The entire adept faction was currently waging war with five separate forces. Moreover, they had all scattered recruitment orders to the camps. Any adept interested in these missions or wanting to train their will in trials of life and death could voluntarily sign up for these missions.
The rewards for these missions were bountiful as well!
At the very least, they were much more bountiful than staying in camp without doing anything.
In that regard, Sainz hadn’t been planning anything malicious when recommending the mission to Greem.
The descriptions of all the missions were similar. Some of them were about attacking the Gazing Empire, some about a war against the Abyssal World, and some were about invading the draconic planes. The point being that manpower was needed everywhere. Everybody was preparing for war. It was entirely different from the casual and laid back adept lifestyle that Greem had expected.
After a long pause, Greem couldn’t suppress his curiosity about the large-scale planar wars in the end. He contacted Sainz.
Sainz was overjoyed to hear an affirmative response from Greem. It made Greem suspicious that Sainz would be able to obtain some benefits as an intermediary.
However, Greem couldn’t be bothered with these insignificant details. Instead, he put all his attention into arranging matters within the camp.
Greem left the issue of constructing an adept tower in the Fire Elementium Plane to Split-Brain Sock. Greem had left planar coordinates there. With the aid of Fourth Grade Emberweb Spider Lasbes, the construction of the tower should be safe from disruption by other fire creatures.
The only difficulty now was building construction machines that could endure the harsh environment of the Fire Elementium Plane and purchasing materials in bulk.
There was no hurrying these affairs. One had to take their time with it.
According to the Chip’s calculations, the tower would not be completed for another five or six years.
Greem had nothing to do in the camp during this time anyway. He might as well take a look at the large-scale planar wars that Sainz had spoken of. That might be a good thing after all.
At any rate, these recruitment orders weren’t compulsory. Greem could cast his duty aside and walk away if he wasn’t doing well. He didn’t need to worry about being assigned to the most dangerous areas of fighting like last time.
It was the fundamental reason why Greem had been willing to accept the mission!
Of course, the tremendous mission rewards were a factor as well, albeit a secondary factor.
Resource planes, origin substances, slaves- these things were valuable, but you would always be able to find them if you were willing to collect them patiently. However, Fifth Grade materials were very hard to find in these camps.
Greem had been incredibly fortunate to have obtained Fifth Grade materials in the war before this. He had not found them all that valuable, but upon taking a look at the market of Camp Exodar, he was surprised to find that there was an absolute lack of Fifth Grade materials. No one was willing to put them up for sale.
Even when Fifth Grade materials were traded, it was in the form of private transactions.
The Fifth Grade materials that Greem had obtained prior to this involved the body of a many-headed lizard and the corpse and soul of the many-armed giant. That said, the principle crystals were the only things from the bodies that he could really use. The rest of the stuff was valuable, but he could only leave them sealed in an alternate dimension for the moment.
Of course, if Greem were a master-class golem master, he might be able to turn that tattered body of the many-armed giant into a Fifth Grade voodoo beast.
In doing so, Greem would obtain a Fifth Grade helper!
Unfortunately, the most powerful golem master of Camp Exodar was only Fourth Grade. Someone like that didn’t have the ability to process such valuable Fifth Grade materials.
Greem would rather wait than let these materials go to waste. He had no choice but to let them gather dust in a warehouse!
The principle crystal of the many-armed giant was of the earth elementium. It wasn’t suited for Greem and couldn’t be absorbed. He could only try to exchange it for a fire principle crystal.
As for the soul and magical core that he had extracted from the giant? That could be used to create a Fifth Grade magical golem. Successfully forging such a golem would require some fairly valuable Fifth Grade materials. Yet, these things were exactly the ones that were hardest to find on the market.
Greem could only put his hopes in the mission’s Fifth Grade material reward!
One had to admit that adepts were very efficient when they mobilized.
Sainz informed Greem that he would need to depart on the sixth day after agreeing to take on the mission.
…………
This place was a giant stone fortress drifting in the depths of space.
Its size was comparable to the main continents of many small planar worlds. The only ones that could set foot in this fortress were powerful adepts and elite adept armies from the various camps.
Right now, the light of teleportation was fading away from a balcony on the seventy-third floor of the stone castle. A tall and muscular young was revealed.
“You must be Great Adept Greem of Camp Exodar! Please report to Lord Erlenwald in War Room 7,” It was a strange adept with a bird’s head who was stationed outside the array. He was only Third Grade, but the energy in his body was unlike any other adept that Greem had ever seen before.
Greem stood silently for a moment. After enduring the mild discomfort of the ultra-long-range teleportation, he finally had a chance to take a good look at his surroundings.
Above him was a dark curtain speckled with stars. A giant energy barrier enveloped the stone fortress, protecting it from the magic tides outside and making the environment within much more tolerable.
