Age of Adepts

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"Clan leader, that adept seems to have recognized me. Do you think we should……?"

Billis licked his lips as if he couldn't wait to dig into his food.

"Keep a close eye on him. Let him report to his superiors if that's all he's doing. If he tries anything else, I won't mind bathing this path with blood," Greem looked at the scenery around him and said.

"Understood! Leave it to me."

Billis smiled viciously as his body, hidden beneath the black cloak, started to squirm. A piece of his body, about the size of a little finger, fell to the ground and split into countless tiny beetles. These insects silently spread out all over the ship along the wooden planks.

In less than fifteen minutes, the entire floating ship was under his surveillance.

In particular, a swarm of beetles was now hiding beneath the boot of Second Grade Association Adept Ralph. He was the focus of Billis' surveillance, and he had absolutely no clue.

Midnight. The floating ship glided above the clouds with the vast Black Forest below.

A thin barrier of invisibility surrounded the ship and kept it concealed.

With this barrier, most unintelligent magical creatures would not detect the ship's presence, keeping it safe from most threats. Meanwhile, any magical creature that could detect the ship's presence from its faint magical flux had already been beaten scared by the Adept's Association. Naturally, none of them dared to raid a transport ship belonging to the Association.

For the sake of keeping the ship concealed, all adepts onboard were restricted from using magic during nighttime. Left without much else to do, they either lounged on the deck and admired the Black Forest in the night, or hid in their rooms to do some minor research or meditation.

Ralph sat before a wooden table in his securely protected cabin, communicating with someone from headquarters through a diamond-shaped crystal.

"…are you sure it's the legendary fire adept?" It was an elderly adept who spoke on the other end of the crystal. He was frowning as he listened to Ralph's description. Finally, he couldn't help but interrupt him.

"This…I can't be sure! But it's very likely."

"Why do you think it could be him?"

"Because I'm certain that one of the two robed figures is Bug Adept Billis. He could be considered a core member of the Crimson Clan in recent years. However, according to my observations, the bug adept seems to treat the other individual with a lot of respect, as if that person was the one in the lead instead. That is why I deduced that he is probably Crimson Clan Leader Greem."

"Mm. When you put it like that, indeed, the other person is most likely Greem. He's probably the only person in the Crimson Clan who could make Billis show such respect. When is this ship of yours going to reach its destination?"

"In thirty-seven days."

"Very well. Continue your observations…actually, never mind. Don't do anything, and don't pay any extra attention to them. I will arrange for something else on my end. Be careful. Do not provoke them. There are no kind individuals among Fourth Grade adepts!"

"Yes, I understand."

Ralph had no idea that while he was secretly communicating with headquarters in a heavily protected room, a dozen small black dots were silently monitoring his every action.

Inside a simple cabin on the second level of the ship.

Billis sat on an empty wooden bed frame. His body squirmed, rising and falling beneath the cloak. It was a frightening sight.

Meanwhile, his compound eyes flickered on his exposed insectoid head. As many as a hundred images could be seen flashing in his eyes. Some were images of individuals moving about in their rooms, some were of people resting on the deck of the ship, and some were of adepts reading or meditating.

It was important to note that most adepts had an almost paranoid concern for their personal safety. They would never go into deep meditation if they weren't in a place where they were sure of their protection.

Yet, the insects that Billis sent out could hide from the ship's detection arrays and the security arrays set down by these adepts themselves, watching their every action. Their lives were already in Billis' hands.

With the options available to him, Billis could quickly kill any single one of them. In fact, if he wanted to leave behind no clues, Billis could even flawlessly set up their death as the result of an experiment accident.

He held the lives of others in his hands. It was the feeling of absolute control and authority that Billis was most intoxicated with!

However, as arrogant and unhinged as he was, there was still one place on the ship he didn't dare approach.

That was the room where the clan leader, Greem, rested.

