Age of Adepts
chapter-606

Dragonborn Zacha defrosted himself just in time.

The two shields brought together successfully blocked the cruel fangs of the frost dragon.

The price Zacha paid in exchange was only a mouthful of blood.

A muffled boom…

A massive dent instantly appeared in the Queyras shield enchanted with frost resistance. All the magical runes drawn upon the shield detonated in succession, causing it to lose all of its basic resistances.

Frost Dragon Aruntini was caught unaware. She had used too much force and was now wincing and hissing in pain. A single massive dragon tooth flew out with traces of blood still attached to it.

At this moment, the ferocious roars of dragon warriors reached the room through the winding tunnels from outside the palace.

A trace of hope suddenly appeared in Aruntini's eyes!

We can't let the frost dragon do as she wants to in the ice crystal.

Greem made up his mind. He crushed two large rubies with a single hand and used the Blaze of Destruction to cast the large-scale fire spell Doomsday Volcano. The magical volcano's point of explosion was right beneath the frost dragon.

Ice and fire were always in opposition to each other!

The ice mist in the room dispersed rapidly as large clusters of lava and fire surged out of the magical volcano. The massive ice crystal also started melting and shrinking at a rate visible to the naked eye.

Seeing that her shell was about to be broken, the slightly recovered frost dragon once again launched a brutal attack at Dragonborn Zacha. Sadly, Dragonborn Zacha was remarkably resilient against attacks now that he had given up on any sort of offense. All the high-quality magical equipment he was wearing on his body turned him into a steel statue, especially when paired with the many elementium protections revolving around him.

Frost Dragon Aruntini's consecutive lunges and strikes all ended in vain accompanied by dull and muffled thuds.

Just then, a sweltering heat wave pressed against her face. The ice crystal had finally shattered!

The conclusion of the dragon slaying was incredibly smooth.

The four First Grade adepts of the Crimson Clan could not hold off the continuous charges of the ferocious dragonborn. They could only retreat as they fought, quickly arriving at the frost dragon's quarters.

They formed a new defensive line here. The few Second Grade adepts that had successfully captured the frost dragon took this opportunity to slaughter their way out, dealing tremendous damage to the dragonborn that had swarmed into the room.

At the same time, the one hundred and forty magical machines that had marched all the way from the metal fortress also charged up the single and snowy peak, successfully surrounding the enemy.

Second Grade adepts stood in their way at the front while fearless metal machines assaulted their ranks from the back. The hundred dragonborn were caught in the middle, unsure of whether to advance or retreat. Soon, all of them had fallen within the snowy ice palace.

The riotous battlefield was finally silenced when day turned into night; the curtain of darkness fell upon the land.

Over half of the one hundred and forty magical machines had been destroyed. Only thirty of those were still in perfect working condition. The rest of the surviving machines were all missing arms or legs. They would need to be sent back to the metal fortress' repair shop to regain their full combat abilities.

These thirty magical machines were also being used as construction machines right now. They piled the corpses of the dead dragonborn together and sent them up to the goblin flying ship to be transported back to the metal fortress. The severely wounded dragonborn who still had breath left in them were all made to drink healing potions before being locked up in their own camp.

A newly assembled flying ship appeared above the snowy peak at midnight. It slowly landed in front of the ice palace.

Once some wide metallic planks had been laid out, squads of construction machines marched out of the ship with heavy footsteps.

It was challenging to bring the massive flying ships of the Goblin Plane to Lance through the teleportation device. Large groups of engineers and technicians had gathered in the metal fortress, and after an entire month, they had finally succeeded in using the rudimentary construction tools to build a flying ship.

Gazlowe hadn't even dared to let this new flying ship out of the metal fortress while the fire dragon girl was still ravaging its surroundings. Such flying ships that lacked powerful defensive measures were invincible when bullying magical creatures without the ability to fly. However, it was no more than a moving dummy for a large and ferocious being like the fire dragon.

That was why Gazlowe had to delay the operation of the flying ship and only let it out once the fire dragon girl had gone hunting in the depths of Stonetalon Mountains.

The metal fortress was nearly seven hundred kilometers away from the snowy mountain. Trying to bring this badly wounded frost dragon back across such a long distance would take eight to ten days on the ground. Such a long time on such a long road. Any accident that happened in between could cause Greem's efforts to have been in vain.

Greem had no choice but to call for the flying ship and transport the frost dragon, along with all of the wealth in her lair, back via air.

One had to admit that each and every dragon were items with plenty of potential.

This Second Grade frost dragon might still be a young teenage dragon and had not participated in too many of the dragon raids, but the golden coins, jewels, and treasures gathered in her palace still managed to take up most of the room.

Greem did a quick survey and shook his head in disappointment.

Robbing a teenage dragon was just not the same as robbing an old dragon!

