Age of Adepts

In all seriousness, the core component of a Mechanical Shaman's body, the Mechanical Heart, is very much like a self-aware, metal-activated life form.

It is not only able to unify the surrounding metal machinery, but also completely integrated into the human body's energy circulation system, which is based on the flesh and blood veins. In this regard, it was actually more like a kind of parasite, not fundamentally different from the puppet insects created by the sorcerers when they concocted flesh and blood puppets.

It was just that one parasite was now on top of the test body and the other was inside the sorcerer's body.

The Mechanical Heart could grow as well.

However, the nutrients and ingredients required for its growth were completely different from the original human skeletal system, requiring the use of a large amount of rare sorcerer resources and sorcery materials. Moreover, the conflict between the mechanical sorcery system and the original flesh and blood could only be delayed, but not eliminated forever.

Compared to the mechanical sorcery system, the human's own blood veins and meridians were still too fragile, and even the slightest mixture of impurities could upset the original weak balance.

If the human body was so fragile, why did the mechanical sorcerers prefer to delete and alter the flesh and blood body rather than completely build themselves a true mechanical body?

I'm afraid this involves the original unique human energy advancement system!

All-metal constructed revitalized beings were indeed powerful, but they faced a difficult situation in advancing their ranks. Moreover, if human souls are transplanted into a pile of iron lumps, without the nourishment of flesh and blood life energy, the souls will only wither away, making it difficult for them to improve themselves step by step as human bodies do.

They are addicted to the powerful fighting ability that the mechanical heart brings to them, but they have to rely on flesh and blood organs to feed these parts that are extremely harsh on energy. Therefore, the Mechanical Shamans were actually often times searching for a balance between their great strength and the human advancement system!

But the concerns of the mechanical sorcerers were not present for Grim.

It wasn't like he was going to transform himself into something completely different, the reason he wanted to study Mechanical Sorcerers was purely to transform the elemental magic weapons into something stronger and more offensive.

After thoroughly **studying Knife Katy, even Grim had to admire the mechanical sorcerer's whimsy.

Knife Katie's mechanical eyes incorporated a number of strange abilities such as ember vision, elemental vision, and dynamic capture. This also foreshadowed that in battle she didn't need to cast any sorcery at all to see things as normal in a dim space, and could also directly see the flow of elements around the opponent with her 'flesh eyes', and could even capture the opponent's more hidden and tiny tactical movements....

The metal shell of her modified brain also possessed the ability to amplify the strength of her thought senses, which allowed her to manipulate those metal blade wheels like an arm's length. As long as the distance wasn't too far, she was even able to manipulate and change the attack path of the metal blade wheels with her thought sense in order to achieve the effect of an instant attack power blast.

As for Katy's body, it had undergone multiple complex mechanical sorcery modifications, with a smooth and elastic skin buried beneath a variety of different forms of alloy plates. Whenever she was attacked, the first thing to take damage was the more obvious metal armor outside her body.

If the power of the attack exceeds the limit of the metal armor, the remaining damage will be shared between the flesh and blood body and the hidden metal plate, and will be spread out through a strange vibration.

This also made Katy the Knife's physical and elemental resistance incredibly high, completely able to run up against the enemy's sorcery attacks and start a killing spree.

Of course, this kind of attack will also leave Kitty's body in a state of brokenness for years, requiring constant replenishment. This replenishment included both the metal defects of mechanical parts as well as the loss of flesh and blood of living muscles.

Therefore, I'm afraid that none of the large amounts of fresh flesh and various special metal solutions would be missing from Knife Katie's daily diet!

A living human sorcerer, eating raw flesh with blood and drinking pungent and unpleasant tasting metal concoction every day, the mechanical sorcerers' quest for power was not a path that could be sustained by ordinary people.

From a few of the hunting witches, Grim had also stripped down a number of high level witchcraft.

However, they were all created by combining their own characteristics, and Grim would need to rebuild them if he wanted to use them. However, those supplementary sorcery ornaments could be used just by using them.

Most of the sorcery trinkets had more or less physical strengthening abilities, but as a human sorcerer, it was difficult to strengthen their body or spirit indefinitely.

Like the Soden Holy Ring with +5 power enhancement that Grim wears, the 3 points of power increase from the Flame Set is invariably covered by the Soden Holy Ring. If Grim didn't manage to temper his body and raise his power limit, then he wouldn't be able to enjoy the huge increase in power that the two powers overlapped.

Therefore, as a Sorcerer, it was most effective and practical to find ways to raise his base stats. As for the idea of trying to build up a powerful sorcerer by relying on a large number of high-grade sorcery weapons, that in itself was extremely childish and ridiculous.

Basically, with the 5 points of power added by the Soden Holy Ring, the rest of the sorcery trinkets that strengthened flesh*body strength were somewhat superfluous. The 3 points of physique added by the Soden Holy Ring, however, left Grim with a portion of empty space.

