Age of Adepts

Chapter 282 The Mushroom Cottage

The basic attributes of the Golem Knight were as follows: Strength: 14 | Agility: 9 | Physique: 12 | Spirit: 7

The Infernal Tyrant, on the other hand had: Strength: 9 | Agility: 7 | Physique: 11 | Spirit: 18

Each of the golems had their own respective advantages.

The Golem Knight was extremely strong and powerful, with a tough shield and a sharp sword. Its melee battle techniques would also make it very easy for the golem to endure the bombardment of spells and close in on the enemy. However, it only had seven Spirit. This meant that the amount of energy it had stored within itself wouldn't be enough to sustain its consumption over a long period of time.

This was perhaps its only flaw!

The Infernal Tyrant, on the other hand, had sufficient Physique and Strength to roll over most adepts and golems. However, these statistics were utterly pathetic when compared to the Golem Knight. That said, it had a massive amount of Spirit that allowed it to continuously cast spells without fear of running out of energy. Still, the Tyrant was probably inferior in combat against the Golem Knight.

Of course, this was mostly because of the difference in their equipment!

The Golem Knight's body was made of ordinary magical alloy. This was the only way they could have done it. They had no other choice. After all, if all three meters and seventy six tons of the metallic golem were made with Mansordar Alloy, the cost of creating the Golem Knight would probably go up by about five times.

The Gerto golem master had used magical alloy to forge the golem's body and gave it a tower shield made of Mansordar. This was to lower the manufacturing cost while also maximizing its combat potential. In doing so, the golem master had ensured the best balance between cost and combat strength. The insertion of the high-grade knight's soul further cemented the utter dominance of the Golem Knight among golems of the same grade.

The Infernal Tyrant was better at long-ranged attacks in comparison.

Thus, the battle between the two was actually very similar to a fight between an elementium adept and a body refining adept!

The Infernal Tyrant's elementium body wouldn't be able to endure the blows from the fearsome adamantite sword, if the Golem Knight got close. The Infernal Tyrant would be severely weakened if its body was torn apart. Victory would truly be out of reach then!

As such, the key factor to victory in this duel was the Tyrant's ability to keep its distance from the enemy and slowly wear it down with a continuous bombardment of fireballs.

Still, this was too precise of a control and combat strategy for the Tyrant to execute, even with its eighteen points of Spirit. Intelligence was not entirely the same as wisdom. This was something that all adepts knew very well!

If Spirit was all that mattered, why would there be a need to accumulate knowledge day after day? Why should adepts dedicate their efforts to improving their battle and casting techniques? All that the adepts would need to do was hide in their adepts' tower, drinking their potions and meditating endlessly to increase their Spirit…

Thus, if Greem wanted to have the Infernal Tyrant perfectly execute this strategy of kiting and harassing its opponent, he would have to do it himself. He would have to be in the fight. He would have to control the Infernal Tyrant's body and use the chip’s powerful calculation abilities to execute a complete beatdown.

And if Greem wanted to carry this out, he would have to do some modifications and adjustments to the Infernal Tyrant!

The second day.

A long list of items was placed before Lady Nunnally when she appeared before Greem.

Contrary to Greem's expectations, the Second Grade Lady Nunnally wasn't upset at his demands at all. She was extremely happy and excited, and quickly turned around to order Angus to gather all the items for Greem.

It seemed that Lady Nunnally had been humiliated in the previous negotiation with the Gerto Clan. This was why she utilized all her authority to fully support Greem when he indicated his confidence in the duel.

The fight was scheduled to happen seven days later. There wasn't much time left for Greem!

…………

Liana's Mushroom Cottage.

This was the home of a witch, located in the middle of a small, dark swamp.

A land of no more than seven thousand square meters felt like a massive black swamp due to the effects of certain strange magical arrays.

There were pungent and murky pools of water all over the ground. The thickness of the slowly flowing water was extremely disgusting. Wet mist rose from the ground, gathering all over the dark swamp and blotting out the warm sunshine that was everywhere in the Castle in the Sky. The dark swarp appeared all the more gloomy because of this.

Greem held Alice's hand as they slowly walked between these pools of mud. He didn't dare to let the murky water touch either of their legs.

The chip's data had already informed him of the true nature of this liquid. All of the pungent water was poison with extreme lethality. Even the air within the swamp had been filled with poison. An ordinary person would have instantly died if they took a single breath of the air here. Only an adept like himself could continue breathing like normal.

Still, every time he took a breath, the intense heat within his body would have to kill thousands upon thousands of poisonous and harmful viruses. His body was no longer afraid of these biological poisons after it was elementiumized! Consequently, every time he exhaled, a visible breath of black air would be expelled along with his breath.

