Age of Adepts

The meat of Underground Fire Dragon tasted bitter and tough.

Although the thing placed in front of Greem was technically considered cooked meat, he was still having a hard time ripping, chewing and swallowing it. He glanced towards the other two men who were happily gobbling up their own meal. Greem couldn’t help but wonder whether these two had enhanced their teeth with a Piercing and Tearing spell. Without it, how could they actually manage to chew this meat, which was tougher than cow leather?

Greem was eating very slowly, but resolutely.

After switching part of his attention to his increasing Physique and Spirit, he became even more determined to finish this piece of meat. However, it seemed that he was the only one who could have done this. After all, not everybody was able to detect such tiny changes to their attributes.

The second piece of meat was served right after he finished the first one. The total size of both pieces was at least three times bigger than his stomach. But he still swallowed them down through clenched teeth. At the end, he had even given up trying to taste the meat. He had to rely on his strong will to force them into his mouth and desperately swallow them into his stomach.

As every single piece of shredded meat and every single chunk of meat cube fell into Greem’s stomach, he found that they were all gradually, yet constantly, emanating an Elementium aura that brought Greem joy. It was the taste of Fire Elementium!

Normally, if Greem wanted to increase his Spirit, he would have had to rely on his daily four hours of meditation to slowly absorb the Fire elementium freely swimming in his Spiritual domain. Usually, this process would increase the maximum level of his Spirit. It was as if his Spirit was a small pond, and his daily rest would refill the pond to its maximum level while meditating would help him expand the pond’s boundary.

Greem had previously thought that the only way one could expand the upper limit of their Spirit was through some specially concocted Spirit Potions. However, today’s ‘delicacy’ had made him think differently. He now knew that, apart from meditation and Spirit Potions, there was another method which could slowly improve the quality of an Apprentice Adept’s constitution.

Although consuming a large amount of these potions could quickly increase the upper limit of one’s Spirit, the increase would usually result in some side effects. This method would bring harm to the normal functions of other body attributes. However, the ‘delicacy’ that he had just eaten came with no side effects. It would increase his Spirit slowly and would show the same results as meditation.

Greem had been told before that the Mind Concentrating Potion, like the one he had just bought, would increase one’s Spirit at the expense of one’s Physique. Therefore, this potion had to be taken in moderation or else Greem would become like Dark Wood and turn into a living skeleton.

While pondering about how he could combine the delicacy and the Mind Concentrating Potion to yield the best result, a cube of meat suddenly got stuck in Greem’s throat. He couldn’t swallow it or cough it out, so he just picked up a glass of crimson liquid and gulped it down.

As if a flame had entered his mouth and was flowing into his stomach, Greem’s face suddenly turned purple. It seemed as if blood was about to burst from his face.

This… this was the blood of Underground Fire Dragon!

Fire Elementium kept emanating from the meat of Underground Fire Dragon and was absorbed and merged into his hungry body. With great effort, Greem managed to swallow the last piece of meat. He finally couldn’t hold up anymore and lay his face on the dining table. His Spiritual conscious had become totally muddled and paralyzed because of the huge amount of Fire Elementium. He found himself being unable to think clearly.

“Hehe, kid, this is the first truth I wanted to teach you.” Before falling unconscious completely, Greem vaguely heard the loud voice of Hulk. “Only by knowing how to eat properly, can an Apprentice Adept, become a better fighter! Remember this!”

Green didn’t remember a single thing that happened after that. The Fire Elementium exploded in his body like scorching lava melting its way to its destination. It was recklessly rushing through every single blood vessel and vein within his body. The overly-strong Fire Elementium had painted his skin fiery red and made his skin hot enough to burn one’s finger when touched. He was like a human shaped furnace that was on full power.

Clearly, these Fire Elementium, that were full of strong bioactivity, were extremely suitable for human absorption. They were present in a huge amount and pounded through every single inch of his muscles, bones, tendons and blood. They continuously merging themselves into Greem’s body, bathing his entire body in a grand feast of Fire Elementium.

Greem was drunk! He was drunk off Fire Elementium!

…………

When Greem finally woke up, seventeen hours had passed.

The time was accurate to the millisecond, as he had been informed by the Chip.

When Greem awoke, he found that he was lying on a warm, cozy blanket inside of a small single tent.

As soon as he opened his eyes, he felt like he was going to explode.

An unprecedented feeling of satisfaction from his bloodline flooded most of his conscious. Greem felt as if his entire body was trembling and moaning in enjoyment. He felt as if every single bone and muscle were cheering, eager to try out their new strength. His bloodline was fully satisfied for the first time ever. It kept urging him to fight and expel the steady flow of raging strength in his body.

