Age of Adepts

Greem was ‘swimming’ three meters underground, like a fish in the water.

His Spirit energy went through the dense fog of Earth Elementium surrounding him, showing him the surrounding earth. Twisting roots of old trees; coarse sand and rocks; wriggling insects; gophers hiding in their nests; rotten tree branches, and some other unidentifiable things...

It was only a short journey, but it allowed Greem to glimpse a completely different world that had always been right under his feet. In this secret world, Greem was like an untouchable king overlooking his kingdom, not caring about anything. If he really wanted to do something, with just a command, Demon Alligator Hunter would be able to wreak havoc in this place.

Although he wished he could spend a little longer traveling underground, but after merely seven to eight minutes, he could no longer stand it anymore.

It was not because he had depleted his Spirit, but because he was out of breath.

As an Apprentice Adept who worked with supernatural forces every day, no matter if it was resistance or endurance, Greem’s body was way stronger than an ordinary mortal. Any ordinary human would go into a coma after holding his breath for a few minutes, but he was able to hold his breath for nearly eight minutes before needing to catch his breath.

Following his command, the Earth Elementium around the outside of the Demon Alligator Hunter’s body started to vibrate, pushing away the thick and heavy soil above its head and slowly squeezing its way to the surface.

The sudden arrival of the Demon Alligator Hunter had shocked the surrounding demons. Numerous sharp cries rung through the air, as curses poured onto them like rain.

“Damn it! We surfaced in the nest of the Demon Babies!” Greem cursed, driving the Demon Alligator Hunter forward and breaking his way out of the swarm of Demon Babies.

Although the Demon Babies’ Curse spell was unpredictable and hard to defend against, they were just low-ranked demons. Faced with the Elementium formed Demon Alligator Hunter, the success rate of their curses was not very high. Instead, two Demon Babies were killed by spears thrown by the Hunter, causing the rest of them to scurry away, hiding in nearby bushes and daring not to move the tiniest bit.

At this moment, Greem had dimly tasted the mentality of Alice and the other two Advanced Apprentices when they intruded into the Magical Swamp. Once a person possessed the abilities and resources of an Advanced Apprentice, ordinary low-ranked demons were no longer a threat to them. As they were only faced with a bunch of ‘ants’ they could kill easily, no wonder that, even they knew this was a forbidden place, they could still behave so recklessly.

To be honest, if Adept Anderson hadn’t done anything, with just the Apprentice Adepts and demons of the Magical Swamp alone, there was no way they could’ve stopped the trio.

As for Alice’s sad encounter, it was completely by accident.

Just because Alice possessed an overpowered skill and a frightening ability, it had forced Evil Bugs to fight her with his life. Then she had chased Greem all over the swamp and suffered a great loss at the hands of Mary.

In the past, these hateful Demon Babies were a group of frightening and hard to deal monsters. If he had been surrounded by them, even with the protection of his magical talisman, he would have faced miserable consequences. But now, with the help of the Demon Alligator Hunter, Greem could actually kill them easily, and no longer feared them.

Unknowingly, Greem’s mentality had started to change.

Use one’s strength to bully the weak; the weak are easy prey to the strong; be pushy and overbearing... all these phrases sounded nasty to the ear, but, now that he was in the position of the strong, it was rather an enjoyable experience.

Driving his Demon Alligator Hunter forward and rushing out from the Garden of Whispers, Greem came to the stony trail and jumped off his Golem. He dispersed the Earth Elementium and picked up the two summoning cores. He was quite close to the entrance of the Tower, thus, Greem decided to try to appear like his former weak self.

Pulled his hood up and covering his face, Greem stealthily returned to the Tower.

The experiment had been successful, and Greem’s confidence had grown. But, at the same time, it had exposed some problems, the most serious of which was how to handle long periods of time underground.

Perhaps the Demon Alligator Hunter didn’t need to breathe, but Greem did! Deep underground, protected by the Earth Elementium emitting from the Demon Alligator Hunter, Greem had been given the ability to travel through the Earth. However, there was no air underground. If he didn’t solve this breathing problem, he would never be able to stay underground for more than 8 minutes.

Hence, after returned to the Tower, for the next few days Greem spent most of his time running between different Apprentices, searching for a solution that would allow him to have dark vision and breath underground. When he had some spare time, he would sneak out from the Tower to hunt for suitable demons that he could use to craft new Golems.

But too bad, up until the last day before he had to set off, he still couldn’t find any suitable demons.

