Age of Adepts

Starbeast Hessmoto and its stoneheart eggs had a notorious reputation!

Hessmoto was infamous throughout the universe. It was a terrifying Sixth Grade starbeast. However, unlike other starbeasts, Hessmoto rarely broke into a planar world to forcefully steal planar origin.

Instead, it relied on a far more infuriating and repulsive means to do so. Put in more abstract terms, the starbeast would rape the planar consciousness and give birth to a stoneheart egg that leeched the planar origin. In doing so, the stoneheart egg would be able to slowly grow by feeding on the power of the planar origin.

The stoneheart egg might be an egg, but it was a challenging entity to deal with. It possessed control over the earth laws and could freely move and travel underground, avoiding the pursuit and tracking of the planar natives.

By the time a starbeast hatched from the stoneheart egg, it would already be a fearsome Fourth Grade monster.

It was through this method that Hessmoto was able to create numerous descendants. Meanwhile, any material planes it targeted would lose a lot of their planar origin, and the planar consciousness would be damaged. In severe cases, the plane might even drop in level!

Fortunately, the incubation of the stoneheart egg took time as well. It would take ten years for a stoneheart egg to hatch from the moment it was laid. If the planar natives could find this freely traveling stoneheart egg underground within ten years and kill it, the lost planar origin could be recovered.

Of course, if Greem could run over to the Spirit World, steal the stoneheart egg for himself, and bring it back to the World of Adept for a blood sacrifice, he would most certainly obtain the highest degree of feedback from the World of Adepts.

Unfortunately, while that seemed like a good idea, it was a completely impractical one!

That was because Tulas would never invite him to hunt down the stoneheart egg. Instead, he was tiring to use his connection with Greem to contact Alice.

If it hadn’t been necessary, the natives of the Spirit World would never ask for outside help in the hunt for the stoneheart egg. After all, they were also worried that the stoneheart egg might be taken away by individuals from other worlds, resulting in a loss to the planar origin anyway.

However, the stoneheart egg was simply too cunning. It moved about underground frequently, never giving the natives a chance to catch it. The only solution that Tulas could think of was to ask for help from a Fate Witch like Alice. He wanted to borrow her power to locate the stoneheart egg.

The source of power for diviners and prophets of the Spirit World was the planar consciousness itself. Now that even the Spirit World’s planar consciousness was itself a victim of Hessmoto, they had no means of tracking the egg through divination!

Greem introduced Tulas to Alice and stopped thinking about the whole affair.

It was the magic surge. Every plane was in absolute chaos and turbulence. Most powerhouses would choose to return to their homeworlds and guarantee the plane’s safety before they would go out exploring again.

That was why the constant planar invasions of the past had paused for a moment in the ten years leading up to the magic surge. Everyone was in a hurry to reinforce their worlds. During this time, most higher civilizations would stop going to war and, with the exception of disaster creatures and starbeasts.

For a while, there had been a rare period of peace across the major planes!

However, given Greem’s current status and authority, he did not have much time to lie around idly.

Soon, a classified report was placed on his desk.

Greem was in big trouble!

There were no walls in the world that could keep out the wind completely.

Greem had laid a plot down for the son of the God of Wisdom Hierro and had stolen the famous Libram of Wisdom for himself. He had kept this incident under wraps for a long time until bringing the Libram out with him once he had converted it into the Tome of Corruption.

Even so, the God of Wisdom Hierro had ultimately managed to uncover Greem as the perpetrator through some unknown means.

According to information obtained through discreet channels, Hierro now saw Greem as his greatest enemy.

He had already put out a pricey bounty in the World of Gods. Anyone that brought Greem’s head to him would obtain a piece of Fourth Grade divine equipment personally forged and customized by Hierro. They would also be allowed entry to the Hall of Wisdom to read its books for up to three years. Of course, the friendship of all of Hierro’s believers would also be extended to them.

In all honesty, even Greem himself felt the impulse to chop his own head off when he heard of the incredible bounty!

Fortunately, the God of Wisdom Hierro was only a Sixth Grade God, and a God of Wisdom that was not particularly versed in the ways of fighting. While Hierro himself did not dare to step out of his god kingdom, his limited amount of authority and number of believers were not too much of a threat to Greem.

As for whether he dared to send out a Fifth Grade clone of himself? That wasn’t even a consideration.

There were too many apex predators and domineering individuals in the universe. If the Fifth Grade clone of a god ever dared show themselves, they would be hunted down by nearly everyone who had to power to do so. When that happened, Hierro’s clone might not even be able to protect itself, let alone hunt down Greem.

There were many artifacts and divine equipment in the World of Adepts. Most of these were not created by the adepts themselves, but obtained through raiding the World of Gods.

