Chapter 29 (1/2)

Greem was completely ignorant to the events that occurred after he went back to the tower.

As to be expected, anytime something good happened to him, it was almost always accompanied by misery.

Before today, he thought he would have time to slowly and quietly developed himself, but, after the day’s event, he realized that things would not be so easy for him.

His previous peaceful life had made him think that his life as an Apprentice could carry on forever at a gradual pace. But, after today’s heart-pounding encounter, he had realized the huge gap between a Beginner Apprentice and an Advanced Apprentice.

As he had witnessed the extraordinary potential of Advanced Apprentices, and how they utilized magic spells that worked perfectly with their talents, Greem realized how slow and backward his progress was.

Following his original development path, perhaps it would take him three to four years of daily meditation, and ceaselessly pursuing the acc.u.mulation of magical knowledge, before he could become an Intermediate Apprentice. To become an Advanced Apprentice would take Greem at least another ten years of work. As for becoming a Pseudo-Adept? With Greem’s current potential and innate talent, he didn’t have much hope for reaching that level.

As an Apprentice Adept, every tiny increase of his Spirit was unimaginably valuable to him, and it only resulted from hard work. His innate talent was no better than the others, thus, if he wanted to grow faster than the rest of the Apprentices, the only way was to seize more resources and to get sufficient magical knowledge.

Aside from these, there was no other workaround.

And, in order to improve the power of his magic spells, his first priority was to increase the quality of his body. All magic spells, no matter whether they were support spells or long-ranged attacks, were supported by the body of the caster. Magical spells could only unleash their full strength when used by a caster who had increased the quality of his body.

After safely returning to the Tower from the jaws of death, Greem immediately locked himself up in his room and starting to ponder on his future path.

Thinking on the four major branches of Adepts, Greem carefully weighed the advantages and disadvantages of each, a.s.sociating them with his own ability and quietly evaluating his future.

Body Refining Adept.

To become a Body Refining Adept, the first requirement was a dauntless will, which was as firm as steel. In order to stimulate and strengthen the body, these Body Refining Adepts had to be willing to do anything.

As an example of a training method for a Body Refining Adepts, they would soak themselves in a container full of toxin all days. Venoms from scorpions, snakes, spiders, Septmortem Flower, Nightmare Gra.s.s, Zombie Powder… In short, no matter where the toxin came from, they would use anything they could get their hands on. From mild to strong, from weak to powerful, using all sorts of deadly toxin they kept stimulating every single cell in their body over and over again, forcing the body to release its potential, and strengthening it bit by bit.

Of course, when they were doing this, surviving was definitely the most important thing. They would have to figure out the maximum amount of toxin they could endure, so they wouldn’t die from the toxin.

As they progressed through their body refining process, as they stepped over the beginner threshold, they would gain resistance to some toxins, and perhaps no ordinary toxin in the mortal world could harm them. If they wanted to go further, the only way was to restlessly search for rarer, more powerful magic toxins.

Therefore, as a Body Refining Adept, perhaps the first half of their life would be used up figuring out the maximum amount of toxins their body could take and hunting for those rare magic toxins that worked best for their bodies.

Of course, there were also some Body Refining Adepts that used objects with frightening radioactive characteristics to stimulate and refined their body, and there were some who would specifically search for harsh natural environments, using the terrifying forces of nature to push themselves forward.

All in all, there were a variety of methods to train in this branch. But no matter which method one used, a Body Refining Adept would have to endure constant pain and hards.h.i.+p. Only then they would have a frightening body that no ordinary man could ever compare with.

If Greem wanted to become a Body Refining Adept, first he would need to find a complete method of body refining. After that, he would have to search for all the poisonous items he would need to use in the long period of hardening himself. Also, during the process of body refining, he would become extremely weak, thus he would need better, more nutritious meals to nourish his weakened body.

Also, he would also need to find some suitable fighting techniques, so he could unleash the power of his improved Physique and Strength.

After a.n.a.lyzed these basic situations, Greem felt extremely dubious about becoming a Body Refining Adept. Putting aside the extreme difficulty of body refining techniques, acquiring the precious nutritious foods required to match up with the body refining process would be tough.

Bloodline Adept.

Obviously, this was the easiest choice to gain a strong short-term fighting ability.

When talking about Bloodline Adepts, biological modification was quite a common topic, as it was the most popular method among Apprentice Adepts. With just a ‘small’ magical ceremony, they could transplant a highly efficient organ from a powerful demon, possibly giving them special abilities in the process.

Most of the Apprentice Adepts would never say no to such a simple method of strengthening themselves, wherever conditions permitted, and they would always carry out certain degrees of modification to themselves. However, this was easier said than done! This came with the risk of having your bloodline contaminated, losing vitality, or transplanted a c.r.a.ppy organ that didn’t provide good abilities.

For Apprentice Adepts like Greem, who lived in the Magical Swamp, isolated from the outside world, what kind of powerful demons could they find? With their ability and status, it was just impossible for them to acquire organs those real frightening demons. Therefore, if these Apprentices could find a usable piece of a demon that matched up to the rank of an Advanced Apprentice, that would be incredibly valuable.