Chapter 443
Chapter 443 Closing In
Mineur Valley.
Bright sunlight couldn’t pierce the dense canopy, causing confusing darkness to swallow the forest. A thin mist covered the entire forest in a deathly silence. One couldn’t even hear the cries of insects or the calls of birds.
A black shape suddenly emerged from the shadow of a tree during this silence. The shadow quickly formed into the shape of a human.
The mist dispersed with a gushing sound, revealing a mysterious adept with a handsome and cool face; he wore a sky-blue robe.
The strange adept looked around him after appearing. He stomped his feet on the ground lightly when he discovered no abnormalities. He sent a chilling gust of air into the earth, where it activated a particular array.
A thick Snake-Necked Flower silently emerged from the earth. Its layers of closed petals slowly opened up, and a muscular man wearing leather armor stepped out of the flower. He wore a golden circlet on his head, metal claws on his hands, and had a boorish look to him.
Meryl had picked up an unnecessary burden for herself!
As a newly advanced adept herself, she didn’t have many resources in her reserves. Not to mention the fact that she had a whole bunch of subordinate clan apprentices that required cultivation and training. Now Kodar’s sister from a different mother was added to the equation. This massive burden would most likely delay Meryl’s own plans for improvement and development.
Greem didn’t approve of Meryl’s actions. However, he thought for a while and still sent a message to Snorlax and Gargamel. He had them increase Meryl’s resource allowance by a little bit.
She was a member of Greem’s faction, after all. If Greem wanted to maintain their relationship, he needed to provide her with practical benefits like cheaper resources and free guidance. There had to be something more than their simple relationship as teacher and disciple. This assistance would also help her save more resources and use them in strengthening and improving herself.
It was the same for any other adept that Greem wanted to draw into his faction. Consequently, the costs of gathering a group of people were far higher than an outsider could ever imagine.
Just a simple example: why were so many apprentices willing to accept harsh magical contracts so that they could join an adept clan or organization?
It was all so that they could obtain resource allowances and a free advancement ceremony when they reached pseudo-adept level. If one were to convert the price of an advancement ceremony and all its required materials to magical crystals, it would cost a minimum of ten thousand magical crystals.
A wandering pseudo-adept would probably need more than seven or eight years to accumulate that many crystals on their own. Furthermore, most of the resources required for the ceremony were not sold on the market. The adept clans had monopolized all of them.
This complication further increased the difficulty of preparing for an advancement ceremony!
Many wandering adepts who were forced into a corner had no choice but to break into the resource sites of an established clan, all so they could steal some rare resources they couldn’t manage to find on the market. Many were killed during such reckless acts.
That was also how the hatred between wandering adepts and clans came to be.
Sabrina arrived to report something while Greem was spacing out over this issue.
Yuri and Morse had come again!
This was probably the twelfth time they had visited him in the past five days!
Judging from their expressions every time they came, the situation at the front line was growing ever more desperate. The victims had only been servants and guards in the past. However, in the last two days, the list of victims had increased to include apprentices.
In just two days, two intermediate apprentices had gone missing from the Iron Ring Mine, along with an advanced apprentice. The Second Class resource site had also lost an intermediate apprentice.
The disappearance of these people was bizarre. No signs of fighting could be found at the scene. It was almost as if they had snuck out of their rooms, then walked out of the defensive array of their own accord.
Greem had an idea about what was going on here, but he didn’t reveal anything to these ‘subordinates’ of his. After all, he had no means of ascertaining who he could trust in these dire circumstances. For the sake of secrecy, Greem decided not to see anyone. Instead, he had Sabrina make them leave every single time.
The two apprentice captains sat anxiously in the hall on the first floor. They repeatedly raised their heads and looked at the door.
Despair and anger appeared on their faces when they saw only Sabrina walk in with no trace of Adept Greem.
Once, they had viewed the great and famous Sir Flame Demon as an idol of theirs. But now…
“Sir Greem is busy with his experiments. He doesn’t have the time to see you now,” Sabrina paused for a moment, her red mechanical eye flashing, “He wants me to tell you that this is only a harassment tactic employed by the enemy. As long as you… ”
“Harassment, harassment,” Yuri, who was suffering the most pressure, was the first to snap, “All of the apprentices have already moved into the same room to prevent the enemy from attacking, yet we still can’t stop apprentices from disappearing. Protecting the Iron Ring Mine might be my duty, but Sir Greem has to share part of the responsibility as well. If Sir still refuses to come out, we will have to ask for help from the clan.”
Yuri turned and left without even looking at Sabrina’s expression.
Apprentice Captain Morse also sighed before silently walking out with his head hung low.
Greem stood by the shadow of a narrow window in the higher levels of the tower, quietly watching the departing silhouettes of the two apprentices. He silently spoke to the chip.
“Chip, how long until the data model is done?”
“Beep. 36 hours, 49 minutes, 52 seconds.”
If Greem were to include the time required to craft the golem, this meant that he would need at least another forty-eight hours before he could take any action.
Greem narrowed his eyes. The chilling gleam in the depths of his eyes became even sharper and resolute.