Age of Adepts

Inside a secret magic room.

Bright–but not piercing–pure white magic lamps lit up every corner of the place.

Greem stood in front of a delicate alchemy platform, carefully and seriously pouring the molten Flameloathe Iron from the magical crucible into the metallic mold. Once it had cooled to a half-solid state, Greem lifted his carving knife and started to attentively carve patterns and runic lines onto the metal.

Flameloathe Iron was the best metallic material that Greem could use to forge this armband, and the melting point was as high as 9,327 degrees. Due to its excessive hardness and excellent magic resistance, Greem could only carve the lines for the fire arrays in the iron while it was half-molten.

Moreover, to prevent more accomplished adepts from rapidly reading and analyzing the contents of the arrays, Greem had to add decorative patterns and lines over the actual offensive and energy-gathering arrays to conceal their real powers.

The worst part was that he had to do all this while the molten iron was not yet solid.

Greem estimated that he had two hundred and ten seconds from the iron being poured into the mold until it completely cooled. Greem had to complete one offensive array, twenty-five energy-gathering arrays, four hundred and twenty-one support runes, and seventy-four magical patterns during this time.

He had to carve all of those lines onto a single metallic armband with a diameter of seventy centimeters and a width of thirty centimeters. It was easy to imagine how difficult a task it was. Moreover importantly, Greem had to finish the entire process in a single take; there could not be any pauses or breaks in between. Otherwise, even magical carving knives enchanted with Sharpening and Armor Penetration would not be able to leave a single mark on the armband once the metal had cooled.

”Lower the temperature of the magical flame by seven degrees…”

Greem split off a bit of his Spirit and connected it to the central control crystal on the alchemy platform to lower the 9,800-degree magical flames by an imperceptible seven degrees.

”No.3, assist with the activation of the arrays.”

Greem split off another bit of his Spirit and adjusted the settings of the platform based on the Chip’s instructions.

”Magic injection of carving knife complete.”

After activating the Sharpening and Armor Penetration effects on the carving knife, Greem lightly placed the tip of the blade against the surface of the shockingly hot molten metal. Under the light movements of his wrist and the agile manipulations of his finger, the carving knife glowing with yellow light started to move and turn along the surface of the armband, almost imperceptibly.

The lines it carved were as thin as spiderwebs, yet they were connected without breaks and ran all over the armband in intricate patterns. An ordinary man would not even be able to see these lines clearly without a powerful magnifying glass, but Greem often had to carve a perfect three-dimensional array on an area the size of a grain.

The depths of Greem’s black eyes shone with a blue light as bright as a star. He had activated the Chip’s scanning and magnification abilities to their limits to complete this gargantuan task.

The thirty-centimeter-wide surface of the armband had been magnified three thousand times by the Chip. This was already wide enough in Greem’s eyes for him to carve freely. However, correspondingly, the initially thin magical carving knife now appeared to be as thick as a stone pillar and just as clumsy to wield.

Greem used his agile fingers and wrist to control the carving knife, making it wrap around the surface of the armband rapidly according to the blue lines projected by the Chip. During this process, Greem’s wrists and fingers had to apply a consistent force. Otherwise, the lines drawn by the knife would have varying depths, severely affecting the functions and effects of the future product.

At this moment, the bottom of the armband was still at the terrifying temperatures of six or seven thousand degrees. If it weren’t for Greem being a Second Grade fire adept, he would have had trouble persisting without incident, especially with how much contact he was having with the armband.

Due to the magical characteristics of Flameloathe Iron, it had excellent resistance to heat rays, forcing Greem to carve the patterns personally. Thankfully, with his past hundred years of experience in cutting magical golem cores, Greem still managed to finish the product without any mishaps.

Greem let out a breath of relief as he carefully put this half-finished product in his left hand. He pinched some golden quartz sand and scattered it over the armband’s surface. The armband absorbed most of the powder in a blinding golden light, turning its surface an eye-catching bright yellow.

Quartz was a more common energy-gathering material used in the creation of magical items. It could also perfectly assimilate with Flameloathe Iron and would not cause an elementium rejection effect.

It was only when all this was done that Greem finally started assessing this incomplete Emblem of Fire. Indeed, this wasn’t the final form of the Second Grade armband. Instead, it was only a half-finished product.

