Age of Adepts

Hierro was the God of Wisdom.

He might not be a particularly significant god, but he held the secrets of the gods in his hands.

There was no doubt that the Libram of Wisdom that he had personally created was a powerful artifact.

After being influenced and charmed by the Libram of Wisdom, Greem had to go into deep meditation to remove the divine power from his Spirit. It was a long and arduous process, but it was very much worth it.

At the very least, Greem’s Spirit had gone from 40 points to 41 points after reading the first page of the Libram! That was his greatest reward from doing so!

After advancing to Fourth Grade, increasing Spirit had become very difficult. This fact was well-known to adepts.

After the multiple bloody battles in Morrian Plane and the stimulation of the divine power in the Libram of Wisdom, Greem’s Spirit had finally increased by one point. It wasn’t hard to imagine that, in the near future, the Libram of Wisdom would bring about a decent improvement to his Spirit.

However, Greem’s soul origin was still recovering from his injury. An excessive burden on his Spirit was not conducive to this recovery process.

With the Chip’s planning, Greem only read the Libram of Wisdom once a month. With the rest of his time, Greem started to organize and optimize the knowledge he had obtained from the Arcane Empire.

The information on the floating rings that he sold to Molten Fire City Lord Alfred was only the initial version. Obviously, he didn’t want to use such crude, unrefined knowledge for himself. Greem had the Chip continue the optimization of the floating ring technology.

However, compared to the low-level technology of a floating ring, what attracted Greem’s attention the most out of the Arcane Empire’s knowledge system was their fearsome pseudo-planar fortresses.

The Arcane Empire had transformed many pseudo-planes into impenetrable fortresses.

Every time the Arcane Empire launched an invasion, these pseudo-planes would charge from the frontlines, with floating fortresses serving as their artillery. One could claim that most of the hundreds of lesser planes ruled by the Arcane Empire at its peak were conquered by these pseudo-planar fortresses.

If Greem wanted to replicate the former glory of the Arcane Empire, he would have to conduct comprehensive and in-depth research into spell pools, magic pools, arcane cores, and the many other gems of the Arcane Empire’s knowledge system.

It was an exceedingly large and complicated knowledge system of a completely different type to the adept’s knowledge. Even with the Chip’s aid, Greem would require a tremendous amount of time to transplant the knowledge into the adepts’ magic system.

Thus, he was in no real hurry. He continued to mend his injury as he silently waited for news.

Two weeks later, the first good news arrived.

The Shadowsteel unit in the laboratory had been completed!

Greem hurried to the alchemy lab immediately upon receiving the news. An unusual magical machine floated in the room in midair, waiting silently with both arms hanging by its side.

This magical machine was over seven feet tall and made of a dark black metal that could absorb all incoming light. Its body was a thin, metallic frame shrouded by an impenetrable black mist.

At the tip of its long and slender limbs were sharp metal claws, while its dark, sinister head was hidden inside the mist. Only two ghostly lights could be seen shining in its eye sockets.

It did not walk firmly on the ground like ordinary machines. Instead, it hovered in midair, as if weightless, gliding silently above the ground as it moved.

Greem was unusually weak during this period of recovery. He could hardly conduct any form of combat against Fourth Grade enemies. The creation of this intermediate Fourth Grade Shadowsteel magical machine perfectly filled in for Greem’s currently missing combat power.

With the Shadowsteel machine, Greem had confidence in teaching any invaders a painful lesson, even if he was still significantly weakened at the moment!

“Shadow Demon, attack me!” Greem wanted to test the might of the Shadowsteel machine. He summoned a Lava Shield in front of him.

Upon receiving Greem’s order, Shadow Demon slowly floated over. Its sharp metal claw only pierced lightly, yet a massive hole had been carved out in the Lava Shield despite its seven hundred points of power.

The retaliatory fire damage from the Lava Shield only caused the mist around Shadow Demon to tremble slightly before dissipating entirely.

Even though this attack was only a test, Greem had still managed to obtain the data he wanted.

The base attack power of the Shadow Demon’s claws was 400 points. However, as this was a multi-strike attack, a single assault from the Shadow Demon could inflict as much as 400×6 points of physical damage. In addition to the shadow shockwave that came along with the strike, the Shadow Demon’s total damage was between 2900 to 3200 points.

It was almost equal to Greem’s offensive power at his peak!

“Shadow Demon, hide in my shadow!” After testing the machine’s offensive power, Greem wanted to test its stealth.

