Age of Adepts

Greem was woken up by the strange notification sound of the Chip.

He slowly emerged from his deep meditative state and was immediately flooded by a series of messages and notifications.

[Beep. Detected unknown energy resonance system. Data incomplete.

[Beep. Detected unusual means of soul repose. Data being collected.

[Beep. Detected otherworldly versions of energy amplifying arrays. Models have been recorded.

[Beep. Detected otherworldly versions of life amplifying arrays. Models have been recorded.

[Beep. Detected otherworldly versions of energy-gathering systems. Models have been recorded….

[……]

A series of notifications instantly flooded Greem’s mind, putting him in a temporary daze after waking up from his meditation.

Greem took half a day before managing to take a look at all these notifications. They were mostly strange arrays that the Chip had discovered and extracted from the orc shaman’s tattoos and totems. These arrays might differ from the magical array system of the World of Adepts, but they functioned in much the same way. Thoroughly researching them would pose a tremendous benefit to Greem and his understanding of magical patterns.

Greem’s own Strength was still too weak. The amplification to his bodily power after two transformations had only been his basic insurance in multiple fights against powerful enemies. If his magical pattern knowledge system could improve by leaps and bounds, it would allow him to improve his current Flame Fiend Transformation tattoos. It would undoubtedly be of tremendous help in all battles here on out.

It was precisely this reason that caused Greem to be so interested in the tattoos of the orc shaman!

Of course, trying to figure out the origin of the tattoos’ magic, true visual observation and simple imitation was no more than fantasy, like attempting to fish the moon out of a well. However, by comparing the tattoo patterns with the adepts’ magical pattern studies, Greem could find their similarities and differences. That could allow him to obtain quite a lot of new knowledge and inspiration.

The magical pattern studies developed in a different plane according to a different system of power had to have unique traits. Still, it was possible to pursue the origins of the most fundamental of the magical patterns.

The magical pattern studies of the World of Adepts was mostly the study of three-dimensional magical arrays. They very deftly utilized the magical runes hidden within the array to cause resonance with the elementium particles in the air. In doing so, the arrays could guide and focus the elementium into a terrifying power that could even change the material world.

That was why mastering high-grade and variation runes became the only way to improve in the field of magical pattern studies in the World of Adepts!

However, the magical pattern studies in Strongwoods Plane still retained the chaotic and primal runic systems that the ancient adepts had used in the past. With the modifications and changes made by the Beast God Aruger, these simple magical patterns gained the strange ability to communicate with the gods to construct faith channels and deliver divine energy.

Orc shamans used the seed of divine magic bestowed upon them by the Beast God in tandem with their life energy system to unleash their elementium magic and supernatural abilities.

Orc shamans might have some advantage over adepts when it came to Physique and Strength, but they were far, far inferior when it came to the most essential trait of spellcasters– Spirit. When comparing orc shamans and adepts of the same grade, their Spirit could often be ten to fifteen points lower. It resulted in them being incapable of unleashing powerful spells and being liable to exhaust their Spirit too rapidly in battle.

To work around the awkward reality of orc shamans having a terrible elementium affinity, Beast God Aruger bestowed upon them the remarkable Soul Repose ability. It allowed them to split off part of their soul and place it within the totems. They could then use the totems to replace themselves as additional sources of energy.

With the totem pillars, the orc shamans no longer needed to worry about the lack of elementium energy during battle. Moreover, with the aid of the totems, any orc shaman could instantly become a caster of all four attributes. That allowed them to have more options and more logical magic combinations in spellcasting battles.

However, everything had two sides!

These blessings caused the so-called orc shamans to become complete servants of the Beast God.

Their power came solely from the great Beast God Aruger. If their actions infuriated Aruger, the god could punish them and cut off the faith channel with which they obtained their divine magic seed. The orc shaman would then instantly be reduced from a powerful and revered spellcaster to a lowly orc with nothing to his name.

This power obtained without work was like a terrifying addiction. It was impossible to rid oneself of it once you were addicted.

No orc shaman could bear the emptiness of losing power, and even less so the rapid plummeting of their status in society. To protect their status and power, they would only crouch even more before the feet of great Beast God Aruger and loyally offer up all they possessed.

Unlike the development of civilizations in other worlds, planar worlds affected by the various gods were often stuck in a state of suspended development and regressed technology. Excessively prosperous and advanced lives could very easily cause believers to ‘fall into depravity.’ They could be lost in the advancement of technology, resulting in their faith and respect in the gods weakening.

