Wizard: Starting from the Skill Tree

The core of advancing to a Level 3 Mage is to open the Gate of Rules and let Spiritual Power produce a profound resonance with the Rules.

And the Plane Will—that hazy yet colossal collective consciousness slumbering in the depths of the Plane—is itself the source of all Rules within a Plane.

Advancing at the World’s Navel means that at the moment the Mage pushes open the Gate of Rules, he is closer to the Plane Will than at any other place.

This closeness is not a matter of physical distance, but a kind of proximity at the level of perception.

Like standing directly beneath the dome of a vast cathedral and whispering, the echo there is clearer and more focused than anywhere else.

The Plane Will will not actively assist a Mage’s advancement, but its mere existence is like a lighthouse that never goes out, providing all Mages who attempt to perceive Rule Power with the clearest and most stable reference coordinate.

Advancing elsewhere, a Mage must grope for the direction of the Rules in endless darkness, like navigating a boundless sea with only a blurry star map.

Advancing at the position of the World’s Navel, that lighthouse is right overhead; one can sense its radiance even with eyes closed.

Precisely because of this, the Six-Ring Tower has specially constructed advancement grounds here, open free of charge to all members who have obtained advancement qualification.

This is a kind of implicit welfare never written into any explicit provision, and also a public function borne by the Six-Ring Tower as the highest authority on the Wizard Plane, providing irreplaceable infrastructural support for the cultivation of top-tier talent across the entire Plane.

Conversely, however, advancing at the World’s Navel also means that at the very moment when the Mage’s resonance with the Rules is strongest, he is bound to be under the gaze of the Plane Will.

This gaze in itself does not constitute any threat; the Plane Will does not interfere—it is merely a silent witness.

But for those advancement candidates whose foundations are unstable and whose Spiritual Power harbors hidden dangers, being gazed upon by the Plane Will is itself a kind of invisible pressure.

Any flaw in Spiritual Power that is usually overlooked will be infinitely magnified under that vast gaze, and may become the last straw that breaks the advancement.

Duke withdrew his Spiritual Power, retracting all perception from the Witch Array and the environment, focusing once more on his own body and Spiritual Sea.

He stood on the grass for a long time, not in a hurry to take out the Magic Potion and the Key of Rules, merely breathing quietly the air in this space, tinged with the fragrance of grass, letting his heartbeat and breathing slow to their most steady rhythm.

Only when his Spiritual Sea had completely calmed did he slowly raise his hand and take out those three rows of Crystal Potion Bottles from the Space Ring.

The dark-blue nebula of the Star Sea Sheltering Dew slowly revolved within the bottle; the trichromatic gradient of the Pupil of the Rule Horizon refracted aurora-like patterns under the sunlight; in the transparent liquid of the Silent Eternal Seal, silver-white mist rolled silently.

He then took out that Secret Silver Box from the Light God Court, opened the lid, and the Key of Rules lay quietly inside. On the surface of the irregular Crystal, about the size of a thumb joint, flowed a deep crimson luster; the orange-golden radiance emanating from within grew a bit brighter than usual in the energy environment of the Witch Array’s enhancement layer, as if sensing its imminent use.

Duke picked up the first Star Sea Sheltering Dew and pulled out the stopper.

A crisp, starlight-laden aura overflowed from the mouth of the bottle, carrying extremely subtle silver-white light specks that hovered briefly in the air before dissipating under the sunlight.

He tilted his head back and drained the Potion in one gulp. At the moment the liquid entered his mouth, it was not icy cold; instead, it carried a trace of warmth, sliding down his throat into his body. Then that warmth suddenly exploded, transforming into countless fine silver-white threads of light, rapidly spreading along the Magic Circulation toward the direction of the Spiritual Sea.

A few breaths later, the threads of light reached the outer edge of the Spiritual Sea; without pausing, they directly permeated inside.

Within the Spiritual Sea, the Six-Element Compound Spiritual Crystal shuddered sharply the instant the threads of light touched it, and then those threads began to wind around it layer by layer, weaving into a dense yet resilient light-net over the Crystal’s surface.

