Age of Adepts

After trying his best to get rid of the thoughts brought about by Mary, Greem used the chip to connect his mind with the controlling core of the Demon Alligator Hunter.

Greem’s surroundings seemed to suddenly dissolve into complete silence, and, by using the golem’s crystal core, Greem found himself looking at a whole new world. In this strange new world, Greem could see the all of the Earth Elementium in his surroundings. By using this feature, Greem could observe any movement made on the ground, as even a slight movement would cause ripples in the surrounding Earth Elementium.

However, these ripples were extremely weak, and only occurred in the Earth Elementium. So, anything that wasn’t an Earth Elemental creature would find it extremely difficult to sense movements happening far away.

But, Greem had actually done it!

While he was immersed in that strange world, he could sense movement from as far away as a hundred metres! Not even the sounds of snakes crawling or scorpions nesting could escape his notice. He could sense all of these movements through the delicate spiritual connection between each Earth Elementium. He could then project these movements into his mind, forming an image that looked almost identical to the real world.

As he was limited by his Spirit, the maximum distance he could sense was only one hundred meters. If he tried to sense anything beyond one hundred meters, he could only roughly sense the direction where the vibration originated. In addition to this, he couldn’t picture the exact scene in his mind like he could when it was within his range.

When on the surface, observing a distance of one hundred meters was an easy thing to do. In fact, any apprentice Adept could see dozens of miles by simply standing on high enough ground. If the apprentice was capable of flight, then they could see over an area of nearly one hundred miles. However, when this one hundred meters was placed within the Underground world, where everything was coated in thick rocks, sand and dirt, it became really impressive.

After all, whilst in this Underground world, even if two men were separated by a ten meter thick rock wall, it would still be very hard for them to discover each other. The Underground Cave was a strange place, because there was more metal the deeper you went. This metal greatly interfered with spiritual sense and detection magical spells. Therefore, unless a special method was used, it was near-impossible that these two men would discover each other.

Either way, the ability to move stealthily and to see in the dark were basic abilities for all intelligent Underground creatures. Without these abilities, it would be very hard for them to earn their living in this eternally dark place.

Like a man talking in their sleep, Greem kept muttering things under his breath, describing everything he was sensing. Suddenly, his body trembled violently and he whispered urgently into Mary’s ears.

“There are two human-like creatures located one hundred meters down, at an angle of seventeen-degrees south-east. I’m sensing a strong Elementium aura. It is highly likely that they are both apprentice Adepts.”

Mary’s body went stiff, and her bloodshot eyes narrowed.

The source of the quake had originated from that same direction, and, now there were two apprentice Adepts emerging from there. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together. They both knew that there was a higher possibility of it being a bad situation than a good one!

“Can you identify who they are? It would be best if you could get a clear sense of their strength!” Mary whispered, placing her lips beside Greem’s ears.

It seemed that Greem hadn’t heard what she said, as he continued immersing himself in his detection. “They are heading in our direction right now, but there is a four-degree deviation… between us, there are three tunnels and two caves. They are ninety-three meters away… they have arrived at the first cave, however, the cave has collapsed. There is no tunnel leading to where we are. Wait… it seems that they are casting some kind of spell, as I can sense a strong Elementium ripple. It seems that they’re holding something in their hand that can pinpoint our location… that is…”

Greem suddenly opened his eyes, a shocked expression emerging on his face. He whispered, “It’s a communication crystal! They have the communication crystal we were all given before we split up! They’re using it to track us!”

After arriving in the Underground Cave, each person, in order to make communication easier, had exchanged their respective personal auras. The fact that the enemy had gotten hold of a communication crystal meant that one of their group members had already been caught by them.

Greem took out a fist-size blue crystal from his waist pouch and prepared to toss it far away, but before he could, Mary stopped him.

“If they are really locating us through the personal aura in the communication crystal, then why don’t we just prepare a trap for them…?” Mary asked. It seemed that whenever slaughtering was involved, a strong killing intent would always leaked from her eyes.

Both of them were scheming and merciless people, so, after a short discussion, Mary took Greem’s communication crystal and hid in the darkness. Greem grinned evilly before kicking the Demon Alligator and sinking into the soil.

　　…………

Anna lead the way as they wormed their way through the broken and winding tunnel.

Before entering the next cave, she quickly scanned the surrounding area.

Her eyes swept across the silent tunnel before stopping. She looked far into the distance. Broken rocks and stalagmites were scattered around at the edge of the winding tunnel. Dimmed light, coming from unknown sources, was shining through the gaps between them, resembling the sharp fangs of grinning devils.

She tilted her head slightly and listened to any audible sound. She heard a muffled rumbling coming from the beneath her. Sprays of mist were constantly bursting out from the cracks in-between the rocks; while the glow of illuminating fungus shone onto these mists, created a strange and unusual illusion-like scene.

In such an environment the difficulty of hunting enemies was huge.

