Age of Adepts

Greem saw the remains of the excavated Planar Door inside a large leather tent.

One could vaguely see the silhouette of the metal arch’s door standing in the center of the tent. It gave all visitors an oppressive feeling of might.

Scaffolds and metal platforms had already been constructed in front of and behind the metal door. Countless goblin technicians and engineers were busy working on the thing, climbing up and down. A large pile of ’garbage’ had also accumulated in the corner of the tent. Several goblins were working on top of the pile with bamboo baskets on their backs. They were carefully picking out all the metal pieces in the debris that seemed like they could belong to the metal arch.

These metal shards came in all sizes. The large ones were as large as a goblin, while the smaller ones could be as tiny as a fingernail. Once these pieces had been carefully picked out of the pile, they would be sent to the goblin engineers, who would use their experience to determine whether the shard belonged to the Planar Door and where it originally belonged.

Greem stood at the edge of the busy work site. Blue light flashed in his eyes, and he instantly understood the condition of the Planar Door.

The upper half of the metal arch door was where the damage was most significant. Over 78% of the components there were visibly missing. In comparison, the two foundations of the arch door were still basically intact. However, the surface of the metal was cracked and dented all over the place. Its formerly strange patterns were now unrecognizable.

The fearsome spatial storm created by the explosion of the massive space furnace had also ravaged the area the Planar Door resided. Fortunately, the Planar Door was protected by a forcefield, allowing it to weather the initial period of the storm where it was the most ferocious. It was the massive faults in the ground and the collapse of the underground space that had caused the Planar Door to malfunction and its structure to be crushed and damaged.

Now that it was being cautiously excavated and restored by the goblins, the metal arch door was once again showing to the world its proud, mighty, and mysterious appearance.

Excavation site overseer Bug Adept Billis had arrived here with Greem. The few goblins responsible for the other workers in the excavation site hesitated and didn’t dare to walk near the adepts. It seemed they were terrified of Billis.

It wasn’t until Greem extended a hand and called for them that a goblin in a delicate military uniform loudly reported the progress of the Planar Door’s restoration.

Fortunately, the Planar Door wasn’t too severely damaged. It was missing approximately 64% of its metal components, along with 57% of its goblin runes. This goblin estimated that the metal door could be restored to 84% of its previous state if they scoured the entire underground space and filtered out all the metal components that could be found.

The other 17% had either been dragged into a different plane by the space storm or simply vaporized; it was impossible to retrieve these pieces. They would have to reforge these missing parts if they wanted to complete the reconstruction of the door.

This task would only take twelve to fifteen days for the goblins and their exceptional skill at engineering and metallurgy.

With Brain Monster Gazlowe on their side, the goblin runes on the door were no problem either. After all, Gazlowe was the one who had personally created this door. It combined the knowledge of the dragons, magic runes, and goblin technology. All of this information was saved in Gazowe’s sizeable mind.

The Third Grade thunder dragon had still refused to reveal the secret knowledge of the dragons and any information about the Lance Plane he grew up in, even when faced with Greem’s threat on his life and promises of wealth.

Arms also took the effort to wipe away all memories of the coordinates of the Lance Plane in Zacha’s soul when he transferred the soul contract to Greem.

Thus, Greem had no choice but to place his hopes on this Planar Door and brain monster Gazlowe himself.

In all honesty, even Thunder Dragon Arms didn’t expect the Planar Door to survive through that terrifying explosion. More importantly, Brain Monster Gazlowe was still alive.

Greem could do anything he wanted with the presence of Gazlowe at his side. Even if the Planar Door had been utterly destroyed without a trace, Gazlowe could help them recreate a Planar Door within six or seven months. However, now that they had ready-made remains of the metal arch, the entire timeline of the project could be shortened to a single month. That would also be the day upon which Greem and Gazlowe were to complete their joint construction of the first magic generator furnace.

Gazlowe had invested all his efforts to create the Queyras Alloy in the past, especially in light of the severe lack of magical metals in the Goblin Plane. Now that he had Greem’s support, tens of tons of magical alloys and large amounts of special metals with excellent magical resistance were transported over from the World of Adepts.

It was such backing that allowed Brain Monster Gazlowe to optimize and improve the design of the magic generator furnace with his thousand-time amplified calculating abilities.

When you added to the consideration the creation of the magic spring by the explosion, there was no doubt that the efficiency of this new magic generator furnace would be increased by more than ten times.

A more powerful magic generator furnace doubtlessly warranted support from a stronger magical alloy. These days, Gazlowe spent his days in a small alchemical lab in the flying vessel he controlled. He was constantly experimenting with new magical alloy materials.

Gazlowe’s estimated time for the completion of the magic generator furnace forged with the newest materials coincided with the completion of the restoration of the Planar Door.

Gazlowe, after weaponizing himself with the magic generator furnace, could immediately use the Planar Door to launch an invasion on the Lance Plane where Arms lived.

