Age of Adepts

Space, Exodar Camp.

There was a grand tower looming at the center of the camp.

The magical light shimmering around the tower was bright and eye-catching, even amidst all the towers in Exodar Camp.

The door of a private laboratory on the twenty-third floor suddenly burst open. Great Adept Ulnak coughed violently as he rushed out of the room. A cluster of strange smoke could be vaguely seen in the doorway behind him. It was gathering into a humanoid form and surging towards the entrance.

Ulnak quickly escaped the room and casually shut the door behind him.

Unfortunately, as fast as he was, traces of smoke still managed to escape. They gathered in the air, seemingly trying to manifest as something again.

Boom!

A brightly colored fireball exploded in the center of the smoke, drowning everything in a sea of fire.

Ulnak still couldn't relax after the fireball had detonated. He threw two more fireballs and finally chose to stop once he had confirmed that all the smoke was gone.

Dong! Dong! Dong!

A loud explosion rang out behind the door. It seems as if there was a gigantic creature that was trying to escape the room and was furiously attacking everything in sight.

Ulnak frowned and gave an order in a chilling tone, "Cammpus, conduct a thorough cleanup on Lab Seven."

Cammpus was the name he had given the tower spirit.

"Understood, my lord!" The tower spirit promptly reacted after receiving the owner's orders.

A loud, unusual roaring came from within the room. A short moment later, everything fell silent.

"Cleanup on Lab Seven completed. Berserk magical creation has been exterminated. All machinery and facilities in the room have been destroyed. Replacements required. Specific lists of repairs are as follows: requesting permission from the owner to use tower reserves to conduct repairs."

A list of resources and items reverberated in his mind. Ulnak couldn't help but feel his head hurt.

The Cloud Giant Potion he had been working on had failed and cost him a lot of high-grade resources in the process. In addition to the costs of rebuilding a high-grade laboratory, it was a massive loss, even for a Sixth Grade Great Adept.

Four million and two hundred thousand magical crystals.

That berserk Sixth Grade experiment had caused him to lose four million and two hundred thousand magical crystals.

It was practically the equivalent of a Third Grade dragon's hoard. No wonder Ulnak's face was so dark right now!

"Cammpus, clear out Lab Five and prepare a set of Cloud Giant Potion ingredients for me." Ulnak gritted his teeth and prepared to try once more.

"Lab Five has been cleared out. However, remaining resources are insufficient for a Cloud Giant Potion."

"What are we missing?"

"Three hundred grams of Ancient Giant spinal cord."

"Hss." Ulnak felt his teeth hurt now.

The Cloud Giant Potion he was trying to brew was a Sixth Grade potion. The Ancient Giant spinal cord required as an ingredient was an exceptionally rare resource. Trying to obtain any of it in the short term was nearly impossible.

The Ancient Giants had been extinct for tens of thousands of years. Trying to get a preserved supply of their spinal cord was incredibly tricky.

Ulnak had only been fortunate enough to obtain a set of usable spinal cords after stumbling across a small plane that contained a group of creatures with Ancient Giant bloodline. He had to slaughter over a hundred pseudo-giants and repeatedly extract and refine their bodies to obtain what he needed.

Where was he supposed to restock this ingredient now that it was all used up!?

Just as Ulnak was being bothered with frustration, Cammpus brought him more news.

"Warning. Warning. Intense energy radiance detected outside of Exodar Camp. Target Location: …… Adept Kaelf of Inspections sent a query 27 hours ago on intervention from the camp. Currently awaiting your reply!"

Inspections were a department subordinate to Exodar Camp. They were responsible for the security and order around the camp. Kaelf was a Fourth Grade adept and Head of Inspections.

"Twenty-seven hours ago? It seems like brewing this Cloud Giant Potion has kept me out of the loop." Ulnak smiled viciously. "Cammpus, pull up Kaelf's report!"

"Understood!"

A short moment later, a magical mirror the size of a table was floating in front of Adept Ulnak. All sorts of books, notes, and tiny objects were placed on top of the mirror-table. A parchment written full of pretty runes hovered above the table. It glowed faintly with a red light that indicated it was a matter of great urgency.

Ulnak tapped the parchment with his right hand, where the Ring of Authority was placed. The parchment unfolded itself and revealed its contents.

