Age of Adepts

As the helmsman of the Crimson Family, even with Grim's laziness, he had to spend a huge amount of time dealing with the reports that were submitted from all over the world.

There were resource requests, research projects, leaves of absence, routine work reports, job briefings....

It had only been three or two days, and the wide wooden table in Grim's residence was filled with a thick stack of documents from within the family and from various posting points. With the thickness and height of these documents, Grim was really worried that they would collapse and kill him directly.

In the past, most of these things had been handled by Gargamel and Meryl.

Now that Gargamel was carried away by the forest demon by the ear, and spent her days worrying about Emelia's 'mutation', even the internal affairs of the Flame Throne were a bit deserted. Meryl also seemed to have felt the tremendous pressure within the family, and was dissatisfied with the fact that she was still only a Tier 1 Intermediate Sorcerer after decades of advancement.

These days, she even left the family affairs to Grim, and went out to engage in some Black Forest training by herself.

When these two men let go of her, it was hard on Grim.

If it wasn't for the aid of the chip, so that he only needed to be like a rubber stamp to reply to the chip's proposed words onto the parchment, and then stamped with his personal seal, I'm afraid that the dozen days of 'hard work' had already tortured him crazy.

But it was a good thing that before Meryl left, she had kept the excellent 'staff' of Winelier on board, which had prevented Grim from really going mad.

The news of the successful activation of the Level 4 Demonic Armament Puppet Dragon was undoubtedly a top priority, so it was also immediately presented to Grim by Winlier. After carefully browsing through the report submitted by Wind Witch Desera, Grim couldn't help but squint and think.

The appearance of this Tier 4 Demon Puppet Dragon was really just right, filling a fatal flaw in the Crimson Family's lack of top-notch combat power. But how to use it obviously required extremely high political and strategic thinking as well.

In addition to that, a report had been submitted from the Lance Position Brain Monster there, urging the promised six Magic Melting Furnaces. Although this matter Grim had already agreed with the Brain Monster, but how and when to execute it, he still needed to consider the whole picture.

The brain monster wasn't trustworthy, and once it overstrengthened the power under its command, Grim was worried that it would take over the Lance Plane on its own, leaving the Crimson Family behind. It was because of this concern that Grim would never allow the Brain Monster to take on the Magic Puppet Dragon and the Metal Titans.

In addition, the presence of the brontosaurus Ames and the emerald mother dragon Aretina, as well as a large number of green dragons, were an additional force to deter the Brain Monster's dissidence. As long as the Brain Monster does not raise a counter flag and does not choke off the connection between the Crimson Family and the Lance Plane, Grim will allow it to retain the power to make its own decisions.

However, if it expects more and stretches its hand too far, Grim doesn't mind giving it a 'little' lesson!

If placed in the past, Grim hadn't advanced to rank 3, and could only do his best to rally and appease the rank 3 brain monster. But now, he already possessed a 3rd stage strength, and had the ability to discipline it at critical times.

Therefore, Grim's attitude was quite subtle when facing this 3rd stage brain monster.

However, today's Grim appeared to be a bit distracted and was somewhat indifferent to all these important family matters. Instead, he was single-mindedly focused on somewhere in the upper echelons of the Flame Throne Witch Tower.

Mary hadn't stepped out of her residence for many days, and had opened the residence's protective witching formation, isolating it from all internal and external news. Even Grim, using his Witch Tower access, could only barely perceive that her soul fluctuations were still active, but the undulating vibrations were more intense.

Half a year ago, Mary had already risen to the peak of the 2nd rank, and after the battle before the Tower of Destiny, she seemed to have benefited even more from it, locking herself in the secret room and never showing up again once she returned.

According to Grim's estimation, she shouldn't be so foolish as to try to advance to the next level now.

After all, advancing to Level 3 was a huge threshold for a witch, below Level 3 was only a middle to low level, and starting at Level 3 was stepping into a higher level. The resulting changes to a witch's soul origin were even more staggering.

Although Grim had arranged a series of preparations for the promotion of Mary, and even the 3rd rank vampire was sealed and sent to Mary. But this silly woman always had to come and speak to me before the promotion, so that I could be a little prepared in advance!

But when he thought of Mary's character, Grim could only shake his head in regret.

Impulsive, reckless, irritable... these were the most distinctive traits in Mary!

After Grim advanced to Level 3, although Mary was also acting extremely joyful, deep inside, the stubborn streak of disobedience was still clearly visible.

This could be seen slightly from her fervor and fire in bed!

Now, she also possessed the hope of advancing to the 3rd rank, and with her character, it was already rare for her to be able to hold back her restless heart until this moment before attempting to advance.

