Age of Adepts

A leisurely stroll through the woods....

With his powerful chip memory function, Grim walked almost step by step through the places Natagu had passed. And his black pupils flickered with blue mane, all sorts of bizarrely functional vision taking turns, scanning and perceiving every inch of land he had walked on.

From the leafy canopy of the tall ancient trees, down to the forest clearing with thorns and vines, as well as all the abnormal fluctuations within ten meters of the land beneath him, all could not escape Grim's powerful mental perception.

Finally, at the place where Natagoo had once fallen to, Grim stood still, his eyes staring straight at the tall, ancient tree. Whether it was elemental vision or an energy scan, it found a section of high-energy matter less than 10 centimeters within the trunk of the ancient tree.

"Natagoo, next time if you really want to escape, remember not to bring your storage ring with you..." said the lone Grim, who was standing in a pestle in the forest, coldly.

He was the only one in the forest that was empty, and it was unclear who he was directing this remark at.

A refreshing breeze blew through the trees, rustling the leaves, and there wasn't any that stood out to answer his question.

"Well, you still don't want to give up after all this time? Then let me force you out!"

With that, Grim's pupils flashed red and fierce, and two terrifying rays of sunlight quickly slashed through the ancient tree in front of him, cutting two thin red lines in the trunk.

The ancient tree trembled, and then slowly planted itself with a great roar, revealing a smooth wooden heart that the three of them had joined together. In the heart of the wood, a human finger wearing a strange ring was revealed, and slowly squirmed.

Seemingly knowing that his life-saving escape had been discovered, the finger was no longer concealed, and in a strange squirming and deforming motion, it transformed back into Natagu's form. But at this point, Natagu's entire height combined was no more than 10 centimeters, which was sufficiently pocketable, and with no clothing to cover his body, he could only hold the ring in his hand to shield his waist, looking a bit extraordinarily ridiculous.

"Lord Grim... Lord Grim... if you will let me go, I am willing to give away all my wealth and knowledge..." the pocket villain cried out desperately, his voice was small, but Grim could hear it extraordinarily clearly.

Grim looked at the storage ring that was big enough to be the other's hula hoop and smirked unkindly, "All your resources and collections are in this ring, right? Kill you, and it's mine, as if I don't need you to give it away!"

"No, no, no... My lord, that's just some ordinary resources, I have more hidden in the outer regions. If you let me go, I'll give them to you along with them. And if you must kill me, I'll self-destruct this last soul, you won't get anything out of my brain..." hissed Natagoo, acting as if he wanted to show both bravery and caution for fear of annoying the other side.

"That's not enough...you're a 3rd rank bloodline wizard...ransoming yourself with this will never be enough!"

"Your Excellency... I still have a temporary inter-dimensional small teleportation array in my ring, and with it, you won't have to worry if you want to leave this damned dimension!" Natagu was desperately trying to show his worth.

"Still not enough..." the Grim was still shaking his head.

"Then... Lord Grim, the villain would serve you! As long as you can stop killing me, I can sign a service contract with you and become your 3rd-rank servant. You see, with a 3rd-ranked thugs, this... should always be satisfactory to you, right?" In order to live, at this point, Natagoo could simply be called a slave.

"Service contract? 3rd rank servant?" Grim couldn't help but chant, seemingly intent on moving.

"Yes, yes, the villain is releasing the soul ban so that you can leave your soul mark, you're not going to suspect the villain anymore, are you?" With that said, Natagoo let go of the soul ban without hesitation.

Grim could perceive that the other party's soul was unrestricted to him at the moment, and as long as he wanted, he could leave his own soul imprint inside by all means. At that time, the other party's life and death would be in his hands, and the other party would certainly obey him, not daring to disobey him in the slightest.

Grim chuckled lightly.

"Hmph, Natagoo, when the few of you were madly hunting me, did you ever think that today would come? I didn't provoke you, yet you have traveled hundreds of millions of miles across the border from the outer regions to hunt me down, and now you are even my captive, do you think you are cheap?"

"Bitchy bitchy bitchy... villainous bitchy! I shouldn't have listened to that old witch's compulsions and ran to this damned place to seek your bad luck, otherwise how would I have ended up in such a bad situation. It's all due to my ignorance and bad luck, I can't blame your Excellency!" In order to live, I could tell that this Natagoo was already willing to give up all his dignity.

"Hmph..."

Not bothering to take any more verbal advantage with such a 'shameless man', Grim stretched out his finger, condensing a hint of flame power and slowly extending it towards 'Natagoo' on the stump.

'Natagu' had a ring around his waist, carefully watching the other's finger approach, making sure that there was only a trace of soul branding attached to it, before closing his eyes slightly and waiting for the intense pain in his soul.