“Chip, what has happened to me? Why am I feeling this way?” Greem had always been a calm man who valued reason before everything else, so he was not accustomed to this unusual impulse.

“Beep. Detected that the Host’s body attributes have all reached the upper limit… also detected a large amount of unabsorbed bioactive Elementium within the Host’s body… The abnormal feeling the Host is coming from the stimulation of these bioactive Elementium… It is suggested that the Host performs fire spell practice at once so that the accumulated bioactive Elementium can be absorbed…”

Damn, it was all because of the overly low endurance limit of his body. It seemed that he just couldn’t bear the excessive nourishment he gained from the delicacy!

Greem instantly bolted up from the blanket. He lightly clenched his fist and immediately felt explosive strength start to gather around his shoulder. For a moment, it made think that he had switched his path to one of a Body Refining Adept.

He lifted the tent flap and exited from it. He realized that he was still in the training camp and had just been thrown in a tent on the west side. It was opposite from the wooden cabin in the east. With his sensitive senses, he could tell that some of these tents were empty, while others were occupied by men who were either meditating or sleeping soundly.

It was the morning of the next day. Many elites in the training camp were conscientiously practicing their magic spells at the edge of the large training field. As Greem watched at the skilful and free way they practiced their instantaneous casting, he couldn’t help himself from starting to want to try out his spell too.

As a matter of fact, instantaneous casting was an ability for matured spell casters.

When an apprentice reached to a certain degree of mastery with a magic spell, they would try to compress or even skip a part of the incantation, while still keeping the continuity of spell casting. The final goal of this laborious training was to be able to cast the spell instantaneously.

Some powerful Adepts didn’t even need to chant the dozens, or even hundreds, of words in a chant. Instead, a few short incantations were all they needed to say to instantaneously cast the spell.

However, compressing a long chant into a short one required the spell caster to spend hours upon hours of restless practice. In addition, a secret magical spell legacy was required.

That was why an Adept family was so important to an Apprentice Adept. Each Adept family would have their own magic spell legacy. Only an apprentice belonging to that Adept family would be able to enjoy the legacies and techniques that were handed down by generations of senior Adepts. This would result in making their path smoother and easier.

Or else, without the aid of such ancient knowledge, an apprentice would have to grope in the dark for everything he tried to achieve. With that, even an apprentice with extraordinary magical talent would still have to waste the precious time he had.

Take Greem as an example. Currently, if he recited one-third of a magic spell, the spell would enter into an irreversible molding process. If this process was interrupted or he stopped casting midway, he would have to withstand a certain degree of backlash. But, for those apprentices who had the legacy from their family, it was like they were cheating. They knew which part they had to stop, and they knew how to stop casting halfway while avoiding the backlash.

Just this alone wasn’t something that Greem could learn by himself. He wouldn’t be able to learn it even if he spent countless years practicing spell casting.

Therefore, this was the advantage of having legacies as their knowledge.

Those apprentices who had learned ‘Free Cast’ could practice their magic spells randomly, and when the spell had almost activated, they would dispel it. They would be able to improve their mastery of the magic spell by repeatedly practicing in this way.

After all, there was a limit to an Apprentice Adept’s Spirit. Without using instantaneous casting or free casting, they would find their Spirit depleted after casting a dozen magical spells. After that, they could only sleep in order to restore their Spirit. But, by using instantaneous casting, they could practice a hundred or even a thousand times every single day.

Hence, the progress of an apprentice who had access to a legacy and Greem, who seemed like a feral child, was vastly different.

Right now Greem didn’t have the time to feel envious or jealous of these apprentices. He brought himself to a corner of the training field and found a large rock as his target. He started to repeatedly cast the latest solidified spell he had: Flaming Spear.

In comparison to the quiet and calm free casting that was going on beside him, Greem’s spell casting practice was like a wild bombardment. Following his loud and clear reciting, he kept firing one Flaming Spear after the other. Things that looked like burning spears kept appearing in his hand and, while making a hissing noise, flew into the large rock that stood a hundred meters away. It exploded and filled the air with loud booms.

The Flaming Spear’s swift and violent physical damage, along with its powerful explosion, instantly flooded the large rock target in a fierce and raging sea of flame. The ear-piercing noise of explosion never stopped even for one second.

If the situation was normal, Greem’s pathetic nine Spirit points would have been depleted after four Flaming Spears. But for some unknown reason, the violent and raging Fire element energy kept emerging from his body. It was so strong that he even felt like his Spirit was going to explode.

Therefore, Greem had no choice but to keep firing Flaming Spears in order to release the tremendous pressure he felt on his Spirit. This resulted in the entire training camp being shocked by him!