The next day…
Greem walked side by side with Black-hand as the latter explained to him the responsibilities and benefits of being a member of the elite training camp.
This "training camp" was created to realise one main goal; the proper safeguarding of the interests of the 17 Adept families that ruled the Dagon region.
The Underground world and the vast Kerala mountain range were two major resource sites in this region, and they brought these families a lot of wealth.
In the first site, they obtained a steady supply of Blood Garnets, Nine-Eyes Stones, Phantom Mushrooms and Dark Grass, materials that even official Adepts found tempting.
As for the mountain range, any kind of herb, core, wood, or leather could be found in its depths. Numerous hunting and exploration teams roamed the dense 30,000 square mile forest everyday and confirmed this by ensuring an unending supply of these materials.
The problem was, as plentiful as the materials from the Kerala mountain range was, they were all low-grade ones. They didn't garner the kind of profit the resources from the Underground did.
This made the resource locations in the Underground world regular battlefields, as the fallen apprentices and surface Adepts both knew the worth of these items.
Having been discovered hundreds of years ago, every rare resource's location, maturation period, and harvest time had all been mapped out and recorded and were known to both parties: the Adept families and fallen Adepts.
This led to regular and repeated battles for these resources whenever it was harvest time.
To prevent the destruction of the resource sites and reduce the death of their young talents and family pillars, the two sides had come to an unwritten agreement to only send their strongest apprentices to gather the resources.
Every month, each side had to send their apprentices to the sites where a battle to the death would occur. There were no prisoners to be taken in this fight. Either you died or fled with your wounds while the winner took everything.
This is where apprentices like Greem and Mary came in; they were apprentices capable of confronting and killing others on and above their level with ease.
In this case, the both of them were chosen by Black-hand and accepted by Hulk due to their combined ability to kill Pseudo Adepts. Why? Because the winners of these battles were largely decided by apprentices with that level of strength.
Hence by recruiting foreign apprentices like them—those who had no Adept family behind them to fall back on—they gained 1) powerful hatchet men who would not compete with them for the rare resources, and 2) apprentices who would also think twice before offending official Adepts.
Every battle, whether it was successful or not, earned those who partook in it and survived merit points and magic crystals like the inspection mission Greem and Mary signed up for.
Except in this case, the apprentices—if they were victorious—earned a portion of the resources they harvested. And being materials that even Adepts would be tempted by, one could imagine how lucrative this was for mere apprentices.
Whatever the case, Greem was sold and he was sure if Mary were here, she'd be too. In fact, he could imagine her expression upon hearing battle, death, and powerful apprentices. Because for her that meant the blood of powerful people.
And talking of blood, this early morning she'd woken up early and engaged in some short but intense "exercise" with him before taking off into the Kerala mountain range.
Despite finishing her fight faster than Greem yesterday, his impressive showing with the golems had still tickled her competitive and insecure side.
Unlike before where she'd try to fight him for dominance or the other nonsense she got up to, she decided to do the only thing that eliminated the feeling of weakness; fight.
Thanks to Greem, she knew her strengths and weaknesses and had done extensive work on herself and her skills. She even wore armor.
By venturing alone into the mountain range and fighting the plethora of magical creatures in there, not only would she sharpen her skills, she also obtained more blood to support her upcoming advancement.
While she did this, Greem decided to spend the coming days creating new golems and working on his atrocious defense. Joining the camp yesterday greatly accelerated both plans regarding this forward.
Courtesy of the Adept families, the camp had contact with a merchant who catered to them exclusively with materials and items from far and wide.
Using the various incompatible magical tools they looted from their respective enemies to barter with the merchant, Greem and Mary bought some items they'd both had their eyes on.
For Greem, he bought an ingot of pure Star Iron, a Pseudo Adept level Storm Giant core, three Rock Snake cores, and five avian wind elementium cores.
Mary, on the other hand, exchanged her loot for a +4 Physique enhancing set of scale mail, +2 Agility boots, and a new pair of rapiers with edges enchanted with +2 Sharpness.
Since they completed their first underground mission two days ago, they had nine more days—this one included—to rest, regroup, and prepare for their next foray into the dark and chaotic Underworld.
They hadn't forgotten Angus' words; the fallen apprentices would be waiting for them and would hit back in full force. Lack of preparation on anyone's part meant they were lowering their neck on a chopping block.
And Greem knew that even with his foreknowledge, his mere presence changing things was inevitable. For instance, he was 80–90 percent sure most of these attacks would be aimed at him and Mary due to their slaying of the two apprentices.
So he had to prepare. Hopefully, the coming days would be enough.
☀☀☀
The nine days went about in a flash, and Greem found himself back underground at the break-off point, him and his girlfriend surrounded by their bickering teammates.
Pseudo Adept Leo's face was no longer that acid-eaten horror show, however the ripples of his aura had noticeably reduced in intensity, his current fighting strength only at Advanced Apprentice.
