Age of Adepts

The base that Remi had arranged for them to hide in was located deep in the forest.

Remi had killed the native magical creatures and forest beasts that had lived here and turned them into materials for his plague army. As such, no living thing could be found within ten square kilometers, let alone any large, ferocious carnivores.

Greem had no choice but to send out two First Grade stone serpents to hunt a buck at the outskirts of the forest for a little appetizer.

It couldn’t be helped. Greem had been gnawing on fire dragon ribs for five consecutive years under the volcano. Even though the high-energy food was incredibly beneficial to his Physique and his fire affinity, it was now utterly unappetizing to him. He would almost start throwing up at the very smell of fire dragon ribs.

After hastily filling his stomach, Greem sat down by the campfire in the damp cave and pulled his robe tight around himself. For some unknown reason, he had been feeling abruptly cold and hot for the past day. The turbulent emotions within his heart could not be suppressed either.

Remi and his plague army were guarding the place on the outside, and there was no issue with safety. Greem lifted his hand and released the elementium magical machine from the golem talisman. He pulled it close to him and started to give it a close inspection.

After a dozen seconds of the Chip’s scanning, a comprehensive count of damages was listed before Greem.

Target Creature: Elementium Magical Machine

Target Grade: Intermediate Third Grade

Target Species: Combination of Elementium Golem and Magical Machines

Target Bodily Attributes: Strength 37 (26) | Physique 39 (31) | Agility 11 (8) | Spirit 32 (27)

……

According to the Chip’s statistics, the numbers in brackets were the current strength of the elementium magical machine.

Due to the multiple battles it had consecutively fought, and the lack of much-needed repairs and maintenance, the combat strength of the elementium magical machine had severely dropped. Apart from its Physique, which had barely remained at the level of a Third Grade due to the high-magic alloy its body was composed of, its Strength and Spirit had all fallen below the level of Third Grade.

An elementium magical machine like this might still be able to crush and overwhelm Second Grade Silver Knights, but its advantage would be much less distinct when fighting against a Third Grade knight.

As the elementium magical machine combined too many unique systems of the elementium golems and the magical machines, repairing it was much harder than repairing an ordinary magical machine. Greem could only accomplish such as task with the help of the specialized alchemy lab in Fire Throne. Greem’s only recourse now was to try and find some ordinary metals to repair the more obvious wounds on the elementium magical machine’s body.

The elementium magical machine was soon mended with a ‘patchwork’ of various colors. Though its defenses had improved slightly, it was still far from its peak condition.

After half a day of banging and knocking, Greem finally managed to patch up all the more glaring holes in the elementium magical machine. Its Physique had increased from 31 points to 34 points, but it was still a far cry from its original 39 points of Physique.

Greem waved his hand and had the elementium magical machine stand-by at the entrance of the cave. He then carefully took out the Third Grade storage rings he had looted and started to appreciate their beauty and contents.

It was important to note that most adepts would not bring all of their rare resources and wealth with them while crossing planes on their adventures. Still, Greem was very confident in the bounty he would find within these Third Grade storage rings. The reason was straightforward. They were the rings that Third Grade adepts kept with them at all times after all.

As Natagu and Benija were both dead, the soul brand they had left on their rings had dispersed on their own. Greem managed to decipher the password set upon them with the help of the Chip in no time at all.

All adept storage rings were protected by the double verification of a magical password and a personal soul brand. Access would be denied if any of these verifications were to fail. Now that the spirit brands had dispersed, Greem only required the magical passwords to unlock them.

The first ring he examined belonged to Natagu.

As Greem probed into the ring with his Spirit, the Chip quickly projected a list of items in his mind with its powerful scanning abilities.

There were: 32,000 magical crystals, 104 magical gemstones of various types and attributes, 3 shed snakeskins, 1,068 snake scales, 17 kilos of Black Mamba poison, 73 Saro fruits, 225 grams of Dreamsource Grass, 12 grams of Solar Flowers, 11 instant-cast magic wands, 53 magical scrolls, 26 vials of magical potions, 1 runic teleportation array, and several pieces of magical equipment.

Apart from all these magical items, there was also an assortment of personal items and life supplies. There were also quite a few unusual magical plants and rare ores that could not be found in the World of Adepts. These things were probably obtained in the space of the realms beyond.

Setting aside the items whose value could not be assessed yet, the Chip estimated the value of the contents of Natagu’s ring to be approximately two to three million.

However, what caught most of Greem’s attention was the one-use teleportation array and the five vials of bloodline potion.

