Age of Adepts

The beast used a supernatural item?

This unexpected reality stunned the adepts immensely.

Once upon a time, crafting alchemical items, equipping powerful magical equipment, and using magical tools en masse had all been the biggest distinctive traits of human adepts over other intelligent races.

When it came to Strength, the human adepts were inferior to the ogres.

When it came to Physique, the human adepts were inferior to all manner of ferocious magical creatures.

When it came to Agility, the human adepts were inferior to the Faen elves.

When it came to Spirit, the human adepts were inferior to the naturally gifted monsters.

Yet, the human adepts had forcefully managed to put these fierce magical creatures, monsters, and intelligent beings beneath them, turning into the terrifying ruler that reigned over them. What was it that allowed them to do so?

Of course, it was the vast amounts of alchemical items, magical tools, magical equipment, and their powerful ability to organize and mobilize!

In the eyes of the adepts, most elementium creatures refused to use alchemical items.

It had to do with their personal preferences, but even more so, the lack of a systematic and comprehensive alchemy system among elementium creatures. Some brilliant, high-grade elementium animals might find some natural magical gemstones to use as auxiliary equipment in battle. However, large-scale, artificially-created supernatural items were rarely seen.

The wild attack that the flaming tiger had unleashed earlier was an amazing tool from the molten giants.

It undoubtedly confused the adepts!

However, regardless of how confused they were, the incident had already happened and they had no choice but to accept the result.

The two adepts that had managed to escape severe injury immediately nodded and expressed their thanks toward Greem.

In all honesty, the attacks from the Third Grae flaming tiger couldn’t deal too much damage too them. After all, elementium damage could be reduced or negated through various means; only pure physical attack could not be stopped. Unless the two adepts had prepared items such as ghost scepters or other similar spells that would allow them to temporarily turn into spirits to avoid physical attacks, the ferocious strikes from the molten giants were completely unavoidable!

Judging by the strength of its blow from earlier, the two adepts would probably have required one or two months to heal their broken bodies if they had not dodged the attacks.

At their current level, their extremely high Physique made it such that it was challenging to inflict severe, permanent damage to their bodies. However, if such damage was to occur, it meant a dreadful outcome.

It was important to note that the body of a Third Grade adept had often been trained and polished countless of times. It was refined into a compatible Physique formed by the daily assimilation from their mental flux. If part of their body was regenerated, or a new body part was transplanted, they would require large amounts of time and resources to adjust the new body part and make it compatible for their soul and mental flux.

During this time, the combat power of the injured adept would unavoidably decrease!

That was why Karak and Dorian were genuinely grateful for Greem’s help. Their relationship was now much warmer and closer than before.

The failed operation caused the adepts to be dejected. After exchanging a few words, they returned to Molten Fire City together.

…………

Deep in the lava sea, Cindral’s den.

The flaming tiger roared in anger.

“Dammit, what does your true form actually want? Didn’t we say we were going to stage a battle? How did it end up being such a huge fight? You made me almost fall into the hands of the adepts.”

Cindral’s body of flames originally glowed with flowing red flames, but he was now covered with dark spots that were quickly stretching and expanding all over its body. From a distance, it looked just like abscesses on the bodies of other animals.

Moreover, as the dark spots spread all over, the flames that burned on Cindral’s body were also corroded, turning dark and lightless, almost as if they were going to be extinguished at any time.

For the first time in his life, Cindral was weak and sickly, seemingly powerless and listless.

It was a type of poison; a terrifying poison that could even destroy magical fires!

The fire clone stood there silently, its nearly-liquid red flames surging through its body as if it did not see the condition of the tiger.

“Sir Cindral, your performance today was very good. Under these circumstances, I’m sure that the adepts will think that you cannot attack the mines for the time being!”

“Dammit, do you not understand what I’ve told you?” The fire clone’s calm attitude caused the flaming tiger to erupt in fury, “Just now, the other ‘you’ almost caused me to die. I need an explanation from you now, otherwise…”

The flaming tiger stepped forward menacingly, his sharp fangs closing in upon the fire clone’s body.

“Sir Cindral, I believe that as allies in cooperation, we should have some necessary trust between us! Shouldn’t you look beneath yourself before you let the anger get to your head?”

