Age of Adepts

The Underground World had been in turmoil recently.

This was the message that Kevin had specifically brought when he had paid Greem a visit.

Of course, Kevin hadn’t visited him just to inform him of this message, but to also bring along the chief officer of Lothar Merchant who had been stationed in this place. The purpose for their visit was to purchase those Blood Garnets that had been awarded to Greem and Mary in mine number seven.

Having spent some time identifying them, Greem determined that these Blood Garnets were rather special magical materials. Those that were mainly used in crafting some types of unique magical items, however, they were of no help to the Golem that he needed now. Perhaps because of this, Greem briskly gave all six Blood Garnets that he and Mary had owned to the Lothar Merchant and let them handle the sale.

As for the fee, Greem had not asked for magic crystals, but instead had requested them to exchange all the profits into Pseudo-Adept level Elementium cores. In response to his request, the chief officer had agreed with a smile all over his face.

Since Greem had been willing to give away his Blood Garnet, the chief officer was able to complete his half-yearly target. Additionally, since Greem didn’t accept the magic crystals and was willing to exchange them for Elementium cores with Lothar Merchant, the chief officer was able to complete two transactions in one go! How could he not be happy?

The reason why Greem had acted so briskly earlier was because he had found out that this Lothar Merchant was supported by the Adept Angus whom he had been dealing with this entire time and that both Kevin and Adept Angus had belonged to the same family – the Byron family.

Due to these two reasons, Greem had agreed to the request of this chief officer without any hesitation, as it would also serve as a friendly gesture towards the Adept Angus.

To reciprocate Greem’s friendly gesture, before leaving with satisfaction, Kevin showed a warmer attitude to their friendship. Secretly, he told Greem that if there was anything in the future that Greem wasn’t able to solve by himself, Greem could definitely pay a visit to Adept Angus. Regardless of whether it was the purchase of knowledge or exchange of resources, Adept Angus would be sure to give him the best discount!

In less than half a day, the Pseudo-Adept level Elementium cores that Greem had requested were delivered to him. There was a total of four Elementium cores, one of the Earth element, two of the Water element and one of the Wind element. In addition to the cores, he also received map of the entire Underground World which clearly marked every detail that had been discovered so far. However, this map could only be used as a reference, because it was very tough to perfectly line it up with the actual terrain and one needed to consider the changes in terrain.

Greem had finally understood that the only thing that could help him establish the competitive advantage in future battles was a large quantity of Golems. There were many benefits that the Golems brought: they were convenient and fast, easy to hide, and could be owned in large quantities. If the conditions permitted, Greem even wished that he could build an army of Golems that would obey his every single command.

If anyone so much as looked at him the wrong, he wouldn’t need to take care of them himself. With just with a signal from his eyes, a swarm of Golems would flood the enemy in an instant.

Of course, such fantasy could only be realized in the distant future. As for now, however, he could only continue carefully crafting his team of Golems.

Yes, Greem had already had a tentative idea – using a variety of Golems and combining different tactics to effectively use the full combat force for each type of Golem. Since he had spent most of his time in the Underground World recently, he preferred to craft more Earth element Golems. However, considering the potential changes to the future battlefields he would encounter, he would have to prepare in advance.

The Water and Wind element Golems were in preparation for his future.

Especially a Wind element Golem, owning one of them meant that Greem would had a free flying demon pet, thus he would no longer have to worry about traveling long distances anymore.

After the Chip had scanned those Elementium cores, Greem ordered it to start drafting the most suitable design for the Golems. Once this had commenced in an orderly fashion, Greem took the crystal ball and quietly gave the data and records stored inside a thorough study.

Within the dark screen, he could only see bright dots on the uppermost layer. Even though it was just the uppermost layer, it had still been completely formed by numerous winding and twisting tunnels, cracks, secret passages, valleys, and water channels. Countless caves and caverns were marked in between making them look like the dazzling stars in the night sky. While there were innumerable passages that connected all locations, most of them were impassable by normal human beings.

On this map, the spaces where one was only allowed to stay temporarily were marked in green, while the passable passages were marked with tiny blue lines. In between those dense and complicated arrays of blue and green were countless glowing red dots. These were the rough distribution of the currently known underground creatures, colonies and demons.

Of course, in this three-dimensional map of the uppermost layer of Underground Cave, Greem wasn’t find any information related to the ruin of Elysium City.

For this reason, Greem called upon Snorlax and asked it to point to the exact location of that Adept treasure. After spending half a day seriously studying the map, Snorlax finally pointed to a region. Greem didn’t see any indication of a city in that region. Instead, he saw a large patch of red that represented danger.

In the Underground World, there were many regions filled with dangers that made no outsider want to step into them. Usually, either those regions had a harsh natural environment that no apprentice would be able to endure or they housed some extremely dangerous demons. No matter the reason, they were all dangerous regions that all Apprentice Adepts had to handle with extreme care.

Looking at the dazzling red glow on the map, Greem couldn’t help but start to hesitate.

