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Translator's note: The writer surely have many wonderful ideas, but I think it would be better if he could combine those ideas with detailed plots instead of just plainly narrate it. Now it feels like more of a theoretical paper than a story.
The surprising change of the infected instantly garnered everyone's attention. The three mages who were newly promoted got distracted, giving the Aum family's antimages a small window for escape.
These antimages, with no time to worry about their family members, couldn't even issue a warning in this urgent situation. Each of them used their final measures to flee from the impending danger.
Unfortunately, the route they took for escape led them straight to the infected.
The devil commanded all the infected in the Rubble Plain, frantically ordering, "Lock onto the targets, attack!"
One single infected being might be weak, but their large quantity made their power terrifying. They followed the devil's commands perfectly. The forces of earth, water, wind, and fire quickly gathered in the sky and the ground, forming a large complicated sphere of these elements in front of everyone. This sphere then gently collided with the escaping antimage under everyone's shocked gaze.
Boom!
With a deafening explosion, the sphere of elements exploded. Waves of shock, each stronger than the last, forced the apprentices to halt their chase and defend themselves to avoid being taken down by the backlash.
The forces of fire, ice, and earth gleamed within the shockwaves, severing the infected inherent magic like three sharp blades. However, there was no sign of the antimage in there.
The three mages were enraged. They thought this battle was their moment, where they flawlessly beat the antimage and scored Points. Yet, they felt like their win was stolen from them.
The loss of Points was secondary, but the psychological blow made them extremely angry.
"Our Points... Our Points were stolen by these creatures! Eliminate these creatures, find whoever is controlling them, I want to tear them apart!" they roared.
Adam was in his laboratory, monitoring the virus's transformation from its initial state to now, when he suddenly realized his bracelet showed an increase of over two thousand points. The total points had surpassed ten thousand, and the number was still rising quickly.
Setting aside his pen and paper, Adam left the lab and confronted the chuckling devil, "What are you up to?"
The devil exited his fusing state, excitedly pointing at the video on the screen and said, "Master, the second-generation infected are so strong, they obliterated twenty mages in a blink!"
On the screen was a video of the Rubble Plain. There was no sign of the antimage. In the now debris-free flatlands, the apprentices were swiftly eliminating the infected under the guidance of three power-packed beings.
"Master, those three are newly-promoted mages. The eyes of the infected can't see past their protective layers," explained the devil.
Both showed no concern for the infected being mowed down. These creatures were too plentiful and easy to replace.
"These are the first batch of promoted apprentices, aren't they?" Adam asked softly.
The devil sat on Garfield's shoulder, lightly patted the head of his 'mount', and said, "It's the first batch after the virus spread, but I don't know if there were other people who were promoted before this."
Adam focused on the three newly promoted mages, but as he looked longer, the confusion in his eyes grew deeper.
"Although they've become stronger, it doesn't seem to have reached a qualitative change? Is it because the soul hasn't adapted to the ether due to a short promotion time?"
These three mages, whose faces are unclear, can release powerful magic and powerful spells with every move, but in Adam's view, these magics are still within the framework of apprentice magic. Perhaps only because their souls can directly command magic now, thus making it more powerful. This is still a gap from the strength of the real mages he had anticipated.
"It shouldn't be because of the promotion time." Adam denied his conjecture in the blink of an eye. He had been in the stage of self-sealing for over a decade. If he were to advance in the future, his soul would certainly not start from zero, and other geniuses should be the same.
Adam recalled the few times he had seen mages in action. Not to mention the dean of Monte Carlo, the magic power of the original Black Mage far exceeded these three people, not only because of Black Mage's level, but also in the use of magic.
The Black Mage seemed to be able to leverage more elements with a small amount of magic.
"It seems that the reason mainstream mages are strong should be something else."
Just as he was thinking this, over four thousand more points appeared on his Point bracelet. The devil's voice, gleeful at the disaster, rang in his ear: "Haha! Interesting! Master, all the elites of the three families have been destroyed by me, haha, you should see their faces!"
Even Adam couldn't help but feel a bit worried, as the devil seemed to have offended everyone. If they find out he is the black hand behind the scenes, they will certainly not hesitate to kill him regardless of the 50 Points they'd lost.
Adam looked at the devil somewhat helplessly, but he wasn't one to blame others for his own errors in judgment.
"In that case, we need to speed things up."
The devil, realizing he might have stirred up trouble, timidly said, "Master, I..."
Adam shook his head, indicating it was okay, then ordered: "Get rid of all the remaining antimage apprentices in the wilderness, drive the other twelve families to converge, and refrain from reckless actions when encountering apprentices."
The devil nodded in agreement.
"Command the Infected to gather metals, whether in towns or hidden underground. Mine everything and send it here," Adam tossed two pieces of magic array paper filled with complex runes to the devil. "In a radius of one kilometer, the outer circle engraves a magnetic field current conversion array, the inner circle engraves a high-temperature smelting array. I know you've collected many energy stones. Don't be stingy, use them all."
"Understood."
The devil felt a bit of a sting. He had hoarded all the low-level resources Adam disdained during the city's destruction and hid them in various places. He thought he would make a fortune, but now he had to surrender them. Despite his greed, he wouldn't let that cloud his judgment. He knew the consequences of disobeying Adam's orders.
"Control the execution speed of these two tasks and try to synchronize them. I need the antimages to be driven to one place when the metal and magic array are also ready."
After Adam finished speaking, he returned to the lab. Since he had become so many people's enemy at the same time, the second-generation virus was not enough to keep himself safe. Apart from delegating tasks to the devil, researching the third-generation virus was the top priority.