Adept Conclave

"Are you ready," Kade asked as he hung on the side of Maaya's body.

Lillian nodded, and she raced up to Maya's head.

"Go," Lilian commanded. Maaya uncoiled her body then raced to the side of the platform.

"There's no point in running." The adept said gloweringly. As he lifted his hand, a spike rose above the ground, and Maaya barely dodged it.

"Kade hurry," Lilian said worryingly.

Kade looked to his side and saw the giant stone cages. He turned back, and the adept was still busy conjuring deadly abilities. 'Its' now or ever." He thought.

Taking his chance, he sneakily jumped off Maaya and rolled to the ground. A wave formed beside him, and he ran across all the pens knocking the locks off.

The stone giants looked quizzically, and then it dawned on them that there were rescued.

"Do any of you speak human."

A massive stone giant walked forward. "I do young one, thank you for rescuing us."

"No problem, but can you help us fight the adept," Kade asked questionably. His entire planed dotted on the fact that the giant stone tribe would fight along with them.

"Of course, that animal began to enslave long ago. Our blood has been boiling for months; we will carry out justice in honor of our fallen clan mates." The stone giant immediately began to shout war cries.

The tribe shouted back in unison vibrating the whole city. The adept turned around, slack-jawed as he saw the countless stone giants rushing at him.

The adept quickly waved his hands and stones of various sizes flew at the stone giants. The earth crushed the stone giants, but for each stone giant that fell many more fearlessly took his place.

'My spirit is waning' the adept thought to himself. "Ok, let's settle down, I'll leave, and this matter can be forgotten," he said.

Lilian giggled on top of her snake. "Not a chance loser, the adept conclave will generously pay us for your head."

The adept's eyebrows arched and his nostrils flared. "Fine, but I'm taking all of you down with me!" He closed his eyes, and countless rocks flew towards him. The stones positioned themselves over his body, and he transformed into an earth titan.

Everyone looked at the titan wide-eyed. "He's burning is the life force, run!" Lillian shrieked as Maaya whisked her away.

The titan immediately raised his fits up and smashed the floor. Seismic shocks passed through the ground. The earth quaked, and violent tremors erupted, then everything became still again. Kade is covered in dust; he looked at his mangled arm in horror, parts of bone protruded through his skin. He looked up realized he was in a pit; Kade began to climb to the world above.

As Kade peers out of the abyss, he sees an apocalyptic setting with disfigured corpses everywhere. Stone giants were mourning their dead brethren and prayed for salvation to their Gods. On top of the altar, Lillian was cutting off the head of the deceased adept with a dagger; then she showed it to her stone. When she finished she turned around and saw Kade.

"Kade!" Lilian yelled as she urged Maaya forward. "We did it! The adept conclave will shower us with riches!"

Kade looked at her in shock. 'It seems like adepts will do anything to accomplish their goals. None of them can be trusted.' He thought to himself. Lilian had not even glanced at his arm mangled as she drooled about her rewards.

"Come on let's go to the adept conclave."

"What about the stone giants." Kade questionably asked.

"The adept conclave will deal with them." Lilian dismissed.

Kade looked apologetically at the decimated tribe. 'Without strength your nothing in this world.' Kade thought as a fire lit in his heart.

Kade got on Maaya, and they rode toward the adept conclave. They traveled for 8 hours across the dense forest. Kade was getting tired until he saw a magnificent tower in the distance.

They had finally reached the adept conclave. As they got closer, Kade admired the smooth marbled walls that towered over the region. There were adept inscriptions all over it, protecting the city from any danger. But what Kade admired the most was the tower in the center of the city. Every adept aspired to have one, but most would never even see the interior.

Lilian sat back lazily and looked uninterested. "Are we finally here, your identity is my escort." She told Kade.

As they approached the gates a guard yelled. "Halt and state your status."

"Lillian Braylon, core student of Velnair. And this is my escort Kade" Lillian said proudly.

The attitude of the guards became more respectful after they discerned her identity. "Miss, please come inside, but your beast must be left at the pens. You do not have enough status to ride it in the city."

Lillian who looked visibly irritated got of Maaya and Kade followed suit. They headed toward the city and Lilian paid a handler to take care of Maaya in the pens.

