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This turmoil that embroiled the entirety of the planar world might only be a crisis for the almighty arcanists, but it was an apocalypse for the common man.

Over the past ten thousand years, the arcanists had built a convenient and effective system of training new arcanists within Morrian Plane. It was a system that was intimately connected to ordinary people. This system clearly distinguished the arcanists and adepts as two separate factions of casters.

A Great Adept had once made a fair evaluation of most existing caster systems in an adept tome that Greem had once read.

During the early stages of their evolution, humans could only choose to approach the incomprehensible forces of nature with caution and reverence. This attitude towards supernatural powers continued to evolve over time. In the end, those who revered the elements as equals became shamans, those who bowed down before the elements became clerics, and those who enslaved the elements became arcanists.

From this perspective, there was a certain uncompromising aspect to the arcane arts.

Perhaps this was also a general characteristic of all arcanists!

As one of the casters, an adept’s research was often far too bloody and taboo. They ventured into the realm of body modification and often employed violence in their scholarly pursuits. For the adepts, any means were justified as long as they could obtain their desired results. Their purpose in researching magic wasn’t a search for the truth of the universe or the origin of magic itself. Typically, adepts only wanted to obtain more power or solve a difficult problem at hand.

As such, the casters of most other planes viewed adepts as strange sorcerers or evil mages.

Meanwhile, the arcanists were known as eternal pursuers of the truth of the world and the origin of magic!

The arcanists created arcane towers that could traverse the earth and the skies, as well as massive floating cities that could be used as aerial fortresses. All these inventions of theirs were created based on their beliefs and the unique characteristics of their magic system. The massive Arcane Empire was built around this entire practice.

The Arcane Empire divided every single continent into provinces of different sizes, with a large floating city at the center of every province. Most of these floating cities were constructed above leyline nodes. They could rely on the natural magical tides to attract elementium and thereby create elementium pools with endless energy.

Floating cities constructing in this manner might be able to float several thousand kilometers above the ground, but they had trouble moving about freely. These cities would lose their energy supply once they left their leyline nodes. They would then have to rely on the energy stored in their energy pools to sustain their flight.

If the floating city couldn’t reach the next leyline node before it ran out of energy, what awaited it would be a massive calamity!

It was precisely this immobile characteristic of the floating cities that pushed the arcanists to create the more agile and mobile arcane towers.

With arcane towers, the arcanists could venture in and out of spacestorms unharmed. They could dive thousands of meters to the depths of the sea to explore ruins or dig deep into the planet’s core in search of resources and treasures. It was thanks to the protection of the arcane tower that arcanists, who were as frail as ordinary people, were able to travel anywhere they liked and do anything they wanted.

The arcanists even developed the fearsome pseudo-planar fortresses to fulfill their needs for planar warfare. They modified pseudo-planes stretching for dozens of kilometers into an actual fortress of war, outfitting them with a massive arsenal of weapons and using them to blow apart the protective planar barriers of lesser planes.

Based on all the times that the adepts had crossed swords with the Arcane Empire, even the Eighth Grade Arcane Emperors were themselves barely at the level of a Third Grade adept.

The arcanists prioritized the research and universalization of arcane knowledge. They rarely spent significant amounts of resources on improving and modifying themselves as the adepts did. Their true powers could only be unleashed with the aid of a series of arcane facilities, including arcane towers, elementium pools, magic pools, and spell pools.

Strip the arcanists of these things, and they were as fragile as eggshells!

............

Three days later, in the early hours of the morning.

Greem and his party traveled on a gray road.

As they had all concealed their appearance and clothes with magic, they looked no different from the planar natives in the eyes of onlookers.

The road had been packed with fleeing refugees along the way, carrying bags and packages of various sizes with them. They all originated from the southeast and were aimlessly traveling down this long road. No one seemed to know what direction they should be fleeing in.

As Greem and his party were heading in the completely opposite direction, there many warm-hearted people along the way who tried to persuade them to turn around and avoid marching towards the large capitals and floating cities. It was said that those locations were where the fighting was most intense and where the casualties were the heaviest!

Greem smiled and rejected the advice, bringing his three companions along the road as they approached their first target.

The first target designated by the main party was a small city protected by an arcane tower.

