“Fifty-fifty!” On the other hand, Greem didn’t seem to care. “If it’s a matter of winning or losing, it could swing either way. However, in a life and death situation, I would have better odds– about a seventy percent chance to win. However, she certainly still has some aces hidden up her sleeve. Even if I were to kill her, I would not be able to escape without severe injuries to myself.”
Billis finally licked his lips in satisfaction after hearing Greem’s evaluation.
Chapter 1242 - The War Tower
When Greem and Billis got off the carriage, they were instantly stunned by the sight of the majestic tower before them.
Bold, magnificent, mysterious, and profound.
Countless words of praise rushed through their minds, surging through their bodies as a warm rush. They could feel their hearts cheer and their emotions soar.
The Tower of Observation’s walls glowed brightly under the warm sun. The tower’s structure wasn’t the traditional cylindrical shape, but a complex, multi-structure configuration consisting of many other, smaller ‘towers’ that split off from the main body.
Many large runic stones covered in intricate magical lines floated high in the air, orbiting the tower along mysterious paths. The unique, green-golden material refracted the sunlight into gold, deep-blue, violet, red, and many other fantastical colors.
Several rainbow bridges that looked almost solid connected the various sub-towers. A terrifying amount of energy surged within these rainbow ‘bridges.’
The central tower connected with these smaller towers through countless air corridors and flying discs. Countless small balconies and gardens were also scattered across the Tower of Observation exterior, all of them covered by an invisible barrier.
If one were to look from above, you could even see the adepts and apprentices strolling within the barriers.
As the area surrounding the Tower of Observation was covered in an anti-flying barrier, and all unauthorized teleportation was restricted, you could only walk up the tower with your own two feet.
However, as Fourth Grade adepts, they still enjoyed quite a lot of privileges and benefits.
When Greem and the others arrived at the entrance to the tower, a twenty-meter-wide flying disc slowly landed in front of them.
“Let’s go, Adept Greem. Since we’re here, why not let me give you a tour of the Adept’s Association!” Adept Horner was being very friendly.
However, Olivia had clearly become impatient.
“Go on your own little tour! I will go look for a certain someone to settle some business.”
Having said that, her body erupted into a cloud of black mist.
When the mist faded, Olivia was nowhere to be seen.
“Follow me!” Horner led the way and stepped onto the flying disc. Greem and Billis followed behind him.
Horner didn’t seem to make any gestures, but the flying disc already started moving up.
Countless apprentices and adepts were walking busily along the vast plaza around the tower. Upon seeing the disc, they couldn’t help but lift their heads and take a look. These people became smaller and smaller in Greem’s vision until they were finally no more than little black dots.
It was impossible to see their faces and figures without casting Eagle Eye on himself!
As the disc continued to gain altitude, everyone and everything on the ground grew smaller and smaller still. Meanwhile, the tower itself and everything on it appeared larger and larger.
As the flying disc continued to rise, a massive runic stone drifted past them. Greem could sense a powerful, perfect, and utterly self-consistent energy circulation system within it.
These runic stones were probably a part of the Tower of Observation’s defenses.
The purpose of their existence was to continuously monitor for unusual spatial fluctuations and energy reactions around the Tower. Upon detecting any abnormality, the runic stones would instantly transform into terrifying cannon platforms to exterminate any intruders before they could even approach.
Greem might have collected some information on runic security stones, but compared to these true masterpieces, what he had researched were no more than trash!
More importantly, these runic stones were not independent entities.
Greem could sense a large, powerful, and mysterious soul controlling all of these. The runic stones were only some of the eyes and appendages available to this entity.
It was inevitable that the Tower of Observation had its own tower spirit– one that was extremely intelligent!
The entire Adept’s Association appeared calm and peaceful, like the perfect, ideal academy and paradise. However, Greem could see streams of energy cutting across the various areas with his unique Elementium Sight. He saw lines of interlocking energy strands, overlapping energy forcefields that concealed each others’ existence.
If the runic stones were the things on the surface, then these were what was hidden in the shadows.
With these two systems combined, one on the surface and one hidden from the public eye, the Tower of Observation’s powerful and flawless defensive system was formed!
The flying disc passed through all these energy fields, continuously meshing with the defensive systems around it. Meanwhile, a strange energy flux radiated from Adept Horner. Through this flux, the flying disc was allowed to pass through the various forcefields and rise above the smaller sub-towers.
The flying disc was still circling upwards.
When they reached the edge of one of the sub-towers, Horner pointed at it and chuckled, “This is the Breeding Tower. Any special beasts that the Association requires can be custom-ordered here and cultivated en masse. Most of the time, we need these beasts to exterminate the native armies of the planar worlds we invade.”
This Breeding Tower was a dirt-yellow color and covered in a transparent elementium barrier. Greem could see the vast space inside the tower through the barrier.