Beneath me?

Flaming Tiger Cindral paused for a moment. He lowered his head and was shocked to find that a complicated and intricate magical array had been carved out on the floor of his den. However, no magical crystals had been embedded in the few grooves where the magic nodes and circuits ran through. It had not been activated, and thus, evaded his attention.

“What is this? What did you do to my den while I was gone?” Cindral might have lived longer than Greem, but it was apparent that he was not skilled with this mysterious, high-grade arcane knowledge. As such, his burning eyes were opened wide as he stared at the fire clone.

Cindral swore in his heart that he would mercilessly strike if he sensed any trace of danger. He would never give the enemy a chance to plot against him.

“This is an energy-gathering array. It is also a basic component in most magical arrays.” The face of the fire clone once again turned into Greem’s face, “If you want to heal the wounds on your body quickly, you can quicken this process by a dozen times with this array.”

Cindral lowered his head and sniffed the array.

As a high-grade fire creature, though he could not understand such complex and refined things, he possessed a sense for danger that other creatures did not. He could not smell any threat in that winding array filled with complicated runes!

Instead, the array gave him a feeling of peace and calm.

“Activate it! I warn you, don’t you play any cheap tricks behind my back.”

The fire clone spat out a storage ring and took out a pile of crystals from within, carefully embedding them into the circuitry of the magical array.

As the magical energy surged through the circuits, the magical runes containing mystical power lit up, forming a small array that covered the entire den.

When the array was activated, the sea of fire elementium in the environment immediately surged toward the den like a raging tide, instantly increasing the elementium concentration by over ten times. Moreover, as the array continued to function, more and more elementium gathered, causing mist-like scarlet flames to appear inside the den.

Cindral took a small breath.

The concentrated and pure fire elementium had already started to turn into fire energy. It was far easier to absorb compared to the free fire elementium wandering in the air.

Cindral could absorb fire elementium in this manner even without the magical array. However, that was through the use of his own powers and was far less efficient than the energy-gathering array.

Cindral did some rough estimates. The efficiency of this array at absorbing fire elementium was nearly twenty to thirty times that of his innate ability. That meant sleeping here for a single day would make for one month of accumulation for him!

Cindral had no habit of faking courtesy. Upon noticing that the array was beneficial to him, he found the most comfortable spot in the array to crouch down before lazily stretching his back.

When the tens of thousands of red dots flocked and surged into his body, the poison elementium that had troubled him for so long started to shrink and vanish from the repeated cleansing of the fire energy. The jade-green dark spots grew smaller and smaller, and Cindral’s body turned increasingly brighter and red.

Even the damage from the battle earlier slowly started to heal due to the constant gathering of fire elementium.

Judging by the pace this was going, the damage caused by the battle would be healed within a matter of three days!

The fire clone manipulated the array, all while slowly scanning the flaming tiger’s body structure.

This action would usually invite the hostility and retaliation of the flaming tiger. However, with the array as a connecting medium, Greem’s spiritual scan finally managed to break through the tiger’s distorted forcefield and collect data on its body.

Flaming Tiger.

Advanced Third Grade Elementium Creature (Fire).

Bodily Attributes: Strength 21 | Physique 30 | Agility 21 | Spirit 38.

Racial Abilities: Body of Flames.

From the attributes, it seemed like Cindral no longer had the overwhelming advantage when compared to Greem. Cindral’s attributes might be superior to Greem’s. But when taking into consideration all the equipment and tools that Greem had, he might even have the upper hand against Cindral.

After all, human adepts did not pride themselves on their bodies, but their minds!

[Beep. Model of flaming tiger’s body structure has been formed. Data being collected.

[Target creature’s core statistics are protected by a life forcefield. Data gathering failed.

[Currently scanning the surface-level body structure.]

Naturally, as a free, unbound creature, Cindral would not release his spiritual defenses and allow Greem to do as he liked. That was why he could only obtain the data and information he wanted–with the help of the Chip’s scan and his own senses–through the energy aura unintentionally released by Cindral’s breathing and energy exchange.

Though he was not able to obtain an entirely accurate model with this method, he still managed to assemble a somewhat vague construction of the tiger’s model.

A three-dimensional flaming tiger slowly appeared in the mind of Greem’s fire clone.