Age of Adepts

“Bastard, you’re going down!”

Karin suddenly struck out after recovering this time.

Her lithe and agile figure flickered and appeared behind Greem. Two lightless daggers had appeared in her hands, which she thrust furiously at Greem’s spine.

Unfortunately, the blades had barely reached within three meters of Greem when they crashed into a layer of invisible flames. Her defensive forcefield was nothing before these flames and was burned to nothing in the blink of an eye.

Wen the flames spread to Karin’s body, she lifted her head and let out a cry of agony.

It hurt…it hurt so much…so incredibly painful.

It was almost as if all her magic resistance had vanished without a trace. In that instant, the golden fires burned her soul itself, even as they ravaged her body. The intense pain that shot from the depths of her soul was what thoroughly crushed Karin’s spirit!

She kneeled before Green in agony, her entire body engulfed by the strange golden fires. The flames crackled as they burned and tortured her.

Greem finally lifted his hand, and a beam of shadow from above finally extinguished the golden fires. Shadow energy surged into Karin’s body once again.

After recovering once more, Karin escaped from Greem’s side without any hesitation.

The golden fires crackling around Greem disappeared from sight when Karin left, becoming hidden once again.

A Fourth Grade fire adept. It was the true might of a Fourth Grade fire adept!

It was only now that Karin had fully experienced the power of this legendary Fourth Grade fire adept.

Even if he was badly injured, even if he didn’t lift a single finger, all he needed was his translucent forcefield of flames to defeat her. Her! A powerful Third Grade Dark Witch! The gulf in power between Third and Fourth Grade was so vast that Karin couldn’t help but feel dejected at the very thought of it!

“That’s your enemy,” Greem turned around and smiled coldly, “Don’t get the wrong target again! It’s okay if you don’t want to fight Shadow Demon. You will just have to endure half a year of torture from it instead!

“Dark Witches don’t fear death? Hmph! Then I will let you experience it as many times as you want.”

Having said that, fire flashed around Greem as he disappeared from the space.

The cold and heartless Shadow Demon lifted its head. Its gaze landed frostily on Karin.

The next second, the sharp sound of metal slicing across air could be heard once again.

…………

When he emerged from the small interdimensional space, Greem ran into Alice, who had been waiting outside.

“Aren’t you mean? To think you would be so cruel to such a pretty lady. Aren’t you afraid you will make her go insane after six months?” Alice looked at the two figures chasing each other in the arena through the dark screen. She couldn’t help but shake her head and sigh.

“She’s a witch, not a lady!” Greem corrected Alice. “In all seriousness, adepts beyond Second Grade can no longer be called human.”

“But we can’t forget our origins!”

“I have never forgotten our origins. In fact, I care more about my human origins than most other adepts. However, I can’t keep lying to myself,” Greem stared into Alice’s pretty blue eyes and said in a dejected tone, “Adepts are not humans!”

The Non-Human Theory was the theory that Greem had brought up. It was a mainstream belief that had always been active amongst adepts.

With the increasing growth of the adepts, many high-grade adepts started to reflect on the adept cultivation system’s insufficiencies.

What were the most decisive factors in the strength of a tribe and species?

Bloodline, talent, intelligence, ingenuity.

In truth, all these factors were necessary, and each was just as important as the next one!

However, the humans that the adepts originated from were hardly excellent in these regards. In fact, they were on the verge of being wholly classified as an unqualified species.

Bloodline. The human bloodline. How was it best to put it? If one were being kind, having a human bloodline was akin to having no bloodline at all!

They didn’t have the strong Physique of the orcs, the Agility of the elves, and certainly not the inborn Strength of the giants. Of all the most common species found in the multiverse, it seemed like the humans were one of the few species with no manifested bloodline powers.

Of course, this didn’t come with no perks at all!

The humans had the most balanced, adaptable bloodline, capable of tolerating the introduction of most other foreign bloodlines.

However, this was only how humans would describe themselves. The truth was that the human bloodline was far too weak. Any bloodline merging with another race would cause the human bloodline to be devoured and suppressed.

Consequently, most mixed-race humans would show signs of regressed bloodline in later generations!

The intelligent races of most higher planes had strict laws in place forbidding their species from procreating with lower creatures like the humans, simply to avoid regressing their bloodline powers.

Talent. Just as was with their bloodline, the humans had very ordinary talents.

