Age of Adepts

Greem left the platform and passed through a stone corridor suspended in midair. He arrived at a wooden door that led into the stone fortress.

Two magical statues equipped with a sword and shield stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the wooden door.

Upon sensing Greem's approach, a thin red beam shot out from a black hole in the center of the statues' heads toward his body.

[Beep. Detecting appraisal-magic fluctuation. Are countermeasures required?]

"No need!"

Greem stood there silently and let the red beams sweep across him.

The magical statues then stepped aside to the left and right. A magical voice rang out from within them.

"Scan complete. Please enter!"

Behind the door was a long stone corridor, three meters wide and five meters high. It extended to the left and right with many wooden doors along the way.

Greem had just stepped through the wooden doorway when a young female adept who had been waiting here hastily bowed. She said in her sweet voice, "Welcome, Lord Greem!"

Greem glanced at the adept with his dark red eyes and instantly saw through all her statistics.

Third Grade, elementium adept, wind affinity.

Even though the female adept looked like a human female, her internal construction was starkly different from an ordinary human. Her appearance also showed heavy signs of magical modification and reconstruction.

A humanoid creature. Lesser plane…a foreign adept.

A series of words flashed across Greem's mind. He seemed to have understood where the female adept came from.

The young female adept trembled beneath Greem's cold gaze. She could sense that, in one instant, all of her secrets had been exposed to this mysterious Fifth Grade Great Adept.

The tremendous difference in their grades made her shiver like a rabbit in front of a tiger. She had no choice but to resist the instinctual fear in her soul with her resilient Spirit.

Fortunately, Greem ended his scan with the Chip almost immediately. Otherwise, the sheer spiritual pressure and energy radiation he gave off would be enough to hurt her mentally.

"Over here, my lord! You just arrived here, so you will need to meet Adept Gerritsen first. He's in charge of recruitment matters." The young adept had clearly received training. The smile on her face was just as sweet as ever, even as her body trembled in fear.

"Gerritsen?" Greem hesitated for a moment.

"He's a Sixth Grade Great Adept in charge of receiving adepts like you who have answered the recruitment orders. Moreover, he is also responsible for the assignment of missions later," The female adept emphasized the last sentence as she spoke, as if hinting something to Greem.

Greem nodded and said nothing more.

The two of them quickly walked down the winding stone corridor of the fortress. They passed by numerous security points guarded by elite adepts. All these elite adepts looked toward Greem with respect and envy when they saw the young adept escorting him.

They passed through all the corridors on the outer layer and stepped into another stone corridor suspended in midair. It was an entire kilometer long. This stone passage was the only corridor connecting the outer layer of the fortress to the inner region. As such, the amount of security and detection runes attached to it was shocking.

Greem slowly walked down the stone corridor. He had the leisure to appreciate the magnificent sights below and around him.

This place was a passage suspended in midair.

Several stone platforms hovered in the dark and boundless space around it. Each platform was several kilometers wide, packed to the brim with powerful, ferocious voodoo beasts and mighty war statues.

These soldiers stood silently in the darkness. Even the most vicious of voodoo beasts remained absolutely silent. Only their eyes were open, glowing with a savage, bloodthirsty light.

Looking across this vast space filled with stone platforms, it was almost as if there were only seas of red all around you.

There were no weaklings among those present here either!

The Chip was able to estimate the base power of the voodoo beasts and magical statues just from the energy reaction they emitted. Most of them were First or Second Grade magical creatures. Meanwhile, Third Grades made up about ten percent of their ranks.

This number didn't sound significant. But considering the hundreds of thousands of creatures gathered there, just ten percent was already a shocking number.

"These are cannon fodder prepared for the war?" Greem asked curiously.

"No, this is a private army directly subordinate to Lord Erlenwald. The actual cannon fodder are stationed in other fortresses. Most of them are foreign armies and subordinate forces conscripted from the lesser planes. Their numbers are a hundred times this army's!" The young female adept replied.

She didn't go into detail, but what information she revealed was already enough to shake Greem to his core.

In Greem's previous experiences, the so-called planar invasions of the past had always started with the infiltration of an elite vanguard. A small forward base would then be constructed for the sake of pulling in more reinforcements. This strategy focused primarily on cooperation and infiltration. The priority was gaining control over the original rulers of the plane. The adepts could then take on the existing ruling structures to gain control over the whole planar world.

