Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  Right in the middle of this chaotic scene, a Wandering Soul, who had an ugly and twisted face, dove down from the air, targeting those three casual and strange looking Apprentice Adepts.

  Before the lead man and the little girl could do anything, the snake-headed struck.

  Striking with great force, a pale green looking poison, shaped into an arrow, instantly penetrated the Wandering Soul’s body, immediately exploding. The intense corrosive poison melted the ‘Resentment Core’ hidden inside of its body, turning it into a pile of ashes with a horrifying and painful sounding scream.

  Greem noticed that the poison ‘arrow’ wasn’t created with normal spellcasting, but was launched from the mouth of that Snakehead Apprentice.

  And that attack was just the beginning. The Apprentice didn’t stop what he had started, and opened his mouth widely, continuously spitting out poison ‘arrows’. With each strike, he accurately eliminated one of the horrifying Wandering Souls, which were rated as possessing the power of an intermediate Apprentice.

  Bloodline Adept!

  He was definitely one of those Bloodline Adepts that the basic Adept book had mentioned!

  Within the vast and complicated development hierarchy of the Adept World, there were four branches that stood out: Bloodline Adepts, Body Refining Adepts, Principle Adepts and Profound Adepts. It could be said that most of the other Adept branches were matched up to these four major branches.

  Bloodline Adepts were a bunch of lunatics who craved having the purest bloodlines. They used the power of said bloodlines to improve their own strength. Usually, they would choose some incredibly strong creatures from another world as the source for their bloodline, then they would improve the purity of their own blood, generally using a method which could be traced back to some ancestor. After doing all of this, they would gain incredible abilities that aligned with that of ancient powerful creatures. In general, their ultimate goal was to relive the glorious life of these ancient creatures.

  As for Body Refining Adepts, they were another group of lunatics who went all out in the pursuit of strengthening their own bodies. In their eyes, all resources were just a medium, a consumable supply that could be used to make their muscles stronger. In order to stimulate their muscles, they might soak themselves in a container full of poisonous chemicals, or implant a deadly, highly radioactive meteorite into their body. They might go out and endure the most extreme and deadly environments… and they would do all of these to make their bodies strong so that nothing could hurt them.

  In all honestly, Principle Adepts were the most common type of Adept in the Adept World. No matter it was the Elementium Adept, who chased after the peak powers of their Elements, the Curse Adept, who used strange abilities to kill people unseen, or even the Black Adept, who just enjoyed using violent killing abilities, usually utilizing the force of souls and emotion; all of them belonged to the branch of Principle Adepts. Although it seemed that there was a tremendous difference in what they did, when they arrived at the advanced stage, they would try their best to master specific Principles or Rules of the Universe.

  They were the people who grew by mastering Elemental Laws Principles.

  As for Profound Adept, they were the purest type of Adepts. They were not willing to ‘contaminate’ their own bloodline just to obtain powerful ability, and they refused to coupled with Principles of Planes and became the ‘Slaves of Principles’. They gathered knowledge, immersed themselves in the world of knowledge, and used the knowledge they learned as their weapon. Thus, they became a weird group among Adepts, who only cared about gathering and expanding their knowledge, but totally ignored their own development.

  With these four major branches as the backbone, an infinite variety of strange Adepts were born into this world. They conquered different worlds, looting resources and knowledge, and enslaving thousands of Planes. They were the dominating force of the entire Adept World when fighting, or conquering, other worlds.

  This was the information regarding the Adept Hierarchy which Greem had obtained after the Chip spent time gathering and organizing the mass of raw data he had input into it. As he only knew a handful of people, the data he gathered was not complete, and there was, probably, a huge discrepancy in it. Although he only had this small amount simple information, it drew the outline of the massive and ferocious Adept World he was now a part of.

  If he hadn’t known of these branches, he wouldn’t have been able to correctly guess the details of that Snakehead Apprentice a second ago.

  But, right as Greem was guessing which species of snake the Snakehead Apprentice had inherited a bloodline from, something even more surprising happened.

  The cute little girl joined the fight!

  A Demon Baby, who was quickly moving across the ground, had placed its eyes on these three people, setting them as its target and dashing in their direction. At the same time, it kept letting out irritating cries from its mouth, which was twisted and full of sharp yellowed teeth, launching its Curse attacks at the three of them.

  No doubt, its behavior had provoked the little girl.

  However, not only did her immature face not show any signs of anger. Instead, it bloomed with a sweet smile. She raised up the birdcage in her hands, which looked like a toy, pointed it toward the Demon Baby, and shook it a few times. Though not a single sound was heard, lights and shadows flickered, and the Demon Baby, who had previously been dashing toward them, disappeared from where it was.

  At the same time, Greem, who had sharp vision, noticed that a miniature Demon Baby had appeared inside of the birdcage the little girl carried. It was only the size of a human hand, and looked exactly the same as the Demon Baby who had just disappeared.

  Obviously, this Demon Baby had no idea what had caused its sudden transformation. After being stunned for a second, it became extremely fierce and let out a jarring cry toward the little girl outside of the cage, repeatedly slamming the cage with it’s body. But, no matter how hard it tried, there was no way it could escape from that simple looking birdcage.

