Age of Adepts

Chapter 1052 Bloodline Replacement

It was three days later when Greem finally returned to Fire Throne.

Just as Chairman Freed had said, it wasn’t advisable for him to move around while he carried 500 Siths of origin substance on his person.

They were many Third Grade adepts in Zhentarim who had remained stuck at Third Grade for hundreds of years. There were plenty of people who were willing to walk on the razor’s edge if they knew that Greem carried origin substance in his hands– the origin substance that could change their fate.

Greem might be under the care of the Zhentarim Association, but that would not stop these adepts who had nearly gone mad from being unable to advance. Even the Crimson Clan became extremely cautious during this time. The core members of the clan made sure to stay within the clan headquarters as much as possible, never leaving the tower unless there was something urgent.

That was to prevent any crazed adepts from abducting and threatening their clan leader!

Greem was also under pressure to consume these origin substances as soon as possible. He had to advance to Fourth Grade to cut off all the wicked thoughts of those greedy adepts, or the Crimson Clan would never find a day of peace.

Thus, Greem shut himself in his room at the top floor upon returning to Fire Throne, cutting off all connection with the outside world.

Greem sat crossed-legged in his secret room, five crimson crystals floating before him.

The crystals were the purest of non-elemental diamonds. A sort of strange crimson energy floated within these diamonds.

When Greem first saw this crimson energy, both the Flame Fiend’s Heart beating in his chest and the soul origin in the depths of his consciousness trembled with desire. He gulped slightly. A voice surged from all his limbs, organs, every piece of flesh, and every single cell in his body.

Devour it.

This voice was soft and scattered initially. However, as Greem continued to stare at the crimson energy, the sound started to gather into a terrifying torrent, thrashing and roaring through his body.

Unbeknownst to him, his right hand started to quiver and reached forward, slowly grabbing towards the crimson crystal.

It wasn’t until his right hand entered his field of vision that Greem realized his loss of control. He had to exert tremendous will just to retract his arm forcefully.

This simple act of shirking his arm back had caused Greem to break out into a sweat, despite being at peak Third Grade. Greem then looked into his mind, only to realize that the Chip’s notifications had filled up the entire mental space.

[Beep. Warning. Warning. Detecting high-energy origin substance crystal. Requesting instructions from host. Begin the absorption process?

[Beep. Detecting unusual forcefield flux. Attribute: Unknown. Source: Unknown. Effect: Unknown.

[Beep. Detecting mental confusion in host’s condition. Requesting instructions from host. Commence mental interference?]

……

A series of warnings had been issued, all of them glowing with blinding red light. Unfortunately, all of Greem’s attention had been absorbed by the crimson energy just now, making him utterly oblivious to the Chip’s messages. Now that he had managed to get ahold of himself, he could finally reflect on the situation. A cold sweat broke out on his back uncontrollably.

That crimson energy should be origin substance, then!

According to the adepts, origin substances were portions of planar origin that had dispersed from within a plane. It could be said to be the ‘blood’ that sustained a plane’s growth– that which allowed a plane to cultivate new life and substance. Under ordinary circumstances, the planar origin would remain within the plane, flowing incessantly as the plane system functioned without error.

It was only when the plane system had been damaged, and the principle powers began dissipating, that the plane origin would manifest as these strange objects that were somewhere in-between material and immaterial. These incredibly pure, non-elemental diamond crystals that had absorbed and captured planar origin within them were the origin substances that the adepts referred to.

Of course, the planar origin would naturally assimilate with plane substances even without being captured. In doing so, ‘corrupted’ origin substance would be born.

The most valuable parts of these origin substances were the law shards contained within them.

Any lifeform that absorbed these origin substances would have a chance of mastering a portion of the planar laws. That would undoubtedly be a massive aid in understanding the lower principles of the world.

The world principles and the planar principles always functioned secretly beyond the senses of a plane’s lifeforms. Without the help of these materialized law shards, individuals with inferior talent and affinity with the world would never have a chance of coming into contact with the truth of the world.

According to the rules by which the world functioned, it should not be possible for powerful individuals that exceeded the planar laws and principles to be born within the planes. However, there would always be errors in any system; few or many, large or small. When these errors could not be corrected, terrifying unearthly beings like the adepts, the gods, and the Scourge Lords would come into existence.

The reason the World of Adepts could create so many high-grade adepts and Great Adepts was undoubtedly because the adepts had taken full advantage of the system. They had ingeniously used the origin substances as a means to cross the threshold of principles!

The source of these origin substances was obvious. They had to have come from hostile planes or planes they had forcefully enslaved and conquered.

