Age of Adepts

The last remaining enchanted item was a Tablet of Fate.

By placing it on your person, the tablet would turn warm when it sensed danger, alerting the holder of what was to come. It was a decent warning tool.

As the item involved the profound and mysterious power of Fate, it was tough to assess its grade. However, given the intensity of the Fate power emanating from the tablet, the Chip categorized it as a Third Grade item.

It could reliably give out warnings when it concerned Third Grade creatures or items. Anything above Third Grade, and it could only provide a vague warning about a threat.

Unlike the other two pieces of Fourth Grade equipment, this Tablet of Fate was not an origin item. As such, Greem could use it directly. He placed the tablet into a pocket on his chest.

By the time he finished looking through the battlefield, the town was already bathed in the golden light of dawn.

Warm and gentle sunlight shone through the wooden windows on each end of the corridor, driving out the last trace of shadow in the air.

Due to the intense battle from earlier, the house had nearly been torn apart. The rooms to Greem’s sides had already been burned to a husk by the violent flames. The surviving foundations and burnt, scattered furniture were the only remnants of the rooms.

Greem pushed apart the remaining half of the scorched-black door and walked into a burned corridor. The entrance of the room on the other side creaked open as Adept Holly walked out, stretching his body as he did so.

“Truly a beautiful morning! Congratulations, Sir Greem.”

Adept Holly behaved as if the scarred battlefield before him did not exist at all. He greeted Greem with a big smile on his face.

Naturally, Greem returned the greeting courteously.

The two exchanged a few meaningless words and walked down the half-collapsed stairs.

Cherisha was waiting for them in the hall on the first floor.

The three of them did not mention the battle that happened last night, as if there was a tacit agreement between them. They couldn’t care less about the hellish sight around them either, and none of them even asked about what happened to Shani.

While the three of them were having a conversation, a trembling and frightened voice came from beside them.

“Save me…please, save me.”

The three adepts looked over. The middle-aged noble lady of the house had reached out with her withered, burned hands, shambling as she walked towards them.

Greem frowned slightly.

Given the intensity of his battle with Shani last night, the entire Maple Forest Town had already been razed to the ground; no civilians in this house could be alive. Moreover, Greem could very clearly see that the noble lady’s body was almost ghostly in nature. Her clothes and her flesh were all semi-translucent under the golden sunlight.

This form, this aura resembled that of a ghost.

Greem had yet to finish his thought when the twin sisters floated out from the dining hall in the same unusual fashion. Their faces were covered in blood, and they too cried for help. The form of their bodies was the same as their mother’s.

“It seems like their souls were bound to the land upon death, and the corrosion of the dense shadow energy has transformed them into this unusual spirit form.” Adept Holly couldn’t help but click his tongue in wonder. “There’s no need to care about them. They are now ghosts of the earthbound kind. It’s difficult to kill them while they remain on this land.”

While Holly was speaking, the noble lady seemed to have gone berserk. She lunged, her dirty, scorched hands passing straight through his body without touching anything.

Adept Holly’s expression instantly changed into one of fury. He had just been provoked by a low-grade spirit.

“Damned bastard. You can’t read the situation at all. It seems like you won’t know what fear is if I don’t give you a little lesson!” Adept Holly cursed angrily and lifted his hand. A brilliant beam of starlight landed on the noble lady’s body.

The so-called spirits did not fear physical attacks, but could still be wounded by elementium magic.

The noble lady could not run far. She screamed as she melted into a black puddle beneath the starlight. The pool then quickly evaporated into nothingness.

However, before Greem and the others could shift their eyes away, a white light flashed in the corner of the hall. The noble lady had appeared once again out of thin air. She seemed to understand the might of the adepts now. She cried out in terror and hid in her corner.

The twin sisters also screamed and raw away.

Seemingly affected by some sort of movement, countless white figures emerged from all over the collapsed house. These spirits started to wander about aimlessly.

Judging from their appearance, they were the servants, maids, cooks, and guards of the noble mansion.

They seemed to have yet to realize they were dead. They were still wearing the clothes they had worn while they were alive, working busily in the house according to their daily routine.

It wasn’t until the three adepts walked out of the house that they discovered that the entire town had ‘woken up’!

Translucent spirits were diligently working like usual in the burned and collapsed ruins of their houses. There were those who were sweating as they unloaded cargo from their carriages, those who put on their aprons and started to make breakfast, those who yawned and stretched their backs as they opened shop. Even more of them were wandering the streets, smiling as they greeted each other as if everything was just as pleasant as usual.

When they saw the adepts, they all silently hid in the distance, sneaking looks from the corners of the road or through the cracks in their doors. They seemed to have taken the three adepts for unusual guests that had broken into their town.

