Age of Adepts

Greem sat silently inside the magical room.

The intricate leather coat he wore perfectly outlined his muscular figure. The fire dragon hide that had undergone numerous treatment processes no longer had the flashy, fiery effects it used to have. The power it possessed was much more contained and subtle now.

It was hard to sense the presence of any fire energy from this leather coat from a simple glance. Even Greem’s typically overwhelming fire aura was restrained, making him seem like an ordinary man.

The Tome of Corruption placed before Greem flipped of its own accord, the thick and heavy pages rustling as they moved. Every time Greem thought of a certain spell or array in his mind, the Tome of Corruption flipped to that page and waited for him to read its contents.

The Libram of Wisdom, the former incarnation of the Tome of Corruption, was truly the best companion for a spellcaster!

It contained knowledge on all sorts of things, covering power systems from adept magic, demonic magic, divine magic, arcane magic, and many other systems. You could find almost any knowledge you sought in its pages.

It was the most powerful aspect of the Tome of Corruption.

Its fundamental purpose wasn’t as a weapon in combat but as a treasure trove of knowledge!

However, what frustrated Greem was the fact that he wasn’t the original owner of the Libram of Wisdom. He had only forcibly devoured the Libram using his Soul Equipment. Even now, Greem did not possess the right to read the Tome of Corruption’s contents freely.

Every time he opened the Tome of Corruption, the content and knowledge he could access were completely random and different. They were like tiny, jumbled shards. Every time he flipped the pages, Greem could only see a small piece of the puzzle of specific high-grade knowledge. Greem would have to continuously offer up his Spirit in order to obtain more and more fragments of knowledge in hopes of getting the complete picture.

Some knowledge fragments were incredibly valuable, while others were utter nonsense. If Greem wanted to obtain valuable knowledge, he could only continuously offer up his Spirit, testing his luck over and over, accumulating and piecing the knowledge together, bit by bit.

At some point, when he obtained all the knowledge fragments, he would be able to restore the full picture of high-grade knowledge!

That was why Greem’s favorite activity to do in his free time was to take out the Tome of Corruption and try his hand.

His luck was quite good today!

The Tome of Corruption sat in front of him, a spark of purple light suspended above its pages in a bubble. As Greem offered up a point of Spirit, the Tome of Corruption rustled and flipped rapidly, finally stopping on a page.

It was a new method of utilizing the Tome of Corruption that Greem had just discovered.

By offering up his Spirit with a specific object as the target, the Tome of Corruption would automatically appraise and display the information it had on the item. The amount of Spirit offered up in this process determined the detail in the information that Greem would get.

With his 44 points of Spirit, 1 point was practically nothing. He could recover that amount with just half an hour of meditation.

With the investment of one point of Spirit, Greem felt a slight sting in his mind. The Tome of Corruption had extracted some of his Spirit.

A short line of words appeared on the page.

“……the power of conviction……”

Four words. He had sacrificed a point of Spirit for a four-word response from the Tome of Corruption?

Greem could barely believe his eyes.

A single point of Spirit might not sound like a lot, but that was one point of Spirit from an intermediate Fourth Grade legendary fire adept. Converted into fire spells, that would be eight ordinary fireballs, four Magma Fireballs, two Vicious Fireballs, and half a Blazing Fireball.

If this point of Spirit were used on the battlefield, it would be enough to wipe out a mortal army of two to three hundred elite soldiers fully equipped with magic-resistant armor.

However, such powerful Spirit, when used to identify the purple light, had only obtained a four-word response. Greem couldn’t help but be terrified.

The only explanation for this situation was that the purple light’s origin was not simple at all. It very likely involved the ultra-grade artifact in Gloria’s possession. That was why the tome would have classified information on the purple light so highly, so much so that even Greem was shocked.

However, the more ‘expensive’ the information, the more valuable it would be for Greem!

After a slight pause, Greem sacrificed another 8 points of his Spirit.

These 8 points of Spirit were one-fifth of Greem’s total Spirit. To have so much Spirit extracted from him all at once felt like a large hole had been cut open in his mind, his brains left to pour out from within.

A short moment later, the pages flipped and slowly stopped on a blank page. Several short lines of words started to appear.

“This substance is a mutation of the power of conviction, composed of refined magic energy and powerful spiritual will. Its manifested attribute is neutral energy that can be regarded as ‘physical’ damage.”

