Age of Adepts

Right when Snorlax was busy settling the large quantity of Fire Diamonds and gemstones brought back by its master, Greem had also started to seriously go through the loot he had brought back during the trip to the volcano.

A Second Grade Crystal Core of Molten Giant, four First Grade Crystal Cores of Molten Giant.

Perhaps, even an official Adept would felt jealous of a loot like this!

However, with Greem's current ability of golem crafting, he still couldn't work on this Second Grade core. After all, any external modification would mean damaging the core itself and the self-defense mechanism initiated by this Second Grade core alone was enough to give Greem a huge headache. It was impossible for him to focus all his attention on controlling the alchemy station, while keeping a lookout on the rampaging behavior put out of the core itself.

If anything unexpected happened during the critical moments, it was highly possible this hard to come by supreme treasure would be destroyed!

As a result, before he could improve his overall strength to another level, he had no choice but to put this precious core aside and only work on it once he had the confidence to do so in future.

As for the other four First Grade cores of Molten Giant, they were the focus of Greem's work.

Using the most primitive method, Greem meticulously and carefully scanned every single aspect of each core into his mind. The data gathered by the Chip included the hardness of each core, the flatness of each side of the core, the direction of every single thread of crystal grown into and the distribution of their thickness… and it put the utmost focus in scanning the surface area of each core that it could use later.

Using this complicated and vast statistical data, the Chip would design the most appropriate three-dimensional magical array for each of the core, then through multiple optimizations, make the arrays able to fit perfectly onto the core.

As Molten Giant was a double-elements magical creature of Fire and Earth, no doubt, by only utilizing one of the element would be a huge waste. Therefore, in order to dig out their potential to the last drop, the Chip would need a long time to calculate and analyze before coming out with the best solution.

After handing this tedious task to the Chip, Greem spent all his time busily working on learning Fire element magic spells. Since his body transformed into Flame Body, the time took Greem to learn these Fire element magic spells was cut into half. In the past, it took him one to two months to learn a new magic spell, but now, his list of personal skills was refreshed with a new skill on a daily basis.

Nevertheless, for magic spells which could give him multiple effects and required different magical knowledge, Greem still needed to put in a huge amount of effort in order to master them.

During his previous trip to the volcano world, Greem's newly constructed team of Earth element golems was nearly wiped out completely, and it would take him some time before he could restock the loss of five Rock Snake's cores. As the Swampy Tower didn't carry the huge resources of core Greem needed, hence he could only ask Mary to buy some when she was out for her mission.

But, this could at most bring him Pseudo-Adept level cores, and each of them cost a hefty price. After all, Greem had a higher requirements about the quality of the cores. And, though he hoped to find some Adept level cores at the apprentice market, it was merely wishful thinking!

According to the normal system of administrative, if Greem needed any high-level Adept resources, the most convenient way would be through the help of Adept Anderson. But too bad, it was obvious that Adept Anderson was just a selfish guy, as he only concerned on his own magic spell experiments and would never show concern to any of his Apprentice Adepts.

As the result, by compared to apprentices from other Adept Towers, the apprentices of Swampy Tower were so much weaker.

…………

On the fifth floor of the Swampy Tower.

In the depth of night, Acteon came to this place once again.

Inside the large stone hall, a huge magical array was seen drawn on the rock solid surface of the floor. It was an array constructed from numerous strange and profound magical runes and lines. No matter how hard Acteon tried to recall his knowledge, out of so many runes, he could barely recognize a couple of runes that he felt familiar with.

They were all mysterious runes related to bloodline, souls, and fusion. As for their specific usage, it was sad that with the knowledge of an Apprentice Adept, there was no way he could decipher any further.

In addition to that, what really startled Acteon was the strong scent of blood inside of the magical array, and the dark blood stain on the floor that couldn't be washed away. All this was the direct evidence to the torture he had suffered in the past few months. If not because he was supported by a crazy will of becoming stronger, even with his body being half-bug, he wouldn't be able to withstand the process of bloodline quenching and fusing that went on repeatedly.

Clad in a dark Adept robe, Anderson was seen adjusting the magical array. His lips moved as he murmured, his ghost-claws like fingers streaking through the air in a mysterious manner, and with that, one after another profound magical rune emerged out of nowhere and kept merging with the magical array lying quietly on the floor.

As the result, all energy nodes of the magical array lit up in an orderly fashion.

"Take off all your clothes and stand in the magical array!"

The order from Adept Anderson was straight and clear, but his words carried an undertone of authority that allowed no one to disobey.

With a pale face, Acteon followed his orders.

After the robe clad on his body was taken off, exposing in the air was a twisted, fearful looking body that was half-bug!

On his body, the part that belonged to human was rare to see, as most of his body part portrayed the obvious characteristics of bugs. A pair of colorful, hue-shifting eyes, countless tiny compound eyes surrounded his pupil, a layered, lotus-shaped mouthpiece, a black hard shell that formed a layer of protection on his entire body, and the pair of sickle shaped arms that folded on the side of his body…

Since he transformed himself into a bizarre look of half-human, half-bug, Acteon had never revealed his body in front of anyone. Put it bluntly, anyone who had the privilege of witnessing his true form had been devoured by him, became the nourishment of this body of half-bug.

