Age of Adepts

The only ones in Dustfire Valley who were truly subordinate to Lord Artes were his molten-giant guards and an army of three hundred fire elementals. The other fire creatures were all free beings and were not under the jurisdiction of Artes.

Thus, when the Second Grade molten-giant captain furiously wanted to capture all the fire spirits for interrogation, he instantly incited the anger and fury of all the fire creatures.

There were no weaklings among the fire creatures of Dustfire Valley. Seventy to eighty percent of them were already advanced fire spirits, flame spirits, and fire elementals with defined forms. Some of them were even Second Grade wanderers.

When the molten giants started to charge into the fire city to capture the free fire spirits, the chaos immediately spread to every corner of the city.

Meanwhile, Greem took advantage of the chaos to sneak into an unnoticed corner. He then took out a bright blue potion and drank everything. A short moment later, his blazing body abruptly turned transparent, and after a bit longer, even the last bits of his existence vanished without a trace.

The invisible Greem carefully snuck toward the towering fire hall in the depths of Dustfire Valley.

Fire Lord Artes lived in that hall. The place was different from the rest of the valley, for there was a quarter-kilometer-wide magma pool in the center of it. The fire pool led directly to the underground depths. Red lava pillars blasted out of the pool occasionally, frequently making waves in the liquid.

Lord Artes was currently lying within the magma pool. He was using his massive hand to splash his own body with the scalding magma. When the red liquid of surprising temperature flowed down his muscular body, the roaring fire energy seeped through his stone skin and into his fire core, causing him to moan lightly in pleasure.

The magma pool beneath him was not a natural pool. Instead, it was a unique fire pool that had been created by using the unique geography and landscape of Dustfire Valley. All of the lava rivers were sealed off and redirected toward one place to form the pool.

For a fire creature like himself, soaking himself in pure fire energy on a daily basis and taking the energy into his fire core was the only way to improve his own power slowly.

Due to the unique nature of fire elementium in the Fire Elementium Plane, advancement materials of attributes other than fire could not be found at all. Thus, apart from daily accumulation, powerhouses of the Fire Elementium Plane had no other way of improving themselves. After all, they couldn’t travel the plane in search of knowledge or resources that suited them as the adepts did.

Artes had been staying in the hall ever since he returned from his meeting with his master. He had left the task of searching and capturing the human adept to his subordinates while he lazily enjoyed the luxurious life of bathing in boiling lava.

A mere six months had passed in an instant while he enjoyed himself!

Artes was not in a hurry.

Much like most fire creatures, his mind held absolutely no concept of time.

His master might have given him a mission, but there was no time limit to its completion. As such, he could still enjoy the carefree life of a lord while slowly waiting for the appearance of the mysterious adept.

Yet today, an intense fire flux came from the city in the distance while he was enjoying his bath. A deafening sound traveled through the valley and reached the hall.

Mm? What was happening?

Artes stood up in the pool. The scalding liquid flowed down his strong body, and a wave of heat as scorching as ten thousand degrees ravaged the entire hall.

Dong! Dong! Dong!

Artes walked to the entrance of the fire hall with heavy steps and gazed at the city below. Fires were blazing while fireballs soared throughout the air. It seemed that a wave of chaos and uprising was spreading throughout the entire city.

"What’s the matter?" Artes’ loud voice resounded within the hall, "What has happened in my territory? Why is there chaos? Where is Firerend?"

The two molten giants guarding the entrance of the hall got down on one knee and reported with their booming voices, "My Lord, Captain Firerend sent back news earlier. They have found the fire spirit spy and are now in the process of arresting him!"

"What a mess!" Artes instantly flew into a rage, "Almost seventy percent of the free citizens in this city are fire spirits. Does Firerend intend to arrest all of them? That stiff-minded fool! You, go and tell him to immediately give up on the arrest and restore my city’s peace and quiet."

"Understood!" A molten giant acknowledged the order and turned to stride toward the city center.

