Age of Adepts

Almost eighty percent of the benefits from the advancement had been absorbed by the Heart of Flames, thereby allowing it to evolve into the Heart of Principles. It could be said that the principle aura flowing and radiating from Greem’s body came entirely from the Heart of Principles.

According to the Chip’s data feedback, Greem’s analysis and understanding of the fire principles were only at 48%. That already included all of Greem’s knowledge and experience of the power of fire over the past two hundred years, as well as the fire energy he had gathered by traveling through dozens of planes, regions, and other worlds.

If he wanted the Chip to continue analyzing the fire principles, he would have to keep gathering knowledge or items related to fire from the other worlds and the realms beyond. It was the only way to compensate for his lack of knowledge.

In truth, being able to decipher 30% of the fire principles with Greem’s personal stockpile of fire knowledge and energy was already extremely fortunate. The other 18% of progress had come from the knowledge reserves he stole from the Zhentarim Association.

It might look as if Greem had only deciphered half of the fire principles, but the indirect benefits of having accomplished this were immense. No powerful spell or magical equipment could rival the effects of having deciphered 48% of the fire principles.

Every 10% of progress he made in the fire principles would bestow Greem with some unusual magical effects.

For instance, at 10% analysis, Greem obtained increased fire spellcasting range.

At 20%, Greem obtained increased fire effectiveness.

At 30%, he obtained fire penetration.

At 40%, his flames could turn invisible.

In particular, the increased fire spellcasting range allowed Greem’s casting range to increase from three thousand meters to five thousand meters. None of Greem’s fire spells would weaken due to distance as long as the target was within five thousand meters.

Increased fire effectiveness increased the intensity of Greem’s fire spells.

The Chip performed a simple calculation and estimated the power of the spells to have increased by approximately 21%.

In addition to the 30% bonus provided by Greem’s Fire Specialization, Greem’s fireballs were 50% more potent than the average elementium adept of the same grade.

Fire penetration was also an extremely practical magical effect.

With the increase in grade and the increased amount of magical equipment available, the damage that elementium spells could inflict on opponents would be greatly reduced. In particular, some individuals with rare bloodlines could even be somewhat immune to low-grade elementium damage. It allowed them to look down upon all elementium adepts.

Fire penetration meant that even enemies who had elementary fire immunity would not be able to go unscathed when hit by Greem’s fire spells.

It could be said that elementium damage reduction and elementium penetration were the focus of conflicts between high-grade adepts. Almost all the equipment and spells that high-grade adepts chose revolved around these two factors.

Without fire penetration, Greem would be in an awkward position against other Fourth Grade adepts. He would not be able to injure them effectively.

During the battle against Body-Refining Adept Declan, Greem had been clever enough to use Sodden’s Holy Ring’s special effect of ignoring magic resistance and defense to its fullest extent. Now, even without Sodden’s Holy Ring, Greem could rely on his own power. He could leave a deep and impressionable memory on any Fourth Grade opponent.

The ability to turn his fires invisible was also a strong effect that made Greem significantly more dangerous than he previously was!

Any fire spells that Greem cast with his abilities would have the miraculous ability to turn invisible. They could not be detected by sight nor passive spiritual senses until the power of the spell erupted.

That meant any enemy without elementium sight or similar active sensing abilities would be unable to ‘see’ Greem’s fire spell.

If one were to think about it seriously, this magical effect was incredible!

One couldn’t forget that Body of Flames was a fire spell as well.

If Greem converted his own body into the Body of Flames in battle, most low-grade adepts would not even be able to track him with their passive spiritual senses. Moreover, the inability to see the trail of Greem’s fire spells also made it much more difficult for adepts of the same grade to dodge or counterattack.

These deciphered fire principles were already part of Greem’s power. Thus, even a small fireball that Greem casually threw out could be enhanced with all four of these magical effects. Furthermore, these effects would not increase the cast time or exhaust any additional Spirit. In essence, they magnified the power of Greem’s fire spells several times at no cost at all.

Consequently, Greem fully understood why high-grade adepts sought after the power of the principles so fervently.

Gaining the principle powers was like gaining Midas’ hand. It allowed the might of an adept’s elementium magic to increase explosively. Who would be able to turn down such an abrupt increase in power!?