"Mm? A new camp? The Crimson Clan…a steel city…the Istanal Clan's forces."

After reading through the report presented by Inspections, a vicious expression appeared on Adept Ulnak's face. He quickly waved his hand and established communications with Kaelf.

A strange man with golden skin and no hair or eyebrows appeared on the screen. The adept hastily bowed when he saw Adept Ulnak.

"What is the situation now?" Ulnak yawned and asked impatiently.

"The fighting is still going on."

"They are still fighting? How is this possible? The Istanal Clan has plenty of high-grade adepts. How could they still be in a stalemate against a clan that only just set foot in space? Have all the high-grade adepts of Istanal Clan died?"

The golden-skinned adept smiled bitterly at Great Adept Ulnak's question. The image on the screen changed as the magical mirror turned towards the battlefield in the distance.

…………

The battle was raging on!

As the defenders, the Capital of Steel had demonstrated shocking defensive and offensive power.

In just one month, the Capital of Steel had expanded to every corner of the floating rock. Its thick metal plates had firmly enveloped the floating rock, and the center had become the core of the city.

The rock itself was now plated heavily in armor, while tall towers of metal could be seen everywhere. Countless cannons reached out from the fortresses, pointing in every direction in space.

Meanwhile, a grand, magnificent metal palace stood at the center of all the buildings. Its entrance was open. In fact, it was the only entrance in and out of the rock. An army of ferocious magical machines was in formation in a wide plaza in front of the palace.

At the moment, the Capital of Steel was like a metal hedgehog curled into a ball. It hid its weakness under layers of thick metal plates while protecting itself with a forest of magic energy cannons.

On the opposing side was an army of adepts numbering three thousand.

They all wore the same emblem on their chest, the emblem of the Darkblood Army of the Istanal Clan.

The Darkblood army was the most famous adept force of the Fifth Grade Istanal Clan.

All their members were made up of Darkblood adepts from a different plane.

It was said that these adepts were creations of bloodline synthesis. They were artificial creations. These adepts could not advance through their own power. Their only path forward was even more powerful and advanced bloodline synthesis experiments.

In all honesty, they were little more than humanoid voodoo beasts with certain abilities unique to the adepts!

All the Darkblood adepts rode on strange, gigantic owls. They circled the Capital of Steel. They waved their magical staffs every time they dove at the city and unleashed elementium magic of terrifying power.

They were of varying grades. The leader was a Third Grade Darkblood adept, with over seventy others being Second Grade. The rest still had an average power level of advanced First Grade.

This party of surprising power had thoroughly blockaded the Capital of Steel. They had formed multiple squadrons and bombarded the city from above.

Bright flashes of fire and colorful elementium explosions could be seen everywhere from their violent magical attacks. The elementium explosions never stopped, engulfing the entire battlefield in fire and fury.

The Capital of Steel wasn't sitting by and watching its doom either. A web of cannon fire covered the skies and retaliated against the adepts.

The Darkblood adepts and the mutated owls they were riding were all protected by magical shields.

The shields of an ordinary First Grade Darkblood adept could resist about five to seven shots from the magic energy cannons, while the more powerful Second Grade adepts could endure up to fifteen attacks. As long as they didn't charge into the midst of the cannon fire, or were targeted by multiple cannons, there was no chance of them dying.

They also employed guerilla tactics. They split up into multiple packs and drew the Capital of Steel's firepower to exhaust its reserve of elementium energy. Should any Darkblood adept's shield shatter, they would retreat immediately and return once their shields had recovered.

The Fourth Grade adept of the Istanal Clan in charge of commanding the Darkblood army had a comprehensive plan.

They had already done their investigations before they came here.

The Crimson Clan had not built an adept tower here at all.

The massive city of steel beneath them was not protected by any adept tower. Naturally, this meant that it could not be supported by a tower's resources. The more magic energy cannons the enemy revealed and the more frequently they attacked, the greater the exhaustion on their energy reserves.

How many magical crystals could a 'small,' newly-advanced Fourth Grade clan have in reserve!?

Given the intensity of their firepower, this battle alone would be enough to cripple the Crimson Clan economically!

That was why the Darkblood adepts only appeared to be eager to fight while not actually committing very much to the battle.