Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems

Chapter 669: The Rose Ecological Corridor Spell and a Person Who Cannot Sleep

Only then did Locke recall who this was. This was Witch Lana from the Rose Council, whom he had consulted about ecological corridor research when he was working on creating his Forest Alliance Curse.The two of them had exchanged letters for at least two months.

That said, he genuinely had not met this powerful sun ring witch in person before, which was why he had failed to recognize her immediately.

Locke said, "So it's you, Lady Lana. Might I ask what brings you to Golden Crown Mountain?"

Witch Lana said, "Let's go to a private room. It doesn't look right to talk out here. Locke, your soul is in continuous decline."

Witch Lana turned to look at Locke and said, "Congratulations."

Locke gave a rueful smile.

The female flower-language wizard standing beside Witch Lana seemed to think of something, and turned a complicated look on Locke, her eyes carrying no small amount of envy and admiration.

Between the First and Second Circle stages, there was a very particular threshold, the soul decline period.

Many wizards who were unfamiliar with this subject could easily mistake it for having strayed from the right path, or for having contracted some serious illness, and in doing so might waste enormous amounts of time on it, or even cause themselves new problems through excessive attempts at treatment.

But for wizards in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, this aspect of arcane knowledge was not a secret to most people.

After all, they came into contact with higher-circle wizards every day.

So Witch Suela Sharp immediately understood what Teacher Lana meant.

The young wizard before her had entered the soul decline period, and was only one step away from the Second Circle. Those who could not cross that threshold would die, and those who did would leap through the dragon gate like a carp ascending the waterfall.

Sensing the excessively youthful soul aura emanating from Locke, Witch Suela Sharp felt a flash of jealous resentment rise within her, feeling that heaven was simply too unfair. She had worked so hard for so many years, and was now fifty years old, yet still had not entered the soul decline period.

Inside Private Room No. 3, Witch Lana spoke directly. "Locke, I'll get straight to the point. Tell me, when my students entered the Abyssal River and that tomb city, why was only one of the seven able to leave?"

Witch Lana looked at Locke and said, "Don't think about deceiving me. If you lie to me, I'll still be able to investigate. When that time comes, you'll have to face the wrath of a sun ring wizard."

Locke said honestly, "Exploring Abyssal Ruins is inherently dangerous. Those ruins are not my house. What could I have done?"

"At the time, we used an archaeological spell, and that spell became coupled with a pre-existing spell within the Abyssal Ruins, which produced a complex chain reaction."

Witch Lana did not appear particularly surprised by this answer. In fact, she seemed to have anticipated it, and said, "I see. The responsibility for this truly does not lie with you. I only wanted to confirm it, since these were the lives of six students. I need to give the academy an account."

"And enrollment quotas are extremely valuable to me. Six deaths at once..." Witch Lana said, "Two of them were Origin Academy researchers, and four were lecturer-mages. The responsibility is significant. I must come here to clarify on behalf of the Rose Council."

"This is an enormous loss for me, a loss that is very nearly unacceptable."

Locke nodded to show he understood.

This was different from the First Circle wizards who had died from the Thunder Demon Society, that small wizard organization. The wizards the Rose Council had lost in those Abyssal Ruins all held teaching positions, or were affiliated with the Origin Academy, and so the Rose Council would certainly need to investigate.

Most likely all the relevant investigation had already been carried out before she came to question him, and this was simply the final confirmation after the fact.

That said, he had genuinely done nothing inside the Abyssal Ruins beyond exploring the ruins themselves, so his conscience was entirely clear on this matter.

Otherwise, someone from the Ethics and Morality Review Committee would have come to question him by now.

Witch Lana shifted the conversation. "After the investigation, I also feel that this matter truly cannot be blamed on you. You obtained the Star Domain Sea's archaeology award through exploring those ruins?"

"Those ruins involve matters of considerable consequence." Witch Lana poured herself a cup of peach blossom brew tea. "In fact, the six deaths from the Rose Council this time have been classified as war casualties."

Locke looked at Witch Lana with puzzlement.

Witch Lana said, "According to the Rose Council's investigation, the Abyssal War is on the verge of beginning. The Rose Council's opponents in this extradimensional conflict are the Infinite Abyss. And the Infinite Abyss this time is challenging three parties simultaneously, with the Abyssal Demon God, the Great King Alaric, presiding over this war."

"The strategist on the Abyssal side this time is the Abyssal Werewolf King."

"On this occasion, it was he who dropped ten Revelation Witch Stones above the wizard world. Wizards went in pursuit of these special witch stones, and all manner of turmoil broke out. At its core, the Rose Council, Storm Tower, and Golden Crown Mountain have already generated serious conflict among your generation over that one Revelation Witch Stone."

