Age of Adepts

Alice's return to normal was just as unknown as her assassination, almost from start to finish.

At least, except for a few people who were interested, not many people knew the whole story.

The Tower of Destiny, after being closed for half a month, had returned to the public's attention once again.

Unknowingly, the trinity of the legendary fire witch Grim, the fresh blood queen Mary, and the Fate Witch leader Alice had formed a small circle that frightened the world.

4th rank... three 4th rank....

If it was placed inside the three major witch organization forces, it really wasn't much. But if it were to be placed within a silent wizard family, it would be a bit appalling.

At least after hearing the news of Mary's promotion, the entire Scattered Tower Forest had a strange situation where the outside was hot and the inside was cold. The small and medium level wizard families were extremely excited, believing that this was a sign that the wizard community in the middle of the continent was about to flourish, and also a sign that a powerful wizard was about to appear.

The appearance of this powerful sorcerer would also reverse the lack of a necessary core in the middle of the continent, which was always in disarray!

But opposed to the eager expectations of the low and middle ranked witches were the reactions of those high ranked witches.

Since time immemorial, the scattered Tallinn region in the middle of the continent had been a loose alliance of wizard families, each ruling and managing their own territorial areas. With this model, they had resisted the invasion and infiltration of the forces of the three major sorcerer organizations, and had successfully continued this tradition for thousands of years.

Now, a Crimson Family had suddenly emerged from the Scattered Ground Tallinn Association, which actually possessed two 4th ranked witches. Moreover, what caused the remaining 4th rank witches a headache was the fact that these two 4th rank witches were a couple.

This... was a bit beyond the capacity of the Scattered Earth Talin Association!

It's not that the Scatterland Tallinn Society can't have a core, but it's best not to show up while you're still alive....

After all, the emergence of the core meant a tilt in resources, territory, and power.

In the process, the existing power pattern of the Scattered Earth Tallinn would definitely undergo a drastic change.

If all of these things converged towards that so-called core, it was also possible for the Scattered Ground Tallinn to emerge as a massive power similar to the three great wizard organizations.

And that was something that none of the high-ranking sorcerers wanted to see!

First of all, the three existing witch organizations in the wizarding world: the Silver Alliance, the Witches of the North, and the Wizarding Association, would not allow it.

It wasn't that the three major witch organizations couldn't really stomach the Scattered Tallinn region, but they were worried that the invasion would cause a fierce resistance from the local witch families during the course of the invasion, thus causing damage to their own power. In this way, they would crumble a few of their own teeth, but they might cheapen the other two competitors who were also eyeing the area.

It was out of this concern that the three major witch organizations secretly agreed that none of them would be allowed to infect or invade the central part of the country, using the Scattered Tallinn region as their buffer zone.

However, even if they did not invade, they would never allow another powerful witch organization to emerge in the Shanti Tallinn that could be compared to them. Therefore, once the nucleus emerges, it is inevitable that it will have to face all kinds of blows from them, explicit or implicit!

Secondly, not to mention the outside forces, even within the Scattered Earth Tallinn, I'm afraid they don't want to see anything like a 'core'.

Without the core, you 4th stage sorcerers would still be the kings and overlords of the region you are in, and would be able to dominate all of its resources. But once the core appeared, the resources, territories and power in their hands would inevitably be invaded by the outside world.

Instead of being a member of a huge sorcerer organization and taking orders from a powerful sorcerer, they would be more comfortable and free than being the king of the region.

Therefore, to the core, the 4th ranked witches of Scattered Tallinn were probably the group that would be the most repulsive and least desirable!

And then secondly, there was more than one 4th rank wizard with a core dream.

As a veteran 4th rank sorcerer, the Scattered Ground Tallinn Association's President, Fried, had spent nearly a thousand years to create the current situation. Doesn't he want to make the Scattered Earth Tallinn Association into a powerful force similar to the three major sorcerer organizations?

It's not that I don't want to, but it's really hard to do....

There were a total of thirteen local 4th stage witches in the middle of the continent, all of them old guys who had been honed and nurtured over hundreds of years. Their strengths were both strong and weak, but it would be near impossible for those strong men to completely suppress any of them.

This also meant that once any two 4th stage wizards went to war, it would be difficult to achieve a quick victory. The most likely scenario was still a lose-lose situation, with both wizard families falling at the same time!

It was this balance of power that also allowed the middle of the continent to maintain a certain degree of delicate balance.

Although Freed had spent great effort to build the Scattered Earth Talyn Association, and even more to bring in that Vice President Milva. But in essence, Milva was only slightly closer to him.