The entire process was accompanied by a dull, low-frequency vibration like a distant bell; each vibration made the Spiritual Power Crystal quiver slightly, yet the restraint of the light-net kept the amplitude of that trembling always within a safe range.

The vibration persisted for quite a while before slowly subsiding. The light-net fully took shape, fitting tightly over the surface of the Spiritual Power Crystal like a transparent second skin, firmly encasing the Crystal.

With the Spiritual Sea’s reinforcement completed, Duke felt the state of the Spiritual Power Crystal, confirmed that the light-net was stable and sound, and then picked up the Key of Rules.

He rose from the grass and walked to the slightly raised circular stone platform at the center of the Witch Array.

The rune patterns engraved on the surface of the stone platform lit up automatically as he approached. Silver-white radiance flowed along the rune grooves from the edge of the platform toward the center, ultimately forming a fist-sized Energy Node at the exact center.

He placed the Key of Rules into the Node. The instant the Crystal embedded itself into the Node, the entire room jolted violently.

It was not a vibration at the physical level, but space itself quivering.

Duke felt the grass under his feet, the sky above his head, the tree canopies on the distant hills—all those natural scenes he had just taken to be truly existing—twist slightly under that jolt, revealing an extremely thin, film-like spatial structure, then quickly returning to their original state.

The rune patterns upon the stone platform began to light up ring by ring: the first ring, the second ring, the third ring...

The speed at which they lit up grew ever faster, spreading outward from the stone platform, climbing up along the walls, passing through the dome, and finally activating the entire Witch Array of the room.

Duke could clearly sense that the concentration of Free Energy Particles within the room had been driven to an extremely dense level.

And after all the rune patterns lit up, they did not cease changing; their silver-white radiance began to converge toward the position of the Key of Rules, like countless tiny serpents of light slithering from all directions toward the same prey, drilling one after another into the interior of the Key of Rules’ Crystal.

Then the Key of Rules shattered—or, more precisely, melted away without a sound.

The thumb-sized Crystal, under the continuous infusion of rune-light, was like a block of ice dropped into warm water, completely dissipating into the air above the stone platform.

Yet at the place where it vanished there remained a mass of light, a fist-sized, utterly pure crimson radiance, suspended above the stone platform, as still and quiet as a clump of flame fixed within amber.

This was Rule Power, the Rule of the Fire Attribute, in its purest, most primordial form, stripped from the deepest core of the Heart of Molten Fire, forcibly activated, released, and manifested as a visible entity in this space by the Witch Array.

The very moment the Key of Rules was activated, Duke’s Spiritual Sea sensed that Power, a presence more fundamental than Free Energy Particles, more primitive than any Magic Model, more direct than any Meditation Technique.

He hesitated no longer and released his own Spiritual Power without reservation in all directions.

The Six-Element Compound Spiritual Crystal operated at full speed within the Spiritual Sea; Spiritual Power surged like waves invisible to the naked eye, billowing, spreading, and sweeping outward from his body as the center.

The blades of grass on the lawn were pressed outward by the tide of Spiritual Power; the Free Energy Particles diffused in the air were swept along by the surge, accelerating their flow and forming ring after ring of concentric energy ripples centered on Duke.

His Spiritual Power waves crashed against that crimson mass of light transformed from the Key of Rules, then were rebounded, surging back into the Spiritual Sea bearing the lingering echo of the Flame Rules.

This process repeated an unknown number of times: Spiritual Power released outward, striking against Rule Power, then returning with fragments of the Rules, engraving the brand of the Flame Rules bit by bit into the Spiritual Power Crystal.

Each impact made the Spiritual Power Crystal tremble slightly, yet the light-net woven by the Star Sea Sheltering Dew steadily caught every tremor, allowing the Spiritual Power Crystal to maintain its intact structure throughout this storm of Rules.

As the number of impacts increased, extremely fine dark-red patterns began to surface upon the Spiritual Power Crystal—these were the earliest traces left by the Flame Rules at the level of Spiritual Power.