Age of Adepts

Within the Sorcery Chamber, Grim was sitting in silence.

A straight and exquisite leather jacket showed off his sturdy and strong figure completely, and the fire dragon skin tanned through a variety of special techniques was not as cool as it used to be with flames, and the hidden power had become more obscure and restrained.

With a sudden glance, it was difficult for ordinary people to perceive the presence of flame energy from this leather body. Even the surging outflowing flame breath on Grim's body had also converged a bit, and his entire body had become ordinary and pristine.

The Book of Filth and Darkness lay flat in front of Grim's eyes, and there was no need for him to turn the pages, the thick, tough pages flipping by themselves without wind, clattering with his heart. Whenever Grim thought of a certain sorcery or witch array, the Book of Filth and Darkness would automatically turn to that page, quietly waiting for him to read it.

The predecessor of the Book of Filth and Darkness, the Sacred Book of Wisdom, was worthy of being a caster's favorite, though!

The content stored in it covers almost every aspect of magic, sorcery, evil arts, divine arts, arcane arts and other spell-casting systems. In short, there is nothing that you can't imagine, nothing that it can't search for.

This was actually the most powerful aspect of the Book of Filth and Darkness.

It's not a weapon to be used in battle at all, but a treasure trove of knowledge with powerful auxiliary abilities!

But what was troubling was that Grim was not the original owner of the Wisdom Sacred Book after all, and had only forcefully devoured that Wisdom Sacred Book with his own soul armament. As such, Grim didn't have the power to freely read the contents of the Book of Filth and Darkness until now.

Every time he opened the Book of Filth and Darkness and consulted the same content, the relevant knowledge presented within was different. Just like a broken piece, every time Grim saw only a small part of a high-level knowledge puzzle. In order to obtain the complete content, one had to continuously sacrifice their mental energy for the acquisition of piece after piece of knowledge fragments.

Some pieces of knowledge were quite valuable, while others were purely a meaningless piece of nonsense... Therefore, in order to obtain valuable content, one had to keep sacrificing, keep hitting their luck, keep accumulating and putting pieces together....

When at some point, the fragments of knowledge he had acquired were complete enough, it would be possible to piece together what that higher knowledge had originally looked like!

So, as long as there were free moments and no external matters to interfere with, one of Grim's favorite things to do was to pick up the Book of Filth and Darkness and see if he was lucky enough to get some valuable content today.

And today, he clearly had good luck!

The Book of Filth and Darkness lay flat in front of him, a bit of violet mane encased in a transparent bubble floating quietly above the page. As Grim sacrificed 1 point of spiritual energy, the Book of Filth and Darkness clattered and began to flip rapidly, and eventually rested on a certain page.

This was a way to utilize the Book of Filth and Darkness that Grim had just figured out.

If one sacrificed spiritual energy to an item, the Book of Filth and Darkness would automatically identify and reveal the item's basic characteristics and related information. The amount of spiritual energy sacrificed also determined the level of information obtained.

His mental energy was now up to 44 points, sacrificing such a small amount was really nothing, and he would only need half an hour of meditation afterwards to recover.

Thus, with 1 point of mental energy devoted, Grim's mind tingled faintly, feeling that his mental energy had been intercepted by the Book of Filth and Darkness.

Immediately, a short line surfaced on the unfolded page.

"...Power of Faith..."

Four words........You sacrificed 1 point of spirit energy to get only four words in response to the Book of Filth and Darkness?

At this moment, Grim couldn't believe his eyes.

1 point of spirit power didn't sound like much, but that was 1 point of spirit power of a 4th rank mid-tier legendary fire witch. If it was converted to flame sorcery, that would mean 8 fireballs (1st rank), 4 lava fireballs (2nd rank), 2 berserk fireballs (3rd rank), and 1/2 blazing fireball (4th rank)....

If this 1 point of spirit power was used on the battlefield, it would mean that an army of 200-300 mortals armed with anti-magic equipment could be cleared.

But it was such a powerful 1 point of mental energy that was used to inquire about the origin of the Purple Mane, yet it only received a four-word response from the Book of Filth and Darkness... Grim was instantly afraid.

The only explanation for this was that the origin of the Purple Mane was far from simple, and most likely involved the super-tier sorcery in the hands of the Gloria Witch. That was why the Book of Filth and Darkness had adjusted the rating of this part of the information so high that it caused Grim to be secretly surprised.

However, the more the other party's information was worth 'money', the more helpful it would be to Grim!

Thus, after slowing down a bit, Grim directly sacrificed 8 points of mental energy for the second time.

8 points of mental energy was equivalent to 1/5 of Grim's own mental energy, and extracting so much at once, even he himself had to feel as if a hole had been poked in his brain, clamoring to flow outwards**.

