Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  If human bodies were that frail, why was it that mechanical adepts were willing to repeatedly modify themselves upon those weak foundations instead of constructing an actual mechanical body for themselves?

  It had to do with a human’s original system of energy advancement!

  Animated lifeforms constructed of pure metal might be powerful, but they faced tremendous difficulty in advancing. Moreover, once a human soul was transplanted into a body of steel, their souls would lack the necessary nourishment of life energy and begin to wither with every passing day. That made it even more difficult for an adept to continue improving themselves, unlike if they had a human body.

  Their obsession with the mechanical heart gave them great combat prowess, but they had to rely on their flesh and blood organs to sustain these mechanical parts that had such a high demand for energy. Consequently, most mechanical adepts spent much of their time seeking a balance between power and their own human advancement system!

  However, the concerns of the mechanical adepts did not apply to Greem.

  He didn’t intend to modify himself beyond recognition. The sole reason behind his research on mechanical adepts was to improve the elementium magical machine; to make it stronger and more offensively capable.

  After thoroughly researching the Blade Princess, Greem couldn’t help but be impressed by the ingenious ideas of the mechanical adepts.

  Katherine’s mechanical eye combined multiple unique abilities, including low-light vision, elementium sight, dynamic movement capture, and many others. She had been able to perceive everything normally under any conditions during battle without needing to cast spells. Moreover, she could use her ‘eye’ alone to observe the flow of elementium around the enemy, along with any more subtle or inconspicuous movements they made.

  The metal brain shell she had modified possessed the ability to magnify thoughts and senses, allowing her to freely manipulate the metal blades as if they were part of her body. As long as she wasn’t too far away from the disc-blades, she could use her thoughts alone to alter and control the trajectory of the blades to achieve the effect of explosive strikes.

  Meanwhile, Katherine’s body had undergone multiple modifications of compound mechanical spells. All sorts of strange alloy plates could be found beneath her smooth and firm skin. Whenever she was attacked, the first to be damaged would be the metal armor that she wore on the outside.

  If the might of the attack exceeded the limits of the metal armor, the remainder of the damage would be split between her flesh and the alloy plates hidden underneath her skin. The impact of the strike would be spread across the surroundings through a strange means of vibration.

  That made Katherine’s physical and elementium resistance to be shockingly high. It had allowed her to endure the enemy’s onslaught of spells while she charged to their side and unleashed her fury of steel and metal.

  Of course, such a means of attack left Katherine’s body in a constant state of damage that incessantly required replenishment. These replenishments included repairing the metal damage done to the mechanical components, as well as healing the harm to her flesh.

  As such, Blade Princess Katherine required large amounts of fresh meat and metal solutions in her daily diet!

  A living human adept would have to devour bloody, raw meat and drink pungent metal reconciling agents daily. The life of a mechanical adept pursuing strength was not one that could be endured by those with weak wills.

  Greem had obtained quite a few pieces of high-grade magical equipment from the hunter adepts.

  However, most of these items were created based on their strengths and weaknesses. Greem would have to return them to the forge and tweak them slightly if he wanted to use them. On the other hand, the auxiliary and support accessories could be put into use immediately.

  Most of the magical accessories enhanced the body’s power to some degree. Unfortunately, a human adept could not enhance their physical body or their Spirit infinitely.

  For instance, the Sodden’s Holy Ring that Greem wore already provided a +5 bonus to his Strength. As such, the +3 bonus offered by the Fire Throne set would be eclipsed by the Holy Ring. If Greem didn’t find ways to refine his physical prowess and increase the limits of his Strength, then he would not be able to enjoy the tremendous benefits of stacking bonuses from both items.

  It was most practical and effective for an adept to improve their own bodily attributes. As for the idea of creating a powerful adept just by arming a person full of high-grade magical equipment? That was no more than an extremely childish and laughable thought.

  Now that Greem had the +5 bonus Strength from Sodden’s Holy Strength, all the magical accessories that improved Strength were meaningless. Meanwhile, the +3 points of Physique provided by Sodden’s Holy Ring left Greem with some space for more enhancement.

  However, this space was quickly filled by the Physique enhancement of the Fire Throne set.

  Moreover, now that Greem’s Spirit had reached 37 points, any additional equipment bonuses would no longer be effective past 39 points. Thus, he took off one or two pieces of accessories that improved his Spirit to reduce the burden on his mind.

  In doing so, his Strength, Physique, and Spirit had all reached the limits of his current body. Agility was the only attribute that still had significant room for improvement.

  “Chip, display my current bodily attributes.”

  [Beep! Scan starting. Host’s bodily attributes are as follows:

  [Greem. Advanced Third Grade.

  Profession: Elementium Adept.

  Bodily Attributes: Strength 18+5 (13) | Physique: 21+4 (11) | Agility 11+1 (7) | Spirit 37+2 (32).

  Profession Skills: Body of Flames, Flame Fiend’s Body, Fire Clone.

  [Host’s body condition: Severely Injured. Note: Attributes in brackets refer to the upper limit of host’s current capabilities!]

