Age of Adepts: Warlock

"My head really hurts…."

This was Fang Ming's first thought upon waking up. It felt as if there was a cut on his head, hurting so badly that it seemed as if his head was about to split open.

It was so painful that Fang Ming had to suck in several sharp breaths.

Opening his eyes, he surveyed his surroundings.

What filled his vision were walls made of worn out stone. Inside the dark room, a single candle burned, the flickering light revealing a few pieces of worn out furniture that decorated the otherwise dreary room.

He seemed to be lying down on a bed, though it was the worst one that he had ever slept on. Fighting through the pain, he hurriedly struggled to get up, trying to assess his situation.

At that moment, he felt a sharp pain lancing through his head.

The pain arrived suddenly, and brought many strange memories along with it. Fang Ming's eyes rolled back as he fainted.

"Is this reincarnation?" Fang Ming remembered very clearly that the last thing he had seen were the dazzling flames that had erupted from the energy reactor's explosion.

It was impossible to survive such an explosion without any method of self-protection.

Furthermore, on the planet he existed on, such a style of furniture and walls were considered ancient antiques.

After organizing the new memories in his mind, Fang Ming gained some insight about his body and this world.

This was a realm similar to the European Middle Ages. A mysterious force also existed.

His current body was originally called Leylin Farlier, a son of a noble who was subordinate to the Sarubo family. As he had been tested to have adept talent, he had been sent by his family to the Swamp Tower located in one of the level three resource sites belonging to the Sarubo family.

After entering the Swamp Tower, the original Leylin was required to pay for room, food, and board, along with the cost of learning with his own efforts.

The only ways to earn money required one to walk out from the tall Adept tower, and either feed those brutal and ferocious demon creatures, take care of those eerie and strange demon plants, or searching out and harvesting the magic materials specified by Great Master Anderson. One could also earn money by cleaning out some of the dangerous areas within the tower.

When carrying out these tasks, they would put on a magic talismans made by the Great Adept himself, which would allow them safe passage through the magic formation around the tower. But in this mysterious and strange world, no mere talisman could allow one to consider themselves absolutely safe. Every couple of months there was always an incident where a few unfortunate guys would be devoured by demon creatures or plants when taking care of them. Sometimes people were struck down by magical energy while cleaning up some experiment of the Great Adept.

Therefore, most of the time the safer tasks would be taken by senior Apprentice Adepts, and, as a result, the weaker Apprentice Adepts could only pick more dangerous tasks to earn their money and knowledge points so they could continue their magic training.

Money was, of course, used to buy one's daily needs, while knowledge points were used in buying knowledge. It was a currency system created by the Great Adept himself. In the library within the tower, each magic book was labeled with different knowledge point values. Borrowing books would require knowledge points, not money.

The apprentices had to work hard to earn knowledge points, but those hard earned points would only allow them to borrow the book for a very short amount of time. The time was so short that it was totally not enough for an apprentice to master all the knowledge within the book. Therefore, most of the apprentices had made a habit of copying the books themselves.

Whenever they borrowed a magic book, the apprentice would put all their efforts into copying the knowledge they needed, so they could continue to study in future. Copying books required ink and goatskin paper. Obviously, these were not free either, and thus the Apprentice Adepts needed even more money.

Of course, if an Apprentice Adept came from a rich family, then they could spend a huge amount of money in exchange for knowledge point. The exchange rate between them was one knowledge point cost one hundred gold coins.

The original Leylin died while trying to feed a demonic creature to gain income, being stabbed and barely managing to make it back to his room in hysteria before bleeding out. This allowed Fang Ming to take over his body.

The original, in fact, wanted to withdraw, but his family did not allow him to. After all, his parents did not know what the tower is like.

Although he was simply an Apprentice Adept living under Great Master Anderson, his glorious status would draw envy from most people living in this world. However, only those people who actually lived in this tall tower would know that not only was this not an enviable position to be in, but could actually be considered a terrifying form of torture and punishment.

An Apprentice Adept's basic job was to work diligently and conscientiously, taking care of the daily life of their Great Master, in this case, Great Master Anderson. They were also in charge of cleaning up the magic experiment equipment, keeping the inside of the tower clean, taking care of those demon creatures outside of the tower, and… being a part of Great Master Anderson's experiments.

Although the last job was rare, when the wagons that brought slaves or condemned prisoners were a few days late, Great Master Anderson, who easily became frustrated when there was a lack of beings to experiment on, would order a random apprentice to become his temporary lab rat.

Leylin suddenly woke up from his thoughts as a voice reverberated through his head.

[Beep! Danger Alert! Danger Alert!] [Your body has shown signs of bleeding out! ]

Leylin let out a cry of surprise.

"My A.I Chip!"