Age of Adepts

Never once before in his entire life had Greem felt so close to the Will of the World!

In the past, he was always having trouble differentiating between the consciousness of the plane and the will of the world. He kept having the feeling that they was just two different names for the same matter from two different angles. Yet, at this moment when he finally made the advancement and became a Fire element Adept, only then was he profoundly enlightened by the huge difference between the two.

A plane was an enormous vessel that carried all living beings, a place where all things lived, bred, and expanded. At the beginning when a plane was born, basically the consciousness of the plane had also been born with it. After all, it was just a congregation of consciousnesses produced by all living beings and materials within the plane itself - chaotic and unclear. During this period, due to the consciousness of the plane only possessing a simple instinctive response, without developing a clear and direct self-consciousness, it was generally referred as the consciousness of the plane.

So to speak, most of the planes within the multi-verse only possessed the consciousness of the plane!

And it was obvious that the will of the plane was more advanced and possessed higher intelligence than the consciousness of the plane. On the foundation where a plane possessed its own consciousness, when this particular plane developed and expanded to a certain magnitude, the consciousness of the plane would give birth to the will of the plane, which was something similar to the soul of a human.

Thus, most of the consciousnesses of planes were primitive, naive like a babies who just begun to babble. They would respond to any event that might hurt them, but the process was clumsy and slow. On the other side, the will of the world was in fact, a consciousness of the plane that matured and grown up a little bit, and it had given birth to an independent self-consciousness from the chaotic congregation of consciousness. It was capable of using principles of the plane as its weapon to interfere or adjust any event that happening right within its body.

The rare few major planes in the multi-verse belonged to this category.

There was even some more matured will of the worlds, which were able to rely on their preferences to influence and guide those individuals who lived under their protection. Those who do something right would be rewarded and wrongdoings would be punished. Using the power of the world principle, they guided themselves to moving towards the direction they anticipated.

Throughout the entire multi-verse, there was only one world had given birth to a matured will of the world. It was a lower tier realm infested with foul demons and devils - the World of Abyss.

Meanwhile, the World of Adept where Greem lived in right now was obviously a major plane who had given birth to its own will of the world. Together, millions upon millions of living beings and billions upon billions of materials within the plane had formed and produced a consciousness of the plane that owned a partial self-consciousness. No matter whether it was a stalk of flower, a shrub of weed, a human being, a stone, regardless the level of their status, whether they were a noble or a mere peasant, irrespective of whether they were strong or weak, they were just a tiny part of this powerful will of the world.

Apparently, this will of the world was similar to those consciousnesses of the plane born in most of the material planes. It was against the blood sacrificial ritual which would cause a great number of souls in its world to vanish and be used as the sacrificial offering for a foreign world. As the result, with regards to Greem's behavior of directly fighting against the bloody altar, the will of the world had used the power of principle and given him preferential treatment.

Or else, with the current capability of Greem's soul, he would have to face a great challenge if he wished to become an official Adept. According to the Chip's estimation, if the will of the world didn't make a concession for Greem, the odds of Greem advancing into the realm of Adept just now was less than 7%.

According to the information Greem had, usually Adepts would call the process of adapting the principles, using the principles and complying with the guidance from the will of the world in order to obtain personal experience and improved one's skill, as the 'feedback of the world.' And as the matter of fact, such feedback was part of the world principle itself!

Therefore, it could be said that literally because of the power from the feedback of the world, that Greem was able to complete his Adept Advancement Ceremony!

Since he had advanced smoothly and became an official Adept, he was now freed from the shackles of the bloody altar. However, when he stood up with his back straight and ran his eyes around this completely isolated inter-space, he realized that the situation of the battle was still in the worst condition.

In less than ten minutes, the Fire Lord was showing signs of defeat, as now it could barely defend against the violent bombardment coming from Adept Anderson. As for the other two companions of his, Mary was strapped on a torture chair placed on the other end of the altar, letting out a painful shriek into the sky. It was obvious that her situation wasn't good at all. Alice had just slaughtered her way into the controlling main hall of the Swampy Tower and was fighting a fierce battle against two Adept level magical beasts. She was now running around busily, chased by the enemies, hence there was no way she could help create trouble.

As for that Acteon, after receiving an order from Adept Anderson, he had escaped from the torture chair, and was roaring with a deep voice while dashing towards Greem who had just opened his eyes.

Greem let out a deep and lordly laugh. He stretched his tall and burly stature, moved both arms over his head and unleashed a red force field from his body, covering an area of fifty meters in diameter.

Right after Evil Bugs leaped into the red force field, an elemental flame appeared out of nowhere immediately coiled up his body. The frightful high-temperature evaporated all the water in his body, which was few in volume, and the scorching hot flame jet roasted his body and made it produce crackling noises. In less than three seconds, his formidable half-bug body was nearly toasted by Greem's Ring of Fire.

In a speed faster than he came, Acteon scurried away from this red force field.

Although he had escaped from it, he had left behind a great number of charred and cracked bug fragments. If not because he ran away in time, even without Greem attacking him personally, just with the Ring of Fire outside of Greem's body alone would have been enough to roast him into a bug barbecue.