Any alteration to the soul would have dire consequences for the person concerned, and if not forced to do so, how could Natagoo accept such humiliating and harsh terms. At this point, it was no longer up to him to make any other choice.

However, just as his finger was about to point at 'Natagu's' forehead, Grim's eyes fiercely flashed, and the violent and pure flame energy came out through his finger and madly poured into his opponent's body, and in a split second, the opponent was supported into a dark red flesh man that had expanded five or six times.

"For... what..." sudden and drastic change, Natagoo simply felt incredible.

After stooping to such an extent, the other party still wants to kill him, why is that? He was baffled!

"Hmph, if I were a 4th rank wizard, I would definitely accept your surrender. But I'm sorry, I'm only a 3rd rank..."

The second half of Grim's explanation could no longer be heard by the other party, and with a bang, the pocket 'Natagu' was burst by the power of the incoming flames, exploding into countless tiny pieces of flesh and blood paste, and before it could collapse out, it was incinerated by the burning field that came down from the body.

As for the wrecked soul, it was taken out by Grim and included in a blank soul gathering crystal.

The soul of a 3rd rank sorcerer, even though it was a bit broken, was still able to extract valuable sorcery knowledge and hidden secrets of his life from it. Moreover, the other party was intentionally splitting his soul to escape, so those valuable things were naturally wrapped up in it, and now it was just a spoonful of Grim.

Devoid of the last remaining 'essence blood' of Natagoo, collected the remaining broken soul, and put away the storage ring. After all of this, Grim closed his eyes and sensed, aided by the chip, to make sure that nothing was missing, before flying up into the sky to meet up with the brontosaurus Ames, turning around and flying back towards the Gonsas Volcano.

A moment later, when Grim returned to the Gondas Volcano, the time for the summoning of the 3rd Stage Brontosaurus was almost over.

Even though Grim's spirit was able to sustain a longer summoning time after his mental surge, after nearly an hour of fighting and chasing, the brontosaurus Ams was still inevitably sent back to the Lance Plane by the power of the rules.

In the crater, Flame Tiger Sindar was already waiting here, while the mind warlock was unconscious and fainting on the ground.

A faint breath of life could still be perceived within her, and she was not truly dead.

"Why didn't they kill her?" Grim asked curiously, coughing violently as he did so.

The damage from the previous battle was also too heavy for him. Although he had won the final battle, this body was also completely smashed, and I'm afraid it would be difficult to recover without a dozen years of subdued restoration. Not for any other reason, but that battle had severely injured the origin of his soul.

Wounds within these souls were the most difficult to nurse!

"This is a 3rd level witch, and she's on the more offbeat route of psychic abilities, are you sure you're just going to kill her?" The Flame Tiger humanized a squeeze of an eyebrow, apparently finding it hard to comprehend that humans so easily slaughtered their higher-ranked 'kind'.

It was true that there was a great deal of killing and fighting in the Fire Elemental Plane, but that was mostly confined to sentient and unintelligent low and mid-tier flame beings. If flame creatures were born intelligent, they would not easily slaughter each other even if their ranks were low.

This seemed to be one of the main reasons why the fire elemental bits were so powerful!

And in the eyes of Grim, these sorcerers, even if they were of the same kind, as long as they were blocking their path, they would not hesitate to remove them. Never would they show the slightest mercy just because the other party was of their own kind!

"If I don't kill her, will I keep her to come after me? This kind of high-ranking witch has a great deal of means to circumvent soul binding, and with a great witch pinned behind her, even a soul contract may not be able to truly control her. Once I let that great witch lift the restrictions in her soul, wouldn't I be a chicken and egg, and have another enemy of sufficient weight!"

Grim had obviously thought deeply about this type of problem for a long time, so he had never thought of forcibly enslaving them. Bringing some of these timed ** with them, if that big witch secretly spied back again, wouldn't everything here in front of the other party have no secrets to speak of.

Thus without hesitation, Grim flicked out a fireball, burning the unconscious Benigia to ashes in an instant. Of course, those sorcery equipment and storage rings carried on the other party's body were taken down one by one and pocketed.

The strange amethyst crystal on Benicia's forehead became the collection of Flame Tiger Sindar.

According to the chip scan, it was a powerful sorcery of the 3rd stage, so it was no wonder that Sindar was interested in it.

With the trophy in hand, Flame Tiger Sindar returned to the Fire Elemental plane with a satisfied heart.

The moment he pulled open a door of flame and was about to leave, Flame Tiger Sindar turned back and shouted at Grim.

"This is the second time! There's only one more of the three times I promised you help, so do what you will!" Just say the word and disappear into the flames.