Age of Adepts

For the next two days, Greem toured all of the public areas in Molten Fire City, accompanied by the pretty Freina.

Molten Fire City’s scale was not small at all. If it had been built on the surface instead, it would have been the size of an intermediate city. However, the entire population of the city was no more than three to four thousand people. Moreover, seventy percent of these were servants that lived in the outposts of the outer areas.

The core area, which could sustain up to twenty or thirty thousand people, was populated by a mere two to three hundred adepts. Moreover, most adepts spent their time in the libraries and the laboratories. Even on the rare occasion that they emerged from their shelters, they would be occupied with business. It caused the massive central area to be a ghost town, void of any life despite all the pretty gardens and parks.

Greem could tell that Freina was lusting after him. In fact, he probably only needed to beckon with his finger, and this female adept would make her way to his bed at night.

However, Greem was occupied with his thoughts at the moment and was in no mood to play such a game with her. Thus, for the next two days, the resentment in Freina’s eyes grew until it was obvious to any bystander.

Greem honestly couldn’t be bothered to care. That was because the more information he obtained, the more of a strange feeling he got.

It was very likely that his ‘enemy’ on this trip was an acquaintance!

When he found out from Freina that the culprit was a Third Grade flaming tiger, his heart almost jumped out of his mouth. Moreover, when he saw the magical projection from Freina’s monitoring crystal, he was certain that it was the Third Grade flaming tiger he had smuggled over from the Fire Elementium Plane– Cindral.

Speaking of which, Molten Fire City was also an unexpected victim.

They had set up plenty of arrays and adepts around the underground mine when they first excavated it, all for the sake of preventing enemies from breaking in. Above the tunnel was the adept’s tower where the Fourth Grade adept resided.

The invasion of any enemy was impossible under such strict protection.

Yet, despite all their precautions, what they had never expected was for the enemy to come from the depths of the lava sea instead of the surface.

A Third Grade flaming tiger with extremely high intelligence emerged from the lava sea two years ago. It had invaded multiple mines in a row, devouring and taking with it large amounts of metal ores. It also caused the lava sea to flood into the mines and kill as many as six hundred miners.

From then on, the Third Grade flaming tiger seemed to have decided to make this place its home. It hid in the depths of the lava sea and snuck into the underground mines whenever it found the time to do so. After several of these incidents, the output of metal ores in Molten Fire City plummeted, and many of the miners they hired were injured or dead.

As the manager of the mines, the adepts of Molten Fire City would never sit by and watch as a magical creature wreaked havoc in such a core area of their clan. They had formed parties to surround and capture the flaming tiger, but it had always managed to slip away through the lava sea, which was everywhere around them.

If the adepts they sent were too few or too weak, they might even invite retaliation from the flaming tiger and suffer severe casualties. Send too many adepts, and the flaming tiger would turn and vanish into the lava sea.

Though Molten Fire City had a few fire adepts as well, they were all at Second Grade. Sending them to search for the Third Grade flaming tiger in the lava sea was like throwing a meat bun at a dog. While the other adepts could manage to fight somewhat if they parted the boiling lava with a magical array, they would be on a one-way trip if they went too deep into the lava sea.

Over the past few months, the adepts of Molten Fire City had to set aside their work and stand guard near the underground mines. It was a terrible affair that occupied everyone’s time.

They had no choice but to put out a high-grade mission to the outside world in hopes of recruiting a sufficiently powerful fire adept to capture and kill the tiger. Of course, concerned that a single Third Grade fire adept would be insufficient to deal with the flaming tiger, Molten Fire City also hired a Third Grade sealing master.

A Third Grade fire adept, a Third Grade sealing master, and a Third Grade from Molten Fire City. A force like this should be more than enough to exterminate that Third Grade flaming tiger!

After gaining an understanding of the situation, Greem couldn’t help but request that Freina bring him to the mines for a look.

Freina hesitated for a moment and requested permission from Lord Karak with a magical message. It was then that she brought Greem toward the tunnels deep underground.

After winding about the tunnels for half an hour, Greem could very clearly feel the concentration of fire elementium rise dramatically. The smell of sulfur in the air also became thicker.

Finally, in a vast underground stone hall, Greem saw the crowd that he had not seen above.

Here was a place that had to be passed by before making your way to the mines. The stone hall was packed with slaves of various races, their legs shackled together with tattered pieces of cloth the only thing covering their lower bodies.

