Age of Adepts

As everyone knew, the Fate Witches had never been considered combatants.

As such, Fate Witches were harmless individuals in the eyes of most people.

However, today, Alice had only shown a portion of her power, and Morgana had tasted the terror of a high-grade Fate Witch.

Due to the existence of Rend Fate, Morgana’s luck had been terrible since the start of the battle.

It unknowingly caused her to miss many excellent opportunities to kill her enemies quickly.

As a veteran Third Grade witch that had advanced over two hundred years ago, failing to finish a chant and cast a spell wasn’t something that should happen to her. Yet, Morgana had already failed to complete a spell twice since the start of the battle half an hour ago.

One time, it was a loose thread from a silk handkerchief landing in her mouth, causing her to make a mistake while chanting. That resulted in her failing to deal a heavy blow to Mary while she was breaking through the snowstorm.

The second time was when a sudden backflow current erupted within the snowstorm and brushed against her Ice Shield. This particular Ice Shield happened to run out of magic energy at the same time and shattered on its own. Morgana had been interrupted by the backflow current and missed a perfect chance to kill Alice.

These two errors appeared to have a logical cause and effect, and one could easily believe that these were extraordinary coincidences.

However, Morgana knew very well that these were no coincidences or accidents; it was the actual manifestation of Rend Fate reducing her luck by two levels!

Things like luck were always things that couldn’t be seen nor touched.

Still, one had to admit that they indeed did exist!

The effect of Luck +1 and Luck -1 wasn’t just as simple as the outcome of rolling dice. Rather, changes to one’s luck would affect the individual’s compatibility with the plane’s world system.

It was important to note that the planar consciousness was the aggregation of billions of lifeforms within the plane, along with the trillions of basic elementium substances. An individual with -1 Luck would feel tremendous maliciousness from the world around them when they interacted with anything within the plane.

Any intelligent lifeforms they ran into would naturally feel hate and hostility toward them at first sight. Meanwhile, any beasts they met would also attack them without hesitation.

Even lifeless, inorganic substances would create trouble for them!

An insignificant pebble on their path, a splinter not properly shaved away from a wooden bench, a transparent fishbone mixed in the soup, a moment’s dizziness in a critical moment while concocting a high-grade potion…

A person with -1 Luck would feel as if the world itself was their enemy, constantly tripping them up and setting up obstacles. Not a single thing they wished for would come true, and everything they feared would come to life. That was the true power of -1 Luck!

Right now, Morgana was enduring the punishment of -2 Luck!

If she were an ordinary person instead of a Third Grade witch, there wouldn’t even be a need for any plans or fighting. Just the series of accidents caused by -2 Luck alone would be enough to leave her begging for death.

Currently, this misfortune manifested on the battlefield as the many ‘mistakes’ that Morgana mysteriously made, causing her to lose many opportunities to end the battle quickly.

That was what caused this utterly imbalanced battle to last for as long as it had!

Meanwhile, these four adepts who doubted and could not trust each other were starting to display decent cooperation under Alice’s commands.

Alice had clearly become the commander among these five Second Grades through her unique perspective over the battlefield and her strange Fate magic.

Mary, on the other hand, relied on her abnormal speed and Agility to become the assassin and firefighter of the team.

Billis relied on his gathering and dispersing swarm, along with his terrifying combat insects, to roam the battlefield and fend off Morgana’s endless snow beast army.

Goblin Tigule utilized the Goblin Shredder’s powerful combat abilities and became the primary offensive fighter against Morgana’s outer defense.

Split-Off Brain Gru relied on the magic generator furnace and all his powerful magic energy cannons to hold the position of the long-range cannoneer.

These adepts all had their powers, each with their own unique abilities and specialties. Yet today, they had gathered together around Alice and finally unleashed their fullest potential.

The battle was brutal yet strange. The oddity of the fight could be seen everywhere!

Every time Morgana unleashed potent ice magic, it would be the Second Grade adepts’ turn to display their life-saving skills!

Any mistake when fighting against a Third Grade witch could be the difference between life and death.

During this ninety-minute-long battle, Mary had died three times, Tigule five times, and Gru one time. Meanwhile, Alice, who had plenty of trump cards hidden up her sleeve, and Billis, who excelled at hiding, remained alive for the entirety of the fight.

Morgana’s massive snowstorm was blown away by a particularly powerful magic energy cannon barrage from Gru at the forty-first minute. From then on, Mary stayed at Morgana’s side like an annoying fly.

She would use her wild and ferocious attacks to wear away at Morgana’s ice shield every time Morgana showed any sign of weakness.

