Age of Adepts

Greem, being quite the opposite of their new Apprentice Leader, Ellen, who was proudly proclaiming his new status in the cafeteria, could barely hold down his ire at his new Apprentice Leader.

Although the former Apprentice Leader hadn’t been very nice, at least he was a fairly strong guy who had mastered three to four magic spells. He wasn’t as strong as Hawkeye, Evil Bugs, or Madwoman, but he was much stronger than most of the elementary level Apprentices. Why else would they swallow their pride silently while being ruthlessly exploited by him?

On the other hand, everybody knew Ellen’s background. He was just a rookie, and had only mastered ‘Wind Blade’ and ‘Twister Shield’. He had spent most of the past year hiding in the Adept Tower, which made his combat skills awfully weak. If he had to fight them, perhaps more than half of the Apprentices Adepts could defeat him 1-on-1.

But looking at the four ‘friends’ who were surrounding him, clearly this guy had a good understanding of his weaknesses and had compensated for them by drawing in a few helpers.

Right when Ellen was proudly giving his ‘inauguration speech’, the wooden door of the cafeteria was roughly kicked opened by someone, forcefully slamming up against the stone wall.

After that, a young man, who had his left eye covered with an eye patch, walked into the cafeteria with a somber expression on his face.

Apprentice Leader Ellen’s ‘inauguration speech’ came to a sudden halt. At the same time, whispers of “Hawkeye” could be heard from all corners of the cafeteria.

The young man who wore eye patch was one of the three strongest Apprentice Adepts, Hawkeye.

As they were the strongest, each of them had a group of subordinates who always gathered around them. Therefore, the three of them never came to dine in this cafeteria, as all their meal were brought directly to their rooms by their subordinates.

That’s the reason why all Apprentices felt surprised when Hawkeye suddenly visited the cafeteria.

Of course, Hawkeye didn’t come here for a meal, but to look for someone.

Hawkeye swept the entire canteen with his single eye, and every single Apprentice lowered their heads, rather than meeting his gaze. It was impossible to do anything else, as a powerful energy seemed to travel out from his eye, suppressing anyone who dared to meet his eyes.

See Hawkeye begin to walk towards him, Greem felt his heart stop. He immediately lowered his head even more.

Unfortunately for him, Hawkeye’s legs came to a stop right in front of him.

“Are you Greem? Come with me!” Hawkeye didn’t say very much, but what little he did say was impossible to ignore. After saying that, he turned around and left, not caring the slightest about anyone else’s reactions.

A wry smile appeared on Greem’s face. He pushed his meal tray away, stood up, and followed behind Hawkeye.

Without turning his head, Greem could feel the annoyed gaze of the new Apprentice Leader, Ellen, burning a hole in the back of his head.

Greem had a rough idea why this guy came for him. Therefore, when, after following Hawkeye through a few long dark corridors, he arrived at a certain wooden door, he was fairly sure he was right about what was going on.

This was Madwoman’s room. Waiting inside were the other two strongest Apprentice Adepts: Evil Bugs and Madwoman.

It was a stone room, nearly as simple as Greem’s room, and it was furnished to the same level as Greem’s room was. There was a solid wooden bed, a writing table, and a chair... nothing else.

Well, there was one more thing. In one corner of the room, there was a human-shaped practicing target made entirely of metal. From the crisscrossing scars and markings on it, perhaps it was the most frequently used piece of ‘furniture’ in this room.

Also, Madwoman’s iconic steel greatsword was hanging from the wall on the other side of the room.

Hawkeye, Evil Bugs, and Madwoman didn’t have a harmonious relationship most of the time, but when something related to their personal interests happened, this small group could still work together to further all their interests.

As this was Madwoman’s room, clearly she was the only one who would take charge here.

When Greem, who felt he was in an awkward situation, stopped right in the middle of the room. The person who attracted most of his attention was Madwoman, who had a muscular body, which looked like that of a barbarian’s. She was standing with her arm folded at her chest. Madwoman didn’t wear a soft and baggy cloth robe, like most Apprentices, but wore a simple leather jacket and pants.

The leather jacket was straining and looked like it was going to burst as her bulging muscles pushed against it. Her muscles looked like chunks of steel and made Greem feel a bit envious. To be honest, no matter how much Greem searched in his memory, he swore that he had never seen a woman with such a muscular body before.

“I heard that you saw what happened this afternoon? Tell me everything you know! If anything you say is of value, we will reward you considerably!” Madwoman’s voice was like her body, strong and powerful.

In regards to what Madwoman said, Evil Bugs, whose entire body was covered with a thick cloak made a movement as if he was nodding his head, while Hawkeye, who had brought Greem here, didn’t do or say anything.

............

Half an hour later, Greem returned to his own room.

After he shut the door, he impatiently pressed his back against the cold, iron framed, wooden door, saying nothing aloud, but speaking in his mind.

“Was there any result from your probe just now? Quickly, show me all the data!”

*Beep* “Probing of living organisms completed. The results are listed below...”

Following that, streams of information started flowing into his brain, It took a moment, but information on the strongest three Apprentice Adepts started taking shape.

