Age of Adepts

Unfortunately, it was all too late now!

Greem decided to use his authority to cut off the fire dragon’s mental senses of the outside world.

Philippa’s mental messages instantly vanished, leaving a poor, agonized fire dragon in the room who could not even lift a finger.

Attempting to rob a Third Grade fire dragon of her bloodline talent through the Sourcestealer was undoubtedly a complicated task. Even after exhausting all sorts of rare resources to strengthen the creature, there was still a 43% chance of failure.

Moreover, the Sourcestealer dying was only a small matter if he failed. The Third Grade fire dragon’s bloodline quality would also decrease due to pollution from the dead Sourcestealer. That was why Greem’s attempt was risky.

If the attempt to devour the bloodline talent failed, he would suffer a personal loss as great as one to two million magical crystals!

However, if it were to succeed, it would be an incredible help to him.

The process of anxious waiting was undoubtedly a very long one.

Greem could sense that the beast had successfully torn a path all the way to the large heart of the dragon. It was now attached to the spot, not moving at all.

Thus, one day went by.

Then, two days.

For eight days, this beast remained utterly stationary.

However, its body and bodily construct had changed tremendously over these eight days.

The terrifying mouth at the front of its head had vanished entirely, and its long tongue had pierced into the fire dragon’s heart, turning into an alternative blood vessel connecting its body to the heart. Its thick hind legs had also disappeared, replaced by two soft meat spikes the size of a baby’s arm.

The meat spikes extended through the body of the fire dragon, their edges stabbing into her tough spinal column.

Once the heart and spinal column were under the control of the Sourcestealer, Philippa gradually started losing all sense of her body. She had only lost control over her body due to the suppression of the tower’s sealing powers. She still had a perfect understanding of everything happening within her body.

However, Philippa’s mental consciousness had now retracted within her mind. She had completely lost all sense and control of her body parts. It was as if she had been caged in a dark space. Philippa was now utterly ignorant of everything happening outside and anything that could be harmful to her!

Greem had also cut off her Spirit from communicating with the outside world. As such, Philippa was isolated, forced to aimlessly and passively await her unknown fate.

Yet, the only result that came from this was one that she would never be able to accept!

The Sourcestealer’s process of stealing bloodline talent was not as simple as it looked. All the risk and danger of failing were gathered within the strange blood sack it had now turned into. The process of stealing was a long one, and it took thirty-three days in total.

During this time, Greem remained in the room aside from occasionally leaving for food and rest. He watched over and recorded all the miraculous changes and phases that the Sourcestealer underwent.

Philippa’s soul vanished on the seventeenth day, signaling the death of a powerful Third Grade being.

On the thirty-third day, the massive sack that was now one meter in diameter finally split open. A strange creature that was neither dragon nor insect climbed out from within and started tunneling its way out of the dragon’s body.

Every bloodline had a host body that was suitable as a medium. The planar laws also provided all creatures with their innate talents based on the characteristics of their bloodline. A fire dragon’s bloodline was undoubtedly incredibly powerful and violent. Consequently, it also required a sufficiently robust body to host it.

The Sourcestealer’s internal body construction underwent tremendous changes every time it robbed a different talent. These changes often had an integral relation with the abilities it took.

Through the massive library of magical creature information that Greem had on the Chip, he was sure that the core of the Sourcestealer’s new form was somewhat similar to that of a fledgling fire dragon. However, it still retained a trace of insect characteristics on some irrelevant and unnecessary sub-organs.

An enhanced tranquilizing mist sprayed onto the mutated Sourcestealer the moment it emerged from the fire dragon. This small creature with sharp fangs, a long face, crimson skin, webbed wings, and thick hind legs only managed to let out a short breath of fire before falling completely unconscious.

Greem had personally raised this Sourcestealer. He had a perfect understanding of all its organs and basic magic resistances. Though its magic resistances had increased after its mutation, it still could not endure the tranquilizer that Greem had specially concocted.

“Contact Gargamel and have him clean up the spot. He can deal with the Third Grade fire dragon’s body as he wishes, but remember to retrieve the dragon crystal inside and bring it to me.” After a simple communication with the tower’s spirit, Greem grabbed the fire insect with his invisible elementium hand and turned to leave.

In another slightly smaller biological lab, an experimental platform with a complete set of tools had already been prepared. It was only waiting for a specimen.

