Age of Adepts

“Teacher was so cool just now.”

Even the usually composed fire dragon adept had turned into an obsessed fan before her teacher, excitedly cheering for him.

Mary, Meryl, Emelia, and a few representatives of their allied clans, as core members of the Crimson Clan and close acquaintances of Greem, had a suite of their own from which to watch the battle under more private conditions.

The massive screen in front of them had been split into over a hundred smaller screens. Different angles of the four participant’s actions were projected onto each one.

It was obvious that the Association’s degree of monitoring throughout the battlefield was pervasive and everywhere!

Even so, as the four powerhouses stepped onto the battlefield, the screens of light started to go dark, one by one.

Those who could participate in this tournament were indeed the best among the Third Grades. Naturally, they would not allow the monitoring beasts left behind by the Association to get too close to themselves. Every one of them struck out and blinded the ‘eyes’ that were too obvious or close.

However, the Association had predicted this.

The dark screens quickly lit up once again, showing another angle from a different beast’s eyes, quickly approaching the participants from a distance. Although they could not observe the participants in as close a range as before, a remote observation still allowed the viewers to have a grasp of what they were doing.

Greem had now turned into a massive fireball, traveling through the green forest with a long trailing tail of smoke and fire. In the past, doing so would have ignited everything along the way, leaving a glaringly obvious path of flames behind him.

However, Greem’s control over the flames had improved significantly now.

The fireball he had turned into was like an illusory image. It glowed with a smoking yellow flame, but no change in temperature could be felt in the air. All of the fire’s energy had gathered at the core of the fireball without a trace of energy seeping out into the surroundings. This way, opponents that located enemies through elementium changes would not be able to discover Greem unless they saw the fireball with their own eyes.

Greem did not choose to fly in the sky brazenly, but instead subtly approached his opponent as a fireball. After all, his power was still suppressed due to the interference of the planar consciousness. Moreover, he still had no clue who his opponent was.

Under such conditions, there was no means to decide on a combat strategy.

Greem’s first decision upon entering the battlefield was to covertly approach the enemy and determine their identity before deciding on his strategy.

Fifty kilometers was nothing to him. He traversed the entire distance in just thirty minutes.

The teleportation crystal he had with him could only give the vague direction of the opponent’s location, but could not indicate how far away they were. As such, Greem was not concerned about the enemy setting a trap for him.

After all, at this moment, while everyone was still under the effects of planar suppression and remained incapable of unleashing their full power, it would be incredibly difficult to kill one another. Consequently, this phase of the battle would revolve around the investigation of power levels and a search for weaknesses.

There was a silent valley in the depths of the forest.

The once lively and lush forest was now exceptionally dead and silent. Not a single sound could be heard.

Towering arbor trees crowded together, while the empty spaces were filled with leaves, branches, and winding vines. At the roots of the trees were a mess of bushes and brambles. Ordinary people would have trouble walking in such an environment unless they cut down all the shrubs and vines.

A strange ball of fire abruptly charged out of the woods in this humid environment, descending upon the valley.

It stopped in midair.

A pair of lively eyes appeared in the blazing flames, carefully and cautiously examining everything within the valley.

Soon, the eyes found something.

The fireball flickered and appeared in a clearing amidst the trees.

The eyes in the fire stared unflinchingly at a single drop of green liquid hanging from a bramble branch.

As the winds of the mountain blew across, the branch swayed slightly, and the green liquid slowly evaporated.

As green mist took to the air, the greenery around the area rapidly started withering.

It seemed like his first opponent was his old friend– Sanazar!

Greem had basically identified his opponent the moment he saw the drop of poison. The Chip in his mind started running at full speed, constructing all sorts of combat plans revolving around the Third Grade Flying Venom Dragon.

Sanazar’s personal attributes, temperament, combat habits, equipment; all the information flowed through Greem’s mind and was pieced together to form an increasingly coherent model of an individual.

When Sanazar’s model was completed, Greem abruptly increased the size of his body, transforming into a ten-meter tall flame giant. He took to the skies.

An earthshaking roar then rumbled across the boundless sea of trees.

“Sa…na…zar!”

The voice boomed like a bell and struck like thunder. The forest trembled in fright as birds scattered in a panic, while leaves fell to the ground like snow in winter.

There were no schemes or conspiracies, plots, or traps. Greem challenged the proud Third Grade adept to a battle in the most direct and straightforward fashion.

Perhaps sensing Greem’s ferocious will for battle, a purple mist slowly rose into the air in the forest fifteen kilometers away, standing off against the fire giant from a distance.

