Age of Adepts

Regeneration from a drop of blood was undoubtedly an exaggerated description.

Strange brain Gazlowe’s current abilities were somewhat similar to Bug Adept Billis’. Even if most of his brain was destroyed, the remaining bits would be able to regenerate.

Unfortunately, Gazlowe’s size corresponded with his abilities.

He had barely managed to grow from scraps of the brain to a functional one that was capable of thought when he found himself in that situation of severe energy and nutritional deprivation. His current size only allowed him to manipulated some metal substances and mechanical constructs that had been polluted by magical energies.

He could no longer use the mental powers that he had previously mastered due to the severe decrease in his Spirit!

Moreover, one-third of his newly grown brain had just been burned to ashes by his old opponent– Greem. It was difficult for Gazlowe to maintain complete consciousness. Otherwise, he would never have tried something as crude as playing dead in front of a Second Grade fire adept!

For some reason, the memories and emotions that belonged to Gazlowe had faded substantially after being reduced to his current size. Even though the brain itself retained all of Gazlowe’s memories, they were only memories. The newly grown brain possessed a dominant consciousness and position that was distinct from Gazlowe’s.

Otherwise, he would never have appealed to his old enemy just because he was afraid of death.

Greem ignored the show of friendliness and subordination. Scarlet light flashed in his eyes as a series of fire runes were pieced together to form a strange spell. The runes entered into the body of the brain.

A sharp glare emerged in Greem’s eyes as he coldly commanded, ”Let down your mental defenses!”

The fist-sized brain paused for a moment. His gray brain matter couldn’t help but start trembling.

He knew too clearly what Greem intended to do.

Soul Brand!

It was a soul brand that was etched directly upon the soul. The brain’s soul would no longer be able to hide any secrets from Greem the moment the brand was engraved upon it. As long as Greem wished for it, he would be able to see the current state of the brain’s soul, as well as the thoughts that were running through the brain.

Greem would be able to sense any hostile thoughts or intentions that arose in the mind of the brain. When that happened, he only needed to send the thought of ’suicide’ to the brain, and its soul instincts would drive the mind to execute his order without error.

If he were still that lowly and humble goblin, Gazlowe would probably bend the knee and surrender; he couldn’t have resisted after all. But now, he was, at the very least, a powerful Third Grade monster. How could he…

Before the brain could think of a perfect strategy, Greem closed his palms. His five blazing crimson fingers instantly sunk into it. The gray brain matter was torched and roasted black by the flames, and pungent fumes rose from the brain.

The brain felt Greem dripping with cold killing intent.

Greem would probably exterminate him in the next second if he couldn’t assure Greem of his loyalty and obedience.

Allowing a monster like him to escape was not a wise decision. He could reform into that terrifying giant brain if he had ten to fifteen days to recover. When that happened, all metallic substances on the Goblin Plane would become his body. All magical machines would become his slaves. Who could stop him from once again gaining control of this world when that happened?

If Greem didn’t want his newly obtained lesser plane snatched from his hands, then he had to either turn the brain into one of his own or one of the dead.

The brain ultimately recognized the situation he was in when threatened with death. He dejectedly let down of all his mental defenses.

In all honesty, as a Second Grade fire adept, leaving his soul brand in the soul of a Third Grade monster was an arduous task for Greem as well.

The brain was in agony throughout the process, while Greem was teetering on the brink of exhaustion the whole time.

It took a total of fifteen minutes for the two of them to complete the soul branding. The weakened Third Grade brain had also become Greem’s soul slave.

Greem let out a grunt once he completed the soul brand. He immediately threw the brain away while falling to the ground, clasping his head between his hands. He had no choice. The soul information transmitted from the Third Grade brain at the moment the contract was completed had flooded his relatively frail mental consciousness.

[Beep. Detecting strange soul connection. Requestion instructions from host. Maintain connection?]

”No… cut it off first!”

A short moment later, Greem temporarily managed to cut off his soul connection to the brain with the Chip’s help. He finally broke free from the vast sea of soul information.

Greem stood up with Billis’ help. He wiped away the black blood streaking down his nostril and returned to normal.

As expected of a Third Grade brain, he was a Third Grade monster after all. The memories and information in his mind were so large and numerous that it was hard even to count. If Greem had attempted to absorb all that information with no regard to their significance, his brain might have exploded.

