Age of Adepts
chapter-244-30041322

Runeforge Camp; drafting room.

The two bronze doors were wide open and the bodies of two witcher-knights were spread before them.

Heat still emanated from where the lock had been as red-white iron liquid slowly dripped down.

This was an old storeroom. Disorganized piles of parchment sat on the stone platform in the middle. Some of them were spread wide open, others not so much. There were even emptied ink bottles and used quill pens scattered across the platform.

Several ancient wooden stands along the stone walls took up the rest of the drafting room. Many wooden chests, parchments, and gray sacks were stacked on them.

When Flower hesitatingly walked into the room, Greem had already begun to inspect the items on the stands. It was clear that Greem had an oddly sharp eye for item identification. He was able to figure out the value of any object in a matter of seconds.

The common or worthless objects were put back onto the stands while the expensive and valuable items vanished in the blink of an eye.

"Spatial storage equipment!" Adept Flower couldn't help but gasp in envy.

A spellcaster with space affinity had appeared for a short period of time within the knights' plane. He had made his name by crafting spatial storage equipment. Sadly, even a genius like that had died a painful death under the witcher-knights' butcher knife.

The few spatial storage items scattered across the knights' plane had all come from his hand, but not only were they few in number, they were often in the hands of a select few powerful individuals. A First Grade spellcaster like herself had only heard rumors of them, but had never seen one with her own eyes.

Greem turned around and saw the female caster taking out a large sack. It seemed she was about to use the most inefficient method and physically lug all of the loot out with her. He couldn't help but shake his head and sigh. Even though they were both casters, their situations were so different simply because of the worlds they had been born in.

Greem removed a storage waist-pack from his belt and casually threw it over to Flower. There wasn't much storage space within the pack, but it was more than enough to carry a bunch of simple casting materials.

Greem ignored her joyful and excited toying with the pack and drew his attention back to the massive pile of scrolls and drawings.

Almost all of the runic knowledge, life source knowledge, and theories about this plane's system of operation, gathered throughout the thousand-year history of the kingdom, had been stored here. The treasury of the palace high above them was likely home to more materialistic and valuable objects such as antiques, treasures, or unique items.

Greem's storage belt had limited space and there was no way he could bring everything here with him. He needed to do some filtering and selection!

Greem randomly picked up an ancient scroll and swept through its contents. Most of it was crude guesses and assumptions about the source of life… useless stuff. Next!

He picked up another scroll. This one was full of elementary and basic rune drawings… useless. Next!

He lifted a volume of books this time. Hundreds of arrangement methods for different runes were listed within it in great detail. It wasn't very useful but it could still serve for comparison and reference against the runic knowledge of the World of Adepts, so there was still some research value to it… basically useful. Kept!

Greem grabbed a drawing on the table. It was a visualization of the meridian lines in the human body, much like those he had seen back on Earth. The intellectuals of this plane had probably succeeded in merging runic energies with the life energy within the human body after an in-depth study of human anatomy! This was useful. Kept!

Just like that, Greem flipped through one document after another, tossing aside those that contained only crude or known information. He only put the documents that were rare or had immense research value into his storage belt. Apart from these necessary drawings, drafts, and informations, Greem also found some exceptionally valuable ores and special magic stones on the wooden stands.

Jade Moon Stone, Talasite, Dawnstone, Star of Elune, Nightseye, Living Ruby, Empyrean Sapphire, Shadowsong Amethyst, Crimson Spinel. All of these magic stones were exceptionally valuable, even back in the World of Adepts, and were being used as supplementary materials in the forging of runic equipment. Greem couldn't help but shake his head and sigh at this.

This plane’s lack of a systematic caster framework caused their alchemical knowledge to be severely lacking as well. Without the use of profound alchemy ordinary human craftsmen would be hard-pressed to draw out the actual powers of such valuable magic stones. They could only shatter the stones and use the natural elementium affinity or natural traits to enhance their runic equipment with special effects.

This… this was possibly the most wasteful way of using the stones!

Of course, there was something that excited Greem even more than that. He had found three spacestones the size of his fist in an inconspicuous gray sack! Clearly, the people of this plane had also realized the oddity of these stones. However they couldn't understand their actual purpose or usage, and could only let them lie in this dim and dark hidden room.

With the size of these three spacestones, any single one of them would allow a person to buy a small dukedom eight square kilometers large in the Zhentarim Association's territory!

