Age of Adepts

Deep in the murky, dim Mushroom Forest.

A tall mushroom covered the dark, heavy skies with its cap, causing the forest clearing to be even darker than it already was.

Fluorescent mushrooms and moss spread all over the forest glowed with colorful lights. Combined with the glowing spores drifting through the air, the Mushroom Forest looked surreal and enchanting, as if it was a world taken from a children's story.

Looking into afar from the dense Mushroom Forest, you could see a wide valley overgrown with spore-like plants. These plants had thick stems and massive fruits that were utterly disproportional to the rest of their size.

As the fruits were too large, each with a diameter of a meter, they bent at a steep angle. Several sporepople were working diligently in this field of spore plants, their one-meter-tall figures shuffling between them.

Sometimes they dug at the dirt and picked up some weeds. Other times, they watered the plants with a green sap, carefully taking care of each plant as if they were their children.

When a piece of fruit was ripe, it would burst apart, and thick, viscous juice would flow out. A strange baby would also flow out of the fruit along with the liquid. When that happened, the sporepeople in charge of the Sporeborn Woods would gather.

They would carefully wrap the baby in cloth and send it back to the village. As the period of ripening arrived, one magical sporebaby after another was born. The workers then became incredibly busy, with no time to rest at all.

Several hulking Fungal Giants continuously patrolled the outskirts of Sporeborn Woods. The petite form of a sporeperson could be seen on the shoulder of every Fungal Giant. The limbs of the sporepeople sunk into the bodies of the Fungal Giants, as if they had assimilated with the giant creatures.

It was this unusual ability of the sporepeople that allowed them to carve out a territory of their own in the vicious environment of the Marsh Wetlands, despite their frail and weak bodies. They were also spreading spores to corrupt the entire land slowly.

The sporepeople were not fully united as a people, either. They were generally divided into nobles and peasants.

The so-called magical sporepeople, in fact, were referred to as the nobles. They often had all sorts of strange magical abilities and could allow corrupted swamp creatures to inherit these abilities of theirs. On the other hand, ordinary sporepeople had no such powers. They could only work in tiring and exhausting professions such as cultivators, gardeners, or scouts.

Emelia waited impatiently in the Mushroom Forest until a shifty, skinny little figure appeared before her.

"Uncle Naru, what's the situation like in the sacred land?" Emelia hastily asked when he saw the sporeperson appear.

"Fahssn has left. It seems like something has happened over at the ogre camp. He's rushed over there to help! Only Zio remains on guard in the sacred land, but he's leading an army of Fungal Giants. It will be challenging to sneak our way in!" The sporeperson, known as Naru, was an elderly male. Judging from his appearance, he was already at the end of his lifespan. He was panting just from speaking a few sentences.

"And the secret passage? Does the secret passage my father secretly excavated still exist?"

"The secret passage is still there…but your escape through the passage last time drew the suspicion of Fahssn. He has been searching for the passage all this while. He even set up plenty of traps inside the sacred land as a precaution against anyone sneaking in through the passage. Even I couldn't get any information on many of those traps."

"Uncle Naru, thank you so much. You have always been the most loyal to our family. You were also the one who watched me grow up from when I was just a girl. If…if things go well this time, come with me and leave this place!"

"Princess, have you already given up on the ancestral rule of the magical sporepeople?"

Emelia let out a resentful sigh.

"Naru, you have never stepped out of these marshes. You have no idea how vast and wide the world truly is. I am an adept now. The World of Adepts is a civilization more glorious and advanced than the Spirit World. The so-called 'ancestral legacy' of us sporepeople that we have maintained for a few hundred years now looks like no more than a joke to me. If we leave this backward, isolated world, we sporepeople will be able to develop better and quicker.

"Speaking of which, Uncle Naru, how did things go with the old clanspeople I asked you to sway to our side?"

"Your highness, you have been gone far too long. Many of the old clanspeople have already passed away. I didn't dare probe anyone out of caution. Thus, I only managed to bring seven people to our side; the seven most trustworthy people I could find!"

Emelia's eyes lit up when she heard Naru's answer.

