Age of Adepts

Time Freeze, also known as Time Stasis, definitely belonged to the category of high level sorcery.

But with Mary Vampire Sorcerer's talent, how could she master such a top-tier sorcery as the Time Freeze system. So just after being appalled and alarmed, Grim quickly realized his mistake.

This wasn't a true time freeze, but a bizarre sorcery tactic whose sorcery effect was similar to a time freeze. When Mary began to burn her mental energy to forcefully push the hypersensitive speed, due to the fact that her neural reflexes, the speed at which her mind operated, and her personal speed had exceeded a certain threshold, this was what allowed her to obtain this strange sorcery effect.

It was only that this sorcery effect seemed to be extremely mentally depleting, and Mary used up nearly half of her mental energy just by simply getting out of Grim's Ice Flame Trap. If it wasn't for the essential increase in her mental strength after advancing to Level 3, I'm afraid that burning just now would have been enough to deplete her mental strength and thus put her in a coma.

"Are you able to control this state freely?" Grim couldn't help but whisper the question.

"Hardly!" Half of her mental energy burned instantly, and Mary's spirit immediately stooped, even answering Grim's question languidly: "Once I entered that state, I could clearly feel everything in the world around me suddenly slow down and become abnormally slow. And I... my mental energy also burned extremely fast..."

"What about the control you have over your body?" Grim had directly pointed out the crux of the matter.

If going into a hypersensitive state would allow Mary's speed to exceed the perception and thinking of other witches, wouldn't she be invincible at that moment, able to move freely! So the key was also the degree of control that Mary had over her body in her hypersensitive state.

Mary gazed back for a moment and slowly shook her head, "It's very, very difficult... At that moment, the entire world becomes still, and even the air seems to freeze. For me to move freely in that state, I often need to expend more than a hundred times the amount of energy I would normally expend, and it's extremely draining on my physical strength..."

"Leveraging agility, burning mental energy, and depleting physical strength... It seems that if you want to actually control this hypersensitive state, these three are the areas you need to focus on for some time to come."

"What do I need that high level of physical strength for? I'm an agile assassin killer!" Mary looked depressed.

"What do you know? This hypersensitive state of yours is a good attack. It's only because your Agility, Spirit, and Physique aren't up to par that you're in this state of occasional ineffectiveness. If you can raise these three stats, you will have a much easier time mastering the hypersensitive state. At least it won't take half of your strength to even escape from a trap like today..."

"Hmph, if I really had that ability, I would have carved my name Mary on your chest..." after becoming a 3rd rank but still unable to suppress Grim, Mary was clearly a little lost.

"Ha... that still depends on whether or not you can break the defensive sorcery outside my body in that short amount of time. If you're really capable of that anymore, I'll definitely throw my hands up and admit defeat... haha... ouch..."

Seeing that Mary had lost interest in fighting on, Grim also slowly reined in the burning field and the piles of flaming shields. As soon as the flame sorcery that had wrapped him in layers and coils disappeared, Mary instantly appeared at his side, using her long, slender fingers to viciously pinch the waist flesh and rotate it left and right.

Grim immediately sucked in a breath of cold air, feeling for the first time that his protection had been taken away too soon!

"Take me back! It's been so long since I've had a bath, I feel like I'm stinking..." as Grim bared his teeth in bitterness, Mary suddenly unclasped her fingers and attached a whisper to his ear.

"Good...get back in the shower!" Grim's face immediately showed joy.

In the next second, the flames rushed to the sky and the figures of the two disappeared.

As the magical flames extinguished one after another, the world once again fell into a cold, dead silence!

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

The news that Mary had successfully advanced to the 3rd rank had once again created quite a stir within the Crimson Family.

The appearance of the family's second 3rd rank was a sign that the Crimson Family's foundation was a bit stronger.

In the middle of the continent, in the entire Scatterland Tower Forest, I'm afraid that apart from those old guys sitting in the superfamilies, the Crimson Family could be considered one of the most powerful of the new rising families.

Yes, even though the Crimson Family already had two 3rd rank witches and already owned most of the Alois region, it was still less than a hundred years since it was founded. Therefore, in the eyes of many wizards, it was still just a windfall. Compared to its heritage, it was still a long way from those truly large families.

Let it be strong and unstoppable at the moment, but once it provoked a 4th rank witch, it might end up falling apart in a matter of minutes!

In the wizard world, if there is no 4th level wizard sitting within the family, or if you can't find a 4th level wizard to back you up, you won't be able to become the strongest or overlord of the region. It was time to keep a low profile and be careful, in this world, it was the powerful 4th ranked witches who really had the right to speak.

