Age of Adepts

Sabrina and Billis hid in their rooms after filling their stomachs, determined not to come out tonight.

The dark tower was deathly silent, and only a trace of a dim light shone through the narrow windows. The shadow of a tall figure flickered, and it seemed the person was checking on all the rooms in the tower.

Greem strolled through the empty, narrow, and dark corridor. He held a small candelabra in his hand, the five candles radiating a faint and weak yellow light. The light from the candles wasn’t even enough to illuminate the walls. In fact, it was barely enough to envelop Greem completely.

Greem muttered silently under his breath as he slowly progressed through the corridor.

"Come out. It’s about time you came out; you can’t keep hiding like this, can you?"

Finally, a wooden door to a hidden room opened when Greem reached the corner of a corridor.

Greem casually smiled and approached the door with the candelabra in hand.

The wooden door was half open. A black footprint remained on the floorboard in front of the door. The size of the print was only half that of a human’s. It looked as if it might have been left behind by a small humanoid creature.

Greem tapped the ground with the staff in his left hand, and the wooden door swung wide open. The candlelight shone into the room and illuminated everything within.

Dusty floorboards, rotting furniture, and a pile of red wooden boxes in a corner. A pale white silhouette with long hair stood in the darkness where the light couldn’t reach. Their blood red eyes trained upon Greem, even through the curtain of their hair. A foul and chilling aura filled the entire space.

Greem remained unfazed and strode into the hidden room. As he did so, more and more candlelight flooded into the room. Fewer and fewer shadows remained for one to hide in. The pale white shape could only crouch behind the shade of the wooden boxes, wailing in a bone-chilling manner.

The wooden doors shut with a thump as Greem was preparing his next move. Greem couldn’t help but turn his head to look. Yet, by the time he faced forward again, the ’female ghost’ had already disappeared.

"Chip, were you able to record that? Did you find anything?" Greem was slightly spooked and started communicating with the chip.

"Detecting unusual forcefield changes. The host is currently within the radius of an unknown forcefield. An unknown substance has polluted mental flux. Please evacuate from the source of the forcefield as soon as possible. Please evacuate from the source of the forcefield as soon as possible..." Even the chip’s mechanical voice seemed to be wavering by the end of its notification.

Greem had never doubted the reasonable judgment of the chip since it awakened.

Thus, he waved his staff the moment he received the alert. A magical fireball the size of a fist blasted the wooden doors open. His body then exploded into a cluster of flames and vanished from the spot.

A burst of fire appeared in the abandoned garden near the tower of stone. A short moment later, the flames dispersed, and Greem’s tall figure appeared on the spot.

A strange ’hmm’ sound rang out from the darkness at the top of the tower the moment Greem left its radius.

He followed the sound and looked upwards. His eyes were glowing red. It was then that he found the weird creature sitting cross-legged atop the tower.

It was a pretty fox with bright yellow fur and a white scarf on its neck.

It was staring at Greem with an expression of shock on its face. In its paw, a crimson rune flashed and shone with a complicated flux.

For some reason, Greem’s vision would start blurring when his Spirit came into contact with this flux. He suddenly heard heavy breathing from behind him. Judging by the sound, it was getting closer and closer.

A light biological electric impulse sent out by the chip immediately helped Greem break out from the illusion.

Spiritual Magic?

Greem didn’t dare hesitate now that he understood what was happening. He drove the staff into the ground, and a thick Solar Ray beam shot out from the crystal at the top of the staff and blasted towards the strange fox at the top of the tower.

"As expected, there’s something odd with you. To be able to resist the illusions that I have spent so long preparing. Hehe. It’s good fortune for you today. Let’s meet again next time." The fox waved its tail, and Greem’s spell mysteriously went off course. The fireball missed its target, shooting into the sky after passing right by the fox.

The fox didn’t stay after all this. It immediately crushed the crimson rune in its paw and leaped into the curtain of night.

Greem didn’t try to pursue it.

Strange and unconventional adepts like that loved to set up ambushes to lure their enemies into a trap. Recklessly pursuing them would not be wise. Greem shut his eyes to sense his surroundings. The chip still detected an unusual forcefield fluctuation within the tower. It seemed the source of the forcefield hadn’t vanished with the departure of the enemy.

Greem was stunned for a moment before quickly coming to a realization.

He then recalled something and immediately took out the three Ioun Stones, throwing them above his head. Greem braved the forcefield and went into the tower once more.

A short while later, flames exploded, and Greem once again reappeared outside the tower. He held a person in each of his hands– Sabrina and Billis, both deeply trapped in the illusion.