  These attributes were nothing compared to the more powerful of the high-magic species, but they were first-rate amongst adepts of the same grade.

  Twenty-three points of Strength meant that he could match a beginner Second Grade body-refining adept in a contest of power. That said, if he were to engage a body-refining adept in a melee fight, his terrible fighting skills would cause him to lose horribly. After all, eleven points of base Agility might be barely enough for a Third Grade elementium adept, but it was utterly inadequate in a proper melee.

  Power, amongst the adepts, was, is, and always would be relative. There was no such thing as absolute power!

  Such Strength and Physique made Greem a fearsome primordial monster when compared to an ordinary human. However, compared to a body-refining adept of the same grade, Greem would be like an infant whose baby teeth had yet to all fall out.

  Greem shook his head at the thought of this. He then gathered all the equipment scattered across the floor and stood up to exit the cave.

  There was a small stone platform outside the cave. A thick layer of scattered bones lay atop the platform. It was obvious that this was where a powerful magical creature once enjoyed its meals. If one were to stand upon the platform and look into the distance, they would find that this place was located in a vast and endless sea of ancient trees.

  Only a stretch of green could be seen no matter where you looked.

  Unfortunately, ever since this place became the home of the plague army, the sounds of singing birds and insects could no longer be heard. There was only silence apart from the whistling of the wind through the trees.

  However, Greem didn’t seem to care about this. He stood at the edge of the platform and closed his eyes to listen for that strange, vague sound in the distance.

  He wasn’t listening for the winds or the rustling of the leaves, but the faint message transmitted back from thousands of kilometers away by his fire runes.

  “Remi.”

  “Here!”

  As Greem called his name, Spirit of Pestilence Remi silently appeared beside him.

  “T
ake your plague army and go east!” Greem gazed at the distant horizon with brooding eyes, “Keep heading east and destroy all cities and villages along the way.”

  “What is the target of my attack?” Remi asked out of curiosity.

  “Jymeria City!”

  “Jymeria? That’s the capital of the Zambez Empire!”

  “Yes, the capital. Make as much of a commotion as you can, but be careful. Remember, you are allowed to abandon the mission and flee when you run into a Fourth Grade Holy Knight. Until them, your mission is to expand the plague army as best as you can and draw the attention of the enemy.”

  Remi’s ghostly green eyes rolled about. He basically understood Greem’s intentions fully now.

  He giggled at Greem and summoned his giant plague beast. He leaped on top of the creature along with the old poison witch and charged down the cliff.

  The trees surrounding the cliff started to tremble, and the leaves began to sway. A horde of plague creatures silently started sprinting through the woods, instantly forming a horrifying tide of plague beasts around Greem.

  Once the plague creatures had left, Greem pulled his robe up to hide his face before turning and striding southeast.

  Supposedly, an adventure and exploration of Henvic Plane should have lost all meaning after Greem obtained the corpse of the starbeast. He should have returned to the clan as soon as possible. However, considering the nourishment that the strange holy lights provided his Spirit, Greem felt like it wasn’t too late to make a big haul before leaving.

  It was important to note that Greem would need at least two to three hundred years of work to increase his 37 points of Spirit to 39 points after he returned to the World of Adepts. On the other hand, he only needed to slaughter some harmless holy knights here to be able to accomplish the same thing. Why wouldn’t he do that instead!?

  The reason he had sent out Remi and the plague army was to distract and draw away the two damned Fourth Grade Holy Knights. He would take this chance to slaughter the low and intermediate-grade holy knights to collect sufficient holy light for his advancement to Fourth Grade.

  Chapter 995 - The Pitiful Witches

  One had to admit that Greem’s perception of time appeared to have become different from an ordinary person’s since becoming an adept.

  The last time he met Catherine, she had only been an ordinary trainee knight that he had spared. She had to use all her strength to be able to stand up straight before him.

  Yet now, she had become an Iron Knight respected and admired by all!

  It was this fact that caused Greem to realize that five years had passed in the blink of an eye.

  For Greem, these five years had been nothing but a slightly drawn-out fight between him and the hunter adepts. However, for other people, five years was enough for them to experience the significant milestones of their lives.

  Regardless of how quickly Catherine’s power could have grown, she couldn’t possibly have sensed the fire rune that Greem had subtly inserted in her body.

  Over the past five years, the fire rune had been transmitting countless bits of fragmented information back to Greem. However, he had ignored the information of his own accord. He had been busy fighting the hunter adepts. He couldn’t possibly have had the time to examine the developmental journey of a mere trainee knight.

  However, having dealt with his enemies, Greem finally had the time to pick up the line that was Catherine. He immediately understood everything that had transpired in the past few years through the information stored in the Chip’s data library.

  Blackmountain City?

  Catherine was currently located in Blackmountain City to the south of the Zambez Empire.

  It seemed like a den of Deceit Witch remnants had been discovered there. The holy knights were trying their best to rally their forces to capture all of them in a single attack.

