Age of Adepts

Molten Fire City. Inside the secret stone room.

Karak turned and returned to the secret room after sending Greem and Yunid away.

Adept Alfred was frowning, seemingly deep in thought.

“Sir, this is my mistake. Please, punish me!” Karak admitted his fault with frustration written all over his face.

Alfred waved his hand and interrupted impatiently, “Of course this is your fault. It is just an elementium beast. It might be a bit sly, but can’t we do anything about it with the power of our Molten Fire City? Why did you need to go to the Winds of Freedom and publicize this incident? You even brought two outsiders of unknown background into the city.”

Karak hastily lowered his head as he acknowledged the berating.

“Hmph! The effect on the mines would be a minor decrease in our resource income at the very worst. However, if these two adepts were spies from another party and end up leaking those secret experiments I have set up on the upper levels of Molten Fire City, can you bear that responsibility?”

“Sir, it is precisely because I was concerned about spies that I did not issue a mission through the regular method. Rather, I personally chose two suitable candidates myself. I have investigated their backgrounds thoroughly, and there are no problems at all.”

“No problems at all?” Adept Alfred chillingly laughed as he said, “If there were no problems, how would it have been such a huge incident? How would our resource warehouse in the lower levels have been robbed?”

“This…my lord, do you mean to say that these two adepts are suspicious?”

“There’s nothing wrong with the female adept, but I can’t tell when it comes to that male adept! I keep having a feeling that his goal isn’t pure, as if he is making some movements behind our backs. However, I sense no irregularity about him. Otherwise, I would not have let him leave alive.”

Karak paused for a moment when he heard this, before softly speaking, “My lord, should I send people to investigate him?”

Alfred thought for a moment before shaking his head and said, “Might as well! The few experiments I have in the tower are close to completion. They require protection and guarding right now. As such, I cannot leave. You send some people out to claim that they are purchasing eternium ores at a high price and see if he makes any reaction.”

“Understood, I am off to arrange the matter now!”

“Hmph! If he is indeed the culprit, I will personally tear his clan up by the roots and make him regret everything he has done here at Molten Fire City today!”

…………

One month later, Greem successfully returned to Fire Throne.

He quickly dismissed his subordinates after entering the tower and arrived at the fire altar alone. He then waved his hand and lit up the center of the runic array at the top of the platform.

As strange ripples of fire spread across the air, Greem extended his right index finger and sliced softly across his left palm. Red blood flowed from the open wound, dripping onto the fire waves, one drop by another.

With this blood essence serving as a guide, the fire altar carried his mental consciousness and instantly crossed tens of thousands of kilometers, descending upon a certain spot in the lava sea of Molten Fire City.

The next second, the fire altar trembled slightly as a dark red spatial rift opened above the altar. Two silhouettes of different sizes emerged from the rift.

It was Cindral and his fire clone, who had been hiding and running about the lava sea over the past few days!

“Brat, we’ve waited for so long. We can finally split the loot, can’t we!” Cindral eagerly shouted when he emerged from the spatial rift into the room in Fire Throne.

To be honest, Cindral was a trustworthy ally.

Greem’s fire clone was only intermediate Second Grade. Despite being alone with the fire clone for such a long time, Cindral had not acted to take the storage ring for himself. That caused Greem to be delighted.

The fire clone walked to Greem’s side, taking out the storage ring from its mouth and putting it in his hands before running into his body and turning them into one person once more.

Greem smiled as he grabbed the ring. With a wave of his hand, he placed everything inside it into the room.

There were nearly a hundred wooden boxes of the same size.

Cindral rushed forward and smashed apart one of the wooden boxes with a single smack. Dozens of rectangular metal ingots scattered across the floor, ringing with the crisp sound of metal.

The metal ingots were extraordinary heavy and immediately emitted tiny elementium rainbows when they came into contact with the wandering particles in the air.

Magical alloys!

Cindral smashed open another crate, this one filled with rows of purple ingots, glowing with a faint purple light.

Cindral excitedly lunged forward at the sight of such pure eternium ores, grabbing them wildly and stuffing them into his mouth.

Fire creatures typically were not of the habit of using space storage items. They gorged on the good stuff that they liked and used their massive stomachs as storage.

“Lord Cindral…” Greem, who couldn’t stand the sight of this happening, called out to the tiger.

“What is it?” Cindral looked at Greem anxiously, “I took such a huge risk, yet I can’t even take a bit of your stuff?”

Greem shook his head speechlessly as he extended his hand and passed a storage ring to Cindral.

“Since it has been such pleasant cooperation, this storage ring is my gift to you. With this, you can take away anything that you need from here.”

“Really?”

“Really!”

