Age of Adepts

The banquet was set to be held on the fifth floor’s arcane hall.

It was the first time that Greem had attended a formal large-scale adept’s banquet since his advancement.

As the protagonist of the show, Greem had been put to work by Sir Fügen before the banquet had started. The two of them were to greet their guests at the doors of the hall.

Fanny’s Cottage.

Mandasor Academy.

Sunflower Garden.

The Arthur Clan.

The Buschmann Clan.

The Clovis Clan.

One by one, they announced clans and names that Greem had never heard of. And one by one, both familiar and unfamiliar adepts walked through the doors of the hall, placing their arms on their chests to congratulate Greem.

What were they congratulating? That Greem’s investment in the little witch had paid off? Or the Sarubo’s success in establishing a connection with the Northern Witches?

Greem grumbled in his heart as he smiled and stood by the door. He placed his hand on his chest and acknowledged the goodwill of the guests.

The Second Grade adepts were naturally being received by Sir Fügen himself, while Keoghan, Meryl, and the others dealt with the ordinary adepts. The five or six pseudo-adepts in the clan were only waiters at this grand event. They stood by and attended upon the adepts.

The banquet hall was vast and bright. All sorts of delicacies and drinks had been arranged on the long circular table. Pseudo-adepts dressed in waiter uniforms weaved through the adepts, continuously serving them fine wine and fragrant tea.

As this was an adepts’ banquet, there were no bands or dance performances. These were the crude customs of human nobles. Instead, the adepts entertained themselves by gathering in groups and conversing while sipping their drinks. Most of the time, they weren’t even talking out loud. They mostly communicated through mental messages and voice transmissions.

Greem soon realized the abnormality of today’s banquet after walking through the feast.

The banquet seemed to belong to the young adepts!

Almost all the adepts appeared to be below a hundred years old. Many of them hadn’t even advanced for more than ten years.

In the words of veteran adepts, these would be adepts who were still ’stinking with the smell of milk.’ These adepts were the ones full of passion and dreams. Their conversational topics never fell far off from adventure, fights, and sensual pleasure.

Unlike veteran adepts, newly advanced adepts did not have any resource reserves. Most of what they had saved up had likely been exhausted during their advancement ceremony. Thus, this was the time where they were the most full of passion yet also when they were the poorest.

The more profound research always required knowledge they didn’t have. The more prominent labs always needed more resources for better facilities that they didn’t possess. Consequently, the young adepts would rush to go on adventures and exploration after stabilizing their Spirit.

They had no ability or right to participate in the faction conflicts within the clan or to benefit from such disputes. The planar wars of the planes beyond were far too dangerous. The best option left for the newly advanced adepts was to form exploration parties and head into the nearest stretches of the Black Forest.

As long as they were cautious and kept out of the genuinely hazardous areas, the Black Forest was a treasure trove waiting for them to find. It was rich with resources. Magical creatures, mutated monsters, corruptors, woodland beasts. These living beings existed in abundance within the Black Forest. Many of the sentient lifeforms even possessed intelligence that could rival adepts. If they could catch them, they would be able to sell them to high-grade adepts for large sums of money, or they could use it for their research. Both were good options.

And this was the true path of ascension and rigorous training that a newly advanced adept had to tread upon!

Newly advanced adepts that were thrown into planar wars, like Greem, were the first to die. Greem would have followed in their footsteps if it hadn’t been for all the trump cards and aces he had hidden up his sleeve.

Naturally, his tremendous feats brought him a lot of attention from the guests. Both male and female adepts raised their wine glasses and approached him to engage in passionate conversation. Some of the hastier female adepts even took the initiative to invite Greem to their party to go venturing in ruins they had discovered.

Greem didn’t dare to look down upon the ruins that they mentioned.

It was true that most of the places were ruins left from ancient times and had no real value. It wasn’t hard to imagine why. Countless generations of past adepts would have looted anything that was worthwhile. Why would there even be a speck of dust left?

That said, an exception existed for everything!

Following the exile of the Great Adepts a few tens of thousands of years ago, plenty of their secret labs and personal rooms had surfaced to the view of the public.

These Great Adepts had been powerful individuals and often placed their homes and laboratories deep in the Black Forest or the Underground World. Odd ruins were even discovered in some of the islands of the Boundless Sea.

Exploring such ruins was a real test of an adept’s luck!

The fortunate ones would be able to find hidden ruins that had already been explored by high-grade adepts. They would then be able to make a profit off of the resources and materials that the high-grade adepts hadn’t deemed worthy enough to loot. These explored ruins were often safe. On the other hand, the unfortunate ones might find themselves in an ancient Great Adept’s ruins that were still functional. That was not fortune. It was most definitely a curse.

