Chapter 4
While most of the demons were backing away, in fear of the magical flame which had just appeared in the air, Greem jumped off the path, dug out the soil underneath a nearby Killer Tree, used his magic flame to burn the thick tree root, and finally saw the material that he had come to harvest today.
Between the tangled roots and pale white human bones were some small pulpy root nodes. Some were white, some were red, and there were even a few purple colored ones. Greem suppressed the disgust he felt and, using a small knife that he carried with him, he carefully harvested three of the purple nodes and placed them into his waist pocket. Afterward, he quickly rushed back to the path.
If this task wasn’t so important, he wouldn’t ever step outside of boundaries of the path! Even though he had moved with great speed, those demons, who had previously been running away, had, once again, gathered around. Also of note, the Bloodsucking Rattans, which hung from the Killer Trees, now occupied the space he had been in when digging up the roots.
If he had been a second slower, he wouldn’t have been able to escape without a tough fight!
Actually, thanks to his new ‘elemental vision’, he was able to directly find the Killer Tree’s core roots. If it was before, he would have had to make repeated trips from the path to find his harvest. The more trips off the path he had to take, the higher the risk.
He continued following the eerie trail for another two hundred meters, soon leaving the main clump of Killer Trees. In front of him, he saw a horrible ghost tree, which looked alive as it stretched over the stony trail, the vines and tree branches hanging down from it looked alive as they wriggled in the air.
Pulling out the magic talisman from under his shirt, Greem whispered the secret spell that every apprentice Adept had to master.
“Muhantoria • Sinra.”
To be honest, mortals most likely wouldn’t even get past the outer perimeter of the magical swamp.
But, according to Greem’s knowledge, sometimes the Adept Tower would purposely deactivate some of the outer perimeter defense mechanisms, actively attracting some ordinary humans into the depths of the swamp. At that moment, the swamp would turn into a demon carnival as they all feasted on the ignorant mortals!
The Adept Tower was a humongous ring-shaped structure and the landscape surrounding its foundation was extremely complicated. The demons were distributed throughout the swamp in a very methodical manner. Therefore, every inspection trip would require at least two apprentice Adepts, one went clockwise and the other went counter clockwise. They would follow a fixed route and cross most of the demon infested areas. Starting from the front door of the tower and meeting at the back door, once they completed this circular route their inspection would be considered complete.
Every inspection task would award them four Knowledge points and some gold coins. Compared to other tasks within the tower, the reward of Knowledge points was considerable handsome. But, even with such a high reward, most of the apprentice Adepts, who hungered for Knowledge points, would still step back from this inspection task, avoiding it like the plague.
The reason for this was obvious: the fatality rate for the inspection task was definitely the highest among all the tasks in the tower! None of the other tasks could surpass it.
For this inspection trip, Greem took the counterclockwise route, where he was required to go past the grove of Killer Trees, the Human Faced Mushroom’s field, the Garden of Whispers, and a few other areas. As for the other apprentice Adept, Tony, he took the clockwise route, but it wasn’t a safe route either. After all, those Giant alligators and Parasite Bug Queens were just as dangerous as some of the creatures on his side!
Especially when you had to harvest some of the Alligator eggs or a bug cocoon. Doing these things required one to go deep into their nest, and this was what was so dangerous about the clockwise inspection task. Therefore, when Greem saw Tony at the back door of the tower, he felt glad that Tony had survived as well.
Both guys didn’t talk much after they met. They just nodded their heads indifferently and continued into the tower.
It was the apprentice leader, Anksorus, who was waiting for them there. After submitting the required items for the task, the two of them were basically free for the next six days. As for the Knowledge points, Anksorus had input them into their magical talisman using a secret method.
For all the apprentices in the tower, their magical talisman was actually a token of their identity.