Age of Adepts

It was a hidden cavern located in the mountains.

It was dark and deep.

The air was filled with a cold and austere frightening atmosphere.

Suddenly, a profound light lit up in the absolute darkness, which briefly illuminated this underground cavern that was a hundred square feet in size.

Most of the cave was empty, and only in the center was a 5*4 meter square stone pool dug out, in which a sticky and fishy black liquid overflowed.

In the midst of the strange sound of water, an unusually white woman's face emerged from the black liquid, followed by a pale, red patched body and long, disheveled hair.

As soon as it was out of the water, the strange woman suddenly opened her eyes, revealing a pair of brown pupils filled with endless hatred and anger. And looking at the appearance of her eyebrows and eyes, it was indeed that Dark Witch Shani.

"Good... Very good... Grim, I remember your name. Our hatred is endless, and I'll make sure you'll never rest in peace!"

After cursing and venting a few words of rage, Shani was only just barely able to stand up from the small stone pool, this newly condensed body feeble and humble, sensing the cold and damp air of the underground cavern, and shuddering with excitement.

Her previous body had been destroyed in the hands of that legendary fire witch, while this body had just been condensed from the Spiritual Energy Pool, with zero magic resistance, almost as good as an ordinary human girl, which was why it couldn't withstand the underground gale blowing here.

But these were not the focus of her attention.

Shani lowered her head and looked at her empty chest, her pupils widening.

Where was the jewel of shadows? Did you not bring back the Shadow Jewel when your soul fled after your 'death'?

After searching over and over again, there was no trace of the Shadow Jewel, and this time Shani completely exploded. It didn't matter if other equipment and props were lost, but this Shadow Jewel was the original 'witch's weapon' that the Dark Witch's line treated as a treasure.

If it was lost, Shani couldn't help but shiver once again, not daring to imagine what would happen when she returned to her family.

"Grim... I hate you..."

Hoarse shrieks of rage circled over and over inside the dark, deep underground caverns for a long time.

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

"Hey, isn't she a 4th rank witch? Why is your resistance so weak? That Shadow Assassin carried it for at least ten seconds, how come she couldn't even resist it for five seconds..."

As he slurred and sighed endlessly, Grim swiftly cleaned up the battlefield.

The first to be ingested into his hand was naturally the strange shadow jewel that resembled a black pebble. Attacked by the golden flames, that Dark Witch Shani instantly turned to ash without even a chance to utter a word after her protective force field shattered.

And naturally, this Shadow Jewel was 'left behind'!

Even though Grim was already a rank 4 Sorcerer, when he touched this Shadow Jewel of rank 5 with his own hands, he could still feel the faint tingling sensation coming from his palm and other places.

This was because he had a high constitution and outstanding resistance to withstand the erosion of the pure shadow energy emitted from the Jewel of Shadow. If it were a 3rd rank sorcerer, I'm afraid that even the flesh and blood on his arm would be eroded into shadow matter by the Shadow Jewel!

That massive dark core quickly began to collapse and crumble as Shani's 'death' and the Shadow Jewel changed hands. The Class Shadow Realm that was shrouded over the entire Maplewood Town also began to dissipate a little bit.

Without the pull and tug of the Dark Origin Gauntlet, the instinctive repulsion between the Morian Plane and the Shadow Plane would cause them to separate on their own. However, Maplewood Town, as an overlapping area where the two planes overlapped, would also have more or less a portion of the shadow power remaining.

It would take a long period of time for the place to fully recover to repair the chaotic bit laws.

And with the disappearance of the Class Shadow Realm, the power of the Morian Dimension's laws regained control of the land, and also allowed the power of the realm that had been suppressed on the Holly Witch and the Two-Headed Witch to crumble away on its own.

The spiritual perception of Holly Sorcerer and Qiu Lisa slowly extended, and a slight contact with Grim's spiritual consciousness also revealed the final result of the battle.

Grim was still there, while that dark witch Shani's scent had disappeared without a trace, wasn't the outcome of the battle clear enough?

"Congratulations Your Excellency!" The Holly Witch was the first to send a sorcerous message.

"I knew that sinister woman could not be a match for Lord Grim...congratulations!" Naturally, Qiu Lisa couldn't do without some compliments and flattery.

To be honest, although the two of them were talking easily, they were both churning inside their hearts.

Who was Shani? A 4th level mid-level dark witch who has been famous for over 500 years!

Her own strength was already terrifying, plus she had already planned for it, and it wasn't like the two witches hadn't seen that setup last night. If they were to exchange them with Grim, they would have to account for it even if they had ten lives.

