Age of Adepts

It was like the last calm before a major storm, the atmosphere within the Swampy Tower was rather strange.

The Swampy Tower was just a small resource site owned by Adept Family, and it only had a total of 49 Apprentice Adepts. There were even three Beginner Apprentices who had just learned how to meditate.

Yet, in this group of apprentices whose overall strength was on the low side, four famous Pseudo-Adepts had made their appearance without a proper ground. In addition to that, among the population of all Pseudo-Adepts, any one of these four alone could be considered an outstanding existence. This was an abnormal situation, no matter where it happened, people would shout at its bizarreness.

After all, it took a huge amount of resources to cultivate a Pseudo-Adept. And in order to become an Adept, besides hefty resources, they also needed some luck. With the current situation of the Swampy Tower, it would take extreme fortune to cultivate a single Pseudo-Adept, let alone produce all four of them at the same time.

Perhaps, it was because of the existence of these four Pseudo-Adepts, Sarubo Family had paid more attention to the Magical Swamp. In addition to the Mission Hall, the Arcane Hut of Clute, the Popoli Merchant, the Dephene Association of Delicacy, the Fenrir Pet Shop… all these shops and merchants who focused on apprentices had opened their businesses in the Swampy Tower.

Mixing amongst them, the Little Shop of Goblin opened by Snorlax had flourished in business.

Different from other businesses, from time to time, there would be one or two items that could be rated as that of premium quality that appeared in Snorlax’s little shop. They were either magical gemstones or magical materials or magical equipment. In short, no matter what sort of items, they would always attract a large crowd of Intermediate and Advanced Apprentices rushing to purchase them.

As for that honorable Snorlax who didn’t have an impressive appearance, it actually had an exalted rank amongst the apprentices of the tower, which was something hardly matched by any outsiders. The reason was simple, just with the three Pseudo-Adepts standing behind it, nobody in this Swampy Tower had the courage to provoke it.

Since Alice had become a part of the Swampy Tower, initially, she had thought that Greem would ask her to do all kinds of tasks every day. But to her surprise, since that day, she had never met her nominal ‘master’ again. She didn’t expect that Greem was actually a nerd who rarely stepped out from his residence. Every day, he was either dwelling in his room and reading books or locking himself in the Alchemy Laboratory, doing some secret experiments.

All his meals were sent into his residence by Snorlax, and he never showed himself during normal days. Although this had spared Alice from feeling embarrassed when meeting him, but it actually made her feel a little bit angry as she was being treated coldly.

Utilizing the few days of free time she had, Alice questioned Snorlax repeatedly. From its mouth, she managed to dig out every single thing Greem had achieved since he had made his debut until now. In addition to that, using her status as an Pseudo-Adept, she too had an understanding about Greem’s behavior in the early days from the mouth of a few apprentices in the tower.

Put it this way, the more Alice understood, the more confused she became!

If a person was shaped by all the events he or she encountered throughout the entire life, then the trail of Mary’s life was clear at a glance.

The apprentice career of Mary which was worth mentioning had all started because of that magical experiment. Before she became a vampire, there wasn’t anything significant in her life. But once she became a vampire, she started to soar high up into the sky, taking a leap, jumping from a Beginner to an Advanced Apprentice, and eventually giving her all the glory of becoming a Pseudo-Adept later.

Therefore, the event that changed Mary’s life was that bizarre magical experiment carried out by Adept Anderson!

From this information she obtained, Alice could clearly see the pattern of development for Mary, and according to Mary’s behavior, she could also have an estimation of the potential height Mary would attain in her life. Everything was so vivid and straightforward!

Yet, when applying this theory on Greem, it just didn’t make any sense!

The turning point in Greem’s life happened almost at the same time as Mary’s. It was as if he suddenly possessed some kind of mystical power overnight. This had led Alice to suspect, could it be at the same time that Adept Anderson was carrying out an experiment on Mary, he too had done something to Greem? Or else, his transformation in the later stage was simply incredible!

Within the period of mission that lasted for three months, he had grown into an Advanced Apprentice from a mere Beginner Apprentice, and even skipped the stage of Intermediate Apprentice. The secret to all his victories laid on the powerful element golems. As for himself, it was obvious that he took the path of an Element Adept.

With regard to those element golems owned by Greem, they were still fresh in Alice’s memory. As both her miserable defeats were all caused by those hateful element golems!

Of sufficient numbers, great variety, and each was extremely powerful and well-directed!

This was the personal review Alice had for these element golems.

By right, for golems such as these, if they were controlled using the method of Elemental Summoning, not only it would require a special magical ceremony, the summoners himself also had to bear a tremendous burden on his Spirit. It would never be like Greem’s case, where he had handled them with such composure and ease.

Alice also noticed, every time when Greem summoned his element golems, he would need an element core as the magical material, and the surface of the crystal core was always fully engraved with runes, portraying the look of going through a thorough modification. With this finding, she drew a conclusion that the deepest secret of Greem’s mightiness must be hiding inside of these crystal cores.

