Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  Even Tulas felt excited at the thought of soon possessing an ultra-grade item.

  While the two powerful spellcasters were scheming their own plans, Sshina was cursing furiously in a corner of the ice palace.

  “Bastard! Bastard! Bastard! Kanganas, where did you find this absolute monster! I thought the ice dragon was a freak, but now, it seems like the real freak had been hiding by my side all along. Bastards! This battle is way beyond my level already! I can’t stay here any longer, or I will turn into a stepping stone for those bastards.”

  Sshina cursed angrily as she lunged at the edge of the mist as quick as lightning.

  The battle had escalated severely at this point. It was no longer a fight that small fry like herself could be involved in now. If she insisted on staying here despite the situation, she would become the variable that all the competitors would focus on getting rid of first.

  It couldn’t be helped. Only the most powerful individuals of the party had the right to obtain a powerful treasure. At the very best, the second and third most powerful could give it a try. However, the best a small fry like herself could get were some leftovers.

  However, the fact that the inconspicuous human adept was the largest raid boss hiding in the party was beyond her expectations. Sshina became nervous at the thought of all the cold words she had directed at the human along the way. She started to curse herself for her lack of foresight.

  “Bastards! Bastards! All bastards! They’re all so powerful, and they just want to pretend like they are the rookies. Hmph! I curse you all! May none of you leave this palace of ice!”

  Sshina spat and slithered out of the ice palace in the blink of an eye.

  Chapter 1268 - Hell of Ice and Fire

  The ice palace, on top of the mysterious platform.

  Starspirit Tulas was still diligently analyzing the mysterious patterns carved onto the platform. However, he had no choice but to put this task on hold when he was halfway through.

  It couldn’t be helped. The dragon had returned!

  The brutal battle between the fire adept and the dragon that Tulas had been expecting did not happen. Or rather, it was over too quickly. As a result, Tulas was now stuck on the platform as the dragon returned before he could find the entrance into the hidden passage.

  Even Tulas felt his heart quiver with sympathy when he saw the skeletal ice dragon emerge from the mist.

  It was in such a terrible condition!

  Ever since it forcibly converted itself from an ice dragon into a skeletal dragon, all of Nax’s scales and flesh had vanished. The dragon only had its steel-like skeletal frame and those horrifying massive bone spikes on its spine.

  What filled the space between its bones and its chest cavity was bright blue ice energy. The blue ice energy completely filled up the dragon’s chest and skull, even causing strange, flickering ice runes to form on the bones’ surfaces.

  A layer of translucent ice crystals covered every inch of Nax’s bones. To attack Nax’s body itself, you would first have to penetrate its forcefield and shatter that layer of frost.

  It was only possible to injure the skeletal dragon if you were able to break through these two layers of primary defenses!

  However, while Nax remained within this frost-filled palace, it practically had a limitless pool of power to draw upon. It could freely use the devastating power of ice energy.

  This place was its lair and its home!

  No Fourth Grade creature could possibly defeat Nax in this palace of ice while it possessed the Ancient Reliquary of Deep Winter.

  However, there were always exceptions!

  The only thing that could beat an ultra-grade artifact was another ultra-grade artifact!

  Nax, who didn’t dare carry the Ancient Reliquary on its person and relied only on the ice energy within, naturally lost instantly against Greem, who had two ultra-grade artifacts on him.

  Terrifying golden flames burned furiously on the dragon’s body. It didn’t matter how it beat at the flames or gathered ice energy; it simply couldn’t extinguish the fire. Golden fire and blue frost clashed wildly over the dragon’s body. They thrashed and rampaged wildly against each other, almost causing all the energy in the dragon’s body to go into unrest.

  This once elegant, proud, holy, and magnificent Skeletal Ice Dragon Nax was now half-engulfed in flames and half-covered in ice. The two unusual law powers fought with Nax’s body as the battlefield, its life and energy as the fuel viciously lashing at the opponent.

  Meanwhile, with every clash, they exhausted more and more of Nax’s already waning life force.

  Nax was practically blinded from all the smoke and fire. It stumbled its way back to the mysterious platform.

  What the dragon needed most at the moment was the aid of the reliquary.

  Only the pure and plentiful ice energy within the reliquary could put out the stubborn flames burning on its body. However, when it approached the platform, it instantly noticed that damned starspirit trying to decipher the magical protection array.

  Nax was on the verge of madness.

  Even though Nax had been badly injured by the fire laws, it still possessed its mighty Strength and incomparable Dragontongue magic. It would never be afraid of a cowardly ‘thief’!

  Nax opened its maw, and a strange breath of ice and fire rolled towards the blue ball of light.

  Dammit! How did the dragon return so quickly?

  Tulas cursed to himself as void energy flickered in his body. Several void energy shields appeared in front of him, blocking the breath of ice and fire.

  It wouldn’t have been much if the breath was composed only of fire and ice. These shields formed out of void energy could perfectly defend against elementium particles of any attribute. However, the two law powers attached to the dragon’s breath were what was most scary about the attack.

  The laws wildly destabilized the void energy as they continued to tussle between themselves.