As they walked in the city, Kade was overwhelmed. The sprawling city was overrun with merchants and shops. Each haggling over customers to buy their products. Kade looked around expectantly as this place has the most prominent influx of goods and materials in the entire eastern region.

"What are you doing," Lilian asked. "Those are the commoner goods, the adept level products are underground."

They walked into a building at the center of the conclave, where an aged woman sat at the counter. "Identification," She asked.

Lillian quickly took out a token. "The adept conclave has given me a mission through my school."

"Go to the right, and the mission center is at the first door."

Lillian and Kade finally arrived at the missions center, and a dwarf like a figure approached them.

"Give me your vision stone so we can confirm you have completed your mission."

As Lillian gave him, the stone Kade finally realized why she always had the stone out. She was recording the relevant details to report.

"Ok please wait as we validate your mission. This can take up to 10 minutes."

They sat down at the waiting area, but an hour has passed by without any word from the mission inspector.

"What is taking them so long," Lillian said with an irritated expression. "They better give us the rewards."

Finally, the inspector returned, and he was profusely sweating. "Your mission has been deemed to be… irregular. Even the head inspector couldn't authorize your bonus mission rewards. So an elder of the conclave has been requested."

Kade and Lillian looked at each other confused. Didn't they complete the mission, so how hard was it to give them their reward. They followed the inspector out of the building. As they neared the adept tower Kade was in doubt.

"Inspector are we going in the adept tower?"

"Yes, the elder occupies the first floor."

The duo was shocked. Not even official third-grade adepts easily get into the tower, let alone apprentices. There were no guards at the entrance, not that they needed it. They stood before the entrance and waited, suddenly the door opened, and a man stood before them.

"Come in, you two," he said as he walked back inside.

They hurriedly went in and followed close behind him. The interior of the tower was beautifully adorned with jewels and precious metals. Kade and Lillian took everything in and were in awe. They went inside a room, and the Elder sat at one end of the table, while they sat on the other.

"I'm adept Navel, an elder of this conclave. The two of you have shocked the whole mission department. How did you manage to kill two adepts and another two quasi-adepts? Even for Velnair elites, you have managed to accomplish a near-impossible feat."

Kade unbandaged his arm and pus leaked out, the protruding bones crushed as he showed his mangled arm. " We didn't come out unscathed; it was mostly due to luck that we didn't lose our lives."

"Well, whatever it is you have earned yourselves a member status in this conclave, and you will get to choose rewards from our contribution list. Use the points wisely; most people don't get your amount of contribution points after at least 60 years. He gave them each a scroll that listed countless items and modules. 20,000 contribution points were listed at the top.

Kade mainly looked at the adept equipment. He wasn't really in need of water modules because he had the hydrokinetic combat module. Kade carefully looked at the list and saw what he wanted. But it cost 80,000 contribution points.

"Adept Navel, can we buy certain parts of an equipment set," he asked nervously.

"Why not."

Kade looked excitedly at the set. He chooses first to get the trident in the collection.

Name: Hydrowar God Set

First piece-Water Trident: A beautifully crafted trident that was taken from the Oceanic plane. It can amplify water attacks and defense and has built-in module abilities.

Abilities: Hydrobeam- let's out three deadly beams from the tips of its prongs.

Water clone- able to make a water clone of the trident.

Kade chooses the trident confidently, and he hoped he would complete the set soon. But, he spent 15k on this item alone making him a little depressed. He was going to save his remaining 5k points until he saw a long ranged water ability he liked.

Name: Hydroblade storm- Users can create countless blades out of water and send them to their enemies.

It seemed simple but deadly, and it only cost 3k points. After buying this module Kade decided to splurge the rest his points on potions and support items.

Kade looked over at Lillian who seemed extremely content as she handed her list of items to the adept.

"Ok, your items will be given to you as soon as possible. In the meantime members are allowed residence on the first floor of this tower, so you can stay here. A healer will look at your wounds tomorrow. Also, if you go any further than allowed your membership status will be revoked in this conclave and you will be kicked out of the city. You are dismissed."

Kade and Lillian walked out, and he immediately asked: "What did you get?"

"It's a secret," she said as she cruelly laughed.

Kade felt a little confused, but he decided to head to his room. It was spacious and luxurious, but he didn't pay attention much to the details as he dropped on the bed. Kade quickly fell asleep and as the world darkened.