Cindral looked at Greem doubtfully, but after some thought, he grabbed the storage ring and very carefully put three crates of eternium ingots in it. He knew very well what the human adepts were capable of. He didn’t just assume that they meant what they said even if they were offering a tremendously beneficial deal. If one touched on their psychological bottom line by being excessively greedy, you would probably have a hard time walking out of the tower.

That was why Cindral kept his greed in check and only took an amount large enough for him to use.

Meanwhile, Greem simply put away the rest of the boxes.

It was a simple process, and the Chip had already calculated all of the ingots in them.

There were ninety-six wooden crates in total.

Thirteen of them were eternium ingots, making a total of three hundred and ninety ingots for a total of one hundred and twenty tons.

Thirty-two of them were Queyras alloys, making a total of nine hundred and sixty ingots for a total of two hundred and seventy tons.

Twenty-four of them were magical alloys, making a total of seven hundred and twenty ingots for a total of one hundred and seventeen tons.

Seven were mithril, making a total of two hundred and ten ingots for a total of three hundred kilograms.

Five were adamantite, making a total of one hundred and fifty ingots for a total of three hundred and eighty tons.

……

……

The crates of metal ingots had undergone multiple refinement processes, all of them high-grade metals; they were high-grade resources that were hard to find even on the market. If they were all put on sale, Greem and the Crimson Clan would not face a lack of magical crystals for dozens of years to come.

Greem didn’t care much for the other magical metals, but the Queyras alloy alone caused him to break out into a smile immediately.

With this Queyras alloy, the massive combat magical machines that had been delayed in the goblin plane could be finally finished. Moreover, the addition of every new magic generator furnace meant the formation of yet another magical machine army.

However, now was not the time to celebrate yet. Greem looked at Cindral and asked curiously, “Cindral, where do you intend to go to digest these eternium ingots now that you have so many of them? If you don’t mind, why don’t you stay here at my Fire Throne for a little while?”

“No need for that,” Cindral rejected almost immediately, “I came to the World of Adepts this time to find a suitable metal that could solidify my body. With these eternium ingots, I need nothing else more. I should return to the Fire Elementium Plane now.”

“A good idea!” Greem might not have achieved his goal, but he couldn’t be bothered by a small hiccup like this, “Should I open a planar tunnel to send you back?”

Cindral chuckled.

“Don’t you forget, I am a true-blue native creature of the Fire Elementium Plane. I don’t need your help to go back to the land of my origins. Next time you come to the Fire Elementium Plane, you can come find me!”

He jumped above the fire altar and swiped with his two sharp claws repeatedly. With the surge of elementium flux from earlier that had yet to disperse completely, Cindral forcefully tore a spatial rift leading to the Fire Elementium Plane and dove inside, vanishing without a trace.

After he left, a palm-sized tiger model appeared on the altar.

Greem picked it up and sensed Cindral’s aura on the model.

It seemed this was the communication item Cindral left behind. If he did indeed return to the Fire Elementium Plane, it would be much easier to find Cindral by sensing his aura.

After sending Cindral away, Greem waved his hand and closed the fire altar. He then returned to his room.

Crimson Majordomo Gargamel had already been waiting here at his door for a long time.

“Is anything the matter?”

Greem asked curiously upon taking a seat.

At its current scale, the Crimson Clan had over three to four hundred adepts and apprentices, along with a hundred worldly territories and resources sites. The management of this massive clan was naturally left to Gargamel and Meryl.

In general, the affairs of Ailovis were managed by Gargamel, while Meryl managed things over at White Tower in the Northern Lands.

Most of the time, Greem was a hands-off leader and did not concern himself with the clan matters.

At any rate, establishing the Crimson Clan was to provide a place for the people he cared about, while also making it more convenient for him to collect resources. Greem would never be willing to waste his time over clan matters.

That was why, out of his original intentions and personal interests, Greem left the authority over all clan affairs to Gargamel and Meryl. He only needed to deal with managing the core power of the clan.

That was also why, under ordinary circumstances, Gargamel would never trouble him with mundane clan matters.

However, his visit today meant that there had to be a matter which he could not decide upon or deal with!

Gargamel hesitated for a moment before finally speaking.

“My lord, it’s about Emelia!”

“Emelia? What’s happened to her?” Greem asked in surprise.

Everyone in Fire Throne knew that Emelia was the absolute sweetheart of Gargamel and Eva. They would have cradled her in their mouth if she wouldn’t melt from it, absolutely lavishing her with all their love.

Could something have happened to Emelia with her two parents doting over her like that?

“My lord, nothing has happened to Emelia. But…”

“But what? Hurry up and speak, I don’t have the time to play riddles with you!”

“She…she seems to have undergone some mutations.”