Age of Adepts

The Oddscale Fruit.

A sort of earth-elementium fruit.

It could absorb the earth-elementium power around it to provide the energy required for its growth. Ripe Oddscale Fruits had the effect of improving one’s base Physique, given consistent consumption. However, it also had the tremendous side-effect of causing scales to grow on one’s body and hindering intelligence growth.

This Oddscale fruit was clearly a high-quality material that had been obtained by an adept after defeating an orc powerhouse. The fact that the Oddscale fruit possessed such magical characteristics meant that it contained traces of principle power.

At this point, the adepts had invaded over a hundred orc worlds and had discovered all sorts of similar fruits in them. However, this was the first fruit that could rise to the level of principles.

The seed of such rare fruit would be classified as a high-grade strategic resource, even in the World of Adepts. The fact that this was Greem’s first time seeing this fruit, despite being a Great Adept, was already evidence of its rarity and value.

An orc powerhouse might have discovered it on accident, who then proceeded to hide it and use it to improve his Physique. However, Fate was often unpredictable. The orc who found the fruit did not even manage to save his own life in battle. In the end, the fruit landed in the hands of that Third Grade adept and, ultimately, in Greem’s hands.

Greem couldn’t help but marvel at the wonders of Fate when thinking about this!

Even though the effects of the Oddscale fruit were excellent, its side-effect was also terrifying.

Firstly, the growth of the fruit demanded dense earth elementium.

If Greem were to rely solely on the earth elementium in nature, its growth would probably take an exceedingly long time. The orcs had no means of solving this problem. They could only try their best and plant the fruit in the most fertile soil they could find.

Greem’s first thought was to plant the seed on an earth-elementium altar.

A standard, small-scale earth-elementium altar only cost around a hundred and fifty thousand magical crystals. It could constantly draw pure earth elementium from the Earth Elementium Plane to provide for the Oddscale Fruit’s growth.

In doing so, an Oddscale Tree would grow rapidly, and the number of fruits produced would also increase correspondingly.

The second problem was the accumulation of earth-elementium residue upon consumption of the Oddscale fruit, which would lead to the growth of strange scales.

That wasn’t much of a problem for Greem. He had plenty of means to modulate his body and deal with the residue after the fact.

What really troubled him was the horrible side-effect of hindering intelligence growth.

No wonder there were so few elementium spellcasters in the orc worlds. Their intelligence was probably dropping at a crazy rate after eating such fruits. In fact, it would be a surprise if they were capable of magic given such terrible side-effects!

Greem would have to find some way of altering the genetic sequence of the Oddscale Fruit and remove the harmful substances. It was a process that demanded immense time and energy.

Obviously, this was not something that could be accomplished on the battlefield!

Greem had the Chip construct a long-term case file on this research and temporarily put the matter of the Oddscale Fruit behind him. He then started thinking about his path of improvement moving forward.

At Fifth Grade, the means for a principle adept to progress manifested in improving their control over the principel powers. A principle adept had to further calculate and extend the principle powers they possessed, thereby gaining mastery over more powerful and profound principles. They could then merge all those principles to create their own unique principle power.

The last step was especially important!

Principle suppression was a crucial factor in battles between principle adepts.

Whoever had the stronger principle power of a higher dimension would be able to create a powerful, regional effect similar to planar suppression.

The adepts also called this ability Domain!

A Great Adept could create an environment suited to their powers within the Domain they created with their principle powers while also suppressing the opponent’s principle abilities. It was similar to the Burning Domain that Greem had so painstakingly conceived.

However, while the Burning Domain was a massive space of fire created by an area-of-effect fire spell, it had not yet reached the level of a principle Domain. Opponents of the same grade could easily dispel it.

Consequently, Greem almost never used the Burning Domain in his battles against opponents of the same grade. He only used it as a means of extermination when dealing with numerous low-grade enemies.

At this point, Greem had only mastered two low-level fire principles– Undying Flames and Fire’s Image. To forge these two into a new principel power and derive a principle Domain that suited his fighting style was undoubtedly an arduous task that would take a long time!

Greem’s lifespan was now over ten thousand years; he didn’t have to hurry things at all. He only needed to accumulate experience and knowledge bit by bit. One day, he would eventually be able to create a unique fire principle of his own.

Gathering resources, collecting knowledge, completing the necessary experiments and magical research…these things would become the main tune of his long life to come, a perpetual constant that would always remain there!

If he couldn’t rush the fire principles, then the only immediate thing he could rely on to improve his combat strength would be spells or magical golems.