  According to the vague information relayed back from Catherine, the witch’s base seemed to be managed by two Third Grade Deceit Witches. They had already beaten back several attacks from the holy knights, and the two forces had battled furiously in the forests, deserts, and swamps around Blackmountain City. The war had already raged on for a substantially long time.

  For some reason, the two Fourth Grade Holy Knights that had been hurrying towards the battlefield suddenly turned around. It forced the holy knights to remain in a stalemate against the sly and sinister otherworldly witches, despite having superior numbers and having fought for over two months.

  As one of the aces of the new generation of Iron Knights, Catherine had performed exceedingly well in the battle against the witches. She had already personally ‘purified’ five witch believers, along with countless evil voodoo beasts.

  There were seven Third Grade Gold Knights within the army sieging the witches. That was what caught most of Greem’s attention.

  He knew very well that the two Holy Knights must still be close to Gangsas Volcano at the moment. If Remi’s plague army were to suddenly launch an invasion on the Zambez Empire, the two Holy Knights would most definitely choose to exterminate these newfound enemies.

  When that happened, there would be no Fourth Grade Holy Knights holding the line anywhere near Blackmountain City in the south.

  That battlefield would then become the best place for Greem to freely collect all the holy light souls that he desired.

  As for whether this plan would benefit the Deceit Witches? Clearly, that wasn’t Greem’s main focus or priority!

  …………

  Witherwood Valley.

  Six Deceit Witches wrapped in black cloaks were gathered around a campfire inside a well-hidden cave, discussing a matter in hushed voices.

  “We don’t have much time left,” A one-armed witch said solemnly, “The holy knights after us might have been lured to Raven Hill, but they will come to their senses eventually. If they turned around and increased the intensity of their search, the illusion array placed outside Witherwood Valley won’t be able to buy too much time!”

  The one-armed witch might have been explaining the situation and her analysis of it, but her eyes were fixed upon the tall witch that sat in front of them all. It wasn’t just her. All the other witches present in the cave stared at the witch and waiting for her orders.

  The tall witch started coughing the moment she opened her mouth. The sound of her hoarse and wheezing voice was painful to hear, and her withered and scrawny chest rose and fell intensely. It took her a long time to calm the rampaging magical energy within her body.

  “What is the situation at Mistvale?” Finally, she spoke.

  “The holy knights broke through seven hours ago.” A witch with a head full of white hair said in a soft voice.

  “And our sisters?”

  “Two of them have died. The only survivor is already moving west. Judging from the last message she transmitted, the situation is not good!”

  “Soulburial Swamp?”

  “It’s been three days since the last communication.” The voice of the white-haired witch turned softer and softer, “I’m afraid.”

  The faces of the witches all turned dark.

  Once upon a time, they had all been powerful adepts that reigned supreme across all the major planes. Now, after their witch’s tower had been destroyed by the planar natives, they had become no more than street rats, hated and pursued by every being in this world. Such humiliation was enough to drive one to insanity.

  Ever since the tower was razed, their group of witches had been closely pursued by the holy knights like a pack of mad dogs.

  For the sake of preserving their strength and power, the remaining twenty Deceit Witches had no choice but to scatter. They hid from the holy knights and went into hiding around Blackwater City.

  They had barely managed to regain their footing near Blackmountain City. They created five secret hiding spots around the area, each protected with numerous defensive arrays, giving them a chance to rest and lick their wounds.

  Unfortunat
ely, just two to three months later, the holy knights arrived like sharks who smelled blood in the water. From the peak of the tallest mountains to the deepest abyss and valley, the holy knights would find the witches wherever they hid and ‘purify’ them one by one.

  Supposedly, those who could escape from the siege of the holy knights were all powerful witches in their own right. The number of Second Grade Deceit Witches was much higher than that of an ordinary party of witches. Unfortunately, even the most powerful witch would become much less powerful once she had lost all reinforcements, exhausted all her magical materials, and broke all her magical equipment.

  Even the most powerful of Second and Third Grade witches could be worn down to their deaths if they lacked resources!

  In addition, there were simply too many holy knights. Their numbers were shocking, and each of them lunged forward vigorously after the one before them had fallen. Not a single one of them feared death. More terrifyingly, the number of high-grade holy knights pursuing the witches was no fewer than the Deceit Witches themselves.

  Consequently, the twenty-three witches from three months ago had been reduced to just twelve witches. The number of Deceit Witches had reached a tragic low. The ones who had caused all this were the damned knights that still pursued them stubbornly across the world.

  There were originally two Third Grade witches stationed in Henvic Plane. One of them had already died at the hands of the Fourth Grade Holy Knight when their tower was broken. The other Third Grade witch, who had escaped with injuries, was the current leader of this discussion– the tall witch, Tess Xinnaya.

  She had been slashed by a Fourth Grade Holy Knight while she was escaping, destroying more than half of her chest. If it weren’t for the high-grade potions that she carried with her, she would have already died.

  However, the past few years of constant hiding and running left her no time to search for suitable ingredients or potions to treat her wounds. Consequently, though Tess Xinnaya had survived the attack, she had also been left with severe side-effects. As she currently was, she could only fight at the level of an intermediate Second Grade.