"That's enough, that's more than enough! We will go according to the plan. I will sneak into the sacred land and retrieve the things that rightfully belonged to my father. You gather our people and prepare some seeds. Seeds of as many kinds as possible, bring them all with you. Remember, when you see the sacred land burn, bring all the clanspeople here. Then, I will bring you all to that new world."

Emelia quickly gave a few instructions and sent Naru away.

She lifted her head and looked at the dim horizon. She checked the message she had received from the clan leader before putting on her hood and silently sneaking towards the sacred land of the sporepeople.

The magical sporepeople's sacred land was located inside a massive, winding cave.

If one were to approach from the front, they would run into a garrison with every step and a patrol with every five. There were countless guards and troops along the way. Even Sage Moat, with all his mysterious powers, could not extend his senses and Spirit into this cave.

Naturally, there was no way he could have known what the sporepeople were scheming!

The person who built the sacred land was not Fahssn, but Emelia's father in her past life, the leader of the magical sporepeople. It was only natural that Fahssn, who had usurped the throne, did not know that there was a secret passage leading to the outside world inside the closely guarded sacred land.

…………

The fighting on the battlefield was still as intense as ever.

After losing his warhammer, Gorefist was like a clumsy bear chasing the flame giant to no avail. He was not able to close the distance in the slightest.

Meanwhile, with a simple wave of his hand, Greem brought about devastating destruction to the ogre camp and Gorefist!

Even though the ogres had the numerical and geographical advantage, Greem alone decimated the Ango'rosh ogres.

While Greem was ruling over the battlefield with an iron fist, the first wave of reinforcements arrived.

It was none other than Sage Moat and Water Diviner Rauluns, who had made their way here as fast as possible through Mist Teleportation.

Even though they brought no reinforcements with them, their identities as Fourth Grades alone were enough to tip the scales.

Gorefist fell into despair and fled towards the camp, leaving Greem to harvest the life of his clanspeople freely.

Greem waved his hands, and the horde of fire creatures charged into the camp after the retreating ogres. For a moment, flames burned everywhere, and the cries and shouts of the ogres could be heard all over.

Seeing that the ogres had lost all ability to retaliate, Rauluns slowly stepped onto the battlefield across from Greem.

"The Ango'rosh ogres have lost the courage to resist. Outsiders, you may stop now!" Rauluns calmly said, seemingly without any discernible expression on his face made out of water elementium, "We will take over the rest of the fighting. You must stop your slaughter now!"

Mm? The water elemental wasn't on our side?

Greem was confused by the hostility expressed by the water elemental and couldn't help but look at Moat with a look of utter confusion.

Moat smiled bitterly and took out a small silk pouch, which he threw at Greem.

"This is the reward for what you have done so far. As for the battle here, take a break! Our main goal today is Fahssn. It's best if we…make Gorefist submit rather than simply killing him!"

"Submit?" Greem laughed coldly. "We haven't even caught the ogre chieftain, and you are already thinking of making him submit? If we don't take this opportunity to destroy the ogres' camp, it will be too late to do so when their reinforcements arrive."

"Human adept, know your place," For some reason, Water Diviner Rauluns had no goodwill towards Greem at all, "How we deal with the ogre chieftain is an internal matter of the Marsh Wetlands. An outsider like yourself has no place in telling us what to do!"

The expression on Greem's blazing face froze momentarily when he heard Rauluns' reply. He stared at the Water Diviner and finally nodded. "Very well…very well indeed! Since this is the matter of your Marsh Wetlands, I should take a break."

Having said that, Greem waved his hand, and the staff flew into his hands from beside the Flamegate.

Without the fire power from the staff, the Flamegate started to implode, finally dissipating into loose sparks. The fire creatures engaged in combat also began to disperse, quickly vanishing without a trace.

All of a sudden, only the twelve Swamp Giants were left chasing after the retreating ogres. The battlefield suddenly appeared oddly lonely.

Hmph!

Rauluns couldn't be bothered by Greem's actions.

He started chanting as he stood in a pond. Water humanoids began to rise from the water, instantly forming a massive army of water elementals.

These water elementals were only First and Second Grade, but they came in shocking numbers.

They quickly moved across the water's surface, rapidly replacing the fire creatures on the battlefield and forming a numerical advantage over the ogres once more.