Age of Adepts

The worthy leader of the adept camp was that terrifying fire adept who had personally blasted the flying ship out of the sky.

Even now, Tigule felt dizzy and fearful the moment he thought of the power the adept possessed.

He wouldn’t have been able to fight off this fire adept, even if he had piloted the most powerful Second Grade magical machine on this plane, let alone as he was now. The difference between their strength and equipment was not small. Tigule estimated that the Second Grade fire adept at his peak could deal with two to three Second Grade machines simultaneously.

That seemed nearly unbelievable, but it wasn’t that hard to accept once Tigule remembered that they were adepts from the famous World of Adepts!

The other adepts in the camp also seemed to possess fearsome power that scared him. Each of them radiated a strange and robust energy. More importantly, they were all female!

No, the more appropriate term was female adept!

The second one to read the agreement was a slender, long-haired beauty with a distinct aura. It was hard to relate her to the evil adepts from her pretty face and gentle aura.

However, for some reason, Tigule felt his heart beating non-stop the moment he set eyes on her. Tigule almost couldn’t hold back a gasp when the adept finally noticed his gaze and looked at him.

He felt as if his entire being had been utterly seen through by that adept at that very moment!

He hadn’t seen this female adept during the last fight. Her sudden appearance meant that the adepts probably possessed the ability to summon companions continuously.

Tigule’s round eyeballs continued to shift down the line toward the other adepts.

The charming female adept in red armor with bat wings behind her back was a frightening and cold-blooded assassin. She also possessed the odd ability to heal herself by ingesting blood. However, the terrifying thing about her was that phantom-like speed.

As someone who had personally witnessed Mary’s terror on the battlefield, Tigule felt his heart shake the moment he saw her.

Apart from these people, there were also three female adepts in the camp.

The oldest one of them, with the wrinkled, sinister face and hunched back, was the powerful witch that had poisoned over a hundred mechanics with a single move.

A hundred magical machine was a force strong enough to destroy any of the powerful races on the Goblin Plane. Yet these machines were as frail as chickens before the old witch.

A hundred magical machines had charged at the old witch, all falling to the ground with a single wave of her hand, poisoned to death. Tigule shivered uncontrollably when the memory surfaced in his mind. He didn’t dare to continue thinking about it.

Other than the poison witch, there was also a half-human, half-machine female adept, as well as a muscular female adept whose body could compare to a man’s.

It was the first time he saw the latter as well; she was probably a female adept that had just arrived. He had crossed swords with the former on the flying ship. While she wasn’t as powerful and brutal as the fire adept, her method of fighting and the direction she was developing was somewhat similar to the path the goblins had embarked upon.

If it weren’t for the hostilities between them, Tigule would have had a good mind to find a chance to sit down with the mechanical adept and exchange thoughts on the piloting of external machines. However, while the goblins were using exoskeleton-type magical machine mechas, she already seemed to have fused with those machines herself.

Tigule’s terrified gaze finally returned to the leader after sweeping through all the adepts in the camp. The opponent was also silently assessing him.

Tigule also possessed the combat prowess of a Second Grade when he climbed into his magical machine. However, he was no more than a First Grade goblin mechanic once he left his vehicle. The difference in Spirit between him and Greem was so massive that it was impossible to make up for it with an external item.

Tigule felt his eyes sting when he locked eyes with Greem. It was almost as if tiny needles were pricking them. It only got better once he turned his head slightly and looked away.

However, tears were already streaking down his face.

”Cooperation?” Greem’s black eyes appeared to be very black and deep at the moment. His voice was even deeper and more resonant, with a trace of dominance behind it, ”Gazlowe has just abducted your princess, and instead, you come here to discuss cooperation with us? I most definitely have a reason to suspect that this is a scheme that the two of your factions have privately come up with.”

”We completely understand your suspicions!” Defeat and sorrow were written all over Tigule’s green face, ”However, since I dared to come here, I naturally brought with me the official promise and agreement of the Anderme Royal Family.”

The light in Greem’s eyes flashed. He fell silent for a moment before finally speaking.

”Then why don’t you first tell me; what exactly is that Project Immortality Gazlowe is working on in the Steel Capital?”

Tigule hesitated for a moment before speaking, ”As most of the authority over the Steel Capital has fallen into the hands of the radical progressives, they have already been secretly working on that Project Immortality for as long as twenty or thirty years. Even we only recently managed to get some inside information a few years ago.”

