[Alice. Beginner Second Grade.
Profession: Leader of the Fate Witches.
Bodily Attributes: Strength 4 | Physique 3 | Agility 5 | Spirit 22
Profession Skills: Sense Fate, Divine, Fate Interference…]
The blue light slowly faded as Greem closed his eyes in exhaustion, rubbing his stinging temples.
Greem had just severely exhausted the Chip’s scanning and probing abilities to perform a comprehensive construction of Alice’s basic stats. Of course, this was only possible with Alice intentionally lowering her instinctual defenses and retaliatory instincts.
Otherwise, there weren’t many people in this world who could bear witness to the leader of the Witches of Fate’s abilities.
“How is it? Did you come to any conclusions?” Alice yawned slightly and stretched her body as if she hadn’t seen Greem’s glowing blue eyes.
Everyone had their little secrets. There was no need to uncover everything– that would make life a bit too boring!
“Your body is too weak!” Greem solemnly and unamusedly said, “Could your identity as a Witch of Fate also devour your basic attributes? Apart from your Spirit which has gone past twenty-two points and exceeded the threshold for Second Grade, the rest of your body’s attributes are still at the same level as when you were First Grade. In fact, some of them have even fallen slightly.”
“My Spirit has reached twenty-two points? I thought it was only twenty-one. Hehehe, it seems the Staff of Divination truly suits me!”
“Don’t change the topic. Listen to what I’m saying,” Greem rubbed his temple even harder now, “Judging from your attributes, I strongly suspect that your unique profession has certain energy-draining traits.”
“What do you mean?”
“It means that your profession leans toward Spirit, very much like most elementium adepts. Moreover, your profession will slowly absorb the other attributes to feed your Spirit. That allows your Spirit to improve at a rate greater than even elementium adepts!”
“Eh?!” Alice was undoubtedly very interested in this topic, “Doesn’t that mean my Spirit will improve much faster than yours?! This…this is a good thing!”
“Don’t just look at the good parts!” Greem scolded, “It can also burden your Strength, Physique, and Agility, causing them to decrease continuously. If this keeps going, you might become as weak as a chick, as frail as paper, and as slow as a snail.”
“So what about that? I’m a Witch of Fate anyway. I only need to point, do some behind-the-scenes work, and leave all the fighting and killing to you guys.” Alice was still maintaining her nonchalant attitude.
“No, you’re wrong,” Greem shook his head and said, “The Witches of Fate of the past might have tried many ways to raise their Spirit. Based on the characteristics of your profession, it’s very likely that only methods used to nurture Spirit were highly effective. Even if you tried to train your Strength or cultivate your Physique, the returns must have been inferior. They might even have shown signs of regression. That’s probably what led to this unfortunate practice of Fate Witches only focusing on Spirit.”
“You are saying…”
“I’m being very clear. You should formulate a more well-rounded and optimized attribute improvement plan based on the characteristics of your profession. It doesn’t matter whether they are plans for nurturing the Spirit or the body; it will benefit your Spirit in the end!”
Alice couldn’t help but be shocked.
“You…you aren’t making me promote the stuff of body refining adepts among the Fate Witches, are you?”
Alice felt the entire world spin and her future go dark when the thought of frail Fate Witches being shut in closed rooms and soaked in tubs of poison to train their bodies popped into her mind.
Sofia was probably the only one who would enjoy a life like that!
Greem managed to guess Alice’s thoughts. He chuckled and said, “It’s not an impossible plan, as long as you lot are willing.”
“No! I will never agree!” Alice immediately panicked, “I…we…can compensate through eating.”
Er…very well, then. Customizing your diets is indeed one way to do it!
“Oh, right. Apart from my attributes, are there any other problems with my advancement this time?”
Greem brooded for a moment and couldn’t help but speak with a hint of frustration in his voice, “You Fate Witches have given up on almost all defensive and combat magic, only keeping those few profession-related skills you have. That’s why I suspect that the profession skills of Fate Witches have to be immense!”
Alice closed her eyes and sensed for a moment when she heard this. A moment later, she finally opened her pretty eyes again, “I had already mastered divination before I became the Witch of Fate. After I became the Witch of Fate, I gained mastery over the ability to sense fate. This time, through my advancement, I only obtained one new ability– Fate Interference. Its power is very intangible, and even I can’t completely figure it out.”
“Oh? What use does it have?”
“It seems…maybe, probably…to allows me to change the trajectory of fate for certain very minute matters. Moreover, the use of this power requires me to exhaust 1,500 points of the power of Fate.”
“How much power of Fate do you have stored up now?”
“13,511 points!”