It was an ornate armband created with crimson Flameloathe Iron as its base material. The energy-gathering substance within it resonated with the wandering elementium in the air, causing it to continually be shrouded in a thin veil of bright red light.

Its ornate design and appearance was a model that the Chip had decided upon after examining tens of thousands of similar pieces of magical equipment, while its complex magical arrays had undergone hundreds and thousands of optimizations and corrections by the Chip before being applied.

Greem reveled in the beauty and perfection of this art!

He played with it for much of the day, unwilling to part with it, before finally and reluctantly placing it on the velvet cloth over the platform.

The base of the armband was now complete. All Greem needed to do now was melt the fire agates down and embed them into the sockets of the armband using a special technique. Of course, before this, Greem still had to concoct a neutralizer from the fire dragon’s blood. That was a particularly troublesome task!

A quick estimate showed that he would have to work for another month before he could complete the Emblem of Fire. After his last adventure, Greem completely understood that his plan to explore the Fire Elementium Plane was best done after he equipped the two set pieces of Fire Throne.

Greem rubbed his temple as he dwelled over his daily routine for the coming month. His head hurt and stung a little.

Though the carving process had been a brief two hundred and ten seconds, he had spent them in a state of extreme tension and focus. The job of carving itself had also exhausted much of his Spirit. As such, Greem felt the fatigue now that he was finally relaxed.

He waved his hand and extinguished the magical fires on the alchemy platform. He then cut off the magical energy supply to the platform and left the tools where they were, in all their mess and chaos. Greem yawned and rubbed his eyes as he walked out of the laboratory.

It was time to get a good rest!

…………

Serpentfowl Cliff.

The afternoon sunlight shone down through the canopy upon the grassy land below the cliff.

Three serpentfowl hatchlings were playing on the grassy green land, while two other hatchlings were curled up in a nest and having a good nap.

Most of the adolescent serpentfowl had gone out looking for food. Only two female serpentfowls were still keeping watch over the nests on the cliff. They crouched lazily inside the caves of the cliff and bathed in the sunlight, occasionally peering out to look at the hatchlings below.

Seven or eight white serpentfowl eggs with light yellow spots lay in a nest in the innermost corner of the cave. Some bones that had been picked clean were scattered around the nest as well.

The forty-kilometer area around the cliff was the hunting ground of the serpentfowls. The more ferocious magical creatures and beasts had already been driven away to further away places. That was why these two serpentfowls weren’t concerned about the safety of the cliff, even though most of the adults had gone out hunting.

”What a good chance. An incredible chance.”

The few apprentices of Shadow’s Light pushed aside the tall grass in front of their view and looked at this peaceful world with shifty eyes. Their hearts were filled with excitement.

The adult male serpentfowls were all gone, and only two female serpentfowls remained. There couldn’t be better news than this.

The apprentice group had stayed here for two entire days and finally found this chance. They immediately went to work.

Gemogemogemo.

A metal chick emerged from the Black Forest with wooden steps, letting out a strange metallic noise.

This strange object immediately attracted the attention of the three serpentfowl hatchlings playing in the field. They stopped chasing each other and bent down to take a good look at this odd fellow they had never seen before.

These little animals did not sense any dangerous aura from the chick and saw no need to run back to the nest.

The metal chick flapped its wings, flashing its shiny body. It took one round around the field before clucking and running back into the Black Forest.

The three bloodthirsty hatchlings immediately beat their wings in excitement and chased after the chick.

Three big and one small; all four of them disappeared into the Black Forest.

A short moment later, one of the serpentfowls on the cliff looked out with its snakehead. This time, it was shocked to find that three of the hatchlings were missing.

The female serpentfowl immediately cried out. Its peculiar cry possessed the shrillness of birds, but also the hissing noise of snakes.

The sad cry reverberated around the cliff and lingered for a long while.

A short moment later, the two female serpentfowls flew out of the nest and started circling about the cliff, anxiously looking for the missing hatchlings.

The other two napping hatchlings ran back into the nest in a hurry upon being woken up.

The two serpentfowls landed on the field and flicked their snake tongues. Soon, they picked up on the trail of the hatchlings.

The serpentfowls quickly communicated with a bunch of hisses. One of them returned to guard the nest, while the other took to the skies and chased in the direction the smell of the hatchlings vanished toward.