The main reason for this was that the adepts and gods were very similar in racial composition. Humans were the foundation of their worlds. Consequently, they were similar in knowledge, techniques, and power systems.

The adepts only needed to modify the divine equipment they had stolen slightly to be able to use it for themselves. Naturally, they were inclined to steal divine equipment from the gods.

Of course, the more important reason was that the gods of the World of Gods tended to bestow divine equipment on their subordinates and believers as a status symbol. These subordinates and believers were naturally far weaker than the gods and much easier prey.

These two reasons combined resulted in high-grade adepts preferring to steal divine equipment from the hands of high-grade believers of the World of Gods. They could rapidly improve their fighting strength in doing so.

The ultimate consequence of such actions was the division of the World of Gods and the adept civilization into two irreconcilable, opposing factions!

Believers of the World of Gods and adepts would always break out into a fight whenever they met in space.

However, hose whose names could be found on the World of Gds bounty list were often Great Adepts and beyond. Fourth Grade adepts like Greem were a rare sight.

Rather than creating trouble for Greem, this bounty issued on his head served to spread his name out in space before he ventured out there. It was very likely that Greem’s name had now spread across countless places in space!

However, while this news hardly fazed Greem, the arrival of another report caused his scalp to buzz.

A second god had issued a bounty on Greem. Moreover, this god was a Seventh Grade major god.

The God of Fire Sinai!

The Orb of the Fire God in Greem’s possession was an artifact created by Sinai.

This veteran god of the World of Gods had managed to discover through some means the perpetrators who had broken into his lesser plane, killed his loyal followers, and stolen the Orb of the Fire God. They were the Dark Witches of the World of Adepts.

In his fury, he put out a bounty on both the Dark Witches and Greem.

The bounty was incredibly enticing, but Greem was no longer in the mood to make fun of it.

He could ignore the threat of the God of Wisdom. As long as he did not leave the World of Adepts and break into Hierro’s territory, the God of Wisdom was barely a threat to him. However, this Seventh Grade God of Fire was a different matter entirely.

Seventh Grade. A god like that was a big deal, even in the World of Gods!

If Sinai were set on killing Greem, then Greem would have to be extremely cautious whenever he went to space henceforth. Should the Fire God catch wind of his location, all he had to do was send out a high-grade clone; the odds of Greem successfully escaping back to the World of Adepts was no more than thirty percent.

Moreover, God of Fire Sinai was a fighting god. Even if he only sent out an insignificant Fourth Grade fire clone, it would be able to pose a serious threat to Greem’s life. It would break into a planar world to do so.

Greem felt his head buzz at the very thought of this. His hair stood on end, and for the first time, he felt a genuine chill in the depths of his heart.

However, he regretted nothing!

After all, without the aid of these two artifacts, he would be no more than an intermediate Fourth Grade now. He would have had to endure the oppression of the veteran adepts silently while he slowly refined his power.

Yet now, even Mornashen Gaia had to bow before him. The Central Lands had fallen into his lap, if only in name at the moment. How had this miracle come about? Through the aid of the two pieces of powerful Fifth Grade divine equipment, of course.

Greem had managed to exceed his grade’s limitations with these two divine artifacts and suppressed many powerful individuals that would otherwise have defeated him. Without their aid, Greem would never have had such an advantage in his battles against his peers.

That was why Greem would never give up on these two treasures that meant so much to him, regardless of the difficulties he would have to face!

However, he would have to watch out for his safety now.

The pressure of being targeted by two otherworldly gods at the same time was something that most others would not have the privilege to experience.

He was undoubtedly safe while he remained in the World of Adepts and their associated camps in space.

The two gods were not foolish enough to rush into these places to hunt him down, regardless of how unreasonable and barbaric they might be.

Still, Greem would have to take care to obscure his tracks if he wanted to move around in foreign planes from now on. The consequences of being spotted by the gods and hunted all across the universe were unimaginable.

Greem would have to stay low for the moment and minimize the enemy’s chances to assassinate him. Moreover, if he could further improve his power, he would have a greater chance of dealing with any enemies that came his way.

Greem would not have dared to make such bold claims in the past.

Every step forward since reaching Fourth Grade had been difficult, and every point increase in his attributes had been so demanding and expensive.

However, Greem was unlike your average adept. He had an opportunity to improve significantly in the short term. That opportunity was the uplifting of his starbeast bloodline!

His analysis of the starbeast bloodline had reached 97%. He was only one step away from completion. Once the analysis succeeded, he would instantly possess his own bloodline transformation.

When that happened, not only would his combat prowess improve drastically, even his fighting style would change tremendously!