However, with the help of the Chip, Greem didn’t need to care about anything that had to do with the brain. He let the Chip silently arrange and sort all the information that had been sent through the soul contract in that brief instant. He only needed to browse through the data once the Chip was done sorting it.

Now that Greem had the soul contract, the brain would not be able to escape his control, even if he was one grade higher than himself. That meant that the brain had ironically turned into the most trustworthy and reliable member of all of his subordinates!

”What do you need to recover?” Greem impatiently asked the brain that had returned to his side once he got onto his feet.

The brain did not have a body, or any other organ for that matter. However, it was able to freely hover in the sky due to its powerful mental powers.

The brain was now like a tame cat. It sat upon Greem’s left shoulder and started communicating with him using telepathy.

Large amounts of energy and nutritional solution!

The brain had no digestive organs. It could only rely on its brain matter to slowly absorb liquid nutritional substances and magic energy. It had been able to rapidly swell to its massive size back in the past due to the space furnace serving as its energy source.

Now that the super space-furnace had been destroyed, it had lost a stable source of energy. Thus, it had to rely on Greem finding a new source of energy for itself.

Greem didn’t say anything else. He pointed toward the sky, and the brain was immediately invigorated.

A massive flying ship currently floated above the pit at the construction site. It was the existence of this ship that allowed the goblins to transport so many construction machines and resources into this purified area. The vessel was also responsible for carrying the useful waste that they had dug of the pit, allowing the goblins to sort and filter the debris at another site.

This flying ship instantly became the most delicious cake in the brain’s eye now that Greem had given his permission.

The brain waved its tentacles and quickly cast a few mental powers on itself.

Masquerade!

Invisibility!

Haste!

The fist-sized brain turned into a flash of lightning under the accumulated effects of all those mental skills. It instantly flew into the sky, found a crack in the ship, and entered it.

The first fifteen minutes was incredibly peaceful, so much so that one might even nod off.

However, fifteen minutes later, the flying ship broke out into a riot.

The many goblins inside the ship started to escape in a panic. They got onto various flying vessels and started leaving the ship.

That was only because the brain didn’t dare to devour their sweet flesh without Greem’s permission. Otherwise, none of these goblin technicians would have been able to leave the flying ship alive.

Once the goblins had all been driven away, the flying ship started to contort slightly, creaking and grinding as it did so. The other goblins were terrified by what had happened in the ship and didn’t notice this happening. However, Greem could detect all this happening due to the Chip’s detailed spiritual scans.

It was apparent that the brain wasn’t satisfied with its new ride upon taking control of the space furnace within the ship. It started using its magical energy to change the structure and appearance of the ship slightly.

It was important to note that the flying ships had always been one of the old goblin Gazlowe’s proudest works. The structure of its hull and the aerodynamic design had been one of the few things that the old goblin had taken great pride in. No goblin in the Empire could suggest any improvement or change to these designs, even a dozen years since the invention of the ship.

However, the brain that had grown through Gazlowe’s memories instantly discovered plenty of illogical and unscientific parts to the ship’s design, despite only just gaining control of it. That was more than enough to demonstrate how much more powerful the brain was compared to the Gazlowe of the past!

The modified flying ship made an elegant arc through the air and rapidly descended into the pit, hovering twenty meters above the ground.

Slowly, the flying ship no longer waved in the air as it had in the past. Controlled by the brain’s magic energy, it stopped right in the middle of the sky without any slight movements. It was almost as if it had been fixed to space with nails.

Greem’s mental consciousness silently communicated with the brain hiding in the flying ship. A short while later, a small opening appeared in the bottom of the ship. A powerful energy storm blasted out, sucking in all the dirt and oddly-shaped debris on the ground like a tornado.

A visible layer of the dirt had been removed from the pit.

At the same time, windows opened on the side of the massive ship, ejecting all the useless stuff, while keeping the useful and filtered materials within its hull.

This efficiency was much higher than the continued and simultaneous efforts of a hundred construction machines.

Greem had personally witnessed the efficacy of the flying ship under the brain’s control and was greatly pleased. After a few words of instruction to the brain, Greem hurried away from the dig site and rushed back to where the teleportation device was.

He couldn’t help it. It seemed something had happened in the World of Adepts that demanded his attention!