Age of Adepts

After all, the so-called fire immunity cast externally could only spare him from lower grade Fire element damage. Once an element flame went beyond a certain degree, he would still bear some damage caused by the flame. Previously, during the strengthening process of his Inferno Body, his body was easily damaged by the brutal modification performed by the Fire element energy. The strength of the Fire element energies had gone beyond the maximum endurance limit of his fire immunity.

Now, after having completed the modification of his Flame Body, he could transform parts of his body into Elementium any time he deemed it was necessary, which gave him immunity from all Fire element damage. In the future, even if he was facing a Second Grade Adept, he wouldn’t be hurt by an element fireball cast towards him. However, such damage immunity was limited to only the Fire element. If he was attacked with a mutated Fire element magic spell, he would still be hurt by it.

For example, a Magma Fireball, which was a magic spell that combined the damage of both the Fire element and physical damage. Although Greem would be immune from the Fire element damage, he could not escape from being hurt by the physical damage. Yet, a mutated Fire element magic spell like that composed more than half of all magic spells, as it was a common counter measurement employed by Adepts so that their element attack would not be totally ignored by their enemy.

Previously, if Greem had gone too deep into the lava ocean, he would have had to face the possibility of being hurt by the flame. But now, with his Flame Body, any region with dense Fire Elementium would become his home. No matter how high the temperature of an element fire, he would not be hurt by it anymore. In fact, they became the biggest tonic for him.

With the lava ocean, the topographical advantage of Molten Giants had evened out!

For the Greem of the past, if the controlling of element fire was a superb magical skill, then the same ability had now become an instinct. From now onwards, he didn’t have to dive nakedly into a sea of fire, because he was fire, and fire was he. Thus, under his control, no element fire could burn off his clothes anymore!

In addition to that, the biggest advantage brought by Flame Body was Focused Fire Element. All of the offensive strength of Fire element magic spell doubled, casting time reduced by half, and the cost of Spirit halved as well. In any region rich in Fire Elementium, the recovery speed of his Spirit would double, and the Flame Body would self-heal the damage on his body.

But, there was a trade-off for this!

It was not all benefits brought by the Flame Body. At least, if Greem was hurt by Water or Ice element magic spell, the damage would double. Also, when he was in a region rich in Water Elementium, the recovery of his Spirit and self-healing would also be repressed.

Nevertheless, Greem knew this in advance, so he didn’t feel surprised at all. Currently, he was more concerned about his overall strength. After the Chip performed a thorough scan of his body, the latest data of his overall strength was projected into his vision.

Name: Greem

Race: Human (Half-Elementium)

Attribute: Strength – 9.24 (+1), Agility – 7.87 (+1), Physique – 13.22 (+1), Spirit – 20.

Profession: Apprentice Adept (Pseudo-Adept)

Health Points: 62/62 (Healthy)

Experience: 927/1000

Skills: Scroll Copying, Spell Reading, Golem Crafting (Intermediate), Focused Fire Element.

Personal Abilities: Flame Body (Passive), The Burning Hand, Fire Arrow, Flaming Spear, Fire Shield, Fire Damage Reflect (Proximity Passive), Inferno Force Field.

Magical Equipment: Fire Lord’s Scepter, Storage Waist Belt, Secret Scroll of Voodoo, Boots of Speed (Agility +1), Talisman of Force (Physique, Strength +1), Wand of Dispel, Wand of Healing, Wand of Prophecy, Green Spirit (Curse Resistance +5), Screaming Tree Branch.

Upon reading the latest body statistics produced by the Chip, even if Greem had a steady and resolute mind, he couldn’t hold down his surging emotions. He had finally become a Pseudo-Adept! From now onwards, he was no longer a rookie apprentice whose fate could be freely decided by anybody!

However, it was a pity that since his Spirit had skyrocketed from 16 to 20, the Circlet of Nobility that brought +1 to his Spirit and the Purple Ioun Stone of +2 Spirit had lost their effect. His Spirit had now reached 20, which was the maximum Spirit for an Apprentice Adept. If he wished to increase it more, then he would have to gain understanding in the force of principle and aided with the ceremony of advancement.

No doubt this had to come later. But as for now, the most important thing about becoming a Pseudo-Adept was that he could finally put the plan he had plotted for a long time into action!

After obtaining the Flame Body, the human aura on his body had faded. So long as he carefully disguised himself, with the harsh and cruel environment of the lava ocean, it would be extremely difficult for those Molten Giants to find any trace of him.

Greem returned to the shore and equipped himself with all of his magical equipment. Then he dove into the lava ocean once again, disappearing without a trace.

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

Over the last few days, Elder Nimr had felt ill at ease.

As the leader of the surviving Molten Giant clan, Nimr was obliged to use its intelligence and life to safeguard and continue the existence of the Molten Giants.