The two of them were asleep, but their breathing grew increasingly heavy and rushed. Even Billis and Sabrina’s bodies were trembling and shivering slightly.

Greem squatted by their sides and tried calling their names, but neither one responded.

He pushed open their eyelids to take a look. Billis’ eyes had rolled back. His Spirit was on the verge of collapse and insanity. Sabrina was doing a bit better than him, but she wasn’t going to last much longer either.

Greem frowned.

Even though he had dragged the two of them away from the forcefield, their mental flux had been too severely polluted. Trying to break away from the pull of the mysterious forcefield with their own strength was likely an impossible task.

Greem didn’t dare delay any longer. He placed the two apprentices side by side, then stuck the Blaze of Destruction in between the two of them. Greem’s hands quickly weaved and drew in the air, and one mysterious fire rune after another appeared. The staff started to tremble as well, as sparks of red light drifted out from the crimson crystal.

These crimson lights fell onto the two apprentices under Greem’s channeling.

The two started to shiver intensely the moment the red light touched their bodies. The less tolerant Billis even started rolling around in agony.

"Ouch...this hurts. What is this? This hurts too much."

Billis scrambled up from the ground, squealing and crying in pain. He started batting away the flames on his body as if he had just woken from a dream. Yet, when Billis opened his eyes, he found his body perfectly untouched. It wasn’t being burned to cinders as it had in his dream.

While Billis looked around in confusion, the trembling Sabrina suddenly sat up. A fearful crimson light glowed in her mechanical eyes.

She immediately stood up when her eyes fell upon Greem.

"Sir, were you the one who saved me?" Sabrina couldn’t help but ask.

"Save?" Billis clearly still hadn’t understood the situation, "Did an enemy come by earlier?"

"Mm. It was a strange adept that looked like a fox. They seemed to be particularly skilled at spiritual magic. Even I almost fell to his tricks." An angry light flashed in Greem’s black eyes.

"Aren’t there magical defenses in the tower?" Sabrina asked fearfully, "How were we ambushed without any knowledge when we had the defenses?"

Greem laughed coldly.

"Perhaps because the ones working against us were the magical arrays themselves?"

"Ah..."

"Ah!"

An expression of horror appeared on Sabrina’s and Billis’ face at the same time.

"If I’m not wrong, that fellow has probably known for quite a while that we were coming." Greem narrowed his eyes and explained, "So they touched up the arrays in the stone tower before we arrived."

"How did they have control authority over the tower?"

"Control authority isn’t required. Most of the defensive arrays had already shut down due to the lack of energy. The guy just needed to add a little something extra to the array during that opportunity. This way, they would know when we arrive and activate the tower’s core. Moreover..." Greem narrowed his eyes further when he reached this part.

"Moreover what?" Billis didn’t suppress his curiosity and asked.

"Moreover, this enemy is extremely sly. They truly spent a lot of effort to take me down. They secretly carved a magical character in my room on the third floor and baited me into reading it. This way, they gained access to my soul coordinates and could specifically target their attacks at my soul. The two of you weren’t their target and just happened to have been in the tower and affected by the aftershocks of the spiritual magic."

"Then... sir, how did you save us? Do you also happen to know some spiritual magic?" That was the most significant point of interest for Sabrina and Billis.

"Hmph! I’m a fire adept. Why would I ever dabble in the strange and mysterious spiritual magic?" Greem let out a cold laugh, "Recall how you broke free from the illusions and you will know how I did it!"

Billis scratched his head when he heard this. His gaze became unfocused, and he tried to remember what happened.

"I remember running into a horde of terrifying zombies while I was adventuring in the Black Forest. There were too many of them, so many that it was impossible to kill all of them. In the end, I ran out of magic power and was dragged into their graves," A terrified expression appeared on Billis’ face at this point of his story, "Just as I was about to be torn to pieces, a massive cluster of flames fell from the skies and ignited my entire body. Those fires burned my body. It was so painful, so agonizing; so much so that I woke up from my dream!"

Sabrina listened to Billis’ story, compared it to her own experiences, and had a vague idea of what Greem had done.

Sir Flame Demon’s fires had the strange characteristic of burning the soul. It was undoubtedly the most suited for pulling the two of them out of their slumber.

However, she still clearly remembered how she had been reduced to ashes by the strange fire in her dreams. Her mind and consciousness were so sharp that she still remembered every detail of her body being incinerated. The painful experience might have saved her, but it was an unbearable memory to recall!