Age of Adepts

Greem had a nice sleep in the Capital of Steel.

In all honesty, given the Physique and Spirit of a Fifth Grade Great Adept, Greem wouldn’t have felt any fatigue at all even if he didn’t sleep for a few dozen years. This time, he definitely needed to lie down and rest.

The reason was simple.

His suddenly unfurled Spirit needed to adapt to his current body. It would undoubtedly take some time.

In Greem’s mind, the Chip projected that the time required for this adaptation would be: 11 years, 3 months, 8 days. It was the shortest time possible obtained with the Chip’s optimization.

From a certain perspective, Greem could now be compared to those dragons who enjoyed eating and sleeping. A small nap, and he could sleep right past the lives of the more short-lived species!

Greem fell into a deep sleep in a secret room sixty floors underneath the Capital of Steel. Only the Chip was left to defend him loyally.

This one sleep lasted for eleven years.

Ding!

As the Chip’s alarm rang out, Greem’s mental consciousness trembled. He slowly came to.

Disregarding the bonuses from his pieces of two divine equipment, Greem now had fifty points of Spirit. Greem only has one extra point of Spirit compared to those peak Fourth Grade ultra-powerhouses with forty-nine points.

However, this one-point difference was the crucial turning point!

At the higher grades, almost every point increase in Spirit would amplify one’s combat power exponentially. This one point of Spirit was equal to the total sum of the forty-nine points that came before it.

That meant from now on, even a slight increase in any one of Greem’s main attributes would enhance his combat power greatly. However, this also indirectly signified the difficulty of improving one’s attributes.

Magical equipment and accessories collected during Fourth Grade could rarely continue being used once an adept had reached Fifth Grade. Take the two pieces of Fifth Grade divine equipment that Greem currently possessed, for instance. They had provided Greem with an additional 5 points of main attributes when he was Fourth Grade.

Now that he had advanced to Fifth Grade, their bonus to Spirit had been reduced to two points.

Still, those two points were of unusually great benefit to Greem!

In fact, it was enough to allow a rookie like him to surpass ‘veterans’ that had advanced a thousand years earlier than him.

Of course, compared to his fifty-two points of Spirit, Greem’s other attributes were all horribly lacking. Only his Physique exceeded 30 points. Moreover, this was only the result of Greem having obtained a bonus to his Physique through his starbeast bloodline.

Otherwise, most newly advanced Fifth Grade principle adepts had Strength, Physique, and Agility below 20 points.

Greem was a principle adept. He mostly fought at long range, bombarding his enemies with fire spells and rarely engaging up close. Considering that most of his enemies henceforth were likely to possess excellent magic resistance, a focus and specialization in a single elementium was very likely to put him in some awkward positions.

He would have to try his best to increase all his attributes and reduce his weaknesses. At the same time, he had to study the high-grade applications of fire principles and make his offensive power even more vicious and unstoppable.

That was what he should be doing in his first hundred years in space!

As for exploration, searching for resources, and collecting knowledge? That would have to be put aside until he assembled his arsenal and put together his tools for combat.

According to the information Greem possessed, the Exodar Camp in which he and the Capital of Steel currently resided contained a dozen other Fifth Grade Great Adepts. Some of them did not excel at fighting. As such, they seldom stepped out of the camp to explore space.

The resources and knowledge they required could only be collected through the crude market of the camp. It undoubtedly delayed their research progress, but it kept them safer than those adepts who spent all their lives in the galaxy.

Whichever one was a better option depended on the person!

That was why Greem could actually exceed the Fifth Grade ‘veterans’ of the camp, despite being a rookie. The bonuses of his divine equipment enhanced him.

Greem closed his eyes to sense the overwhelming fire energy within him. He could tell that every strand of fire was now coated in a layer of gold. Even though they had not reached the level of principle fire, they now also possessed a part of the principle fire’s powers.

More importantly, the essential organs inside Greem’s body were now very different than before. His flesh had turned darker and stronger. The tendons and blood vessels were thicker and tougher. Every time the tide of fire energy pulsed in his body, his flesh was refined even further, making it seem tight and heavy.

Many of his bones were showing signs of crystallization. Specks of tiny red crystals replaced his skeletal grain and became the main component of Greem’s skeleton.

These crystals resonated with the fire energy in his body, demonstrating tremendous fire resistance and fire activeness. The greater the strength of the fire energy, the more active these crystals would become, and the higher Greem’s physical and elementium resistance would rise.

