Age of Adepts

The thirteenth floor of the White Tower.

As a mighty Second Grade adept, the trivial matters of the bottom floor of the tower no longer concerned or affected Greem's daily routine and studies.

Greem had now resigned all his management powers to his subordinates.

Of course, Greem's public explanation was the need to train the clan adepts and mold them into leaders. In truth, it was only a way for him to shirk off his responsibilities.

Looking down at the daily lives progressing on the lower floors of the adept's tower as a Second Grade gave Greem the illusion that he was a chess player silently brooding above a game board. The future of the Crimson Clan, the efforts of the clan adepts, and the swarm of apprentices and civilians that had gathered like ants– all of these were no longer lives in Greem's eyes, but insignificant specks.

The only difference was that some specks were a bit smaller and some were a bit larger!

At this moment, one or two specks could no longer attract his attention. It was only when those specks gathered together on the chess board and rampaged furiously that he could bother to even cast a bit of his attention upon them. Moreover, this sort of focus had a bit of randomness and coincidence to it. There was no urgency or desperate concern.

He was much like a lazy farmer that looked up to the sky and waited for his harvest to come. He was only responsible for sowing the seeds at a suitable time and then coming back to check on them the next time he remembered. The time it took for him to check back often related to the length of the magical experiments he was working on.

If the seeds he sowed had failed to flower, the worst thing he would need to do was plant them again. If they succeeded in growing, he would gladly harvest only the portion he needed. As for the rest of the crop? They naturally became the compensation of the lower adepts for all their efforts.

Thus, many of the things that Meryl was trying to accomplish to the best of her abilities were only casual thoughts that had popped up in Greem's mind.

It was the different perspectives with which beings of different dimensions looked upon the same matters!

For Greem, he was the Crimson Clan leader and naturally had an obligation to lead the clan territory to prosperity and wealth. However, the specific steps and plans that led to each outcome were carried out and executed by adepts like Meryl. Greem only needed to convey his instructions.

Greem didn't even need to commit to realizing the plan himself. All he needed to do was take note of the matter's development at required times and suitably push the progress of the projects forward. In Greem's eyes, the immensely important training in the Black Forest for Little Locke and the other apprentices was no more than a small component in the practical training of the clan apprentices.

Even if a large group of apprentices died in the Black Forest, it would only delay the clan's rise by five or six years.

A single accident could mean the end of their lives to Little Locke and the apprentices. However, for a Second Grade adept who's lifespan lasted four hundred years, it was only a slightly longer magical experiment that had failed to come to fruition.

Even if they failed, all the adept needed to do was wipe away the failures and replace them with new 'experiment materials.' The adept could then continue with this constant process of clan development, exploration, and experimentation.

Moreover, even as Greem continually corrected the clan's developmental plans, most of his attention was taken up by the magical experiments at hand. The thing that he was most concerned about was undoubtedly the creation of the two set pieces of Fire Throne.

For this purpose, he had even hired a sewing master from the Northern Witches at an expensive rate. He had the sewing master sew fire dragon boots of the perfect size with the fire dragon's hide, tendons, and fire marrow crystal. Greem then personally completed the final step of the creation process, using special techniques to activate the fire arrays that had been carved earlier under the surface of the fire dragon boots.

As a bright yellow flame burned around these boots, all the impurities on them were burned away, leaving only the purest and most fundamental base. Finally, the magical patterns and runic lines carved within the boots faintly showed on their surface, forming a mysterious and wondrous pattern on the outside.

At this point, Greem had expended several hundreds of thousands of magical crystals and three months worth of time. The first loose piece of the Fire Throne, the Boots of Ash, had finally been completed!

As Greem's first Second Grade magical equipment, Ash could not only provide Greem with higher magic resistance, but it could also release a Burning Path without demanding any Spirit exhaustion on Greem's part. This way, Greem would leave behind a small blazing trail with fires one meter in height and two meters in width wherever he walked.

Any creature that walked into the Burning Path would have to endure fire damage of sixty points a second. Moreover, the Burning Path could last for as long as three minutes.

It also meant that Greem could easily set up a combat environment beneficial to himself all over the battlefield. Greem's regeneration would double while he was in the flames. It undoubtedly improved his stamina and ability to sustain in battle!

Moreover, as an unexpected boon, the Boots of Ash even provided Greem with a +1 Spirit bonus. It was something that even the Chip had not predicted. Greem suspected that this had something to do with the fact that all the fire dragon materials used in creating Ash had come from the same source.

