Age of Adepts

Fire Elementium Plane, Fire Throne.

Greem sat silently in a room reading the Tome of Corruption. Incomplete words and damaged spell models occasionally flickered across the intricate and beautiful pages.

Every time this happened, a blue light would flicker in Greem’s eyes as the Chip forcibly recorded the data and stored it in its database.

After all these years of accumulation and stockpiling, the number of resources stored in his mind was incredible. If it weren’t for the Chip silently organizing and categorizing everything behind the scenes, it would have been difficult for Greem alone to have sifted out the valuable high-grade knowledge within that uncountable amount of fragmented data.

While he was happily sacrificing his Spirit to obtain the knowledge fragments within the Tome of Corruption, a familiar spiritual flux came into contact with the tower’s defense.

Stubborn yet firm, filled with an unyielding sense of determination!

Greem sighed and finally opened up a gap in the defenses.

Gomanreas’ soul aura reached inside once more.

“Hi, kid! I thought of another good thing again!”

“Thought of, think of, thought of…Lord Gomanreas, you’ve thought of five or six ‘good things’ by this point. All of them are either in some dangerous world or in some half-broken plane, either guarded by red dragons or abominations. Every one of them is something I can ‘easily get my hands on!’” Greem couldn’t help but grunt coldly when he said this. “Tell me, why should I continue trusting you?”

“Kid, you got to feel for an old man like me, yea? Even my soul has shattered into fragments. I’m weaker than a cockroach at this point. I can hardly do anything. Even searching through my past memories is incredibly difficult,” Gomanreas started grumbling when Greem brought the topic up.

“Hold up, hold up,” Greem quickly interrupted him, afraid that Gomanreas would go on and on like he always did. “Say what you have to say. If you have nothing to say, then I’ll have to go deal with my own business!”

“Don’t walk away, kid. This time, I really thought of something good, and you can use it at your current grade.”

“Any red dragons involved?”

“No! I guarantee.”

“Is it in some dangerous environment?”

“It’s not! You think too much. There aren’t that many death zones in the Fire Elementium Plane.”

“Then tell me about it.”

“Have you ever heard of the Fruit of Bliss?”

“The Fruit of Bliss?” Greem hesitated for a moment as the Chip in his mind quickly searched through its database. He did manage to find something. “Are you talking about those Fruits of Bliss that can stimulate the Spirit tremendously and cause one to momentarily experience illusions?”

“As long as you know about it. At least I don’t have to talk about it now. I’ll tell you, ordinary Fruits of Bliss do indeed have terrible side-effects, but the stuff I’m telling you about is an excellent product that’s been modified. It possesses a powerful effect of improving Spirit!”

“How effective is it?” Greem was immediately interested.

At this point, he lacked neither resources, treasures, materials, or knowledge. The only thing he needed was time. He needed a long period of time to meditate and improve his Spirit slowly. Once his Spirit reached the required standard, advancing to Sixth Grade would be a matter of course!

Upon hearing that Gomanreas had a method to rapidly increase his Spirit, Greem couldn’t help but be hooked.

“I was already Eighth Grade when I obtained these Fruits of Bliss. They were completely ineffective for improving my Spirit, so I kept them around as a curiosity. As for you, I estimate that around a hundred of these will be enough to push you to Sixth Grade!”

“Really!” Surprise appeared in Greem’s eyes, and he couldn’t help but ask impatiently, “Where are these Fruits of Bliss you’re talking about? How many are there? How can I get my hands on them?”

“The conditions for the growth of the Fruits of Bliss are extremely harsh. Naturally, they aren’t located in the Fire Elementium Plane. They can be found in a resource mystic realm that another powerhouse gifted me during my peak as a Fire Hierarch. The number of resources there is tremendous. It’s been many years since; there’s sure to be an incredible stockpile of items in there!” However, Gomanreas’ soul suddenly paused and said, “Kid, only if you sacrifice one divine authority fragment to me will I have the energy to open up the mystic realm and take out the Fruits of Bliss for you. This way, everybody wins.”

“You mean I must first sacrifice a divine authority fragment, and it’s uncertain if you will be able to give me what I want?” Greem hesitated. A dangerous light gleamed in his eyes.

“Kid, there’s always give to every take! You want your Fruits of Bliss? Then you have to take on a certain degree of risk. Moreover, I’m just a soul. The amount of energy required for me to fully recover is beyond your imagination. A single divine authority fragment is far from sufficient. Do you think that I would waste so much effort just to trick a single divine authority fragment from you? Hehehe, if it wasn’t because I wanted to be on friendly terms with you, you think you could have gotten the Sixth Grade Fruits of Bliss with a measly divine authority fragment? Hmph!”