“How could you have so much?” Greem was shocked, “I remember you mentioned the last time that our whole affair on the Goblin Plane only netted you four thousand points.”
“Perhaps it’s because of this!”
Alice mysteriously smiled and flipped her slender fingers palm up. A delicate card materialized out of thin air. The card spun between her slender fingers, and Greem could clearly see the Staff of Divination and its unique design displayed on the face of the card.
[Beep. Detecting abnormal high-energy aggregated Fate object. Form of existence: Magical staff. Sealed.]
What exactly was Fate? Wasn’t it supposed to be an intangible existence? How was it possible for a nearly solid energy shell of Fate to appear?
Greem shook his head in frustration. He was utterly confused by the Chip’s data.
If Alice could lend him the Staff of Divination for some time to do research, then he might be able to get some answers. However, Greem could only let out a deep sigh and shake his head helplessly with a bitter smile.
His current strength did not allow him to research such a profound and superior power. Even Alice herself, the leader of the Witches of Fate, was only using it on instinct. She was probably ignorant of the true nature and origin of the power of Fate!
Greem was only Second Grade now. He was still stuck on the level of elemental manipulation and mastery. It wasn’t until he reached Fourth Grade and finally gained a preliminary mastery over some lower planar laws that he would have a chance at continuing research on a power as advanced as that of Fate.
Greem lowered his head to recall a particular memory and theorized, “It is said that this Staff of Divination used to be a pseudo-artifact that a human God of Divination of Faen Plane bestowed upon their own god messenger. When this god died in the war between the human and elven pantheons, the Staff was lost to the hands of outsiders. The fact that you obtained so much power of Fate in a single instance might have something to do with the fall of that Divination God!”
“These things are too profound. We had best take our time to research it only in the future. Speaking of which, you just looked at my attributes. What about yours and Mary’s?” Alice asked out of curiosity.
Greem smiled and waved his hand. Fire elementium quickly gathered and formed into rows of text before Alice’s eyes.
Greem. Intermediate Second Grade.
Profession: Elementium Adept (Fire Specialization).
Bodily Attributes: Strength 11 (18) | Physique 13 (20) | Agility 10 (8) | Spirit 26 (29).
Note: Attributes in brackets refer to post-transformation statistics. Profession Skills: Body of Flames, Flame Fiend Transformation.
Apprentice Level Skills: Fire Arrows, Flame Serpents, Burning Hand, Magical Fireball…
First Grade Skills: Magma Fireball, Meteor Shower, Fire Core Explosion, Firestorm, Fire Prison…
Second Grade Skills: Doomsday Volcano, Scarlet Firestorm, Demonic Wall of Fire, Meteor Crash…
Compared to Alice’s profession skills, the fire spells that Greem possessed as a specialized Second Grade fire adept were innumerable. Be it the auxiliary Fire Stream, the defensive Lava Shield, or even the offensive Doomsday Volcano, Greem’s crammed skill list utterly dazzled Alice. Her small cherry mouth opened wider and wider until she could no longer close it.
Mary. Beginner Second Grade.
Profession: Bloodline Adept (Vampire).
Bodily Attributes: Strength 13 | Physique 14 | Agility 26 | Spirit 17.
Profession Skills: The Embrace.
Apprentice Level Skills: Blood Mist, Blood Bullet, Bat Transformation, Blood-drain Regeneration, Blood Sense…
First Grade Skills: Contract of Blood, Blood Frenzy, Blood Manipulation…
Second Grade Skills: Blood Mist Corrosion, Bloody Claw, Boiling Blood…
Compared to Alice, Mary’s attributes were almost perfect. Back on Earth, she would have been a superhero that could compare to Wonder Woman. However, here in the World of Adepts, Mary was still far from the most powerful fighting force.
The so-called strongest in this world only referred to those Fourth Grade adepts.
However, in his heart, Greem knew very well that even the Fourth Grade powerhouses that dominated the World of Adepts were nothing compared to the Great Adepts that had stepped out beyond the bounds of the planes.
The Great Adepts who could freely travel in the space beyond the realms, who could pass through the energy storms in search of suitable planar spaces to rob, were the true core powers of the adepts!
Compared to them, practitioners in the World of Adepts were like ants hiding in their nest. Individually, there might be one or two of them who were significantly more significant than the rest. However, in the eyes of the Great Adepts, even the largest of ants was no more than an ant. There was no possibility that they could pose a threat.
If the ants jumped around too freely, the Great Adepts only needed a single finger to crush them!
That was why Greem tried his best to maintain a low profile, even after he had advanced to Second Grade. He didn’t want to fall under the watch of those ultra-powerhouses prematurely.
Otherwise, his fate would be decided by the whim of those individuals!
