Age of Adepts

The Empowered Magic Essence was vastly inferior to Breeding Flowers when it came to effect alone.

After all, Breeding Flowers were the optimal solution to the adept’s problem of procreation. Empowered Magic Essence was, at the very best, a sort of stop-gap, an improvisational measure to make up for what couldn’t be achieved.

That said, Breeding Flowers were Sixth Grade items, while Greem’s Empowered Magic Essence was only a Fourth Grade item. It wasn’t hard to imagine which was harder to obtain.

If a Breeding Flower were to appear in Camp Exodar someday, the Sixth Grade adepts would probably be the first to get their hands all over it. Sainz would never even have the opportunity to see the flower.

Moreover, if Greem’s Empowered Magic Essence could indeed provide ordinary mortals with elementium affinity just as he claimed, then it would quickly become a much-demanded resource. When that happened, Sainz would not ever be able to obtain Empowered Magic Essence at such a low cost.

As such, just half a day later, Sainz traded an advanced Fourth Grade focusing crystal with Greem for one person’s worth of Magic Empowered Essence. As for its effects? He would be testing it on a suitable descendant in his clan.

After all, Sainz lacked no resources, knowledge, or magic. It was only unfortunate that his bloodline had regressed to a state where even apprentice adepts could not be found after two thousand years.

He couldn’t help but sigh in exasperation every time he thought about this. Yet, there was nothing he could do!

The Empowered Magic Essence had now provided his clan with a chance to rise to power once more.

Greem rushed excitedly into his alchemy lab once Sainz had left.

After a series of scans from the Chip, it was confirmed that the quality and magnification capacity of this Fourth Grade focusing crystal was far above that of the Third Grade crystal.

[Beep. Discovered one Fourth-Grade focusing crystal. Crystal toughness: 450 points. Magnification magnitude: 2.57x. State of focused energy: To be determined. Attribute of focused energy: No attributes. Attached elemental effects: Splash damage.]

A magnification magnitude of almost three times. Greem could increase the might of his spells by 2.57 times when he poured his Spirit into his fire spells through the focusing crystal. Moreover, the tremendous amount of Spirit mixed into the spell would cause it to gain a unique Splash effect.

Much like a soundwave, the spell would ripple and spread outwards upon impact, like a bursting water balloon. Although this splashing would take away part of the attack’s power, it was a decent method for dealing with hordes of enemies.

Offensive power magnified by 2.57 times?

Elementium adepts were already known for their fearsome offensive power, while fire adepts were acknowledged as the most destructive among all elementium adepts. If Greem’s offensive power was magnified by 2.57 times, his spells would be horrifyingly powerful.

With such tremendous firepower and the four fire principles he had mastered…

Even Greem himself couldn’t help but start shivering in uncontrollable excitement, let alone his enemies. For some reason, he couldn’t help but start looking forward slightly to that upcoming ‘mission of death.’

The effect of the focusing crystal might have been verified. However, if he was to use it in its current form, he would likely become the focus of his enemies in battle. Thus, Greem spent some more effort and very ingeniously embedded the crystal into the Burning Suncrown.

Greem would not usually run about with such a magical crown of such ornate and delicate design. He would only equip the Fire Throne set in combat. When he equipped the Burning Suncrown, the focusing crystal would be right upon his forehead. It was the most convenient position for him to unleash his Spirit.

The realms beyond might be incredibly dangerous, but they were also the best place to further train and refine an adept’s power.

As such, the World of Adepts had never severed its intimate relationships with all the adept camps in space.

Large clans and organizations could send groups of adepts to planar battlefields or space battlefields and have them rapidly grow amid fire and war. It might cause many casualties among the low-level adepts, but as long as a single one of these adepts could survive and improve upon the corpses of others, it would be worth it.

They would bring about returns ten times, a hundred times, as massive as what the clan had initially invested.

The Crimson Clan did not have the conditions to send their adepts to the realms beyond before this. They could only send their adepts to the more dangerous planar battlefields for training. Now that Greem had come here as a pioneer, he slowly figured out the situation in the realms beyond. He started to have thoughts and plans to expand the clan’s influence into the realms beyond.

Of course, this would all come after. Greem’s key concern at the moment was surviving that terrifying mission of death!

While Greem quietly made all sorts of preparations in the tower in anticipation of the mission, some unexpected ‘guests’ arrived to disturb his peace.

“Great Adept Anrimus? What did he send you here for?”

Greem stared at this strange Fourth Grade adept composed of two heads sharing a single body. It was a male and a female, both with very cold and austere expressions on their faces. He wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

In all honesty, most adepts would be mutated to some degree when they reached the higher grades. However, very few of them would mutate in such a severe fashion.

