Age of Adepts

After quickly clearing up the underground cave, Greem, Billis, and Mary returned to the surface. They silently hid in the bushes for an ambush.

It was obvious that this squad of magical machines that had tracked them here were the so-called ’elites’ of the Goblin Empire. Given that the planar war was going to happen regardless, it was best to figure out the strength of the enemy before the real thing started.

That was why Greem and his party hadn’t chosen to retreat. Instead, they set up an ambush and quietly waited for the peculiar team of machines to arrive.

The fact that the Goblin Empire had managed to obtain the ruling position of this plane proved that they had their own exceptional talents. The goblins themselves were weak and frail. They were nothing in the eyes of the three adepts. If that was the case, then what gave the goblins power had to be the magical combat machines that very much resembled metallic golems.

Even if it was only to gather some necessary data, this fight was an unavoidable and inevitable one!

After an entire night’s worth of rest, Mary’s strength hadn’t returned to its peak level, but her fundamental ability to fight was no longer affected. On the other hand, while Greem was enduring an even more tremendous planar suppression due to his identity as a Second Grade fire adept, the Chip’s assistance hastened the speed at which he deciphered the planar laws. Consequently, Greem also possessed some ability to engage in combat.

Mary flapped her wings and flew onto a branch, using the dense canopy to hide her silhouette. Billis only needed to tunnel into the earth with a sinister laugh before he was nowhere to be seen. However, Greem was able to sense Billis hiding underneath a large patch of bushes to the right through the existence of their soul contract. Billis’ sting scorpions, on the other hand, had been scattered all across the nearby woods.

Greem didn’t hide; he did not need to conceal his presence. He stood alone before the entrance to the underground cave without a single word, silently and calmly observing the disturbance in the distance.

A squad of thirteen combat magical machines slowly appeared in his vision accompanied by odd metallic sounds.

Greem’s scorching, immensely powerful eyes slowly swept past all of the machines. As blue light flashed deep within his eyes, he immediately figured out everything there was to know about the machines: their outward appearance, their behavioral patterns, joints, and possible modes of attack.

Of course, all of these were only deductions. The actual details still needed to be verified in combat.

Since you have arrived, let us do battle!

Greem didn’t utter a single word. He grabbed the air with his right hand, and brilliant fire elementium gathered frantically in his palm. A Magma Fireball the size of a human head quickly materialized and floated above his hand. As the fireball spun, terrifying heat and searing winds pressed against the squad of machines. They suddenly stopped when they felt this change.

Right now, such a scene was displayed in front of the entire magical machine squad.

A single person; a domineering adept two meters tall silently standing before them, and a horrifying fireball with increasingly powerful flames floating in his hand as he stared at them.

The detection instruments in their machines allowed them to see the energy value rapidly rising very clearly.

2300 degrees.

2500 degrees.

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

3000 degrees.

3500 degrees.

......

......

Goddammit, the enemy was this powerful? A fireball that he casually gathered in his palm could reach three to four thousand degrees? None of the magical machines present would be able to retreat unscathed if such a fireball hit them directly!

The previously arrogant squad fell silent. They gulped audibly. Some of the squad members even subtly drove their magical machines a bit further away. Of course, this wasn’t them being afraid or retreating. It was only them trying to put some distance between each other to prevent a collision when they tried to avoid the fireball.

"Evil Adept, I am Tigule of the Magical Machine Squad. You... "

The three-meter metallic goblin stood forward to give an opening speech, but the fireball in Greem’s hand had already moved. It quickly flew towards the goblin machine in an elegant and beautiful arc.

"Dammit." Tigule could no longer care for words. The two metallic arms of the goblin lifted, and its palms split apart to reveal two guns emerging from within.

A torrent of leaden bullets was propelled outwards and crashed against the Magma Fireball.

The other machines quickly followed suit and moved backward. Similar black barrels emerged from all over their bodies as they moved while the goblins assisted their captain in intercepting the fireball.

The Magma Fireball of four thousand degrees, and reaching two hundred and ten points of power, exploded in the center of the battlefield!

Destructive flame shockwaves and a shower of meteors that contained shards of magma rocketed in every direction. All the machines quickly dodged. Meanwhile, a light blue energy shield emerged from the machines, protecting them from damage.

The energy barrier only seemed to work against magical elementium; it couldn’t block purely physical attacks. Consequently, the magma shards managed to pierce through without any hindrance, clanking as they struck against the metallic shells of the machines. However, the resulting flame shockwave had been completely neutralized. It failed even to reach the machines.

Elementary Energy Shields!

The amount of energy damage it could shield against seemed to be between three hundred to five hundred points.