But now, when they woke up, the dark witch had disappeared and only the legendary fire witch was left in the arena, and the situation was self-evident. Even that proud and arrogant Holly Sorcerer had to lower his head and quietly show his affection to Grim.

After all, in the Wizard World, great individual strength was the fundamental guarantee of power and profit!

Without power, the so-called power and interests were nothing more than passing clouds.

As he dealt with the two 'enthusiastic sorcerers'' constant advances, Grim examined some of the valuable 'legacy' left behind by that dark sorceress.

Through this night's battle, Grim had obtained a 5th-rank Shadow Orb and a 4th-rank Shadow Diamond from the Dark Witch's body, and then extracted two pieces of equipment and one sorcery item from her ashes after her 'death'.

Unfortunately, the other sorcery equipment obviously couldn't withstand Grim's series of violent attacks, and they were all completely destroyed.

"Chip, is that Shani dead or not?" Grim squeezed a magic earring with his finger and frowned.

"Drops, no residue of soul breath was detected at the scene... Initially, the other party has been reborn in another region with the help of the Spiritual Energy Pool!"

Grim didn't feel strange in the slightest about Chip's answer.

The greatest trait of the Dark Witch lineage was the immortality of their souls, but this immortality was not in the true sense of the word, but was achieved with the help of a spirit energy pool.

Every time they went out, they would leave their soul imprint in a spiritual energy pool in a safe area. This way, if they encountered danger outside and faced a death crisis, they would be able to use a special dark sorcery to allow their souls to escape back into the pool.

In this way, it would only take ten days and half a month for the flesh* body to recover, and they would also be able to condense a new body and come back to life.

But the only thing that wasn't known right now was whether that Dark Witch Shani's soul had escaped back to the Wizard World or was struggling to be revived somewhere in the Morian Plane. If it was the latter, I'm afraid we'd still have to be on the lookout for her sudden attack in the rest of the trip.

Truth be told, a 4th level dark witch who was hiding and eyeing her, despite losing her equipment and props, still possessed a considerable threat to Grim.

While sneering heedlessly and imagining that Shani Witch's furious appearance, Grim carefully appraised the three items in his hand with the aid of the chip.

Two rank 4 witch weapons, and a magical item.

Shani was worthy of being a core member of the Northland Dark Witch line, and the equipment and witchcraft tier on her body alone had to be a few notches stronger than the witches who fought alone in the middle of the continent. But now, all of these were clearly cheap to Grim.

Item name: Breath of Darkness

Categories: Magic Earrings

Item Attributes: Darkness

Item Level: 4

Item Base Strength: +3 Agility +2 Spirit +2 Physique

Object Effect: Ability to freely enter, leave, and travel through areas where shadow energy is present, unaffected by any magical boundaries. While in the shadows, the wielder automatically evades detection by prophetic sorcery and continues to repair flesh damage.

Item Skill: Shadow Assault (can gather a lightless dagger to continuously attack a target for 75 seconds, attack strength 300 degrees, cooldown 40 seconds)

Looking at the strange magical earring, Grim couldn't help but lick his lips, drinking in the skill it came with under his breath.

The Shadow Assault was worthy of a good shade, and could be left alone as soon as it was cast on the target. A dagger made of darkness power will continue to pester that target without stopping. 300 degrees of attack strength is not high, so it can only be considered harassment for 4th level enemies, but it's more than enough to deal with 3rd level enemies that you are inconvenienced to face.

Moreover, the duration of Shadow Assault was 75 seconds and the cooldown time was 40 seconds, which meant that every 40 seconds you would be able to summon a 3rd rank beginner free Shadow Slayer, which was quite effective.

It was just that the power attribute of this earring didn't suit Grim, and once the shadow energy in it ran out, he would have to go to those dark wizards to recharge it. But Grim had the Shadow Jewel in his hands now, so how could he worry about the lack of shadow energy!

Satisfied with the first sorcerer's weapon, Grim took care to appraise the second item.

Item name: Ring of Shadows

Categories: Magic Rings

Item Attributes: Darkness

Item Level: 4

Item Base Strength: +2 Agility +1 Spirit +1 Physique

Item Effect: Double the duration of all Darkness curses, double the damage of all Shadows.

Item Skill: Dark Summoning (able to summon a 4th level beginner Phantom Slayer)

It was also a pretty good 4th level Darkness Sorcery, and extremely compatible with that Shani's origin attribute.

From this, one could also imagine that that Shani must have put a lot of thought into creating these two origin sorcery weapons. Unfortunately, they had now become Grim's trophies!