Age of Adepts

He was a commander and a tyrant that ruled over his own land in the World of Adepts.

Yet, upon arriving at the realms beyond, Greem had instantly become a completely clueless rookie. He couldn’t quite get used to this sudden shift in mentality.

It almost felt like he had returned to his time as an apprentice, shuddering as he stepped into the tower, and being unsure of what to do or where to go.

After a moment’s hesitation, Greem finally recalled the name that the old adept had left behind before he left.

Martin. He had better look for him first to understand more about this Camp Exodar!

The tower that the Zhentarim Association had constructed here was of incredible quality. It had seventeen levels in total, enough for as many as three hundred adepts to reside within it.

Unfortunately, only thirty to forty adepts were living in the tower at the moment. Moreover, these adepts spent most of their time huddled in the library, the labs, or their rooms. It felt like the place was unpopulated when Greem walked down the wide and bright corridors. He couldn’t see a single person anywhere.

Finally, while Greem was randomly wandering through the halls, he somehow managed to trigger the defensive system of the tower.

He was stopped at a stone door that required a magical password for passage.

Countless tiny holes appeared on the smooth wall to his side, and beams of red light shone upon Greem’s face. A translucent human face made out of light projections appeared in front of him.

“Foreign adept, state your identity immediately! You will be forcibly expelled from this tower if you do not have an invitation from an adept in the tower. If you resist, this tower spirit will immediately retaliate. Speak; who are you?”

The human face was translucent, but its eyebrows and facial features were quite similar to Adept Sainz’s appearance. Even the sharp and impatient voice was like a copy of Adept Sainz.

“You must be the tower spirit here! I was about to look for you to ask a question. I just teleported over from Zhentarim, and Lord Sainz had me look for an adept called Martin. Do you know—”

“Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! That old fool! Why did he not record such an important matter in the control core? This is classic Sainz irresponsibility! I must complain about him to Lady Jima. Very well. I have confirmed your identity. This is your identity plate. Keep it well. You must have it on your person while you are traveling within the tower. As for the Martin you mentioned, he lives on the seventh level. I will be teleporting you over now.”

A milky-white halo descended from above and engulfed Greem’s body before he could respond.

The next second, lights flickered, and Greem appeared in a long stone corridor. A metal door stood before him, shut tight and protected by an energy barrier, cutting off any possibility of spiritual probing.

Greem lowered his head. There was now a golden wood plate carved with all sorts of strange runes in his hand.

It must be the identity plate that the tower spirit mentioned!

Greem shook his head slowly. Clearly, he was somewhat disappointed in the atmosphere and attitude towards adepts here.

After a moment of hesitation, he stepped forward and extended a hand to touch the energy barrier on the surface of the door.

A visible ripple appeared on the barrier of light. It seemed to perform a quick scan of Greem’s aura before spreading rapidly to the surroundings.

A short moment later, the metal door in front of him opened, and the energy barrier dissipated. A tall and handsome male adept grumbled as he stepped out from the room.

“Always bothering me at the most crucial moment of my experiments. Really, I say…hm? You are?” The male adept lifted his head and looked at the unfamiliar Greem.

Greem quickly sensed with his Spirit, even though the adept was protected by an invisible energy forcefield that shielded him from all spiritual probes. However, the Chip still managed to rapidly estimate the adept’s approximate power based on the degree of spatial distortion caused by his energy forcefield.

Fourth Grade. This male adept was a Fourth Grade too!

“You must be Sir Martin! I am Greem. I just arrived in this tower today.”

“Greem. The fellow that got recommended here by the Zhentarim Association to carry out that dead man’s missi—” Adept Martin was clearly a very forward person as well. He only realized the inappropriateness of his remark halfway through and quickly stopped himself. “Welcome, welcome. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“I just arrived at this tower. May I know what are the rules here? I will have to trouble Sir Martin to give me an introduction.”

“This is no problem. You don’t have to call me ‘sir’ either. Just call me by my name! In a place like this, beyond the planar realms, the only one you can rely on is yourself. As long as you are capable, no one will dare to mess with you.” Adept Martin was truly a very straightforward man. “Your room has been arranged, hasn’t it?”

“706!”

“That’s fairly close to where we are now. Come, I’ll lead you there!”

The two adepts walked down the corridor, took a few turns, and finally arrived at a metal door.

The defensive array carved onto the door had not been activated, indicating that no one had taken up residence here yet.

A strange cat’s head with magical gemstones for eyes had been carved onto the center of the door. It had eyes, nose, mouth, whiskers, and was almost life-like in appearance.

“Pass your identity plate to it. This will be your room from now on!”

