Age of Adepts

The World of Adepts, the Tower of Fate.

Alice dragged her exhausted body out of the astrology hall. She had just set foot out of the room when the little fairy Helen came flying in her direction.

“Unbelievable! Unbelievable! That bad woman is here again.”

Helen spun around Alice’s body three times before pausing in front of her with a pout on her face. She then waved her hand and cast Lifebloom and Energy Restoration on Alice. The former restored life and stamina, while the latter restored Spirit.

With the two spells, Alice only needed half the time to recover completely from her exhausted state. It was an incredible boon for the adepts, who treasured their time above all else.

The reason elementium fairies were valued so highly by the adepts was precisely because of such abilities!

Bad woman?

Alice paused for a moment, but she quickly understood that Mary had arrived.

Since Alice was the owner of the Tower of Fate, Mary could not break into the higher levels of the tower without her permission.

Even though she was exceptionally exhausted, Alice still dragged her sore and tired body down to the third floor to meet the furious Mary.

“What in the world are you guys doing? Where has Greem gone?” Upon meeting Alice, Mary impatiently asked, “Right now, Zhentarim’s Fabres Clan, Entom Clan, and Dener Clan have all come knocking on our doors, naming Greem by person and calling him out to resolve the issue of tension at the clan borders. These clans are all led by a Fourth Grade adept. We can’t just fight and beat them like before. We have to have Greem decide if we are to go to war or seek some sort of agreement.”

Mary stayed inside the clan over the past few months to manage all these complicated and complex clan matters. She was already fuming with frustration. Gargamel and Meryl were handling all the internal clan matters perfectly, and the clan’s development was going well. However, the Crimson Clan was still caught in a vortex of a power struggle with several outside forces, and the external challenges it faced had not decreased at all.

In fact, with the appearance of multiple high-grade adepts within the clan, the external pressure they faced was only growing larger. A dark and thundering storm was very much brewing outside their gates.

Disregarding everything else, the Crimson Clan had experienced several dozen cases of tension and skirmishes at the border of their territories. Either some nobles had been assassinated in Crimson territory, some nobles neighboring Crimson territory had started wars over small incidents, or some organization had accused the Crimson regions of sheltering an escaped convict.

These matters were usually only worldly matters and did not involve the clan yet. However, when so many troubles and incidents occurred at the same time, it drew the attention of Gargamel and Meryl.

It was important to note that it had not yet been forty years since the Crimson Clan’s last adept war. They had beat the alliance of five clans and forced them into retreat during that war. Now, some outside force had once again set their eyes on the Crimson Clan!

Mary gave an order, and the goblin forces subordinate to the Crimson Clan quickly sent back information.

This time, those who had set their eyes on them were no longer small clans and organizations. Instead, they were large adept clans who could cause the entire Zhentarim Area to tremble with a single stomp of their feet.

The Fabres Clan, the Entom Clan, and the Dener Clan.

These well-known names were like pearls amidst a pile of glass marbles in Zhentarim, the center of the continent. They were incomparably famous and glorious clans.

There were hundreds and thousands of adept clans in the Central Region, but no matter how they fought, how they rose, how they killed, and how they fell, the ones who remained at the top was still the same five major clans. Fabres, Entom, and Dener were three of these five clans.

Now, they had their eyes set upon the Crimson Clan. As one of the only two Third Grade adepts of the clan, Mary instantly felt tremendous pressure upon her shoulders.

She might excel at fighting and slaughter, but she was not an expert at resolving complicated human relationships and working under the complexities of treaties and negotiations. As such, Mary ordered Dragonborn Zacha and Bug Adept Billis here and there to use their ferocious martial force to intimidate wave after wave of enemies.

However, the worldly nobles and low-grade adept clans were only the fangs and dogs sent by the masterminds behind the scenes to harass the Crimson Clan. Chasing them away was not cutting off the black hand that loomed behind in the shadows.

If the Fourth Grade magical golem dragon hadn’t been protecting the Crimson Clan, then some of these clans would probably have jumped the gun and declared war!

It was these concerns that caused Mary to want Greem back in the clan more urgently.

Unfortunately, she knew nothing; she only knew that Alice had stopped by Fire Throne awhile ago, after which Greem had vanished mysteriously. She had absolutely no idea of Greem’s actual whereabouts.