And this was going to be Greem’s third planar invasion!

…………

One month later.

A large group of goblin engineers had been transported to the excavation site. This place once again turned into a bustling city of machines.

All sorts of metal of various shapes were dug out of the ground and piled up by the side. The more brilliant metal ingots, on the other hand, had been sent here from the large provinces of the goblins. Apart from this, the engineers and the magical machines formed a neat line and rows, creating a mechanical army that numbered over several tens of thousands of individuals.

All sorts of factories unique to the goblins such as the smelter, the construction machine factory, and the combat magical machine assembling factory could be seen even further away in the distance.

All resources and equipment had been prepared. Everyone was only waiting for the completion of the towering, ten-meter tall giant metal arch door.

This initially battered door seemed to have been turned into a new one after a month’s worth of restoration and polishing. Countless strange runes hovered about the surface of the metal door that flashed with a ghostly blue metallic shine.

These strange patterns were not meaningless cosmetic decorations. They were goblin rune technology that the Brain Monster Gazlowe had created through merging the essence of the three civilizations’ knowledge.

However, the protagonist of today was not the cold metal door, but the flying vessel hovering high above in the air.

The adepts of the Crimson Clan were all gathered in the center of the field, assessing the bottom of the flying vessel as it slowly lowered its height.

The floating vessel finally stopped once it was a mere hundred meters away from the ground. Instead, a hole silently opened in the bottom of the ship. A five-meter long, three-meter wide, and three-meter tall irregular metallic product slowly drifted out from the ship and slowly fell downward.

The magic generator furnace!

All the adepts felt their hearts pound when they saw the increasingly close metal product. The excitement in their hearts was indescribable.

Don’t look down on the furnace simply because of its mediocre size. It had terrifying energy capacity and endurance compared to the elementium altars of the adept towers.

The current numbers showed that the magic generator furnace was continually absorbing magic energy from space at a hundred times the rate of Fire Throne. That made the furnace almost equal in efficiency to Alice’s Tower of Fate. The magic energy power that the furnace could output would instantly become the sum total of the output of all the origin towers of the witches put together if it as paired with that legendary magic spring.

When that happened, one only had to attach sufficiently powerful magical facilities and magic energy weapons to the furnace. Who could defend against a reckless bombardment then from the furnace then?

All adept’s towers were fixed upon specific leyline nodes. Moving the towers by even an inch was difficult. However, the magic generator furnace could be liberally transplanted to any war machine, including the giant flying vessel flying in the ship right now.

A flying vessel that could travel throughout the world. This was the true reason why Greem was willing to do everything in his power to help Gazlowe construct an uber-magic generator furnace.

”Where’s the brain monster?” Meryl couldn’t help but curiously ask her teacher. She couldn’t find Gazlowe’s figure no matter how she looked around.

Greem didn’t reply. Instead, he pointed at the magic generator furnace with his finger.

Meryl once again closed her eyes to sense her surroundings. It was now that she vaguely sensed Gazlowe’s mental consciousness flux within the incomparably violent magic energies inside the magic generator furnace.

”He fitted himself into the magic generator furnace.” Meryl’s pretty eyes opened larger and larger. She didn’t dare believe her own senses.

The brain monster had been as large as a hill the last time she saw it. How did it manage to compress itself into a tiny ball and squeeze its way into the furnace?

Meryl couldn’t help but start fantasizing, and bloody scenes of carnage were quickly conjured up in her mind.

”It’s not as terrifying as you think,” A trace of a smile appeared on Greem’s youthful and handsome face as if he had already seen through Meryl’s thoughts, ”Gazlowe created a clone for himself and transferred most of his actual consciousness into that clone. The clone’s only the size of an ordinary human’s brain. It’s a perfect fit to be installed within the magic generator furnace.”

Greem then changed the subject, his eyes moving to the flying vessel above.

”Gazlowe had put his main brain in the furnace three days ago. The secondary brain he left outside started growing and swelling without restraint ever since. Currently,” Greem paused for a moment, ”Its new brain has almost taken up all the remaining space in the flying vessel.”

”It’s that big already?” Meryl raised her head to look at the giant ship that was taking up most of her vision. She betrayed an expression of disgust.

”I have already discussed with him. The massive underground space left behind from the excavation won’t be backfilled. Rather, it will be protected as the secondary brain’s depositary. At any rate, the outside is enveloped in radiation dust that won’t be dispersing any time soon. Ordinary creatures have no chance of making it here. It is the most suitable place for the brain to grow!”

Meryl looked around her.

A massive underground space that measured twenty to thirty kilometers in diameter and several thousands of meters in depth had been formed here after the excavation had concluded. The brain monster intended to use this place as the shelter for its secondary brain. How big did it mean to grow exactly?

Meryl felt goosebumps rise all over her body.

As expected, none of these fellows were normal!