  Space Magic?!

  Greem placed a hand tightly over his mouth to prevent himself from screaming out loud.

  Out of the many Principle Magics, although every Principle would bring an astonishing power at the ultimate level, if someone really wanted to define their ranking, the Principles of Time and Space Magic were among the very top. But, according to Greem’s knowledge, these two top-level magic branches were among the weakest of all the branches in the Adept World. This was simply because these two magic branches could only depend on one’s innate talent.

  Even the most powerful Adept, who could destroy a world with the wave of his hand, could never make time stop for one second. However, some people were born with this ability, and, although they might not learn any knowledge related to Magic, they could still achieve something that even the best Adepts couldn’t.

  And yet, just because these magics were so bizarre and unpredictable and could only be used by someone who had the talent, those Adepts who didn’t possess such talent, no matter how much of a genius they were, it would be impossible for them to come out with great results through experimentation. Therefore, without a huge and solid foundation, it was really tough for those who focused on the Time and Space Magic Branches to produce top-tier Adepts.

  Greem was having issues deciding whether this was the little girl’s innate ability, or some bizarre Magical item that allowed her to catch any enemy, regardless of distance.

  Although Greem thought he had a deep understanding of this bizarre world of advanced magic, right at this very moment, he had to admit one thing: the real world of Adepts was much more crazy and bizarre than his wildest dreams and nightmares. These three outsiders were either Pseudo-Adepts or elites among advanced Apprentice Adepts. If Greem was forced to fight them while only having access to his two low-ranked spells, he would probably die.

  For this reason, he didn’t dare continue watching anymore. He turned around, followed t
he trail, and quietly returned to the Adept Tower.

  When he arrived at the main door of the Tower, the newly appointed Apprentice Leader, Ellen, was here along with the three strongest: Hawkeye, Evil Bugs, and Madwoman.

  Greem threw a puzzled glance at Ellen, but soon realized why they were here.

  The warning he sent via the magic talisman could only be received by a special magical item, which was currently held in Ellen’s hand. When Ellen heard there were three powerful Apprentice Adepts in the Magical Swamp, he knew that, with his abilities, there was no way he could chase off or capture these outsiders. Therefore, before Greem had returned, Ellen had asked the three strongest for help.

  It, obviously, cost him something in order to obtain help from the three strongest… but only he knew what that cost was.

  Recalling to what he witnessed just now, Greem didn’t have too much confidence in the ‘Strongest Three’. No matter how he compared them, those three outsiders were stronger than them. Perhaps Ellen was wishfully thinking he could capture all of them?

  Chapter 18

  In less than ten minutes, the mercenary group, which had been employed by the three Apprentice Adepts, had almost been entirely wiped out.

  The last four of them were covered from head to toe with blood. They were standing back to back, barely able to defend themselves against the attacks of the surrounding demons. On the other side, their employers, the three Apprentice Adepts, were casually standing there and watching the mercenaries get killed with a cold indifference. Unless they were attacked by the demons, they didn’t interfere the battle between the demons and the mercenaries. It was as if the deaths of these mercenaries meant nothing to them.

  As the last four mercenaries were fighting for their lives, the three Apprentice Adepts were leisurely chatting with each other.

  “The Elementium aura we sensed just now should have belonged to one of the local Apprentices. Why didn’t you let me capture them?” The cute and chubby faced girl grumbled at her large muscular companion.

  “What’s the point of capturing him?” The man shook his head and continued, “Clearly this place has a well-built Magical Formation. We have been roaming around here for three days and are still unable to find the way to enter it. Without one of them leading us there, I’m afraid we wouldn’t be able to find that Adept Tower even if we spent another three days searching.”

  “That’s exactly why we should’ve captured him!” The little girl spoke furiously. Perhaps due to the fact that her opinion was not accepted, she began to release her anger onto the creature she had captured in the birdcage.

  As she muttered something under her breath, the internal space within the birdcage began to squeeze in on itself, shrinking. The compression of the space soon reached the body of the Demon Baby, and some cracking noises started to issue from its body. Hearing the sharp and pain-filled cries coming from the demon baby, the smile on this little girl’s face became filled with joy.

  When the poor little Demon Baby finally imploded and crumpled into a pile of meat paste, little girl immediately waved her arms in the air and stamped her feet in joy, a look of extreme excitement covering her little face.

  Seeing that the little girl had relieved her anger on her ‘toy’, the other two Apprentice Adepts breathed out sighs of relief.

  The Snake Headed Apprentice shook his head and moved closer to the muscular leader, asking, “Are you sssure it wasss alright to let that ssscout get away? I’m sssure he’ll bring more guardsss here!”

  “Guards?” The muscular leader laughed grimly, “This swamp is just an ordinary resource site. Do you think the Sarubo Family would really be willing to waste an official Adept to guard it? In my opinion, with the exception of Adept Anderson, all that’s left in this place are Apprentice Adepts. You really think we should be afraid of the Apprentice Adepts we are likely to find in this place?”

