Age of Adepts

It was a strange city filled with fire creatures.

Fire creatures were not proficient in building or smithing. As such, most of the buildings in the city were caves dug into the dark red walls. These buildings were then connected with twisting and winding tunnels. The ceiling of these caves had been made to be very tall to accommodate the large bodies of the fire creatures. The tunnels were broad as well.

Much like most human cities, this fire city also had facilities such as inns, taverns, grocers, arcane shops, and auction houses. However, the ones managing these places were not necessarily the native fire creatures of the Fire Elementium Plane.

Greem walked amidst the crowd of people through the entirety of this fire city. It was no more than two kilometers wide, and there was only a total of two or three dozen shops. Surprisingly, he found a material shop run by an adept.

Tokke’s Materials!

Greem’s heart trembled when he saw the shop name written in the adept’s language on the outside of the cave. He couldn’t help but walk into the store.

It was an extremely crude cave. It was only one to two hundred square meters in size. Rows of stone platforms had been carved into the walls, where strange items were displayed. However, without a single exception, every single one of them contained dense fire energy.

A listless little fire spirit was crouching on the counter. It only started to get up when it saw a customer enter and looked at Greem.

The fire spirit looked as if it only had the power of an advanced apprentice.

Of course, Greem still appeared like a towering First Grade fire spirit. He dragged a tail of fire behind his blazing body as he slowly walked into the store.

A trace of joy appeared on the fire spirit’s emotional humanoid face when it first stood up. However, its previously passionate expression reverted to one of boredom once it recognized Greem’s fire spirit form.

“Do you wish to buy something or sell something today? If you are trying to sell something, I’m afraid to tell you that our little shop is not exactly equipped to do so during this period. If you are trying to buy something, everything that the shop has is already on display. You may pick and choose at your discretion.”

It seemed to have memorized these words and immediately regurgitated them when it opened its mouth. However, Greem’s attention was not on the fire materials it was introducing. Instead, he was thinking about the change in expression that the little fire spirit betrayed when it saw him.

There was joy on its face when it saw a customer arrive. It was ‘human nature’ and easily understandable. However, its joyful expression vanished when it saw Greem’s fire spirit appearance. It seemed as if the fire spirit wasn’t glad about having a customer.

There was something odd about this!

Greem’s eyes swept across the shop and found a few unknown objects etched with magical runes on the surface. Judging by these items, there was no doubt that this shop had something to do with adepts.

“You…are…shop…owner?” The fire spirit Greem had turned into asked with a slow and stiff tone.

The language of the Fire Elementium Plane was an ancient native language. Its vocabulary was, and the pronunciation was bizarre as well. It was difficult for a plane traveler to master the language without plenty of experience.

Naturally, as a Second Grade adept, Greem had no such issues.

He could effortlessly retrieve the portion of knowledge related to the language from native creature soul shards by using Soul Arrest. Meanwhile, he could easily mimic the unique accent of the fire creatures by changing the internal structure of his fire form.

Apart from absorbing the Essences of Fire to raise his fire affinity, Greem had spent his last few months observing and mimicking the native creatures.

The fire spirit showed no signs of suspicion at Greem’s behavior and only shrugged helplessly.

“This store isn’t mine. I’m just a helper hired by a human adept. Our…shop owner…was taken away by the Lord. It’s already been a few months, and they still haven’t been released yet.”

Greem’s heart shook as he instantly knew what he did wrong.

In all seriousness, all of the fire creatures he had seen since entering the Fire Elementium Plane appeared to be foolish and slow, even though they did appear to show signs of intelligence. He’d thought that Cindral was an exception, but now, it seemed like he had underestimated that Fire Lord.

That Fire Lord had arrested the adept who had set up the shop but didn’t order the shop to be shut down. That was clearly meant as a web, cast out to catch him. Every single individual who walked into this shop would probably be subject to strict investigations by the Fire Lord’s subordinate.

His disguise might be very realistic, but there would certainly be flaws if he were caught and interrogated.

Even at this moment, Greem could sense seven or eight powerful fire humanoids rapidly approaching the store with his sharp senses.