"If any of the three parties has someone who acts rashly and seeks revenge without thinking, this matter will unfold exactly as the Abyssal Werewolf King has calculated, and will become a war between at least two of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands' top wizard academies."

"If things develop that way, before the Abyssal War has even begun, their Abyssal forces will have already won without a fight."

Locke looked at Witch Lana with surprise.

It had not even occurred to him that the rivals he and Warwick and the others had encountered while exploring the Abyssal Ruins were all there because of the five great external wars about to descend upon the Cloud Marsh Wetlands.

"The Abyssal Werewolf King... Alaric..." Locke murmured. "Is Alaric one of the Seventy-Two Pillar Demon Gods?"

Witch Lana nodded. "Yes. The supreme commanders of Abyssal Wars across all previous engagements have all been one of the Seventy-Two Pillar Demon Gods."

"Before pledging himself to the Abyss, Alaric was a Third Circle Throne-level earth wizard, with significant research achievements in the study of grasslands. With no hope of advancing to the Fourth Circle, and having happened to encounter the Mother of Desires, a deep-layer Abyssal lord, on the road during his travels, she tempted him with the pursuit of truth. Though he was unwilling to fall into the Abyss and have his soul branded with the Abyssal mark, which would leave him unable to ever escape the Abyss's power, he ultimately could not endure the temptation of the path the Mother of Desires revealed to him."

"And so he plunged into the Abyss, and there became a Fourth Circle wizard."

"Alaric makes heavy use of the Abyssal Werewolf clan and enjoys winning without fighting before launching a war."

"This man is treacherous and cunning, and is himself an earth wizard, well familiar with the mountains and lands of the wizard world." Witch Lana was visibly wary when she spoke of him. "He once managed to enter the Cloud Marsh Wetlands alone and plunder seventeen large-scale magical ore veins from it."

"With merely his gaze he can cleave the earth, displace mountains and rivers, and overturn heaven and earth. The White Wizard Association has listed him as a war criminal, and any wizard who encounters him may kill him on the spot and receive a reward from the Association."

Witch Lana looked at Locke and said, "Locke, do you have a Revelation Witch Stone in your possession? The Rose Council has a large project underway that requires a considerable number of them. If you do, I can trade for it."

Locke said with regret, "I'm afraid not, Witch Lana. If you had told me a little earlier, there might still have been a chance. I just traded that Revelation Witch Stone to Wizard Smith of Storm Tower a short while ago."

Witch Lana sighed. "I see. I've missed it, then."

Witch Lana said, "In that case, never mind. My main purpose in coming here was to represent the Rose Council in clarifying the situation with you and dispelling any misunderstandings, so that Golden Crown Mountain and the Rose Council don't fall into the Abyssal Werewolf King's scheme and end up in a meaningless conflict."

"Locke, are you still researching ecological corridors?"

Locke had been about to bring up his idea of using the Lunar Mirror to illuminate forests as the basis for his Forest Alliance Curse, but he suddenly recalled that whenever he had touched on this concept in his correspondence with Witch Lana, she would immediately become very stern in her replies.

Moreover, she personally seemed to dislike it when a First Circle young wizard's ideas came into conflict with hers. So Locke swallowed the words back before they reached his lips, and after setting aside his latest discoveries, simply shared his current understanding of ecological corridors.

Witch Lana gave a very satisfied nod at this. "Very good. Your understanding of ecological corridors is quite on point."

"Using trees as the physical medium of the ecological corridor, following the principles I taught you, you can create a forest sacred path."

Witch Lana swept her hand across the table, and immediately a series of rose bushes appeared on its surface. Two clusters of rose bushes seemed to form a sacred path, one end connecting to the other.

Witch Lana glanced at Locke, then tossed a magic book to him.

Locke looked down and saw that it was a magic book titled Rose Ecological Corridor Spell.

This was precisely the spell model Witch Lana had withheld from him previously.

Their correspondence had previously only covered the theoretical concepts of the spell, without touching on any practical spell models whatsoever. Locke simply hadn't expected that during this in-person meeting with Witch Lana, she would actually hand over the specific spell model for the ecological corridor.

Locke looked at Witch Lana with surprise.

Witch Lana said, "I am greatly satisfied with your dedication and depth of study in the area of ecological corridors. And this spell is nothing more than an ordinary Second Circle-level spell model. Whether it is expensive depends on how you look at it, and in another sense it's also not so costly."

"Since you have such a keen interest in ecological corridors, I'll just give you this spell model to study. This is an outdated version. I have better ones now."

Witch Lana said, "It's more than adequate as a reference for you."

Locke said, "Thank you, Lady Lana."

