Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  Thus, while Greem started touring inside of the castle with Laurent’s company, he also supported the Chip’s incredible demand for spiritual energy with all he had.

  Finally, eighty-five seconds after Greem obtained Second Class authority, a cold and elderly voice suddenly appeared in his mind.

  “It’s about time you stop, kid! Hmph! Such a short time here, yet such a big problem has come up for me to deal with.”

  As the voice rang out, the Chip’s mental connection with the data source was abruptly severed. A powerful mental backlash struck at Greem and dazed him for an instant.

  Greem suddenly braced himself against the wall while he was walking with Laurent through a quiet tunnel. He grabbed his throbbing head and tried to collect himself. It took several minutes from him to recover from the mental shockwave. The first thing he saw was Laurent’s sinister and malicious smile.

  “That voice from earlier…” Greem moaned and asked.

  “That was Chairman Freed!” Laurent laughed, “You used your authority to go peek at the Association’s information, didn’t you? That is the result of the Association’s accumulation over thousands of years. The chairman won’t let an outsider like you browse through the information like that, so it’s only natural that he has to make you suffer a little bit!”

  No wonder Laurent was laughing in such a relaxed and unconcerned fashion. After all, it had barely been a minute between Greem obtained the Second Class authority and being kicked out by the chairman. What could he have done with this amount of time? He probably hadn’t even managed to read through the Table of Contents for the Association’s more classified information!

  Chairman Freed held the same belief.

  If only they knew that Greem had a potent Chip in his mind that excelled at data calculations and storage, they wouldn’t be so relaxed now.

  Greem silently communicated with the Chip as he rubbed his head and groaned in pain.

  What the Chip had just connected to earlier was actually the mental world of Kerslin. The Association had spent so much to awaken an entire castle into an independent consciousness. Naturally, they would want to strengthen it as much as possible so that it could serve as their hidden trump card.

  If the castle were compared to an adept tower, then there was no doubt that Kerslin was the tower spirit.

  Almost all the information and communications within the Association were conducted through the massive alchemical lifeform consciousness that was Kerslin. Thus, the Chip had begun hastily copying and downloading data and information to the limits of its authority the moment it entered this vast and boundless consciousness space.

  According to the Chip’s calculations, it had only managed to download and copy 3.5% of all the information. It might sound like very little, but considering that this was the sum of all the information and knowledge that the Zhentarim Association had gathered in the thousands of years since its establishment, 3.5% was already an insane number!

  While Greem rubbed his head and feigned agony, Laurent looked up into the empty air and focused, as if he was listening to something.

  He then turned and smiled at Greem.

  “Follow me. Lord Freed wishes to see you!”

  Greem’s heart trembled. The pained expression on his face instantly disappeared, replaced with one of solemnity.

  Fourth Grade adept. That was a Fourth Grade adept! Now, that Fourth Grade adept wanted to see him.

  Even though Greem had already crossed swords with a Fourth Grade adept, he still felt fear every time he recalled that feeling of having his Spirit suppressed.

  Perhaps sensing Greem’s uneasiness, Adept Laurent consoled him, “Don’t worry, the chairman won’t be putting you on the spot. This was started by Kerslin, after all. The chairman won’t vent his anger on you over this incident!”

  Greem smiled without a word and started walking to the upper levels of the castle under Laurent’s lead.

  Having been distracted by the whole incident from earlier, Greem hadn’t paid much attention to the internal design of the castle. Now that he had calmed down, he could take a better look. An unusual sense of familiarity mysteriously arose within him.

  This familiar passage, these familiar walls, these familiar stone doors…

  “What does this place have to do with the Winds of Freedom?” Greem suddenly asked.

  Laurent was still leading at the front. He chuckled and replied without turning back, “You finally realized! The Winds of Freedom is actually a Spiritual Illusion Realm created by Kerslin. Most of the buildings there are consciousness projections of Kerslin Castle. If you have been spending some time in the Winds of Freedom, you will naturally feel an odd sense of familiarity towards this castle!”

  So that’s what it was! Greem nodded his head silently.

  …………

  Greem finally met the legendary Association chairman in a secret room at one of the upper levels of the castle.

  It was an old adept whose eyebrows, beard, and hair had all turned white. He wore a white adept’s robe on his person, along with a pointed adept’s hat. He had all sorts of magical rings on all ten of his fingers; powerful and radiant magical aura could be sensed all over his body where magical accessories could be worn.

  Greem couldn’t help but fall utterly speechless.

  His Elementium Sight distinctly showed that the chairman had a total of twenty-seven concentrated sources of magical flux on his person. All of these sources of magic were magical items of Third Grade and above. With the number of magical weapons he had, the chairman would be able to wipe out most of his opponents just by releasing each of his magical weapons once.

  Ignoring the individual prowess of the chairman, the value of these magical items alone was beyond the ability of an ordinary Fourth Grade adept.

  An absolute tycoon. The chairman was the most affluent man that Greem had ever seen!