Therefore, these days, even though the Goblin Plane had undergone such a major change, Grim didn't take a single step away from the Flame Throne Witch Tower. He had to guard the Flame Throne inch by inch, guarding that secret room to prevent the outside world from disturbing Mary's advancement.

And by pinching his fingers, Mary's advancement should have some results!

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

Inside the secret room.

The place was already an ocean of blood.

Fishy blood water steamed up from the huge blood pool in the center of the chamber floor, spreading to every corner of the chamber. Whenever the blood mist washed in front of the walls of the chamber, it would be blocked back by an overflowing magic barrier.

The blood water inside the huge pool of blood rippled, fishy and sticky, and the power contained within was even more staggeringly strong. From time to time, the souls of the dragons bound by the Sorcerer Formation transformed into dragon forms, raising their necks and roaring in miserable fury.

But unfortunately, no matter how much they struggled and roared, they could not get rid of this pool of blood, nor could they get rid of the tragic fate of the dragon blood essence being absorbed into their bodies by their enemies.

On top of the blood pool, an old nobleman in gorgeous clothes was bound there by four or five silver chains in the air. The rough chains passed through his collarbone, ribs, shoulder blades, wrist bones and ankle bones, rubbing against the flesh and blood on his body, causing the open wounds on his flesh* body to never heal.

A drop of sticky, dark red blood continued to fall into the blood pool beneath him, and each drop that fell into it was able to curl a palpable blood storm inside the blood pool.

In the dark and heavy depths of the blood pool, a blurred figure was sinking at the bottom of the pool, silently absorbing the surging blood energy in the pool to the point where it was close to exploding.

The leap from 2nd to 3rd stage was a leap in essence and a great transformation of the origin!

If a 1st rank sorcerer was just cannon fodder in a bit war, then the 2nd rank was the strongest of the cannon fodder. As for the 3rd rank, the party could be counted as a qualified soldier in the bitterness of the bitterness conquest.

Although it was still some distance away from giving orders, it was no longer cannon fodder that could be discarded at will!

The vampire physique that Mary had taken on belonged to the ranks of bloodline witches in the witch camp, and their advancement was fast, but they had to bear the shackles of the bloodline. Without the old vampire, Hynes Vick, whom Grim had captured, it would have been impossible for Mary's vampire physique to advance to Level 3.

Now, what Mary needed to do was to suck this old vampire Hynes Vick dry and use his blood to wash and purify her own bloodline, thus breaking the bloodline shackles and allowing her to advance to the 3rd rank.

If one were to suck it all in directly, with the strength of a 3rd rank vampire, it would be easy to turn against him and devour Mary instead. That was why Mary needed this high quality blood pool to purify and wash the soul breath from the old vampire's original blood, so that she could gradually absorb and fuse everything from the other side.

In the corner of the chamber, the blood coffin that Grim had crafted for her was also ready.

When she had finished absorbing everything from the old vampire and all the blood energy in the blood pool, she would get into the blood coffin and fall into a long slumber. And relying on the aid of the magical and mysterious witch formation on top of the blood coffin, Mary would be able to survive the promotion process in her long sleep.

Such a promotion process was tailor-made for her by Grim, and it was almost completely different from other vampires.

Using his familiarity with Mary and his familiarity with older vampires, Grim had designed such a fool-proof promotion process that almost eliminated all possibility of human error.

As long as Mary's talent origin wasn't extremely poor, the probability of a successful promotion according to this process was as high as 89%.

It was just that it was still unknown when exactly Mary would be able to break out of her coffin, so Grim could only silently guard the Flame Throne, waiting for the good news to come out of her.

And such a wait was seven years.

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

Seven years later.

Inside the secret room.

The blood mist that had been scattered within the secret room had long since dispersed.

The huge pool of blood above the floor had also solidified and dried up, and the scene of blood rippling could no longer be seen, only a layer of black powder three fingers thick scattered at the bottom of the pool.

The old vampire bound by the silver chain has also been dead for a long time, and his flesh and blood have long since faded away, leaving only broken bones and shattered robes hanging in the air, unmoving.

The strange blood coffin that had remained untouched for seven years in the corner of the secret room shook slightly with a rattling sound.

A moment later, the noise inside the blood coffin became more and more obvious.

Finally, with a sudden burst of strength from the person inside the coffin, the tightly fitting coffin lid creaked and moved to one side, revealing the dark cavernous space within.

Immediately, a small hand of a snow-white, slender and beautiful woman was placed on the edge of the coffin.

The half-ton coffin lid flew out with a mighty blow and smashed heavily against the opposite wall.

The red-covered Mary sat up with her head in her hands from the blood coffin, and had to let out a whisper of a mouthful of words.

Who am I? Why am I here? Here is?

Whirling tidal waves of memories and emotions seeped through her limbs, allowing her to find herself again.

I...I'm Mary....