Witch Lana sat back on the sofa in the private room, arms folded across her chest. "You've caused the Rose Council quite a few small headaches recently. Your name even comes up occasionally among Second Circle wizard circles."

"The other things aside, are you currently working on some kind of wizard shoe project?"

Locke hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "I am. I want to earn a bit more money."

Witch Lana said, "I'm a flower-language wizard, so this has nothing to do with me personally. Only, I have a somewhat favorable view of you, so I'll add a word of caution."

"Be careful in the near future. Behind the various wizard shoe brands in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, higher-circle wizards from the major academies actually stand in the shadows."

"The magical weavers of the Rose Council are exceedingly petty. Even we flower-language wizards find their behavior difficult to watch. You had best be careful."

Locke said gratefully, "Thank you for the warning, Lady Lana."

Witch Lana gave a nod. "All right, I'm quite busy. Now that things are clear, I'll be leaving."

Witch Lana rose to her feet, and Witch Suela Sharp said quietly beside her, "Teacher, six of our people died this time. Are we really going to let it go at that?"

"Six wizards died on our side. Even if he isn't primarily responsible, shouldn't there still be joint liability?"

Witch Lana gave her a cold look. "When has there ever been a place for you to interrupt when I'm speaking?"

Witch Suela Sharp gave a start, and immediately realized that she had been too hasty and had said something to displease Witch Lana.

Witch Lana looked at her with icy eyes. "It's not that I am letting it go. The Rose Council is letting it go. The entire incident has been classified by the Rose Council as an extension of the Abyssal War. Suela Sharp, what exactly would you like to do then? You want the academy to demand accountability from Golden Crown Mountain on your behalf?"

"As long as Locke Augustine once actively attacked any one of you even a single time, the Rose Council could pursue accountability directly. So let me ask you, did he attack you even once?"

Witch Suela Sharp wanted to say something, but found that, indeed, Locke and the others had never actively attacked any of them.

Witch Lana looked at her with fury. "You foolish girl. You were outclassed, and now I have to come out here and embarrass myself on your behalf. Why wasn't it you who died!"

Witch Suela Sharp clenched her teeth and, with no other choice, had to bow her head and admit her fault to Witch Lana. "I'm sorry, Teacher. I was wrong."

"I was the one who was inadequate..."

Witch Lana gave her a cold look.

Watching this unfold, Locke thought to himself that he had been genuinely wise just now in not mentioning the Lunar Mirror. Had he done so, far from receiving a gift of the Ecological Corridor Spell, he would have been the one getting thoroughly berated.

Locke made a mental note of the principles for dealing with Witch Lana.

Witch Lana turned back around to face Locke, and a smile instantly appeared on her face. "I've let you see something embarrassing, Locke. If only my students were as clever as you, and gave me as little to worry about."

"Sigh. My intake has been getting worse year after year lately, and I'm not sure what's happened."

"I'd actually had high hopes for one of the Origin Academy's researchers this year, but they suddenly refused to join the Rose Council's branch of the Origin Academy just before they were about to join." Witch Lana said, "What a pity. I thought my group might finally get a reliable wizard this year."

Witch Lana looked at Locke with displeasure.

Witch Suela Sharp quietly swallowed. She actually knew what had happened, but no one dared to tell Witch Lana.

That wizard who had been about to join the Rose Council's branch of the Origin Academy had, upon learning she was to be his cooperative wizard, immediately demanded a change of cooperative wizard. The academy refused to accommodate this, so he simply left the station outright.

But no one dared to tell Witch Lana any of this.

Locke blinked, because by observing the expressions of Witch Lana and Suela Sharp, he had already instantly guessed at the truth of the matter.

He thought it over and said to Witch Lana, "That was truly a pity for that wizard, to lose a cooperative mentor like Lady Lana."

Witch Lana smiled with great satisfaction. "Precisely. It was indeed his loss."

"I'm leaving, Locke."

After a few more words between them, Witch Lana departed.

The moment she left, Locke quietly let out a breath of relief. In a short span of time he had managed to handle both a Third Circle wizard and a Second Circle sun ring wizard.

Locke murmured, "Dealing with Witch Lana requires real technique. If you can fully master it, she turns out to be very easy to get along with."

"But the moment your thinking diverges even slightly from hers, she becomes very displeased. I can see it now. The instant she gets displeased, she starts finding fault with everything about you. Once that vicious cycle begins, she is very likely to see every single thing a wizard does as wrong."

"No wonder a wizard would forcibly demand to leave their station after learning she was their cooperative mentor."

If your cooperative mentor for five years was someone you couldn't get along with, it would truly be a loss of both time and resources, wasting years while suffering suppression for no reason.