Greem had conducted four talent-stealing experiments in the past seven years and had succeeded twice. However, Greem still couldn’t extract the bloodline talent he personally wanted from the surviving Sourcestealers.

Sourcestealers were creatures as well. The bloodline talent they stole from other animals had been transformed into their own innate talents through their unique abilities. It was immensely difficult to correctly extract this bloodline talent with the means currently available to the adepts.

Any other adept would probably have to accept this outcome silently.

However, Greem was different. He was aided by the Chip and could rely on its precise controls and in-depth analysis to conduct operations at a genetic level.

As such, Greem planted some magical runes in the Sourcestealer’s body ahead of time, through the combination of surgical operations and magic. He then relied on these magical runes to reverse-engineer the process of the Sourcestealer’s talent-stealing.

In this way, Greem had indeed successfully obtained a strange, mysterious rune!

When the Sourcestealer’s flesh, skin, organs, and bloodline had all been dissolved into a single mess, a glowing crimson rune appeared on the operation table due to the interference and guidance of the potent planar laws.

It was a mysterious rune that was entirely different from the current runic system of the World of Adepts.

If the runes of the World of Adepts were a type of flat rune used to move the planar laws with elementium powers as leverage, then this newly acquired one was a never-before-seen three-dimensional rune.

Greem attempted to use the Chip’s deep scans to analyze the secrets behind this mysterious rune, but his actions nearly caused it to disperse and disintegrate.

Through some simple scans and analysis, Greem was shocked to find that this seemingly simple law rune was composed of a series of magical patterns and law chains. Due to the lack of nourishment of bloodline power, this mysterious rune was extremely frail, despite how powerful it appeared to be.

If it hadn’t been in a lab within the tower and isolated from all pollution and disruption by a strong elementium barrier, even a slightly bigger breath of air from Greem could have utterly destroyed it.

Greem had no choice but to create a new purification spell and seal the rune within a small air-tight bubble created with the spell. It was the only way that Greem could keep the mysterious rune from being affected by wandering magical elementium and preserve it for extended periods.

After an arduous battle and thirty-three days of painful waiting, Greem had finally obtained the thing he had always dreamt of– a bloodline rune!

Greem lifted the air bubble carefully and held his breath as his eyes greedily feasted upon this slowly rotating rune beneath the gentle white light of the lab.

He had tried all sorts of techniques, but Greem still could not analyze any mysterious items related to the planar laws with his current abilities. The outcome was the same, even with the help of the Chip.

Greem estimated that he could only analyze the deeper secrets of the bloodline rune if he could advance to Fourth Grade and improve the Chip’s calculation and scanning abilities by another level. Currently, he could only sit atop a treasure mountain with no way of entering within.

There was nothing Greem could do about this!

How should he use this bloodline rune now that he had obtained it?

He already possessed great fire talent now. If he abruptly introduced the bloodline of another race into his body, it was unknown how it would affect his power and future development.

Before he could obtain more specific data and information, Greem wasn’t so foolish as to use it on himself. If the two bloodlines could not assimilate, they would clash with and pollute each other. That wouldn’t bring about an explosion of power for him, but a dead end in his path forward.

That was why Greem had to be cautious, cautious, and even more cautious on the path of bloodline assimilation.

The ideal way of using this bloodline rune now was to transplant it onto an adept and then observe the effects of the bloodline rune on their innate potential over a long period of time. Greem would only attempt to treat his own bloodline after he had gathered all the necessary data.

After all, compared to those geniuses with truly great bloodline talents, Greem’s human fire talent was insignificant!

Who should he use this bloodline rune he had extracted from a Third Grade dragon on?

Using it on an ordinary adept would be a real waste of the innate potential of a Third Grade fire dragon. It was best if he used it on the people within the clan who were of the most help to him.

Mary?

Haha, what a joke!

Mary’s vampire talent was no weaker than the fire dragon’s bloodline talent. At the very least, a vampire’s innate ability was undoubtedly even more dominating and unpredictable when it came to the exclusivity of other bloodlines. If different bloodlines clashed with the vampire’s, they would have a hard time escaping a fate of being devoured.

That would be a complete waste of this fire dragon bloodline rune!

Alice?

Her Fate Witch bloodline appeared to be even stranger and more unpredictable than this bloodline rune. It also required no modification.

How about, her?

Greem’s eyes narrowed as the form of a female adept slowly appeared in his mind.