“Since the leader designated you as the party leader, Lord Greem, how do you intend to assign our positions in the upcoming fight?” It had been a boring journey. The Dark Witch, who had been silent throughout it, could no longer resist the urge to speak.

A sour stench of rot spread through the air the moment she started speaking.

Upon hearing her mention mission assignments, Adept Mangus and Adept Holly from the Silver Union couldn’t help but lift their heads and look at Greem as well.

The Dark Witch was called Shani. She was a powerful intermediate Fourth Grade adept.

Her appearance and figure were excellent, making her an exceptional beauty from the outside. She was also unusually slender and tall. However, she was incredibly cold and arrogant as well, rarely ever interacting with any other member of the party.

It wasn’t just the male adepts like Greem and Holly. Even Cherisha couldn’t start a conversation with her.

Adept Holly had inherited the tradition of the Silver Union. He was a powerful golem master himself.

The magical golem he controlled was an unusual starlight armored suit. It could be remotely controlled or equipped onto his person. It was a golem of surprising power.

Adept Holly himself was a short adept of only 1.6 or 1.7 meters in height. He appeared to be slightly skinny and frail, with an average appearance and short brown hair.

Greem and the others were supposedly a party, but there was no actual hierarchical relationship between them. Moreover, everyone’s power was approximately at the same level. As such, apart from the two-headed adept, who had no qualms calling Greem’ leader’, there was unresolved tension from the other two adepts. They were both upset with the title of party leader that had just been given to Greem.

As such, Dark Witch Shani chose to be the first to create trouble when the looming arcane tower appeared on the horizon!

“You’ve all seen it as it is. The war hasn’t spread here yet, and the arcane tower only has some of the most basic arcane defenses activated.” Greem brought the others to a clearing by the roadside. They peered silently at the arcane tower through the canopy of the swaying trees.

“If we are fast enough, we could breach the tower before the arcanists can activate their most potent defenses. Once we are inside, those weaklings will be nothing to us!”

“You mean for us to...breach the tower by force?” Adept Holly’s face couldn’t help but turn dark at the suggestion.

He, the golem master, was the only adept of the four of them that was suited for a task like this– to charge and breach enemy lines. If they were to execute the plan according to what Greem had just mentioned, he would probably have to take on the most tiring and challenging part of the work!

“A forceful breach is not a good idea!” Greem shook his head and said, “This tower is small and not much of a threat to the few of us. However, taking it by force will exhaust us substantially. We still have many targets to attack on this mission. We can’t be wasting our strength in such an inconsequential place!”

The color in Adept Holly’s face looked better when he heard this.

“Then why don’t you tell us what we should do?” Dark Witch Shani still had an ice-cold expression on her face.

“We can create some small trouble in the city, something of the likes of a refugee riot, to draw out the arcanists from the tower to suppress the commotion. This way, we can launch our attacks during the chaos.”

Everyone lowered their heads and thought for a moment. Though they were still full of doubts and dissatisfaction towards Greem, the strategy he had just suggested was indeed the most suitable plan for their current situation.

Everyone nodded their heads in agreement.

“There might be arcane facilities monitoring the entire city in the arcane tower. The enemy might very easily detect spillover magical flux in the city; it’s best if we do not use any spells. If anyone has any innate abilities suited for this situation, now would be a good time to use them.” Greem brooded for a moment and patched up some of the potential gaps in their plans.

“Let me do it!” Adept Mangus couldn’t help but betray a wicked smile, “My sister is more proficient in mind magic. She also has some unique mind powers. We won’t alert the arcanists at all.”

“Good. Once we enter the city, Mangus, you will be in charge of agitating the refugees and citizens into a riot. It would be best if you could send some of them to surround the arcane tower. Holly, you and Shani lie in ambush near the entrance of the arcane tower and wait for my signal. Charge straight into the arcane tower once you receive my signal. Remember, you absolutely must destroy their elementium pool first!”

“I understand!”

“Mm!”

Those who could stand here in Morrian Plane were all powerful individuals among the adepts who had survived through tens of thousands of bloody wars. They did not require excessively specific plans and strategies for a mission like this. They only needed to know the rough outline of the operation, and they would naturally know what to do.

“Let’s enter the city, then!”

Greem lifted his head and smiled. He took one last look at that looming arcane tower. It was then that he drew up his hood, tightened his cloak, and walked out of the clearing into the bustling mass of people as they headed towards the human city in the distance.