Age of Adepts

Moaning and groaning, the two newcomers staggered to their feet.

Comparing to the spatially talented Alice, both of them rarely teleported, therefore, aside from the normal dizziness that accompanied teleporting, both of them felt sick, almost to the point of throwing up. However, both of them had extraordinary Physiques, which made them very adaptable. Thus, after a brief moment of rest, they had recovered.

Apparently, before being teleported to this place, these two had been in fierce fights, as both of their bodies were covered with scars. Even now, they were tightly gripping their weapons, as if thinking they might be attacked at any moment.

When they saw Alice, who was looking incredibly miserable, both men exchanged glances, incredulous looks in their eyes. Before they had entered the Magical Swamp, the three of them had spared, trying to determine who would be the leader of this temporary team.

Although both of them were very confident in themselves, they were both defeated by Alice’s mysteriously Telekinetic ability. If they were being honest with themselves, this Alice definitely had the ability to kill them instantly.

But, unexpectedly, after splitting up for only a short time, Alice had suffered very severe injuries. Compared to her, their wounds were nothing worth mentioning.

“Alice, who were you fighting with? Was it a Pseudo-Adept?” Hesitantly, the muscular man with a huge sword on his back asked the terrifying loli what was wrong. The Snake headed man, who was standing beside him, also showed an expression filled with concern, quietly awaiting Alice’s answer.

“Kerry, my business is my own…” Alice didn’t deem to answer the question, and simply kept focusing on healing her own injuries.

Alice secretly felt a great fear in her heart. She was not worried about her injuries, she had suffered severe injuries before this. What she feared was whatever Adept Anderson had done to her when he threw that bizarre looking green light into her eye. No matter how she examined herself, she couldn’t find anything unusual in her body, so she had no choice but to focus on healing her wounds.

After drinking all sorts of potions, the wounds on her nearly disintegrated body finally stopped leaking blood. Then Alice started to apply a dark purple, pungent smelling, medicinal paste onto her wounds.

Strangely, the result of this seemingly insignificant mud-like paste worked really well. No matter how awful a wound was, as long as it was covered by the paste for a short period of time, her skin would be restored to its former fairness and smoothness.

After she finished healing all her wounds, Alice starting to heal her right eye.

If a normal human lost a body part, it would be a lifelong scar that could never be healed. But for these Apprentice Adepts, who had set foot in the field of mysticism and supernatural forces, restoring lost body parts was quite possible.

From a black clay pot, Alice carefully picked out a strange looking creature, which looked like a tiny snake. Pinching its tail, she carefully placed it into her empty eye socket. This weird creature was being pinched by Alice so it couldn’t move, causing it to keep twisting in the air while making a jarring, sharp hissing sound. It had a head that looked like a meatball, and a mouth that opened up like a flower. Within this odd shaped mouth were many tiny, sharp teeth.

“Snake-Sakura Grass!”

Obviously, the muscular man knew about this creature, and he couldn’t help but sigh at its value.

“What is this thing?” The Snake headed man had never seen anything like this before.

“It is a holy healing medicine, able to replace any missing important organ in the body. Don’t judge by its ugly looking appearance. It is a mutated plant that was specifically cultivated for this purpose. It’s basic price of it is around 70 Magic Crystals.” The muscular man briefly explained. At the same time, his face was filled with envy.

“70 Magic Crystals?” Snake headed man was shocked, and he was instantly able to understand the value of this item.

Numerous major-scale Adept associations existed in the World of Adepts. There were simply too many to count. Internally, each of these organizations and associations would implement the system of knowledge points or exchange points, of which none were exchangeable. Therefore, in an effort to solve cross-organizations trading, the Magic Crystals was born.

This was an advanced-magic universe with countless planes.The entire space of each of these planes was filled with a magical energy. Usually, these magical energies were equally distributed throughout the space, but, on rare occasions or in some unique environments, very dense clusters of magical energy could be found.

Therefore, in these unique environments, the overly dense magical energy would infest the surrounding minerals, turning it into a crystal. This crystal was a unique item that allowed Adepts to quickly replenish their Elementium consumption. Hence, it was an item that had gained the acceptance of all casters in every single major plane.

As a result, the Magical Crystal had become an important strategic resource for the Adept World, as they were constantly conquering other worlds. Thus, it was used as the basic currency for the entire World of Adepts.

The Snake headed man couldn’t help it and gulped.

For example, in the Black Glove Association he came from, after he successfully completed this training mission, he would get 15 knowledge points and 30 Magic Crystals. To get 70 Magic Crystals, he would have to complete two ‘Dangerous’ missions, seven ‘Difficult’ missions, or thirty-five ‘Normal’ missions.

Hence, when he saw Alice unhesitatingly use the Snake-Sakura Grass, which cost 70 Magic Crystals, the muscles on his face starting to twitch uncontrollably.

Although it had a ferocious and strange look, the Snake-Sakura Grass was just a special mutated plant. After Alice placed it into her emptied eye socket, it immediately coiled up its body and centered itself. Its slimy body started to break down, turning into tiny threads that looked like micro-sized snakes. Countless threads began twisting and weaving into each other, soon forming into the shape of a human eye.