Apart from the magical effects provided by the Heart of Principles, the advancement also increased Greem’s Spirit. Greem’s Spirit arrived at 40 points after breaking through the 39 point threshold. This fortieth point of Spirit was as large as the total amount of Spirit from the previous 39 points.

Moreover, every point increase after this 40th point would be equal to the sum of all the Spirit before it!

That was why the high-grade adepts had such a difficult time improving. It was nearly impossible to find shortcuts for improvement as they had in the past.

The minor grades of Fourth Grade were split into Beginner (40-42), Intermediate (43-45), Advanced (46-48), and Peak (49).

According to Greem’s understanding, every point increase after Fourth Grade required hundreds of years of deep meditation, as well as many trials and tribulations with one’s life on the line. Those old Fourth Grade monsters that had made their names hundreds of years ago would have incredible trouble making it past the beginner phase without special techniques up their sleeves.

Even among the fourteen Fourth Grade adepts of Zhentarim, there were still three of them who were at beginner Fourth Grade. Seven of them had managed to reached intermediate grade. The only advanced Fourth Grades were Chairman Freed, Vice-Chairman Mirva, Adept Kerala, and Elder Nicolas.

As for the peak Fourth Grade? Unfortunately, no adept of such power had appeared in Zhentarim for six hundred years already!

According to the information Greem had stolen from the Zhentarim Association, Greem’s advancement was highly unusual. In all seriousness, the Heart of Principles that he now possessed should be something that was only possible when a Fourth Grade adept advanced to become a Great Adept. Clearly, he should not possess the Heart of Principles at his current grade.

Such a vast and terrifying power naturally required an incredibly strong body to host it.

That was why Greem had become so large. He had been forcibly gigantified by the Heart of Principles!

His only recourse now was to understand and analyze the fire principles to the best of his abilities, then use the power of the laws to reshape a stronger body. It was the only way to return to his normal form. Otherwise, he would have to maintain his giant shape to temporarily contain the excessive and pure fire energy within him.

The burning world that Mary and the others had seen when they arrived was a phenomenon created from the excessive power that Greem could not control.

It was also proof of the tremendous power and danger of any adept advancing to Fourth Grade. Any strange thing could happen around them. Even unintentional magical energy leakage from their bodies could inflict irreversible damage to the land, turning the place into a death zone where no life could exist.

These examples allowed one to understand why most planar worlds had set the limit of power to Fourth Grade. That was because the power of Fourth Grades could already severely affect the balance of laws within the plane.

Should a Fourth Grade adept start slaughtering and destroying recklessly, they would cause excessive damage to the law systems within a planar world.

Meanwhile, a Fifth Grade adept would be able to bring about irreparable principle damage to a plane’s system.

That was clearly something that no planar consciousness could tolerate!

For the sake of their longevity and development, a planar consciousness would find ways to banish the excessively powerful individuals from within them. The choices of these influential individuals in response to this also resulted in the appearance of different power systems.

The Great Adepts chose to leave the World of Adepts and create new worlds in the realms beyond.

The gods chose to remain, wandering outside the plane’s systems while continuing to exist within the planar world through their god kingdoms.

The Scourge Lords chose to fight back against the planar consciousness, resulting in a bloody purge of life from the World of Disasters and causing the world itself to break apart. If it weren’t for the Scourge Lords constantly going out to hunt other planes for resources and life forms to maintain the existence of the World of Disasters, it would have already fallen apart.

Meanwhile, the Titans were a powerful race that treated space as their home and the individual planes as dens in which they could rest. The smaller planar consciousnesses were nothing to the Titans. Naturally, they were unable to banish the Titans using the meager power of their systems.

To the Titans, planar worlds were only tools and toys. They did not possess the power to resist the Titans!

The Titans also carried the will of the multiverse upon their shoulders. They traveled the universe, responsible for exterminating any powerful creature that threatened the balance of the multiverse. Their conflicts against the Scourge Lords had become the one constant, unchanging theme in the past hundreds of thousands of years!

The powerful forces that were born in the various planar worlds were naturally opposed to the Scourge Lords. Still, many strange factions emerged from these assorted races and powers. Some aided the Scourge Lords in their destruction. Others helped the Titans in their war against the Scourge Lords, while many more preferred to remain neutral and support whichever side held the upper hand.

In this way, a complicated power system and universal politics had emerged, making for this brilliant, yet incredibly dangerous, world!