Age of Adepts

Chapter 580 Civilization and Conflict

It took a Herculean effort to bring the massive dragon back to the metal fortress, even for Gazlowe’s construction machines.

That dragon devourer had also returned to the adept’s base under Greem’s warm invitation.

In just seven days, Gazlowe’s construction machines had dug up the mountain and turned it into a hidden base. The massive hole that had been carved into the mountain had also been sealed with a metal wall. Countless secret doors had been created at the bottom of the wall, allowing the construction machines to stream in and out constantly.

Logging parties, scouting parties, hunting parties, geo-exploration robots, geological soil inspectors, biodistribution statisticians; ordinary tasks were left to the unquestionably loyal and steel-headed construction machines, but the sampling and investigation of the environment, life forms, and geological resources couldn’t be left to them.

A large-sized goblin teleportation device was quickly constructed within the base, allowing the metal fortress to possess a stable and uninterrupted means of communication with the Goblin Plane. The first batch of individuals to teleport over was the goblin technicians and engineers that the metal fortress desperately needed.

Just as expected, all the goblins were struck with ’magic-drunkenness’ from suddenly moving from a low-magic world to a high-magic world. All sorts of abnormal conditions started to afflict the one hundred goblins. They came down with fevers, threw up, and even their moods turned sour. The goblins finally barely managed to adapt to the environment of Lance after the death of over four dozen of their number.

With the arrival of these helpers, the various construction and magical machines that Gazlowe built now had commanders. A goblin technician would command four or five magical machines, perfectly executing the various tasks that Gazlowe assigned to them– scouting, investigations, sampling, logging, hunting, and many more. Moreover, these goblin officers could provide Gazlowe with a detailed and comprehensive mission report after each mission.

It increased the work efficiency tremendously. It was much easier than having Gazlowe forcibly keep a trace of his mental consciousness around the machines to control them remotely.

Moreover, Gazlowe’s soul origin still came from that old goblin. As such, his personal preference and hobbies still leaned toward invention and the creation of new technology. He couldn’t be bothered to take on the lowly and inefficient task of overseeing operations under ordinary circumstances.

To ensure that he could be free of this repetitive, inefficient, and exhausting task of an officer, Gazlowe specially built a hidden room within the core area of the metal fortress. He converted the place into a mysterious brain pool and started to cultivate a new secondary brain.

The secondary brain would be able to take his place in dealing with these menial daily tasks once it had grown and matured. That would allow Gazlowe to retake his preferred office as an inventor, scientist, and engineer.

Everything in the metal fortress was already running in an orderly fashion by the time Greem returned. Along with him came his two subordinates, an unexpected guest, the wind dragon, and the team responsible for transporting the wind dragon.

It was almost as if this was the first time the female assassin had seen such a strangely metallic civilization. She carefully assessed these clanging metal machines with bodies forged of steel and iron. She couldn’t sense any life or flesh within them.

Yet, mere metal lumps like these possessed behavioral awareness akin to humans. They were able to gather together, carry a massive wooden log, form groups to lift a metal cage filled with howling beasts, or even form neat lines under the command of a technician.

The metal path leading to the various areas of the metal fortress might be broad, but they were still narrow relative to these giant steel machines. Even so, these machines knew how to wait and let others by when they streamed past each other within the narrow corridors. No such thing as collisions or accidents happened.

This extremely orderly scene naturally drew the shock and respect of the dragon devourer.

Civilization!

Though they were only a bunch of metal lumps with no soul consciousness, she sensed the existence of an otherworldly civilization through these machines.

Only civilization could make every member within society display such order and discipline. Only culture could allow a group to rise beyond their primal state and become a unique existence respected by others.

Most species that possessed their own civilizations were scattered and small. They required the pooling together of the majority to ignite the flames of civilization. However, the civilization in front of the dragon devourer’s eyes seemed to be concentrated and unified. The radiance of intelligence and the light of culture seemed to have gathered around a single powerful individual. This one individual was allowed to direct and assign the power of the entire species.

Civilizations like these were rare, but they weren’t unique!