That was why almost all worlds that were ruled by the gods would be stuck forever in a primal and crude society. The followers that fervently believed in their gods lived within an ordinary and plain society. Bitter conflict and severe societal issues continued to exist between the various classes.

The effect of scarce resources caused their lives to be harsh and miserable. One had to work ten times, a hundred times, harder to barely feed themselves and live on in poverty.

Even so, it was all this suffering that caused the nobles, who were favored by the gods and therefore enjoyed a good life, to become the target of envy of all others. Those lowly peasants in the lower classes would have only one way to climb the social ladder and lead a genuinely luxurious and opulent life. They would have to try their very best to win the favor of and please Beast God Aruger.

That was why the more disasters and suffering that a god brought down upon a plane, the more believers they would be able to gain. That further allowed them to purify the members of their core believer group.

It had undoubtedly become the standard process of ruling for all gods!

For example, Strongwoods Plane had been ruled over by Beast God Aruger for over ten thousand years. Yet, the current state of its society was still the relatively crude and primal tribal system.

They might have established the mighty Orc Empire and defeated the military forces of all other races. However, their civilization and societal system were like a tiny bug suspended in ancient amber, forever locked at a particular stage by the god high above them.

Numerous races had tried to rise again in Strongwoods Plane, but the Orc Empire had defeated all of them by virtue of their overwhelming might. Moreover, the Orc Empire and its population of seven million became the largest slave owners of the plane, holding the leash to all other races. They did nothing productive, but possessed the best land, enjoyed the best resources, and abducted the beauties of the various species for their carnal pleasure.

It was their suppression and violence that caused the primal societal state of Strongwoods Plane to continue as it was for tens of thousands of years. Otherwise, if even a weak race like goblins could develop to such a scale, there was no reason that the society of Strongwoods Plane should still be so crude and primal!

Whether the gods were a bane or boon to a planar world was truly hard to tell sometimes!

It was precisely because they saw through all these tricks and deceit of the gods that the adepts, who prided themselves as the incarnations of intelligence and wisdom, had such an unharmonious relationship with the gods.

To maintain the purity and singularity of faith in their planes, the gods strictly forbade the entry of adepts into their worlds. That was to prevent the spread of any ‘evil’ knowledge. After all, no adept could naturally be born from a primal and chaotic land. Even from their very nature, the gods and adepts were at odds with each other!

Both parties would fight to the death when they ran into each other, with no possibility of yielding ground.

The information Greem had received from Alice revealed the real reason for Death Witch Khesuna’s rallying of the Northern Witches into Strongwoods Plane. It might appear to have been vengeance for the Beast God destroying one of her lesser planes. In truth, it was because of a conflict that had broken out between the beast god pantheon and the Great Witches in the outer realms.

These two forces went back and forth, destroying each other’s planes and assassinating the opponent’s leaders. Hundreds and thousands of planar worlds had been dragged into the conflict of these two factions.

In all seriousness, Khesuna was herself responding to the declaration of war put forth by the Great Witches. Otherwise, she would never have had anything to do with the Beast God’s plane, trillions and trillions of kilometers away. Most of her territory was within the World of Adepts, after all.

When Khesuna led the Northern Witches into Strongwoods Plane, the Great Witches were also intercepting a squad of reinforcements from the beast god pantheon. Why else had the Northern Witches not run into any clones or incarnations sent down by the beast god pantheon, despite having been here for more than thirty hours?

Still, the perimeter of the Great Witches wasn’t wholly impenetrable. If the war dragged on, the gods of the pantheon would be able to find ways to cast down clones. This war of the witches would become much more difficult.

After all, a clone cast down by a god might be Fourth Grade, but their knowledge and combat techniques were far superior to a Fourth Grade witch trapped within a plane. Thus, even the powerful Khesuna had to be concerned about the possibility of fighting against the same-grade clone of a beast god.

On the third day of holding Witherwater City, Khesuna gathered all the various witch factions and started assigning elite squads to destroy the Beast God temples located all over the Orc Empire.

As long as these powerful faith nodes were destroyed, the beast god pantheon would lose their foundation to descend upon Strongwoods Plane, even if the Great Witches failed to stop them. At the very least, the clones and incarnations of the gods would become much weaker without the support of these faith nodes. They would not be as strong as they usually were!