Adam handed his rewards over to Elliot to inspect, Elliot didn’t expect this many rewards.
However, he knew that this was what Adam deserves, and the Tower must compensate accordingly. The rune that he got was given by the Second Elemental Sacred Tower, and it provides him with portable space, and it's incredibly valuable to an apprentice at this stage. The library pass was incredibly useful too, and it represents the faith that the Tower has in Adam’s future.
The thing that fascinated Elliot the most was the egg, “I cannot believe they would reward you with something so great. My friend, this comes from the Abyss, so you must be careful. Creatures from the Abyss are chaotic and evil, and if you aren’t strong enough, they will devour you whole.”
Adam took this news to heart, but being overtaken by his own pet is impossible.
Adam replied, “This is a personal reward from the Dean – he said that I helped him solve a huge problem; by the way, he mentioned a trial that is coming in nine months, do you know anything about it?”
Elliot silently returned the items to Adam and muttered, “If you are willing to sell these items, you will become incredibly rich…” Elliot pouted. “Wait, you still don’t know about the trial, haha! No surprise, since you’ve been holed up in the lab with those two.”
Elliot explained the upcoming trial to Adam, and Adam frowned. With his strength, he would undeniably be the victor, but he knew that the Dean was withholding secret information from him.
Adam asked Elliot, “How does the trial work?”
Elliot shook his head, “It’s different every year; sometimes the apprentices are thrown into a different realm, and they have to kill each other to survive; sometimes they are thrown into a world of monsters, and those who survive are qualified. It depends on how the academy wants to kill the apprentices.”
This information wasn’t useful to Adam, but he didn’t need to worry. There was still nine months to the trial anyways.
“Wait, he said this egg would hatch in nine months…” Adam jolted at the realisation. The Dean mentioned that it might be useful, but how useful would a baby creature be?
Adam didn’t fly back to the lab as he was occupied with his thoughts. The apprentices who walked by him harboured extreme hatred and jealousy for him.
“So, a “genius” like him is able to do whatever he wants.”
“He’s a murderer! Don’t get close to him.”
“Why are we even in the same group as this heartless bastard? I hate selfish people like him.”
Adam could hear them, but he didn’t care for their opinions. These people will only complain when things don’t go their way, but will suck up to you when you are useful to them.
At least nobody tried to attack Adam; they knew challenging Adam was a lost cause.
William stared at Adam from a distance.
He was alone – Ophelia disappeared after she joined a lab as an assistant; Crystal was accepted as the Black Mage’s disciple; Adam was way out of reach and shone as the brightest apprentice in the academy; William was the only one who was left behind.
His talent for fire magic made him proud, but he soon realised that nobody cared for such low-levelled magic, so not a single tutor or mage paid him any attention. After the trial happens, the academy will most definitely undergo drastic changes; he needs to become strong, or he may die.
However, he has no resources nor any connections in the academy – his father’s magic items were sold for power stones, and he only knew a handful of magics.
He continued staring at Adam, who was deep in thought. He envied him greatly, since Adam was able to establish his own lab; he even studied Adam’s research, and knew that his psychic power could help him change his own status quo.
William chased after Adam, putting on a fake smile. He needed to swallow his pride.
“Adam, wait.”
Adam was busy thinking about the egg, and wanted to go to the library to read about it. Upon hearing William’s voice, he turned around, “William?”
“Adam! I want to join your lab…” he gulped. “As a test subject.”
Adam didn’t expect these words to come out of William’s mouth, “What is your initial mental strength, then?”
William didn’t expect Adam to ask this, fully expecting Adam to reject him. However, he could tell that Adam simply did not care enough about William to bother harbouring any negative feelings about him.
Adam really never took me seriously, he thought to himself.
William smiled sadly, “3.75.”
Adam was busy processing information in his brain: if William joins his lab, then James will be a low-qualification test subject, William as the common test subject, and Frank as the special test subject. Obtaining more data would be useful to him, but requires a lot of resources. He concluded that, since his research on psychic power brought him the most resources, then he must turn his research to universality.
Of course, William would save a lot of time in finding test subjects.
Adam replied, “Alright. Report to my lab tomorrow morning. I’ll prepare the contract for you.”
Adam left immediately, since it was a small matter to him. He knew that once word spreads, flocks and flocks of apprentices will swarm to his lab to apply.
He hasn’t stepped foot into the library in a while, and he discovered that the first floor had many more apprentices than before. Some apprentices were reading books together to save on the costs of power stones, too.
“Hey, Adam.”
“Good morning, Adam.”
Several senior apprentices greeted Adam, which attracted the apprentices’ attention. Their gaze was affixed onto Adam, and Adam knew they hated him.
After returning their greetings, Adam walked to the bookshelf containing information on different planes, and researched on the Abyss Plane.
Adam didn’t read these before, since the war had nothing to do with him.
Adam learnt that the Abyss Plane was chaotic and distorted. It wasn’t civilised either, and every creature within the plane had to fight and kill to survive – animalistic survival instincts, Adam thought. He also read that the creatures there have an innate ability, which was to increase their own power by devouring other creatures.
Adam put the book back on the shelf – this general introduction had no use to him, so he ascended to the second floor.
Like most of the buildings here, the library was in the shape of a tower. The higher the tower, the higher the level of knowledge, the fewer books there are. He soon found a book titled [Incubation and Cultivation of Creatures from the Abyss].
[Life in the Abyss is strange, and their evolution is chaotic and cruel. The more powerful a creature is, the more unpredictable they are. There is nothing they can’t devour.]
Adam glanced over the introduction – back on Earth, life only exists because of entropy, but in the world of magic, life isn’t a mere coincidence produced by entropy. Once beasts become strong enough, they will invade other worlds to devour them.
Adam thought that this was no different from a Mage – the only difference is, a Mage will always return to their original world after invading other planes of existence.
There aren’t any fixed appearances to a creature of the abyss either, but at least the method of hatching was normal. However, it was highlighted that a master-servant contract should continuously be portrayed with the master’s own blood and mental strength, so that the hatched beast will be able to become the pet.
The runes used to establish this master-servant contract were not complicated, and it took Adam less than an hour to memorise it. However, this contract is not fixed – if the servant’s power surpasses the master’s, then the servant would surely retaliate.
There was a line of warning at the end of the book: [Abyss Creatures are not allowed to appear on the Mage Plane after reaching Level 1, or they will be annihilated by the Guardian of the World.]