Ever since he reached Fifth Grade, the Chip’s abilities had evolved dramatically along with Greem’s own powers. Data calculation, storage, and analysis abilities had all been elevated tremendously. The Chip could help Greem continue growing stronger from many aspects with its support.

At this moment, there were four Fifth Grade fire spells simultaneously being analyzed and constructed within Greem’s mind. Once this task was completed, Greem would no longer have to fight as he currently did by using the most primitive fire energy to attack his enemies.

That wasn’t to say fire energy in its primitive state was weak. Rather, the form of attack was too monotonous and did not possess the variety of effects that spells often did. Consequently, an enemy could effortlessly deal with such attacks.

Moreover, primitive fire energy required Greem’s constant spiritual guidance to hit the enemy. During this period, his defenses would be weakened considerably, and he could easily be hit by backlash if he was interrupted.

These were the flaws of directly-manipulated magic energy. The only proper way to avoid such problems was to structure the primitive fire energy into more powerful and more flexible fire spells!

Principle powers were the source of a principle adept’s power, while spells that were compatible with that power were weapons that could unleash the true might of an adept.

Both factors were crucial!

The technique of deriving higher-class magic by modifying low-grade spells was outdated. After the leap from elementium to principles, the very nature of magic had changed entirely. Greem had no choice but to explore and discover from scratch once again.

Fiery Ignition: Fifth Grade guided fire spell. Greem could inject fire power into the enemy’s body by means of sight. He could then ignite the magical energy within the enemy’s body (Every point of magic energy would inflict 5 points of fire damage).

Fiery Imminence: Fifth Grade fire summoning spell. Allows the summoning of a powerful fire army from another plane. The effect is ten times that of the lower-grade Flamegate.

Fiery Refraction: Fifth Grade offensive fire spell. Summons a fireball that refracts energy between multiple enemies. The fire damage increases by 1,000 points with every refraction, with a maximum of ten refractions (Initial damage is 6,000 points).

Fiery Barrier: Fifth Grade defensive fire spell. Constructs a barrier using fire principles which defends against all passive and active magical attacks (Base defensive power of 20,000 points).

Once these four principle spells were completed, they would be added to Greem’s arsenal. Along with the Fifth Grade divine spell, Scorched Earth sealed within the Orb of the Fire God, as well as the Fifth Grade poison spell, Halo of Rot formed within the Tome of Corruption, Greem would possess six spells that covered a variety of purposes, including summoning, offense, and defense.

It would give him a sizeable edge in battles against opponents of the same grade!

According to the Chip’s calculations, the four spells still needed two to three years before they could be completed. During this time, Greem would have no choice but to hang in there with Fourth Grade spells that had principle power mixed in them.

Meanwhile, the Fifth Grade voodoo beast that Adept Karon of Mountainshade Plane was working on would probably need a few years to complete as well.

As for creating a Fifth Grade magical golem himself? That would only be possible if he possessed a large number of Fifth Grade magical materials. Given the rarity and price of Fifth Grade materials, Greem would not be able to obtain them in bulk. If it weren’t for that very fortunate incident in the war back in the World of Adepts, he would not even be able to get his hands on Fifth Grade scrap material.

There was no hope of making a magical golem himself for the moment, and his principle spells still needed time to be finished.

As such, Greem had no choice but to keep a ‘low profile’ for the moment and avoid being caught by his enemies in this period of his power vacuum.

…………

The mission’s three-month period quickly concluded.

Apart from the battle that erupted when they arrived, the rest of the mission’s duration was almost suspiciously peaceful.

Greem only knew after the fact that his actions at Wintercastle had really screwed over the orc powerhouses.

An attack from Sixth Grade Evil Dragon Cinquera was not so easily endured.

Two of the four orcs present had been inflicted with the strange principle power contained within the black smoke of her breath. They only managed to dispel it after going through great lengths. While they had succeeded in the end, they were also significantly weakened in the process.

Due to this, the orcs were much weaker and did not dare to cause trouble at Dun Modr again. It allowed Greem and the others to sit out the last three months of their mission calmly.

Dun Modr’s first adept tower was established, and the city became the first impregnable fortress for the adept invasion into Plane Gere. Even without Great Adepts to defend the city, the native orcs would never be able to banish the adepts from their world.

Moreover, with this adept tower, the adepts’ reinforcements could freely teleport into Plane Gere and slowly conquer the lands and pillage its resources.

The war that came afterward was intense and would last for a very long time. It could be several years, or even a dozen years, with constant shifts in the tide of war. However, none of this had anything to do with Greem anymore. After all, he was just here to complete a mission.

Once the appointed time was up, Greem and the other five Great Adepts successfully returned to Boulder Fortress through the adept tower’s teleportation array.