Age of Adepts

The floating ship slowly drove into a large skyport.

Five other floating ships had arrived at Port Bansai at the same time, each from a different region.

Once the ship landed smoothly on the grass, the adepts walked down the wooden plank and joined the rowdy stream of human traffic.

Greem and Billis also walked down the floating ship, one after another. Before they had the time to survey the skyport, a little goblin with furry ears and hair all over his body appeared in front of them.

“Lord Billis, is that you? I saw you once from afar back at the clan headquarters. You’re just like back then...terrifyingly sinister. It is this humble one’s honor to meet you here in Port Bansai...how long are you planning to stay here, my lord? Are you planning to go anywhere in particular?”

The little goblin was both overjoyed and extremely talkative in front of Billis, just like a fan that had met his idol. He was speaking so fast and so passionately that the two adepts couldn’t interrupt at all.

Greem had indeed instructed Meryl to arrange the clan member in charge of this region to receive them before he set off. However, he didn’t expect that the clan member stationed over at the Adept’s Association would be a goblin.

Moreover, it seems like he idolized Billis tremendously!

Billis had always been a loner. He seldom interacted with the lower-level members of the clan. As such, Billis was obviously somewhat flustered when faced with the passionate little goblin. The confusion and awkwardness then quickly turned into rage.

He lifted his arm slightly, and a scythe-shaped insectoid arm clad in a black carapace rested on the goblin’s neck. The goblin immediately fell silent.

“Shut up now! From now on, I ask a question, you answer with a single sentence. More than one unnecessary word and I will dig your brains out of your skull.”

The sharp limb hovered around the goblin’s head, and his body immediately froze up. He looked at Billis’ ghostly green eyes with his own beady little puppy eyes.

There were many smaller compound eyes around those two eyes of Billis, making for a frightening sight.

“What’s your name? What’s your job here?” Billis coldly asked.

“I am Tor, the person in charge of the Goblin Chamber of Commerce here.”

“And it was the clan that notified you of our arrival and sent you here to receive us?”

“Yes!” The little goblin gulped.

“Who gave the direct order?” Billis’ tone abruptly turned sharp.

“It was Great Sage Snorlax who gave me the direct order. As for who gave Sage Snorlax the command to do so, I do not know!”

“What is the order that you received, specifically?”

“Sage Snorlax said that you, Lord Billis, was coming here and we were to give you a proper reception. We do not know anything else apart from that.”

“Mm, good. Bring us back to the clan’s outpost here then! And remember, keep a low profile.”

“Yes!”

Though somewhat surprised by Billis’ viciousness, Tor was still clearly a veteran at diplomacy and trained at his job. He quickly recovered from his fright and excitedly guided the two adepts to a strange goblin racecar.

Indeed, even Greem did not expect to see a racecar here. It was a strange racecar–a heavily modified version of a goblin transport–and packed with goblin aesthetics.

A red chassis, low against the ground and without a roof. Large, round metal wheels and a shiny crystal windshield. Most conspicuously of all, a large bunch of rockets soldered to the back of the car.

Even though the car had not yet been started, its extravagant and unusual design already drew the gaze of many nearby adepts. However, when they sensed the dense aura of blood around Billis, they immediately looked away.

It was a few kilometers from the skyport to the city. Most adepts had brought their own mounts or simply summoned creatures to ride over there.

For a moment, the sky was filled with giant bats, two-headed hunting eagles, windslicers, wyverns, and many other flying beasts. Meanwhile, large rhinoceros, Nightmares, and many other creatures were sprinting across the land. Greem even saw an adept riding on a Blackskin boar. Quite the personality, he thought to himself!

“My lord,” Billis felt his head swell when he saw the goblin racecar. He was cursing the goblins in his mind. They didn’t seem to know the meaning of ‘keeping a low profile’ at all.

“Let’s go. There’s no need to keep our identities a secret now that we have already arrived. Not to mention, they are already monitoring us. It’s fine to be a little showy now!” Greem looked around him, and his gaze swept past a giant tower in the distance. He could sense the sinister gazes lingering on him.