  Greem might have been slightly proud of his own magical equipment. However, compared to the chairman, he couldn’t help but feel somewhat ashamed at the inferiority of his magic items.

  “You are Greem?” Chairman Freed narrowed his eyes and took a good look at Greem. After a while, he finally nodded and said, “Not bad, not bad all. You are just as excellent as they make you out to be. If I’m not mistaken, your Spirit has reached 39 points, hasn’t it?”

  Greem knew that his spiritual condition could not be concealed. As such, he simply nodded and acknowledged it.

  Laurent, who had accompanied him here, lifted his head in surprise. There was a trace of shock in his eyes when he looked at Greem.

  The last time he had met Greem at Rhein City, Greem had been no more than a Second Grade junior. Yet, after just mere decades, he…he had exceeded Laurent himself. That…that was too unbelievable!

  Thirty-nine points of Spirit. It had been four to five hundred years since Laurent had advanced to Third Grade, yet he had only managed to increase his Spirit to 37 points. That might sound close to peak Third Grade, but Laurent knew his own condition. The closer his Spirit got to the summit of Third Grade, the slower the progression of his meditation.

  It was the main reason why Third Grade adepts start adventuring everywhere once they sensed their meditation becoming fruitless in improving their powers. They hoped to have their Spirit increase by the stimulation of danger and the risk of death, while also hoping to find unusual treasures or magical methods to aid the increase of their Spirit.

  After all, meditating for decades while failing to sense any trace of progress was incredible torture to a person’s spirit. No ordinary person would be able to bear it!

  However, this legendary fire adept had somehow managed to cross the threshold of Second to Third Grade in less than a hundred years. Did he genuinely have such stunning talent and potential, or did he possess some sort of strange treasure?

  Laurent’s mind was disrupted and started to wander aimlessly. He tuned out of the conversation between Greem and the chairman entirely.

&nbs
p; “My lord, I heard you wished to see me. Is there anything that you want to ask of me?” Greem hesitated for a moment but finally chose to be straightforward.

  The two of them were on entirely different levels of existence. The manner and perspective by which they looked at issues were completely different from each other. As such, Greem didn’t dare to play any tricks in front of this honorable and powerful Fourth Grade adept.

  A strange smile appeared on Adept Freed’s face when he heard Greem’s question. He chuckled slightly and asked, “Have you ever heard of…origin substances?”

  Chapter 1028 - Temptation

  “Origin substance.”

  Greem spoke the name out loud in his heart. He did not say anything, but his gleaming eyes betrayed his thoughts.

  Of course, he knew what origin substances were.

  It was a scarce and valuable item, a top-class resource that typically belonged exclusively to Fourth Grade adepts.

  More concretely, origin substances were a strange resource created under unique circumstances, when planar laws manifested and combined with materials in the world.

  Ordinarily, planar origins were hidden behind the planar law and the frame of the world. They were a part of the continuously flowing laws of the world, impossible to capture by any means.

  When a planar world has been heavily injured and was incapable of maintaining its stability and completeness, spacestorms could break through the world membrane and destroy the interior of the plane. It was only then that a portion of the planar origin would scatter due to the shattering of the plane’s law system. The reason that starbeasts liked to invade planar worlds so much was mainly out of their desire to devour these delicious planar origins.

  Starbeasts could isolate and devour planar origins by tearing apart plane barriers and destroying the balance of the world.

  That was the natural course of growth and development for a starbeast!

  As such, it wasn’t hard to see why starbeasts were known as enemies of planar worlds and mortal opponents of all living beings.

  Very few ancient adepts of the past had managed to step past the level of the planar laws. The main reason for that was due to the intangible nature of these laws, which made them nigh-impossible to grasp or comprehend. One could only rely on a shocking amount of talent and luck while spending an incredible amount of time to experience and understand the laws slowly.

  It was the most challenging process to complete!

  Should a person be stuck on the comprehension of planar laws, their only conclusion would be hundreds of years of stagnation, culminating in a resentful death when their lifespan invariably came to an end. It was the same for everyone, even if you were incredibly talented and incomparably powerful.

  Innumerable geniuses and prodigies had been stuck at the peak of Fourth Grade in this manner over the hundreds of thousands of years in the World of Adepts’ history. They became meteors that flickered through the sky, shining only for a brief moment, simply because they could not master the power of laws.

  Many among the adepts were wise and intelligent people. They exhausted their wits and tried everything to solve this daunting problem. Finally, brave adepts who dared venture into damaged and broken planes unexpectedly found the strange resources that were origin substances. They analyzed and figured out the mechanisms behind their formation.

  From then on, some powerful adepts also began to intentionally destroy planes in hopes of inducing the formation of such origin substances. The appearance of large numbers of these substances made it a hundred times easier for modern adepts to experience and comprehend the planar laws, as compared to the ancient adepts.

  This resulted in there being ten times as many Great Adepts as the ancient times.

  However, the act of destroying a mature planar world and indirectly killing the tens of billions of lifeforms within, all for the sake of some origin substances, was simply too evil. The more the adepts committed such atrocities, the more they became hated and despised by other races.

