Age of Adepts

Deep in the night.

The bustling city of Gilneas had once again fallen into an unusual silence.

The ravenous Billis was wandering inside the stone tower, looking for his prey.

The black robe draped over his body continuously swelled up and deflated, as if there were many living creatures squirming about under the cloth. A strange cracking or crunching sound seemed to ring out from under the robe as well.

This was the second level of the tower. There was no one else apart from Sabrina and Morse here.

That was why Billis hadn’t managed to find a suitable target, even after making several rounds through the corridors.

At this moment, the images of several dozen locations were moving about in Billis’ compound eyes. He was dizzy from the information overload. He had just obtained this Bug’s Eye ability.

Billis silently stopped somewhere in the corridor. He attempted to sense for any motion behind a thick stone door. Four or five strange bugs with black shells fell out from his robe.

They were only the size of a fingernail, but they crawled on the ground in an agile fashion. These bugs crept into the room through the tiny gap under the door.

Once they had made it past the stone door, Billis was immediately able to see everything behind it. His compound eyes could share their vision.

It was extremely bright inside the room. Pseudo-Adept Sabrina was crouched over a wooden table, carefully and solemnly grinding several extremely sharp spiral cross-blades. As a mechanical girl, these spiral cross-blades were one of her few long-ranged attacks. That was why she had to take them out and conduct proper maintenance on them every so often.

An indescribable sense of danger suddenly surged through her heart as she was concentrating on the task at hand.

Sabrina turned her head abruptly. The red mechanical eye under her silver mask quickly scanned the entire room. She didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. It didn’t matter whether it was the infrared sensors in her left eye or the low-light vision in her right eye. Neither had picked up on any unusual lifeforms, apart from the few tiny bugs crawling in the shadows of the walls.

Tiny bugs!

Sabrina’s mechanical eye suddenly glowed brightly.

This place might not compare to an actual adept’s tower, but it still had tight defensive arrays. How would it have let several bugs make their way into her room?!

Having understood that, several narrow slits immediately opened up in Sabrina’s body. Three spiral cross-blades shot out and slashed towards the shadows like flashes of lightning.

Those strange bugs clearly couldn’t stand up to the spiral cross-blades that had been enchanted with piercing and sharpening effects. The five dots in Sabrina’s infrared sight immediately extinguished. At the same time as the bugs died, a muffled grunt rang out from outside the stone door.

Sabrina didn’t even hesitate. She opened the stone door and charged outwards with instant-cast wands in each hand and silver mechanical appendages all around her. Yet, she couldn’t see a single form in the narrow corridor illuminated by the gentle light of illumination crystals.

The enemy was quick to run!

A savage light gleamed in Sabrina’s eyes. She intended to immediately send a magical message to Sir Greem, who was on the third floor. Yet, just as the light of a magical message had gathered about her mouth, Sabrina changed her mind. She picked up the spiral cross-blade that had just exterminated the strange bug.

Some pungent slime seemed to have gotten onto the blade. The ooze glowed with a ghostly green glow under the light.

Could it be him?

Sabrina hesitated for a little longer before finally dispersing the magical light with a wave of her hand. She turned and returned to her room. Nothing else happened after she shut the door.

At the far end of the corridor, there was a ceiling that wasn’t illuminated by the crystals on the walls. At the moment, strange black beetles crowded this corner.

A tide of beetles surged out once the corridor returned to its previous silence. The beetles climbed down the walls and onto the ground, once again reforming into a strange human figure wearing a black robe.

Bug’s Eye, Bug Swarm Transformation, Shadow Tunneling, Earth Spike.

These were the various abilities that Billis obtained after assimilating the Queen Bug.

However, his Spirit was still too weak. He was still incapable of supporting large-scale swarm activities. He could only split out twelve beetle scouts at the moment.

Billis’ current Spirit was only at beginner apprentice level. However, his combat ability had risen by several degrees. He was no longer the same pushover apprentice.

Sir Greem had mentioned that the Queen Bug he assimilated had once belonged to Evil Bugs Acteon. Evil Bugs Acteon was a powerful adept whose strength was acknowledged by all. That meant his path to advancement had already been established. All Billis had to do was train his Spirit, and he would steadily rise to adept-level.

He might still have been a beginner apprentice now, but the speed at which he would advance was destined to be several dozens, or even a hundred times, faster than other apprentices.

He was destined to become a powerful bloodline adept in the future!

This prevailing belief stimulated Billis. He was barely able to suppress his bubbling desire to head to the first level and start a massacre.

Blood and flesh! He needed blood and flesh!

For some reason, Billis’ intense desire for blood and flesh had not disappeared since he successfully assimilated the Queen Bug.

