Age of Adepts

“Chip, search for the conditions required to advance to Third Grade!”

[Beep. Order received. Starting a search of data library.]

Following a strange buzzing sound, the Chip soon returned with the content that Greem needed.

[Beep. According to the content in the data library, combined with the Host’s current bodily attributes, there are two requirements for the Host’s advancement to Third Grade.

[One. Spirit has to reach twenty-nine points. It is a necessary condition for advancement to the Third Grade.

[Two. Obtain the knowledge and resources required for advancing to Third Grade.

[Host currently lacks the necessary knowledge on high-grade methods of Spirit utilization and elementium conversion, along with an auto-construction model for the energy system and understanding of the high-grade magical characteristics of fire elementium. Concerning the resources, a detailed list has also been attached.]

The Chip started projecting some information into the depths of Greem’s mind, and a long list of sixty-three advancement resources slowly unfolded.

Greem took a brief look and quickly noticed many rare fire materials. Many of them were resources as scarce as the Essences of Fire.

The resources weren’t a big problem. With the prosperity of the World of Adepts that came from robbing tens of thousands of lesser planes, he could easily purchase any sort of resource that he was looking for. The only question was how many magical crystals he would need to spend.

Greem did a simple calculation and estimated that he only needed approximately 1.4 million magical crystals to purchase all the missing resources and materials.

The only thing that troubled him was the knowledge that he currently lacked.

Almost all significant clans and adept forces treated high-grade knowledge as their most valuable asset. They strictly classified and sealed away such knowledge. They might be willing to make a trade when it came to the resources, but even approaching the topic of the knowledge they possessed was a taboo. There was absolutely no possibility of coming into contact with this information without first signing a contract of servitude with them.

Greem might have dominated across battlefields over these years and amassed impressive wealth, but he was not making much progress in procuring information. All of the knowledge necessary for advancement listed by the Chip belonged in the high-grade category. Unless Greem was willing to abandon the Crimson Clan and join a major adept organization, there was no way he could obtain such knowledge.

Faced with such a difficult problem, the first person Greem turned to was Alice, far away in the Northern Lands.

Soon, with the remote connection between their two towers, Greem had managed to contact Alice.

Alice couldn’t help but frown when she heard Greem list out the list of knowledge he needed to acquire.

“The high-grade utilization of Spirit and the high-grade magical characteristics of fire elementium? We might have the related knowledge to these two topics in the Tower of Fate’s library, but I have no clue about the other two you mentioned. The Tower of Fate has been inactive for a thousand years after all. The resources and knowledge archives are severely incomplete. You might have to make a deal with the witch leaders if you want to obtain the last two pieces of information!”

Alice paused for a moment to think before continuing,

“I will try and think of something for you on this matter! Perhaps I might even be able to get something from the Death Witches. Wait for my news!”

Then the connection with Alice was cut off.

Greem might be feeling fervent about his advancement, but he knew that there was no rushing such matters.

Moreover, his Spirit was only at twenty-eight points now. It was an entire point away from the peak of twenty-nine points required for advancement. Don’t underestimate the importance of this one point. With Greem’s current speed of improvement through meditation, it would take him several years of hard work to achieve twenty-nine points.

As such, Greem turned his attention to the forging of the last three set pieces of Fire Throne after leaving the matter of searching for high-grade knowledge to Alice.

The primary materials for creating the Fire Throne set had been obtained after raiding the lair of the Fourth Grade wind dragon. Snorlax had also managed to gather most of the remaining materials. Thus, Greem took this rare opportunity to begin the preparatory work for the third set piece in his tower.

Greem chose the core component of the Fire Throne set as his third set piece– the Burning Suncrown.

The Burning Suncrown’s Ring of Fire could merge with Greem’s own, raising the intensity of the move’s fire damage. It was extremely helpful to his large-scale control over the flow of battle!

The experience of having created so many magical golems was beneficial to Greem when it came to creating magical equipment. Along with the help of the Chip, the chance of failure had been reduced to an unimaginable level!

With just thirty-seven days, Greem had managed to create the third Fire Throne set piece; a piece of equipment that solely belonged to him alone.

The Suncrown appeared like a slowly flowing ring of fire.

It was a crown forged of Flameloathe Iron, with plenty of fire runes created with winding metal twines entangled around its structure. The Firemarrow Diamond embedded at the front of the crown not only possessed a dream-like beauty to it, but also the miraculous ability to amplify the intensity of fire spells.

As Greem excitedly placed the Burning Suncrown on his head, the three set pieces he was wearing instantly resonated with his soul. A faint red light shrouded his body.