Many powerful adepts emerged from the World of Adepts and conquered countless other foreign planes.

Only planes with truly valuable resources would be preserved, serving as an endless source of supplies and slaves for the adepts. Planes that lacked resources or resisted too strongly would be selectively destroyed for the artificial manufacturing of origin substances.

Such behavior had been incredibly common during the early stages of the World of Adepts’ rise. It was only to avoid the attention of the peacekeepers of the multiverse–the Titans–that the adepts had recently started reining in their ruthless behavior of destroying planes to create origin substances.

Unfortunately, despite their restraint, the adepts had already been classified as an evil faction alongside the Scourge Lords, the Abyssal Demons, and the Mind Flayers. They were hated and despised by all across the universe.

The adepts were naturally a chaotic and evil race.

It was said that many factions had sprouted among the adepts in the realms beyond. Some aided the Scourge Lords in their rampant destruction and ravaging of other worlds. Others helped the Titans fight against the Scourge Lords and Abyssal Demons. However, most adepts remained neutral, hiding in the mystic realms they had created, and living a hermit life of research and learning.

It was precisely the restraint in the adepts’ actions in recent years that caused origin substances to become increasingly rare and in-demand amongst the adepts.

Under ordinary circumstances, they would only be traded between Great Adepts.

Only Fourth Grade adepts who were descendants or good friends of Great Adepts had a chance of obtaining some origin substances. As such, these items were top-tier resources, even in the private collections of Fourth Grade adepts, easily one their three most valuable possessions. They weren’t often put up for trade.

As such, if it weren’t to avoid being selected to carry out a suicide mission, the fourteen Fourth Grade adepts of the Zhentarim Association would never have been willing to open their coffers and put together five hundred Siths of origin substance for someone else!

“Chip, search for the method of utilizing origin substances!”

[Beep. Found 12,682 items and information related to origin substances in the data library. After filtering and selection, 961 sources of information relating to host’s current grade and requirements have been found. Said information is as follows……]

A waterfall of information surged into Greem’s mind. He closed his eyes and started to rapidly make sense of this information that had already been organized by the Chip. Finally, he came to several conclusions.

There were three general methods of using origin substances.

The first was to swallow the origin substance and pray that you could decipher some information on the laws that could be of use to yourself.

It was the method that most adepts would choose!

The second was to seal the origin substance within your body with magic. You would then go into deep meditation and slowly assimilate the origin substance with your organs. In doing so, you could strengthen an organ and create a unique one that was completely compatible with your origin attribute.

The third method was similar to the second. However, instead of assimilating the origin substance with your organ, you would absorb it with powerful magical equipment of your choice. This method would not only allow the magical equipment to become compatible with your soul origin, but would also enable the equipment to gain strange principle traits.

Greem suspected that Scarface Gallow’s magical sword had gained its strange characteristics through such a method.

However, in order to do these, Greem had to modify his bloodline talent first. It wasn’t until he had a powerful bloodline that he could maximize the effects of the principle powers bestowed by the origin substances.

Having understood this, Greem put away the five origin substance crystals without any hesitation. Instead, he took out a deep blue crystal and plunged it into his chest.

The blue crystal was about the size of his palm. It was shaped like a rhombus diamond, and a viscous liquid was contained within it. The liquid glowed with an intense energy radiance.

A slight cracking sound could be heard as webs of cracks appeared on the surface of the crystal. Not a trace of blood dripped from Greem’s wound. Instead, the muscles around the injury squirmed and started contracting. New tendrils of flesh began growing around the crystal until they had fully enveloped it.

These tendrils of flesh squirmed like tiny serpents, extending into the cracks in the crystals. Countless small flesh shoots continued to grow inside the crystal, slowly creeping towards that drop of liquid at its heart.

When the flesh came into contact with the fluid, Greem’s body jerked forward. He fell to the ground uncontrollably and started howling in agony.

Apart from Greem’s animalistic howls and screams, only a bone-chilling sucking sound could be heard within the room!

Everyone was born with their bloodline. The bloodline was woven into the body, Spirit, and even the soul. It could be said to be the most fundamental aspect of humans, making it very hard to change or modify.

However, after several hundreds of thousands of times researching and exploring, the insane adepts had finally managed to come up with several techniques and methods of changing and replacing one’s origin bloodline. It became one method by which the adepts could strengthen themselves and expand their future possibilities.

That said, regardless of how much they improved on these techniques, bloodline replacement would always remain as an option reserved for a minority of adepts.

After all, the terrifying backlash and intense pain of bloodline replacement was not something that an ordinary adept could ever endure!