If it weren’t for Sir Greem sternly warning him not to go hunting in the stone tower, Billis would have turned all those apprentices, maids, and servants into his prey.

Billis stood up and looked at the stone door at the end of the corridor before turning and disappearing into the darkness around the corner.

He wasn’t the opponent of these pseudo-adepts as he was right now. In fact, he couldn’t even sneak up close to them. Thus, if Billis wanted to hide the secrets he held, he would have to lower his standards and feast on those below advanced apprentice first.

Billis hadn’t taken two steps in the dimly lit corridor when he suddenly stopped.

His master seemed only to have emphasized him not being allowed to hunt in the stone tower. He never mentioned anything about outside of the stone tower. If he snuck out of the tower under the curtain of night...No one would notice if a few people went missing from Gilneas City, would they? It had a population of several tens of thousands after all.

If this had been any usual circumstance, the kind and caring part of Billis’ humanity would have rejected this sort of unreasonable slaughter. However, the flames of starvation had lit a fever inside him. He no longer cared about what feelings he had about the situation. Instead, he bowed before his instincts to kill and hunt. Billis turned and dashed towards the closest window.

…………

Greem, who had been reading books on the third floor, shook his head and let out a soft sigh when he sensed Billis’ aura vanishing from the stone tower.

As the stationed adept, he was able to rely on the defensive array, along with his powerful Spirit, to sense everything within the tower. Nothing in here could escape his spiritual senses. That was why Greem knew everything that Billis had just done. In fact, he had merely allowed him to do so.

If it weren’t for Greem, Billis’ weak attacks would never have been enough to allow him to escape this tower.

Greem casually tossed out a magical golem core and summoned a wind critter. He had the wind critter levitate in midair and follow behind Billis. With this eye in the sky, Greem would have a complete grasp of Billis’ every action in Gilneas City.

Greem’s impression of Billis the beginner apprentice was pretty good!

He was loyal, resilient, hardworking, and even somewhat kind. Billis was an apprentice with a decent moral compass. Unfortunately, his elementium affinity had never been a dominant trait. That caused him to have inferior talent and cursed him to be stuck at beginner apprentice level.

However, his twin attribute of earth and darkness had been activated after this successful assimilation of the Queen Bug. They were finally dominant traits over his other attributes. This would clearly affect the future development of his bloodline path. Moreover, how a person’s personality would develop after merging with another lifeform’s differing character was also an extremely interesting subject of research!

Greem immediately started collecting the necessary research materials after having the Chip construct a research project.

It was as easy as flipping his wrist for Greem to hide from Billis’ senses while he gathered essential data and behavior on him!

The only thing Greem needed to be careful of was ensuring that Billis didn’t cause too much trouble. Otherwise, if rumors started to spread, some unwanted problems would still come their way. It wouldn’t even matter if Greem managed to get Alvar to put a lid on things.

Unlike Meryl, Billis was like Gargamel back in Fire Throne. They were subordinates that Greem was secretly assembling for his future development. Thus, if it was possible, Greem didn’t want him exposed to certain people too early.

Having finished dealing with Billis’ matter, Greem took out a knowledge crystal from his pouch. He tossed it about in his hand and fell into deep thought.

This knowledge crystal had come from Adept Flandre’s storage space. All sorts of bits and pieces of knowledge were recorded in it. It was easy to tell that it was the incomplete knowledge that Flandre had somehow stumbled upon in his life as an adept. The water adept had recorded it all in this knowledge crystal to prevent himself from forgetting some crucial details.

Just a while ago, the Chip had rearranged the bits and pieces of magical knowledge within. After filtering out the 87% useless knowledge, the remaining 13% significantly expanded Greem’s library of knowledge.

He unexpectedly obtained a vital detail from this 13% of incomplete knowledge.

Soul Equipment could further evolve!

Greem had Soul Equipment of his own. It was the tome that he had obtained from the den of the Demon Flower. Ever since he had gotten his hands on it, the Scroll of Voodoo had always been by his side. It had been a great help in countless battles in the past.

First, this trait of the Soul Equipment to stay by its owner’s side was a fascinating subject of research for Greem.

Sadly, his knowledge and information had always been quite limited. Greem didn’t know where to start if he wanted to venture into research like this.

That was why Greem had always treated the Scroll of Voodoo like an advanced-level magical tome meant for the sole purpose of storing six instant-cast spells. Greem had never really considered how to exploit and further utilize the functions of the Scroll.

However, Greem had unexpectedly obtained this strange detail from Flandre’s knowledge crystal.

If the power of the Scroll of Voodoo could be further improved…

Greem narrowed his eyes and started to consider whether it was worth his time to go collect some knowledge related to Soul Equipment!