Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems

Witch Camilla quickly replied with a question, 'Another trade? What kind of trade?'

Locke sent back a message. 'You already sold me natal witch porcelain once. Just sell me some more.'

'It won't be any trouble for you.'

Witch Camilla replied, 'How much do you want?'

Locke thought it over for a moment and decided that twelve pieces would be enough, to produce twelve Porcelain Moon Growths and then carry out four rounds of synthesis.

Mainly because each Porcelain Moon Growth required a considerable amount of resources to produce.

Ideally, he would have liked to synthesize Porcelain Moon Growths a hundred times over and then select the best results from among them, but given the cost, that was not realistic.

And beyond a certain point, more was of no benefit.

Good enough would do.

Witch Camilla in Magic Pivot City responded with some shock. 'Is it you who's gone mad, or is it me? If you only wanted to buy one or two pieces of Cancer-sign natal witch porcelain, I might still have a way. You want to buy twelve pieces of Cancer-sign natal witch porcelain? That's completely impossible!'

Witch Camilla quickly sent two more messages. 'I refuse to make this trade. Something like this would definitely alarm Magic Pivot City's chief wizard instructor, and then I'd be the one facing punishment. You'd be fine, but the one getting fined would be me.'

'I refuse to remain in contact with you. Please respect me and stop sending messages.'

Locke raised an eyebrow, though he was not particularly concerned by Witch Camilla's refusal. After all, she had rejected him just as bluntly the last time as well.

Witch Camilla was an opportunist, and for a person like that, missing any opportunity felt like suffering a loss of their own.

Even though she was refusing right now, she might simply be weighing the pros and cons.

Locke thought it over and decided that if he pressed her at this moment, he would put himself in a passive position.

And if he simply accepted the outcome and replied, it would cut off the other party's thinking.

Natal witch porcelain was indeed only available from Magic Pivot City, and he had consulted numerous resources to confirm that natal witch porcelain was the best medium for constructing Porcelain Moons.

Locke thought, "Let's leave it at that for now."

Locke first returned to his dormitory and attempted some meditation, only to find that the more he meditated, the more his magical pressure rose, the wider his soul fissures became, and the further he declined.

Locke abandoned meditation entirely and decided to stop all activities aimed at enhancing his mental power until after he had broken through to the Second Circle.

He used the simple potion room in his dormitory, lit the primordial fire, and refined a vial of potion.

Locke poured the magical pressure liquid from the crucible into a crystal potion vial. The potion was purple in color. It was a standard Weakening Potion.

It could be used to reduce his mental power.

At its core, this was a kind of poison, difficult to refine, far beyond the ability of an ordinary First Circle potion master, and with a very high rate of failure in production.

"I should do my best to avoid consuming any potions that can enhance my own power." Locke reflected, "Right now, my magical pressure has reached the point where it cannot afford even the slightest further increase. Every increase is damage to my soul."

"I should never have elevated my magical pressure this quickly."

"No, that's not right..." Locke caught himself, "This is a vicious cycle. In order to obtain magical resources, I must keep pushing myself forward, and once I push myself forward, every step I take is a step closer to this soul decline period."

Locke drank down the Weakening Potion, diminishing the magical pressure produced by his continuous conversion of natural primal force into magical power. "I'll need to drink a vial of Weakening Potion every day to reduce the magical pressure converted from natural primal force. Who would have thought that at this stage, the reverse flooding of natural primal force would turn out to be the most dreadful disadvantage."

"I also can't use any advanced meditation methods any longer."

"A Weakening Potion alone may not be enough to reduce all the converted magical pressure, so I'll also need to put some additional spell burden on myself, using magic at every moment to draw down my own magical power."

This was like temporarily constructing a reservoir.

Locke snapped his fingers, and immediately a moon descended. The bright full moon settled behind him, then transformed into a sphere, flew into his right eye, and entered the sky above his Forest Sanctuary.

"The soul decline period is far too dangerous. There's no need for me to construct two Grand Magics simultaneously. As long as I successfully construct one Grand Magic, I'll be a Second Circle wizard. It would be better to construct one Grand Magic first, and leave the second for after I become a Second Circle wizard."

Locke recalled his experience within the Historical Milestone Curse, where he had already briefly become a Second Circle wizard by simulating a Grand Magic, and quickly reached his conclusion.

"Right, I should go check in on Group 2. I wonder how Witch Mason and the others have been getting on with the glandular root pouch, the special energy-locking structure I discovered in the ancient flower root."

After drinking the Weakening Potion and waiting for it to take effect, Locke immediately leapt onto his cloud whale and made his way to Little Peach Mountain.

