Age of Adepts

The one waiting at the gates of the metal fortress was indeed Greem’s old friend– Thunder Dragon Arms.

It was evident that Arms had disguised his identity for this trip. Not only had he transformed into his human form, but he had also masked his appearance by covering himself with a long, thick robe.

Arms stood alone before the towering metallic walls of the metal fortress. He silently lifted his head and watched as a massive hundred-meter long metallic creation emerged from the distant horizon and rapidly arrived before his head.

The flying ship stopped for a quick moment above the metal fortress embedded within the mountain. The creaking sounds of gears rang out as an opening quickly appeared in the metal fortress that perfectly blended into the mountain.

The flying ship slowly sank into the fortress under Arms’ surprised gaze.

From a distance, it looked as if the metal monster within the mountain had devoured the flying ship with a single bite. It was an intimidating and shocking sight.

The goblins had already moved past the steam power era. All of the energy consumed within the metal fortress came from the magic energy furnace. Without those large pots and steam engines of the past, there were none of those huge clouds of steam.

It was almost as if the metal monster had emptied the insides of this massive mountain. It had been turned into a base that was half mountain and half a metal fortress. Arms was speechless at the thickness of the metal wall that had replaced this half of the mountain.

More importantly, this metal wall seemed perfectly clean and smooth. Arms couldn’t find any entrances or exits along the entire thing. That left Arms with no other choice to enter other than breaking down the wall.

A loud and reverberating dragon’s roar rang out from the depths of the Stonetalon Mountains while Arms was still silently considering his options.

The calm and collected Arms instantly turned anxious upon hearing this roar.

”Lord Arms, welcome to my territory! Please.”

Arms didn’t know when, but Greem was already standing graciously in front of the metal wall. The metal gates before him slid to the sides, revealing a massive entrance five meters tall and ten meters wide. Two rows of tall and ferocious metal golems were lined up along the two sides of the opening. They numbered approximately three dozen.

Arms turned back for a fleeting look. He could see the black dot that had suddenly appeared on the distant horizon due to his excellent dragon eyesight. Even though the figure was over fifteen kilometers away from here, Arms could already vaguely sense the immense aura of fire elementium.

It was a fire dragon.

According to Arms’ memory, there seemed only to be one fire dragon living near the Stonetalon Mountains and the Swamp of Sorrows. It was the powerful Fire Dragon Girl Philippa, who stayed in Doomsday Castle.

Dammit! That’s a powerful Third Grade fire dragon. Moreover, she’s a dragon with a nasty temperament that particularly likes fighting. Who would have expected these human adepts to make enemies with such a terrifying individual the moment they got here? Dammit, dammit, dammit!

Arms was furiously cursing to himself.

Even he, for a brief moment, didn’t know if he was cursing the female fire dragon or Greem.

Arms didn’t bother with any etiquette for Greem and quickly strode into this wondrous fortress forged entirely of metal. It seemed he didn’t want to deal with that fire dragon either.

Arms was stunned by the sight in front of him the moment he entered!

How was this a fortress?! It was definitely a terrifying, wide, and fully functional metal city!

The silver-colored metal floor extended endlessly under his eyes, as towering metal warehouses and buildings filled both sides of the road. The intersecting and interconnected metal roads could reach any corner of this metal city, while the ones who walked upon them were fearsome magical machines trudging about with heavy steps.

As many as twenty security magical machines gathered at every traffic hub. Their appearance gave away the fact that they were composed of several magical machines of different models and functions. Some of them looked like spiders. Their disc-shaped metal bodies were filled with lots of strange, honeycomb compound-eyes.

They stood on each side of the road, continually scanning every magical machine that walked past them. A spectrum of strange lights flashed from their compound eyes, and it seemed there wasn’t just one type of scan that they were conducting.

Apart from these fixed sentries, a type of metal eyeball the size of a human head was also circling in the skies of the metal city. It had no wings, but it could fly with just as much freedom with a few jet ports blasting out a light-blue light.

They would occasionally and very abruptly stop above a building or magical machine before projecting a wide green beam from their mechanical abdomen. All metal in contact with the beam of light would instantly turn transparent, exposing everything inside to the metal eyeballs.