While he may have dispelled the many curses, treated the numerous infections, and patched up the body-wide wounds he suffered ten days ago, he still needed a few more to return to peak form.
But peak form or not, he had to complete the mission, meaning that the team had experienced another drop in strength, a development that worsened the danger they were about to subject themselves to.
The more conservative members of the team argued that all nine of them visit the five mission sites and complete the inspection as a team. Even though this meant their time underground would be multiplied by 3 or 4, they'd remain safe.
That was… if the fallen apprentices didn't have the courage to attack a group consisting of seven Advanced Apprentices and two Pseudo Adepts.
"We cannot afford to lose more of our strength. If we split up again and another one of us dies, our next mission will be harder, and the next, and the next. We have no choice but to waste time. It is the only way we'll all return in one piece."
"I agree."
"Me too."
"Yeah."
Three Advanced Apprentices sounded out their stances on their issue and looked at the contemplating Sabrina, their expressions laden with hope.
Those hopes were quickly dashed when Greem spoke up. "I don't agree. Mary and I will go alone. We'll take the deepest mission."
Before anyone could voice a protest, he added the last part and held out his hand to Sabrina. She looked at his outstretched appendage, ignored it and looked at Mary. "You're with him on this?"
"Yes. Just pass him the mission object."
Sabrina moved her gaze between the couple's faces and relented, passing Greem a magical item shaped like a wand and a crystal ball. When his meaty hand swiped the items from her palm, she didn't expect to get something in return.
Greem dropped a small grey sack in her hand and turned around to leave, vanishing into one of the tunnels with Mary and leaving a bewildered and dejected group behind.
Sabrina soothed everyone's curiosity—hers included—and opened the sack, finding numerous pebble sized beads—all of them covered in runes. She recognized them immediately.
These were golem cores!
Doing her best to remain calm, she floated a single one out of the bag and probed it with her Spirit for any traps. Finding nothing of the sort, she checked the Mind Control Imprint formation and found it devoid of anyone's Spirit mark.
Emboldened by this discovery, she marked the formation with her own Spirit and dropped it onto the ground, hoping that her hunch about it being an earth elementium golem would be confirmed.
It was confirmed, as with a simple thought from her, the earth near the core became animated and rose to entomb it, growing to form a tall humanoid being made of clay.
With a huge smile on her face, she quickly counted the number of cores and turned to look at her teammates, their gleeful expressions matching hers.
☀☀☀
For this foray into the deeper parts of the Underground world, Mary and Greem did not walk.
They instead let the alligator golem swallow them and snuggled against each other within it like they did on their return trip last time.
At this stage in their relationship, there was no way these two could remain so close without tearing the clothes off each other.
So Greem connected the golem core to the crystal ball Sabrina passed to him and commanded it to follow the directions outlined in the latter.
Speaking of Sabrina, Greem hoped she knew how to use the cores. It would help the team greatly and hopefully prevent any of them from dying. It was his fault they split up both times after all.
Anyways, he had done his part. Now he just had to reach the inspection site and complete his portion of the task.
Since the "reaching there" aspect had been delegated, he was free to focus on the vampire peppering his neck with kisses while feeling up his torso and working the thing in his pants to attention…
.
.
.
Hours of mind-bending bliss later, the duo emerged at their destination, the journey uneventful.
With help from the map and occasional input from Greem, the alligator golem travelled unimpeded, bypassing the tedious method of trudging through a plethora of tunnels, caverns, and cracks.
As a result of this, the journey that took Sabrina more than half a day to complete, took the couple less than four hours.
After getting out the golem and helping Mary out, Greem first scanned the surroundings for danger and quickly verified the location of the missing site after finding nothing.
He then commanded the golem to make a jacuzzi-sized hole in the ground and compact the dirt in it. Once he confirmed that its surfaces' were smooth and hard, he chanted one of the many utility spells he'd learned and conjured a glob of pure water.
Chant after chant followed by the occasional splash of water resounded through the silent cavern until the tub was filled to his specifications.
Mary had returned by this time and patiently waited for him to finish before passing him the mission item, which he tossed and added to the pile made up of their clothes and items lying nearby.
They'd both been naked since they got out of the golem, and it was time for them to clean up. They both lowered themselves into the makeshift bath and started rubbing and cleaning each other, a fairly innocent endeavor that devolved into anything but.
Repeated loud splashes, flesh slapping against each other, breathy moans, and muffled grunts filled the cavern as the couple gave into their lusts once again, their insatiable thirsts bolstered by their powerful stamina.
Their compulsory mission for Adept Angus was complete, leaving only the one for the elite training camp. The once in a month event was today and they both had to report to a location where they'd tackle the mission: 'Raid mine pit 7.'
For now though, they'd enjoy each other a bit more.