Age of Adepts

Goblin Plane. City of Machines.

As the gathering place of all magical machine technology in the Goblin Plane, the City of Machines had become the dream capital that all goblin engineers and technicians dreamed of.

It had initially been a private territory of Princess Vanessa of the Goblin Empire, but ever since the otherworldly adepts had arrived in this world, it had become where they lived and set up their laboratories.

An adept's tower rose from the city now and was one of its most striking and memorable landmarks!

Due to their fear of the evil adepts, the goblin civilians had been unwilling to serve these individuals that had robbed them of their rule over the plane. However, with the passing of twenty years, the older generation who had been filled with terror at the brutality and wickedness of the adept invasion slowly died of old age.

The new generation of goblins might not like the adepts, but their memories of their brutality were not as clear and imprinted as their predecessors.

Correspondingly, more goblins were willing to embrace the changing of the times. They eagerly approached the tower and offered themselves into the service of the adepts, becoming the representatives and subordinates of the adepts across the continent. These same goblins quickly turned from ordinary goblins into fearsome and respected pilots of magical machine warriors who had the power to overwhelm ordinary goblin machine warriors.

Moreover, the gentle and friendly attitude of the beautiful Adept Meryl during her rule of the Goblin Plane had also substantially dissolved the hostility of the goblin nobles. Of particular note were the constant supply of life potions, beautification potions, charm pins, wands, magic scrolls, and elementium talismans that came from the World of Adepts.

These were all fantastic luxury items that the goblin nobles desired beyond all else. They represented an immense attraction to the goblins, who typically didn't live beyond twenty to thirty years. Moreover, the constant cries of Goblin Sage Snorlax for his believers to not resist the adepts through violent means helped improve the relationship between the two. Instead, Snorlax called for all goblins to extend discourse and business to the adepts with conditions attached.

Such an idea fell in line with the thoughts of the higher class goblins. As such, some large-scale merchant groups and unions also joined the ranks of the collaborators. The goblins slowly accepted the existence of the adepts and their identities as the rulers under such daily indoctrination and guidance.

As their most charming ruler, Adept Meryl had unparalleled influence within the Goblin Plane. The massive City of Machines was built around the adept's outpost under her call for action, surrounding the tower at the center of the city.

The new city was a classic capital of steel as well as the capital of magical machines!

No wooden or stone buildings could be seen here; only metal fortresses forged of tough alloy. Moreover, it wasn't stagecoaches or mules that ran in the streets but smoking goblin chariots and mechanical hawkstriders.

Those who could live within the City of Machines were almost always individuals who had unique abilities when it came to metal forging or magical machine construction. They belonged to dozens of different goblin merchant groups, and their main job was the purchasing of otherworldly resources and materials.

Adept Meryl set down strict trading guidelines during her time governing over the City of Machines. Even the adepts had to offer magical crystals and magical items of 'equal value' if they wanted to obtain the resources of the Goblin Plane. Of course, the prices of all trades were determined by the Crimson adepts and the goblin nobles after discussion.

However, Meryl's most brilliant move was announcing the beloved Princess Vanessa as her disciple and declaring her as the eternal ruler of the City of Machines, never to be influenced by the stationed adepts.

That played to the hearts of the moderate goblins immensely!

The second adept to be stationed in the Goblin Plane after Meryl was her disciple, Wind Adept Deserra.

Naturally, as her disciple, there was no reason for Deserra to modify the ruling structure that his teacher had set out. Within these twenty years of the Crimson Clan's rule, the goblins had slowly shifted from a monarchy system, with the goblin royalty at its center, to a method of influence revolving around this prosperous City of Machines.

It was afternoon today. The warm sunlight fell from the skies, causing the metallic city to shine brilliantly.

Princess Vanessa stood silently upon the balcony of the seventh floor of the tower. She looked down quietly at the gleaming metal buildings and the crowds walking through the full streets.

As the red mechanical eye in her delicate socket adjusted slightly, she could even clearly see the faces and expression of the pedestrians in the street, even from two kilometers away. There was no sorrow or agony from being ruled by the wicked adepts on their faces. Instead, everyone was busy, as if they were working hard for a beautiful future.

Could there be happiness in being ruled over by an invader?