Locke sat inside the private room and sighed, because the instant he settled onto the sofa, he felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him.

All at once he felt a heavy weight of worry. The future seemed so bleak. The Silent Chalice Competition felt impossibly difficult, and he had no hope of winning.

In the next instant, Locke caught himself. The confusion and despair that had risen in his heart so suddenly vanished entirely.

"The most terrifying thing about soul decline is not that your power wanes, not that your condition deteriorates instead of improving, but that my very mind becomes affected."

"This is what it means to have one's judgment clouded and one's thoughts muddled."

Locke raised his right hand in front of him and swept it through the air. Immediately, a bright moon illuminated him, and his own reflection appeared within the round moon.

Within the moon, he could see himself looking dispirited and wan, like a person who had not slept.

Indeed, he was not sleeping.

Because his magical pressure had gradually exceeded his soul's limit, and since the soul's limit could not be broken through, his magical pressure could only drain away continuously through the cracks in his soul. The more his magical pressure increased, the wider those soul fissures became.

In the soul decline period, there was also another particular phenomenon, in which one's magical pressure would, on the basis of 9,999, gradually increase and approach 10,000 without ever quite reaching it.

Because the soul fissures would widen, as long as the fissures became large enough, magical pressure would correspondingly show some increase.

One could understand it as the soul fissures arising not only because the soul could not bear one's magical pressure, but also as a corresponding change in the soul in response to a wizard's drive to break through.

Only, this change in soul structure would bring a wizard's soul to the edge of destruction.

Locke looked at his reflection in the moon and said, "I must advance to the Second Circle as quickly as possible. Otherwise, every day my magical pressure will rise, my magical power will rise, yet I myself will continue to decline."

"And in this particular state, my mental constitution will erode."

"The longer it is prolonged, the harder it will become to escape this condition."

Locke opened the Rose Ecological Corridor Spell and spent an hour reading through it roughly, then nodded and said, "I see. This spell model is indeed far more complex and complete than the crude sacred path structure I had built before. Even though this is an outdated version, it is the research achievement of a sun ring wizard. For me, it is already more than sufficiently profound."

"Though fortunately I hadn't read this magic book before." Locke reflected, "If I had read it, my thinking would have been constrained by the magical framework within this book."

"For me, this magic book represents the collective achievement of a sun ring wizard's research team, which makes it a mountain I would have to climb. At the time, my ideas about the Forest Alliance Curse were still shallow, and I hadn't formed my own perspective yet. Had I encountered this magic book too early, I would likely have been completely led astray by it."

"But now that I've developed my own ideas, reading this magic book feels like reaching into a pouch to take what I need, using another mountain's stones to shape my own mountain. Far from affecting me in any negative way, it is brimming with inspiration I can draw upon."

Locke sat on the sofa, deep in thought. "All I want is to establish a hierarchy between different forests and form an alliance."

"But what Witch Lana envisions is connecting the ecosystems of different regions to form an ecological alliance. To learn this Rose Ecological Corridor Spell would require considerable time and effort. Without at least half a year and a million magic stones, it would likely be impossible to master."

"So there is no point in me going to learn it." Locke said, "Right now the Grand Magic Modeling Competition is imminent, time is extraordinarily precious, and I've already entered the soul decline period. Learning anything more is simply out of the question."

Locke became aware that even his capacity to learn was declining.

This was the true terror of entering the soul decline period.

And yet, for every wizard who wanted to become a Second Circle wizard, this stage was inescapable.

Locke thought to himself, "But the key of this Ecological Alliance Spell is to form ecological corridors between different ecosystems in order to establish an alliance. And my Lunar Mirror can establish connections between all things."

"If those connections serve as the foundation, and this magic's spell model serves as the prototype, perhaps my Lunar Mirror could become an ecological alliance?"

The idea taking shape in Locke's mind grew clearer and clearer.

That would be the completion of his first Grand Magic.

If it could be fully conceptualized before the Grand Magic Modeling Competition, that would be ideal.

Locke used his Wish Lingzhi magical plant to access the water hyacinth network, then tapped on Witch Camilla's profile. "Do you have time? I have a trade proposal. If you're interested, you could come to Dragon Blood Market sometime soon."

He needed more natal witch porcelain to use in creating the Porcelain Moons and combining them.

He had tested this before. The Porcelain Moon Growth was only a seventh-level synthesized item, so if he could produce three Porcelain Moon Growths, he could carry out the corresponding synthesis.

Combined with the inspiration from this Rose Ecological Corridor Spell, and all the discoveries he had made within the Historical Milestone Curse, perhaps his first Grand Magic could be fully completed and reach the height he envisioned.