Supported by unusual spatial expansion magic, the inside of the tower was visibly much larger than it appeared to be. Moreover, several smaller spaces had been carved out with static energy barriers, each of which contained all sorts of different magical beasts and creatures.
Several tiny black dots, the size of ants, moved around the space. These were the adepts in charge of monitoring and breeding the beasts.
The flying disc quickly whisked past the Breeding Tower. Greem could only get a glance at the activities within and could not gauge the depth of the Adept’s Association’s research in that field.
“Adept Horner, could I know what the procedure of events is for the Association when dealing with lesser planes?” A thought rose in Greem’s mind, and he couldn’t help but ask.
“What? Are you interested in this?” Horner laughed. “Then let me take you to the War Tower for a tour!”
Having said that, the flying disc turned and began to fly towards another sub-tower in the distance slowly.
The War Tower was actually a ‘miniature’ tower split off as one of the Tower of Observation’s bases.
It wasn’t exactly small, however. In fact, it would be considered a sizable adept tower if it were built in Zhentarim.
The Tower of Observation had a total of seven hundred and seventy-seven levels.
The base of the War Tower split off of the one hundred and thirty-sixth level of the Tower of Observation.
Thus, when the flying disc slowly landed on one of the War Tower platforms, they were already thousands of meters above the ground. Clouds could be seen leisurely drifting by, making this place seem as if it was heaven itself.
The platform wasn’t large; it was only about a hundred square meters in size. Four five-meter-tall metal golems stood there.
When the flying disc landed on the platform, colorful light shone from one of the metal golems’ head. The other golems stood forward, raising their heavy metal swords and going on alert.
However, when the first golem’s scans reached Horner and sensed
the unusual energy flux, all security measures were dispelled.
The metal golems returned to their place and became unmoving statues.
“Let’s go! I will show you around the insides of this place!” Horner walked ahead of them and stepped onto the stone path that led into the tower.
At a thousand meters in the air, it was an incredibly high altitude. Strong gales wailed all around them. Ordinary people would have been scared limp walking on this seemingly unsupported stone path that was only five meters wide.
However, a high-grade adept like Greem could walk calmly and naturally on the path. In fact, he even had the mood to admire the scenery below while he walked.
At the end of the path was a bright door of light that perfectly separated the inside of the tower from the outside.
Passing through here obviously required extremely high clearance, but this could not stop Horner, who was an elder.
The three adepts appeared in front of the door of light, and three holes that were approximately their size opened on the door. When they walked past, the door of light quickly shut again.
The interior of the War Tower was a vast space in every dimension. Metal platforms hovered all over the tower, and a door of light opened onto every one of these platforms. Meanwhile, bright, glowing runes formed rows of numbers above each of the doors.
“…an intermediate rebellion has occurred in Plane JY0367. Reinforcement request has been received. Batserpent Squad, please prepare for battle. The next teleportation shall begin in 25 seconds.”
Greem heard a crisp, female voice reverberating throughout the tower the moment he set foot into the room. A squad of eleven adepts appeared from somewhere and stood on one of the metal platforms.
A large mechanical arm lifted the metal platform through the tower, past countless portals and platforms, and finally stopped at a platform labeled JY0367.
The adept squad, fully equipped, moved onto the metal platform. They stopped for a while before entering the portal in an orderly fashion, led by their leader.
Apart from these sudden teleportations, there were countless mechanical arms in the War Tower that regularly lifted these metal platforms up and down. Adepts could always be seen on these platforms.
When they reached the portal that they wanted to travel through, they would take out a golden bade and press it against the door of light. The door of light would then glow brightly. Once it had wholly stabilized, the adepts would make their way through and vanish.
“This is the War Tower of the Adept’s Association. Every single portal corresponds to a lesser plane we have conquered. Any adept can freely travel to a lesser plane to explore and adventure once they put in an application with the Association. All their spoils will belong to themselves,” Horner proudly explained to Greem.
Greem looked across and was mildly stunned.
There were four or five hundred portals just within his vision.
The size and ferocity of the Adept’s Association potential for war were on full display!
Chapter 1243 - Intimidation
Chapter 1243 Intimidation
“These must be the small and mid-sized planes that you have conquered. How does the Association deal with the more difficult large planes?”
After holding it in for a long time, Greem couldn’t help but ask this question that he had been keeping in his mind the whole time.
After all, there were too few top-class resources that could be found in the small and mid-sized planes. They were more than enough for one or two adepts and perhaps even a small clan, but small planes did not have enough resources to keep a large organization running.
If someone were to tell Greem that a monstrosity like the Adept’s Association was built on the foundation of raiding only small and mid-sized planes, he would never believe it, even with his life on the line.