  Snakehead Apprentice laughed hideously, his forked tongue flicking in and out through his lips, creating a gruesome sounding hiss.

  “Thisss place doesss have quite a lot of rare materialsss that I need. In any cassse, it’ll take a while before those guardsss get here. I think I’ll just do a little sssightssseeing while I wait.”

  After saying that, the Snake Headed Apprentice simply walked toward another swampy area in the distance.

  Something really strange was occurring. Although the stony trail was not that far away from him, he didn’t notice it and walked right past. This was, in fact, one of the many defensive mechanisms of the Adept Tower. Only those internal Apprentice Adepts, who wore a Magical Talisman, could see the stony trail, while, in the eyes of any outsider, the trail was just another part of the swamp, no different in any way.

  Watching as one of his partners disappeared into the fog, the muscular leader hesitated for a moment, then he just turned around and walked off in another direction. It was a rare opportunity to be in the private resource site of an Adept family. If he didn’t get himself something good before he finished his official business here, that would be quite a waste.

  As for that bizarre little girl, either intentionally or unintentionally, they left her in the middle of those violent and bloody demons. Would she be hurt? This question never crossed the minds of these two male Apprentices. Honestly, perhaps the biggest and most brutal demon in this swampy land was the little girl.

  Therefore, when Greem brought Ellen and the ‘strongest three’ here, what they saw in front of them was a cute little girl with a golden birdcage, standing right in the middle of a crowd of blood-covered demons.

  At this moment, there was not a single member of the entire mercenary company that had not been torn into chunks of meats and scattered all over the place. While their broken corpses were being pulled apart by an army of Demon Babies, the little girl was standing right in the center of these demons. Oddly enough, no demons dared to get within ten steps of this little girl.

  Not only that, but when the little girl bounced and skipped from place to place, those Demon Babies, who were busy eating, would roar at her in anger, then they would move aside and make way for her, not daring to really get in her way.

  A mercenary, who had bloody stumps for legs and a single broken arm, was being gnawed on by dozens of Demon Babies. Barely alive, he raised his bloody and broken arm, waving toward the little girl, who was approaching him, and said, “Save me… save… me…”

  With a sweet smile on her face, the little girl squatted in front of him and asked, in a soft voice, “I can save your soul from these demons. Are you willing to let me save your soul?”

  The dying mercenary was surprised to hear that and immediately nodded his head. However, he didn’t notice that the girl had said the word ‘save’ in a vague and weird tone. If he had known the other languages the girl knew, he would have found out that when these weird tones fit together, she had actually said a word meaning ‘Consume’, which was from the Ancient Andes language in the Adept Continent.

  After obtaining the approval of this mercenary, the smile on little girl’s face became even sweeter. She swiftly took out a milky white crystal ball from her pocket and placed it against the mercenary’s forehead. With a short and simple spell, the mercenary’s body trembled, and then the tiny flame of hope, which had just appeared in his eyes, died off.

  A white shadow came out from his forehead and disappeared into the crystal ball.

  The life force of the mercenary evaporated, and his bloody arm collapsed to the ground, never to rise again.

  The Apprentices of the Tower had watched this all happen and were standing there, appalled at what they had just seen.

  Their arrival had attracted the little girl’s attention. She walked straight up to Greem’s group, raised her head, and gently asked, “Hi! I’m the adorable Alice! Are you guys from around here?”

  Greem and the others glared at this little Lolita, who seemed to be trying to make herself familiar with them, and didn’t get deceived by her disguise. Within the popu
lation of Apprentice Adepts, friendship, love, and humanity were all just beautiful words that had long since be thrown away. All that was left inside them was the desire for knowledge, resources, and power.

  Those Apprentices who were naïve would die before ever reaching intermediate Apprentice. The thought of such a person reaching the level of Advanced Apprentices was simply too impossible to even be conceived.

  Noticing that they were eyeing her crystal ball and birdcage, Alice quickly hid both of them behind her, quirking her lips and saying, “All of these things belong to Alice. You wouldn’t think of taking them away from me, would you?”

  Ellen looked all over the place, then sternly whispered to Greem, “I thought you said that there were three Apprentice Adepts? Where are the other two?”

  “Kerry went that way… he’s a big guy, and good at fighting… if he meets with this big sister, I’m sure something lively will happen…” the little girl pointed her finger to the East and spoke in an innocent manner. Clearly, she was referring to Madwoman, who was also carrying a huge sword on her back. “Jeffrey went that way… I think he said he wanted to look for some materials…”

  What she said shocked the five of them, and their eyes took on ghastly looks.

  No matter how many demons were killed, none of them would feel even the slightest bit of pity about it, but if those secret medicine plantations and gardens were found by these outsiders, perhaps all the Apprentices of the Tower would be punished by Adept Anderson.

  Madwoman’s loud, braying voice instantly exploded.

  “I’ll go that way and stop that guy!”

  After saying that, Madwoman’s bulky body started sprinting toward the East. As she ran, she crushed the few Demon Babies who got in her way under her feet, making others screaming angrily, though none dared to move closer to her.