Age of Adepts

Mary had already changed drastically after undergoing the bloody fights of the planar wars. She was no longer the insignificant and reckless vampire from the past.

Compared to the vast scale of a planar war, the extermination of the native magical creatures in the Black Forest was utterly uneventful. It was bland and boring. Mary would never have found the motivation to take up this mundane job of sweeping away small fry had it not been for the sake of clearing a safe territory around Fire Throne.

The treaty that Fire Throne signed with the native magical creatures could still last for three months. Yet the human adepts had shown their wicked and greedy faces.

Mary led her three great subordinate generals, and one military advisor, to embark on her quest. She dragged along the reluctant and helpless Billis, gathered together the two chess pieces Greem had planted in advance, and swept through a radius of five hundred kilometers to the north of the tower in a matter of a single month.

Mary and her troops visited all magical creatures whose population exceeded a certain level. They could either submit or die; there was no third way out. Those magical creatures that didn’t yield to Fire Throne’s rule would be dealt with, and those with value would be dragged back to the tower to be used as slaves. Those who were worthless were cast aside and given to Billis. These creatures became the source of blood and flesh for Billis to hatch combat insects on a massive scale.

The initially upset Billis immediately turned happy after receiving so many benefits consecutively. He started sincerely and honestly doing the work that Mary assigned to him. This much food would have taken him two to three years to gather slowly. He would never have been able to do it like Mary– crushing everything in her way in a month and slightly more.

That undoubtedly made Billis grateful to Mary. He even started silently cursing the petty nature of the Queen Bug that had assimilated with him. The Queen Bug fell into a period of prolonged silence. She couldn’t be bothered to refute the thoughts of the ignorant Billis.

Only the Queen Bug who had clashed with Mary for an entire year knew the full extent of Mary’s savagery and fearlessness. Others might be tricked by Mary’s beautiful and seductive appearance, but matter when the Queen Bug thought about it, she was filled with deep agony and endless sorrow!

The territories became far emptier after clearing away those obstructive and annoying individuals.

Consequently, the magical creatures that were the quickest to surrender all received the biggest and best lands. They also became the scouts and watchmen of Fire Throne, scattered around the adept’s tower to watch for threats. The magical creatures that were neither willing to submit to Fire Throne or be exterminated had no choice but to migrate to distant lands under cover of night.

For a moment, the name of Fire Throne spread far and wide. Even many adept clans in the center of the continent decided on this place as a land of trials for their apprentices.

According to the treaty between Fire Throne and the Zhentarim Association, a small human’s settlement was quickly developed, with Pinecone Town at its center. Every day, large amounts of resources surged into Pinecone Town. Many farmers were also gathered together to expand and build more living spaces.

The shape of a small city had appeared in just a little over a month.

The sudden boost in human activity undoubtedly created a substantial flow of human traffic for Fire Throne. With the original Plaguewood at its center, another small town composed of only mercenaries, adventurers, and apprentices on trials started to form rapidly. It attracted many tanners, herbalists, arcane merchants, and other fringe professions.

Gargamel, who managed the daily matters of Fire Throne, had been a wandering adept himself. That was why he deeply understood the pain and troubles of wandering adepts. As such, he completely deviated from the oppression and disdain that most adept clans cast upon the wandering adepts. Fire Throne announced many policies that were generous to staying adepts.

The so-called staying adepts were wandering adepts. When they walked to a place, they would temporarily stay over in a tower open to the public. Their stay might be to gather knowledge, collecting nearby resources, or even to borrow the magical facilities of the adept’s tower.

Even though they didn’t belong to the ranks of stationed adepts, they would be active around the tower in the short term.

These ’short terms’ were often one to two years.

Of course, there were also staying adepts who easily resided in a single place for a dozen years.

Gargamel provided living environments with the least regulation he could afford to these people who chased after resources and didn’t wish to be restricted by the clans. He also allowed their descendants to stay within the tower.

Wandering Adepts were adepts as well. Many times, they would form parties to go on adventures or to explore ancient ruins. In these cases, the descendants that always followed behind them became a tricky problem.

Bringing them on the adventure was definitely out of the question.

Leaving them in a random place could easily affect and delay their improvement and development.

That was why Gargamel helped them deal with their concerns while calling for more wandering adepts to adventure around Fire Throne. As long as they were staying adepts that had registered with Fire Throne, they would enjoy the fundamental rights of a stationed adept, and they would not need to take on compulsory adept missions.

