Age of Adepts

A long time after Hegel left, Greem was still standing in the same spot, engrossed in thought.

Emberweb Broodmother Lasbes gave out instructions, and all the fire creatures at work made sure to walk around to avoid Greem’s position. None of them dared disturb him in the slightest.

After a brief moment, Greem broke free from his silent brooding and returned to normal.

Hegel’s visit had been expected.

Still, it was unexpected how soon the visit had been!

The method to becoming a Fire King? It was actually quite simple– drag a large planar world into the Fire Elementium Plane and allow it to assimilate the plane. That was all that was required!

However, Greem himself knew the true value of a large planar world.

The World of Adepts was a large planar world as well. It was far more ancient and vastly more powerful, but it was still very much classified as a large planar world.

The Arcane Empire, whose ruination Greem had personally witnessed with his own eyes, had also been a large planar world. That had been the Arcane Empire, a civilization so mighty they almost rose to the heights of the Adept civilization!

Even throughout the boundless multiverse, large planar worlds were few and far between. Each and every one of them was deeply coveted by the powerful factions of space and often were what the wars revolved around.

Invading a small planar world with Greem’s current power was no big problem. However, invading a mid-sized plane would become exceedingly difficult. Most of the time, the invasion was likely to end in a loss.

For instance, the Plane of Lance, which had long since fallen into the hands of the Crimson Clan, still did not truly belong to them. The adepts still had immense trouble excavating and developing the plane. Should they ever provoke those Fourth Grade dragon lords, even the steel fortress and its fearsome defenses would be ravaged by the dragons.

Even such a mid-sized world that was still barely developed had already brought tremendous wealth and prosperity to the Crimson Clan. Could you imagine the profits to be obtained by conquering a large planar world? Just the thought of it would make your heart pound in excitement!

The simplest, most direct way to gain acknowledgement from the Fire Elementium Plane’s planar consciousness and become a Fire King was to drag a large planar world to it and allow it to be assimilated by the Fire Elementium Plane.

The simplicity and barbarity of the method left Greem speechless!

If he was capable enough to conquer a large world, why wouldn’t he just rule over that world? Why would he go to the trouble of trading it for a Fire King’s status in the Fire Elementium Plane?

Upon further consideration, the authority and might of a large world’s ruler might actually be inferior to that of a Fire King. That much was decided by the grade level and power of the different planes.

The four major elementium planes–earth, fire, water, and wind–put together was a colossal planar world. That was two whole levels above large planar worlds. Even the Fire Elementium Plane alone was considered a massive planar world, one grade above the large planar worlds.

That was why it was understandable that the status of Fire King was considered more valuable!

However, trading a large planar world under his rule for the status of Fire King was still not worth it in Greem’s books, no matter how noble the status was. That said, if the large planar world in question didn’t actually belong to him, then it was worth the consideration of sacrificing it to the Fire Elementium Plane.

Of course, Hegel had not traveled all this way to the Molten Altar just to tell Greem the means to becoming a Fire King. Rather, he had been here to mark out the borders between their territories.

King Zetas’ territory was 3,500 kilometers northeast of Molten Altar.

According to the agreement between him and Hegel, Greem’s sovereign territory could not exceed five hundred kilometers around Molten Altar. He was also not to have more than three Fourth Grade subordinates. If he were to break the terms of this agreement, the Fire Kings around him would have the right to banish him from the Fire Elementium Plane at any moment.

The reason for these terms was likely out of the intention to protect the native creatures of the Fire Elementium Plane. It was the only way to prevent otherworldly visitors from hunting and raiding the wild fire lords to their heart’s delight.

These same terms also shattered Greem’s grand ambitions in the Fire Elementium Plane. Now, he had to think and plan carefully the distribution of these three Fourth Grade subordinate quotas that he held.

After some thought, Greem cast aside his thoughts on these frustrating matters and started to focus his attention on a different issue. He began to research Hegel’s strange, phantom-like movement.

He had a feeling that Hegel’s strange movements weren’t magic or power borrowed from some tool. It was likely an application of pure principle power. It was the future direction of Greem’s development that he had never found the correct entry point for.

Greem stood silently and replayed the image of Hegel moving that the Chip had captured, over and over in his mind. The replay speed was slowed down to an extreme, and almost every small movement of his body was further divided into countless keyframes that were then analyzed one by one.

Apart from this, the Chip had also recorded the tiny changes in energy within Hegel’s body.

With all this data combined, Greem was finally able to discover something out of the ordinary.

Principle.

As a principle adept, the source of power was always the principles!

When the Chip slowed Hegel’s actions down to an extreme, Greem could finally see how it worked. The principle power within his body merged with the planar laws, his entire body assimilated into the principle system, and then he rematerialized at a specific position.

