Age of Adepts

Half a day later, the exchange was finally completed.

Schreiber traded his Fire’s Blast for Greem’s Fire’s Resilience.

Schreiber left excitedly after they exchanged law runes. It was obvious he was in a hurry to get back and master the law within the rune.

However, a trade like this wasn’t the end of the matter. There were a lot of things to be done after obtaining a new law rune.

Even having obtained the law rune of Fire’s Resilience, Schreiber would still have to decipher the correct law from within and convert it into part of his flames. The chances of succeeding with all these were still relatively low.

There were all sorts of fire laws in a planar world.

Even the same fire law would have different effectiveness when used by different adepts. Take Increased Fire Range, for example. It increased Greem’s spell range by three to five kilometers, while Schreiber’s spell range was increased by up to six kilometers.

Most of the time, the power of the laws directly correlated with the caster’s affinity.

The greater your affinity, the more powerful the law. The weaker your affinity, the weaker its effects. Meanwhile, the energy level of the laws, as recorded in the books, was often the average or median value.

If Schreiber had extremely high fire affinity, deciphering Fire’s Resilience would be an endeavor that was very likely to succeed. Conversely, if he failed to decipher the rune, all he would obtain would be some understanding of the fire laws!

Both adepts knew about this going into the deal. As such, neither of them could be sure who would come out on top with this exchange. However, with the Chip’s aid, Greem’s chances of failing to decipher the Fire’s Blast rune was close to zero.

After seeing Schreiber off, Greem activated all the arrays in the room and sealed himself inside.

This place was Adept’s Association territory, after all. It wasn’t the best place to attend to some more sensitive and private matters. However, with Shadow Demon as his guard, his safety was basically assured.

The first thing Greem did upon entering the room was to conduct a comprehensive self-examination.

He lay on his luxurious bed, his consciousness instantly sinking into the depths of his mind.

Greem’s affinity was fire elementium. As such, his mind took the form of a boundless sea of flames. The fires burned silently, the entire world a stretch of crimson red.

A red crystal hovered above the flames at the center of this world. It remained unmoving regardless of how the flames beneath raged and burned. It simply stood there, silent and peaceful.

However, when you approached the crystal, you could see turmoil within its structure through its countless smooth faces. It seemed as if a terrifying world of fire was contained within.

At this moment, three law runes, still burning with golden flames, descended from the sky. They stopped near the red crystal and started to circle it wildly as if searching for their proper position.

When Greem’s mental consciousness descended on this strange world, the entire world began to bubble with liveliness.

The consciousness core wasn’t a physical place that existed. Instead, it was a mental projection formed from the amalgamation of the soul, flesh, and consciousness of highly intelligent lifeforms. Its existence was incredibly significant for an intelligent being!

If the most important thing for a body-refining adept was the assimilation of flesh with their mental consciousness, then the most important thing for an elementium adept was to assimilate their soul with their mental consciousness.

That was why body-refining adepts sought an immortal body, using all sorts of means to repeatedly refine their physical form, ultimately forging their very consciousness into their flesh. They were creating a unified self through a powerful and immortal body to reach a higher level of existence.

Meanwhile, most elementium adepts couldn’t care less about their physical bodies. They focused solely on strengthening their soul and mental consciousness to achieve an undying soul free from the physical body’s limitations. However, the soul and mental consciousness were immaterial things, after all. They still required a medium or a container of sorts.

The consciousness core projected with the mind of an elementium adept was this special container with which to hold one’s soul and consciousness.

Thus, even if their physical body were to be completely destroyed, they could continue existing in a state of pure energy!

In particular, after advancing into principle adepts, the projected consciousness core would no longer need to be the container of their soul and consciousness. Instead, it would be replaced by the planar laws they had mastered.

They divided their mental consciousness into countless consciousness fragments and embedded them into the planar world’s law system. In doing so, their souls would become truly immortal as long as the law system still existed!

Even if their enemies utterly destroyed the adept’s body, and the adept’s descendants were hunted down and killed, the adept would eventually regain consciousness as the consciousness fragments in the planar laws gathered together.

Take Alice, for example. The First Witch of Fate had left the World of Adepts tens of thousands of years ago, yet her powers continued to influence the will of the World of Adepts.

