Age of Adepts

"This was what you said, wasn’t it!" Alice spoke as if this was as it should be, "The Witch of Fate follows the path that fate guides her to. Am I wrong in doing so?"

"But I didn’t ask you to give up everything you have, did I?" Greem felt like he was going mad, "You...you even gave up your spatial talent! What are you going to use to compete for the title of Witch of Fate?"

"Fate, of course!" Alice was still smiling happily, "You still have no idea, do you? My divination is really accurate!"

Grem went completely silent.

If he had previously thought of those divining fellows as scammers and fakes, he now thought of them as a group of madmen. Of course, that included the idiot in front of him!

He hadn’t expected this to happen.

Alice had sacrificed everything she had during her advancement to obtain fate’s favor.

And in the process, she lost everything she had, including her spatial talent!

She had successfully become an adept.

However, she had lost all of her powers, and was left with ’The Art of Divination’. God knew what it was useful for.

It was true that Greem had initially planned for Alice to continuously strengthen her talent as the Witch of Fate and wield that as her primary profession. Still, that should have come after the Battle of Fate!

Alice should have been looking to improve her combat prowess and then look into changing classes after winning the Battle of Fate. That was the most secure path to victory. What was she going to use to beat her well-prepared competitors now that she had lost all her powers?

A witch that only knew how to divine!

Greem covered his face with his palm. The more he thought about it, the more his head hurt.

God, are you kidding me? My spacestone! My initial investments! All of this! Gone down the drain.

Perhaps because she could see Greem’s resentful look, the joyful and gleeful Alice quickly cowered. She awkwardly moved to Greem’s side, grabbed his robe and started shaking it, "Don’t you worry, my divination is incredibly accurate. I will be able to protect myself then!"

Greem sighed helplessly. He finally shifted his attention to the divination arts that Alice had repeatedly mentioned.

"What kind of ability does your divination have at this point?"

"It can answer some of my questions, and...it can help me...find things!" Alice stuttered as she spoke.

Oh, as expected, what a powerful ability!

Greem wanted to sit down and cry out loud now.

"Then, tell me. Where is the legendary ’Pendulum of Misfortune’ located!" Greem thought for a moment and once again looked at Alice with his eyes full of hope and expectations.

Fine. Fine. It was alright if Alice lost her combat ability. She had lost that. If she could become an all-seeing prophet and a living encyclopedia because of this, the price she paid might not have been too excessive!

"The ’Pendulum of Misfortune’? That’s a magical tool that once belonged to Great Adept Quisella! I can’t find an item of this Grade with my current ability!" Alice couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

"Holy Agate?"

"Nope..."

"Dragon’s Tooth?"

"Nope..."

......

......

"How much longer can I live."

"I don’t know..."

......

......

"What’s Lady Sanazar’s favorite food?"

"I don’t know..."

......

......

"Where do I need to go find a volcanic world suited for my purposes?"

"Ailovis!"

The two went back and forth.

It didn’t matter whether it was a legendary top-tier magical tool or gear that only existed in ancient records, Alice just shook her head in ignorance. Greem lowered his standards again and again. As long as the questions he asked involved any Great Adepts, Alice’s answers would be a firm ’no idea’.

Just as he was about to give up, he took the opportunity to ask the question that had plagued him for so long. And Alice was unexpectedly able to give him an answer.

Ailovis?

What the heck is that? Why have I never heard of it!

Thankfully, the benefit of having the chip was its ability to help him ’recall’ anything that he couldn’t remember or bother to remember.

Ailovis. Ailovis.

Right. It appeared to be a relatively well-known hazard zone in the east of the Zhentarim area. That place was close to the Black Forest. Magical creatures often came out of the woods to harass and assault humans. It was why the location was labeled and listed as a perilous place.

Why would there be an underground volcano there?

It was important to note that adept clans of all sizes had already claimed most of the resource-rich areas in the center of the continent. A place with an underground volcano was considered as a natural resource site. The geographical location meant that rare resources not to be found on the surface world would even appear there.

If there truly was an underground volcano in Ailovis, there was no reason that there wasn’t an adept clan already stationed there!

Greem betrayed a doubtful expression and couldn’t help but grab a map of Zhentarim from the table. He started studying the map.

"Are you sure the underground volcano I’ve been looking for exists there?" Greem couldn’t help but ask again.