That was why she had furiously hurried to the Tower of Fate to demand Greem’s location from Alice.

Alice only had a vague idea of the difficult situation that Greem had been caught in on Henvic Plane. However, she didn’t dare so quickly reveal such information to Mary, simple as it was.

After all, she was still continuously monitored by that ‘powerful nemesis’ of hers!

Alice might have trouble knowing more about what was happening in Henvic without clues, but that woman would have an even harder time than her as well. However, if Alice were to reveal anything she knew, she would not be able to stop the enemy from seeing her trump cards through the developmental patterns of the ‘world lines,’ even if she were to conceal the truth with her Fate magic afterward.

It was the strange and odd nature of a battle between Fate Witches!

Alice could only vaguely tell Mary that Greem had been temporarily trapped in another plane, but was unharmed and would naturally return after a short wait.

Such unclear information obviously couldn’t sate Mary’s anxiety. However, she knew that Greem had always trusted and respected Alice’s choices. Thus, she suppressed her burning anxieties and frustrations and stormed away from the Tower of Fate.

Alice remained silent in the meeting hall for a short moment before returning to her room with a resentful sigh.

…………

In all honesty, the duration and difficulty of this standoff far exceeded Greem’s expectations.

Five years. Five long years had been waste on this rural otherworld.

During these five years, Greem had tried countless times to charge out of the lava pool and fight the four hunter adepts to the death.

However, regardless of what he did, he still could not injure any of the adepts severely. Similarly, the four hunter adepts had enormous difficulty killing Greem as well.

The two parties continued to battle each other, breaking out into a vicious fight every few days. It then became a fight every few weeks, then every few months. The tension between the two lessened with each passing day, both knowing that they could not do anything about the other. In the end, the periodic battles they had become less of an actual fight and more of a workout that they did every once in a while to relieve their boredom.

Greem had created a small lab, having been trapped at the bottom of the volcano. Sometimes, when he forgot the time in his busy work and neglected to show himself for one or two months, the four hunter adepts would be the ones to come knocking on the volcano crater.

The two parties went back and forth in this manner. In the blink of an eye, five years had passed at Gangsas Volcano!

Over these five years, Greem might have been brought to the brink of mental and spiritual exhaustion, but Natagu and the others were not doing well either.

As a bloodline adept who considered himself to be exceptionally talented, these five years stuck in Henvic was no less than torture.

The magical energy of the environment could not compare to the World of Adepts or the realms beyond, at all. Meditation here could only barely recover their magical power. Trying to improve their Spirits was an impossible cause.

It was akin to wasting five years for Natagu and the other hunter adepts!

Moreover, being stuck at Gangsas Volcano meant that they could not gather any useful adept resources, nor embark on any magical experiments. As such, even while Greem was worn down by the five years, Natagu and the others experienced the same suffering.

However, having accepted the commission by that Lady and resentful that they couldn’t take down this insignificant fire adept, the hunter adepts could only continue their work here.

As time passed, the situation in Henvic underwent some unexpected changes.

The reinvigorated and restored holy knights became more eager to fight!

Over these past five years, the holy knights had destroyed the witch’s tower and hunted down the witch remnants across the plane.

One could say that their hunt had been incredibly successful. Most of the fleeing Deceit Witches had either been caught or executed and cleanly dealt with. Even the occasional witch that slipped through their fingers went utterly silent and covert, hiding in some corner of the world, not daring to come out and cause trouble again.

Once the pressure from the witches had been eliminated, the foreign adepts camping near Gangsas Volcano became a prick in their eyes.

Though Natagu had a cooperative agreement with a Fourth Grade Holy Knight, that agreement seemed unnecessary now that the Deceit Witches had vanished. As such, more people had started appearing near Gangsas Volcano. Five adventurers first appeared here and died to Guinevere’s poison.

One day, Benija returned to the camp from her shopping trip covered in blood. She brought bad news back with her.

Due to the constant eruptions from Gangsas Volcano, all the towns in the vicinity had been abandoned. Benija had traveled eighty-five kilometers to a small city while disguised to purchase their daily supplies.

However, there was a group of high-grade knights stationed in that small city with no more than seven thousand civilians. Moreover, they had strict checks and Spirit scans for all visitors.

Benija would have had no problem tricking them with her mental magic if it was only a group of Iron Knights. However, she had never expected that there were Third Grade Gold Knights there!