Once Freed wanted to start a rumbling high level war to try and unify and integrate the entire Scattered Tallinn region. By then, whether or not Milva would still support him, or to what extent... it was all unpredictable!

It was because this was a very difficult matter, and the road to success was full of thorns, which caused Fried to only maintain an openly cooperative and united Diaspora Tallinn Association. But behind the scenes, all the 4th rank wizards were still minding their own business, and it was simply difficult to unify and deploy the resources and overall strength of the higher ranks.

However, in such a situation, Grim was born and the Crimson Family emerged strong, but it brought this ancient and terrible question back to everyone's face.

Can Grim become the so-called core or not, does he have the heart to become such a core... these questions need answers!

Thus, while the Crimson Family thrived, all sorts of intrigues followed and became a terrible problem for Grim.

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

Middle of the continent, Kadatheron region.

The Ancient Castle of Blood.

The ancient castle is located deep in a not-so-high mountain range, with only a winding forest path leading to the red maple town outside the mountains.

The town had a population of nearly a thousand and the infrastructure was almost complete.

For a long time, the Vik family, a rather ancient vampire family, had occupied and ruled this territory.

The Castle of Blood is their habitat, and the nearby town of Red Maple is their hard-earned captive and cultivated blood food. Just to maintain their obvious rule of not scaring off the lords with rumors of blood sucking, the Viks are very restrained in their hunt for blood food!

However, unfortunately, the Vik family was completely defeated in a witch family war.

Not only was their blood lord killed by the enemy, but the entire foundation of the Vik family was shattered in one fell swoop. Along with that, all the hereditary territories belonging to the Vik Family also fell into the hands of outsiders.

Naturally, it could only be other vampire clans that could encroach on the Vick Family territory so quickly.

And this Old Blood Castle had also changed hands three times before it fell into the hands of the powerful Hennethorne family. However, now with Mary's transgression, all the vampire families had to either relocate beyond the middle of the continent, or submit to Mary's presence.

Therefore, after going round and round for half a day, this ancient castle of blood that once represented the pride of the Vick family was also dedicated to Mary by the Hennethorne family with both hands, becoming the most important stronghold of the vampire branch of the Crimson family in the middle of the continent.

The Eerie Blood Castle was a combination of five different styles of castle fortresses, which functioned as both a noble castle and a military fortress. Four of the smaller fortresses scattered around had no regard for the comfort and leisure aspects, instead focusing unilaterally on defensive power.

As a result, these fortresses were built solidly, with oddly narrow entrances and doors and windows. Most of the passageways could barely allow a heavily armed guard to pass through, while those located in the core areas of the attack and defense were densely packed with various secret castles, secret passages and hidden firing ports.

The entire outer perimeter of the Castle of Blood has greatly increased the physical defenses of the place at the expense of all comfort and amusement. To put it bluntly, with only two to three hundred elite warriors, the Ancient Blood Fortress would be able to withstand the siege of thousands of enemies with these fortresses.

The main body of the castle, which was guarded by the four fortresses, was beautifully and magnificently built.

The Vampire clan's morbid pursuit of perfection, elegance and nobility was evident in this building. If it wasn't for the fact that this place was far away from the human world, and if the atmosphere here wasn't too eerie, many visitors might have taken this place as a castle for the aristocrats' leisure and entertainment.

Inside the main hall on the second floor of the castle, there were currently a large number of guests, bustling with activity.

Naturally, those who were able to move around here were vampires dressed in fine noble clothes.

Most of the male vampires were dressed in a straight tuxedo with a red bow tie, a gentleman's hat, a civilized staff in their hands, and two finely manicured moustaches under their noses. The female vampires, on the other hand, were all dressed in gorgeous one-piece dresses with different colored sun hats, light, sheer silk gloves on their wrists, and delicate, small, high-heeled shoes on their feet.

They were all well-dressed and polite, showing the gentle and refined temperament and arrogant and gentlemanly demeanor of human aristocrats to the fullest.

Unfortunately, inside such an occasion, they were all just pawns and lackeys who listened to what people said. The big shots who truly decided the future of vampires, on the other hand, were all gathered within the third floor chamber, arguing rhetorically.

"With the strength of our vampire clan, we could have formed another new witch family. Lord Mary, look, do you think we should simply break away from that Crimson Family and use the Old Blood Castle as our home place..."

A vampire whose strength was no more than rank 2 was making a generous speech, but before he could finish his sentence, a blood light sliced through him and his entire body instantly exploded into a puff of purple and black blood.