“Lord Anrimus heard you have a sort of Empowered Magic Essence in your hands that can provide ordinary people with elementium affinity. He specially sent us siblings to make a trade with you. This is what we brought with us. Take a look first!” The male head was the one who spoke. He referred to himself as the elder sibling. He had a stern face and a mean look to his eyes. The female head wasn’t ugly, either. On the contrary, she had quite a pretty appearance.

Unfortunately, despite the two heads and two consciousnesses, it seemed like only one of them could control the body at any one time.

While the brother spoke, the sister had her eyes closed. Her head hung limply to the side, seemingly in a state of deep sleep.

As the two-headed adept waved their hand, three items of unusual design floated before Greem.

Greem’s gaze lingered on the two-headed adept for a long time before finally shifting towards the first item.

There was a strange seed he had never seen before.

It was the size of an egg, while its surface was covered with strange magical patterns occasionally fading and appearing.

Natural magical patterns?

According to what Greem knew, lifeforms that possessed natural magical patterns all possessed unusual and unique effects!

Greem alone would never be able to memorize the hundreds of thousands of species of magical plants in the Adept’s Handbook, no matter how good of a memory he had. However, with the Chip’s aid, he was able to search the Chip’s database for the identity of the seed based on its shape, color, and unique aura. Soon, the Chip displayed its results.

A Sun Flowervine Seed.

When planted in a room and grown to maturity, Sun Flowervines could absorb magical power and release a strange fragrance that could bolster the effects of meditation.

It was said to be effective even for Fourth Grade adepts.

That alone made it a decent support resource for adepts!

As such, the Chip rated the seed as a Third Grade item that could be somewhat considered Fourth Grade in its effect.

The second item was a memory crystal.

Greem picked it up and lifted it to his forehead. His Spirit moved, and he sensed the information contained within.

It was a Fourth Grade fire spell that was contained within the memory crystal– Torrential Flames.

It could gather fire energy into a single beam of fire that would assault and flood the enemy from any angle. Its power was around 1400 to 1600 points.

Out of considerations of confidentiality, only the first half of the information within was revealed. The other information relating to the actual casting, chants, and spiritual movements were all sealed with magic.

Greem hesitated for a moment and put the crystal back into the air. He turned to look at the third item.

It was an actual fire coral staff.

Its dark-red head, its body, drawn full of strange patterns, and the warm heat pressing against Greem’s face all pointed towards its real identity.

A Fourth Grade fire staff!

It could enhance Greem’s fire damage by seven percent.

Seven percent might not seem like much, but with the improvement in Greem’s magical abilities, any percentage increase often meant over a hundred point increase in energy damage.

As such, a seven-percent fire damage enhancement was already very impressive for the Fourth Grade Greem!

Greem slowly looked at the three Fourth Grade items before him. He couldn’t say he wasn’t moved, but it wasn’t as if he had to make this trade.

If Greem brought the fire coral staff along with him to battle, it would mean that he had completely given up on melee combat. He would be fixing his position as one of a spellcaster.

That was truly a significant waste of his potential, given his great Physique and decent Strength!

He didn’t really have to have the Fourth Grade fire spell either.

The first thing that the Chip had been busy with since Greem’s advancement to Fourth Grade was the calculation and improvement of the Third Grade spells he currently possessed.

Currently, the Third Grade Vicious Fireball had been upgraded to the Fourth Grade Blazing Fireball.

The Third Grade Flamegate had been improved to the Fourth Grade Molten Fire Gate.

The Third Grade Meteor Swarm had been upgraded to the Fourth Grade Meteorite Bombardment.

The Third Grade Magma Armor had been upgraded to the Fourth Grade Blaze Form.

Apart from these spells, Fire Teleportation had also been improved and optimized by a certain degree.

It allowed Greem’s offensive power to increase exponentially, from the 400-500 base damage to the current 700-900 base damage. In addition to all the magical equipment he was wearing and his fire specialization, a tiny fireball from Greem would have around 1300-1500 points of power.

Of course, if he were to combine all this with the focusing crystal he had just obtained, the upper limit of his damage reached a shocking 3900 points.

It was far too shocking for a Fourth Grade adept who had just advanced not ten years ago!

It was all these factors that made these three Fourth Grade items not as appealing to Greem.

Greem’s hesitation and dissatisfaction fell on the eyes of the two-headed adept as well. He couldn’t help but be slightly surprised at this.

Great Adept Anrimus was a Sixth Great Adept from the Adept’s Association. To think that the things he offered would be rejected by a mere Fourth Grade adept. It was unbelievable!

As the Great Adept’s messenger, he could not afford to lose face in this manner.