Bless the mighty Second Grade Fire Dragon Bamler. He had not only offered up the best hide upon his body, but he had also offered up a three-meter-long fire dragon's tendon and a fire marrow crystal formed from his spine. Of course, the rest of his body had not gone to waste either. It had been wholly devoured by Dragon Devourer Oliven, becoming the nutrition she needed to continue growing in power.

Sadly, Oliven couldn't possibly allow Greem to scan her body and soul origin with the Chip. Greem could only estimate the extent of her improvement based on her external performance.

Oliven.

Advanced Second Grade, Female.

Race: Unspecified.

Profession: Dragon Devourer.

Bodily Attributes: Strength 10 | Physique 12 | Agility 21 | Spirit 20.

Bloodline Abilities: Reverse Dragon's Might, Dragons' Bane…

In particular, when Oliven was dealing with dragons, her magic resistance would double, and most of her attacks would ignore the dragons' magical and physical defenses. These unique profession abilities were too good when used for dragonslaying.

Greem couldn't help but think of stealing a portion of a dragon devourer's bloodline ability.

However, Greem quickly quashed this boring idea from his mind upon gaining an indirect understanding of the weaknesses of dragon devourers.

First, dragon devourers were only powerful against dragons!

When facing other species, most of the dragon devourers' abilities became useless, instantly turning them into weaklings.

Second, dragon devourers were the common enemies of the dragons!

One couldn't think too much of Arms' current relationship with Greem. Though it seemed to be a very close relationship, if he were to discover a dragon devourer subordinate to Greem, there was no doubt that he would instantly become an enemy.

It couldn't be helped. The bloodline talents of dragon devourers were too terrifying. They were murderers practically tailored to dealing with the great dragons. If any single dragon devourer were to become sufficiently powerful, they would pose an immense threat to Lance; no, even the entire dragon species.

If Greem were to steal parts of a dragon devourer's bloodline talents, his relation to all dragons would be forever locked at the level of a blood feud!

When that happened, all dragons would not stop until he was utterly exterminated, wherever he went.

The dragons were a dominant galactic species that could compare to the powerful adepts. Could there possibly be a good ending for Greem if he attracted their ire?

It was precisely due to such concerns that Greem could only look on and allow the Sourcestealer in his hands to go unused.

After the last dozen years of experimentation and cultivation, Greem had bred the unique talent-stealing insect to its third generation. According to these few years of bloodline experiments, Greem discovered that most lifeforms could only endure having no more than 15% of their bloodline power genetics altered.

If one were to discuss this in terms of the lifeform Grades that the adepts were so used to using, it meant that the degree of every bloodline change could not exceed two sub-grades.

A beginner Second Grade adept could only, at the very most, rob part of the talent of an advanced Second Grade lifeform. If they exceeded this limit, the body of the person receiving the talents would break down due to their inability to endure the demands of the bloodline powers, causing a complete collapse in their genetic chain.

Such wounds would directly affect the receiver's soul origin. There would be no saving them!

It was only at this point that Greem realized why the dragons had to have such robust Physiques. Without such tough Physiques, their bodies probably wouldn't be able to be hosts to such immense bloodline powers!

Sourcestealers. It had been three or four years since Greem managed to cultivate them. Apart from using them to transfer the talents of some lifeforms during his bloodline experiments for the necessary data, the remaining Sourcestealers were still kept alive on the highest floor of Fire Throne.

Greem didn't dare to easily use the Sourcestealers on himself, for the modification of bloodline talents might be easy, but it was near impossible to backtrack once you realized you had gone down the wrong path!

His current talent might not be considered exceptional, but the Flame Fiend's body with flame specialization had given Greem terrific combat lethality and battlefield domination abilities. If he accidentally 'contaminated' his bloodline and failed to get his ideal result, he would not be able to do anything.

Of course, apart from himself, Greem could also use the Sourcestealer on his many subordinates to gather some experience for his own future bloodline talent transfers.

However, after some consideration, Greem could not find the most suited underling he needed for this experiment.

People with suitable conditions weren't at the proper loyalty levels, yet those who were utterly loyal had great responsibilities and didn't have the time to participate in his bloodline experiments. Meanwhile, those who were too weak were not deserving of having a hard to breed Sourcestealer used on them.

The Crimson Clan of the present had plenty of troubles. Almost every single clan adept had a problematic mission weighing on their shoulders. If he were to cause one or two adepts residing in core positions of the clan to collapse due to his bloodline experiments, then the clan's operations would stall and even regress.

That was something that Greem would not want to see happen!