The apprentice adepts that came along with them could also enjoy the learning and trial opportunities within the tower.

As massive quantities of quality resources flowed into Fire Throne from the surrounding Black Forest, a new market slowly formed. Purchasing raw magical creature resources and herbs here and processing them into valuable magical materials and potions was a lucrative affair. So much so that it attracted droves of merchants and wandering adepts.

The policies that Fire Throne pushed out might not look like much on the surface to the ignorant. However, each and every single one of them would resonate and play to the hearts of the wandering adepts.

It might not move them enough to make them change their resolve to continue wandering, but the abundant resources and loose rules would indirectly influence them to stay a little longer.

One or two wandering adepts doing this wouldn’t bring about much of a change. However, if seven or eight wandering adepts chose to become staying adepts, then it would be a massive revolution for Fire Throne.

At any one point, Fire Throne could host a dozen staying adepts. In their free time, Gargamel would be able to use generous magical crystal rewards to get them to teach lessons to the apprentices of the tower. These wandering adepts were often masters and experts in various fields. Some of the less popular magical disciplines quickly found suitable teachers in this manner.

For a moment, the magical fields and research topics that tower apprentices could take part in had gained much more variety and fullness. It indirectly increased the apprentices’ reserves of knowledge, as well as their insight into magic. That allowed them to have a broader space for development!

Of course, for the sake of spreading the name of Fire Throne even further, and to increase the passion with which stationed adepts and apprentices would work for contribution points, Gargamel and Greem came to a decision. After some discussion, they put in some rare resources that couldn’t be found in a normal market into the mission and reward system of the tower in a purposeful and limited fashion.

For example; advanced potions, adept-level magical creatures, elementium golems, etc.

These things were rare resources that were hard to find, even in an adept’s trading point. Adept Clans and organizations monopolized most of them. When they did appear, everyone would fight for them. Ordinary adepts without plentiful savings would not be able to get these things even if they wanted to.

However, now, Fire Throne introduced a set amount of such resources on a monthly basis into its mission system. These resources didn’t cost magical crystals and didn’t demand power. One could get them as long as they had enough contribution points.

Moreover, when one stayed in Fire Throne, they didn’t need to go out and conduct dangerous adept missions. The missions that allowed them to gain contribution points while staying in the tower were numerous.

They were missions such as: holding some classes, becoming the teacher for specific magic research topics, helping manage the magical garden, or treating some enchanting materials. There were far too many such missions. Most staying adepts could take out enough free time to do one or two tasks while they were exploring and adventuring on their own.

That was why Fire Throne was able to prop up the functioning of the magical facilities and the mission system just through these staying adepts who had no contractual relationship with the tower. The stationed adepts that belonged to Fire Throne could now gain more time to be placed into their research and experiments.

This ingenious act, which brought about so many benefits, obtained the uncontested approval of all the stationed adepts.

As praises were passed around, Gargamel’s position as the head butler of Fire Throne was solidified!

…………

In comparison to Gargamel’s exceptional talent for management, Greem, the actual owner of the tower, was doing poorly in this aspect.

After handing over most of the authority to Gargamel and Meryl, Greem had hidden himself on the fifth level of the tower. He was entirely absorbed in all sorts of research and experiments.

The cloning of the robber bug was still being tested, even after over a hundred failures. He had lost a lot of resources due to that. However, the beautiful future was right in front of him and waving its hands at Greem, and he was unwilling to give up.

After he had successfully deciphered the Explosion variant fire rune, Greem had also successfully etched it into his core consciousness. That meant he could add on an explosive effect to any fire spells he cast from now on with just a thought. However, the changes to the runes at the core meant changes had to be made to the spiritual spell models and magical chants.

It was an incredibly exhausting practice and a massive project that required changes to each spell!

However, with the help of the Chip, anything related to large data calculation and data model construction could be left to the Chip to figure out in its free time slowly. As such, Greem could still utilize lots of time to deal with the current magical problem he was facing!

Two more rare fire runes were waiting for him to decipher. They were listed in the Chip’s idle missions. Judging by the magical characteristics that the variant fire rune had displayed so far, the two rare fire runes were clearly above it.

The moment they were deciphered, the runes would be an immensely helpful increase to Greem’s combat prowess.