Age of Adepts

Space. Exodar Camp.

As usual, the camp was crowded and lively.

However, as expected of space, even an inconspicuous vendor on the street would be a Second Grade adept. Of course, Second Grade adepts who dared to come to space at their level did not dare to take even a single step out of Exodar Camp.

It was a simple reason; it was too dangerous out there!

The danger didn’t just come from the environment. No, the terrifying parts about Exodar Camp were the various unusual species that populated it.

No one knew what strange powers they had, nor their purpose in coming here. Were they here to trade? Were they here to hunt? The frailty of a human adept would be fully exposed should they take a single step out of the camp and lose the protection of the towers!

Greem wore a black traveler’s cloak that hid his entire body. He hastily emerged from a tower and looked around him to determine his direction. He did not head towards the center of the market but instead moved to the edge of the camp.

He passed many crowded places along the way and saw several otherworldly creatures of strange shapes and sizes. Some of them were galaxy wanderers, and others had come from lesser planes ruled by the adepts. They might be rulers over vast lands in their own worlds, or powerful fighters respected by all, but here they were only ordinary members in a massive crowd.

In fact, most of the time, they would be associated with the term ‘weak’ for the first time of their life!

This place was the adepts’ camp. Naturally, the adepts had the highest status here!

Ordinarily, no outsider would ever start a conflict against an adept in the camp.

Even though Greem was hiding his identity, the energy aura he faintly radiated still kept the crowd at bay. Everyone stayed out of his way.

After passing through the market and the miniature plain, Greem quickly arrived at the magic barrier.

There were two different worlds inside and beyond the barrier.

One was filled with the smell of grass and flowers and the pleasant chirping of birds. The other raged with wild winds and space vortices.

There was a vast field of greenery inside and dark empty rocks on the outside.

The rocks here could survive hundreds and thousands of years of corrosion by the spacestorms without disintegrating. If they were excavated, they would make excellent materials for the construction of adept towers.

Greem did not hesitate here. He put up a crimson energy shield around him and walked out of the barrier.

Sparks appeared around his shield the moment he stepped out of the barrier.

Greem was not surprised by this at all. He pulled his hood tighter over his head and flew into space. Red flames burst forth behind him, propelling him into the distance at incredible speed.

For the sake of secrecy, Greem had not used the short-range teleportation arrays of Exodar Camp when he arrived. Instead, he spent four days traveling the 1,500-kilometer distance on his own. Finally, he arrived at the edge of the massive stone where Exodar Camp was established.

Light and order had faded away at this point, replaced by vicious energy storms and endless space turbulence.

Greem stopped at the edge of the rock. He identified the directions before flying even further into the endless darkness.

Ever since he obtained the starbeast bloodline, these terrifying areas filled with violent space energy were no longer dangerous to him. Instead, it filled him with a sense of comfort, as if he was right at home.

He dispelled the energy shield and allowed the ferocious space energy to blow across his body. His Chaos Physique created several tiny energy vortices around him, absorbing all of the turbulent energy.

A portion of this energy was absorbed by his body to sustain Greem’s elementium consumption. At the same time, the rest was scattered out into space after neutralizing the chaotic power of the spacestorm.

Other adepts were not only unable to absorb any energy while in space, but even had to use their power to defend themselves. With the Chaos Physique, absorbing the ‘gentle’ space energy was as natural as breathing for Greem.

As long as he didn’t cast any major spells, his magic power would not decrease at all, but would instead slowly increase.

As he flew quickly through the silent darkness, he could occasionally see a few massive boulders around.

Some of these boulders were about a hundred meters in size, while others were as large as an entire mountain. One couldn’t help but wonder if it had been an individual of tremendous power who had used their supernatural strength to move a whole mountain range into space.

However, these rocks could only float endlessly in the darkness, silently waiting for the day they were ground down to dust by the ceaseless storms.

Greem stopped in front of a particularly large boulder.