The city might be large, busy, and filled with plenty of giant machines, but strangely enough, there weren’t too many grating noises. Moreover, the construction machines traveling through the city were all carrying something of value in their hands. They were either large metal boxes, a large pile of metal ingots, or some type of rare resource.

Arms looked all across the city, but couldn’t find a single magical machine among the hundreds and thousands of machines that was slacking off or simply walking around. They seemed to be constantly working without end as if the concept of exhaustion was foreign to them.

More importantly, Arms felt a powerful mental force from these machines.

Indeed, ever since he had stepped into this metal city, Arms could very clearly feel the air, pieces of steel, and all the metal was permeated by this indescribable mental power. It was as if they were all being controlled and ruled by a single powerful consciousness and will.

It was that strange Third Grade brain!

Arms didn’t need any explanation. He had been fully involved in the great battle at the Steel Capital in the Goblin’s Plane. He instantly thought of that strange lifeform. That fellow had almost no physical combat ability, but its control of magic energy and mental powers was far beyond Arms abilities.

Who knew the brain would also survive that massive explosion?

While Arms was getting frustrated over his failure to exterminate the brain, the loud rumbling sound of a collision rang out from the thick metal wall behind him. A piercing alarm blasted throughout the metal city immediately after.

It seemed that irritable fire dragon girl had come back to siege the city!

This formerly peaceful metal city immediately transformed after the sounding of the alarms.

The construction machines that had been walking on the metal roads in an orderly fashion promptly stepped to each side. The few giant warehouses and forts near the metal walls immediately opened up. Squads of combat magical machines marched out of these buildings, accompanied by several goblin chariots of exaggerated size.

These magical machines and chariots quickly gathered near the metal wall and got into a formation as they silently waited for orders.

The blows being dealt to the metal gradually got more substantial and more frequent.

Dong! Dong! Dong!

The muffled thuds echoed above the metal city, and some loose rocks and stone started to fall from its tall ceiling. However, this didn’t deal too much damage to the city.

Many strange metal constructions were embedded on the inside of the metal wall, hundred meters above the ground. When the metal wall was being attacked from the outside, countless tiny cannon openings would open up on the metal wall. These constructions would then move forward and extend their black cannon barrels outward.

An immensely large surge of magic energy would then come up from under the metal city and extend toward the position of these strange metal structures along the metal wall. The magic energy cannons would vibrate silently as the amount of magic energy gathered increased in size. Terrifying energy beams with shocking intensity would then fire out of the barrels.

Arms had no means of knowing what the situation was on the outside.

However, the attacks on the metal had suddenly stopped with the continuous firing of the magic energy cannons. It was as if the enemy no longer had the energy to spare to keep up their attack. Instead, they had to turn their attention toward those fearsome energy attacks.

The short battle ended after no more than fifteen minutes.

Another brief moment later, several dozen metal gates opened in unison. Squads of magical machines and construction machines swarmed outside and launched a final charge at the remaining enemies in the distance.

Soon, the construction machines lifted, grabbed, and raised the bloodied and crippled dragonborn back into the city before locking them up in some unique prison cells.

Arms might not care for the strength of these magical machines, but he still watched the whole thing unfold with a pale expression.

This was Lance, the backyard of low and mid-grade dragon lords!

Arms heart was utterly shaken and in turmoil upon seeing all this happen.

Once upon a time, the dragons were the true masters of this plane, while the dragonborn were the worthy rulers of the land.

Now, much like how the dragonborn had easily slaughtered the native tribes, the metal city was also easily slaughtering the dragonborn in a planned and purposeful manner.

The hunter of the past had become the prey!

Such a turn of fates and upset of roles was truly too much for Arms to swallow.

While Arms was mourning for the dragonborn, a short yet sorrowful dragon’s roar rang out within the metal city.

Arms turned to look and happened to see a large group of metal golems upon the tall metal platform. They were working together to move an utterly white dragon covered in semi-translucent white scales down from the flying ship.

The brief roar from earlier had come from this dragon, who had suddenly regained her consciousness.

Frost Dragon Aruntini!

Arms didn’t need a closer look. He could tell who this frost dragon was just from seeing her beautiful and crystalline frost scales.

Second Grade Frost Dragon Aruntini was also a rare dragon beauty in Lance.

Sadly, given the circumstance, it seemed she had already fallen into the hands of the adepts.

Arms expression turned increasingly solemn!