Even with Tigule drawing away fire, and even with her twenty-nine points of Agility allowing her to retreat and advance in the blink of an eye, Mary still unavoidably ‘died’ at Morgana’s hands three times.

One time, it was due to her being too greedy and not retreating when Morgana’s defensive shield was one hit away from shattering. The delay in her movements caused her to be frozen by a sudden Ring of Ice that appeared around her.

Being frozen for three seconds in front of Morgana was enough for Morgana to kill Mary ten times over.

The second time was when Mary was riddled with holes by a storm of Frost Rays by the enraged Morgana.

The third and last time was when Morgana used her frightening Lonely Winter spell to freeze Mary to her death. When Morgana activated her Icecold Bloodline to unleash the Third Grade spell Lonely Winter, she could erect a domain of extreme cold around her that stretched for two hundred and fifty meters.

This time, both Mary and Tigule were caught in the spell and were frozen to death in a pretty, yet deadly, world of snow and ice.

If it weren’t for Alice’s perfect mastery over the Hourglass of Time, one of the two might have had to die to Morgana’s attack!

After several deaths, the five-person team finally figured out some method of dealing with Morgana.

Most of Morgana’s ice magic was very powerful and had a tremendous freezing effect. However, these spells required three to seven seconds of chanting and casting. Moreover, there were some obvious signs of casting before she unleashed the spells.

In addition, Alice’s Staff of Divination allowed her to predict Morgana’s exact target. All these factors added together gave the five adepts perfect opportunities to escape.

If Morgana wanted to single out and exterminate one of them, Alice would notify them ahead of time. That person could then turn and run immediately without worrying about attacking. If Morgana intended to unleash an area-of-effect spell, Alice would be able to predict it and inform the adepts of the safe distance away from her.

Thus, they could retreat beyond the affected radius and easily use long-range spells to bombard the immobile Morgana.

After being toyed with in this manner several times, Morgana was bubbling with rage. Yet, there was nothing she could do!

Alice was simply far too annoying.

It was okay if she alone was a slippery mouse, but even her four teammates had been turned into slick mice, running around her and weaving about. They would always hide where it was difficult for her spells to be effective, resulting in most of her ice magic to become meaningless fireworks.

Single-target spells might be overpowering when fighting against such a group of individuals, but it was hard to kill them with such spells. Only large Third Grade spells could deal inflict damage to them.

However, Third Grade spells were not cabbages found on the roadside. Even with her Icecold Bloodline boosting the regeneration of her ice powers, she could not use Third Grade spells with such high frequency!

No one knew when, but Morgana had turned from the initial ruler of the battlefield to a panting mouse catcher. The threat of death she posed to her opponents was shrinking by the minute.

Of course, as the Third Grade Coldwinter Witch leader, Morgana had much more than this!

Halfway through the battle, and in a fit of rage, Morgana summoned a Third Grade Raging Snow Patriarch.

It was a monster that greatly resembled a barbarian. It was four meters tall, had four strong limbs, thick gray hair, and a flat, ugly face. It excelled at throwing snowballs. The snowballs it threw were not the soft Frost Orbs that First Grade adepts used. Instead, they were terrifying snowballs, one meter in diameter and weighing half a ton.

The snowballs each dealt one hundred and fifty points of physical damage, one hundred and twenty points of frost damage, and inflicted seventy points of splash damage around a one-meter to ten-meter radius.

When the Raging Patriarch started bombarding the adepts with eight snowballs a second, the cooperation between the five of them was interrupted.

In the end, it was Tigule who made the sacrifice at the key moment, using his life to draw Morgana’s firepower. The remaining four of them used this time to trade blows with the Patriarch wildly.

In the end, with Alice pointing out the Patriarch’s weakness, Gru shot out an energy beam with the full force of his magic generator furnace concentrated behind it. The beam pierced the Patriarch’s chest and shattered its consciousness core to pieces.

Of course, it was Billis sacrificing seven of his Void Reavers to break through the Patriarch’s defenses that provided Gru with the opportunity to kill it in a single hit.

Without the Patriarch’s assistance, the protection of the snowstorm, and the army of snow beasts, Third Grade Coldwinter Witch Leader Morgana finally showed signs of lethargy. Thus, Alice and the others dragged the battle into its third hour.

Chapter Notes: Editor Ryu: If you’re enjoying Age of Adepts, now is a great time to stop by our Patreon and consider supporting this fine series! Patreon is mine and Eris’ sole form of income for working on this series, and everyone who supports us through Patreon helps ensure the continued translation and release of AoA. The AoA Patreon has contribution tiers that give you access to advance chapters of the series (fully translated and edited) up to 15 chapters ahead of the GT releases. Thanks for your readership, and we hope to have your patronage as well.

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-Ryu