a victor when they were engaged in a fight like this.

  [Beep. Target creature data gathering complete.

  [Mary, Beginner Third Grade.

  Profession: Bloodline Adept (Vampire).

  Bodily Attributes: Strength 15 | Physique 17 | Agility 31 | Spirit 21.

  Profession Skills: The Embrace, Shackles of Blood, ???, …]

  One had to admit that as a vampire adept, most of Mary’s bodily attributes appeared to be somewhat weak. Her Agility was the only exception. At thirty-one points, there was no denying that she was a true Third Grade powerhouse.

  If she’d had a bit more time to nourish her body and train herself, she might have been able to improve on these attributes.

  However, trying to challenge Greem with her current attributes was an overestimation of her abilities!

  Greem had been on the defensive for the majority of this battle by having to split part of his attention on the Chip’s data collection. Now that he had obtained the data, there was no longer any meaning to this battle dragging on.

  Greem immediately erupted with his real power without any hesitation!

  He lifted a hand and smacked the Fire Dragon’s Breath pendant hanging around his neck. A wave of flames immediately surged forward, engulfing the air around him.

  Mary’s crimson form wove between the flames almost entirely unharmed. However, there wasn’t much space left for her to dodge.

  Greem also turned into a bluster of flames and started chasing after Mary’s figure. The boots of Ash glowed with a bright yellow flame, leaving trails of burning footprints in the air.

  Greem trying to catch Mary with his thirteen points of Agility was like a clumsy seal trying to bite at a dragonfly. There was absolutely no effect aside from causing some splashes in the pool.