Since the Biological Assistance Chip had activated, it had been lacking much in reference to information on Adepts, as it had no data for comparison. Therefore, the organizing and categorization of Adepts had not progressed at all. In Greem’s brain, there was a huge amount of information on Magical Spells, Magical Items, and conceptual descriptions of each, but he just hadn’t had the chance to witness and observe any actual Magical phenomenon. As a result, the chip was unable to derive information on the more magical things in his surroundings based on its current memory.

It was such an unfortunate situation.

But, today, through close observation of the three strongest Apprentice Adepts, no doubt Greem had obtained a lot of precious data. This would, no doubt, be of great benefit in defining his future development path.

Of course, if he could personally experience the abilities of an official Adept, it would result in him getting much better data. Unfortunately, he feared that his chip’s scanning feature would be noticed if he targeted an official Adept. Therefore, Greem could only use his passive sensing ability, which was the mode he had put the chip in when Adept Anderson had suddenly appeared yesterday.

As for today, when the three strongest Apprentice Adepts were standing in front of him, he felt it was safe to scan them, and they did not have very strongest spirit energy manipulation abilities, so they were leaking a lot of energy, which the chip could scan and analyze. That’s why Greem could fearlessly put out his full sensing and sense all the leaking information. As the result, it had progressed in its calculation of the source of Magic.

These were absolutely amazing numbers. If they had not been within the realm of Greem’s expectations, perhaps he would have cried out loud. Hawkeye was, indeed, worthy of being called one of the three strongest Apprentice Adepts. With just these basic body stats, he could easily crush Greem.

In a matchup against Hawkeye, his strength was weaker, his speed was slower, and his body was not as tough. Even if both of them only mastered one spell, Hawkeye would still have thousands of method to kill Greem. Not to mention, this guy was far more powerful when using magic spells!

But Hawkeye’s Spirit attribute was the one gave that Greem the most surprise. Having a Spirit of 18 meant that he had incredibly strong spiritual senses. He would be able to sense the slightest heartbeat within a 50-meter radius! With such a strong sensing ability, the difficulty of launching a sneak attack on him would be immense.

However, the chip put a question mark in the race field... It looked like there were some inhuman elements to be found in the energy he put off. Maybe this had something to do with the implanted eye?

Compared to Hawkeye, it seemed Evil Bugs was better at concealing his energy, as even the chip couldn’t obtain his attributes at such a close range. But from his powerful Spirit of 19, which clearly couldn’t be hidden, it could be seen that, between the two, he was the one who was the closest to becoming an official Adept.

But looked like he had modified his body to a very high degree of modification, as it had reached a level where even the chip couldn’t determine his race.

In brief, although he probably didn’t have the highest of physical attributes, he was still one of the three strongest, and this was shown in the frightening spells he had mastered and the modifications he had made to his body.

Looking at Madwoman’s attributes, a sense of powerlessness came from the bottom of Greem’s heart. 15 Strength, 16 Physique... was she still a fucking human? Perhaps, with attributes like these, she was no different that some of the demon beasts in the swamp?

When comparing the strength of two fighters, if there was a difference in strength of 5, the weaker party would be easily knocked flying. If the difference was 10, the weaker party would experience broken bones and smashed flesh every time they got hit. The difference in Strength between Greem and Madwoman was a shocking 11 points.

This... This was ridiculous! Even if both of them fought bare-handed, Greem would be as fragile as glass in front of her? Not to mention that if she struck him in the face, he would likely have his skull crushed in.

Naturally, all kinds of fighting scenes appeared in Greem’s mind, but in every scene, he would end up severely beaten or dead.

As for that 16 in Physique, it simply placed a huge gap between them. Even if Madwoman just stood there without moving and let Greem attack her with Burning Hand for a couple of minutes, it still might not be enough to kill her.

Through the comparison of this basic data, once again Greem acknowledged his weakness. With just his own personal effort, and under the magnifying effect of his innate attributes, the gap between himself and these guys, who were extraordinarily talented, would just become bigger and bigger. He didn’t think that there was any way he could catch up to them on his own.

Therefore, if he really wanted to proceed in this bizarre world, the only thing he could depend on was the Biological Assistance Chip inside him.

Only after pondering these things did Greem look at the reward he had gotten from the ‘strongest three’.

With a flip of his hand, a thick book appeared in front of Greem.

With his great eloquence and accurate depiction of his experience from the day before, Greem truthfully described all the detail movements of the red dressed Mary. No doubt this gave the ‘strongest three’ a better impression of him. Only then was he given this odd looking book of magical knowledge.

According to the rules of the Adept Tower, any exchange of internal knowledge was strictly prohibited. Exchanging any magical knowledge copied by Apprentice Adepts was also strictly prohibited. Anyone who violated these prohibitions would be punished by the master of the Tower. Therefore, Madwoman must have obtained this book from another place, or else she wouldn’t have simply given it to Greem.

Greem held his breath impatiently, then he flipped to the first page of the book.

‘Golem Creation Manual’!