Blue light flashed in the depths of Greem’s eyes. He had managed to figure out the nature of these energy barriers in a matter of seconds. He even calculated the amount of energy damage it could endure.

Gazlowe’s ingenuity marveled Greem at this point. He was indeed a genius of a goblin engineer. To think, he had been able to transfer a low-grade magic spell onto combat machines. Not to mention the fact that the shields themselves had a decent ability to protect against elementium damage.

It was important to note that an elementary energy shield cast by an apprentice adept would only have a tolerance limit of approximately fifty points. But upon Gazlowe’s modification to employ them on the magical machines, the strength of the shield had suddenly increased tenfold.

This situation had occurred because a human body had far less tolerance compared to a magical machine. The sudden energy output of up to fifty points was still barely within an apprentice body’s range of tolerance. However, if they abruptly increased the strength of the shield tenfold, the apprentice in question would be utterly crippled, despite how much more potent of a defense that sounded like.

However, this problem didn’t exist for the magical machines. The amount of energy the devices could instantly put out was often several times that of the human body, as long as their metallic bodies could still withstand the intensity of the energy. If better and more appropriate magical metals were used to forge the energy conduction system, then the instantaneous energy output could easily be a hundred times that of a human body!

That was why the magical machines had been able to achieve the effect of an advanced energy shield despite only using an elementary one. Greem couldn’t help but frown at this.

Five hundred points of energy defense. Even a Second Grade fire adept like himself would require three all-out attacks to get past the shield. An agility-type adept like Mary would then probably need seven to eight continuous attacks to get through.

Greem was slightly shocked. He instantly sent the numbers that he had calculated to Mary and Billis.

Now that they had tested the opponent’s defense, it was time to check their offense.

Greem strode forward. He only needed to grab and toss with a single hand to send a powerful Magma Fireball flying towards the magical machines. All these fireballs dealt damage above two hundred points, and it placed enormous psychological pressure on the squad of machines.

To ensure the accuracy of the test, Greem did not utilize his Lava Shields. Instead, he used the purer Fire Shields. The ferocious and savage fire elementium gathered to form several Fire Shields. They orbited Greem’s body at high speed, helping him block all attacks that came his way.

The storm of metal bullets crashed against the Fire Shield, where they were melted into liquid metal by the streams of fire before completely vaporizing in small explosions of flame.

Greem continued to advance. Crackling sounds proceeded to ring out from the three Fire Shields that spun around him. These pure-flame shields constantly trembled as crimson cracks started to appear on their bright red surfaces.

Fifteen to twenty-five points!

Greem estimated the strength of the metal bullet attacks. He quickly provided an assessment to this attack.

The good news was that the opponent’s barrage was entirely physical damage. There was no elementium damage attached to them. The bad news was the frequency of the enemy’s attacks. Assaults like these of the beginner-apprentice level could still cause moderate disturbance to an adept when stacked in this manner.

The thirteen magical machines surrounded Greem, maintaining a distance of twenty to thirty meters between them and the adept. They barraged Greem and drowned him in a deluge of metal and fire.

The opponent’s strange fire shields had mostly destroyed the relentless stream of bullets. The shots that missed their marks had hit the ancient trees around them instead. Even these old, massive trees couldn’t hold on for more than two seconds before being riddled with holes and collapsing to the ground.

Their unique observation lenses allowed the goblin mechanics that were hiding inside their machines to watch on with excitement as they beat down upon the human adept, who had been rendered incapable of fighting back. No; the opponent could still retaliate. It was those Magma Fireballs with shockingly high energy signatures.

However, fireball counterattacks such as these were no problem for the elite magical machine squad. They either blocked them with their barrage of bullets or dodged them and avoided the landing point of the fireball. At any rate, this evil adept was now surrounded and didn’t seem to be as terrifying as rumored!

Just as the members of the squad started to relax, Greem finally lashed out with all his strength. He believed he had performed all the necessary tests he required.

Two Lava Shields forged from burning magma and pure fire quickly gathered in front of Greem, replacing the battered Fire Shields.

With these two Lava Shields that possessed excellent physical protection, Greem’s previously shaky defense was now rock solid. Greem raised his right hand high into the air as a Scarlet Firestorm with a massive radius enveloped the area. All the magical machines were dragged into the Firestorm.

The wild elementium flames turned into hundreds and thousands of randomly rampaging flame streams. They wreaked havoc upon the land and also quickly obscured the vision of the mechanics.

"All of you, be careful. Reposition yourselves as fast as you can." The captain of the squad, Tigule, had plenty of experienced. He sensed something wrong about the situation and immediately shouted to warn his team members.

But it was too late!