Greem couldn’t help but be moved by Gomanreas’ words.

Any other adept who only had one or two divine authority fragments in their hands would never dare try something like that. They would definitely insist on handing over the payment and the goods at the same time.

However, Greem currently had six divine authority fragments on hand.

This wealth gave him the confidence to gamble!

After some hesitation, Greem finally sacrificed a divine authority fragment through the altar in the tower. Last time, Greem had directed his world sacrifice at the world consciousness of the Fire Elementium Plane. This time, he chose Gomanreas’ soul as the target.

As the world altar devoured the fragment, the soul that was hiding somewhere out there let out a suggestive moan.

“Stop the moaning and howling. Hurry up and hand over the stuff!” Greem urged impatiently.

“What are you so impatient for? I’m on it!”

A strange flickering of light occurred above the altar as a rift opened up in space. A miniature mystic realm could be seen projected there. The realm was separated by a thin, illusory curtain of light, making it hard to see through it.

However, while Greem was surprised and stunned in place, a small rift opened in the curtain. A bunch of white lights swarmed out from within and landed on the altar, stacking up into a tiny hill.

As the curtain shut and space itself closed up, the mystic realm vanished without a trace!

For the first time, Greem truly experienced the wonder of mystic realms as he watched. After a long while, he lowered his head to look at the goods he had traded for.

It was a strange, semi-translucent white fruit. Every one of the fruits was the size of a fist. The skin was thin, and there was no seed to be seen. Milky-white flesh flowed within them.

The whole place was filled with a tempting fragrance the moment they appeared.

Just a single sniff seemed to refresh one’s Spirit!

“Kid, these are the Fruits of Bliss you deserve! We’re even now,” Gomanreas’ soul explained before leaving immediately.

Greem took a glance, and the Chip immediately obtained an accurate count of the fruits.

Twenty of them!

Gomanreas said that eating a hundred of them would push him to Sixth Grade. There were only twenty fruits before him right now. It was obvious that Gomanreas had him figured out and was prepared to use these Fruits of Bliss to get his hands on as many of his divine authority fragments as possible.

His little scheme was obvious, but Greem couldn’t care.

In all honesty, if it were possible to allow him to quickly advance to Sixth Grade with these five fragments, the trade would be more than worth it!

Still, Gomanreas was insistent on the divine authority fragments. Could they possibly be incredibly beneficial for the soul?

Greem wondered to himself as he put away the fruits and returned to his room.

Greem impatiently cut open a Fruit of Bliss inside his room. He then extracted the milky-white, liquid flesh from within.

Obviously, Greem wouldn’t trust that shady soul completely. He would have to test the fruit’s effects for himself. At any rate, with the Chip around, he would definitely be able to detect the effects of the fruit.

With the aid of the alchemy lab and detection arrays, Greem quickly obtained an elating answer.

Effective…it was actually effective!

Gomanreas hadn’t been lying. The Fruit of Bliss did indeed possess the ability to stimulate the Spirit and cause it to improve greatly. However, the hallucinatory effect was quite serious as well.

Even with Greem’s spiritual resilience, he would require a whole month to dispel the hallucinatory effects completely. Judging by this, Gomanreas had probably been using these Fruits of Bliss as leisure hallucinogens.

Given the tremendous Spirit of high-grade creatures and their control over it, they hardly ever had dreams!

The only way to lose oneself was to rely on ‘poisonous fruits’ with violent hallucinogenic effects!

Upon discovering that there was indeed no problem with the Fruit of Bliss and that everything was as Gomanreas had described, Greem hesitated no longer. He immediately devoured one of the fruits.

One had to admit that the power of a Sixth Grade hallucinogen was truly powerful. Greem was instantly dragged into an illusory dream upon consuming one.

This terrifying effect lasted for two days before Greem managed to break free of the illusion with the stimulation and guidance of the Chip. However, once the second wave of the fruit’s effects hit, Greem would probably be trapped in a hallucination for even longer.

To resist the effect, Greem swallowed several potions that improved his Spirit resilience. He then slowly started expelling the negative components of the Fruit of Bliss.

It took Greem nearly half a month to remove all of the hallucinogens from ingesting the first Fruit of Bliss. Meanwhile, Greem’s Spirit had indeed significantly improved as he fought against the hallucinations.

Fifty-three points!

Greem’s Spirit had actually increased to 53 points after tasting his first Fruit of Bliss!