It didn’t matter how many small or mid-sized planes you invaded. The best you could do was maintain a scarce living as a Fourth Grade adept. To become truly wealthy and allow an organization to continuously expand, invading civilizations that were close to or on par with the World of Adepts was the only option.
Horner sinisterly smiled when he heard Greem’s question. He fell silent for a moment, seemingly communicating with someone far away.
Finally, his eyes landed on Greem once more.
“You are fortunate! For some reason, the old guy looks upon you favorably. He’s made an exception and allowed you to go on a tour of the higher levels of the War Tower. Come with me!”
Horner had just finished speaking when the metal platform beneath them slowly rose to the higher levels, lifted by a giant mechanical arm.
One after another, they passed by the metal platforms, and, one after another, the phantasmal portals were left behind. The metal platform continued to rise unflinchingly until a three-meter-thick blast door stopped it.
“Rafatus, the old guy gave me clearance to bring him on a tour to the higher levels. Open up!” Horner shouted.
“Message connecting. Please wait momentarily,” A sweet, mechanical voice rang out in the air. It seemed like it was the tower spirit of the Tower of Observation that was speaking.
A short moment later, the voice rang out again.
“Clearance confirmed. Welcome, Adept Horner and Adept Greem! All other personnel, please remain behind.”
The mechanical voice had just finished when a bright beam of light was cast on Billis. He vanished without a trace before he could even gasp.
Greem lifted an eyebrow.
“Please do not be concerned. Your follower has been placed in a safe place: Dimension DF7710. He is perfectly safe. I will release him when you leave the War Tower.”
As the voice spoke, a magical mirror appeared. Inside the mirror was an image of Billis, who was imprisoned in an empty alternate dimension. Billis was clearly panicking. Countless black insects shook off from under his cloak, searching for a rift or an exit in this endlessly white space.
Greem waved his hand and created a fire rune in the air. He then whispered a few words. Billis suddenly froze in the image. He listened intently and finally gave up on his pointless resistance. He sat down and waiting silently for the end of his ‘imprisonment.’
The magical mirror vanished.
The thick blast door suddenly split into countless crescent-shaped pieces and retracted into the tower walls, revealing the path upwards.
The metal platform continued rising.
This time, what appeared before Greem was no longer colorful, pretty portals, but dark doors of light that glowed a bleeding, crimson red.
“Plane doors!” Greem took a deep breath and only exhaled after a long pause.
The portals in the lower levels were all teleportation portals. However, these here were plane doors. The difference between the two of them was not just the name. It was a fundamental difference that concerned the very nature of their existence.
Teleportation portals were an ‘inexpensive’ method of teleportation. It was the excavation of a ‘crude’ wormhole between two planes through the use of space magic. It allowed for the simple transportation of workforce and resources.
However, this teleportation method was extremely crude, and adepts that went through this process would have to endure tremendous spatial pressure. It put additional risk and stress on the traveling adepts.
Moreover, teleportation through the use of such portals was easily affected by space tides.
If the adepts traveling through the portal were to run into a spacestorm, then what awaited them was a disaster. They would either be caught up in the spacestorm or teleport to some unknown place.
Both of these options were fairly lethal for intermediate and low-grade adepts!
However, plane doors were different.
Plane doors were planar passages constructed between two planes using sophisticated space magic and techniques. The entire passage was protected by spatial arrays and was incredibly safe and stable.
H
owever, the construction of a plane door required a tremendous number of rare resources. Not every planar world was worth such an investment.
Yet, there were as many as three dozen of these crimson portals on the higher levels of the War Tower.
Each of them had their own heavy, crushing presence. You could sense the traces of otherworldly energy aura radiating from the doorframes, which were carved full of strange patterns.
As Greem and Horner rose even higher up, Greem could see one of the crimson doors vibrate violently. It seemed like a war was going on. Five wide metal escalators reached out from the tower walls and extended towards that door. An endless stream of magical beasts and towering metal golems rushed into that portal without stop.
“That is a door to Darklight, a world with far too many strange creatures that simultaneously possess light and dark power. We have only managed to establish a forward base there so far, and the fighting is still very intense. Five elders have already hurried over there to stabilize the situation. Even so, we haven’t been able to dissuade the native creatures from their crazed assaults on our base.”
“Darklight. How developed is the civilization over there?” Greem asked curiously/
“They are a civilization at the same level as our World of Adepts, only a few thousand years behind, perhaps. However, the power of the natives is too homogeneous. It’s not that difficult to deal with them!”
Greem observed the voodoo beasts and metal golems silently as they swarmed forward. He could make some basic estimations of the intensity of the fighting on the other side of that portal based on the rate at which these foot soldiers were being run down. If a world like this was ‘not difficult to deal with,’ what would a ‘difficult world to conquer’ be like?
Greem wondered to himself, even as he felt sorrow at the tremendous disparity of power between Zhentarim and the Adept’s Association.
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