Age of Adepts

Greem was utterly ignorant of everything that had happened in the Fire Elementium Plane. He was still busy at work in Fire Throne.

The process of crafting the Emblem of Fire was a delicate task of constant tempering and alchemical skill. Even with the Chip’s help, Greem’s progress was just as slow.

Fortunately, Greem had sufficient patience and resources which allowed him to continue walking forward despite his repeated failures. Bit by bit, he managed to prepare all of the materials required to craft the Emblem of Fire.

The base of the armband was the first component to be finished. However, just that base alone would not qualify as Second Grade fire magical equipment. After soaking the armband base in the fire dragon’s blood for ten days, Greem finally reached the last step in the crafting process.

He neutralized the liquid made from the molten fire agate with the neutralizing agent composed from the fire dragon’s blood, then poured the mixture into the rune grooves that had been carved into the armband ahead of time. The three-dimensional runic arrays on the armband could only form a complete energy circulation system once these rune grooves were connected.

Once that was done, the combination of the metal, runes, and the energy together would genuinely make a piece of Second Grade magical equipment that could help Greem. Before that, it could only be considered a pile of rare materials!

To craft his second Fire Throne set piece, Greem spent most of his days in the magical laboratory, sparing time only to eat, meditate, and read related tomes and books.

Of course, if it weren’t for the daily meals being greatly beneficial to his body, and the meditation as the only way to replenish his Spirit, Greem would probably have gritted his teeth and skipped out on those activities as well!

The intense external pressure had not only failed to take apart his confidence and crush his will. It successfully triggered that stubbornness and wildness hidden deep within his heart.

The more the enemy wanted to defeat him, the straighter he would stand! The more the enemy tried to kill him, the more interesting of a life he would lead!

Greem blocked out all external interference and devoted himself whole-heartedly to the crafting and refining of the Emblem of Fire armband.

When it came to alchemy and alchemy alone, Greem had no teacher; he couldn’t possibly have a teacher.

With one Golem Creation Manual as his introduction to the subject, and with the help of the Chip, Greem had managed to turn himself into an ’underground master alchemist’!

Of course, he was an overly specialized ’alchemist.’ His knowledge and ability were concentrated solely on the creation of magical golems and the crafting of artifacts. Greem had no knowledge in the other branches and domains of alchemy. He knew so little that even an alchemy apprentice could beat him in that aspect.

Still, perhaps it was stubbornness and madness that allowed Greem to improve so rapidly in the arts of artifact creation. Greem’s title as a master alchemist was fully deserved at the moment the Emblem of Fire came into existence!

Year 32,856 of the Era of Adepts. The twenty-fifth day of the seventh month of the year.

Seventy-eight days after Greem had signed the magical contract and the thirty-first day since he had scurried back from his exploration to the Fire Elementium Plane, the long-awaited Emblem of Fire had finally been successfully created.

When the two set pieces of Fire Throne simultaneously connected with his soul, an odd resonance effect emerged.

There was no magic being set off or any intentional activation of life forcefields. There was only one single halo of fire revolving around his body.

Elementary Fire Immunity!

It was unlike advanced fire resistance. What Greem had obtained was elementary fire immunity.

Fire immunity was different from fire resistance. These were two entirely different concepts.

Fire resistance was just a living being stimulating their life energies to resist the energy strength of the corroding fire elementium. Regardless of how high a being’s fire resistance was, they could only resist fire energy damage within flames. They still had to endure a part of that damage if they were dealing with certain variants of fire energy.

For instance, there was the physical damage from fire arrows, or the explosive shockwaves and scalding from a magma fireball.

However, fire immunity was completely different!

Fire immunity meant that the individual would never have to endure any type of energy damage from fire or any its variants. Though Greem had only obtained elementary fire immunity and was only immune to some low-grade fire energy damage, this was already of massive help to him.

After all, the most populous creatures in the Fire Elementium Plane were those brainless low-grade fire elementium that only knew how to wander about aimlessly. Greem no longer needed to worry about being focus-fired on and brought down by these weak creatures now that he had elementary fire immunity!

This way, the massive fire elemental army of that Fire Lord had become a useless ornament. Greem only needed to watch out for those high-grade fire elementals now.

On the day after his successful crafting and after a night of peaceful rest to replenish his Spirit, Greem once again opened the Flamegate and snuck into the Fire Elementium Plane.

One had to admit that the stubbornness of fire elementium creatures was truly impressive!

Greem had just emerged from the Flamegate when he was instantly drowned in a storm of a dozen explosive fireballs.