After all, this Magical Swamp was just an extremely common resource site of an Adept family. It was all ordinary demons and plants being raised and planted here, where they were all easy to maintain and harvest. Therefore, it was just a fancy dream to harvest a large quantity of demon cores from this place. In fact, both Sinbad and the Giant Alligator King were rare advanced demons of the Magical Swamp, which only leveled up in the past hundred years. If not because of this, Greem would never have found any demon cores he could use.

But though he didn’t find any new demon cores, Greem still harvested a bunch of magical materials and ingredients for magical medicine. Using these materials, Greem was able to exchange for some rather useful items from other Apprentices.

Out of these items, Greem was most satisfied with an exquisitely made Circlet of Nobility.

Wearing the Circlet of Nobility on his head, the crystal clear diamond socked right in front of the circlet was pressed against Greem’s forehead. Besides making him look a little regal, it also increased his Spirit by one.

For an Advanced Apprentice, this circlet was unable to supplement their Spirit. But for Greem, who only possessed 8 Spirit, it brought him a rather significant improvement.

Also, his dark vision problem had been solved.

The solution? A pair of Gnome Goggles!

According to the explanation he had received from the Intermediate Apprentice who had sold this item to Greem, the goggles were a product from another Plane. It was made from combining a black leather belt with two transparent crystals. Wearing it, Greem had clear vision in low-light environments.

Greem had the Chip run an analysis when he returned. This strange object was supposed to be a product of a mechanical civilization. The Chip couldn’t sense any Elementium ripples coming from it, as if it was just an ordinary item used by mortals. It was made from a type of underground crystal and was polished using a special method. This allowed the wearer to pierce the veil of low-light environments.

The Chip had also performed an analysis on the composition of the crystals. They were not a product that could be found in the World of Adepts, and should be a unique material that only existed in the plane of that mechanical civilization.

As a major scale Plane, the World of Adepts had conquered countless small and middle sized Planes. These Gnome Goggles most likely came from a secondary Plane that had been conquered.

It was common knowledge in the Adept World that only those who were official Adepts were qualified to travel between Planes. Anyone below this level, even those Pseudo-Adepts who possessed extraordinary talent, were not allowed to participate in the conquering war for other Planes. Therefore, Greem could only let his mind run wild as he tried to imagine what this mechanical civilization was like. Meanwhile, he carefully placed this Gnome Goggle in his waist pouch.

As for the problem of breathing underground, Greem had also solved it by employing a biological method.

Within the Tower, some Apprentices were experts in biological modification. Using ‘Snake Vine’ and ‘Purple Left Flower’, together with ‘worm ointment’, toad poop, and some other bizarre items, an Apprentice had produced a bulbous looking breathing organ. When Greem needed to travel underground, he just had to place this biological apparatus into his mouth and he would gain the ability to breathe through his skin.

As it was only a supplementary organ, and not a replacement for his own organs, the risk of having his bloodline contaminated was non-existent.

After solving all these problems, Greem could finally put his heart to rest. He spent all his day on either meditating or restlessly researching those magical books he had just copied.

On the fifth day after signing up the compulsory mission, Greem finally received the message he had been waiting for from the Chip. The optimization of Fire Arrow spell had finally been completed!

*Beep* ”Optimization for the spiritual model of Fire Arrow has been completed. Does the host wish to see the optimized content?”

“Show me!” Greem yelled out in impatience.

Following a long stream of data, the look of his long-ranged offensive spell, Fire Arrow, after extensive optimizations done by the Chip, was projected into Greem’s mind.

If the look of Fire Arrow before this was a magical arrow, it had now transformed into a flaming spear. The seemingly tame flame had formed into a blazing spear. With a thought from Greem, it would shoot out with an incredible speed, dealing twice the damage the Fire Arrow had.

While wearing the Circlet of Nobility, Greem had a total of 9.37 Spirit, giving him a little less than 94 Adept energy. As the Flaming Spear used 24 Adept Energy every time it was used, his Spirit would be depleted after using it four times. Thus, a skill like this would have to be reserved, only being used at the most critical moments.

After all, with the offensive strength of the Flaming Spear, he could easily break apart an Intermediate Apprentice’s magical defenses. Even if he had to face an Advanced Apprentice who had mastered defensive magic spells, the Flaming Spear would still be able to put a dent in it.

To be honest, only now did Greem feel that he had finally mastered a good skill. With it, he felt a slight bit of confidence in surviving the mission he was going to undertake.

Finally, after a nerve-wracking few days, it was time for the mission.