Greem scratched his head when he was done reading.

He had paid such a heavy price, sacrificing eight points of Spirit, and all he obtained was information he already knew. That…had been a rather pointless exchange, hadn’t it!?

Greem couldn’t help but grit his teeth at this thought. His Spirit connected with the Tome of Corruption once more. This time, he offered up twenty points of Spirit altogether.

Twenty points; that was practically half of Greem’s total Spirit.

The moment Greem gave the instruction to sacrifice his Spirit, he let out a terrible yelp. He clutched his head and remained tensed up in pain for a long while.

He was a human, after all. He was not a machine, much less a cake that one could freely cut up as one liked. A human had blood and flesh. The Spirit, in particular, was a rather fragile construct.

In a battlefield, an adept would usually output Spirit at a stable rate, drawing in the wandering magic energy to construct powerful spells. It was a gradual process, and the backlash inflicted on the spellcaster was much more tolerable.

Greem was having half of his total Spirit extracted all at once. He would probably have been stunned or even rendered unconscious if not for his extremely resilient mind.

After half a day, Greem finally recovered from his groggy state. He was able to focus and read the knowledge fragment being projected by the Tome of Corruption.

Object Name: Seed of Conviction

Item Classification: Mutated Conviction Power

Item Attribute: Neutral

Item Origin: Combination of refined magic energy and powerful Spiritual will

“Analysis Results: This power originates from a peak Fourth Grade lifeform, currently estimated to be a member of the World of Adepts. By continually refining and concentrating their life energy, the user can turn life energy into their own magic power. Then, by guiding that power through some unknown force, the user was able to combine it with their own conviction power, creating the potent Seed of Conviction.

“The Seed of Conviction contains tremendous physical power and the host’s conviction of being ‘Unstoppable.’ When activated, the Seed can manifest in the form of Strength, absorbing wandering magic energy or host’s life energy to strengthen itself.

“Note: As the Seed of Conviction contains the spiritual will of its host, it can be manipulated by the host while within a certain range. Manifested characteristics of the Seed of Conviction include: directional energy eruption, delayed activation, energy resonance, and many more.

“The attribute of the Seed of Conviction is neutral, manifested as ‘physical’ damage. The Seed of Conviction manifests with a purple-black hue and contains the power of Fifth Grade energy equipment. Initial estimates suggest this artifact is…the Gem of Strength!”

A bunch of information flooded into Greem’s mind as a stream of data. It was then organized by the Chip to be stored for future research.

The source of the purple light’s power was Gloria’s life energy. She had combined that life energy with magic energy to further enhance its power, before adding in her own spiritual will. Thus, a unique Seed of Conviction was created, a unique manifestation of power!

What grabbed Greem’s attention the most was undoubtedly the Fifth Grade artifact that made all this possible.

The Gem of Strength. What was that thing? He had never heard of such an item. Could it be an artifact or treasure from another world?

Even though the Tome of Corruption did not provide specific information on the Gem of Strength, Greem would have a much easier time uncovering information with this name in mind.

However, it was clearly impossible to obtain any more knowledge for today!

He had sacrificed a total of 29 points of Spirit already. It was a tremendous burden, even for Greem. He might have completed the elementiumization of his body and Spirit, but the preservation of his flesh body had left him with the various flaws of a human.

He could avoid physical damage in combat through his body’s energy transformations and the projection of his power. However, he still had to endure the various inconveniences of a human body in daily life.

The human body was simply far too frail compared to other magical creatures!

It had a complicated intestinal system, an outdated digestive system, a fragile respiratory system, frail bones, and insufficiently protected organs. Any two of these things already made it impossible to sustain a large body, not to mention the fact that humans lacked an effective energy storage organ.

Truly, there were only flaws and imperfections in the human body.

An ordinary human could only be a planar creature. They could not venture outside of the plane, as they were incredibly dependent on having a stable and gentle environment.

Adepts were able to venture into the multiverse despite their origins as humans because of their legacy of knowledge and the supernatural power they had discovered.

If adepts were unable to draw power from their environment and had to rely on their own bodies’ pitiful energy reserves, they would be tens, if not hundreds, of times weaker!

A clever mind and an unbroken legacy of knowledge were perhaps the foundations for the adept civilization’s continued growth and strength.