Age of Adepts

Greem silently assessed the flowing crimson light pouring through the light barrier at the entrance to the lava sea. He seemed to be able to faintly hear the rumbling of the coursing lava beyond the boundary.

“Lord Greem, we will be counting on your protection during this operation!”

The two Second Grade fire adepts sent by Molten Fire City were actually a pair of siblings: a brother and sister. The slightly older brother had a serious expression on his face and gave Greem a simple introduction on him and his sister. Meanwhile, the sister remained silent throughout, walking closely behind her brother as he and Greem talked.

However, judging from the looks she was sneaking at Greem, her personality was fairly lively. Her looks were somewhat decent as well.

“Mm, we will act according to the circumstances.” Greem replied and stepped into the light barrier first.

These two Second Grade siblings didn’t dare walk into the lava sea as simply as Greem had just had. Instead, they quickly chanted and cast some spells. It was only after applying a series of elementium halos and drinking a bunch of spirit regenerating potions that they dared to cross through the barrier carefully.

If First Grade adepts were beginners that had just peeked into the hall of truth, then Second Grade adepts were truth seekers that had fully taken the first step.

This lava sea in front of them was already three hundred meters below the surface; ordinary adepts would have trouble surviving here. Although these two fire adept siblings could endure the flames and intense lava pressure here, they were exhausting their powers at every moment.

They were far less casual and relaxed compared to Greem’s performance.

Those who could become fire adepts had all naturally completed their body elementiumization.

Three nearly completely transparent flame humanoids looked at each other in the dark red lava as they silently dove toward the position they had agreed upon ahead of time.

The underground mines of Molten Fire City had all been fortified with countless defensive arrays to prevent lava from breaching it. Unfortunately, many of these arrays had been damaged by the Third Grade flaming tiger, causing the mine to suffer immense losses.

Though the lava within these tunnels had been drained, and the defensive arrays had been repaired, the entirety of the mine’s defensive system was now in shambles and pieces. They were no longer one continuous entity as they had been before.

This time, the array master of Molten Fire City took advantage of this flaw in the system. He specifically left a seemingly unintentional gap in the defense system of the mine to lure the flaming tiger into the trap.

However, a trap like this couldn’t be too expressly laid out. Whether the flaming tiger would take the bait, and when, was unknown to anybody!

Greem and the Molten Fire City fire adepts’ mission was to hide in the depths of the lava sea and rush out to seal off the tiger’s exit path once it had entered the mine.

It was a simple plan in theory, but challenging to execute in reality. The two fire adept siblings followed closely behind Greem, nervous and anxious.

Naturally, as Second Grade fire adepts, the power of the siblings was immense. Their ability to hide their tracks was also astounding after they had transformed into their flame humanoid forms.

However, they couldn’t help but be impressed when they paid attention to the Third Grade legendary fire adept, “Truly, a legendary fire adept.”

Even though they were so close to him, they couldn’t sense any distinction between the flames that Greem had turned into and the flames in the lava around them.

Greem slowly walked through the lava as if he was just another cluster of burning fire that could be seen anywhere in the molten sea. If it weren’t for being able to see Greem’s existence physically, they would not even be able to distinguish Greem from the background flames.

The three adepts traveled quickly through the lava sea and soon arrived at the predetermined location.

A three-meter wide, five-meter tall spindle-shaped runic rock was floating in the lava here, slowly moving around. The runic stone sensed the arrival of the adepts, and the strange runes carved upon it lit up in succession, flickering with an inconsistent glow.

The female fire adept stepped forward and pressed her translucent palm against the elementium barrier created by the runic stone. She chanted a series of words, and the rock trembled lightly. The elementium barrier parted slightly as a small door appeared on the surface of the solid rock.

The three of them hesitated no longer and quickly went into the door.

The space inside the stone was not significant to being with. Now, it appeared crowded when three adepts were stuffed in it.

Once the entrance to the stone had closed, the three adepts sat down and barely had enough space for everyone. However, any slight movements they made would unavoidably cause some limb contact.

The runic stone was a part of the security system set up in the lava sea to monitor for activity around the mines. The flaming tiger would not be able to avoid passing by this stone if it wanted to enter them.

The three of them were safe while they hid here.

To avoid awkwardness, the fire adept siblings shut their eyes and silently rested as they waited for a message from off in the distance. Greem looked around him and assessed the runic stone he was in.