This halo of flames could remain on the surface of Greem’s body to passively increase his fire resistance. Furthermore, it could be expanded like a Ring of Fire to form a giant dome one hundred meters in diameter. Any creature or substance engulfed in the dome would have to endure burning damage from the magical flames constantly.

Greem shut his eyes and performed some estimations. Upon assimilating with his own Ring of Fire, the Burning Crown’s Ring of Fire could increase the damage to one hundred and fifteen points of damage per second. Greem had only achieved this level of destructiveness after he reached intermediate First Grade.

However, an intermediate First Grade adept needed to weave signs and chant for three to five seconds to unleash a spell of one hundred and fifteen points of intensity. Moreover, Greem’s Ring of Fire was a passive area-of-effect effect. He could still cast another spell while the Ring of Fire was burning the enemy.

Any enemy that walked into Greem’s Ring of Fire would be under the equivalent of constants attacks from an intermediate First Grade adept. If the enemy’s magical defenses couldn’t defend against an onslaught of this intensity, the flames would reduce them to ashes without even requiring Greem to lift a single finger.

If Greem were to ever run into a large group of First Grade adepts in the future, he only needed to leap into their midst with a Fire Teleportation and activate his Ring of Fire. The entire world would be purged in less than five seconds!

Greem also obtained a new set ability after activating the third set piece of Fire Throne.

Fire magic exhausted half as much Spirit!

It was an extremely practical combat ability. It could double Greem’s capacity to put out damage on the battlefield. Moreover, this ability applied to elementium golems as well.

That meant that Greem could simultaneously support two Second Grade golems in a fight with his current Spirit. If he were to include himself, then there would be three powerful Second Grade fire creatures simultaneously appearing in the battlefield.

Who among all Second Grade adepts could survive the mad bombardment of three Flame Fiends of Terror?

Greem became unbearably excited at the very thought of that barbaric scene of flying fireballs and splashing magma.

Fire adepts were always the eye-catching focus of every single battlefield!

It was only on a true battlefield that fire adepts could unleash their destructive might!

Perhaps it was a butterfly effect triggered by his thoughts, but Alice personally arrived at Fire Throne while he was caught in his grand dreams of ravaging the battlefield. She had brought along the two books she had talked about, along with some groundbreaking news.

Given how well their cooperation had gone last time, Death Witch leader Khesuna agreed to Alice’s request and lent Greem the two pieces of advancement knowledge that he so urgently needed. However, as compensation, Alice had to support the declaration of war that the Death Witches had announced.

A declaration of war?

Alice had no choice but to patiently explain the matter to Greem when she saw how confused he was.

Not long ago, a lesser plane belonging to the Death Witches was attacked by the beast gods of the World of Gods. The entire plane had been defeated, and even the Third Grade witch stationed there had not managed to escape in time. She had died at the hands of the invading beast gods.

Such an act undoubtedly meant another war for the Death Witches.

That was why Death Witch Leader Khesuna had announced a strongly worded declaration of war against the beast gods during the witch council. She swore to exact bloody retaliation against the pantheon of the beast gods and called upon the other witch branches to join them in battle.

It was under such circumstances that Khesuna had agreed to Alice’s request. However, in exchange, Alice would have to actively support the declaration of war that she had set out.

That also meant Alice had to organize a sufficiently powerful expedition army and follow the Death Witches as they invaded other planes and fought for the glory and honor of the Northern Witches!

The Fate Witches under Alice had only just undergone the bloody battle of Faen. The number of official witches they had had been reduced to four. They would not be able to restore their numbers to their former peak without a few decades of rest and restoration.

It was already complicated to accomplish many things within the Northern Lands with so few witches, not to mention invading a different world altogether. As such, Greem had to put together a powerful combat force and join the Death Witches’ expedition under the banner of the Fate Witches if he wanted the two remaining pieces of advancement knowledge.

Greem fell completely silent.

After three days of examining and weighing all the pros and cons that he knew, Greem finally decided to join the planar war of the Northern Witches. Greem also spent a lot of effort thinking about the participating members of this war.

The Crimson Clan was fully established now. Their lands included the Zhentarim area and the Northern Lands, both of which required high-grade adepts to defend. Greem could no longer call upon all combat adepts within the clan like he used to.

The clan would experience a power vacuum if he did so and the assets near Fire Throne and White Tower were very likely to face invasions from unknown enemies.

Thus, after much thought, Greem decided to leave Bug Adept Billis in Fire Throne and assign him two blood knights and two blood elves. He was to maintain the aggressive offense against the Kamala Clan. Meanwhile, Dragonborn Zacha was stationed at White Tower. Safety was not a concern, especially with the emerald dragon and green dragons who were staying near the tower.