But these openings were also quickly filled by the physique increase from the Flame Suit.

Coupled with the fact that Grim's spirit power was now up to 37 points, relying on the equipment to increase it to the 39 point cap was a bit overflowing. Thus, he could only take off one or two of the sorcery trinkets that increased his mental strength in order to reduce the load on his own spirit.

In this way, his strength, physique and spirit had simultaneously reached the current limit of improvement for this body, with only the Agility item having room for a considerable increase.

"Chip, detect my current body data..."

"Drip, detection begins...subject base data as follows:"

"Grim, Advanced Level 3, Occupational Status: elemental sorcerer (Flame Specialization), Body Base Data: strength 18+5 (13) physique 21+4 (11) agility 11+1 (7) spirit 37+2 (32), Occupational Skills: body of flame, body of inflammation, flame splitting.... "

"Subject's physical state: severely injured... Note: The maximum limit of strength that can be exerted at the moment is in parentheses!"

This kind of basic data might be nothing in front of those tough high magic species, but it was already at the first-class level among the same level sorcerers.

The 23 points of strength marked him as already being able to match up with those 2nd stage Junior Body Tempering Sorcerers with force without falling behind, but if it came to close combat, his crude fists and feet might not even be able to stain someone's coattails. After all, 11 points of base agility was barely enough for a 3rd stage elemental sorcerer, but trying to play melee with them with short strikes was a bit self-defeating.

In the sorcerer community, great strength was always relative, not absolute!

Such strength and such a physique made Grim an incredibly powerful prehistoric monster in front of ordinary people. But compared to a Body Refining Sorcerer of the same rank, Grim, a prehistoric monster, could only be considered a little guy who hadn't yet lost his milk teeth.

Thinking of this, Grim shook his head lightly, put away the various strange equipment spread all over the floor, and then stood up and walked out of the cave.

Outside the cave was a small stone platform, covered with a thick layer of scattered skeletons, which appeared to be the feeding place of a powerful beast. Standing on the platform, one could see from a distance that this place was located in the middle of a vast, lush, barren forest.

No matter which direction one looked in, all one would see was a lush and luxuriant sea of forest.

It was just a pity that ever since this place had become the habitat of the Plague Regiment, no birds and insects could be heard singing in the surrounding area. Other than the choking whine of the forest and sea, there was no other sound.

However, Grim seemed unconcerned about this, standing alone on the edge of the stone platform, closing his eyes and ears to listen to the strange and vague sounds in the distance.

It wasn't the sound of wind or the rustling of leaves that he was listening to, but the vague message transmitted back from the flame runes thousands of miles away.

"Remy..."

"In!"

With a soft call from Grim, the Plague Poison Spirit Remy surfaced silently from his side.

"Take your Plague Corps to the east!" Grim gazed into the distance with a dark gaze, "Keep going east and give me all the cities and villages to destroy along the way..."

"Where is the target of the attack?" Remy inquired curiously.

"Jimmy Rea City!"

"Jimmy Rhea? That's the capital of the Zambis Empire!"

"Yes, there it is. Make a little more noise, but you must be careful yourself. Remember, when you encounter a 4th level holy knight, you can abandon your mission and run away. And until then, your mission is to expand the Plague Corps as much as possible and draw the enemy's attention to it..."

Remy's dark green pupils swiveled, and he basically understood Grim's ideological intentions completely.

Smiling at Grim, Remy summoned the plague behemoth and straddled up with the old poisonous woman, then rushed down the cliff with a whistle.

Immediately, in the thick forest around the cliff, the ancient trees trembled, the branches and leaves shook, and groups of plague creatures silently ran up, but in an instant, a terrifying tide of plague beasts formed in front of Grim's eyes.

Only when the plague creatures were almost gone, did Grim pull up his hood, cover his face, and turn around to stride towards the southeast.

After obtaining the corpse of that star beast, it was reasonable to say that this Enwek bit had lost its meaning of exploration for Grim, and should return to the family as soon as possible. However, considering the nourishing effect of those strange holy lights on his spiritual energy, Grim still felt that it was not too late to make a big profit before leaving.

It should be known that after returning to the Wizard World, Grim wanted to raise his 37 points spirit to 39 points, which was nearly impossible without two to three hundred years of work. And here, it could be done by simply killing some Paladins who posed no threat to him, so why wouldn't he do it!

The reason for dispatching Remy and its Plague Corps was to hold back and lure away those two damned 4th rank holy knights. He, on the other hand, took this opportunity to make a killing on those low and middle ranked Holy Knights, just to save up enough Holy Light for his own advancement to the 4th rank.

As for his real target... it was the guy who acted as a Starsea Lighthouse - 1st rank Black Iron Knight Catherine!