It was a giant floating stone. It hovered in space like an upside-down pyramid. The rocks on the underside had already been badly eroded by the storm and were filled with countless holes. Meanwhile, what remained of the rocks gleamed with a shining radiance.

It was obvious that these rocks contained a high amount of rare metals!

It was these particles of metal that allowed the rock to resist the constant corrosion of space energy. Otherwise, as large as it was, it would already have shattered into tens of thousands of pieces before being entirely devoured by the space energy.

This giant rock fulfilled every single one of Greem’s conditions.

Flames erupted as Greem appeared on top of the relatively flat surface of the rock.

The rock was over fifty square kilometers in width on the surface, but, discounting the uneven terrain where humans could not live, there were only about thirty to forty square kilometers that could be used for a camp.

Greem investigated every single inch of the rock and found the best spot at the center.

Greem landed here and summoned the Third Grade elementium magical machine. He had it flatten and smoothen the ground until it was as smooth as a mirror. Greem then got to work, drawing a vast teleportation array here.

Even with the Chip’s aid to avoid any errors in the array, and even with Greem’s Chaos Physique allowing him to sustain his power in such a harsh environment, it took him over two weeks to draw this three hundred square-meter-wide array.

Seventeen days later.

When the teleportation array was finally finished, Greem let out a breath of relief. He took out several large crates of magical crystals from his storage ring and handed them to the elementium magical machine, while he sat down to meditate and recover.

After reaching Fourth Grade, this Third Grade elementium magical machine had become of significantly less use to him.

This elementium magical machine that had helped Greem so much in the past was no help against attacks of thousands of points. It would probably break from a single strike of the enemy. As such, Greem had not even wanted to summon it for the last few battles he had participated in.

It wasn’t just the elementium magical machine. Even the Fire Throne set, which Greem had personally crafted, was now on the verge of elimination. It was the first set of magical equipment he would replace, given the opportunity.

The trip to the Arcane Empire had allowed Greem to obtain some reasonably decent Fourth Grade equipment. Though the attributes of this equipment were not compatible with Greem’s fire attribute, they could still be of some use after modification.

This period of changing his Third Grade equipment with Fourth Grade equipment gave Greem some trouble. He was having difficulty finding stuff that suited him.

As he continued to think about his future plans for equipment, Greem ordered the elementium magical machine to place the magical crystals into the magic nodes of the array. Due to the lack of a stable energy supply, Greem could only extravagantly use magical crystals to sustain the teleportation array’s energy consumption.

The rest of the job took over two days to finish.

Once everything was done, Greem took to the air and used his Spirit to activate the energy in the array.

The nodes across the array started to light up, one by one. An overwhelming surge of magic energy began to flow through the circuits, causing all the nodes, cores, and lines along the way to turn bright white.

A massive energy barrier appeared, keeping out the space energy and protecting the more vulnerable circuits and nodes in the array. The surging space energy started to gather above the array, forming a black singularity the size of a fist.

As the energy continued to gather, the singularity began to collapse inwards, forming a small black hole that proceeded to tear open a rift in the air. This spatial rift was ten meters in length and one meter wide.

The rift slowly crawled and cracked open above the array, like an ugly centipede.

Greem spent tremendous effort to stabilize the spatial rift and allowed it to continue growing in size!

Greem stabilized the spatial rift from above, while the elementium magical machine continued to work below.

The teleportation array required a colossal amount of magic energy at every moment. As such, the magical crystals in the nodes of the array had to be replaced every fifteen minutes. This complicated task undoubtedly fell on the shoulders of the elementium magical machine.

The number of magical crystals being consumed every minute for the activation of a massive array like this was shocking. At the very least, an ordinary adept would not be able to tolerate such a tremendous expense!

When the rift above the array finally grew large and wide enough, Greem sent an unusual signal into the distance through a special mental connection.

Soon, the rift started to tremble and shake.

The smooth plane of space started to bulge outwards as if something humongous was trying to pass through the spatial rift and emerge here.

The bulge in space grew larger and larger until, finally, the spatial barrier shattered.

An unusual metal head reached out from within.