Though the magic winds that blew within the barrier were not as savage as those outside, their energy radiation was still beyond what ordinary creatures could hope to survive. The Chip estimated that any being that wished to move freely in this environment would have to be advanced Second Grade at least.
While Greem looked around, a white light flashed across several balconies nearby. Loud rumblings sounds could be heard as numerous adept powerhouses appeared in this stone fortress that represented one of the nexuses of the adept wars.
Chapter 1451 - An Old Acquaintance
Greem left the platform and passed through a stone corridor suspended in midair. He arrived at a wooden door that led into the stone fortress.
Two magical statues equipped with a sword and shield stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the wooden door.
Upon sensing Greem’s approach, a thin red beam shot out from a black hole in the center of the statues’ heads toward his body.
[Beep. Detecting appraisal-magic fluctuation. Are countermeasures required?]
“No need!”
Greem stood there silently and let the red beams sweep across him.
The magical statues then stepped aside to the left and right. A magical voice rang out from within them.
“Scan complete. Please enter!”
Behind the door was a long stone corridor, three meters wide and five meters high. It extended to the left and right with many wooden doors along the way.
Greem had just stepped through the wooden doorway when a young female adept who had been waiting here hastily bowed. She said in her sweet voice, “Welcome, Lord Greem!”
Greem glanced at the adept with his dark red eyes and instantly saw through all her statistics.
Third Grade, elementium adept, wind affinity.
Even though the female adept looked like a human female, her internal construction was starkly different from an ordinary human. Her appearance also showed heavy signs of magical modification and reconstruction.
A humanoid creature. Lesser plane…a foreign adept.
A series of words flashed across Greem’s mi
nd. He seemed to have understood where the female adept came from.
The young female adept trembled beneath Greem’s cold gaze. She could sense that, in one instant, all of her secrets had been exposed to this mysterious Fifth Grade Great Adept.
The tremendous difference in their grades made her shiver like a rabbit in front of a tiger. She had no choice but to resist the instinctual fear in her soul with her resilient Spirit.
Fortunately, Greem ended his scan with the Chip almost immediately. Otherwise, the sheer spiritual pressure and energy radiation he gave off would be enough to hurt her mentally.
“Over here, my lord! You just arrived here, so you will need to meet Adept Gerritsen first. He’s in charge of recruitment matters.” The young adept had clearly received training. The smile on her face was just as sweet as ever, even as her body trembled in fear.
“Gerritsen?” Greem hesitated for a moment.
“He’s a Sixth Grade Great Adept in charge of receiving adepts like you who have answered the recruitment orders. Moreover, he is also responsible for the assignment of missions later,” The female adept emphasized the last sentence as she spoke, as if hinting something to Greem.
Greem nodded and said nothing more.
The two of them quickly walked down the winding stone corridor of the fortress. They passed by numerous security points guarded by elite adepts. All these elite adepts looked toward Greem with respect and envy when they saw the young adept escorting him.
They passed through all the corridors on the outer layer and stepped into another stone corridor suspended in midair. It was an entire kilometer long. This stone passage was the only corridor connecting the outer layer of the fortress to the inner region. As such, the amount of security and detection runes attached to it was shocking.
Greem slowly walked down the stone corridor. He had the leisure to appreciate the magnificent sights below and around him.
This place was a passage suspended in midair.
Several stone platforms hovered in the dark and boundless space around it. Each platform was several kilometers wide, packed to the brim with powerful, ferocious voodoo beasts and mighty war statues.
These soldiers stood silently in the darkness. Even the most vicious of voodoo beasts remained absolutely silent. Only their eyes were open, glowing with a savage, bloodthirsty light.
Looking across this vast space filled with stone platforms, it was almost as if there were only seas of red all around you.
There were no weaklings among those present here either!
The Chip was able to estimate the base power of the voodoo beasts and magical statues just from the energy reaction they emitted. Most of them were First or Second Grade magical creatures. Meanwhile, Third Grades made up about ten percent of their ranks.
This number didn’t sound significant. But considering the hundreds of thousands of creatures gathered there, just ten percent was already a shocking number.
“These are cannon fodder prepared for the war?” Greem asked curiously.
“No, this is a private army directly subordinate to Lord Erlenwald. The actual cannon fodder are stationed in other fortresses. Most of them are foreign armies and subordinate forces conscripted from the lesser planes. Their numbers are a hundred times this army’s!” The young female adept replied.
She didn’t go into detail, but what information she revealed was already enough to shake Greem to his core.
In Greem’s previous experiences, the so-called planar invasions of the past had always started with the infiltration of an elite vanguard. A small forward base would then be constructed for the sake of pulling in more reinforcements. This strategy focused primarily on cooperation and infiltration. The priority was gaining control over the original rulers of the plane. The adepts could then take on the existing ruling structures to gain control over the whole planar world.