Perhaps it was because the other adept's on the ship were too weak, but they could not feel the explosive energy radiating from Greem's body. In their eyes, Greem was only a slightly more lonely and quiet First Grade adept.

In Billis' eyes, Greem was a moving volcano. And not just any volcano. He was an active volcano that had been suppressed for a thousand years and would let out an apocalyptic eruption at any time. The room he rested in was filled with terrifying fire energy that sent chills down Billis' spine.

Every time he gave commands to his insects, Billis made sure to have them distance themselves from Greem's room. He was genuinely terrified that his insects would trigger that silent volcano if they got close.

If this fearsome power were to erupt, all of the adepts on the ship would be instantly vaporized by fire along with the ship itself. Nothing would be left.

Meanwhile, in Greem's room, the fire adept finally, slowly, opened his eyes.

The fire coral staff in front of him was glowing bright red from the heat. It was so hot that the nearby space had been distorted, causing the room to appear strange and otherworldly.

The Orb of the Fire God on top of the staff was connected with Greem's Heart of Principles through an immaterial chain of fire. Pure fire energy, as hot as boiling lava, flowed through the chain. Every time it circulated, the energy itself seemed to undergo a change.

Its color turned from a reddish-white to golden yellow.

This change in the flame's color indicated the rise in its energy level.

Ever since his meeting with the Fire King in the Sea of Ashes, Greem had an approximate idea of the direction in which high-grade energy proceeded. At the moment, Greem would have to deepen his understanding of the fire and increase his Spirit to improve his powers.

Without sufficient Spirit, there was no way he could control the dangerous, berserk fire elementium at a minute level. Without sufficient Spirit, there was no way he could compress and refine the wild fire elementium.

When Greem was still in the lower Grades, he had thought of fire elementium as particles that could be freely manipulated and controlled. However, as his understanding of fire deepened and his Spirit's sensitivity increased, he could feel the fire's personality.

Indeed, fire had its own personality!

Much like water elementium was gentle and tame, wind elementium was free and unbound, and earth elementium was slow and firm, the fire elementium that Greem wished to master was passionate and wild. If one went along with its elementium trait, everything would be exceedingly simple. However, go against its elementium quality, and you would find it difficult to control.

Fire's power came from its explosiveness and its destructiveness.

Naturally, such wild and berserk elementium could not be unleashed to its full potential in the hands of a calm and gentle spellcaster. Only adepts with explosive tempers and reckless behavior could fully maximize the might of fire magic.

In contrast, Greem had been restraining his instincts in battles in the past. He relied far too much on the Chip's aid.

It undoubtedly kept him safe, but it also became an obstruction in the assimilation of his mind and body with the fire elementium.

In particular, now that he was at Fourth Grade, Greem could feel the rejection and unruliness of the fire elementium at every step along the way. His inability to tame fire elementium had slowed down his understanding of the flames.

However, Greem did not regret anything even after realizing this!

Only fire that bowed to his will was good fire. If he had to sacrifice a portion of his rationality to increase his affinity with fire, Greem would rather reject the fire.

However, this didn't mean that Greem intended to give up on fire.

If he could not open himself to the fire elementium or leave his safety in the hands of the frenzied and ferocious flames, he could only find a different path to increase his flames' energy levels.

If his understanding of fire were not enough to continue compressing fire energy, he would have to find another replacement. And Greem's choice was the Orb of the Fire God!

Greem constructed an energy chain between his Heart of Principles and the Orb of the Fire God. He then transferred the fire energy he had gathered in his body into the orb and used its power to compress and refine the flames. He moved the compressed fire energy back to his Heart and used the strange principle powers contained within the fire energy to strengthen his Heart of Principles.

Given Greem's current Spirit and the capacity of his Heart of Principles, this process of modification was extremely slow and challenging.

That was why Billis always sensed an overwhelming and surging fire energy in Greem's room. The intensity of the energy here had obviously exceeded Greem's current grade!

However, this only made Billis even more shocked and surprised. The defeatist notion of submitting before Greem only grew in his heart.