Age of Adepts

Gods were a majestic, higher lifeform.

Compared to mortals, gods had immortal bodies and undying souls. They were practically perfect beings that could exist in perpetuity.

However, the gods’ frustrations and agonies were also billions of times more than what mortals had to experience!

Just as humans had allies and enemies, the mighty gods also had their own rivals and opponents. Naturally, the enemy of a god could only be another god!

If a mortal was defeated in war, they might lose their home, their family, and die a tragic death. However, if a god was defeated in battle, they would suffer a far more horrendous fate!

Any individual that could become a god would have an immortal body and an undying soul. They could be tortured and humiliated for billions of years if their enemies captured them.

To avoid such a tragic ending, most gods would take the most drastic of actions when faced with inevitable defeat. They would destroy their own god kingdoms, disintegrate their bodies, and self-destruct their souls. The only goal was to prevent a single thing of theirs falling into the hands of their enemy.

Meanwhile, those who refused to give up entirely would choose self-exile instead!

Before the god was wholly defeated, they would push their god kingdom into the turbulent depths of space, preventing their enemies from giving chase. Meanwhile, they would have no choice but to abandon all their believers in their origin plane, leaving them to the mercy of the enemy faith.

Without believers and faith, the defeated god would naturally lose the ability to sustain their massive god kingdom. When that happened, the god’s only option was to keep the god kingdom running with the use of divine crystals they had put away prior to this.

The god itself would choose to go into eternal sleep to reduce the divine power consumption of the god kingdom.

Thus, a god kingdom that was once populated with countless believers and holy messengers became void of all life. A once-glorious god kingdom was reduced to a desolate tomb.

There were only two outcomes for gods that chose such a path of self-exile.

It was possible that the remnants of their believers left in their origin plane would be able to rise from the ashes once again, gathering enough believers and faith to pull the wandering god kingdom back to their world.

Or all the believers would be hunted down, and the source of faith would be severed entirely. If that happened, then the moment the god kingdom’s reserve of divine crystals came to an end would be the moment the god kingdom fell apart. The god’s body would then disintegrate, their soul scattered into oblivion!

Certain once-powerful and worshipped gods might have a tremendous supply of divine crystals stored in their god kingdoms.

It could take tens of thousands of years of aimless drifting before their god kingdom finally fell apart.

However, even in exile, the gods and their kingdoms were not necessarily safe!

A god kingdom wandering on its lonesome in the depths of space, through the endless spacestorms, was a feast for predators from other words. Of course, their god kingdoms could be dangerous death traps as well.

If these hunters happened to approach at the right time when the exiled god’s power was at their weakest, they would be able to obtain unimaginable riches and resources.

Even a starved camel was larger than a horse!

As broken and poor as a god was, you would still be able to find several powerful artifacts if you scoured their entire god kingdom. Even a single artifact would be more than worth the investment for most hunters.

Of course, if these hunters were unfortunate and approached the god kingdom while the exiled god still had some power to spare, it might be an entirely different story. There was also scum that set traps ahead of time and baited hunters into these traps with the god kingdom as bait.

After all, it was already incredibly fortunate to be able to find a broken god kingdom wandering about in space. You couldn’t possibly also hope for the god in that god kingdom to be on their dying breath, only waiting for someone to walk in and slit their throat. The possibility of an occurrence like that was far, far too low!

That was why the discovery of every ancient god ruin represented a tremendous risk.

The ruins might have already been visited by countless hunters, leaving not a single thing behind. It was also possible that a mad god had intentionally spread false information with the intent of luring in the greedy to kill every last one of them.

That was why Greem remained expressionless when Obiola mentioned the ruins of an ancient god, even though the offer indeed attracted him.

His path to Fifth Grade couldn’t be any clearer now. All he had to do was walk down this path. Crossing the limits of the plane and becoming a Great Adept was only a matter of time. Going on an adventure into the ruins of some ancient god at this point was just finding trouble for himself.

In all honesty, even if there were such ruins, Greem would rather explore it after he had advanced to Fifth Grade. At any rate, with how fast he was progressing, advancement to Fifth Grade would happen in the next three to four hundred years.

That much time was basically nothing in relation to an ancient god’s ruins. There would be no problem delaying such an exploration.

Furthermore, Obiola was an elder of the Adept’s Association. There was no way he could have revealed information about these ruins without having first provided this information to the Association. That also meant that the Adept’s Association must have organized an exploration party of their own to excavate the ruins.

