age of adapts

This was an eerie and fearsomemagical swamp.

Though it was daytime, thethick clouds and fog meant thatvery little light was able to getthrough, and thus the worldlooked quite dreary. The wholeworld seemed to havegloomy, earthy yellow tone.After living in such anenvironment for a long time,even the character of a personwould change and

darker.

become

Both men waited until the stonedoor behind them completelyclosed up, then Tony pulled uphis hood and said,He didn't wait for Greem's reply,but simply turned around andtook a path that led off to theleft, which led him onnarrow and winding trail whichas paved with tiny whitestones.

Greem waited until Tony's bulkybody disappeared into the mistyfog, then he pulled up his hood,turned the other way, and tookthe trail on the right.

While walking, he whispered,"Show me the detected data forTony."

In next second, a report aboutthe Apprentice Adept Tony,done by the BiologicalAssistance Chip, was projectedinto his mind.Greem's mouth

twitched in

surprise. With such a Physique,why didn't this guy changepaths and become a Warrior?His strength and physique weretwice that of Greem's. Thatmeant that if he got in a fightwith Tony, perhaps it would onlytake a single punch to knockGreem out.

But as an apprentice Adept,Tony had 6 Physique, 2 morethan Greem. No matter howhard Greem worked, this innateadvantage would be hard toOvercome.

Knowing this, Tony wasprobably planning to follow thepath of a Body Refining Adept.By using specific methods tostrengthen his body, then using

magic Spells to asSISt niS Closecombat ability... perhaps thiswas the only path he couldchoose!

Only by staying quite closethe target for a period of timecould the Chip analyze andacquire Suchinformation. It did this by

accurate

monitoringmovement and behavior. Nodoubt this would allow Greemto take up a more proactiveposition when working withother people. It also allowedhim to avoid takingunnecessary risks.

the target's

And this was, undoubtedly, themost important thing to Greem!

But perhaps such a method

as useless against a real

"I'm going that way."Adept, as their bodies werewould sometimes radiatestrong elemental energy. Thiswas something Adepts didpassively after their bodygathered a huge amount ofenergy. This was also how theyavoided others sensing their

strength.

It was unknown how much

valuable

information the

the tower.

Assistance

Biologicalwould be able to ascertainwhen the target was under thepowerful interference of energyradiation. Not only that, butGreem was worried that Adeptsmight be able to detect hisBiologicalhence he had to be extracautious when using it inside

Chip

Assistance Chip.,The stony trail in front of himkept winding as it led into thedepths of the misty fog. Therewere weird plants of all sizes,which could be barely seen onboth sides of the path. There

ere short and thick, cone-shaped trees, small leafy plantsthat curled around in a spiral,vine-like rattans that brushedagainst the top of his head ashe walked under them, andamazingly colored, mysticalflowers that had petals the sizeof large washbowls... there wasalso a muddy, stinky pond..

Though all of this made it seemlike this was just a normalswamp, Greem knew very wellthat he could never take evenhalf a step out from the stonytrail.For all those animals andplants, which were able tosurvive in this magical swamp,were frightening demons whowould eat every little bit of thehumans they encountered, noteven leaving their bonesbehind.

Those plain looking short treeswere actually quite frightening.If a person got close enough tothem, their curled up branchwould instantly expand,grabbing and holding theperson within its tight clutches.At that moment, thebloodsucking rattans, whichwere hanging on these trees,would coil up around thatperson, poking countless sharpthorns into their body, slowlysucking the blood out of theirbodv, drop by drop.After the person's blood wascompletely dried up, the

remaining skin,

skin, flesh,

and

bones would become the bestfertilizer for these killer trees.

If someone could ever safelydig out the blood red soilunderneath those killer trees,they would certainly discover ahuge pile of skeletons, some ofwhich belonged to humans,some of which were animals.Without doing this, there wasno evidence of any of the preythese plants had devoured!

There were two reasons whythis tower in the Swampgroomed these demonic plants.First, it was to prevent theintrusion from other humans.Second, it was so they couldharvest some unique magic7:07

4195)

After the person's blod wascompletely dried up, theremaining skin, flesh,bones would become the bestfertilizer for these killer trees.

and

If someone could ever safelydig out the blood red soilunderneath those killer trees,they would certainly discover ahuge pile of skeletons, some ofwhich belonged to humans,some of which were animals.Without doing this, there wasno evidence of any of the preythese plants had devoured!

There were tWO reasons whythis tower in the Swampgroomed these demonic plants.First, it was to prevent theintrusion from other humans.Second, it was so they couldharvest some unigue magicmaterials from the plants.

The root of the Killer Tree andthe blood sack that greW withinthe body of the BloodsuckingRattans were both good tonics.werebeneficial

Theysupplement for Adepts whodidn't have a good physique. Ona regular basis, apprenticeAdepts had to take the risk ofbeing attacked by demon plantsto harvest materials. Therefore,this was a dangerous task,which had a very high deathtoll.

It was probably because theyhad sensed the smell of bloodand flesh from Greem's body,but the deathly still swampsuddenly seemed to come toConsciously,

life.

or

unconsciously, all thosedemonic plants started

wrigglingbranches, and roots slowlymoving toward the stony trail.

their

bodies,

Greem pretended he didn't seethe movements of these demonplants. He wasn't actuallyworried about them right now.

