Age of Adepts

It was an incomparably peaceful twilight.

The sky above a primal forest near the east coast was a light purple. The Continent of Henvic was also gradually going quiet after a day of noise and commotion.

However, during this moment of peace and quiet as the birds went home, the horizon lit up once again.

A strange crackling sound filled the air as the sky turned bright red as if a crimson torch had stabbed it. An endless sea of fire could be seen everywhere.

The rift in the sky grew larger and larger as three insignificant black dots flew out from the shadows of the flames, blown about by the ravaging winds of space. They then turned into three flaming meteors and crashed in different corners of this world.

The flames in the sky continued to burn as the air trembled and quaked.

Greem was caught in a violent space storm, spinning wildly like a top that was continually being lashed by a whip, his body rolling through the air uncontrollably.

One moment he was facing up, and the next, he was facing down.

The whole world rotated violently in front of him as the sky and earth switched positions over and over again. Even with his Physique, Greem couldn’t help but feel dizzy and nauseous.

The ground quickly flew by beneath his feet as mountains and rivers appeared in his sight, only to vanish past the horizon before he could see them clearly. Greem turned into a red meteor, crashing through the clouds and slamming into the ground with a long crimson tail dragging through the sky.

If it weren’t for his flame barrier protecting him from the corrosion of the space storm, he would have been reduced to dust when he traveled through the space rift. It wouldn’t have made a difference if his body was made of adamantium.

A Third Grade adept!

It was his tremendous Physique as a Third Grade adept that allowed him to endure these inhumane tortures and crash toward the quickly approaching ground.

Boom!

A loud and rumbling explosion rang out. A vast stretch of the forest was destroyed, and dust flew up into the air.

A series of towering ancient trees slowly fell amidst the sound of cracking wood. They then started burning intensely from the fires falling from above. A ferocious and tall flame giant rose from a pitch-black crater at the end of this long, clear path of flames. The giant slowly assessed its surroundings.

A moment before he crashed, Greem had transformed into a flame giant, just barely avoiding the damage that the violent crash would have done to his body of flesh and bones. He looked around him and realized this was completely foreign territory. It wasn’t even a matter of where this was. He had no means of determining the cardinal directions.

A cold and sinister light gleamed in Greem’s burning eyes when he lifted his head and looked at the black trail left by his crash.

Hmph! That old hag had prepared something to take him down a notch the moment he entered Henvic.

Under usual circumstances, he and the other two Deceit Witches would have secretly snuck into Henvic through a spacetime rift. It would have been much better than their current situation in terms of both safety and stealth.

However, an unexpected space storm had disrupted their plans of sneaking into the plane while also hurling all three of them to different regions of Henvic.

In the past, Greem would have only pinned this on his bad luck. However, now, he could clearly sense that the world itself was cursing him tremendously with vicious, malicious intent. Even the energy aura on him was shrinking and shriveling at a rate visible to the naked eye.

This world does not like me!

Greem sighed resentfully.

No planar world would like an uninvited invader, particularly when this invader possessed a planar consciousness brand on him that filled it with extreme disgust.

The bright yellow flames slowly extinguished. Greem had no choice but to revert from his body of flames due to the suppression of the plane.

The other fires in the forest quickly died out, and the mountain winds blew across the place.

Greem felt an unexplainable chill as the cold winds caressed his naked body.

His original clothing had all been destroyed by the flames. He had no choice but to take out a new set of traveler’s clothes from his storage ring. By the time he was done dressing, a low roar had rung out from the forest as a massive gray bear emerged from within.

The bear immediately roared at Greem upon appearing. It crouched down and began a fierce and heavy charge at him.

It had a large body, brown and gray hair, a low roar, and a large, slightly, opened mouth. However, what drew most of Greem’s attention was still its bloodshot eyes.

Hmph! It was just a beast that was driven by the instincts of the planar consciousness!

If it still had intelligence, it would never have been as foolish as to launch an attack against a Third Grade adept. It was only when the instincts and impulse of the planar consciousness had obscured its original awareness that it would lose its sense for danger as a beast and commit to a suicidal act like this.

Greem let out a cold grunt and raised his left hand. A large amount of fire elementium quickly gathered in his palm, forming a red elementium fireball.

“Hm...” Greem let out a curious sound. He couldn’t help but shift his attention to the fireball in his hand.

With his might as a Third Grade adept, even an elementium fireball he casually created should be over three hundred points in power. Moreover, the elementium fireball could be enhanced with additional effects such as fire poison and Coldflame according to his will.

