Age of Adepts

In the end, the one that managed to stand nervously before Greem was the male half-elf that he had first spotted.

Tymo was his name.

According to Tymo, he was born in Garan.

His father was a high elf, while his mother was an ordinary human maid.

In the Great Fantasy Forest of Garan where the elven court resided, the high elves led a life much like human nobles, indulging in wine and luxuries. Tymo’s birth was no more than an accident; one caused by a high elf toying with a human maid while drunk.

Racial chauvinism for pure-blooded elves was the norm in the elven court.

Thus, Tymo’s father, the high elf, had been cold-hearted enough to plan Tymo’s murder right after his birth, all for the sake of keeping the family bloodline pure. However, Tymo’s mother, the human maid, was unwilling to let her son die like that. She had escaped the Great Fantasy Forest under cover of night.

The mother and son wandered Garan for many years until the year Tymo turned fourteen. They were once again found by the subordinate sent out by the high elf. After some fighting and brawling, Tymo finally found a chance to jump off a cliff when his mother had desperately clung on to the assassin’s leg.

Tymo’s mother died under the sword of the elven assassin, while Tymo himself escaped Garan while covered in wounds. He became a sailor aboard a long-distance ship.

For the next hundred years, Tymo wandered around the human-led Faen. In the end, he was forced to escape Faen after killing an important noble that had attempted to abduct him and turn him into his sex slave.

As a mixed half-elf, Tymo possessed agility and balance that no ordinary human could match. His potent racial talents allowed him to advance his profession into a rogue successfully. In fact, he became an exceptionally famous rogue and thief.

In truth, Greem was not at all interested in Tymo’s tragedy. The only thing he was interested in was Tymo’s hatred for the elven empire and his understanding of it.

Tymo might have lived in the Great Fantasy Forest for as many as a dozen years, but the only memories that remained in his mind were the scornful gazes and the endless hatred he held.

The Elven Empire was an extremely xenophobic country!

The entire empire, all the way from the royalty and nobility to the lowest classes of elves, hated alien races with an extreme passion. They even held an intense hatred for the humans, carved into their very bones.

The humans chopped down forests and destroyed vegetation. The size of the woods would decrease rapidly wherever humans went. There was great tension between the human’s method of production and development compared to the beliefs of most elves, resulting in all sorts of conflicts and disagreements.

Greem brought the half-elf back to his place. After an entire day and night, he finally managed to obtain the obtain the other piece of information about the Elven Empire that was even more detailed and realistic than what they already possessed. Tymo had visited most areas of the Great Fantasy Forest, after all. The information he provided was the best addition and correction to what they already knew.

Garan was split into many different communities by the forest elves. Those who could live in the core area of Garan were, naturally, the noblest and most influential elven families. The weaker tribes and clans could only stay at the fringe of the Great Fantasy Forest.

The edge of the forest neighboured the shore. Slavers from Faen would often stop here in secret and ambush the weak elven tribes to capture forest elves and transport them back to human society to be sold at a high price. The forest elves were all handsome and pretty individuals. Their figures were attractive, and there was an exotic element to them. That was why prices for elves were always high in the upper echelons of human society.

An ordinary elven girl could sell for the shocking price of three to five thousand gold coins in human society. High elves with combat and magic professions could even go for as high as several hundreds of thousands of gold coins.

It was a dangerous thing to be living at the edge of the Great Fantasy Forest. Every year, hundreds of slaver ships would secretly sneak into Garan, where they would attack an elven village before quickly retreating.

While most of the slavers would fall to the arrows of the elven patrol, there were always fortunate men who could make it through the defensive lines of the Elven Empire. They could then swipe everything within an elven village and take with them every single forest elf, be they old or young.

The hatred between humans and elves only accumulated under such a background. At this point, their relationship had deteriorated so much that members of each race would bear arms at first sight of the other!

Tymo obediently told Greem everything he knew before respectfully asking the adept, ”Lord adept, I have been wondering. The target of your attack this time is…”

”The Dragon Cliffs!”

Greem sat by the wooden table and gave a straightforward answer to the half-elf’s question. He didn’t seem to care for the half-elf’s widening eyes.

Two strange, palm-sized dolls were happily climbing all over Greem’s body.