Provided the adepts had sufficient forces to burn, they could launch a large-scale invasion and wage war against the natives. If they won, they would obtain the resources and population of an entire world. If they lost, they would have to return home and lick their wounds as they prepared for the next invasion.
However, all of Greem’s past experiences were in regards to lesser planes weaker than the World of Adepts. If the opponent was a planar world equal in might to the World of Adepts, it was a completely different matter. Even Greem had no idea how a war would be waged in these circumstances.
However, this tiny corner that he just saw was enough to give Greem a vague impression. The true scale, depth, and intensity of a large-scale planar war were far beyond his expectations.
He couldn’t help but become a little anxious at what was to come!
In a small or medium-scale planar war, a Fifth Grade existence like himself would already be a terrifying deciding force. In a large-scale planar war, a Fifth Grade Great Adept like himself was no more than a tiny component in a greater machine.
It seemed like their status was noble, but they didn’t actually have that much of an impact. At the very least, their accomplishments were hardly decisive!
Greem and the young adept passed through the corridor and made it past several tightly-guarded points before arriving in the inner region.
The traffic here was clearly much heavier than the outer layer.
The bright, broad halls were filled with people walking in every direction. Some of them were elementium spellcasters dressed in robes and holding staves. Others were body-refining adepts wearing armor with swords sheathed at their waists. There were also summoners with contracted creatures curled-up on their shoulders. Of course, there were the bloodline adepts as well, their bodies radiating the thick scent of bloodline power.
Human heads bobbed and shoulders rubbed against each other in this giant hall packed to the brim. It was oddly lively and filled with activity. However, Greem took a look and noticed that not even half of the adepts here were humans. The majority of them were foreign adepts of other species with strange appearances or marked differences in physiology.
Some even obscured their bodies and made it difficult to identify their gender or species.
Even the weakest individual here was a Third Grade adept. Moreover, the percentage of Fourth Grade adepts was quite high indeed.
As Greem appeared, the crowd bustling in the hall suddenly went quiet. Everyone who saw the young female adept and Greem couldn’t help but betray an expression of shock. They hastily stepped aside and created a path for the two of them.
“It’s a Great Adept.”
“There’s a Great Adept. Be careful not to bump into his lordship.”
People started whispering and muttering between themselves.
“This way, my lord!” The female adept serving as Greem’s guide lifted her head proudly and led Greem through the crowd and out of the hall. They turned and walked up a spiral stone staircase.
It wasn’t until Greem had vanished from view that the hall resumed its activities, as if someone had pushed a play button. However, all the Third and Fourth Grades that had witnessed Greem personally couldn’t help but gather together and chatter.
“Is it a new Fifth Grade adept? I’ve never seen him before. He’s quite an unfamiliar sight.”
“Yeah, I’ve never seen him in the Crystal Hall. He must have arrived today!”
“Judging from his appearance, he came from the homeworld.”
“Right, Sanazar! Aren’t you from the homeworld as well? Have…have you ever seen his lordship?”
The adept that the question was directed at was a tall woman shrouded in purple mist. The purple mist was thin- it was enough to obscure her aura but not enough to hide her figure fully.
Judging from her appearance, her silhouette, and her aura, it was the Third Grade bloodline adept Sanazar who had vanished from Zhentarim a long time ago.
Upon hearing her companions’ questions, Sanazar’s almost-Fourth Grade aura became unstable. There was awkwardness and struggle written all over her fa
ce. Sanazar gritted her teeth in the face of these questions and replied angrily, “I don’t know him! There are so many old Fourth Grade monsters on the continent. How many could I possibly know? Don’t ask me again.”
Having said that, Sanazar turned and hurried toward her room, completely ignoring the stunned faces of her companions.
Her heart wavered as she ran. She seemed to be at a loss.
At that moment, Greem’s tremendous Spirit had enveloped the entire room. She might have been hiding behind her companions, but she had no confidence that she had been able to evade his spiritual senses.
He has already advanced to Great Adept.
He has already advanced to Great Adept.
He has already advanced to Great Adept.
This explosive news echoed in her mind, making her feel anxious and entirely at a loss.
She had believed that the reckless, fearless way she had struggled between the line of life and death, the desperate way she had been training herself, would be worth it in the end. She would be equal with him once she advanced to Fourth Grade. Who would’ve thought he would take that even more important step forward ahead of her, casting her even further behind?
Sanazar felt genuine despair at the thought of this. She let out an unending howl in the depths of her mind.
Chapter 1452 - Terrifying Numbers
To think he would meet such ‘acquaintances’ here. Greem couldn’t help but marvel at the wonders of Fate.
However, Greem was moved by the sight in front of him before he could finish marveling.
What appeared in front of Greem was a vast crystal hall. A large group of high-grade adepts had gathered within. When Greem stepped into the hall, everyone’s gaze was drawn toward him. An overwhelming tide of spiritual pressure pressed toward him, causing the expression of his young companion to change.
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