“Let’s go!”

Greem took one last look at the town before shaking his head, sighing and walking away.

There were far, far too many secrets in a plane. Even with their power and wisdom, the adepts might not be able to understand every unknown in the world. The battle between him and Dark Witch Shani had clearly, forcefully turned this human town into a spirit town due to some sort of coincidence.

If this were any other time, Greem might have remained here out of interest to research the wonders of the spirits and the principle behind the formation of the spirit town. Unfortunately, this was a dangerous otherworld, and he also had a mission to bear. He had no choice but to leave.

…………

Reisin Garden, floating city.

Lucia was walking alone down a small, moon-white path.

Usually, this should be the time when the arcane apprentices were studying and doing their research with all they had. It should be a crucial moment for them to work hard to try and pass the arcane test.

Usually, this arcane garden would be full of arcane apprentices walking to and fro.

They would be hiding their faces behind their books, lying on the jade-white fences as they memorized complex and difficult chants, walking around the arcane fountain in circles as they memorized headache-inducing formulas, or simply running to the spell pools to finish their daily missions.

However, such a scene could no longer be seen!

Ever since that damned plan of retreat had quickly and subtly spread throughout the floating city, the entire arcane academy had been thrown into chaos. It made the whole city feel unsettling and unfamiliar.

The silhouettes of apprentices that could be seen in the arcane academy decreased day by day.

Lucia had not seen a single apprentice even though she had been walking for the better part of the day. Even the occasional apprentice she saw would look like herself, walking hastily with books in hand, sorrow and worry written all over their faces.

Lucia quickly walked through an arcane hall, down a quiet corridor, and into the open-air knowledge hall.

This place was where arcane apprentices like herself could attend the public lectures of the arcanists.

The knowledge hall appeared not to have a roof, but there was, in fact, a transparent arcane barrier above the hall. When it rained, Lucia would enjoy the raindrops splashing against the barrier and sliding off the dome as she listened to the arcanists explain the various arcane formulas and principles in great detail. That feeling of having the truth of the world slowly unmasked in front of her was simply wondrous.

Today’s public lecture would be given by Second Grade Arcanist Sir Brown. It was a lecture on the history of the development of the Arcane Empire.

Lectures like these were Lucia’s favorite. That was why she insisted on coming here even though she knew the situation now was terrible.

There were still fifteen minutes until the lecture, and only three or four people were seated in the knowledge hall, which could host an audience of a thousand. They were all very young. Much like Lucia, they were all apprentices who loved the arcane arts from the depths of their hearts.

Not long after Lucia found a seat on the front row, Arcanist Brown walked into the hall with his short figure, balding head, and gold-trimmed tortoise-shell glasses.

Arcanist Brown let out an imperceptible sigh when he saw the sparse audience. He quickly adjusted his mood and stepped onto the podium, where he described the history of the Arcane Empire with his deep and low voice.

The arcane apprentices had already learned about this history countless times through books and recording crystals. However, when an actual arcanist used his confident and deep voice to describe the histories once again and even show them evidence with valuable recordings from the past, it was completely different. The passion of the few arcane apprentices present at the lecture was ignited once more.

They listened with flushed faces, their blood boiling so hot that they wanted nothing better than to die in place of those courageous and ingenious arcanists, all so they could leave their names in the annals of that glorious history.

The five-hour-long public lecture quickly came to an end.

Arcanist Brown announced the end of the lecture with his deep voice, before lowering his head to slowly and carefully pack away the arcane tools he had brought with him.

Lucia did not leave. Instead, she slowly approached the podium.

The other arcane apprentices also walked over in silence.

“Professor, has the Arcane Empire truly abandoned us?”

Everyone fell silent for a moment until a male apprentice blurted out the question. His face was flushed red.

Arcanist Brown’s hand trembled slightly. He did not raise his head or speak.

“Professor, thank you for your guidance all this time. My family has already been asking me to go home. Here…it’s no longer a safe place here. I…” The male apprentice continued talking without aim. In the end, even he didn’t know what he was talking about.

Finally, he stopped speaking and bowed deeply to Arcanist Brown before turning and running away as fast as he could. The other arcane apprentices also sighed and bowed before leaving.

“Professor, I won’t leave. I still want to continue studying the arcane arts with you!” Lucia bit her lips firmly, so hard that she almost started bleeding.

It was now that Arcanist Brown finally lifted his head. There were droplets on his glasses.

“Leave, Lucia! The great tree that is the Arcane Empire is about to fall. What you most need to do now is to flee as far as you can. This way…you might be able to leave a seed of the arcane for Morrian Plane in the future. Leave. Listen to me, Lucia. Leave.”

At the final word, the aging arcanist finally broke down and cried like a child.