  The void energy shields shattered into stardust with a clear crack as the dragon’s breath concluded.

  The next second, Nax opened its scorched maw wide and snapped at the starspirit’s mysterious and beautiful body.

  Dammit! Law powers of two attributes, and two severely conflicting ones at that.

  Tulas didn’t even have time to curse. His silhouette flickered as he teleported a hundred meters away, dodging the maw of the dragon.

  The moment it appeared, the skeletal dragon’s equally burned tail lashed through the mist down from above.

  This place was Nax’s home field, after all. No trace of energy changes or disruptions could escape its notice. As Tulas didn’t want to stray too far from the platform, he was immediately struck by the dragon’s combo attack after teleporting away.

  Even Tulas could not react in time now.

  The slender, yet thick, dragon’s tail crushed several newly formed shields and whipped Tulas on its cloud-like body.

  There were no sounds of cracking bones or splitting flesh. This ball of blue light was scattered by the terrible force, along with all the starry nodes within.

  The blue ball vanished instantly.

  When it once again reappeared, it was in the mist five hundred meters away.

  The cluster of stars only managed to take shape after some difficult reforming and reassembling. However, the body of the starspirit had lost over half of its star nodes. The void energy that formed the shell of the body was also thirty percent gone.

  “Dammit! Dammit! This is a terrible loss!” Tulas propped himself up with much difficulty and said resentfully, “My void circuits were scattered, and I’ve even lost thirty percent of my void energy. I won’t be able to recover such losses without a hundred years of rest! Damned dragon. I will make you pay for this.”

  Tulas started to mobilize his void energy as he cursed quietly.

  Soon, countless strange lights shot in every direction, and the starspirit’s shining body disappeared into the mist again.

 
Nax hurried onto the platform while Tulas was still routed. A strange array appeared when Nax’s aura came into contact with the dense blocks of runes. This array completely engulfed the skeletal dragon.

  The dragon’s soul aura communicated with the array of runes to conduct a series of verifications and confirmations. Finally, a pillar of light shone from the center of the platform. A small opening appeared on the platform’s smooth surface and dense ice energy–so dense it had almost turned solid–surged out.

  The liquid ice energy broke down into dense mist upon coming into contact with the air outside. The fog spread outwards. Nax impatiently put his jaws at the opening, greedily absorbing this liquid ice energy.

  Strangely enough, the moment the ice energy entered its body, all of the golden flames were instantly extinguished. Blue ice energy was once again the dominant force in Nax’s body. Even the dragon bones that had been exposed by the shattered frost were once again covered in an armor of ice.

  However, an unusually pale streak of death energy entered its body along with the ice energy.

  The addition of this death energy instantly caused the dragon’s still powerful life aura to become weaker and duller. Its lovely bones started to turn black, then yellow, as the aura of rot unique to undead creatures crept further around Nax’s soul.

  As a once proud and majestic dragon, Nax hated undead creatures with a passion!

  However, for the sake of more power, Nax had no choice but to abandon its pride and glory as a dragon and embrace its identity as an undead. For Nax, who viewed its glory as its very life, this decision was a huge blow to its soul!

  However, at this moment of life and death, Nax no longer had the luxury to hesitate.

  Nax inhaled violently, letting the ferocious ice energy and sinister death energy baptize its soul and turn it into a suitable host for the Fifth Grade Reliquary.

  If no outsiders appeared, Nax could have dragged out this process over the course of a few hundred years. In doing so, the pain that its soul would have to endure could be spread out over the countless years.

  It no longer had time. It could only risk its own life to make immediate modifications to its body!

  The risk of a failure in modification had risen exponentially in doing so.

  Nax reared its head and let out a roar of agony. Its once bright blue body covered in frost was now rotting and falling apart at a visible pace. Ice energy and death energy were intertwined together as they sprinted throughout its body. It was almost as if the dragon had been infected by ink that was rapidly spreading all over, turning his bones brittle and black.

  Such a compound modification of both the soul and the body was a tremendous impact on the soul. An ordinary person would never be able to endure it.

  Even Nax, the skeletal dragon, could only howl desperately to express the indescribable agony it was suffering!

  The mist continued to ripple.

  Two figures slowly walked towards the platform, one from the right and one from the left.

  They looked at the roaring dragon on the platform, then at each other. Their eyes were filled with unconcealable greed and caution of their rival.

  “I never expected how much of your power you kept hidden,” Kanganas was the first to speak. “It seems like you have managed to make the Libram of Wisdom submit. Otherwise, there is no way you’d have such tremendous power!”

  His crimson soulfire swept across the tome-shaped equipment in Greem’s hand, his gaze filled with regret.

  If he knew the Libram of Wisdom was so powerful, he would have obtained it at all costs, even if it meant injuring himself to defeat this fire adept.

  However, it was too late to say anything now.

  The fire adept had obviously managed to subdue the Libram of Wisdom fully and turn it into his magical equipment. Obsessing over matters of the past was simply unwise.

  Chapter 1269 - Persuading the Lich

  “I let you have the Libram of Wisdom last time. You…won’t be fighting with me over the Ancient Reliquary of Deep Winter again, will you?”