Perhaps because his question was far too formal, Alice’s body started to shake. Her two purple eyes became pitch-black. It was as if she had turned into a completely different person. Her emotionless face spoke with a sinister voice, "Go! Go there! You will find what you want there..."

Having finished speaking, Alice shivered and regained her consciousness.

"I...what happened to me? I...what did I say just now?"

Greem noticed that the black had faded from Alice’s eyes. Her blinking eyes were once again lively.

"No...nothing at all." Greem smiled as he consoled Alice.

However, that wispy and ghostly voice still echoed in his mind.

"Chip, did you manage to record the situation earlier?" Greem silently said in his mind.

"Beep. Recording complete!"

"Do you have anything to report from your analysis?"

"Beep. There are the following possibilities: the true form of the Witch of Fate 87%, planned assimilation 11%, spirit possession1%. Remaining possibilities only have less than 1% probability of coming true and will not be displayed at the moment."

The actual form of the Witch of Fate?

If Greem wasn’t mistaken, he hadn’t felt a single trace of a human’s aura emanating from Alice when she had transformed earlier. Instead, there had been an odd feeling, as if he had faced a higher lifeform.

Didn’t that mean that Alice could become a bizarre and incomprehensible existence if she continued down this path of the Witch of Fate? However, Greem quickly let the issue slide when he thought of himself.

He couldn’t be considered a pure human either at this point!

He had already completed his physical elementiumization. If Greem wanted to replace his flesh and blood body with elementium matter, he could. He didn’t need to suppress the elementium, which allowed him to remain on the edge of being both an elementium lifeform and a human.

Greem was still unwilling to give up his physical form.

Thus, he could only use his blood and flesh as his body’s framework, with the fire elementium as the nutrition and energy source that maintained his current form. In doing so, he had to endure a 27% decrease in his combat prowess!

There was no choice. When the fire elementium that gathered in Greem’s body exceeded a particular concentration, the first to give way and crumble would be that last bit of his physical body.

There was nothing Greem could do about this! It was one or the other.

Greem cast aside these disturbing thoughts and spoke calmly, "Very well! Now that you have lost your ability to protect yourself, you aren’t allowed to go out for this awhile. Stay in this tower and master this Art of Divination thing! It’s the only thing you have!"

"Who said I couldn’t defend myself?" Alice let out a mysterious smile, "I’ll let you know, I still have it!"

Alice raised her small, pale right hand. A strange ball of silver light surfaced on her palm and hovered in the air.

"The spacestone?!" Greem was extremely well-acquainted with this unique feeling. He spat out the name of this rock one syllable at a time.

Right, there was still a spacestone sealed in Alice’s body. Her bizarre advancement had shocked him so much that he had almost forgotten the existence of that rare rock.

However, the spacestone had gone berserk earlier. It had seemed like it wanted to devour Alice whole. But now, Greem went closer and examined the silver ball of light in Alice’s hand. He couldn’t hide the shock on his face.

Isn’t the spacestone a solid? Why is it in this intangible form right now?

Alice was like a small girl that had just been gifted a precious toy. She grabbed this ball of light and started squeezing and stretching. The silver ball of light changed into several different forms as she toyed with it like a ball of flour.

"Stop making a riddle out of this. Quick, tell me. What is this?" Greem lightly hit Alice on the head in his impatience.

Too many strange things had already happened today. Greem couldn’t be bothered to try and figure out the cause, and so he turned to the most direct source for an answer.

"You should know that the spacestone had already merged with most of my body prior to the advancement. It had almost devoured me completely. This process was originally irreversible, but the success of the advancement ceremony caused the power of laws to expel the stone. After all, it cannot defeat the planar laws of the World of Adepts, regardless of how powerful it is!"

"Then, why did its form change?" Greem was still doubtful.

"Because it has already assimilated with my mental consciousness!"

"So did it manage to assimilate with you, or did it not?" Greem was going insane from this question.

"Honestly speaking, it managed to assimilate the me before the advancement, but was then assimilated by the me after the advancement! Thus, it has become part of my mental consciousness. I can now manipulate it as I will."

"Then...what does that mean?"

"It means that I can borrow its spatial powers!"

The smiling Alice had just been standing before Greem, but as she finished speaking, she had silently appeared behind Greem.

Moreover, Greem hadn’t felt any spatial flux in the process.

Fuck!

Greem couldn’t help but draw in a breath of cold air.