  The adepts were classified as an evil faction in the records of many planar worlds, alongside the demons of the World of Abyss and the Scourge Lords of the World of Disasters. It also had much to do with the fact that adepts often freely engaged in the use of blood rituals wherever they went.

  With the increased number of Great Adepts appearing in recent years, attempts were made to improve the adepts’ image throughout the universe. Rules were set forbidding the intentional destruction of a plane for the sake of harvesting origin substances. That caused the supply of origin substances to shrink dramatically in the past few thousand years.

  In the World of Adepts, origin substances of any attribute or nature were classified as Fourth Grade items and sold at a breathtaking price.

  It was precisely the rarity of origin substances that made them top-class resources fought over by the Fourth Grade adepts alone. Ordinary Third Grade adepts had no means by which to obtain any of them.

  Greem’s heart couldn’t help but start beating furiously when he heard Adept Freed abruptly mention origin substances. He had a strange feeling in his heart.

  “It seems like you already know what origin substances are. Then I’ll skip over the explanation of their function.” A smile with a trace of slyness appeared on Adept Freed’s face. “Well then, Sir Greem, are you interested in obtaining some origin substances?”

  “Lord Freed, if you have something to say, you can be direct about it! As long as it is within my ability, I will not decline!”

  “Good, good, good.” A wide smile immediately appeared on Freed’s face when he heard Greem’s answer. “It’s been a long time since we have had a new Fourth Grade adept in our Zhentarim. As such, the Association intends to gather the most famous Third Grade adepts of the central region together for a fair tournament, from which we will choose a winner!”

  At this point, Adept Freed paused for an instant before narrowing his eyes and continuing. “The reward for the winner is admission into the Association with the privileges and benefits of a Fourth Grade adept, as well as five hundred Siths of origin substance.”

  Greem’s heart stopped momentarily and only resumed beating after a long, long pause.

  Sith was the unit measurement for origin substance.

  Origin substances were unique in nature. They had no weight nor volume and could attach themselves to any material. They could only be absorbed with non-elemental crystals to ensure that their law attributes were not ‘polluted’ by plane substances.

  Origin substances were always in short supply in auctions and private transactions between high-grade adepts.

  However, origin substances that were offered up in auctions and trades were mostly inferior ones that had been polluted by plane substances. The law attributes within the substance had already been corroded and fouled by the elementium in the environment. Truly high-grade origin substances only ever existed in the private collections of high-grade adepts, hidden away from prying eyes. They were never shown to the public.

  What Freed was currently talking about had to be referring to those high-grade origin substances!

  To Greem’s understanding, five hundred Siths of origin substance wasn’t a lot at all.

  According to calculations done in the past, the amount of origin substance required for a Fourth Grade adept to experience and master the planar laws was dependent on individual talent and potential. Those who were extremely talented would only need seven thousand Siths of origin substance, while the less fortunate ones might need to use anywhere between twenty to fifty thousand Siths.

  The total amount of origin substance that adepts could harvest by forcibly destroying a small plane was no more than ten thousand Siths!

  As such, the cost of cultivating a Great Adept that had stepped past Fourth Grade was shockingly high. It was beyond what an ordinary adept clan could bear.

  Five hundred Siths might be far from enough to raise a Fourth Grade adept to Fifth Grade, but it would be
enough for a peak Third Grade adept to successfully cross the threshold and become one of those influential Fourth Grades of the world!

  Greem was confident that he would be able to advance to Fourth Grade in one to two hundred years, even without the origin substance. However, the time it would take for him to advance would be shortened by an unimaginable extent if he could get his hands of these origin substances.

  The temptation of five hundred Siths of origin substance was incomparably massive to him!

  Tournament…origin substance.

  Greem listened to every word that Freed said and pondered every one of them. He had suspicions about the motives of the Association.

  The Fourth Grade adepts of the Association most definitely had reserves of origin substances, though they may have come in varying amounts. That was their guarantee of advancing to Fifth Grade. It was too little, even if they were to use them all for themselves. Why would they ever have the kindness to offer up the origin substances they had gone to such lengths to obtain as a prize for their juniors?

  It was not in line with the selfish nature of the adepts!

  The Association had to be hiding a conspiracy behind this tournament they were organizing. However, Greem had no way of figuring out their intentions and secrets with his current status and identity.

  “Who will be participating in this tournament?” Greem asked solemnly.

  “There were only three veteran Third Grade adepts scheduled to participate: Gallow of the Dener Clan, Dante of the Annemdor Academy, and Sanazar of the Sarubo Clan. Given your excellent performance in the last adept clan war, many of the elders in the Association suggested you be added to the list of participants. How about it, kid? Are you willing to join this tournament?”

  At this moment, even the Chip, with all its computation abilities, could not calculate all of the benefits and risks of the tournament. Greem could only rely on his own analysis and judgment.

  There was undoubtedly danger behind this.

  However, the presence of danger signaled opportunity as well.