At the summit of Little Peach Mountain, Locke sat aboard the cloud whale and looked down at the mountain with surprise.

The entire summit of Little Peach Mountain was now shrouded in demonic energy. The malevolent power of the Twin Demon Realm coiled around the summit like a mass of dark purple haze.

Even the radiance of the sun behind Golden Crown Mountain was blocked by this demonic energy.

At that moment, Daniel also arrived, riding his Rainbow Sparrow. He had recently just settled his debts and was in high spirits.

Wizard Daniel looked at Locke and said, "Locke, you're heading to the colonial plane too. By the way, I've gotten tired of this Rainbow Sparrow as well."

Locke looked at the rainbow peacock-shaped bird Daniel was riding and said, "Want to swap?"

Daniel had been waiting for exactly those words. "Sure. I've gotten really tired of it too. Riding this Rainbow Sparrow every day feels incredibly dull. I've been eyeing that cloud whale of yours for a long time."

Locke smiled, the Rainbow Sparrow flew down toward him, and Locke leapt onto it while gesturing with his eyes for his cloud whale to fly toward Wizard Daniel.

Locke asked Wizard Daniel, "Have you paid off your debts?"

Wizard Daniel laughed and said, "Cleared them last month. My Tier 2 project should be ready to conclude in about another half a year."

"If I hadn't been swindled, I'd probably have wrapped it up long ago. Ah, there's nothing to be done about it." Wizard Daniel said, "I had limited experience back then. There were losses I simply could not avoid taking."

"There was no escaping them."

"By the way, Locke, I was just about to head to the Gray Mist Plane. My mentor and his research group are waiting for me there. I made a fool of myself in front of them before. Thanks to your encouragement and Senior Sister Juliana's, I've been able to keep going."

"So I need to get over there. After everything that happened, my standing there is a bit low." Wizard Daniel pursed his lips and shrugged his shoulders. "Not everyone is like you and Senior Sister Juliana, who doesn't judge people by outdated impressions."

Daniel thought about the wizards in his current research group who had been gossiping behind his back and giving him strange looks, and couldn't help feeling a flicker of irritation.

In the White Wizard society, debt itself was not the scary thing. What was truly frightening was bankruptcy.

He had accumulated too much debt all at once, and had been forced to borrow from the bank to pay it off.

When he couldn't repay the bank either, he had nearly gone bankrupt and been reduced to a debt slave.

It was fortunate that at that moment, the witch Juliana had found an investor for him, otherwise he truly would have gone bankrupt and been reduced to a debt slave.

He would have had nothing left but to sell his own labor to pay off what he owed.

Wizard Daniel had therefore tasted every shade of the human condition.

He had now repaid all the personal debts he owed to friends, but some of the wizards in his research group still looked at him with suspicion, and continued to tell jokes about him behind his back.

In this White Wizard society, which was built to a very large degree on a credit system, a person who had come close to bankruptcy would inevitably find themselves branded with a label of stigma.

Thinking about this, Wizard Daniel, who had been in a cheerful mood just moments before, fell into a somewhat gloomy state. "Apart from you and Senior Sister, basically no one is willing to speak to me now. The upside is, it's made me feel like the world has gotten remarkably quiet. I've had no choice but to put all my energy into my project."

Wizard Daniel looked at Locke and said, "I've had a very good idea recently. Still related to mist. If it works, it's bound to surprise people."

"That's great." Locke nodded. "A wizard's only moat is their own research achievements. Daniel, don't worry about what other people think."

"Doing our own work well is enough."

"Think about a beautiful future." Locke said, "Sometimes you need to carry a bit of idealism in you. Otherwise, when everything is too ruthlessly practical, and that reality turns out to be too thin and harsh, life becomes unbearably difficult."

"I think that on the very first day we arrived at Golden Crown Mountain, when the Second Circle wizard told us to seek the intangible and avoid the tangible, that might have been part of what they meant. Who knows." Locke said to Wizard Daniel.

Wizard Daniel sat atop the cloud whale, tilted his head back, and looked up at the great blazing red sun behind Golden Crown Mountain that hung there like a divine wheel. "Seek the intangible?"

"You're right. Sometimes reality is too harsh, and without seeking the intangible, it truly becomes too difficult to get through."

"When I had accumulated all that debt, no one was willing to talk to me, no one was willing to help. If I couldn't submerge myself in the intangible, I really don't know how I would have made it through."

"Perhaps the higher-circle wizards of Golden Crown Mountain didn't mean it this way at all, but seeking the intangible really can help you get through the lowest and most painful valleys." Wizard Daniel said, "I suppose it just comes down to having a dream."