Sanazar was an incredibly proud and narcissistic person. She was brash and rough with her actions and rarely considered the consequences when she committed to doing something. It was the main reason why Greem had parted with the Sarubo Clan on such bad terms!

It was precisely because of his understanding of Sanazar’s personality that Greem skipped the unnecessary stages of probing and warming up. He went straight to provoking Sanazar in the most boorish manner possible.

Sanazar was a veteran Third Grade adept. She had practically watched as Greem grew from a mere First Grade adept to his current level, equal to herself.

In all honesty, this was unbearable to her!

Regardless of how wildly spread Greem’s title of the legendary fire adept was, in Sanazar’s heart, he was still that subservient ‘small fry’ bowing before her. Even though she logically knew this to be incorrect, her feelings did not allow her to view the fire adept’s status objectively.

So, when faced with a challenge from this ‘ant,’ Sanazar answered without hesitation, even though she was still experiencing planar suppression.

Sanazar was 1.72 meters tall, but she showed no fear on her face as she looked at the towering giant in the distance.

She could sense it very clearly.

The fire giant might look fearsome, but the intensity of the flames that made up its body was insignificant.

It was obvious that Greem also suffered from planar suppression.

Reducing unnecessary energy consumption was the correct choice under such circumstances. It wasn’t hard to imagine how much fire energy Greem was expending by having forcibly gathered so much fire and increasing the size of his body to this extent.

At Third Grade, an adept’s magic resistance had already reached a shocking level. The large area-of-effect spells commonly used in the past became much weaker at threatening an enemy compared to the more concentrated single-target spells.

As for using a large elementium body to intimidate the opponent? A tactic like that might be useful against low-grade adepts, but it was undoubtedly no more than an empty threat against Third Grade opponents.

“Brat, you have not experienced a high-grade battle like this, have you? Today, I will let you know the power of a real Third Grade powerhouse.” Sanazar’s somewhat hoarse and sharp voice rang out of the purple mist, quickly turning into a bestial howl or roar of sorts.

The purple mist continued to radiate and spread, quickly engulfing a circumference of a hundred meters around her.

There seemed to be a massive creature roaring and struggling at the center of the mist. Occasionally, a muscular and slender tail, or a powerful scaled claw, would brush past the edge of the fog. However, they remained obscured, and what was happening within still could not be discerned.

Greem let out a snort and proceeded to gather a Magma Fireball, which he threw at the purple mist. A blinding pair of ghostly green eyes lit up within the mist, and a deafening roar filled the air.

Violent wind surged outwards as a massive silhouette charged out of the purple mist. It smashed the Magma Fireball to pieces with a single swipe of its claw before lunging at Greem, still engulfed in specks of fire and sparks.

The opponent might be fast, but Greem had captured all of its movements with his dynamic vision.

The Flying Venom Dragon that Sanazar had transformed into was still as ugly and vicious as ever before. It had none of the majesty of ordinary dragons, nor the clearly defined angles of pure-blood dragons. Instead, it looked like a green dragon that had been skinned and covered in mucus and dark spots instead.

However, the Flying Venom Dragon was still a dragon. It had the overwhelming aura of the dragons, as well as their formidable Physique.

As the Flying Venom Dragon flapped its webbed wings, its colossal, twenty-meter long body turned into a bolt of lightning. As it lunged at Greem with vicious fangs and claws, the overwhelmingly cruel aura that assaulted him almost felt suffocating.

Greem raised his hand, and layers of Inferno Shields appeared between him and the Flying Venom Dragon.

The dragon opened its mouth and spat a glob of green poison out, eroding through five of the Inferno Shields before vanishing as light green mist. The Flying Venom Dragon’s momentum did not decrease. Instead, it used its powerful body to crush the three remaining Inferno Shields and ran straight into the last two Lava Shields.

Dong!

An earth rending explosion rang out as the two giant creatures collided. They rolled across the forest, leaving a wide path in their wake as they wrestled and tore at each other.

To maximize his close-combat ability, Greem gave up on the Body of Flames, which gave him tremendous firepower. Instead, he transformed into the Flame Fiend, which had a powerful Physique.

Chapter Notes: Editor Ryu: If you’re enjoying Age of Adepts, now is a great time to stop by our Patreon and consider supporting this fine series! Patreon is mine and Eris’ sole form of income for working on this series, and everyone who supports us through Patreon helps ensure the continued translation and release of AoA. The AoA Patreon has contribution tiers that give you access to advance chapters of the series (fully translated and edited) up to 15 chapters ahead of the GT releases. Thanks for your readership, and we hope to have your patronage as well.

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-Ryu