Age of Adepts

Greem only read the request from Billis for an audience a month later.

He had been busy with the matter of his bloodline replacement and had completely cut off all connection to the outside world. It wasn’t until his bloodline reconstruction was successful and he emerged to nurse his body and Spirit that he saw the list of requests for an audience presented by the tower spirit.

Any small changes to one’s bloodline was a significant affair, let alone a thorough bloodline replacement like Greem had just undergone. As the balance between his soul and his old bloodline had been shattered, Greem’s power had fallen to the bottom of the valley. He urgently needed to construct a power system with his new bloodline as the core.

It was going to be a long and challenging journey!

As such, Greem started nursing his body as best as he could once he emerged from the room.

He had already established several important phases in his mind for the seclusion this time.

Naturally, the first phase was the replacement of his human bloodline with the starbeast’s bloodline. That allowed him to gain new bloodline talents.

The second phase was to construct some vital energy organs based on his new bloodline talents to replace the ‘outdated’ organs of his current body. The utmost priority of these organs was the Flame Fiend’s Heart.

The Flame Fiend’s Heart was no longer beneficial to Greem and often ended up as a burden in battle. Modifying the Heart into a true ‘heart of flame’ was an absolute priority!

The third and final phase was the most crucial part of this seclusion. That was to use the origin substance to experience and master the principle powers, such that Greem might advance to Fourth Grade.

Of these three phases that Greem had established, the first two were to strengthen his foundations. He had to streamline and optimize all of his power systems relating to bloodline and magic prior to his advancement to ensure that these inefficiencies would not affect his future advancement past Fourth Grade.

Now, Greem had successfully replaced his bloodline with a starbeast bloodline. He had obtained the Chaos Physique and a reasonably potent bloodline talent. In doing so, he had successfully achieved his goals for the first phase.

However, before he began the second phase, he still had to allow his body, his new bloodline, and his soul to become accommodated with each other. He could then construct a new power system from the foundations. Thus, in the downtime between the two phases, Greem took the opportunity to learn more about the clan’s internal affairs.

Many of the summarized reports presented by the tower spirit were routine work reports from the core members of the clan; Greem didn’t need to interfere in these affairs. He only needed to have a basic understanding to be able to grasp the general trend of the clan’s development.

There weren’t very many things in these reports that genuinely required Greem’s approval or instructions, but there were always a few.

For instance, Meryl had submitted an extremely classified report from the White Tower in the Northern Lands that required urgent instructions from Greem. The Magic Energy Association, the underground organization established by Princess Vanessa, was starting to show signs of breaking from the Crimson Clan’s control.

Reports from moles planted in the Magic Energy Association revealed that the past four decades of development had allowed the Magic Energy Association to grow significantly. The Association was now a major force with over a hundred core members and nearly a thousand subordinates. Moreover, the Magic Energy Association had been showing signs of unrest recently. A shocking ‘Secession Plan’ was brewing within the organization!

This Secession Plan’s central idea was to liberate the Goblin Plane from the Crimson Clan’s reign, thereby allowing the goblins to become the rulers of their plane once again.

The elementary stages of their plan were to gather and organize the knowledge, system, and alchemical achievements of the World of Adepts, slowly siphoning and smuggling them to the Goblin Plane. Once the higher-ups of the Magic Energy Association believed they had collected sufficient materials, the core members would employ ‘suicidal’ offensives to simultaneously destroy all teleportation arrays that connected the Goblin Plane and the Crimson Clan.

Once the connection between the two worlds had been severed, they would have regained their ‘freedom’!

When that happened, the newly independent Goblin Empire would rely on the alchemical knowledge that the World of Adepts had accumulated for several hundreds of thousands of years as a foundation to walk down a path of magic energy development that suited the goblins.

This way, the goblins might be able to become a new major contender of the multiverse, rising amongst all the other planes!

Greem almost choked from laughing when he first read Meryl’s summary report on the Magic Energy Association. However, after some serious consideration, he couldn’t help but be somewhat impressed at the ingenuity of these little creatures.

Vanessa had never abandoned her identity as the princess of the goblins. She was always, constantly planning and scheming for the independence and rise of the goblin race. Their plan might sound somewhat feasible and practical, but in truth, it was no more than ridiculous and laughable.

Any random core adept of the Crimson Clan could easily crush this ‘Secession Plan’ they had been organizing for the past fifty years, let alone Clan Leader Greem himself.

Setting aside everything else, even their plan to destroy the teleportation arrays, which they viewed as the key to their independence, was incredibly hilarious.

