Age of Adepts

The shock of the Battle for Fire Throne only grew with each passing day!

Five adept clans joining hands to exterminate a clan that had been established for less than ten years had ended up defeated. Not only were their mortal armies completely slaughtered, more than half of the one hundred official adepts had also lost their lives. Only a few of them had made it back to their clans.

It was entirely beyond everyone’s expectations. It also caused many high-grade adepts to cast their attention on this insignificant new clan.

Full ownership over a lesser plane with access to all its resources and population was the dream of all adept clans. It would allow them to turn the lesser plane into a talent and soldier manufactory. However, any adepts who had participated in a planar war knew very well how difficult it was to conquer a foreign plane perfectly. It was simply too hard to have the proud natives submit with the limited number of adepts in a clan.

Most adept clans only occupied their lesser planes as outside forces or plane merchants. That was the only way to reduce and lower the fear and rejection of the natives toward them. Of course, after years of infiltration and encouraging conflicts amongst the natives, the adepts would eventually be able to manipulate the actual rulers of the plane and indirectly gain the ability to exploit its resources.

However, such a process often took an extraordinarily long time.

The typical workflow of invading and taking control of a small-sized plane would require five to ten years of hard work and manipulation. If it was a mid-sized plane, then the time taken could even extend as long as a hundred years.

However, this Crimson Clan was going against all conventions. They had taken a mere ten years to gain complete control over two fairly powerful lesser planes. Some busybodies did some analysis and suggested that one of the planes was a magical machine world populated by goblins, while the other was a dragon plane filled with pureblood dragons.

In theory, the Crimson Clan should not have had the power to so easily conquer two such planes. Even if they committed all of their forces to this cause, being able to establish an adept’s camp in the foreign plane would have been an enormous task, not to mention enslaving the local natives who possessed such immense power in their hands. That should have been impossible!

The surprising thing was that the Crimson Clan had somehow done it anyway.

Aside from invading the two planes, they had even gained complete control of the magical machine world through some unknown method. Otherwise, the Crimson Clan would not have been able to summon tens of thousands of metal golems from the magical machine world to crush the Alliance and save them in their moment of crisis.

All the adept clans close to Fire Throne immediately started worrying after hearing this news.

They were extremely concerned that they would one day wake up to find all of their clan’s territory taken over by the Crimson Clan, and their tower surrounded by an army of these cheap metal golems. Exchanging their precious lives for the lives of those low-cost metal golems was a trade that could never possibly be worth it!

For a moment, many adept clans in the Ailovis Region could no longer sit still. They started to forge secret alliances and communicated with each other countless times. They had the mind to organize an even larger Alliance to invade and completely exterminate such a lurking threat.

However, all the adept clans quickly ceased their operations after sending out spies and scouts to do reconnaissance on Fire Throne.

My god, the surrounding area of Fire Throne had now turned into a labyrinth of magical machines!

The entirety of Fire Cave and Magma Hall had been taken over by patrolling magical machines. Trying to make it through these two places to spy on the condition of Fire Throne was no more than a fantasy under such circumstances.

As such, attempting to form another alliance to invade the Crimson Clan without any knowledge as to what was happening in their tower would only result in the same conclusion– a flood of magical machines to slaughter all invading adepts.

After they returned to their respective headquarters and territories, an internal struggle immediately erupted among the five adept clans who had been defeated by the Crimson Clan. The Kamala Clan that had managed to preserve the strength of their clan took the opportunity to invade the Magic Forest Hut and the Andorra Clan. The former was defeated and surrendered to the Kamala Clan, turning into a satellite force of theirs. Meanwhile, the latter lost all of their worldly territories and were forced to turtle behind their one remaining adept’s tower, barely managing to preserve the last fire of their clan.

The Cenas Clan and Layton Adept’s Academy also retreated to their headquarters after a series of turbulence and invasions, successfully making it through this challenging period.

However, when news of Third Grade Haines Vik’s capture at the hands of the Crimson Clan got out, the Vik Family’s vampire castle in the southwest of Zhentarim was immediately taken over by the other vampire families. For a moment, the members of the Vik Family were forced to escape into unknown lands or submit and joint another vampire family.

Just like that, a vampire family that had existed for three to four hundred years vanished without a trace!

Unlike the commotion in the outside world, the Crimson Clan was engulfed in an atmosphere of joy and celebration.

Still, while there were those who were smiling, there were also those were crying.

Small Brain Monster Gru was the one who wanted to cry the most amongst them.

The Crimson Clan had obtained the most significant benefits and spoils out of this war. However, they were also the ones who suffered the most considerable losses.

The counterattack–which had lasted no more than a day–had resulted in over six thousand magical machines scrapped and over eight hundred thousand magical energy batteries consumed. Though the losses to the magical machine army were only one-twentieth of Gazlowe’s total reserves, the depleted magic energy batteries accounted for two-thirds of his entire supply.

The metal fortress could not possibly unleash such a powerful army of soldiers again without a few years of rest and accumulation!

Once the situation in Fire Throne had stabilized, Gru once again traveled back to Lance through the portal. The control authority of the two thousand magical machines remaining near the tower was left with Gargamel, and the machines were to function as the lookouts for the tower temporarily.