Greem had to breath several times before he managed to calm himself down. He only continued to dig for treasures after making sure he had properly stored the spacestones.

Honestly, when you managed to break into a hidden room belonging to the rulers of a plane, anything you found in there would probably be a treasure worth entire cities.

Thus the next thirty minutes was Greem's most exhilarating adventure ever since he came to this plane!

Golden Apple. The main ingredient for resurrection ceremonies. Consumable.

Orb of Deception. A tool that allowed one to perfectly hide their identity and faction. No known spells could see through its effect.

Black Qiraji Resonating Crystal. It allowed long distance voice communication and its effect could not be cancelled by any magical defense or planar barriers.

Emblem of Fire. An odd magical object that originated from the fire elementium plane. The wearer of this emblem would be able to enter the fire elementium plane under the guise of a normal fire elemental.

Shandera's Sheepstick. An ancient spell that could turn its target into a bleating lamb was sealed inside. (Unless the target was immune to transfiguration effects.) Duration: Five seconds. Ignores armor and magical resistance.

……

……

Greem would have been content to get his hands on a complete copy of the runic knowledge. Yet with what he was gaining now, he couldn't help but feel like he had underestimated the potential profits of a planar war.

In terms of size and resources, the World of Adepts was hundreds of times larger than the small world of the knights' plane. That said, regardless of how large and rich in resources the World of Adepts was, the number of powerful individuals that fought for those resources was also despairingly large.

The knights' plane might be lacking in natural resources, but when all of it was used for only a single adept clan, the profits were tremendous.

The resources and knowledge that Greem managed to gather from this crude and tiny drafting room would probably have taken him over a thousand years to amass back in the World of Adepts. In particular, top grade resources such as the spacestones and the Golden Apple were not items that he would have had a chance of coming into contact with at his level.

If he hadn't gone on this mission alone and had managed to sneak into one of the kingdom's treasuries, then, with his status as a First Grade adept, he would never have been able to get his hands on these treasures.

In comparison, the normally rare materials like Mithril, Underground Wrought Gold, magic agates, arcane crystals, and Khorium ores didn’t even make Greem feel even a little excited.

Yet, just as Greem and the others happily examined their newly gained treasures, a deafening boom rang out from the passage in the distance. The next moment the entire Runeforge Camp shook slightly.

The enemy was breaking through the collapsed tunnel at the entrance!

Greem instantly understood the source of the commotion.

It was time to retreat!

The better his harvest here, the more cautious Greem became. Moreover, the main attraction– the drafts of the runic equipment, the rare rune illustrations, the explanation of runic energies, and the guide to utilizing runic energies were all in his possession now. The remaining items scattered about were no longer as important.

Greem gave Flower a heads-up and quickly walked out of the drafting room. When he reached the central hall once again, the loud booming sounds in the distance had gotten a lot closer.

Just then, the guy called Cobalt showed up, already transformed into a muscular and massive three-meter-tall barbaric giant. All of the items that he was lugging behind his shoulders, holding in his hands, and carrying around his waist were gleaming runic equipment. Greem even saw three complete sets of Second Grade radiant knight armor among them. Most of the other items were also standard First Grade spellbreaker knight gear.

Greem was excited to see this equipment. He casually threw an adepts' waist storage pack at Cobalt. Following the adept’s principle of fair trade and exceptionally good oratorical skills, Greem easily managed to exchange a set of Second Grade radiant knight armor and runic weapons with Cobalt.

Adept Cobalt was naturally happy to accept such an unexpectedly good trade!

Soon the three gathered together and quickly hurried to the back of the camp with all of their spoils.

Just as they reached the cave behind the mountains, the entrance of the camp was finally broken through by three radiant knights.

The impact of their ferocious strength sent crumbling rocks flying everywhere, smashing craters all over the stone passage. A tall and radiant silhouette walked out of the dust and debris, intimidatingly assessing everything before his eyes.

Rocks were still falling hazardously behind him in the narrow passage.

One after another, lithe forms moved through the passage and quickly ran towards every location in Runeforge Camp.

"Find those damned invaders! I want to slice them into a thousand pieces… " The radiant knight's angered shout rang throughout the camp.

Greem felt the massive commotion echoing through the underground tunnel. He grabbed the shoulders of his two 'companions' and the three disappeared in a massive fire pillar.