But, a moment before the eyeball formed by the Snake-Sakura Grass was about to be finished, a bizarre green light suddenly flashed around it. In the next second, the Snake-Sakura Grass suddenly went berserk.

Countless tiny tentacles started poking through Alice’s eye socket, and kept growing bigger, swinging violently. Soon, a few of these tentacles expanded to the size of Alice’s arm, and then continued to stretch further and further.

After going through a long period of healing herself, most of Alice’s wounds had fully recovered. Hence, her cute loli look had returned.

But, in this moment, a gigantic and terrifying ‘living octopus’ was sticking out from the eye socket of the tiny, cute Lolita, No matter who it was who witnessed this, that person would definitely shiver in disgust at the scene in front of them.

Alice’s flesh stimulated the disorderly growth of this Snake-Sakura Grass.

Under the influence of a mystical curse, the freshly recovered body of Alice starting to started to quickly wither, and nearly half of her flesh was devoured by the rapidly expanding Snake-Sakura Grass.\

Without hesitation, and using all her strength, Alice was able to forcefully pull out the Snake-Sakura Grass, which currently occupied her right eye socket. Lifting the crazily twisting octopus-like monster up into the air, Alice let out a deep and hoarse roar into the sky as blood spewed from her eye socket.

“Curse you… you bunch of damn rascals… I’m going to kill you all!”

The unusual situation that occurred had frightened the other two male Apprentice Adepts. Although they had no idea what this little Lolita had experienced in the Magical Swamp, they could still clearly feel a deep hatred in her furious roar.

Judging from what happened, it must be the Adept who did this personally.

That Adept Anderson who lived a sedentary life in this Magical Swamp and didn’t even show respect to Adept Deborah, who was Alice’s mentor, how could he let them off so easily? Because, both of them were expelled by Adept Anderson personally! Who knew what he had cast on their bodies?

Right when they were struck with these doubts, a young woman’s lustful moan suddenly came into their ears. Soon, two vague, elusive Enchanted Souls squeezed out from the ground underneath their feet, turning into two magnificent girls, that perfectly fit their tastes, that clung tightly to their bodies.

Well, things would be better if these were just two illusive souls, but, as soon as they were grabbed by the soul beings, their Spirit started to gradually deplete.

“Spirit-Sucking Devils!”

The Snake headed man was the first to identify these enchanting spirits, and his loud cry was full of unconcealed fear.

Spirit-Sucking Devils were very frightening souls. They consumed a person’s Spirit, which was gained from meditation. As long as one’s Spirit wasn’t depleted, they could survive being attacked by these frightening devils. But, once their Spirit Points were depleted, the foul devils would start to consume the life force of their target.

The Snake headed man went berserk.

He started to roar and yell, and his skinny body began to stretch longer and taller, quickly being covered with dark green scales. In the blink of an eye, he had transformed into a huge, raging serpent, which was nearly ten meters tall.

But, too bad, no matter what he transformed into, the bizarre Spirit-Sucking devil still clinging tightly to his body, continually draining his Spirit Points.

Roaring, slamming, swaying, rolling… he tried all sorts of highly difficult movements, wreaking havoc to this small hillside with his massive body. He even turned his head backward and spat venomous liquids onto its own body, but all its attempts failed to get rid of the Spirit-Sucking Devil.

No magic spell could do anything, no physical attack could touch them, it was as if this devil was just an illusion that didn’t exist. It was like it was all his own fantasy. However, his Spirit was really being depleted. And with the restless and brutal movements of the giant serpent, his Spirit was being reduced at a fast rate.

The muscular man didn’t recklessly try to remove the devil from his body, as his high Physique Points gave him a better magic resistance than the Snake headed man, therefore, by avoiding unnecessary movements, he lost Spirit at a lesser rate.

When dealing with a curse cast by an official Adept, these Apprentice Adepts had no way to remove it. Hence, he dared not to stay here any longer and started running off into the distance.

Only by returning to his own organization as soon as possible could he get help from his mentor, or else he would die to this terrifying devil.

After countless failed attempts, the Snake headed man had no choice but to return to his human form. Only then did his Spirit depletion slow down. He angrily cursed in his head, then took out a Magic Crystal from his pocket, absorbing the energy from it. Then he did as the muscular man did, using only his muscle strength, and ran of into the distance.

He also realized that, as long as he didn’t use any magic spells, the speed of the devil sucking his Spirit Points would be slower, and, with the replenishment of the Magic Crystal, he could sustain himself for a longer period of time.

After the two male Apprentices plunged into the wilds and fled, Alice used her Spatial Energy and crushed the monstrous creature in her hand. But, she immediately felt a subtly prickling in the back of her eye as, once again, a brand new tentacle poked out of her empty eye socket.

In the moments before this, perhaps Alice had only felt hatred and anger, but now an unspeakable fear emerged at the bottom of her heart.

With an explosive noise, Alice disappeared from where she was, re-appearing in a distant place. And right when her body solidified, she disappeared again…

She was running out of time.

If she allowed this terrifying curse to stick around, she would soon run out of flesh. She had to return to her mentor as soon as possible, only then could this frightening curse be removed.

Therefore, even if this would totally deplete her Spirit Point, Alice still had to try her best and rush back to the House of Fragrance.

Soon, peace had once again returned the hillside next to one of the entrances of the Magical Swamp.