According to the Chip’s scan and analysis, two of the five bloodline potions were bloodline recreation potions, while the other three vials were bloodline purification potions. All of them were bloodline potions that had been specially developed for the Black Mamba serpent bloodline.

With these potions, Greem had the means to create a few bloodline adepts with serpent bloodline within the Crimson Clan. However, there were already several clans with serpentine bloodlines in the Zhentarim area. If a few serpentine adepts were to appear in the Crimson Clan, it was very likely to attract misunderstanding and hostility from these clans.

However, Greem didn’t mind at all!

Meanwhile, the one-use teleportation array was the key to Greem successfully escaping from Henvic Plane. With the runic array, Greem would no longer need to go by his original plan– sneaking into Fire Elementium Plane first and finding a way to lock-on to the coordinates of Fire Throne.

The original plan might have sounded simple, but several hazards and unknown risks lay in the way of its execution. Moreover, Great Witch Maysa also appeared to have a few acquaintances in the Fire Elementium Plane. If she were to hold a precise grasp of his location, the plan of traveling to the Fire Elementium Plane would be a massive risk of its own!

Now that Greem had this one-use teleportation array that had been personally made by Maysa, he only needed to adjust the teleportation coordinates slightly, and he could very quickly return to the World of Adepts. If the Great Witch Maysa were to find out that it was her own doing that had sent Greem back home, she would probably be furious!

Apart from the teleportation array, the bloodline potions, and the odd treasures of the realms beyond, the seemingly ordinary wands and magic scrolls were fairly valuable goods as well. Most of the instant-cast magic wands contained Second and Third Grade spells. These spells almost included every single possible magical element in the World of Adepts.

Even the occasional First Grade wand that Greem found contained extremely practical spells such as Locate Object, Time Reversal, and Dream Enchantress.

One could be used to find an object while another could be used to view the occurrences within an area over the past three hours. The last one could be used to summon a Dream Enchantress to serve oneself.

A Dream Enchantress was a strange creature who had a body of pure Spirit. They were harmless magical creatures who could use their powerful dream-creation abilities to weave a pseudo-realistic dreamspace for their summoner. As such, they were the most frequently summoned magical creatures by all manners of adepts, without contest!

On the other hand, the magical scrolls appeared to be of much worse quality.

That was to be expected. Natagu had already used all of the high-grade magical scrolls during all their battles. The only ones left had to be the ‘defective’ products.

After happily glancing through Natagu’s collection, Greem excitedly placed this storage ring on his finger. The ring’s snake’s eye gem glowed brilliantly. Greem now had four magical rings, almost enough for an entire hand.

He then took a look at Benija’s storage ring.

It was also filled with piles of magical crystals, an assortment of magical gemstones, an equally shocking amount of magical materials and resources, and just as much magical equipment and accessories. However, of all the treasures, the one that caught Greem’s attention was a Second Grade starbeast corpse that was trapped within a piece of strange amber.

A lightbulb went off in Greem’s mind when he saw the starbeast’s corpse. He immediately realized that this was that thing, the thing that had made him willingly take the risk of adventuring here in Henvic!

Greem had the Sourcestealer and could extract innate abilities from the bloodline of certain magical creatures. It was something that only Alice and Mary knew about. Even Great Witch Maysa could not obtain such detailed and private information through the use of her Fate Divination.

Alice had only known through the powers of Fate that she could find the bloodline ability she had always wanted if Greem came to Henvic Plane. However, she had no idea what bloodline ability this would be, nor where it could be found.

That was why Greem had come to this plane despite the tremendous risks; for himself and Alice.

Yet, despite wandering in Henvic Plane for such a long time and traveling to so many different places, he had never heard of any information regarding starbeasts or unusual magical creatures. Just as Greem was starting to fall into despair and believed that Alice’s premonition was only false information released by the enemy as bait, this item appeared in front of him in such a mysterious fashion.

Benija. The psionic adept clearly came from the galaxy of the realms beyond. How exactly did she manage to capture this Second Grade starbeast? And what sort of wondrous ability was hidden within the body of this Second Grade starbeast?

Greem had no clue whatsoever. He could only silently wait until he was back at the tower to analyze the corpse. As for now, Greem grabbed the storage ring and kissed it furiously before solemnly placing it on his right hand.

Greem quickly skimmed through Blade Princess Katherine’s storage ring.

It was just as valuable and filled with treasure, but there was nothing that could catch his attention like the starbeast’s corpse. That said, Greem still found some odd metals in the ring that possessed unique magical traits.

It was apparent that Katherine had been saving these metals to maintain her body and repair its damage.