This world didn’t belong to them!

Although Molten Giants had a large body and formidable individual overall strength, as a special race that couldn’t survive outside of the volcano world, they could only firmly stay entrenched in their own environment, avoiding any intrusion from outsiders.

This was a world that belonged only to human Adepts.

With regards to this, even the first Molten Giant born from the depths of the earth core had realized it. The human Adepts tolerated the existence of their unique race so that they could enslave them and loot their treasures.

The volcano world belonged to them, yet they belonged to the Zuber Family.

Bonded by a 1000 year old magical contract, the mighty clan of Molten Giants had become special miners who worked for the local human Adept family. Every five years, they had to hand in a long list of resources. Yet, even they, who were Sons of the Flaming Ocean, had a headache over the required numbers of resources on the list.

As a powerful and proud race, they did try to revolt. However, the power of human Adepts was not something they could stand up against. Without experiencing it personally, no one could imagine how frightening the ability of a Third Grade Adept was. As a direct result of their rebellion, 1/3s of their clan members had been wiped out completely. It was a severe loss that took them nearly four hundred years to recover.

Before the rebellion, though the human Adepts had treated them cruelly and harshly, they wouldn’t enter their territory. However, for the past few hundred years, the Zuber Family had been pushing them more and more. Frequently, when the volcano entered its resting period, they would send some Apprentice Adepts to train down here.

It might just be training for the human apprentices, but for the Molten Giants, the apprentices were actually slaughtering their enslaved beasts. Not only that, sometimes they even besieged a juvenile Molten Giant who had been leaving them alone. This further attracted the anger of Molten Giants.

However, though Elder Nimr had negotiated a few times with the Third Grade Adept of Zuber Family, it was always warned not to randomly hurt the Zuber Family apprentices who had their training here. But visiting apprentices were excluded.

But too bad, in the eyes of the Molten Giants, human apprentices were nearly impossible to differentiate. Hence, they had no choice but to swallow insult and humiliation silently, organizing their own patrol teams to prevent any human apprentices from getting close to their habitat. Fortunately, the human apprentices who came for training weren’t too strong. Also, by intentionally driving Fire element creatures towards the outer perimeter, thereby forming a blockade, someone disturbing their life in the lava ocean was rare.

Nevertheless, this year’s situation was obviously different from the past.

This time, there was a mysterious guy among the human Apprentice Adepts who had breached the borders of lava ocean several times. It seemed like he was researching some kind of unknown magic spell. Due to his treacherousness, they had failed to intercept him even after sending a couple of patrolling teams. Therefore, Nimr could only order his clan members to heighten their vigilance and ban their juveniles from leaving their habitat alone.

In order to avoid any outsiders from casting their covetous eyes on their harvested gemstones and materials, Nimr even deployed two more formidable fighters to safeguard their treasure vault. But from time to time, even when it was comfortably soaking in a lava pool, a feeling of fear still surged up in its mind, as if it had missed something really important.

Nimr was an enormous Molten Giant who stood at seven meters tall and was the oldest member of their clan. It had turned 1815 years old this year, and its overall strength had reached the pinnacle of Molten Giant. If it was converted into the hierarchy of human Adepts, it had the mighty overall strength of at least a Second Grade Adept.

But, as a special race who relied on their strong bodies and innate talent when fighting, it had mastered less than ten powerful Fire element abilities. Yet, the same grade human Adept could have nearly one hundred incredible magic spells, which they could use freely.

They lacked the profound accumulation of knowledge with the history of over hundreds and thousands of years like human Adepts, lacked the endless bizarre magical equipment which human Adepts owned, and did not have the massive numbers of minions who could be called for freely. By just relying on the powerful innate abilities gifted by the Will of the Plane, the Molten Giants would never escape their fate of being enslaved by human Adepts!

With the overall strength of Nimr, so long as that frightening Third Grade Adept of Zuber Family didn’t come personally, in its home of the lava ocean, it never feared, even when faced with an opponent of the same grade. But, for the past few days, a frequent chill had been flowing through its mind, as if something bad was going to happen to its clan.

For this reason, it felt uneasy even when eating and sleeping. Every single day, it urged its clan members to patrol every region and inspected all the islands regularly, causing everybody to be busy and tired. But it felt rather relieved, as after this restless period, the three month resting phase of the volcano was approaching its end. Upon sensing the rumble coming from the earth core that became louder gradually day by day, its mind calmed down slightly.

But as the ending of resting phase approached, the more its fear grew.

Yet today, the uneasy feeling in Nimr’s mind had reached maximum level, so that it could hardly sleep in the lava pool within its cave. It couldn’t stop itself from walking out from its residence, placing itself at the edge of the island that it had taken as its home, and quietly watching any surrounding activities.