If he were to intervene in this matter as well, he would undoubtedly run into the Association’s forces.

When that happened, they would both be working towards their own ends, and conflict would be unavoidable.

Perhaps he knew Greem’s concerns, but Obiola immediately said, “Don’t worry, the Adept’s Association will not be involved in any sort of excavation with regards to these ruins!”

“Why not?” Greem couldn’t understand.

“Hahaha. Only adepts outside the Association like yourself would ask this question.” Obiola replied proudly. “Our Adept’s Association has countless clues to many such ruins and mystic realms. There are only so many Fourth Grade adepts in the Association, on the other hand. To verify all these claims, investigate all these clues and search for all that treasure is a very exhausting task in itself.

“That is why the Association is focusing its forces on exploring the more easily excavated locations. As for ruins as mysterious and unknown as the one I mentioned, we don’t quite have the manpower required for an exploratory trip at the moment. Otherwise, I would not have offered it as part of our exchange!”

Greem couldn’t help but frown. “How can I trust that the information you provide me will be accurate?”

Obiola put on a wide grin as he said, “I heard you are on…good terms with that witch in the North. Can’t she tell you if the clues I give you are real or fake? Moreover, do I look like the kind of guy that cheats other people with fake information?”

Seeing that Greem was interested, Obiola took out a worn-out magical ring and threw it at Greem. “This is a ring I found in the realms beyond. Its seller mentioned that it came from an ancient ruin. You can verify that with that Witch of Fate and come back to me if you are interested in this deal. I will trade the clues to the ruins’ location for your divine creature’s egg. That shouldn’t be a problem, eh?”

Obiola did not say anything more. He turned and left Greem’s room.

Greem rubbed this faded magical ring of strange design between his fingers as he watched the adept leave. His heart couldn’t help but start beating faster.

It would be a lie to say that the idea of these ruins did not move him!

Any random ancient god was a terrifying existence of Fifth Grade or above. The fact that their god kingdoms could drift through those spacestorms untouched for so many eons was a testament to their power in life.

Such gods could easily have been Sixth or Seventh Grade, and no one would disagree with such an assessment.

If Greem could rob one god kingdom, he would no longer need to worry about resources and treasure for the next thousand years. He wouldn’t be the only one to have his pockets filled to the brim. Even the Crimson Clan would benefit significantly from scouring such ruins.

Greem’s path forward might be clearer than ever, but he still needed to make considerations for Mary and Alice.

Greem immediately contacted Alice, who was far away in the North.

After exchanging a few words, Greem tore a rift in space and sent the magical ring to Alice’s hands.

A short moment later, Alice’s figure appeared in a magical mirror.

“Do you want the good news or the bad news?”

Greem already had an answer in mind when he heard Alice’s question.

“The good news is that the ancient god ruin does exist, and the bad news is that this is a trap laid down by our old friend Maysa, isn’t it?” Greem sighed as he said.

“It seems like you’ve figured it out!” Alice smiled sweetly as she replied, “In all honesty, Maysa did a very clean job on this one. I can only confirm that this ring is related to a god of death. I couldn’t find any signs of interference from Maysa. However, the fact that this information just so happened to reach your ears, and all the coincidences that led up to this point, match Maysa’s modus operandi.

“Since we already have some idea of what’s happening…tell me, what’s your plan? Are you going to reject Obiola’s offer?”

“Reject the offer? Why would I?” Greem suddenly chuckled. “If this is indeed a trap laid out by Maysa, then it’s very likely that the ruins are real and that there’s an actual living god still inside those ruins. She wants to avoid drawing our suspicion, after all.”

“But this is obviously a trap she arranged. If we trace her path, we will inevitably fall into that trap!”

“What if we aren’t the ones that go?”

“Er……”

Greem smiled when he saw Alice with her jaw open, surprised at the proposition. “I can rest easy now that I’ve confirmed things with you. Just leave the rest to me. I will deal with this properly!”

“You…you really intend to trade with that Obiola?”

“Haha! How could I not agree to such a meaningful exchange? Don’t worry. I’m not stupid enough to go stepping in that trap. I will take my time to pick a few appropriate substitutes to take the fall for us.”

After cutting communications with Alice, Greem gave the matter some more thought. Finally, he contacted Obiola shortly after he had just left.