Age of Adepts

Little Helen’s eyes suddenly shone brightly during Alice’s moment of confusion and doubt. The fairy excitedly flew up and down.

"His force seemed to have been developing fairly well the last time we went to Fire Throne. Maybe..."

Alice thought for a moment before shaking her head and saying, "They’ve just found a decent small-sized plane on their end. The local forces there are pretty tough to deal with as well. The enemies aren’t much weaker than the Faen Plane of the Pale Witches. I fear they would have difficulty sparing any manpower on their end at this moment. Moreover, this is an internal matter of the Northern Witches. He is an outsider."

"Hmph! What outsider," Little Helen pouted in disdain, "Last time he asked you to go and support his cause, he treated you as if you were his subordinate. If he dares not help you in your moment of difficulty now, I will scold him to death."

Alice pretty face turned into a frown. She reprimanded the fairy unhappily, "Helen; I won’t allow you to do anything unnecessary! The reason I could become the Witch of Fate was all his help. That is why I am obligated to help him. The trip to Faen this time is far too dangerous. I don’t want his clan that is only just starting to shape up to disappear just like that. That’s why..."

Alice had just completed a large-scale divination. She had greatly exhausted her Spirit and stamina. Alice felt dizzy and nauseous just from trying to argue with Helen, and her eyes went black as she collapsed to the ground.

That frightened Helen half to death. She waved her tiny magic wand and cast Levitate on Alice before using the wind powers to move the girl out of the astrology platform.

Greem only heard news of this at a slightly later time.

He had to first teleport from Lance to the Goblin Plane, then teleport from the Goblin Plane to Fire Throne before finally making his way to the Witch of Fate.

Even he, a Second Grade adept, felt his head ache after so many teleportations. He couldn’t walk straight by the time he reached the Tower of Fate.

He hurriedly arrived at her room and saw the unconscious Alice lying on a bed.

All seven witches of the Witches of Fate were gathered here, including Berserk Witch Sofia and Icelady Snowlotus. Their expressions were solemn and severe, and they seemed slightly upset at Greem’s appearance.

Greem walked forward and bent to scan Alice’s body. The Chip’s scans revealed that she was deficient in blood energy, her Spirit was in a state of severe withering, and the light spectrum that represented her life magnetic field was incredibly dull. He couldn’t help but ask in shock, "What’s happened to Alice?"

"What else could happen? It’s because she conducted too many divination ceremonies and lost too much life energy. That’s how this..." The palm-sized Helen placed her hands on her waist as if she was fuming with anger.

Snowlotus grabbed the fairy before she could finish her sentence. The ice witch lightly touched the fairy on the head with a finger before turning and coldly speaking to Greem, "Since you, sir, have already seen the tower owner, would you please go home!"

Greem fell silent. It was only now that he lifted his head and took a look at the witches in the room.

"I might not be a member of the Witches of Fate, but I have an unbreakable relationship with Alice. Thus, I hope you people had best not hide anything from me!"

Snowlotus was slightly stunned. Even she was speechless for a second. Instead, it was Helen that broke free of Snowlotus’ grip with a quick teleport. She appeared before Greem once again and floated toward his face. The fairy stared into his eyes and asked, "Do you mean what you say? You would be willing to save Alice if she was in danger?"

"Of course!" Greem spoke with utter certainty, "Alice’s problems are my problems! I will involve myself in all of her matters!"

"Good."

Helen’s expression turned into one of joy. She was just about to spill the beans when a crisp and cold voice interrupted her.

"Helen, you’ve acted out of turn!" No one knew when, but Alice had already woken up. She sat up with much difficulty and scolded Helen angrily. "This is the matter of us witches, why did you summon him here?"

Greem took a look around him and vaguely understood something.

He decided to sit by the bedside and grab Alice’s white and somewhat thin right hand in his own.

"Alice, do you now know my feelings for you? If you doubt the authenticity of my feelings, you can verify it with your divination spells."

Before he could even finish his sentence, seven radiant beams of divination simultaneously fell upon him.

"Seventy percent truth and thirty percent non-truths."

"The non-truths don’t seem like lies, however."

"Hmph, just as expected. Not a hundred percent truthful."

"Men are all like this."

"Eh, this is pretty good in comparison to most men."

"Guess we will trust him this one time."

"He got lucky this time!"

These people.

Greem’s body instantly froze. His forehead immediately filled with plenty of black lines.

It was clear that Alice was dealing with some doubts concerning him right now, but it was so difficult to make any confessions with so many ’ducks’ around them.

While Greem was unsure of what to do next, the blushing Alice had already embarrassedly started chasing away the witches.