The Shadow Demon flickered and appeared behind Greem. Its massive body squeezed slightly and disappeared into Greem’s shadow.

Greem looked down at his feet.

With how brightly lit the alchemy lab was, his shadow had been cornered to a small spot under his feet. It was hard to imagine that such a gigantic magical machine could hide inside his shadow.

As Greem moved around, his shadow started to stretch and shift around. Yet, he felt no signs of life or energy aura from it.

Greem casually created a small fireball in his palm and hurled it at the shadow. The ground rumbled, and the shadow was split up by the explosion of light. However, he still couldn’t detect any signs of an energy aura.

Even when the flames had faded and the shadow appeared beneath his feet again, Greem could not sense anything unusual about it.

However, as a blue light gleamed in Greem’s black eyes, he was finally able to see a small cluster of inky darkness roaming in the shadows with his Elementium Sight.

Moreover, as the master of Shadow Demon, Greem had a trace of a soul connection with the machine. Even without Elementium Sight, he could faintly detect its presence and its approximate location.

After examining Shadow Demon’s stealth ability from several angles, Grem finally nodded in satisfaction.

With the protection of the Shadow Demon, his personal safety was once again assured!

…………

Inside Fire Cave.

A small cluster of shadow was slowly moving through the crimson cave.

It was the only path into Fire Throne and the region where the fire creatures and magical machines were most concentrated. Anyone that wished to infiltrate Fire Throne had to make it past this path.

Karin was a young witch with brown skin, blue eyes, and a terrific figure. The tight-fitting black dragon leather armor she wore further emphasized her beauty. Black mist cloaked her body as she slowly moved through the shadows of the magical machines.

The magical machines in Fire Cave were stationed as guards and defended every corridor and cave. Meanwhile, the fire creatures were patrols and wandered in the winding cave.

Whenever they found an invader, all of the guards would be alerted, and they would eliminate the enemy with brutal firepower.

Karin was only a Third Grade Dark Witch, and the tower she was trying to infiltrate was a private tower belonging to the Fourth Grade legendary fire adept.

Such an action would not be wise in any other situation.

However, she could not refuse the stern instructions from the clan headquarters. She could only grit her teeth and commit to this terrifying, impossible mission!

She had already done her research on the legendary fire adept Greem before she came here.

The more she found out, and the more detailed the information she obtained, the more scared she became.

He was not an ordinary newly advanced Fourth Grade adept!

His reputation, his results in combat– all of it had been written down with the blood of his enemies.

The terrifying part was that the clan had sent her here to infiltrate the tower on an unimaginable task. She was to investigate the whereabouts of a certain thing and steal it– the Orb of Shadows. That was what horrified Karin the most and struck her with utter disbelief!

The Orb of Shadows. Wasn’t that the most important origin treasure of the Dark Witches? How did it fall into the hands of a seemingly unrelated legendary fire adept in the center of the continent?

Were the authorities at clan headquarters all useless fools? They lost the Orb of Shadows, and still, they did not launch a war against the aggressor?

Furiously cursing at the authorities that sent her here, Karin carefully avoided the fire creatures and specifically traveled through the shadows of the magical machines.

The previous moment, she was hiding beneath the feet of a magical machine, and the next, she was in the shadows of a corridor.

Perhaps the slight energy flux from Shadowstalking had attracted the fire creature’s attention. A particularly large and ferocious Blazing Guardian stopped in the corridor and glared with its smoldering eyes. It looked around in confusion.

Karin, who was hiding in the shadow of the ceiling, became nervous. Her pretty eyes narrowed and she restrained all killing intent, evaluating the guard with calm, composed eyes.

Blazing Guardians were not particularly powerful fire creatures. They only had the strength of advanced First Grades!

Karin only needed a flick of her finger to kill a Blazing Guard like this. However, in this environment, any action would alert all of the enemies. Should she touch this Blazing Guardian, her infiltration mission would fail.

Karin became frustrated upon thinking about the punishment she would receive in the clan for having failed her mission. Even her aura started to become unstable.

Fortunately, the difference in power between her and the Blazing Guardian was simply too significant. When dedicating all her strength to hiding, the chances of being discovered was impossibly slim.

Thus, after discovering nothing out of the ordinary, the Blazing Guardian casually walked out and continued to stroll in this area where the fire elementium was denser than usual.

Karin couldn’t help but let out a breath of relief. She continued on her journey!