"Speaking of which." Wizard Daniel pulled a face. "I have a student who, during my worst period, made several attempts to use connections to get himself reassigned to a different teacher. I've taken note of that."

Locke did not respond.

Wizard Daniel glanced at Locke. "I'm joking."

"How could I really."

Wizard Daniel said to Locke, "Let me tell you about my latest idea. Don't let my current state fool you. I'm still a Three Marsh Cup winner. I entered Golden Crown Mountain as the finest First Circle weather wizard in the Three Marsh Lands."

"Everyone now seems to think I've fallen from grace, but I don't see it that way."

Wizard Daniel opened his palm toward Locke. A droplet of water appeared on his palm, which began to evaporate. Then the droplet became many small droplets.

Those small droplets also evaporated, and together they formed a haze of magical mist.

Wizard Daniel reached into his astral ring and produced an alchemy item in the form of a toxic gas orb. He crushed it, and all the toxic gas entered the mist.

Instantly, the magical mist turned into green poisonous haze.

Locke said, "Is that your idea? It's just becoming a poisonous mist. It's a very common First Circle spell model. Completely unremarkable."

Wizard Daniel blinked, then caught himself. He reached into his astral ring again and produced the heart of a dark-attribute magical creature, crushed it to force out the magical energy, and this dark energy then combined with a small cluster of mist in his right palm.

Wizard Daniel said, "Look. What do you see?"

Locke looked at the cluster of mist and gave a slight shake of his head.

Wizard Daniel blinked, then looked down at the cluster of mist in his own hand. "That first demonstration was wrong. What I just showed you the second time is what I actually wanted you to see."

"Look, a portion of this dark energy has been absorbed into the mist."

Locke glanced at Wizard Daniel. "Hmm... there's a little, I suppose. Hmm? Very little, almost negligible, but... remarkably persistent."

"Are you saying that mist has the potential to be an excellent energy-locking structure?"

Wizard Daniel said, "Energy-locking? Your mind moves too fast. That was my idea, and I hadn't even explained it yet. You got there first. That's really deflating."

Locke said, "Not really. I've just been researching energy-locking structures a lot lately."

Wizard Daniel paused. "Magical plant energy-locking structures? Oh, the special structural organs in life magic used for storing and converting life energy. Our meteorology mainly studies macroscopic energy scheduling, the coupling interface between environment and energy, the capture of meteorological-scale energy, and cross-regional energy transport."

"So the scale is much larger. And it's not just energy-locking, but also energy transport. Look at this magical formation. Because the water has become droplets, it has an enormously expanded surface area and corresponding surface tension."

"And there are some mechanisms I haven't fully worked out yet. If this can be made to work, it would be an excellent distributed energy storage network, as well as an energy transport medium controlled by wind loads and temperature differentials."

Wizard Daniel said, "There is a very important concept in meteorology that can roughly be equated to the energy-locking structures in your life magic, which is the energy transport medium."

"In aerology, an energy transport medium is something that enables the macroscopic mobility of energy and functions as an object capable of transporting energy. And this small detail I discovered within ordinary mist might help me complete a different kind of Grand Magic."

"I'm currently gathering materials to fill in the last piece of content." Wizard Daniel said, "Not to boast, but if I hadn't been swindled by that wretched witch back then, you would certainly have had me as one of your opponents in the final rounds of the Spell Combat Tournament."

"Locke, you might not have been the champion."

Locke smiled. "I believe you."

Locke looked at the mist in Daniel's hands, and thought to himself, 'I've been looking all along for the fourth link between the moon, all things, and myself, to increase system redundancy.'

'I had later planned to use the Forest Alliance Curse to build a redundant structure. But in truth, the redundant structure still wasn't sufficient. And today's conversation with Daniel has suddenly made me realize that my Forest Alliance Curse has a serious flaw. Or rather, a flaw inherent to plants, which is that the mobility of plants is limited.'

'Using the Forest Sanctuary as an energy storage structure means facing the problem of lunar energy becoming anchored in a particular local area of the land, which leads to excessive concentration.'

Locke turned it over carefully, and suddenly felt a chill run down his back. 'The reason I was invincible within the Historical Milestone Curse was only because I was standing on the shoulders of the giants of that age, and those people were unfamiliar with my Grand Magic. And I was not truly facing any powerfully ancient wizards. Thinking carefully about it, the Grand Magic I constructed back then had far too many weaknesses.'

'An energy storage environment with the problem of excessively concentrated energy is extremely serious.'

'Let alone the fact that there was also no energy transport medium within it.' Locke looked at Daniel in thought. 'If Daniel can successfully research this mist, it sounds as though I might be able to borrow this kind of mist to further enhance my Grand Magic.'

'This friend was not made in vain.'