Age of Adepts

After Greem’s form had disappeared at the end of the trail, behind a Killer Tree less than half a mile away from the battlefield, Mary was staring distractedly at the Giant Alligators who were roaring angrily in the distance. On the ground around her, fourteen broken Scavenger Crow bodies were scattered around.

She had witnessed the entire course of Greem’s battle just now, and was now filled with mixed emotions.

The Giant Alligator King was a terrifying demon that even she had not dared provoke!

Although the Giant Alligator King was considered to be on the same level as an Advanced Apprentice, this wasn’t a good representation of it’s true fighting ability. With her high Agility, even if Giant Alligator King was given a pair of wings, it would still not be able to think about catching her. However, the thick and strong scales of Giant Alligator King were not something she could break through either, as she was ‘weak’.

If they fought, the Giant Alligator King couldn’t do anything about her speed, and she couldn’t do anything about its defense.

Mary knew the limitations of her abilities. While they were weak, she might be able to bully most of these Apprentice Adepts. But following their inevitable improvement, her advantage was, in fact, shrinking.

And now this seemingly insignificant Beginner Apprentice ‘subordinate’ of hers had actually been able to use that strange Clay Golem to kill the Giant Alligator King.

This... this brought her great confusion!

Turning her eyes down to those broken crow bodies, her eyes clouded up, and her mind was drifted away.

He was a ‘subordinate’ that she had personally subdued! Since when he had become the main fighting force, and she became the slave who was responsible for clearing up the spies on the perimeter? A flame of anger erupted in Mary’s mind, and a blood red thread appeared in the middle of her green eyes.

She was the boss, and he was just a little subordinate. This relationship could never be changed! It looked like it was time to teach this smug brat a lesson. Although he treated her nicely in the past, she wouldn’t allow him to ride her to the top... Yes, she would teach him a lesson when she got back!

Pressing down the depression and frustration building in her mind, Mary leaped into the air, transformed into a tiny bat, flapping her wings, and flew off towards the tower.

When Mary knocked on Greem’s door, raging anger in her heart, she was taken aback when the door opened to reveal Greem’s dazzling smile.

Pulling Mary into his room, Greem presented his present to her like he was offering her a precious treasure.

“Mary, look at this! I know you like the blood of strong beings, right? Would this be useful for you?”

Pungent and sticky blood was inside a small pot. With both hands, Greem held it out to Mary. His face was shined with anticipation, his face covered with a look similar to that of a small child begging to be praised.

“This... what is this?” Mary stammered.

Somehow, though she came here to teach Greem a lesson, her anger had instantly vanished, she even stammered when talking to the guy.

“Don’t ask. Give it a taste first and see if you like it! I have harvested quite a lot of them this time. If you like it, I’ll go to the laboratory and have them purified and get rid of the pungent smell, with that, I’m sure it will taste better!”

Putting on a poker face, Mary criticized him to cover up her surprise at this situation.

“Who would present a gift like this? You didn’t even wrap it up nicely. You just placed it in a crude pottery pot. At least, you should pour it in a crystal clear goblet! And, how did you abstract this blood? Don’t you know the sweetest blood of a creature is their heart blood? For the sake of your sincerity, I’ll forgive your rude manner this time. Remember! Next time prepare your gift properly before you present it to me!”

“Understand... I totally understand... but... Mary! You see, it will take me a lot of time to prepare all of these, and I don’t think I have enough Knowledge Points right now...”

Her beautiful green pupils contracted, and a dangerous look flashed through her eyes.

“So... you’re trying to borrow from me?”

“No... Well, yes, but only temporarily. Once I have sold all the items I have listed, I’ll pay you back.” Greem couldn’t help it and smiled awkwardly. The quality of the Earth Elemental core he harvested this time was better than the first one, and so he had more space to embed Magical Formations on it. Thus he was troubled with how to fully utilize it.

He didn’t have much time left until they had to set off for the mission, yet he still had a few urgent matters that needed to be taken care of.

The freshly harvested Earth Elemental core was definitely one of them.

Greem had thought of a unique plan for this new core. Since it was also an Earth Elemental core, why couldn’t he connect the energy of both summoned Clay Golems? When separated, each Clay Golem would work on their own, and when they were connected, they would share their energy. Wouldn’t it be better this way?

Upon thinking of this, Greem had the Chip perform some preliminary calculations. What he needed now was to learn about energy connections and soul synergism. Once he had this knowledge, he should be able to craft this new golem.

Greem also still needed to find a suitable defensive magic spell.