Ferocious flames, violent shockwaves, and extreme temperatures that could vaporize even steel.

Terrifying flames devoured Greem’s vision in a single instant. The fire damage’s energy intensity that the Chip was projecting in his mind was also increasing exponentially. In the blink of an eye, the strength of the attack had reached five hundred and thirty-six points.

An attack of this strength would be enough to obliterate most First Grade adepts. Of course, unprepared, even Second Grade adepts would suffer terrible losses from such an attack.

However, by the time the surging flames gradually dispersed, the First Grade fire spirits crowding around the Flamegate were shocked to find that their target was still standing on the spot.

Not only had he suffered no damage, but the red adept’s robe on him also appeared to be utterly untouched beneath the cover of a strange halo of fire. Moreover, the adept was now looking around him with a hostile gaze. An unconcealable rage could be seen in the light from his black eyes.

Dammit! These pig-headed fire spirits had sat here and waited thirty-one days for him!

This…what kind of dumb and devastating obstinacy was this?!

Greem looked around and immediately realized that the location of the Flamegate wasn’t the same as last time. There were absolutely no signs of plains around him, which was more than enough evidence that he was at least fifty kilometers away from where he had arrived last time.

These fire spirits had been able to catch his arrival despite such a huge deviation in the location of his appearance. The only possibility of this happening was that the spirits were monitoring all weak spatial points in this area.

Filled with a trace of anger at his ambush and the desire to test out the power of the two Fire Throne set pieces, Greem roared and extended his hands. They immediately burst with blazing and searing flames.

Burning Hand!

This apprentice-level spell could only travel for half a meter at the hands of an apprentice adept. However, when cast by a Second Grade fire adept like Greem, the same spell flashed with flames five to six meters tall.

The eleven First Grade fire spirits had backed off and put up defenses for fear of some powerful spell from the human adept. They immediately relaxed when they saw him cast such a crude fire spell. Instead, they surged forward and lunged at the enemy.

As First Grade fire spirits of the Fire Elementium Plane, their fire resistance was shockingly high; they did not need to worry that this human adept’s low-grade fire spell could possibly harm their bodies. Instead, they took the opportunity of the adept casting a spell to close in on him for close quarter strikes.

After all, given the powerful fire defense that the human adept had just shown them, long-ranged fire attacks were probably ineffective. If that was the case, then melee combat was the only trick left up their sleeves!

Just as the eleven fire spirits charged to Greem’s side, the blazing fire in his hands trembled and contorted. The smoking flames were then concentrated and forced into brilliant spears as red as a ruby.

”Go!”

Greem roared as the flames in his hands were driven to their extremes. Eleven crystalline spears that were tougher than steel extended from his palms. They instantly pierced the chests of the fire spirits and ran through the fire cores hidden deep within their bodies.

The eleven fire spirits trembled and remained frozen on the spot, unable to move.

As Greem clenched his fists, the eleven crystal spears immediately dispersed into intangible flames and returned to his palms.

The eleven fire spirits started to tremble increasingly fiercely. Finally, their shattered fire cores could no longer constrain their fire forms. Boom, boom, boom! Several small flame explosions occurred in a chain, engulfing the area into an overwhelming storm of fire.

Of course, such explosions triggered by the destruction of their souls was much, much less potent than the self-destruction caused by their own will. Greem simply stood on the spot and treated it as a warm gust of wind. He didn’t even bother to dodge.

Hopefully, these fire spirits had not managed to send out a message in time!

Greem mumbled to himself after dealing with these fearless grunts.

However, Greem knew it was no more than wishful thinking. The fire spirits had probably reported on the situation to their headquarters at the very instant he teleported over.

He couldn’t stay here for too long. Otherwise, there was a real possibility he would run into those terrifying Second and Third Grade individuals!

Greem had more than eighty percent chance to win against a single Second Grade Blazefire Spirit with his current power. If he faced off against two Blazefire Spirits, his chances of victory would fall to thirty percent. With three of them, Greem would have to run as far as he could. Otherwise, he would die a terrible death after being ground away by the enemy.

As for a Third Grade fire spirit? Greem had no other way of dealing with a being like that apart from having the Flame Fiend of Terror self-destruct and buy some time for him to escape.

Fortunately, the one good thing about the Fire Elementium Plane was the rarity of Third Grade creatures, much like the World of Adepts. They were not individuals that one simply ran into. Otherwise, Greem would never have dared to come exploring in such a dangerous and lethal world!

After turning around and shutting the Flamegate, Greem cleaned up the battlefield and started his journey to explore the Fire Elementium Plane.