“Does this shop have a backdoor?” Greem grabbed the little fire spirit and asked hurriedly.

“Yes, it’s in the back.” The fire spirit was shocked. Its skinny fire finger had not even pointed to the place, and the giant fire spirit in front of it had already turned into a blaze of fire and vanished from sight.

Greem had just disappeared when a massive wave of heat rolled into the shop. A large group of ferocious molten giants walked in.

“Where’s the big guy that came in earlier?”

“Hurry up and speak! Where is he?”

“Speak.”

Several five or six-meter-tall molten giants surrounded the one-meter half fire spirit and roared with their deafening voices.

This fire spirit with only advanced apprentice powers practically froze on the spot. It pointed at the back of the shop with its trembling hand.

The molten giants immediately brushed aside the counter in their way and crashed through the stone door that was half their size to chase after Greem.

Greem quickly walked across the small alley behind the shop. His large body of flames rapidly morphed as he walked. By the time he exited the alley and joined the crowd of people, his body had already shrunk to three meters. He’d also made plenty of minor changes to his face and appearance.

There was no way the enemy would suspect a ‘weak’ First Grade fire spirit like himself if they were to search for him based on his earlier appearance.

Moreover, fire spirits, flame spirits, and fire elementals were the most commonly seen fire creatures in the Fire Elementium Plane. Almost half of all the fire creatures on the street had the same blazing humanoid appearance as Greem. There were only some slight differences in the details.

However, these differences were hard to tell as long as you weren’t a native of the plane!

Greem had dissected and scanned plenty of fire elementals and fire spirits over the past few months to understand their body structure and appearance. With the delicate energy manipulation abilities of the Chip, he could completely replicate the looks of the fire spirits he had met, down to the finest detail.

Thud, thud, thud! The loud footsteps rang out as the molten giants ran out of the alley. They immediately grabbed the fire spirit closest to them and dragged it before their eyes for a better look.

Most fire beings were wild and impatient creatures that couldn’t be bound by law or discipline.

This First Grade fire spirit was furious at having been suddenly attacked. It might know that it was not the opponent of these molten giants, but the flames around its body still blazed as a stream of fire shot at the giants.

The molten giant in the lead betrayed a wicked smile on its gruff face. It immediately picked up the fire spirit and smashed it against the ground. This single throw broke the fire spirit’s body into pieces. It took dozens of seconds before this fire spirit finally managed to gather its flame together around its core.

“We are acting on Lord Artes’ orders. Otherworldly spies have entered Dustfire Valley. All fire spirits are to follow me to the Lord’s hall to verify themselves now. If anyone dares resist, then this fellow will be your fate!” The molten giant straightened its body, stepped upon the unfortunate fire spirit, and loudly announced to everyone present.

The previously peaceful fire city instantly exploded with commotion upon hearing such an order.

The fire elementals were all creatures with extreme tempers. How could they possibly endure such an attitude? One by one, they waved their arms furiously at the molten giants. Some, who possessed even worse tempers, started to gather fireballs in their palms as if they were about to start a fight without another word.

Greem was mixed in among the berserk fire spirits while the street was thrown into chaos. He was the first to throw an elementium fireball at the six-meter-tall Second Grade molten giant. The next second, over a hundred fireballs of various shapes and forms whistled through the air and smashed toward the giants.

The faces of the giants instantly turned.

Goddamn! So many fireballs! They weren’t all that powerful individually, but when such an incredible number of fireballs were stacked together, the might of their explosion was still formidable. Even molten giants like themselves didn’t dare to endure the blow, despite their flame bodies that were as tough as steel.

The molten giants gathered together and crouched down, using their tough magma backs to protect their more fragile body parts.

Beng! Beng! Beng!

After a tremendous explosion, a small mushroom cloud rose from where the molten giants were standing, and a searing flame shockwave spread outward in every direction.

The entire fire city couldn’t help but tremble at this moment!

“How bold! Going against the Lord’s orders is rebellion. Come, men! Capture them all and put them in prison.” As the giant roared, the molten giants stationed all over the city rushed out of their posts and started attacking every single fire spirit in sight.

The entire city was plunged into chaos in a single instant!