No matter how crazy or brutalthey were, they didn't dare tomove onto the simple and plainstony trail under his feet, as ifthere were something on thisroad that they feared.

"Query the database, record,and archive all the magic plantsin the surrounding area!"

"Initial data insufficient... rootdatabase was incomplete andunable to match the species...

ativatina olomantal vicionreconstructing database..."

Following with a bunch ofwarning tones from the chip,the image projecting on hisretina started swaying, then itstraightened out as a vastamount of data began pouringdown like a waterfall in front ofhis eyes. At the same time,every single object in his sightwas highlighted with differentcolored lights.

Elemental vision? Was this aspecial ability that he got afterthe chip merged with hiscurrent body?

The plants were highlightedwith a green colored light,indicated these plant demonscontained a lot of Elementiumthat was, unsurprisingly, oftenfound in natural plants. Othercolors, like red, yellow, blue, andpurple, indicated thewhere their respective energywas gathered. Besides these,the ever changing humidity,temperature, wind speed,thickness of poison particles,distribution of element particlesand their circulation... all thedata which the chip coulddetect was projected onto hiseyes in a colorful dynamic

graph.

Greem frowned.

This colorful andcomplicated retinal projectionhad seriously affected

areas

much information.

"Remove

Over

normal vision. This was too

his

useless colors...nove

remove

diffused

highlights...

only focus retina vision on the

most common energy ranges..."

After Greem gave out hiscommands, one after another,finally the glaring, colorful orbdimmed down bit by bit, and allthe items in his vision had onceagain resumed their normalcolors.

The thick and pale misty foghad now turned into countlesslumps, threads, and sheets ofslow moving water elementalparticles. Theyconstrained by a mysteriousforce, and couldn't spread out,but were forced to cover thismagic swamp month aftermonth, year after year.

were

Greem stopped moving andshadow of his hood was a pairof brightly flashing eyes, staringout at the demon plants besidethe trail without blinking. Withthe help of his brand newvision, the true color of theseplants hiding under the disguiseof the swamp had finally beenrevealed.

Underneath the wrinkling andwithered tree skin, was an armyof eerie looking ghost facesthat were tightly squeezedtogether. All of them were thesouls trapped by the KillerTrees. Also, Greem could 'see' agreencoloredenergyillumination on the needle likeprickles on the edges of theKiller Tree's branches. Thisenergy shoulduld indicate the

nresence of the naralvtic noisonpresence of the paralytic poisonthat the Killer Tree used tosedate its prey.

As for theRattans, which hung from theKiller Tree, they lookedcompletely demonic, as theywere entirely blood red underhis elemental vision. It waspureblood that flowingunderneath its twisted, creepinggreen skin, and, right at the spotwhere it connected with KillerTree, within a hollow tree cavity,numerous blood sacks, the sizeof a human fist, were pumpingat a regular tempo, makingthem looked like human hearts.

Caw~ caw~

Bloodsucking

Together with few piercingcaws, a group of ScavengerCrows were itching to attack,Greem raised his right arm andsoftly intoned a spell that hehad memorized. After fiveseconds of spellcasting, a largered magic fireball appeared inGreem's hand, twisting violently.

Greem's entire right hand wascompletely covered by thismagic fireball, but he was stillsafe and sound.

This was his Burning Handspell!

After spending six years in theMagic Tower, this was the onlyspell Greem was able to use.

With Greem's current ability, hecould barely stretch the flameout 5 steps. That was his limit.Therefore, it could, currently, beconsidered a close rande spell.The violently burning magicflame brightenedsurrounding fog. The powerfulripples generated by the fireelement had finally made thesedemons realize that this humanin front of them was notsomething they could easilycapture.

the

As for those demons who wereslowly gathering around Greem,it seemned like they were struckwith a great terror, and all ofthem quickly fled away from thesides of the trail in a greatpanic. Also, that group ofScavenger Crows were lettingout loud caws as they flew intothe sky, briefly wheeling aboutin the air above anddisappearing into the depths ofthe fog.Greem breatned out a long Slghof relief. With this, the pressureon him had been reduced.

None of these demons had theguts to step onto the stony trail,but that didn't stop them fromusing their own methods inorder to try to lure or intimidateApprentice Adepts into leavingthe stony trail. If Greem wasscared by the terrifying sceneof being Surrounded bydemons, and, in his panic,accidently left the boundariesof this stony trail... even withthe help of Magic Talisman, hewould probably die a terribledeath.

The soul, blood, and flesh of anApprentice Adept. No doubtthey were much more deliciousthan ordinary humans or wildbeasts.

Besides, this didn't

violate the agreement betweenthe demons and the MagicTower. Therefore,

every

inspection trip outside of thetower was a thorough check ofwillpower. Once these demonsfound a weakness in one'smind, the future of that personwould not be good.

"Record everything you canabout these demons!" Greemsaid calmly.

"Beep... record completed! Host,please name the creatures inthe order they are presented."

Images of creatures appearedin front of his eyes.

Trees...

"KillerRattans... Scavenger Crows.."

Bloodsucking