They all had muscular bodies and tan skin. Their naked upper bodies were covered with grime and whip marks. They might be tall and ferocious, but their eyes were filled with numbness and sufferance as they formed queues to pick up their tools to venture into the mines again.

On the other side, there was a group of slaves that had just emerged from the mines.

They all carried wooden baskets on their backs, each one as tall as themselves, filled to the brim with black ore. The surface of the ores reflected the light of the glowstones, making them gleam with brilliant and beautiful color.

These were all rough, unprocessed ores. Though the metal content in these ores was fairly high, it was hard to tell what the primary metal content was without further crushing and filtering.

The ones responsible for examining, weighing, and recording the mined ores were all adept apprentices. A large group of human mercenaries gathered around them. They were responsible for the order in this underground hall. Meanwhile, the two adepts stationed here were lying on wooden chairs at a side of the hall. They were drinking tea while joyously talking about something.

Naturally, the pathway used by the slave miners and subordinate mercenaries was a separate and distinct one. The one that Freina brought Greem through was a tunnel that only adepts had access to.

The two First Grade adepts hurriedly stood up, went over, and bowed in respect when they saw Adept Freina arrive.

“The beast hasn’t come here to make trouble over the last few days, has it?” Freina might act like a clingy little bird in front of Greem, but she carried herself with plenty of dignity and authority in front of these low-grade adepts.

“No, no, not at all.”

“Then open the tunnels. This esteemed guest of ours and I are going into the lava sea to take a look!”

“Yes, madam!”

With Freina leading the way, the two stationed adepts had no objections whatsoever.

Under their lead, Greem and Freina dove into a barren tunnel. They took a few turns and arrived at a stone wall, smooth as a mirror.

The two stationed adepts both took out a strange magic wand and pointed at the center of the wall in unison. A peculiar magical flux shimmered across the wall, and a massive stone door appeared in the center of the gray stone wall. The stone door silently slid apart, revealing the crimson lava flowing beyond the light barrier.

A barrier had risen here the moment the doors opened, keeping the lava outside.

Even so, the temperature of the tunnel rose rapidly, quickly reaching over a hundred degrees.

An ordinary human would probably be fully cooked in three to five seconds if they stayed in an environment like this. Even the two posted adepts couldn’t help but start wiping away the sweat on their foreheads.

Greem’s eyes swept across the lava, and the Chip scanned the crimson lava sea that filled the world beyond the barrier.

“The environment in the lava sea is a bit more complicated. I will accompany you inside!” Freina smiled as she said.

Greem shook his head and said, “I won’t be going far. I will just take a look at the environment nearby. It will give me more confidence in the battle to come.”

Having said that, he spared the courtesies and strode toward the light barrier. A scarlet magical barrier suddenly appeared around him before he slowly passed through the wall and entered the lava sea.

The lava sea might seem static, but its viscous liquid was continually flowing. It was only because the entire space was filled with boiling lava that it gave people the illusion that it was unmoving.

Greem had just passed through the light barrier, and the barrier around him immediately sustained a crushing force of over five hundred kilograms. The sizzling lava was pressing toward the center of the sea. Naturally, Greem had to endure this strange force as well now that he was in the sea.

He hesitated for a moment before slowly retracting the barrier back into himself. The boiling lava around him instantly pressed down and enveloped him.

The boiling lava made contact with his warm skin, but it did not sizzle; instead, warm surges of energy coursed through Greem’s body. It was such a comfortable sensation that he almost moaned.

If he were still Second Grade, he might have been able to endure the extreme heat, but he would never have been able to endure the terrifying pressure. Now that he had advanced to Third Grade, his body’s affinity for fire elementium had reached an extremely high level. Not only did he feel no pressure while immersed in this sea of lava, he felt as free as a fish in water.

However, Greem still had to separate a portion of the fire energy within him to protect his robes. Though he could endure the extreme heat, his clothes could not.

He would have to protect his clothes with fire energy if he didn’t want to run about naked!

Other adepts might find traveling through the lava sea a difficult matter, but there was no such problem for a fire adept.

Greem chuckled as his entire body immediately dispersed, turning into a humanoid cluster of fire as he traveled through the lava. Greem dashed about the depths of lava with flame jets of various angles, moving at speed several times that of his flight in the air.

For a fire adept, fire was truly their home field!