Using the planar principle system as a bridge to accomplish short-ranged teleportation.

Such a means of teleportation could ignore all magical shields and barriers. It could also bypass walls, terrain, trees, and other obstacles. One could travel wherever they liked as long as the planar laws extended to that location.

The only thing that could stop such teleportation was likely only law barriers or principle defenses!

However, how many people within a material plane possessed defenses of such a high-grade level?

Moreover, an adept tower would have to activate all its defenses and cut off all connection from the outside world to prevent any permeation of principles. However, such a state of isolation demanded tremendous amounts of energy from the adept tower. It was no problem for the tower to maintain such a state for a few weeks, but the energy pool would eventually be exhausted.

What was the tower supposed to do to stop this kind of principle infiltration then?

The more he analyzed the topic, and the more he thought about it, the more powerful this application of the principles appeared to Greem. If it could be applied in actual combat, then his opponents would be in big trouble!

“Chip, immediately build a new research topic. Focus all efforts on calculating high-grade applications of fire principles, as well as the coupling of fire principles with planar laws.”

[Beep. Mission constructed…calculation mission model requires the collection of more relevant principle information. Mission details have been refined. The next step in the research topic requires Host to complete the relevant principle experiments.]

Shua. Shua. Shua.

The screen of light that the Chip projected in Greem’s mind instantly filled with a sea of data. All sorts of formulas and data flooded the screen like an avalanche, piling higher and higher until the screen was almost completely covered.

“Chip, you don’t have to show me the intermediary processes. Just give me the final results!”

[Beep. Instructions received.]

The next second, the screen of light was cleared away, leaving behind only three prerequisites, written in glowing green text.

[One: the conversion of the body into principle power (Current Progress: 78%).

[Two: the creation of a fire consciousness (Current Progress: 0%).

[Three: the completion of relevant principle-law coupling experiments (To be started).]

Greem’s gaze swept across the three conditions as he thought in silence.

The conversion of the body into principle power. That was what Greem had been doing all this while since he became a Fifth Grade adept. Up to this point, he had only been using the principle energy of the Orb of the Fire God to irradiate his body and allow it to get used to the power of the fire principles.

Now, what was demanded was for his body to be converted entirely into principle power, such that he could merge and assimilate with the principles of a planar world itself.

In truth, Greem would possess the foundation needed to merge with the principle system once he completed this first step. However, the second requirement of creating a fire consciousness was also necessary. After all, without a fire consciousness to control his body, it would be challenging to separate from the principle system after being assimilated.

Greem was only trying to make use of the principle system, not give away his power. Without self-consciousness, the assimilation into the principle systems was more akin to allowing the principles to devour oneself.

Creating a fire consciousness that transcended the principles was very, very important!

The question of how to form this consciousness was one to which Greem had no answer, nor any clue how to begin doing so. If Greem wanted to research this topic, he would have to pay some visits to veteran powerhouses or the more experienced adepts in headquarters.

These things couldn’t be rushed. Greem could only take it one step at a time as he explored the issue.

At any rate, with the ten-thousand-year lifespan of a Fifth Grade Great Adept, Greem had plenty of time to waste.

The third requirement was conducting experiments in preparation for the final result.

Performing these experiments without his body having been fully converted to principle power was far too risky. Thus, it seemed like he would have to hasten the conversion of his body.

Just as Greem was about to return to Boulder Fortress after settling certain affairs in the Fire Elementium Plane, Sock received an interesting piece of information.

The information had been sent over from the World of Adepts, and the content was straightforward. It was a single line.

“Demi-God Lich Kanganas has returned to his skeletal plane. It is said that he is currently attempting to reach Fifth Grade.”

Greem wasn’t surprised to hear this at all.

When it came to talent and ability, Kanganas was not inferior to him in any aspect. In particular, after obtaining the Reliquary, his powers had improved rapidly and almost exponentially.

The reason he had only begun to prepare for advancement after so long wasn’t due to a lack of ability, but because of the unique characteristic of liches!

Liches were undead. They were one of the classic entities among undead creatures, in fact.

They had no flesh on their bodies nor tendons or muscles. Necessarily, this meant that they did not possess lifeforce with which to nourish their soul. Under such circumstances, their advancement could only be fulfilled solely through the transcendence of the soul.

The transcendence of the soul wasn’t the most difficult part. Rather, the reconstruction of the phylactery to allow for the transcended soul’s containment was the most challenging stage in a lich’s advancement.

If they failed to advance and endangered their phylactery in the process, they might turn to dust the very next moment. Their soul would be extinguished, even if they had just been a proud and mighty demi-god lich a moment ago.

That was why the advancement of liches was far more complex and troublesome than that of human adepts.

They would never attempt advancement unless they were absolutely certain of their success!