However, with the special mutation of his body, Greem now weighed over a ton. The density and strength of his flesh had reached a shocking level!

Greem stretched his body and limbs comfortably, letting his whole body snap and crack. A tremendous surge of strength rushed through his body, giving him the illusion that he could forcefully tear a mountain apart with his bare hands.

Greem lifted his right hand and waved it in front of him as he admired it.

A torrent of data and numbers filled his mind.

This feeling of strength wasn’t an illusion! It was the truth.

As the Chip continued to scan and analyze, Greem’s flesh gradually turned translucent before his eyes. The flesh, tendons, vessels, blood, and the fire energy inside him could all be seen.

Golden bones, golden blood, golden fire energy.

As Greem’s mind willed it, a large wave of fire energy surged into his right hand. A mysterious transformation took it over.

The powerful fire energy clashed and resonated with his hand’s golden bones and blood, generating waves of invisible golden ripples. These golden ripples were of such high frequency that they penetrated his flesh and created a forcefield around his right hand.

Greem reached out with his index finger and casually ran it across the air. A dark rift instantly tore in the supposedly resilient space. The fine spatial shards cut across Greem’s right hand like blades, but they could not hurt his skin in the slightest. They were all repelled harmlessly by the forcefield.

Spatial fragments. Those things were one of the sharpest objects in a planar world, capable of cutting almost everything!

Now, even they couldn’t harm Greem’s body. It was obvious that this fire forcefield was far more potent than the limit of a planar world’s power.

Greem took out another dagger. It was forged with blackforged metal, coated with mithril, and enchanted with numerous effects.

He sliced the dagger across his right hand lightly, but it did not cut his flesh at all. It only left behind several dark red marks. It seemed like this forcefield could even stop physical attacks.

Greem increased his strength and pressed the blade of the dagger further into his skin. Still, he could not cut it. At this point, Greem’s skin was already tougher than dragon leather. Even a +3 enchanted weapon would not be able to cut him.

Greem hesitated for a moment and dispelled the fire energy in his right hand. Thus, the layer of forcefield defense also vanished.

This time, Greem applied pressure; the +2 dagger finally cut through his skin, leaving a thirty centimeters long wound on the back of his hand. The dark red muscles and tissue beneath could be seen.

Golden blood dripped from his wound and stained the ground. A sizzling sound of corrosion could immediately be heard.

Greem lifted the dagger, surprised to find that the blade was now covered in marks and uneven. The blade itself was bright red, on the verge of melting like a candle.

Just the instinctual retaliation of Greem’s flesh had nearly rendered this +2 enchanted dagger useless.

In the blink of an eye, the gash on Greem’s hand had healed. Fifteen seconds later, only a dark red scar could be seen. The wound was gone.

Twenty-seven seconds later, even the scar itself had vanished.

His entire right hand appeared smooth as marble, as if it had never been hurt at all.

Greem nodded in satisfaction. He then took out all sorts of corrosive liquid and started to test the strength of his body.

Finally, the Chip obtained a more comprehensive report on his body.

Due to the lack of unique refinement methods and Greem’s own ordinary Physique, he had only attained 35 points of Physique after all the resources he had consumed, as well as his starbeast bloodline.

This Physique was comparable to Third Grade dragons already.

In space, this much Physique was still below average compared to the numerous Fifth Grade adepts out there. It might be stronger than the principle adepts, but it was undoubtedly weaker than body-refining adepts, bloodline adepts, and Fifth Grade magical creatures.

The Chip estimated that Greem’s body could only endure magical weapons of Second Grade and below without the enhancement of his fire energy. With the enhancement of fire energy, his body could defend against magical weapons of Third Grade and below.

With the principle protection from the two pieces of divine equipment, magical weapons of Fourth Grade could no longer affect him. Only ultra-grade weapons of Fifth Grade and above could inflict lasting damage on him.

As for his regenerative power? Greem was about average.

If the enemy’s attack contained no other magical effects or characteristics, Greem would be able to fully recover within half a day, even from a severed limb. However, the prerequisite to this was having a sufficient reserve of energy.

That said, with the Orb of the Fire God inside him, Greem would never run out of fire energy. Even if he was sealed in an alternate dimension with no energy whatsoever, Greem could fight at high intensity with this body of his, sustained only by the fire energy provided by the Orb of the Fire God.