Greem could clearly see that the elementium fireball in his hands only had one hundred and thirty points of power. It was only at the level of a mere First Grade elite adept.

Dammit, why was the planar suppression here so intense?

While Greem was in a daze, the gray bear had arrived near him.

Those bloodshot eyes, that deafening roar, those sharp teeth; it was right in front of him!

“Move!”

There was no time to hurl the elementium fireball any more. Greem shouted as he made a fist with his left hand and punched the bear square in the jaw.

The sound of snapping bones rang out as this four-hundred-kilogram-heavy berserk bear was blown away like a sandbag struck by a giant. It crashed through countless bushes and felled two giant trees before finally coming to a stop.

Greem threw the fireball in his right hand and caused it to erupt into a giant ball of flames on the body of the bear.

The smell of burnt hair filled the air, mixed with the faint smell of cooked meat.

“Chip, what’s the situation on the self-assessment?”

[Beep. Self-assessment complete. Host’s current bodily attribute are as follows:

[Strength: 18+2 (12+2) | Physique 21+1 (10+1) | Agility 11+1 (6+1) | Spirit 32+4 (12+4).

[Note: Attributes in brackets are the highest amount of power that the host can currently unleash.]

Greem couldn’t help but draw in a breath of cold air when he saw such numbers.

Didn’t that mean he could only unleash the power of an elite First Grade adept at the moment?

It was fortunate that he had never given up on the cultivation of his body’s basic attributes over these years. Though his attributes had been slashed in half, his combined might was still not a force to be underestimated. At the very least, he was still not an entity that a gray bear with seven points of Strength and eight points of Physique could hope to compare to.

It was because his Strength was an entire seven points higher than the bear that he could create such an outstanding knockback effect.

In the end, Greem was a Third Grade adept. Even without his terrifying fire spells, his tremendous Strength and Physique alone would be enough for him to go unchallenged in this primal forest without too many wild, magical creatures.

Perhaps intimidated by Greem’s slaughter of the bear, the sound of fleeing beasts could be heard all over the forest, rustling the leaves as they fled. Not a single creature dared to remain close to Greem any longer.

“Chip, how is the deciphering of this world’s planar laws coming along?” Greem asked with a frown.

As a Third Grade adept, he was feeling incredibly frustrated and uncomfortable at having lost most of his power so abruptly.

[Planar law deciphering has begun. Current deciphering progress is 1%. Estimated time remaining: 107 hours, 33 minutes, 24 seconds.]

A hundred and seven hours? Given the length of this plane’s night and day, it was no more than four days. He should be able to unleash eighty percent of his power by then.

As for one hundred percent? That was something he couldn’t even dream about.

This place was a foreign plane, after all. The environment and magical density of the plane were only similar to the World of Adepts, not identical. Being able to perform at eighty percent of his usual capacity was already making full use of the Chip’s abilities.

Elementium adepts without the assistance of the Chip would be lucky to be able to use sixty percent of their total power. That was the main reason why most adepts viewed foreign plane invasions as the most dangerous task out there.

They would be leaving a familiar environment, unprotected by an adept’s tower or voodoo beast, while their power was cut by nearly half. Even small fry that they could eliminate with a single turn of their palm would become incredible opponents now. If they ran into an enemy of the same grade, it would be difficult to guarantee their own survival.

That was why no adept enjoyed such isolated ventures behind enemy lines unless absolutely necessary!

Greem calmed himself down and checked his equipment. It was then that he remembered the two witches that had snuck into Henvic along with him. One of them was a Second Grade, and the other was a Third Grade. They seemed to have been separated by the space storm as well and whisked to some unknown corner of this world.

Naturally, it was impossible to die with their abilities.

The problem was that the essential item for this trip–the core for the interplanar teleportation array–was still on the Second Grade witch. If anything were to happen to her, his plan to return to the World of Adepts would be toast.

It was best to meet up with them as soon as possible.

Having made his decision, Greem bent down and picked up a handful of black dirt from the ground. He then silently chanted a profound spell under his breath.

It took several minutes for Greem to successfully form a magical spirit with no sentience and consciousness of its own from the dirt.

The magical spirit floated before Greem, with a phantasmal human face formed out of faint white smoke. The face had no expression and silently awaited Greem’s question.

“Tell me, in which direction lies the closest human city?”

The white smoke turned into a small arrow and pointed in a specific direction. It then silently dispersed before Greem could ask a second question.

Greem shook his head with a bitter smile before running in the direction pointed out by the spirit.