It didn’t matter whether it was defensive arrays left over from ancient times, voodoo beasts that survived the test of time, or even curses-laden traps. Not a single one of them was within the ability of an ordinary adept to survive!

Any exploration into an ancient ruin warranted extreme caution. The number of annual adept deaths in such ruins was very high. That said, a single success and a profitable harvest from some ruins could immediately propel an adept to success and a comfortable life.

Apart from adventures and fighting, the favorite topic of the young adepts was sex!

The first hundred years of time was a period where the newly advanced adepts were significantly limited in what they could do. Without resources and power, they could only return to the endless grind of collecting and gathering resources, materials, and knowledge. Thus, they spent the rest of their time on sensual pleasure. Sex, in particular, was their preferred outlet.

It didn’t matter whether the adept was male or female. The adepts would get together and sleep together as long as they found their partners pleasing to the eyes. Even if they got sick of their more respectable, higher-class adept companions, they still had plenty of choices around them.

The pseudo-adepts and advanced apprentices desperate for resources and attention were their best targets. Some of the adepts with heavier tastes would even set their sights on handsome humanoid creatures after they finished toying with all their apprentices.

Good-looking male and female slaves always cost the most in auctions held for low-grade adepts. The price would be further pushed to even more absurd levels if it was an exotic race with unique skills!

As far as Greem knew, elves, centaurs, succubi, lust demons, child giants, forest spirits, and mermaids were considered the most desirable products. Most of the time, you wouldn’t even be able to purchase one with magical crystals. You had to trade with something of equal value.

The succubus that Greem had seen in the World of Deep Red, back in the Underground Cave of Dagon, had been the shared plaything of the adepts stationed in that tower.

Greem had already come up with a conclusion about the nature of the adepts before this– all adepts were selfish, arrogant, narcissistic beings that lacked restraints from an external force. Consequently, all their actions were reckless and dangerous.

However, now that he saw the passionate looks that all the young female adepts were giving him, he added an addendum to that conclusion of his! The adepts were wild!

All the young adepts were exceptionally beautiful. The way they dressed also exposed a great deal of skin.

The carefully tailored adept’s robes didn’t obscure their perfect curves. In fact, they further emphasized their full bosoms. The cut in their skirts that ran almost all the way to their stomachs completely put their thighs on display.

With all these sexy and seductive female adepts teasing him and rubbing their bodies against his, even the apathetic and uninterested Greem had to tug at his collar a little and down a couple of glasses of chilled wine.

Greem might claim to be one of those with ’plenty of experiences,’ but most of his experience remained in the memories of his past life. Compared to him, any one of these female adepts could easily be considered a true veteran of lust and desire. A few of their tricks were all they needed to silence a rookie like Greem.

Fortunately, just as Greem was about to crack under the teasing of the passionate adepts and run away awkwardly, someone came to his rescue. Meryl. She had been wandering around the hall with no real aim.

Greem nodded apologetically at the female adepts out of courtesy and grabbed Meryl’s arm. He then pretended to have an intimate conversation with her as he dragged her to a corner of the hall.

”Hehe,” Meryl couldn’t help but cover her mouth and giggle, ”Who would have known? Sir Greem isn’t all that good at dealing with these passionate witches. ...I wasn’t talking to you just now. I was talking to Sir Greem. You should have seen that. Sir Greem was so awkward when he was chased around by a group of female adepts earlier.”

The latter half of Meryl’s words weren’t directed at Greem. She was pressing her right ear and talking with someone else under her breath.

Greem looked over to her ears and was shocked to find the Qiraji Crystal that Meryl had put by her ears and cleverly concealed with some spells.

”You… you’ve been talking with Alice all this while?” Greem was tongue-tied.

”Yea, I know… ” Meryl balled her hands into fists as she excitedly said, ”Lady Alice is way too cool. She’s got her own enormous adept’s tower. She even made me describe everything happening in the banquet earlier. We were having so much fun.”

Greem felt himself sweat at the mere thought of what was happening. As expected, the gossipy nature of girls was the same no matter which world you happened to stumble into!

Forty or fifty thousand miles away, and they still tried to perform instant communications. Women were the scariest when they wasted resources like this.

”Sir Greem, do you want to talk to Lady Alice?” Meryl lifted her head and looked towards Greem.

Greem hesitated for a moment and firmly rejected the offer.

Meryl whispered into the crystal and started chuckling. Greem could vaguely hear Alice’s crisp and entertained laugh from the other end.

He tugged his collar again.

For some reason, the room felt even warmer now!