There was a thousand-year-period where her legacy had been severed. However, as long as the law system remained, the consciousness fragments that Maysa left within the system would spread throughout the world.

Once these consciousness fragments gathered in sufficient quantity and conformed with specific planar laws, a new Battle of Fate would begin.

Anyone who unintentionally assimilated a consciousness fragment belonging to Maysa would become a host of her consciousness. They would gather together, guided by the mysterious power of Fate, where they would viciously devour each other. In the end, a new Maysa would be born!

The moment this new Maysa was born, she would inherit all the Fate power that the Fate Witches had accumulated in their absence. Furthermore, once she advanced to Fifth Grade and stepped out into the World of Adepts, it would finally be time for the new and old Maysas to merge.

Through such a process of accumulation and assimilation, Maysa was able to continuously leech off of the World of Adept’s Fate power, even after having left this world tens of thousands of years ago.

Being parasitized by an insect that it had exiled from this planar world long ago…was obviously not something that the world consciousness could permit!

Thus, after several cycles, it finally retaliated.

It retaliated through Alice’s hands, intending to cut Maysa out of this never-ending Battle of Fate, rearrange the laws of Fate, and dispose of the illogical parts that threatened the World of Adepts.

The world consciousness had no limbs to speak of. Naturally, it had no means of completing such a task on its own.

That was why it chose to shelter Alice and Greem, who stood opposed to Maysa. It was relying on them to achieve this monumental task for itself!

If Greem had only been somewhat aware of this, he now better understood this mission entrusted to him now that he had advanced to Fourth Grade. His connection to the world consciousness had become stronger as he advanced.

As Greem completely immersed himself in his consciousness core, he could clearly sense the world consciousness’ emotions. Its joy, anger, anxiety, and its expectations.

The World of Adepts was too large, after all. Its planar consciousness could not be as sensitive, sharp, or responsive as an ordinary lifeform. It was mostly like a giant infant, relaying its emotions through instinct, incapable of expressing its thoughts coherently.

However, in the subconscious of the World of Adepts, Greem was classified as one of its own. It was incredibly obvious in the path of growth and development that Greem had experienced so far.

When Greem’s consciousness descended to the core, this projected space seemed to take on a life of its own. Waves of fire lashed out from the sea of flames. The entire space blazed furiously, preparing for the arrival of Greem’s soul.

Greem’s consciousness body appeared above the crystal. He looked at this rowdy world of fire and started to materialize the rest of the law runes without any hesitation.

Increased Fire Range, Increased Fire Effectiveness, Fire Penetration, Invisible Flames, Fire’s Blast, Critical Fires, Fire’s Fragility, and Fire’s Resilience.

Eight unusual runes that contained refined fire laws started to circle the red crystal incessantly, occasionally clashing with it and causing sparks to appear. Their movements caused the consciousness core to tremble slightly, resulting in the world of fire itself becoming destabilized.

If the law runes were allowed to collide with the consciousness core in this manner, the consciousness space would start to fall apart. Even as talented as he was, Greem would suffer from such an occurrence.

Naturally, he would not just stand by and watch this happen. He extended his mental appendage forward, attempting to guide these law runes into the consciousness core.

Unfortunately, it was incredibly difficult to have them quietly assimilate with the consciousness core. It was almost as if there was powerful repulsion between each of these runes.

“Chip, what is happening? Why are they repelling each other so strongly? Aren’t they fire laws that I materialized?” Greem could not understand what was happening.

[Beep. Host has missed the best opportunity to assimilate the law runes.]

“Best opportunity; when would that be?”

[When you mastered your first law rune. Other elementium adepts are unable to master multiple law runes in a short time. They are able to merge their law runes with their consciousness in a timely manner every time they master a new one. Then, they condition their consciousness core to accept the next rune through a long period of adjustment, aided with potions.

[The assimilation of law runes is much easier and safer this way as well.

[Host obtained a large amount of law runes through calculations. By choosing to assimilate eight law runes all at once, the difficulty is eight times that of the average adept.]

Damn! Greem finally understood where he went wrong once he heard the Chip’s explanation!