Acteon spent a long time strolling around the Ring of Fire. He had no courage to take another step into it.

After becoming an official Adept, a Pseudo-Adept like Acteon was hardly his opponent.

Through the Chip's Elementium Vision which provided him a comprehensive and thorough sight, Adept Anderson, who was now hovering in midair carried by wind vortex, was no longer enveloped in mystery like in the past. From the battle between him and Fire Lord, Greem could vaguely detect some information relating to him.

"Chip, can you digitize Anderson's combative ability?"

"Beep. The thread of task has been established… Initializing… Beep! Beep! Beep! … Warning! Warning! Unable to complete the task… An error occurred in the digitalization of the target…"

"Chip, find the reason why we can't construct the model of the target."

"Beep. Analyzing of error data has been completed… the highest possibility is that the sample template of the target model is no longer appropriate… the host needs to recollect the data of Adept level targets in order to reconstruct the template…"

Greem saw the light suddenly.

After the Chip was activated, the first digitalization model he built was based on an ordinary human. Using the body attribute data of an ordinary adult as the foundation, the Chip had constructed the scale of overall strength for Apprentice Adept. And since he had become an Adept himself, this basic template could no longer be used on Adept Anderson. As the result, the Chip couldn't construct the digitized model of him.

"Chip, expand the scope of collecting data, including all data in the database of the Adepts I've met into the calculation. Use Adept level creatures to reconstruct the basic digitized template."

"Beep. Task has been established… beginning extraction of data about Adepts. The samples included: Anderson, Sammir, Angus, Flower Fairy, Andre, Endor, Molten Giant… Constructing new digitized template…"

Taking the time when the Chip was busy constructing the new template, Greem moved his feet and appeared beside the flaming giant, helping it to block off Adept Anderson's attacks.

In just less than ten minutes, the flaming giant's body had been heavily damaged.

One after another powerful Fire element magic spells cast by it landed on the elemental barrier outside of Anderson's body, causing it to ripple and make the surrounding air to vibrate violently. However, with the endless and constant supply of element energy from the Swampy Tower, there was no way these attacks could break through his defense, and his defense was also enhanced by the tower. The attacks unleashed by Anderson were also something it could not stand up against.

An attack was countered by another attack, after the Fire element magic spell cast by Fire Lord was shattered by Anderson's Wind element magic spell, the remaining magical energy still riddled a thousand holes on its lava armor. If this Fire Lord wasn't an elemental creature, perhaps it would have already been defeated by Anderson's brutal and savage attack.

Greem didn't want his most competent minion to be destroyed by Anderson, so he took the initiative to replace Fire Lord and stood in front of Anderson, while the Fire Lord turned around and dashed towards Mary, trying to rescue her from the torture chair.

"What a lucky kid. You better not think that just because you became an Adept, you have the ability to resist me. Today, I'll make you realize the huge difference between you and me!" Upon seeing Greem, a frenzied and vicious expression immediately emerged on Adept Anderson's gloomy old face.

As the events developed into the current stage, Anderson realized that his plan had been completely ruined. Although there wasn't any risks to his life, the plans of advancement he had been thinking for more than one hundred years were destroyed by this seemingly insignificant Pseudo-Adept. The resentment and unwillingness of accepting such fact in his mind could no longer be described with any words or any spoken language.

With his mind filled with a slight thread of craziness brought on by the shattering of his hope, Anderson rode on a strong wind and unleashed a fierce assault at Greem.

After just exchanging three rounds of attack, Greem had deeply felt the pain Fire Lord was suffering just now.

There was absolutely no way he could destroy Anderson's elemental defense outside!

From the strength of element the Chip detected, the elemental defense outside of Anderson's body actually possessed a whopping 120 degree of defensive strength. The 'degree' here was a quantifier fixed by all Adepts, it was used to standardize the basic data of offensive and defensive ability. It used the full energy a magic crystal could unleash as the basic unit, which was 1 degree, and using it to quantify all kind of standards.

Basically, the power of a magic spell cast by a Beginner Apprentice using his own energy was around 1 to 5 degrees. As for Intermediate Apprentice, it was around 5 to 10 degrees, and Advanced Apprentice could have 15 to 20 degrees. As for Pseudo-Adept, their power was between 30 to 50 degrees.

The power of Anderson's elemental defense was as high as 120 degrees. This also meant, if the magic spell Greem cast couldn't break his defense with one hit, by the time the next magic spell was ready, Anderson's defense would have already recovered back to its peak.

With the energy of Swampy Tower as his support, Anderson didn't have to worry about his defense.

Contrary to that, Greem could hardly withstand the swift and violent attacks coming from Anderson.

After all, Greem had just completed his advancement. His Ring of Fire hadn't merged perfectly with his Fire element innate talent, and his basic defensive strength was only 70 degrees, which was far behind that of his opponent's.

In just the time of fewer than ten seconds, Greem had received waves of bombardment from three large scale magic spells. Part of the power of these magic spells penetrated through the gap of his Ring of Fire and had inflicted some damage onto his body.