Because of this, she had the intention of getting closer to Greem, so she could find out more answers from him to uncover his secret. But too bad that Greem was a nerd who rarely left his room, this had made her, the nominal servant-girl of his, became totally unused.

As a result, after holding herself patiently for seven days, Alice snatched over the meal plate from Snorlax, took its place and stood in front of the door to Greem’s residence. That hateful Mary was the only person who could freely enter Greem’s residence, even Snorlax had to obtain Greem’s permission every time before delivering the meal to him.

Not long after that, Greem sensed Alice’s spiritual ripple, and he finally disarmed the defense mechanism on the door.

Alice stretched her arm and pushed open the door and strode into the residence, carrying the meal plate.

The room was still as simple and crude as before.

Yet, compared to the last time, it had become even messier!

Though it was daytime, the illuminating crystal placed on top of the wooden table still shone with a bright and soft light. This made Alice puzzled, could this guy have been working since last night, without resting during the course?

The floor was fully filled with scrapped goat-skin scrolls, some were curled up, some were spread out, and some were crumbled into small balls… each of them had extremely complicated runes and mysterious magical arrays drawn on them. As Alice didn’t have any knowledge of magical arrays, hence, she felt a headache upon looking at this mysterious knowledge which required a professional to understand it.

Walking on her tiptoes, Alice carefully skipped over the mess on the floor and came in front of the wooden table.

The wooden table was also messy like the floor, books were opened and placed all over the tabletop, stacking on top of each other and nearly flooding the entire table. Greem was now leaning against the table silently, using a pen brush to draw something on a goat-skin paper.

But obviously, his progress wasn’t smooth.

Half-way through the drawing, he brought the goat-skin paper in front of his face and gave it a careful examination. Soon, he shook his head, cursing under his breath and crumbled the paper into a small ball, and tossed it over his shoulder.

Alice tilted her head so she could dodge the paper ball that had came to her face. Angrily, she placed the meal tray on top of the table with a rather strong force. Due to her ‘carelessness’, the tall stack of books had finally collapsed with a loud noise.

Ugh… What was going on?

Greem raised his head, confusingly, and ran his eyes around. His sulky eyes were immediately met with the vision of Alice, who was looking at him in a provoking manner.

“Eh? When did you come here?” Greem rubbed his forehead, as he felt a prickle in his brain.

Since his overall strength skyrocketed, Greem had discovered many benefits brought by a high Physique.

He had been awake for three days and three nights. If it was in the past, perhaps he would have been extremely exhausted by now. However, besides feeling a slight tiredness from consuming too much of his Spirit, his body was as healthy and vigorous as it was three days ago.

“The purpose I came here today is to ask you a question: what are you going to do with me? Are you going to let me live like I am now, spending all my days boringly strolling around in this filthy and broken place? The magical facilities here are just too obsolete and behind on times, compared to other places, this place is simply a desolate desert of the Adept World!” Alice stood with arms akimbo, complaining angrily at Greem.

One could tell that she had had enough of staying in this Swampy Tower.

She couldn’t find any higher grade magical potions, she couldn’t enjoy a slightly normal delicacy, she couldn’t obtain any of the advanced magical materials required for her magical experiments, and her residence was simply like a sheep pen… In this backward and dilapidated place, Alice just couldn’t imagine how Greem and the others managed to survive!

If not because of those merchants or associations who recently came into this place, bringing some changes to the Swampy Tower, Alice felt like she was going to rot in this dark and wet Magical Swamp.

Faced with a hard working ‘subordinate’ who took the initiative and to come to him for work, a gratifying smile emerged on Greem’s face. He casually took a white bread from the meal tray and placed it into Alice’s hand, and said with a smile on his face, “If you want to find something to do, why don’t you show me your abilities first? Can you toss this thing over at Snorlax’s head?”

Right after he finished his words, the white bread in Alice’s hands had disappeared.

She clapped her palms and rubbed off the bread crumbs, throwing a disdainful gaze over at Greem and portrayed a look of ‘just try me’.

Greem opened his mouth slightly out of surprise.

He quickly readjusted his mentality, picked up another piece of bread and placed into Alice’s hand. This time, he snapped his fingers and activated all the defense mechanisms of this magical residence.

Alice curled up her lips in disdain, grabbing the bread with both hands and gave it a rub. A strange spatial ripple was sensed in the air, before the bread disappeared once again.

Greem’s expression became even more dignified.

After he gave the last piece of bread over to Alice, not only had Greem activated every single defense mechanisms of his magical residence, he also focused his mind and unleashed a light red force field that covered the entire room.

Right now, Alice was residing within four layers of element defense or magical force fields, if she could still…

But too bad, before the thought could fully form in Greem’s mind, he saw Alice waved one of her hands, as a small spatial black hole emerged in front of her. After that, she quickly stretched the other hand with the bread into the black hole. When she finally pulled her hand out, there was nothing left in her palm.

Meanwhile, the spatial black hole had disappeared instantly!