The inside of the stone was not empty. The walls around Greem were carved full of strange runes and magical inscriptions.

Greem could see that some of these were energy-storage runes, while others were energy-absorption runes, defensive arrays, or alarm runes. Though he didn’t really understand the mechanism of the runic stone, he could still learn a lot through these arrays carved within it.

As a part of the security system, the runic stone was too predictable and straightforward alone. It was difficult to stop the enemy from sneaking past it through various means. That was why the runic stone here usually had an adept stationed within it.

With the tireless scans of the runic stone and the powerful spiritual scans of the stationed adept, ordinary enemies would have an incredibly difficult time trying to sneak into the mines without being discovered!

Greem could sense the arrays carved on the walls of the stone continually resonating with the two Second Grade adepts. The stone and the adepts aided each other, their aura and powers merging and improving their spiritual senses by leaps and bounds.

Greem couldn’t help but ask, “Was this runic stone purchased or something that your organization created on your own?”

The siblings opened their eyes and looked at Greem curiously.

In the end, the brother was the one that spoke.

“The basic knowledge on the runic stone was purchased from the Silver Union, but I believe Lord Dorian was the one who personally created it! According to my knowledge, most adept organizations create stuff in this manner. After all, our own security and defensive system can’t be left in the hands of others. It’s safer to create it ourselves.”

Greem nodded and once again shut his eyes and fell silent.

The siblings looked at each other and could only shrug. They once again returned their attention to the scanning of the lava sea around them.

However, they didn’t remain quiet for long. The female fire adept suddenly opened her eyes and said with a surprised voice, “There’s movement at the mines! The flaming tiger seems to be destroying the walls of the mines.”

Greem opened his eyes, and an expression of thought appeared on his face.

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

At this moment, a flaming tiger was furiously destroying the stone walls outside the underground mines.

Unlike the stone in other regions, the stone walls around the mines showed no signs of melting or disintegration, despite being soaked in terrifying lava. A large amount of metal mixed within it caused the volcanic rock here to be as tough as steel. It was also capable of resisting prolonged heat conditions, making it extremely difficult to destroy.

However, the tiger didn’t seem to mind.

He stood in the flowing lava, waving his claws formed of flames and smashed them again and again upon the steel-like walls.

As powerful as the Molten Fire adepts were, they could not protect the entirety of the mine and its dozens of kilometers of tunnels with runic arrays. That was why the runic arrays were mostly concentrated around the weak points of the mines, as well as its entrances and exits.

However, today, the flaming tiger that had been missing for so long went the other way. He did not try to sneak into the mine and instead chose to dig furiously at a spot in the mine where the adepts couldn’t defend.

The molten eternium he had absorbed over the past few months had caused his elementiumized body to appear somewhat different. The sharp flaming claws made of pure fire not only contained tremendous power whenever they struck, but also caused ferocious winds to ravage across the lava, demonstrating their horrifying physical power.

A single claw would cause a half-meter deep crater to appear on the sturdy wall, and the bottom of the hole would be filled with terrifying cracks. The flaming tiger continued to dig without any stop, claw after claw. Soon, he had dug out a massive pit that was seven or eight meters deep.

If he kept digging at his current speed, he would only need half a day to dig through another three dozen meters of rock and enter the tunnel.

That was clearly beyond the expectations of the Molten Fire City higher-ups. Even the Third Grade adepts behind the scenes could no longer sit still.

Two of the Third Grade adepts appeared simultaneously in the lava sea with an intense magical flux.

Unlike Greem’s transformation into an elementium form to merge with the lava, the two Third Grade adepts were a poison adept and an array master respectively. They were not suited for combat in the lava sea.

However, now that the plot had swerved away from their expectations, and the tiger had not entered the trap, the two of them could only reluctantly strike out and hope to draw the tiger into the trap.

Adept Karak and Adept Dorian stood in a giant rolling stone, pushing away all the lava in their way as they charged toward the tiger.

The two forces immediately broke out into a deathmatch outside the mines.

Rather than a fight, it was more the two adepts defending and trying their best to fend off the countless attacks from the Third Grade flaming tiger.

The power of the tiger, while he was in the lava sea, was shockingly high.

His three-meter body flickered about the stone ball, vanishing and reappearing. Every time he appeared, the tiger would be accompanied by a loud roar and ferocious claw attacks, causing the earth elementium on the stone’s surface to tremble uncontrollably.