Even the foolish goblins that were often hunted down by other civilizations were skilled at mechanical engineering. Yet, the humans had nothing at all.

Of course, if you counted obedience, subservience, and ease of breeding as good points, then humans did indeed have many good points!

However, there was only one talent that allowed humans across all the planar worlds to rise to power– their ability to study!

Humans did not have sharp claws like wild beasts or wings for flight, as birds did. Humans became used to studying, always learning from species and creatures stronger than themselves.

The birth of the adepts could be traced to the ancient humans’ relentless studying and examination of the magical patterns found on powerful magical creatures!

When they carved similar patterns onto their bodies and the ground, they found that these patterns contained power, weak as it was. From then on, their progress could not be stopped, and the Adepts were born!

It was the problem of the adept’s origin that caused many powerful individuals among the adepts to start considering the matter of bloodline and talents.

From their perspective, abandoning the flawed human species and using the bloodline assimilation techniques researched by the adepts to create a more powerful species that best suited the path of adepts was probably an easier way of pushing the adepts forward and allowing for their continuous prosperity!

Moreover, this was no longer just a thought or an idea.

According to Greem’s understanding, the various adept organizations had already started similar experiments in the lesser planes they ruled.

There were so many adepts in space. Could they all have come from the World of Adepts?

Disregarding everything else, even the Third Grade adepts that had gone to Henvic Plane to hunt Greem were utterly unknown to him. Greem had not heard of their names in the World of Adepts at all.

Blade Princess Katherine, Psionic Benija, Poison Adept Guinevere, and the serpentine adept, Naguta. If these powerful adepts had come from the World of Adepts, Greem should not have failed to find any information on them at all, especially considering his identity and status.

After a long period of investigation, Greem finally realized the truth.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t find any information about them in the World of Adepts; it was that they had never been from the World of Adepts!

If those that walked out of the World of Adepts were pureblood adepts, then these adepts trained with the same cultivation system from the lesser planes would be inferior rag tags.

The World of Adepts was still the homeworld of the adepts, after all. The major adept organizations still held back with certain experiments and respected certain taboos. However, they became reckless and fearless when performing the same operations in their lesser planes.

It wasn’t hard to imagine the personalities of the adepts cultivated in such extreme environments!

If the high-grade adepts of the World of Adepts were all perverted and twisted in their own way, that was only relative to an ordinary human. Meanwhile, these ragtag adepts were not just twisted, but monsters in their own right.

Before reaching Fourth Grade and venturing to space, Greem had thought like most adepts in the World of Adepts. He had thought of himself as a genius amongst adepts, a protagonist of his own story, a man fated to become a great and powerful adept.

However, upon stepping out of the World of Adepts, he was shocked to find that the World of Adepts was not the only world of adepts!

There were hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of lesser planes throughout the galaxy continually pumping the adepts with fresh, new blood. Of these people who could step out of their planar worlds and assemble under the flag of the Great Adepts, who was not a genius in their own right in their own world?

Of course, if there was something that distinguished the World of Adepts from these lesser planes, it would be that since the birth of the world, there had been as many as three Ninth Grade Great Adepts that had emerged from the World of Adepts.

The World of Adepts itself was also a higher plane with complete planar laws and rich resources.

It was perhaps the only reason that the World of Adepts stood out amongst the countless planar worlds out there!

Alice couldn’t help but open her eyes wide in shock when she heard Greem claim that adepts were not humans! She anxiously spoke up, “Greem, do you also think that humans are suited as the origin for adepts?”

Greem smiled. He picked up Alice’s slender hand and rubbed it against his own face.

“Quite the contrary, Alice. I believe the opposite of what the others do. I am confident that humans should be the origin for all adepts! The adepts have already procured more than enough power. There needs to be a harness over this immense force to stop it from going out of control and coming to bite back on the adepts.”

“Why would you think so? Are there adepts that would regret the fact that they had too much power? Are the adepts not supposed to pursue power as their only goal?” Alice couldn’t help but be confused.

“Someone faraway contacted me today. They want to make a deal with me. Can you guess who it is?” Greem couldn’t help but rub his nose and smile bitterly.

Alice knew nothing about this before Greem spoke.

However, the moment Greem mentioned the issue, the vague information guided Alice, allowing shards of information to surge into her soul by her Fate powers. The incomplete image of an unusual creature slowly appeared in her mind.

“A lich…Lich Kanganas contacted you!” Alice couldn’t help but open her mouth wide in shock.