Greem smiled, and the three of them got into the red car.

Tor put on his helmet, threw on his glasses, and gleefully turned back to shout at Billis, who was cramped up in the small seats of the goblin car, “Lord Billis, you are ready, aren’t you? Then let’s set off.”

Tor stepped on the pedal without waiting for an answer. The massive rockets behind the car blasted out long streams of flames, and the three of them shot forward from the propulsive force.

Yup, they shot forward, like a bullet.

The violent propulsive force of the rockets caused the racecar to tremble violently. The entire chassis vibrated, and the scenery around them started to blur. If Greem hadn’t grabbed the steel sides of the car and dug his fingers deep into the metal, the sudden gust of wind would have been enough to blow him out of the vehicle.

Even Billis had to extend both arms and stab them into the metal to secure himself in his seat. Even so, his hood had been blown aside by the winds and fluttered behind him, revealing his hideous insectoid body.

Billis opened his mouth with the intent of hurling a few insults at the goblin, but a rush of wind immediately surged into his mouth. His stomach swelled slightly from the sudden intake of air, and his face turned red.

However, Tor didn’t seem to realize anything. He was stuck to his seat by two leather seatbelts and was still hollering as he kept his foot pressed on the pedal.

The racecar left behind a thick trail of black smoke as it dashed past the many adepts. The panicking adepts quickly threw up their defensive shields, barely saving them from being carbonized by the rocket flames.

It wasn’t until the goblin racecar had vanished from their sights that the adepts rushed out of the smoke, coughing and gasping as they did so. They then realized, to their fury, that their mounts were now coated in soot.

“Bastards.”

“Go and die.”

All sorts of curses and insults filled the air, but they obviously couldn’t reach the ears of the person responsible for all this.

............

At the top of the giant monitoring tower.

A few adepts looked at each other helplessly.

“What’s the reaction with the Divination Wand?” The middle-aged adept in the lead asked coldly.

“Fourth Grade. He’s definitely a Fourth Grade adept!” A young adept holding a withered wooden stick hurriedly replied.

“And the monitoring crystal?”

“Red...his energy reaction is a blinding red!” Another adept, this one with a strange magical mirror in his hands, bowed and answered.

“Then it’s most likely the truth!” The adept in the lead sternly instructed, “Inform Lord Haimos immediately. The legendary fire adept has indeed arrived. Have him prepare himself!”

“Yes!”

“Yes!”

The adepts replied in unison and quickly went to work.

“That Greem is a famous person, even in the Central Lands. Who knows what he’s come to our territory for,” The leader muttered to himself.

When they used the power of the monitoring tower to scan the mysterious adept secretly, he had realized what was happening. A scalding spiritual appendage had reached toward the tower, only slithering away after light contact with the defensive array.

As the host of the tower, he had felt how terrifyingly powerful that scalding spiritual appendage had been!

An adept who could merge some of his elementium traits into his spiritual will was incredibly powerful. Even in the Adept’s Association, any adept capable of such a feat belonged to the Association’s upper echelons.

Now that such a formidable individual had entered Association territory, something was bound to happen, regardless of his intentions.

“Whatever! This is way beyond my league. I’ll leave it to those people from headquarters to worry about it!” The adept in the lead sighed and turned to leave.

............

The goblin racecar was still gliding rapidly five meters above the ground.

As Tor continued to steer the car, the bodies of the passengers swayed from side to side, all while vibrating along with the car.

Billis might be Third Grade, but he was clearly not used to flying at such extreme speeds.

The intense tremors and the irregular vibrations were making his stomach churn.

When Tor produced a perfect drift and swerved the car, turning it one hundred and seventy degrees, Billis could finally tolerate it no longer. He opened his insectoid mouth and vomited everything he had yet to digest.

From a distance, one could see a light yellow mist spew out of the end of a red lightning bolt, slowly landing on the ground alongside the dust.

Fifteen minutes later, when the racecar came to a screeching stop in front of a towering metal castle, Billis rushed out of the car at lightning speed and started vomiting on the ground.

From just a glance, Greem could see the remains of a few human bones amidst Billis’ vomit.