Judging from the brightness of the color, the region was a dead zone where even Pseudo-Adepts would be faced with danger. Hence, when Snorlax pointed at it without the slightest hesitation, it seemed rather logical that it was the right place.

Since the ancient era, Adepts liked to build all sorts of laboratories in their own residence. From Snorlax’s description, Greem could tell that this Second Grade Adept had been an expert in biological modification. However, once his laboratory was abandoned, there was a very high chance that those mutants, golems and the magical energy that had been stored in the laboratory could irreversibly contaminate that particular region.

It would have been fine if those mutants or modified creatures had died, but if a powerful fellow was lucky enough to have survived, those Apprentice Adepts who went to explore the region would be facing a frightening monster similar to an Adept. Though Snorlax claimed it knew the magical password for some of the laboratories, the potential risk still held Greem back.

While Greem was hesitating, a message from Snorlax boosted his confidence to take the risk.

A Fire Lord’s Scepter!

There was actually a Fire Lord’s Scepter in a secret chamber of that Second Grade Adept!

For others, this Fire Lord’s Scepter was merely a powerful magical item that could summon three Pseudo-Adept level Fire Spirits every day. But for Greem, it had an inexplicably special use.

With Greem’s elemental affinity of Fire, he could totally use this scepter to construct a Teleportation Gate to get to Fire Elementium Plane. By doing so, he would have an endless supply of Fire element cores. And once his overall strength reached a powerful stage, he could even try to occupy a territory in the Fire Elementium Plane and become a true Fire Lord himself.

Putting aside everything else, just take those Elementium cores that Greem had been gathering. Perhaps most of them weren’t even produced in his own plane, but were harvested from those other Elementium Planes.

The entire multiverse was boundless and deep. It was completely filled with elemental energies that came in all forms, which would eventually compose into a vast ocean of energy. Meanwhile, different planes were like islands – isolated from each other and floating in this vast ocean of energy.

Each plane was a completely different world of its own – from earth, mountains, rivers to oceans, sky and living beings, nothing was lacking. But, when each plane was born, they were mixed with an imbalanced Elementium energies, thus making each plane show a totally different and unique characteristic.

The plane where the world of Adept resided was a major one that was extremely suitable for the survival of living things. However, when the control of the plane fell into the hands of Adept who rose abruptly, the characteristics of the plane had changed as well and deviated towards the chaotic yet powerful energy of magic.

And as for the Elementium Planes mentioned just now, when they were born, they resided in a region where a single Elementium gathered. Hence, when these planes had matured, they became a plane with a single Elementium.

In an ordinary material plane, the distribution of Elementium matters would be nearly balanced. Earth Elementium gathered together forming mountains, hills, plains and different terrains. Water Elementium gathered together to form into streams, lakes, and ocean. Wind Elementium brought clouds, rains, thunder and lightning to material planes, while Fire Elementium brought lava, volcanoes, and life.

Due to the collection of these Elementiums, it gave birth to numerous perfect material worlds that flourish and became the breeding ground for all living things.

Elementium Planes, on the other hand, weren’t like these worlds.

Take the Fire Elementium Plane that attracted Greem the most. Although there were mountains, hills, oceans and lakes, the basic Elementium that constructed them all were Fire Elementium. Inside of that plane, the mountain, the ocean, even the sky was on fire.

Of course, a world like this was not suitable for the survival of normal living things, but it actually gave birth to Fire element creatures that used Fire element energy as their source of life: Fire Spirits, Fire Giants, Lava Hounds, Fire Deities, Fire Hawks, Magma Core Giants, Fire Demons, Fire Element Elders, Fire Lords, Fire Kings... It was a world ruled by Fire element creatures and similar to the human world, they also had a well-structured ruling hierarchy, based on the overall strength of each individual.

If Greem really wished to have a great achievement in the Fire element, then sooner or later, he would have to visit the Fire Elementium Plane.

The World of Adept was, after all, a major plane in itself. As invading and occupying was an Adept’s second nature, an Adept loved to search for new material planes in the vast ocean of stars. Once they found one, they would invade them straightaway, pulling them onto the bandwagon of planes that kept expanding at a rapid rate.

Even with the cruel and ruthless characteristic of Adepts, though they had long found the coordinates of these Elementium Planes, not even one Adept ever dreamt of conquering an Elementium Plane and making it into an auxiliary plane of the Adept World. The reason was that all these Elementium Planes were frightening major planes. Just judging from their overall strength alone, if the Adept World really connected these Elementium Planes, perhaps the happiest party would be those unambitious Elementium creatures.

At that point in time, perhaps it would not be not the Adepts who would happily carve up the massive resources of Elementium Planes, but the countless Elementium creatures who would swarm into the Adept World and turn this place into a brand new Elementium Plane.

Therefore, in the rules of the Adept World, all Adepts held a very careful attitude when managing the Teleportation Gate that connected to any major plane. Because even the slightest mismanage could have devastating consequences!