For some reason, after tossing their divination spells at Greem, they no longer looked upon him with the same sense of estrangement and distance. They laughed amongst themselves as they left the room.

Once they were the only two left in the room, along with sneaky little Helen, Greem brought Alice into his embrace. He pressed his face against her smooth and silky white hair, taking in the faint scent of her body.

Alice might look slender and tall, but it was obvious her body was far too frail. Greem could tell that she was too skinny when he had her in his arms. The girl even seemed bony to the touch.

Alice was like a shy little lamb right now. She leaned her head upon Greem’s shoulder and trembled slightly. It was hard for her to organize her words.

Greem laughed out loud and pulled Alice deeper into his chest. He didn’t care for her slight gasp and instead lifted his head and smiled at Helen.

"Well, I’ve dealt with your master! Now, you can tell me the matter as it is."

"Ayayaye. Bad man, terrible man. As expected, all they think of is doing bad things."

Helen covered her eyes with both hands as she flew around Greem and Alice like a headless fly. It wasn’t until she peeked through her fingers and saw Greem waiting for her that she carefully leaned toward his ear. She then told him everything about Alice’s advancement and the matter of Faen.

"You can already advance?" Greem was first happy to hear this, but then couldn’t help but grumble, "Alice, what’s with you this time? This isn’t like you! There’s no point to hiding anything. You should have told me this matter earlier. Then, everyone can gather together to discuss. We can surely come up with a plan."

Alice pulled out her small hands and tried her best to catch Greem’s large hands, which were taking the opportunity to roam and do evil everywhere. Still very much embarrassed but happy, she pouted and said, "It’s only because I’m worried that you’ve only just entered Lance. The situation still isn’t clear yet. It’s very easy for your efforts to be completely wasted if you have to withdraw your forces prematurely! Moreover, this operation is an internal matter of the Northern Witches. Outsiders are not allowed to participate."

Greem smiled, "I’m not an outsider; I’m your lover and partner! No one can oppose my participation if I do so under this identity, can they?"

The Northern Witches’ lands might be composed mainly of witches, but every branch had male adepts as well. These male adepts held awkward positions among the Northern Witches. They were either the lovers of certain witches or the subordinates of others. Almost all male adepts were at the periphery of the system of authority.

Greem, on the other hand, was still a Second Grade adept in the end. Moreover, he was the clan head of the newly established Crimson Clan. It was possible for him to put himself beneath the witches like the other male adepts and participate in this otherworld invasion as a subordinate force. While very much possible, it would deal tremendous damage to Greem’s reputation.

However, Greem didn’t care about that!

He was a classic pragmatist. He didn’t care as much about his reputation as some male adepts with too much machismo. He accepted this condition with almost no difficulty.

Still, a proper excuse to participate in the war wasn’t enough. Greem also needed sufficient power to protect his people and to engage in the battle. As such, the choice of participants was also an important decision.

The Tower of Fate had to send everyone to war. Even with Alice the tower owner included, it was still no more than eight witches. Moreover, they were all First Grade.

Greem’s side could probably only afford to spare Greem (Second Grade Fire Adept), Mary (Second Grade Vampire), Zacha (Second Grade Thunder Dragonborn), Goblin Shredder (Second Grade Magical Machine, piloted by First Grade Tigule), Deserra (First Grade Wind Adept), Billis (First Grade Bug Adept), Endor (First Grade Poison Witch), Dana (First Grade Medusa), Unguja (First Grade Demonhound), three Blood Knights (Pseudo-Second Grade Vampires) and Vanlier (First Grade Vampire).

As for the remaining adepts, Gargamel and Eva were responsible for guarding Fire Throne and would be assisted by Charon the manticore.

The Goblin Plane would be left under Meryl’s authority.

The matters on Lance, on the other hand, would have to be left to Gazlowe, the Third Grade brain monster. He had to use the metal fortress to defend what lands they currently held.

The greatest fear of going to a different world was being surrounded by the native forces and forced into a war of attrition.

Even an extremely powerful adept could be forcibly ground to death by a bunch of ant-like natives in this manner. Thus, after selecting a group of powerful underlings, Greem went about on a mission to put together an elite force of soldiers.

Apart from the one hundred magical machines he would bring over, Greem also intended to expand his elementium golem army to act as more cannon fodder.

Most of the battles these days relied on the endless army of magical machines. However, without Gazlowe and the logistics soldier factory that was the metal fortress, Greem would have to think of his own method to produce countless disposable soldiers.

As such, Greem could only place his hopes on his elementium golems, Billis’ bug army, and Mary’s vampire squad.