One appeared to be put together from coarse and crude pieces of wood and radiated a fearsome green light from within its body. The other was a black ragdoll that was haphazardly sewn together. Half of its body was male while the other half was female. The only thing on the doll’s face was a single eye drawn in blood, making it seem all the more sinister and odd.

The two strange dolls didn’t seem to get along with each other. They rarely came together, preferring to play by themselves; one crouching upon Greem’s left shoulder while the other floated above the right shoulder.

Their choice of play was extremely bizarre as well.

The wooden body of the Spirit of Pestilence didn’t seem to be a physical body. Whenever it saw something interesting, it would wave with its hand. The wooden hand would then instantly transform into countless tiny poison bugs that were indistinguishable to the naked eye and bring the item to the doll. The Spirit of Pestilence’s method of assessing the quality of the item was to bite it.

Ordinary items would instantly melt under the Spirit’s horrifying powers of poison. Even inferior magical equipment couldn’t endure corrosion of this level.

The newly crafted Stitch Ghost Golem also only possessed a newborn soul consciousness. It appeared somewhat slow and stiff. However, Tymo instantly froze and fell into a daze when the doll turned its eye and locked eyes with him. His soul had almost been ripped out of his body.

In the end, it was Greem putting his hand in between them and cutting off their eye contact that pulled Tymo back to consciousness.

The half-elf shivered frightfully and no longer dared to lift his head to look around.

Yet, the adept’s answer reverberated inside his mind.

The Dragon Cliffs…Dragon Cliffs. To think the target was the Dragon Cliffs!

Outsiders might not understand what the Dragon Cliffs represented. However, as a half-elf that had spent over a dozen years in the Great Fantasy Forest, Tymo was well aware of the importance of the cliffs to the forest elves.

That was because the Dragon Cliffs represented the ultimate force of the Elven Empire!

The half-elf immediately kneeled in front of Greem out of his loathing for his elven father and his hatred for all forest elves. He swore to do everything within his power to help the adepts accomplish this tall task of attacking the Dragon Cliffs.

Greem, satisfied, recruited him into the party.

…………

Seven days quickly passed.

After sufficient recuperation and replenishment of supplies, the expedition ships hoisted their sails and made for the two distant continents according to plan.

This time, Alice’s Witches of Fate became the center of attention once again!

The flying ships, filled with resources, goods, and magical machines quickly rose into the skies in front of everyone’s eyes. It silently hid in the dense layer of clouds.

The Dark Witches, whose relationship with the Fate Witches wasn’t all that harmonious, had no choice but to take the ships provided by Shadow Island. They hurried toward Garan along with the Pale Witches.

Tremendous magical energy surged and coursed through the insides of the flying ship before being converted into intense wind power to levitate the ten-thousand-ton metal ship and allow it to glide across the air soundlessly. Powerful elementium currents shredded the nearby clouds, leaving behind them a strange path of torn up clouds.

One could see the pristine blue seas zoom past beneath their feet through the gaps in the clouds. The passengers atop the ship could also occasionally see green islands, along with merry seagulls circling the landmasses.

Sadly, such scenes were quickly left behind before anyone could get a better look.

Grem closed his eyes to feel the magical elementium aura of this mysterious world, as well as the strange planar laws of this different plane. He had never felt as calm and relaxed before this moment.

They had stepped upon a dangerous path of plane conquest. What awaited them would be bloody battle after bloody battle. Yet, for some reason, Greem had overwhelming confidence and assurance of their victory on this trip!

It wasn’t arrogance or some sort of prediction. Instead, it was his faith and confidence in himself and this group of people he was with.

The magical machine army had shaped up now after the events and training in Lance. The golem army he had painstakingly created was also ready to break into action at any time. Moreover, he also held several mysterious trump cards in his hand. The trip to Garan this time might be dangerous, but Greem had confidence he could fulfill Alice’s wish.

Isn’t it just a Staff of Divination artifact. Isn’t it just a Second Grade green dragon. Isn’t it just a bunch of frail elves protected by powerful deities. What could these things count for?

At this moment, all enemies were no more than paper tigers in Greem’s mind!

All he needed to do was find that one crucial weakness of the enemy.

Greem was confident in himself!