These were the corpses and remains of the dead viruses.

Most of the resources for modifying the Infernal Tyrant had already been prepared by the Byron Clan. However there were still some rare materials that were missing. According to Lady Nunnally, the Second Grade witch that lived here in this Mushroom Cottage, Liana, had stocked up on some of these materials. This left Greem with no choice but to personally visit Liana.

The reason Lady Nunnally gave for not visiting herself made Greem completely speechless.

Lady Liana seemed to be a witch with a really odd witch complex. She had an extreme and utter disdain and hatred for all 'fake witches'!

In her opinion, only those that upheld the traditions and beliefs of the ancient witches, and those with the legacies of the ancient witches could be considered true witches. The truth of the witch’s path was in their choice of fate and their subservience and loyalty to the Witch Queen. Those who no longer believed and hailed the Queen as their patron could only be called female adepts, not witches.

Unfortunately Lady Nunnally, who called herself a witch, was one of the individuals that Witch Liana hated so much!

Greem could already see through the mist and the trees before he even set foot in the dark swamp. He could vaguely make out the Mushroom Cottage. However, there was still an odd and vague distance between himself and the cottage, despite walking for awhile and frequently changing his direction as he went.

He turned back and looked, but even the entrance he came from had completely vanished.

The dirty water started stirring, as if some odd magical creature was moving beneath. The ghost trees started waving in the wind as well, creating an extremely frightening atmosphere!

Greem could feel the shivering from Alice's hand and smiled, "Are you scared now, Alice?"

"Hmph! I'm definitely not scared!" Alice was still keeping up a tough front, "You think I have no idea of the tradition of us witches?"

"What tradition?"

"All the witches believe in the Witch Queen. All killing is forbidden between fellow witches. Those who break this rule would become the common enemy of all witches!"

"Oh? There was such a thing?" Greem asked curiously, "Then if it was you who accidentally fell into the poison puddles, would it be considered their fault?"

"Of course! Otherwise, any witch would be able to use such 'accidental' means to get rid of other witches they don't like!"

Alice had just finished speaking when a cloud of white mist quickly gathered by the pool of water beside her. The mist formed into the shape of an elderly' woman's face. It was a hideous and deathly pale face.

"Little brat, don't be so sure of your words. You aren't a real witch as of yet. Killing you wouldn't be a violation of our vows!" The old witch in the mist cackled sinisterly.

"But I'm already a candidate for the Witch of Fate now! If you kill me, that would be considered interfering in the selection of the Witch of Fate." Alice might look young, but she was still extremely knowledgeable. The words she spoke rang true.

"Aren't you a feisty one? Very well. Thanks to this little brat, I'll make an exception and meet you two!"

The pool of murky water quickly returned to being a pool of water after the old witch said that.

The ghostly trees started to let out screeching noises as they slowly crawled to two sides, revealing a path as they did so.

The Mushroom Cottage appeared right before them all of a sudden, cutting right through the mist.

Greem held Alice's hand as they walked forward onto a gray grass field in the middle of the swamp. The Mushroom Cottage was located in the middle of this field.

The field wasn't very large. It was only about seven hundred square meters in size.

The Mushroom Cottage was even smaller. It was only one and a half meters tall and less than five meters in radius.

However it wasn't the size of the Mushroom Cottage, but rather its rundown condition and crudeness that surprised Greem.

This Mushroom Cottage resembled one of those broken huts you'd see in the ghettos of the poor.

It was crumbling and slanted, with plenty of cobwebs hanging off the roofs. Even the moss and other plants that grew on the Cottage appeared to be pale and deathly, without any signs of life.

"Come on in! The two of you." A piercing old voice came from within the house.

Greem grit his teeth. He had no other option but to bend down and enter the Cottage with Alice.

To his tremendous shock, the inside of the house wasn't as small and cramped as he expected. Even with his height, he was still able to stand straight. There was even fifty centimeters of space before he hit the ceiling.

The Cottage also had a second layer on the inside. Greem could see through the cracks and make out a crude and simple study room.

A large pillar stood in the middle of the house. It was twisted, slanted, and filled with moss all over.

A massive, ugly cauldron was boiling above a roaring fire pit in a corner of the house. Its contents seemed to be some sort of unknown green soup. There were all sorts of odd contents bobbing about the pool of liquid. White eyeballs, the arms of unknown creatures, and even human skulls…

An indescribably pungent odor hung in the air. Greem's took a single breath and his face went green.

Dammit, there was poison in this soup!