But for today, he was forced to expose his body, in the most humiliating manner!

The gruesome and shivering air, the icy cold stone floor that sent a chill down his spine, all made him felt extremely uncomfortable. Yet, he still stood with his back straight in the center of the magical array, inside a magical ring that could only be occupied by a single person.

"Good… excellent…" Within the spacious hall, the cold voice of Adept Anderson sounded out like the curse coming from the misty void. "Although the function of your body has decayed slightly, the result of bloodline infusion is coming along well! Kid, if you can survive this round of magical experiment, you'll definitely become the one and only one giant bloodsucking bug in this world!"

Hee hee hee…

Following the near insane howl let out by Adept Anderson, the surging energy within the magical array started to gather toward the magical ring at the center of it. The bright glow of the intense magical energy even illuminated Acteon's body, making it half transparent and allowing anyone to see his internal organs and bones. Within the intense light, a vague, incorporeal yet broken figure of soul emerged out of nowhere, standing right at the position where Acteon was at, throwing a blank look at the surroundings.

At the same time, right above the magical array, a crack was broken out on the ceiling, and a human fist-sized, crystal clear Soul Diamond was seen gradually making its descent. With the help from the strong glow emitted by the circulating of the magical array, one could even see through the Soul Diamond and see a glittering and translucent crystal of crimson rolling within the core of it.

Step by step, Adept Anderson controlled the Soul Diamond, making it attach to Acteon's forehead slowly. In an instant, a burning smell filled the air, as the Soul Diamond radiated a high temperature and scorched Acteon's forehead, burning it and producing dark smoke. Finally, the Soul Diamond successfully socked itself onto his forehead.

The crimson crystal was revolving swiftly. For each turned it revolved, it would shot out a tiny crimson thread. Guided by the Soul Diamond, this tiny crimson thread merged into Acteon's body slowly. At the beginning, the transformation wasn't that clear. But following the merging of more of these threads with him, Acteon's body started to turn dark red and crimson demonic runes could vaguely be seen on the surface of his body.

No doubt, for Acteon, such degree of body modification was frightfully torturous. His half-bug body which had taken a deep root in the control would never allow his bloodline to be contaminated by any external bloodline. At the depths of his bloodline, a place where no outsider could ever take a peek of, a battle of life and death had broken out, and the situation could be described as intense and severe!

Suppressed by the magical array, the home advantage of half-bug bloodline was reducing at a constant speed. On the other side, supported by the endless energy from the Adept Tower, the weak vampire bloodline was doing its job with ease, as it kept expanding its territory inside of Acteon's body, seizing one part at a time.

His body had become the battlefield of life and death between two bloodlines. Right at this very moment, Acteon was like an ordinary mortal who had all his mysterious and powerful abilities stripped away, the cold air of the hall even made him tremble, as he could hardly endure the cold temperature.

Both bloodlines had shown the same overbearing manner, and both had regarded the other as a contaminant, making it impossible for either one of them to compromise and co-exist with the other. Whenever a bloodline became weaker, it would find a way to invade those body factors, and produce more peers by contaminated them, bringing in more soldiers into the battle.

Yes, it was a battle! A battle fought for dominance between half-bug bloodline and vampire bloodline! Unless one side completely defeated the other side or the body of the host was too weak for the battle to continue, the battle would continue like this forever.

Following the progress of the battle, black, pungent and sticky liquid started to ooze from Acteon's eyes, ears, mouths, nose, and all parts of his body, flowing across his skin and dripping onto the floor.

The liquid was actually his life factors that were killed in the battle of the bloodline.

Meanwhile, Acteon's life aura had started to turn lifeless.

Upon sensing the body of the host had become extremely weak and could die at any time due to the battle that happened at the depths of bloodline and soul, both mutated bloodlines had finally compromised. They retreated to their own source territory, slowed down the speed of pressuring the host's body and put out a high vigilance at any movement of the enemy bloodline.

Using the Queen Bug as its base, the half-bug bloodline retreated and hid in Acteon's brain, while the mutated vampire bloodline had modified Acteon's heart, and placed its home there. Although the initial planning of having both bloodlines merged as one didn't happen, but having them co-exist had worked out smoothly.

Adept Anderson, who had been focusing all his attention on watching every activity happened inside of Acteon's body, finally let out a long sigh of relief. With a thought of his mind, he shot out a hidden spiritual ripple.

Taking the opportunity when Acteon's soul, body, and bloodline were all at their weakest moment, a soul contract hidden inside the Soul Diamond had snuck its way into Acteon's body.

"You…" After all, Acteon did own the Spirit of that Pseudo-Adept level. Though he was weak now, he would still notice any danger that came to him. However, before he could plan his counterattack, the soul contract had seared deeply into his soul.

As the result, in next second, the naked Acteon had become as obedient a puppet.

"Waiting for your order, my great master Anderson!"

Upon hearing the expected response, Adept Anderson couldn't control himself anymore and let out a loud laugh. The entire hall was filled with cruel and high-pitched laughter that sounded like cries of the night owl.