A short while later, Artes’ order was received and executed, and the chaotic city instantly regained its calm. Apart from twenty or thirty fire spirits that had been surrounded and beaten down by the molten giants, some of the buildings in the city center had also been affected. Several shops had even collapsed.

The molten giants would never apologize or give compensation over these losses. The fire spirits that had regained their freedom could only curse in anger before fleeing Dustfire Valley and finding a place to treat their wounds.

The invisible Greem saw the towering figure at the entrance of the fire hall from far away. His intimidating aura and his attitude toward the fire creatures around him informed Greem as to his identity. Greem was almost certain that this fire creature was his target.

It was Second Grade Fire Lord Artes!

Compared to a human lord or king, Artes’ arrangement of his security was crude and loose. Human kings would need towering walls and castles on the outside, large amounts of patrolling soldiers on the inside, and specially hired powerhouses to act as their guards.

Even so, some kings would still be concerned. These kings would go on to set up plenty of traps and mechanisms where they lived to prevent assassinations and ambushes targeted at them.

However, these strategies were clearly useless in the Fire Elementium Plane!

In the end, Artes himself was the most powerful individual in Dustfire Valley. He didn’t need too much useless trash surrounding himself.

Greem circled the hall several times while stealthed and only found two molten giants standing guard at the entrance. The fire hall was also an open space supported by dozens of thick pillars. That broad space was enough for Greem to enter and exit freely.

It was imprisoning a cat with a cattle fence!

Such magma pillars might stop big guys like the molten giants, but they were as wide as city roads for the three-meter-tall Greem. Greem kept a healthy distance between himself and the guards and entered the hall from a different direction. He narrowed his eyes and silently assessed this Second Grade Fire Lord Artes.

He was a five-meter-tall molten giant.

His entire body was formed of pieces of large magma rocks while blinding red light shone through between the cracks. A surge of liquid lava flowed within his body. One could feel the shocking heat radiating from Artes even from forty or fifty steps away.

Blue light flickered in Greem’s eyes as he used a strange magical light spectrum to reveal the rippling heatwaves around himself.

Though Artes had not intentionally increased the intensity of his flames, his fire energy was already sufficient to form a Fire Domain of his own.

All creatures that stepped into the Domain would have to endure fire damage of sixty-eight points at all times!

Greem’s Ring of Fire was actually an embryonic form of the Fire Domain. It was most likely a product of the adepts finding inspiration and knowledge from the fire creatures; a weakened ring of fire replicated with the use of magic.

Greem didn’t dare to get too close to the opponent as he was worried that the fire energy radiating from his body would be detected. He could only analyze and collect data on the opponent from a distance.

The Chip quickly projected an approximation of Second Grade Lord Artes’ attributes based on the degree of light refraction caused by the fire energy and the intensity of the radiated energy aura.

Artes.

Second Grade. Molten Giant. Dustfire Valley FIre Lord.

Bodily Attributes: Strength 27 | Physique 24 | Agility 7 | Spirit 13

Greem couldn’t help but frown when he saw Artes Strength and Physique. Both of them had already exceeded twenty points.

Judging by this, Artes walked the path of physical strength and power. His Strength and Physique were at a shockingly high level. With his 24 points of Physique, he could easily endure two to three of Greem’s Second Grade spells to the face without being severely harmed.

Moreover, his 27 points of Strength would allow him to smash through Greem’s Lava Shield with a single punch and continue to put a hole in Greem’s chest.

There were also two peak First Grade molten giant guards outside the hall. If Greem couldn’t kill Artes in under five seconds of ambushing him, he would have to deal with the guards as well. Greem had no way of dealing with both of the guards while also fighting against a powerful opponent of the same grade.

Greem hesitated for a moment before silently sneaking out of the hall.

Of course, he left a magical eye in a corner of the hall before he left. It was only then that he retreated from Dustfire Valley and found a hiding spot.

After all, there was a time limit to his high-grade Invisibility Potion. He couldn’t enter Artes’ Fire Domain either. Otherwise, the invisibility potion would instantly vanish the moment his body took damage!