Provided the adepts had sufficient forces to burn, they could launch a large-scale invasion and wage war against the natives. If they won, they would obtain the resources and population of an entire world. If they lost, they would have to return home and lick their wounds as they prepared for the next invasion.

However, all of Greem's past experiences were in regards to lesser planes weaker than the World of Adepts. If the opponent was a planar world equal in might to the World of Adepts, it was a completely different matter. Even Greem had no idea how a war would be waged in these circumstances.

However, this tiny corner that he just saw was enough to give Greem a vague impression. The true scale, depth, and intensity of a large-scale planar war were far beyond his expectations.

He couldn't help but become a little anxious at what was to come!

In a small or medium-scale planar war, a Fifth Grade existence like himself would already be a terrifying deciding force. In a large-scale planar war, a Fifth Grade Great Adept like himself was no more than a tiny component in a greater machine.

It seemed like their status was noble, but they didn't actually have that much of an impact. At the very least, their accomplishments were hardly decisive!

Greem and the young adept passed through the corridor and made it past several tightly-guarded points before arriving in the inner region.

The traffic here was clearly much heavier than the outer layer.

The bright, broad halls were filled with people walking in every direction. Some of them were elementium spellcasters dressed in robes and holding staves. Others were body-refining adepts wearing armor with swords sheathed at their waists. There were also summoners with contracted creatures curled-up on their shoulders. Of course, there were the bloodline adepts as well, their bodies radiating the thick scent of bloodline power.

Human heads bobbed and shoulders rubbed against each other in this giant hall packed to the brim. It was oddly lively and filled with activity. However, Greem took a look and noticed that not even half of the adepts here were humans. The majority of them were foreign adepts of other species with strange appearances or marked differences in physiology.

Some even obscured their bodies and made it difficult to identify their gender or species.

Even the weakest individual here was a Third Grade adept. Moreover, the percentage of Fourth Grade adepts was quite high indeed.

As Greem appeared, the crowd bustling in the hall suddenly went quiet. Everyone who saw the young female adept and Greem couldn't help but betray an expression of shock. They hastily stepped aside and created a path for the two of them.

"It's a Great Adept."

"There's a Great Adept. Be careful not to bump into his lordship."

People started whispering and muttering between themselves.

"This way, my lord!" The female adept serving as Greem's guide lifted her head proudly and led Greem through the crowd and out of the hall. They turned and walked up a spiral stone staircase.

It wasn't until Greem had vanished from view that the hall resumed its activities, as if someone had pushed a play button. However, all the Third and Fourth Grades that had witnessed Greem personally couldn't help but gather together and chatter.

"Is it a new Fifth Grade adept? I've never seen him before. He's quite an unfamiliar sight."

"Yeah, I've never seen him in the Crystal Hall. He must have arrived today!"

"Judging from his appearance, he came from the homeworld."

"Right, Sanazar! Aren't you from the homeworld as well? Have…have you ever seen his lordship?"

The adept that the question was directed at was a tall woman shrouded in purple mist. The purple mist was thin- it was enough to obscure her aura but not enough to hide her figure fully.

Judging from her appearance, her silhouette, and her aura, it was the Third Grade bloodline adept Sanazar who had vanished from Zhentarim a long time ago.

Upon hearing her companions' questions, Sanazar's almost-Fourth Grade aura became unstable. There was awkwardness and struggle written all over her face. Sanazar gritted her teeth in the face of these questions and replied angrily, "I don't know him! There are so many old Fourth Grade monsters on the continent. How many could I possibly know? Don't ask me again."

Having said that, Sanazar turned and hurried toward her room, completely ignoring the stunned faces of her companions.

Her heart wavered as she ran. She seemed to be at a loss.

At that moment, Greem's tremendous Spirit had enveloped the entire room. She might have been hiding behind her companions, but she had no confidence that she had been able to evade his spiritual senses.

He has already advanced to Great Adept.

He has already advanced to Great Adept.

He has already advanced to Great Adept.

This explosive news echoed in her mind, making her feel anxious and entirely at a loss.

She had believed that the reckless, fearless way she had struggled between the line of life and death, the desperate way she had been training herself, would be worth it in the end. She would be equal with him once she advanced to Fourth Grade. Who would've thought he would take that even more important step forward ahead of her, casting her even further behind?

Sanazar felt genuine despair at the thought of this. She let out an unending howl in the depths of her mind.