Vanessa tilted her delicate head, filled with confusions and uncertainty, along with mechanical gears and magical energy.

Her soul had been preserved by the adepts ever since her accidental death in the Steel Capital. The adepts had used their evil methods and put her soul in a completely metal body to draw Tigule and the goblin royalty to their side.

And she, through such a method, accomplished the immortality that most goblin nobles dreamed of!

Once upon a time, the Vanessa who loved her people and dreamed of bringing them toward a future of prosperity and greatness had suffered in agony. She had wanted to end this boring immortality of hers countless times. Unfortunately, her metal body turned her into an undying monster.

Swords couldn't slash through it.

Arrows couldn't pierce through it.

Even starvation wasn't an option; she didn't need to eat anything apart from absorbing some magical energy.

Suffocation? She had not breathed since her reincarnation into this body.

Her body made of ultra-alloy also made death by jumping nearly impossible. Even if she were to wreck her body, the adepts would only need to make her a new one.

After experiencing a period of darkness and suffering, Princess Vanessa finally accepted her new body with the encouragement of Tigule and many other supporters. She then started a new life.

She lived in the adept's tower, studied the new and mysterious knowledge of the World of Adepts, and learned about the strange plethora of planar worlds out there. For the first time, Vanessa felt liberated!

The past her might have loved her people and loved this world, but she was undoubtedly a frog in a well. Isolated, shut off, numb, unlearned, and sealing off her people in a narrow world with her so-called 'love.'

A world like theirs would eventually be found by another world. There was no such thing as peace or harmony between planar worlds- only naked profit and uncontrolled martial force.

In contrast, the adepts that had invaded the Goblin Plane were willing to adopt a gentle rule over them. It was…in truth, the greatest happiness that the goblins could afford!

For some reason, ever since the wondrous otherworldly knowledge had expanded her worldview, Vanessa had fallen madly in love with the combination of machinery with magical energy. Under her encouragement, a group of young goblins was selected to become apprentices of the newly established subject of magical machinery in the City of Machines. A large group of goblin engineers also started researching the topic of magical machinery.

Just as she was watching over this exotic city that represented the assimilation of the goblins and the adepts, two goblin maids arrived behind her and bowed.

"Princess, Lord Schröder requests an audience!"

Schröder was the finance minister of the City of Machines. An audience with him would either be a request for magical crystals or an application for a research project on magical energy. In the end, it would have something to do with magical power.

Most goblins had no affinity with magical power and could not sense the existence of elementium particles. As such, if they wanted to research magical energy, they could only do in-depth research by breaking down the magical power produced by magical crystals. As for the Queyras alloy that could be used to create space furnaces? All of it was in the hands of adepts. Ordinary goblins had no chance of coming into contact with any.

Even back during the founding of the City of Machines, Adept Meryl went through immense trouble to obtain a space furnace from the adept leaders to serve as the power supply of the City of Machines. Otherwise, trying to sustain a city as large as this with only magical crystals was no more than a delusion.

However, trying to promote the development of the entire City of Machines with a single space furnace meant that the distribution of its magical energy was essential. The one hundred and six metal furnaces in the city required energy. The twenty-seven smelting factories required energy. The thirty-two construction workshops required energy…

Apart from that, there was also a pile of research that required magical energy to be continued, including projects from the magical alloy refinery, the metal ratio laboratory, the magic machine research center, and the magical energy development center.

Under such a severe magical energy shortage, Princess Vanessa could only try her best to eke out a magical energy quota for everyone while applying for more from the adepts.

Fortunately, with Tigule's status as a Second Grade magical machine pilot, the goblins had decent standing within the Crimson Clan. The magical crystals that he sent back to the City of Machines every month also became rare resources that the goblin engineers and technicians fought over.

It was during these moments that the typically polite, green-skinned runts would start yelling in the city council. There were several times where it even escalated to physical conflict. Such chaotic scenes undoubtedly upset Princess Vanessa as well, causing her to sneak out to this balcony to enjoy the scenery instead.

Unfortunately, as the supposed 'ruler' of the city, she had to deal with all these people who were constantly calling for more resources and energy that they so desperately needed.

Perhaps, it was also time for her to find a way to request an audience with that powerful adept.