  Kanganas asked with an unmoving expression.

  However, his tone was somber, even carrying with it a trace of caution.

  It couldn’t be helped. The terrifying attack that the fire adept had unleashed earlier was too shocking. Even a creature as powerful as Nax had turned and fled, running all the way back to the platform to heal his wounds. Kanganas himself wouldn’t have fared much better than Nax.

  That was why Greem’s attitude would be a decisive factor before Kanganas engaged the dragon in battle. He had no choice but to take that into consideration.

  “That’s an ultra-grade item, one with dual-attributes. Don’t you think you should compensate me somehow if you’re making me give up on such a treasure!?” Greem had pulled his hood behind his head now, revealing his young and handsome face.

  Golden flames burned within his eyes, a glowing crystal on his forehead, a heavy tome in his left hand, a strange staff in his right, and a fire forcefield all around him.

  Shadow Demon lurked beside him, phasing in and out of sight. Greem was not moving a muscle, but all of these factors gave him a ferocious and powerful aura that engulfed the entire room.

  Reality always had the final say!

  True power was the ultimate bargaining chip in a negotiation.

  “I can provide you with a small resource plane in exchange. The profit made from that plane is fairly impressive. I can guarantee an annual profit of two million magical crystals at the very least!” Kanganas grit his teeth and put forth his offer.

  “A small plane…two million crystals,” Greem couldn’t help but smile, “If you think that sort of income is comparable to a dual-attribute principle artifact, then how about I give you a small plane and the Reliquary goes to me?”

  “Then three more Fourth Grade undead servants along with the plane. I can transfer the authority over their souls to you. You will instantly gain three Fourth Grade subordinates for your use!” Kanganas’ soulfire was trembling as he made this offer.

  Fourth Grade undead servants. Those were no common cabbages. Even Kanganas couldn’t produce Fourth Grade undead at will.

  Creating a Fourth Grade undead didn’t just require various high-grade materials; they also needed complete, powerful souls. Once Kanganas had managed to obtain these materials, he would have a chance of creating a Fourth Grade undead through his exceptional necromancy skills.

  The undead created through necromancy and alchemy might not be as ferocious as wild undead, but they were more loyal and dependable. The cost of making such undead meant that even a lich of Kanganas’ power, despite having control over an entire skeletal plane, did not have more than ten Fourth Grade undead.

  Giving away three of them was as painful for Kanganas as cutting off his own flesh. It was pain that reached all the way to the bone marrow.

  If he didn’t absolutely want to obtain the Reliquary, he would never make such a sacrifice.

  As he appreciated the sorrowful ‘expression’ on the lich’s white and smooth skull, Greem finally said, “Since you are so reluctant to part with your resource plane and your subordinates, I won’t take them from you after all.”

  Upon hearing this, Kanganas was shocked, and his aura started rising in response.

  “Are……you going to go back on your word to help me? ”

  “I can consider letting you have the artifact, but on the condition that……”

  “That? ”

  “You serve me for a hundred years!”

  The crimson soulfire in the lich’s eye socket blazed furiously when he heard this. Even the two rubies that were embedded in his eye sockets couldn’t conceal the flaring blaze of his soulfire.

  “You are humiliating me! Human adept, even we liches have dignity! Our soul is free. We will never be someone’s servant. If you want to enslave a lich, you are welcome to try with all you have!”

  It was obvious that Kanganas was very sensitive and stu
bborn on this matter. He looked as if he would rather die than bend the knee, prepared to fight to his death if needed.

  “The service I’m speaking of isn’t the enslavement of your soul. I am simply inviting you to be a guest elder at my clan. I guarantee that I will not make you do anything in these hundred years that would put your life in danger. All you have to do is register with my Crimson Clan as an elder, open up an undead branch in the clan academy and take in a few human apprentices.

  “Of course, if any problems appear with the clan, you should help to the best of your abilities. Not only will I not touch any of your possessions or assets within these one hundred years, but I will also provide you with the authority and resources that an elder is entitled to. How does that sound like to you? Acceptable?”

  Kanganas looked at Greem as he smoothly offered his conditions. The lich couldn’t help but be suspicious. “Greem, what exactly is it that you want? I don’t believe you are so kind as to help me!”

  Greem seemed to be prepared for the lich’s suspicion. He casually replied, “Kanganas, even if you obtain the Ancient Reliquary of Deep Winter, will you be able to completely assimilate it within a hundred years?”

  The lich had obviously considered this question before. Kanganas replied without hesitation, “Impossible! It is a Fifth Grade dual-attribute principle artifact. Even with my power, a complete assimilate would take upwards of two hundred years.”

  “That settles it, doesn’t it?” Greem chuckled as he said, “You won’t be roaming around for the next two hundred years once you get the reliquary anyway. Why not come over to my clan and be a guest elder for the duration?

  “You have so many high-grade undead under your command. Just send some fellow to deal with the whole academy and administrative side of things. You can find a secluded place and do your research in the meantime. Not to mention, the resources in our World of Adepts have to be much more plentiful than that Alliance of Liches you’re in! You are free to collect any resources you require through the Crimson Clan’s channels.