Currently, he had mastered two Fire Elemental magic spells, one used for close combat, and with slight defensive usages, and the other was a pure long-range offensive spell. Thus, he still had a huge weakness when dealing with defense. If he didn’t solve this problem, he would very likely die on the upcoming mission.

Using his bug fusion ability, Evil Bugs was like an unbeatable cockroach, and he never feared an enemy’s attacks. Madwoman had an incredible Physique, and her offensive strength was nearly invincible, thus she never had to worry about her own safety. Hawkeye’s abilities were unknown. Mary possessed an inhuman Agility, and the frightening ability of bloodsucking, which provided her with powerful regeneration. Hence, she too was as unkillable as a cockroach.

All these Advanced Apprentices had their own complete and systematic path of magic. No matter it was in offensive or defensive, they possessed their own unique abilities, and thus they differed greatly. But, no matter who he had to face, Greem had no confidence in surviving against their attacks.

This was Greem’s current weakness.

Due to a lack of knowledge and resources, Greem was considered an underdog, even among Beginner Apprentices, and hadn’t really decided on his development path. Thus, he hadn’t developed a systematic way of cultivating his magical ability.

Although he had wished to become a Principle Adept before this, and even learned some Profound Adept skills, the damn compulsory mission had halted his original development plan.

According to his initial plan, he was supposed to pour most of his resources into learning elementary knowledge and theories of Fire Elemental magic spells, trying his best to increase his Spirit so he could reach the same level as most other Apprentices his age, stepping into the rank of Intermediate Apprentice. By his estimations, this process would take him at least three months.

But now this Red compulsory mission was pressing down on top of his head like a nightmare. If he didn’t possess any appropriate countermeasures before it started, perhaps he would die in that frightening Underground Cave. Because of this, Greem had no choice but to readjust the allocation of his resources, putting all of them into the golems.

As the direct result of this, Greem was nearly bankrupt!

He didn’t have sufficient Knowledge Points to rent the Alchemy Laboratory; didn’t have enough Knowledge Points to learn defensive magic spells; and didn’t have enough gold coins to purchase suitable items for anything...

Putting aside the gold, without sufficient Knowledge Points to support the crafting of a new summoning core, Greem had no hopes of surviving that cave. If it wasn’t for this, he would never ditch his pride to try and get something from Mary.

Mary stared straight at Greem’s face with her dazzling eyes. Finally, she nodded her head without saying anything.

After obtained an ‘investment’ from Mary, and unaware of the beating that he had narrowly escaped, Greem eagerly rushed off to the Alchemy Laboratory and, like an extravagant man, rented out the high-quality Alchemy Station for seven hours.

The Earth Elemental Core obtained from Giant Alligator King was as big as a pigeon egg. According to the Chip’s designs, besides a few basic controlling magical formations, he could place a few more energy nodes on the extra space. Thus, while the previous summoning core could only have four energy nodes, this one could have nine.

More energy nodes meant a more complex magical formation and numerous modifications to the entire structure. So, since the moment Greem had obtained the core, the Chip had been busy calculating and testing the design.

When Greem had finally prepared all the magical materials, the Chip had completed the task.

*Beep* “The latest structural design for golem summoning core has been completed. Commence data transfer?”

“Transfer!”

After the data finished transferring, Greem closed his eyes and saw the custom three-dimensional design of the magical formation.

After on these calculations, he needed to carve fifteen magical formations of all sizes on the surface of the pigeon egg sized summoning core. He also needed to connect them all together, forming them into a larger, more complex magical formation. A design task like this could only be completed by the Chip in such a short amount of time. For Greem, he could barely recognize any of the rune structures on it.

After spending a few minutes trying to understand it, Greem stopped trying and turned his attention to the issues he had to face later during the carving process.

With the help of the Chip, Greem could totally avoid the problem of insufficient knowledge and skill, and was able to divide the entire complex crafting task into countless simple and straightforward operations. Through these trivial, small operations, Greem, who was only a rookie in Alchemy, could complete the complex rune structures in one go, while this would usually only be possible in the hands of those Master Alchemists.

Therefore, at this moment, what Greem worried about was not whether he was competent enough to complete this project, but if his Spirit was sufficient to support the massive strain he was about to put on it.

But he didn’t have any alternatives.

He had to construct his Golem army as quickly as possible in order to optimize his offensive ability. Then had to find the time to learn one defensive magic spell in order to give himself both the offensive and defensive advantage. And this was the key to his survival in the compulsory mission!

Greem took a deep breath, and once again stood in front of the Alchemy Station. He rid himself of any distracting thoughts and fully focused on crafting the brand new summoning core.