Destroying the teleportation arrays would sever the Crimson Clan’s connection to the Goblin Plane? That was such a childishly laughable thought!

To prevent such a situation from happening, the leaders of the clan had already secretly buried special Locating Stones in five discreet places in the Goblin Plane. Even if the Magic Energy Association’s plan succeeded, the Crimson adepts would still be able to calculate the world coordinates of the Goblin Plane through those Locating Stones.

When that happened, it would be a breeze to open a portal and invade with an elite group of adepts.

Moreover, the goblins’ worldview and perception of the universe were still too lowly. They had absolutely no concept of the intensity and bloodiness of development and evolution throughout the multiverse!

Goblins. Even a species as lowly and humble as them dared to dream of standing at the top of the universe?

Should Princess Vanessa learn of the fate of Morrian Plane, she might never dream of such a thing again.

The Morrian Plane was a powerful and prosperous empire of arcanists who possessed an arcane system comparable to even the adepts. Such a dominant race was attacked by an alliance of all the existing significant forces when they wanted to rise to become a major contender themselves, for seemingly no reason at all.

If one wanted to become an apex predator in this cruel and bloody universe, they would have to have the sharp claws and fangs required to deter their enemies. Otherwise, your battlecries would not only fail to intimidate, but they would even draw packs of carnivores upon yourself.

You might be sufficiently powerful in your own eyes, having conquered one weakling after another. However, in the eyes of real apex predators, your plump and growing flesh would only be delicious dishes.

Without the power to protect yourself, it would be much better to continue hiding in your pungent and dirty swamp and living out your isolated, idyllic life, rather than expose yourself to the sights of these apex predators.

With the size of the multiverse and the vastness of the endless sea of stars, the predators would have a hard time finding a single plane to invade and enslave, regardless of how powerful they were.

In truth, this was a paradox for the development of all planar worlds!

If the planar worlds chose to remain isolated from the rest of the universe, they could avoid being discovered by potential predators. Yet, at the same time, it would become incredibly difficult for those civilizations to continue growing in power. After all, the resources in an isolated planar world were finite. Though there was always a natural circulation of resources, the total amount of planar origin would remain the same. The number of lifeforms and substances that it could create would stay the same as well.

Why was the World of Adepts so powerful?

That was because the adepts stepped out of their plane and invaded countless other lesser planes, bringing back the resources and lives they found back to the World of Adepts. In doing so, the planar origin of the World of Adepts subtly grew and strengthened without stop. The World of Adepts could then create more substances and lifeforms, allowing all beings living within the plane to grow stronger and stronger.

Why was it that adepts looked down on the natives of lesser planes so much? It wasn’t just out of a psychological sense of superiority. Beings of the World of Adepts were superior to other planar natives in their biological construction and the quality of their souls.

The planar origin created all substances and lifeforms in a world. The empowered creatures of the plane would then bring back spoils from other worlds, indirectly nourishing the planar origin.

It was a fundamental principle in the development of a plane!

Without a powerful force interfering in this process, any plane would be able to be improved from its core through accumulation over a long period of time.

However, for a plane to develop, the beings within would have to step out of their world to wage war, invade other worlds, to enslave other people, or to engage in trade. They had to use all sorts of methods to find opportunities to strengthen their origin world.

However, once one stepped out of their plane and lit the fire of civilization for all to see, they would have exposed themselves in the blinding darkness. When that happened, would they be a predator that continued growing by devouring other planes? Or would they attract an even more powerful predator towards yourself and end up as prey instead?

It was utterly unknown!

As such, the rise of a planar civilization not only depended on formidable military strength, but incredible fortune as well. In fact, there were many times when luck was a more important factor than sheer might!

Greem was now at the peak of Third Grade. He stood before the threshold of this planar world’s peak of power. He could see more aspects and faces of the universe, the more realistic elements, and the more brutal aspects. Princess Vanessa, on the other hand, was no more than an advanced First Grade mechanical adept.

The World of Adepts that she saw was only the very surface. There was no way she could ever come into contact with the more profound reasons that determined the status of the adept’s faction in the multiverse.

The more Greem understood about Princess Vanessa’s Secession Plan, the more he pitied her! He had to admit that Vanessa was an ambitious individual with great dreams. Unfortunately, she did not have the power required for her aspirations.

The higher her dreams, the more severe the damage she would inflict upon her own race.

If one were to be brutally honest, she would be destroyed and fall into despair with her dreams in her arms, dragging the entire goblin race, and even the entire Goblin Plane, down into the abyss alongside her.

It was not something that could be changed by an individual’s ‘dreams’ and ‘willpower’!