However, what surprised this female assassin was the fact that the lower class of this civilization were all metal machines. She couldn’t help but want to meet the master of this civilization.

"Master, you brought back an outsider? Do you need me to make special preparations?"

Gazlowe’s mental consciousness silently connected with Greem while he gave the female assassin a tour while walking toward the central hall.

"No need! This is a dragon devourer. She is very likely to become our ally in the future. I’m confident she won’t betray us to the dragons because those dragons are more likely to exterminate her first!" Greem replied confidently.

"Dragon Devourer?"

Gazlowe had no related data or information within his memory. As such, Greem had to sent over sets of information he had organized on the matter.

Gazlowe only paused for a second or two before completely digesting the knowledge. He couldn’t help but raise a suggestion for Greem, "It’s true that this dragon devourer has the power, the motive, and the right to be our ally here on Lance. However, master, you must be careful. Prematurely having our relationship with this dragon devourer become exposed to the dragons before we establish a foothold is very likely to draw trouble."

"Mm, I know! That’s why you’ll send another group of magical machines to Twin Peaks. Clean up that place one more time. Either capture all living things there or kill them. No witnessed can be allowed to escape!"

"Understood. I will do as you say!"

Their mental communication was swift and silent. The entire process took no more than a brief eight seconds.

By the time Greem reached the central hall with the female assassin, a squad of fifty magical machines had already rushed out of the metal fortress under the lead of a goblin officer. They were heading straight for Twin Peaks.

"May I know..." Greem couldn’t help but ask a question once they had all sat down.

"I am Oliven. I am a Second Grade dragon devourer, and I come from the World of Disasters. The members of my family have all been devoured by those damned Scourge Lords. I was the only one who escaped and ended up wandering here on Lance. So, if you guys set your sights on those dragons, you can count me in. I can be a decent help to you people!" The female assassin was a pretty straightforward person. She immediately gave all of her background without further questions from Greem.

There was no way of verifying the truth of her words, but for some reason, Greem chose to believe her. Greem also noticed some extremely interesting things in the assassin’s narration.

World of Disasters. Scourge Lords.

It was important to note that there were only a few large-sized planes in the multiverse that could compare to the World of Adepts. The World of Disasters was one such world. In fact, it was a plane that was even more powerful than the World of Adepts.

It was said that that place was far more evil, chaotic, and powerful than the World of Adepts.

Monsters walked freely there, and magical creatures existed in hordes. The laws of time and space were entirely different from most other planes as well. It was almost impossible for ordinary life forms to live there. They could barely survive by hiding between the gaps of the powerful and fearsome magical creatures and monsters.

There were almost no countries or cities there– only one absurdly powerful monster after another.

These monsters called themselves Scourge Lords. Each and every one of them was a dominating and evil individual. Even the weakest of the Scourge Lords was no weaker than Sixth Grade. They had already devoured most of the resources in the World of Disasters that they resided in. As such, the resources of the world had dried up, and the world laws were chaotic and strange.

They spent most of their time sleeping within the plane, only waking up once every thousand years to invade other planes in search of food; their food was the plane origin that all planes relied upon to survive! As such, no fate other than destruction awaited the unfortunate plane targeted by the Scourge Lords.

The adepts might be very evil already, continually expanding their lands outside of their plane, robbing resources, and enslaving entire species. However, these plane worlds could all recover part of their resources if they had the time to rest and recuperate. On the other hand, the Scourge Lords would directly devour the origin power that sustained the functions of the plane, causing an entire world to head toward extermination and destruction.

The adepts might be evil, but they were still a group of individuals that pursued order, even if it was an order that they ruled over.

Their path of development was completely different from the Scourge Lords that sought to destroy everything. That was why the adepts often fought the Scourge Lords in several places, starting bloody and intense battles all over the multiverse.

Still, there was no topping the rivalry between the Scourge Lords and the Titans. The battles that broke out between them were the most severe and brutal ones in the entire multiverse.

Both factions fought with all they had in numerous outer planes, destroying countless plane worlds in the process.

That was why Greem defined the Scourge Lords and the Titans as the most significant source of chaos in the multiverse upon reading through all the related literature.

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