The frost dragon's wealth might seem plentiful, but most of these were worldly items that had been stolen from human kingdoms such as gold coins, antiques, agates, and crowns. They might cause some commotion if taken to a human realm, but they were useless in the eyes of adepts.

For the adepts, tens of thousands of gold coins were no more practical than a single magical gemstone.

The former was only an ornamental product, while the latter could be used as materials to support spellcasting, allowing the launched spells to become faster and more powerful.

Flashy but without value!

That was Greem's assessment of the frost dragon's hoard after looking through it.

However, even a rotting ship had three pounds of nails in it. Greem still managed to find some useful stuff in the hoard after sifting through and organizing all of it.

Spellsaving Gemstone!

It was a type of magical gemstone that could contain a single complete spell.

During combat, adepts needed to chant words, perform handsigns, and use their staff and casting materials to cast spells. It was the only way they could use any of their most potent and fearsome magic. Now that Greem had a Spellsaving Gemstone, he could save a complete spell within it ahead of time. When needed, all he had to do was chant a short activating keyword to release the spell rapidly.

That was undoubtedly extremely beneficial to an adept in combat!

Sadly, upon inspecting the quality of this Spellsaving Gemstone, Greem disappointedly realized that it could only contain a First Grade spell. It was utterly useless for him.

Still, it was a convenient item for a First Grade adept.

After some hesitation, Greem awarded it to Bug Adept Billis, who had fought the hardest during today's battle.

The construction machines also found a high-quality Frozen Mallet within the pile of jewels.

It was a one-handed warhammer with a strange design. One end of the mallet was flat, while the other tapered off into a sharp edge. Brilliant flakes of frost and icicles covered the entire hammer. A strange surge of frost power would radiate from the mallet when the user held it in their hand. This frost power would cause seventy points of freezing damage to nearby enemies while slowing their speed by 40%.

A powerful weapon like this clearly shouldn't fall into the hands of outsiders. It had to be awarded to the most significant contributor to today's successful dragon slaying– Dragonborn Zacha.

In all honesty, the head of the Frozen Mallet was the size of two to three human heads put together, while the whole thing weighed about one hundred to one hundred and fifty kilograms. The only one within the Crimson Clan that was capable of using such a heavy weapon seemed to be Dragonborn Zacha.

Dragonborn Zacha fell silent when he saw the powerful magical weapon placed before him.

After a long period of hesitation, he finally bent over to pick up the warhammer.

A milky-white Frost Aura appeared around him the moment the warhammer fell into his hands. It was like a beautiful ribbon of light. It froze the water molecules in the air into ice shards, causing them to hang upon Zacha's body and armor.

"Thank you…master." Dragonborn Zacha finally faced Greem and said these words after waving the weapon about and testing it out.

Even though he had been following Greem for over half a year and had always put all of his efforts into the missions Greem assigned him, this was the first time he had such sincere gratitude for his master. That was why it was particularly difficult for him to articulate this gratitude.

Still, his usually stern and solemn expression seemed a bit more relaxed after saying that.

Greem didn't say anything else, only responding with a smile and a nod.

An extremely untimely voice suddenly interrupted this moment of warmth.

"Alright, alright. Let's stop wasting time. Shouldn't we start considering how to split up the frost dragon?"

There was only one person among the crowd who could so boldly disrupt the atmosphere. That was the extraordinarily eager and thirsty Dragon Devourer Oliven.

Oliven circled again and again around the panting frost dragon splayed upon the ground with a bump on her head as if she couldn't wait to leap upon the dragon and start feasting.

The frost dragon had all her limbs dislocated and was bound with countless restraining runes. Despite her immobility, her eyes were wide open and was staring at this enemy of the dragons with hateful eyes.

"Indeed, we finally won this battle! It's time to split up the spoils." Greem turned his head and smiled. His crystal clear eyes fell upon Oliven, "Miss Oliven severely wounded the frost dragon during this battle and limited the dragon's mobility. Truly a great achievement."

A proud smile appeared on the half of Oliven's face that was not obscured by her veil when she heard Greem's praise.

However, Greem's words took a quick turn next.

"Given the exceptional contributions of Miss Oliven, she naturally has priority of choice over the frost dragon."

Oliven's eyes instantly lit up.

"Well then, Miss Oliven, please choose! Do you want the left half of the frost dragon or the right half? Do you want the upper half or the lower half?"

"Half?"

Oliven was instantly boggled. She used her hand and gestured right and left in the air over the frost dragon's body. She was completely confused for a moment.

"Miss Oliven, your contributions are huge, but it isn't large enough for you to claim an entire dragon for yourself. There were four Second Grades that participated in this battle. Your contribution is no more than one-fourth. Still, given all the effort you have put in, I can speak for the others and give you the priority of choice. Tell me, how do you want to cut this dragon up into four pieces? You can pick the first piece…" Greem smiled as he spoke.

Oliven's expression immediately soured!