Greem took out his identity plate and put it into the cat’s mouth after hearing Adept Martin’s words. The cat opened its ruby eyes and scanned Greem.

The cat’s head mysteriously vanished once Greem retrieved his identity plate.

The door then swung open, and a series of odd passwords and scattered bits of information suddenly appeared in his mind.

[Beep. Detecting a set of non-conscious data streams. Initial estimates suggest that the data is authority codes for the magical room. Requesting instructions from the host. Receive data?]

“Receive!”

Greem gave his order, and the Chip rapidly saved the codes to the room. Should Greem have any needs in the future, he only needed to think, and the Chip would be able to help him control everything inside the room.

Moreover, the presence of the Chip also allowed Greem to rapidly find any inappropriate or undesirable elements in the room’s defensive array and deal with it. That would save Greem plenty of time.

“Very well, then. Settle down here for the moment! If there’s anything you need, you can talk to the tower spirit directly through the identity plate. The tower spirit is actually a soul clone of the first master of the tower. It’s got a nasty mouth, but it’s usually quite kind.”

“Also, since you’ve just arrived, you can take a tour around the camp. You should be able to find quite a lot of rare items you won’t be able to find inside the material planes. That said, they are quite expensive.”

“The currency here is still the same. Magical crystals are the most widely accepted coin.”

“That said, you still have to be a little careful. Since you are a rookie, you had best not step out of the camp unless there’s something urgent. Only think of adventuring once you’ve completely adapted to the environment here. Otherwise—”

Martin suddenly lowered his voice.

“—be careful. There might not be much danger inside the camp, but there are always hunters of other races. They like hiding in the camp under the guise of wanderers, but they will immediately turn on you once they’ve lured you into the wilderness where there’s no one else. You must be careful!”

Adept Martin rambled on, listing out all the things to look out for in Camp Exodar. It wasn’t until Greem reminded him of his magical experiment that he let out a gasp of realization and fled back to his room.

Greem took a tour around his room alone once Martin had left.

The room was approximately three thousand square feet in size. It had a living room, bedroom, study, storeroom, showroom, material storage room, a small magical lab, a small alchemy lab, and a magic practice range.

It was a top-class adept’s tower, after all. The living conditions of a Fourth Grade adept’s room would not be too shabby.

However, the daily cost of living in a room like this was three hundred magical crystals.

High-Grade adepts with no background would not be able to sustain such tremendous spending for extended periods. However, a Fourth Grade adept like Greem, who was supported by the assets of an entire clan, would never be bothered by such a small expenditure.

The realms beyond were both a dangerous place and a treasure trove with unlimited resources.

The spacestorm raging on outside the tower was like the mouth of a ferocious beast. No man nor thing could escape under their own power if they were caught within its jaws. Even a planar world hosting billions of lives would be shredded to pieces and turned into dust if the storm caught it.

Most of the substance within the plane would be destroyed by the endless energy tides, ground into fine dust, and scattered across space. Only substances or items with unusual power could escape the collapse of their plane, traveling through millions of kilometers of energy tides to arrive here in the peaceful eye of the storm.

In conclusion, what could survive a plane being torn to shreds by a spacestorm was the essence of the essence. It was naturally shockingly valuable.

As such, one would always find valuable treasures hardly found in the outside world if they have been staying in the eye of the storm for a while!

However, to forge a living here, one would have to possess incredible Physique and power. To find treasure, one would have to be able to resist the corrosion of space energy and beat back any greedy competitors who had their eyes set on their prize.

Greem’s vision had been limited to the World of Adepts in the past. He had only heard stories of the realms beyond but never had the power to set out to explore.

He could take this opportunity of executing the mission to extend the Crimson Clan’s influence into this strange outer space, where everything was twisted and distorted.

However, at the moment, the Crimson Clan lacked sufficiently strong individuals who could be stationed in Camp Exodar.

Snorlax had expanded the Goblin Chamber of Commerce to a great degree in the World of Adepts, with many members and widespread influence. However, not a single candidate could be found in the Goblin Chamber of Commerce who could be stationed here.

Ordinary Second Grades would have trouble even surviving here, let alone expanding the clan’s business.

Amongst the Third Grade adepts of the clan, Oliven’s status was a little unique, making her ill-suited for such public affairs. Mary walked the path of a blood queen. Blood was what grew her power, as was conflict and war. She was not suited for a stationed position in this land. Alice, on the other hand, was engaged in a deathmatch with Witch Maysa. She hardly even dared to take a single step out of the Tower of Fate on normal occasions. How could she ever appear here in the realms beyond?

Greem couldn’t help but fall into silent brooding when the thought of the lack of Third Grade adepts within the clan.