”This so-called ’Project Immortality’ is a research project that Gazlowe intends to use to extend his lifespan. He has spent a vast amount of resources and wealth to support the research of inventors, only to live a few more years. The study included many experiments on live samples and experiments on the assimilation of bloodlines. Unfortunately for him, they have all failed!”

”However, Gazlowe has somehow managed to obtain a method of immortality from another plane through unknown means. He has constructed a massive space furnace under the Steel Capital. It is said that providing the Capital with an endless source of magic energy is only a front. The truth is that Gazlowe intends to build a planar door!”

”A planar door?” Greem suddenly interrupted to ask. His words trembled with deep shock.

Planar Doors were classified information among classified information, even in the World of Adepts. It was a high-level adept knowledge that no ordinary adept could hear of. All the adepts that had mastered the method to construct planar doors were core adepts of major forces. Powerful seals and restrictions had also been placed in their minds by the Great Adepts of the organization they belonged to.

If anyone set their sights on this knowledge, a seal backlash would be triggered, and the adept’s brain would be blown to bits while their soul was devoured.

It was through such methods that the major organizations had always kept a tight hold on the secrets of planar doors. It was a privilege that only significant organizations could enjoy.

Yet now, he heard news of a planar door in an insignificant small-sized plane. How could this not make Greem overwhelmingly surprised and excited!

The level of the Goblin Plane’s civilization could never have possibly leaped all the way to develop technology like a planar door. That was why Greem had reason to suspect that this matter involved higher planes.

As expected, Tigule’s following descriptions caused Greem’s expression to change slightly.

”The technology used in the planar door has exceeded the scope of our goblin civilization. It is not something that Gazlowe himself invented. It comes from a higher dragonspawn plane.”

Greem’s expression turned by just a little bit.

He had obtained a strange set of world coordinates after completing the deciphering of the metal ball he had gotten from Tigule. The research and analysis of the Chip showed that the plane in question was a small plane that had matured to the pinnacle.

That was why, given Tigule’s perspective, it was valid to call it a higher plane.

Dragonspawn plane, Project Immortality, Steel Capital, planar door…

That Prince Gazlowe was working up a real mess. Greem wouldn’t need to be worried about being lonely or bored with an opponent like this!

He silently listened to Tigule’s exposition, occasionally interrupting when they reached a critical point. It was through this method that he finally gained a vague understanding of everything happening in the Goblin Plane.

In the eyes of the adepts from the powerful World of Adepts, it didn’t matter how powerful or strong the natives of a lesser plane were. They were still no more than magical creatures that were slightly stronger or smarter than usual. Regardless of where and when it was, the adepts would never treat these goblins as intelligent lifeforms that could be their equals. Naturally, there was no way they would ever give them equal treatment!

However, after listening to everything said about this goblin prince, even Greem couldn’t help but acknowledge that Gazlowe was a unique goblin compared to his kin.

At the very least, his ability to stir trouble was no less inferior to Greem’s!

The old goblin Gazlowe had been devoting all his efforts to working out that so-called immortality ever since he had sensed his impending death. If he had only been doing goblin experiments and dissections in his own plane, there was no way the Goblin Empire would find itself thrown into the chaos it was currently in.

But Gazlowe had simultaneously maintained subtle and discontinuous connections with seven or eight powerful individuals from various planes. He had also obtained quite a lot of otherworldly knowledge and techniques through multiple instances of trade.

Furthermore, after assimilating all this knowledge from various planes, Gazlowe had managed to forge a path of his own and come up with the unique Project Immortality.

He intended to dig out his brain and soak it in a particular life solution of sorts. He would then transfer that brain into an ultra-magical machine forged from all the special alloys and rare resources of the plane after the brain had been strengthened to a certain degree.

The massive space furnace he had constructed under the Steel Capital was the heart he had prepared for himself. The entire Steel Capital, on the other hand, was very likely to be animated and turned into his new body.

Doing so would require large amounts of life energy from a high-energy lifeform.

Gazlowe had initially planned on tricking a batch of adepts into his trap and then imprisoning them. Sadly, Alice’s rare instincts allowed her to sense something wrong ahead of time. She didn’t create a planar passage to the silver spacestone. Instead, she had used randomized teleportation and threw Billis to some unknown corner of the Goblin Plane.

It was Alice’s cautiousness that caused the old goblin to lose his grip on the situation in the Goblin Plane!