However, Fire Throne had no means of sustaining such a vast army of magical machines without Small Brain Monster Gru’s magic energy furnace. They had no choice but to recall most of the machines and store them within the tower as strategic resources. Only a two hundred strong magical machine squad continued to guard the tower.

Even this was only a temporary measure taken in response to the conclusion of the battle.

These two hundred magical machines would be cut down even further once the situation had completely calmed down. The tower didn’t have the energy supply to power all of them, let alone repair the damage to itself.

As members of the adepts, everyone still had to obey the so-called Adept’s Handbook. As such, the Crimson Clan higher-ups were really having trouble deciding how to deal with these adept prisoners.

They had managed to obtain countless rare resources and treasures in need of dire appraisal after looting the dead bodies and storage spaces of the seventy dead adepts. However, the opinions of Mary and the others were divided when it came to the treatment of the twenty-six surviving adept prisoners.

Given Mary’s personality, she would have had all these adepts executed without exception. In fact, she would have loved to personally do the deed, either turning them into her blood slaves or squeezing out every last bit of their blood essence. Unfortunately, this ridiculous idea was rejected by all of the adepts.

No one cared what you did in the foreign planes you controlled. However, if you were to act so brashly and irresponsibly in the World of Adepts,  you could be sure that the old fogeys of the Zhentarim Association would be knocking on your door in no time.

Given the unique traits of the vampires, they were strictly forbidden to Embrace and create new vampires within the World of Adepts. Otherwise, the few vampire families would not have needed to go to such great lengths to expand their families through natural reproduction.

Moreover, Embracing required the exhaustion of bloodline power and bloodline source.

If Mary became truly blinded by greed and turned all twenty-six of these adepts into her vampires, then there was no doubt that her gade would fall. Losing the grade she had worked so hard to attain for twenty-six ordinary vampire subordinates; Mary might be greedy, but she wasn’t a fool.

Ever since she had returned from the Faen Plane, Mary had realized the disadvantages of reckless Embracing. She no longer dared to indiscriminately expand her ranks as she had before. It was best to accumulate her bloodline powers if it weren’t an exceptionally talented individual she was dealing with.

The Crimson Clan had initially been waiting for the defeated clans to send representatives to discuss the matter of ransom. Yet, despite waiting for a long time, no representative had arrived. The Crimson Clan sent some people on reconnaissance and were shocked to find out what had happened. Three of the five adept forces had been crippled. One had grown from all the conflict, while the Magic Forest Hut had just turned into a subordinate power of the Kamala Clan.

These clans could barely even defend themselves at the moment. Where would they find the resources to spare for ransoming their clan adepts?!

When the Crimson Clan conveyed this information to the prisoners, they fell silent. In particular, the alchemist adepts of the Magic Forest Hut were boiling with anger. There would be no doubt that they would have started a fight with the adept prisoners of the Kamala Clan if they hadn’t had their magic powers restrained and their magical tools taken away.

After another two months of painful waiting, only the two Kamala adepts were ransomed by their clan at an exorbitant price. The rest of the adepts became abandoned pawns that no one cared about.

These adepts were not going to be resigned to the rest of their lives being spent wasting away in prison. One by one, the prisoners started to initiate discussions with the Crimson Clan in regards to their welfare and treatment after submitting to and joining the Crimson Clan.

Naturally, as defeated enemies, their status could not be compared to ordinary adepts who had come to offer their talents.

They would have to accept being enslaved by magical contracts for a very long period of time and serving as vassal adepts of the Crimson Clan. They could only regain their right to choose for themselves once they had made it through the entirety of their service.

Finally, after some difficult discussions and negotiations, both parties came to a conclusion.

The adept prisoners would serve as vassals for twenty years. During these twenty years, they would sign a magical contract with the Crimson Clan and become half-enslaved clan members. It was only after the twenty-year period was up that they had the freedom to choose whether to leave or remain.

The first adepts to submit after they settled the discussions were naturally the alchemist adepts. Their Magic Forest Hut had already been taken over by the Kamala Clan. They would be submitting to the Kamala even if they went back. Rather than that, they might as well establish their roots in the Crimson Clan.

The addition of these alchemists instantly caused the Crimson Clan adept forces to increase in power. In fact, with the lead and guidance of Gargamel, a new alchemist branch was founded within the clan.

With the alchemists of Magic Forest Hut serving by example, the remaining adepts didn’t last for much longer. Gradually, all of them dejectedly accepted the magical contract and served as the lowest of adepts in the Crimson Clan.

The addition of twenty-four official adepts caused the Crimson Clan’s initially lacking adept force to swell in number. Apart from the crippled Fire Throne having to undergo repairs slowly, the entire clan had benefited from the war. Even White Tower, far away in the Northern Lands, had obtained some benefits as a few vassal adepts were sent their way.

With these adepts forming the foundations of the tower’s framework, many lessons and combat divisions that couldn’t be sustained in the past slowly started appearing.

The entire Crimson Clan continuously absorbed nutrition from the blood and flesh of their defeated enemies and were once again slowly rising on the path toward power and prosperity!