A moment later, the pages on the Book of Filth and Darkness flipped, and after another stay a blank page slowly emerged with a few short lines of text.

"The substance belongs to a variant of the power of belief, and is a fusion of hardened sorcerous energy and powerful spiritual will, manifesting a power attribute of attributeless energy that can be considered a 'physical attack'..."

After reading this information, Grim was scratching his head a bit.

Paying such a high price, sacrificing 8 points of spirit, and obtaining all of it was actually information that he already knew... this... this sacrifice was too much of an injustice!

Thinking of this, Grim couldn't help but bite his teeth, and his spirit once again connected to the Book of Filth and Darkness, directly and simply sacrificing another 20 points.

20 points...this was equivalent to cutting off nearly half of Grim's spirit power in an instant.

Thus, as soon as the order to sacrifice was given, Grim shrieked ah, holding his head in his hands for a long time to recover.

A human was a human after all, not a machine or a pastry that could be cut down as much as it wanted. People were flesh and blood, and the spirit was even more fragile in its own way.

If one was on the battlefield, a smooth output of mental energy was used to draw the free magical energy in the space, thus inspiring one powerful sorcery after another. The process was smooth and gradual, so the mental backlash brought to Grim was within an acceptable range.

And now with nearly half of his mental energy being drained away in an instant, Grim would inevitably fall into a state of vertigo or mental exhaustion at this moment if he wasn't mentally tough enough.

Only after a good half a day did Grim Fang break free from his dizziness, barely settling down to see the fragments of knowledge projected from the Book of Filth and Darkness.

"Item name: Seed of Faith.

Item Category: Fae of the Power of Faith

Item Attributes: Non-attributable energy

Source: A fusion of hardened sorcerous energy and powerful spiritual will.

Specific analysis results: this power comes from a 4th stage peak level life form, initially estimated to be a member of the Wizard World. The life energy in his body is quenched and condensed to become his own unique sorcery energy, and then combined with his own belief power under the pull of a special force to become a powerful seed of belief.

This Seed of Belief is imbued with the unparalleled physical strength and the 'indestructible' belief power of its host, and when triggered, it can exist in the form of a Seed of Power, absorbing free magical energy or the disordered energy of the target lifeform to enrich itself and increase the strength of its power outburst.

Note, this belief power can be controlled by the host's spiritual consciousness to a certain extent because it is mixed with the host's spiritual will. Its specific outward manifestations are power directed bursts, delayed bursts, energy resonance, etc....

The power attribute of the Seed of Belief itself was attributeless energy, outwardly manifested as a 'physical attack'. The Seed of Belief is purple-black in color, with the power of a 5th-rank energy weapon mixed in. The initial estimate is... Power Gem!"

The dense intelligence information flowed into a stream of data into Grim's mind, which was then stored by the chip into categories, and then studied and analyzed in a targeted manner.

The source of the Purple Mane's power was Gloria's own life energy, which was mixed with her sorcery energy to enhance its power, and then it was fused with her own spiritual beliefs. This was what created this unique type of belief, a special form of power existence!

The item that most concerned Grim was undoubtedly the Level 5 item that had contributed to all of this.

The Power Gem...what was this thing? It seems like I've never heard of such an item before, could it also be some kind of artifact or wonder from a different plane?

Although the Book of Filth and Darkness didn't give any specific information about items like power gems, with this name, Grim would have a clear direction and goal if he wanted to dig deeper into the information.

But apparently not today!

Having sacrificed 29 points of spirit energy first, this was also a big burden for Grim. He has completed the energization of his body and spirit, but the preservation of flesh and blood still leaves him with all the flaws of a human.

When stepping onto the battlefield, he can dodge terrifying physical blows through energy transformation and power projection. But in his daily life, he still had to endure the inconveniences brought by his human body.

The human body was indeed too fragile compared to the other magical creatures!

The feeding system is complex, the digestive system is backward, the respiratory system is fragile, the bones are too thin, the blood vessels and organs lack the necessary protection, and the two together cannot support a body that is too large, and the body lacks effective energy storage organs....

When it comes to the human body, there are literally slots and flaws everywhere.

This also means that normal humans can only exist as bit creatures, extremely dependent on a stable and gentle bit environment, and have no ability to step outside of bit space.

However, the group of witches can rely on the human race to step out of this 'small and crowded' space and travel across the multiverse, relying on the knowledge inherited from their predecessors and the existence of supernatural powers.

If the power of the outside world could not be invoked and only relied on the bit of energy stored by the sorcerer itself, then the sorcerer's power would be drastically reduced by ten, or even a hundred times!

And it is perhaps the clever minds and the passing on of knowledge from one generation to the next that has allowed the wizard civilization to exist and thrive.