The battle that had happened previously had caused a lot of damage to the surrounding terrain, resulting in many passages becoming hard to recognize. This caused the natives’ advantage to weaken, as they no longer had a solid grasp over the area.

As the enemies they were hunting were very cunning, Anna made sure not to leave too many traces in the air. It was because of this that, after travelling a certain distance, she had to reconfirm the enemy’s location.

Anna placed the blood-stained communication crystal on the ground and began to softly recite some strange, unintelligible spells. After she had finished casting, a pale, long-haired women, who didn’t have any facial features, manifested itself in front of her.

“The great ancient banshee, please show me the location of our enemy!”

After hearing her request, the faceless banshee, who was hovering above the communication crystal, slowly turned her head before stopping when she faced a certain direction.

“Looks like they’re moving towards sector eleven!” Gary, the black-robed Pseudo-Adept, who was following behind Anna, said excitedly.

Gary’s interruption had clearly caused the summoning ceremony to rebound. The faceless banshee’s head turned around until her gruesome face faced Gary. A mouth appeared and opened up on her face. It seemed like she was preparing to let loose a howl and devour Gary’s soul.

Anna, who was an advanced apprentice, abruptly bit the tip of her tongue. She immediately spat out a mouthful of warm blood. An extremely miserable cry rang through the air as the banshee instantly disappeared.

At the same time the banshee disappeared, Anna gave out a muffled grunt. It was clear that she too had suffered some backlash.

Gary, showing no remorse for his reckless actions, flapped his robe and transformed into a strong wind, disappearing from where he was. His voice rushed into Anna’s ears and lingered there for a while.

“I’ll go ahead and hunt for those enemies. Take your time and catch up quickly!”

As soon as Gary had left, a hateful and venomous expression leaked out from Anna’s cold eyes. However, she knew, that with her status of only an advanced apprentice, there was no way she could offend those Pseudo-Adepts. If not for their need for her ‘summoning’ abilities, perhaps these Pseudo-Adepts would never even have allowed her to join in their hunting group in the first place.

Their target was only a beginner apprentice and an advanced apprentice. Why did they dare traverse this Underground world with such weak strength? Sometimes Anna really wondered whether there was something wrong with the brains of the Adepts on the surface. How could they send such weaklings to the Underground world? This was no different than sending them to their death!

Anna hastily grabbed the things she had left on the ground, before pulling her black robe tightly against her and rushing through the dark tunnel. If she was late, then that Gary would never leave anything good for her. Now, Anna’s only wish was that the enemy’s advanced apprentices could hold on for a little bit longer. If they did that, then she might have a chance to capture the beginner apprentice.

In Elysium City, the city of Fallen Adepts, resources were extremely scarce. The resources she could get in exchange for a beginner apprentice from the surface could let her relax for nearly a year.

The abyss-like tunnel didn’t seem to have an end. The winding passages full of obstacles made it difficult for her to run at full speed. Fortunately, there was still some residue Wind Elementium, left behind by Gary, in the tunnel. This not only prevented Anna from getting lost but also saved time.

Anna had almost arrived at the huge cavern in sector eleven, however, she stopped in the middle of the last tunnel.

For some unknown reason, her intuition was warning her that there was danger.

Rumble…

The ground suddenly shook, causing Anna to be terrified, as she felt that the source of the quake came from right under her feet.

The violent quake caused the tunnel ceiling to collapse and huge amounts of sand and rocks to pour down from the ceiling. Soon, Anna was forced to retreat to the cave she had previously entered.

In the dark and cold cave, a bizarre human figure silently waited for her.

For any outsider, the darkness was the source of terror. However, Anna had lived in this Underground world for her entire life, so, for her, it was the best source of protection. But, right at this moment, she couldn’t help but be shocked. She stared at the apprentice Adept, who was standing far away.

Anna used the enemy’s spiritual ripples to quickly identify them.

It was actually that advanced apprentice! She couldn’t believe that he actually dared to confront her face to face!

“Just let your companion show themselves!” Anna’s clever mind had quickly analyzed the whole situation. She continued by saying, “I can’t believe this! A beginner apprentice actually has the ability to travel through the earth! It looks like he really is suitable for living in this kind of place!”

The mild earthquake just now had happened at the perfect time. It executed just the right amount of force to it had utilize the surrounding terrain and separate Garry and her. It looked like her enemies had chosen to ambush them and had picked her as she was the weakest. She scoffed. They actually dared to try and seek advantages over her, an advanced apprentice.

A cruel grin lit up Anna’s face. She bent down and charged towards the girl in the red dress.

Small announcement: As both new editors are busy with their life, I have decided to pause the release until next chapter is edited. New editor will start editing on coming Saturday. So, most probably I’ll release chapter 55 on Sunday. However, if you become one of my Patreon, you can still have early access to unedited chapters. Latest unedited chapter on Patreon is chapter 58, and chapter 59 will be released on Patreon within 2 hours from now.