And not long after Mary's promotion, it was only logical that she received an invitation to join the Free Winds organization.

According to Grim's understanding, the number of the entire Crimson Family that received an invitation from the Free Wind Organization was only 3 people, Grim, Mary, and Billis. As for the dragon-man Zacha, the goblin Tigure, and the group of blood knights and blood elves under Mary, they did not receive any invitation from the Free Winds of Freedom even though they were all at the 2nd level.

From this, it seemed that this Free Wind organization also followed some ancient rules very strictly, mainly focusing on the local witches in the middle of the continent and somewhat excluding those outsiders.

Mary hadn't gone out in seven years, and had been somewhat unfamiliar with the internal affairs and development of the family.

As soon as she got to know it these days, she was surprised to discover that the Crimson Family's development had changed unusually dramatically.

Nowadays, the Crimson Family had clearly divided into four distinct family forces, the vampire branch, the goblin camp, the brain monster group and the local witch.

In terms of strength alone, it was undoubtedly going to be the most powerful vampire group that Mary had pulled together, and they accounted for almost half of the Crimson Family's number of strong 2nd rankers. Now that Mary had advanced to the 3rd rank, the strength of the vampire team would follow suit, becoming more and more noticeable.

But in terms of the number of members, scale of development and degree of penetration, several other family forces couldn't catch up with the goblin camp. Especially over the years, with the financial support of the great goblin nobles and plutocrats, the number of goblin-born sorcerers had also increased significantly.

So far, there were five goblins within the Crimson Family who had advanced to Magic Arms Master, and three goblins who had advanced to Alchemist. Their strength might be average, but when aggregated, they were a force to be reckoned with.

What's more, they had the backing of the Goblin God of War, Tigure, and the Goblin Grand Sage, Cappy, and had considerable influence within the Crimson Family!

Especially during these years, the Crimson Family was actively expanding its power and establishing its own intelligence and resource collection system, and the goblin caravans and major plutocrats distributed all over the continent had provided a lot of support for this. Therefore, the top management of the Crimson Family also intended to promote some of the goblins into the family's core, which was the key to the rapid development of the goblin camp.

The other major force in the family was naturally the group of brain monsters led by the 3rd level brain monster Ghazluvi, whose main activity was in the Lance Plane and the Eternal Capital.

With thousands of magic armies guarding them, and with the impregnable Eternal Capital as their home base, the Brain Monster Syndicate's strength was not obvious, but when it came down to it, it was enough to crush the other branches of power within the family.

Over the years, Grim as well as the Crimson family has also taken great pains to encompass the Brain Monster Group. However, the effort was not in vain, as this free-spirited and ambitious Level 3 Brain Monster didn't take it upon himself to dominate the Lance Position from now on, and still opened the Eternal Capital to the Crimson Family.

From some perspectives, the Brain Monster Group is not considered to be 10% of the Crimson Family's internal forces, but rather a neutral force that is moving closer to the Crimson Family.

As for the last branch of power, it was actually the local sorcerer power that supported the backbone of the Crimson Family.

It was just that the cultivation and advancement of sorcerers was so difficult, so their growth rate obviously couldn't compete with the other three branches of power.

However, the Crimson Family's roots were in the world of sorcerers, so no one could shake the position of a sorcerer.

Although this local sorcerer force was weak, it still held a dominant position within the Crimson Family.

Whether it was the Crimson Grand Steward Gargamel, or Meryl who managed the White Tower, or Desera who sat on the Goblin Level, they were not high ranking and not very powerful, but they were firmly in control of the Crimson Family's right to speak.

The one who was backing them up was naturally Grim, the legendary 3rd rank Fire Witch!

All these years and months, although Grim had hardly left the Flame Throne in order to protect Mary, his strength was evident to all. Although it had not been long since he had advanced to the 3rd rank, with that powerful elemental magic weapon, he was considered one of the more powerful 3rd ranked sorcerers in the middle of the continent.

As for the Crimson Family, it had also encountered some crises over the years.

However, ever since the Crimson Family had transferred back a huge metal puppet dragon with a strength of up to rank 4 from the secondary plane, those crises and undercurrents had quickly disappeared.

In the Wizard Continent, what was hard power?

A 4th rank wizard is!

As long as a family was guarded by a 4th Order Sorcerer, it also meant that it would stand forever and no one would dare to risk its majesty.

The same goes for the 4th rank Magic Puppet Dragon!

For a time, even the renowned 4th rank wizards couldn't help but bet their attention on this suddenly rising Crimson Family.