Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems

Locke let out a breath of relief. He had managed to help Esther escape the pursuit after all.

Though even now he still did not fully understand Witch Yekaterina's complete plan. Was Esther a traitor or a mole?

On the surface, Esther appeared to be a traitor.

Of course, from her own perspective, she had likely done nothing more than change jobs. But Witch Yekaterina had asked him to secretly help her leave the Golden Crown Mountain district.

The amount of hidden information within all of this was simply too vast.

At this moment, standing on the small void flyer were two people Locke recognized well. One was Witch Lana of the Rose Council, and the other was Witch Nina of the Rose Council.

The two were dressed in wizard robes styled after two different varieties of roses. One was a haze-blue robe styled after the cup-shaped blue rose variety called Ocean Song, with a real Ocean Song rose magical plant on the left shoulder.

The witch wearing this robe was Witch Nina.

The other robe was apricot yellow, styled after the Golden Celebration rose with its lord's crown shape and extraordinary fragrance, equally themed around that variety of rose, with a real Golden Celebration rose magical plant on the right shoulder.

What gave Locke pause was that the witch wearing this robe was Witch Lana.

It had been Witch Nina who, during the defense committee, had reminded him to purchase a World Stone before entering the competition. She had in effect been hinting to him that the high-circle Rose Council wizards behind Solas Light Foot and Melechi Magic Step would hire black wizards to ambush him after the competition.

Her reason for doing so, beyond having a favorable impression of him, was primarily because Witch Lana had praised him in her presence on multiple occasions.

He had simply not expected that in this operation involving Esther's defection, he would encounter these two familiar witches.

Witch Lana swept a complicated glance across Esther, then looked toward Wizard Cis who was in pursuit, along with the other Second Circle wizards.

"Cis, stand down."

"Esther's contract with your Golden Crown Mountain has already expired, and she communicated in advance with our academy's rose witches. The Throne has already agreed to her transferring to our Rose Council."

"Given that, there is no need to create bad blood between our two institutions."

"Afterward, we will separately explain matters to Golden Crown Mountain and will proactively offer compensation for the unfulfilled contracts between Esther and Golden Crown Mountain."

Wizard Cis looked coldly at Witch Lana, then at Witch Esther, and then back at Witch Lana.

"Rose Council, if you truly do not want to damage the good relationship with Golden Crown Mountain, you should not have used methods this underhanded."

"Poaching from Golden Crown Mountain is a serious provocation."

Wizard Cis said with considerable force, "This is different from a minor dispute like the Desert Rose. Poaching one of Golden Crown Mountain's sun ring wizards is tantamount to a declaration of war. You may decide when war begins, but whether it ends on your terms is another matter entirely."

Wizard Cis said, "Do you truly wish to provoke this conflict?"

Locke's eyes flickered. This was precisely what he found most strange.

A sun ring wizard changing institutions was not the same as an ordinary Second Circle wizard doing so. For Golden Crown Mountain, this was a loss that could not be ignored, and it would trigger a cascade of further consequences.

Under normal circumstances, it was very difficult to believe this was anything other than genuine.

Witch Lana stood at the front of the small flyer with her arms folded, smiling. "War? Cis, you are being far too dramatic. If Esther were truly that important to the academy, she would have been given a long-term contract rather than treated as a temporary employee."

"Since she was only a temporary employee, there is no reason to make such a fuss over her departure. Our Rose Council is willing to offer her a long-term contract."

"Beyond that, there is also a series of Second Circle wizard secret realm resources, and even a priority selection right for entry into a Third Circle wizard secret realm. We can also commit to providing her with the resources to lead a team and apply for a sun ring project fund."

Witch Lana smiled. "We are offering better terms, so she has come to our side. Is that not perfectly natural? Cis, there is no need for such alarm. This is simply a business matter."

"The Five Great Wars have only just ended. Your Golden Crown Mountain performed impressively."

A flash of wariness passed through Witch Lana's eyes.

"But try not to have war on your lips at every turn."

In the most recent Five Great Wars, Golden Crown Mountain had accumulated the highest score, meaning that over the coming ten years Golden Crown Mountain would be in an extremely dominant position.

And yet precisely because of this, there was all the more reason to poach Esther without hesitation.

The project that Golden Crown Mountain's Red Dragon Queen was seeking to apply for under the Ten-Person Plan, and the project that the Rose Witch was seeking to apply for, were nearly identical in scope and had come into direct conflict.

Both of them were now racing to be the first to submit their application.

Whoever moved first would take everything.

Academic competition was a matter of life and death, and so Esther had to be poached.

Witch Esther's eyes flickered, and she turned to look at Wizard Cis, offering an explanation. "Cis, I have no wish to become your enemy. But if you are going to be this aggressive and unyielding, then do not blame me for showing no mercy."

"Let me go."

Wizard Cis gave a cold snort.

"You have no wish to become my enemy. Then why did you help Zalan Bailey become a Second Circle wizard, accelerating his advancement, to the point where it could even be said that he would most likely have never become a Second Circle wizard for most of his life had things gone normally?"

"You accelerated his path to becoming a Second Circle wizard, letting him congratulate himself, believing he had done it through his own efforts alone, entirely oblivious to the multiple external interventions that had helped him along..."

Locke, who had been quietly perking up his dragon ears to eavesdrop while fighting the Death Dragon and Golden Crown Mountain's Second Circle wizards alongside it, heard this and immediately understood.

So that was how it was.

He had long since sensed that Zalan Bailey seemed to be concealing a vast conspiratorial whirlpool around him, and had deliberately kept his distance to avoid being dragged into it.

Looking at it now, the decision he had made at the time had been an extremely wise one.

It turned out that Zalan Bailey's path to becoming a Second Circle wizard had been deliberately engineered by Witch Esther.

Of course, this was not to say he had not become a Second Circle wizard through his own efforts.

After all, the vast majority of what it took to become a Second Circle wizard still had to come from oneself. But it seemed Esther had been pushing and accelerating his growth from behind the scenes, helping him leap over a threshold that would normally have taken hundreds of years to cross.

This was essentially forcing a plant to grow by pulling on its stem.

Wizard Cis fixed his gaze firmly on Witch Esther and said, "You caused Zalan Bailey, a researcher of ordinary talent, to become a Second Circle wizard ahead of schedule. Honestly, you ruined him. You diminished his ceiling and made him unable to see how vast the sky truly is. You used success to destroy his judgment, and then you used deception to exploit him."

"After he was apprehended by us, he told us everything. You would frequently bring up Locke in front of him, and covertly cultivated a hostile attitude toward Locke in his mind. Locke Augustine and Zalan Bailey are both invaluable assets to our Golden Crown Mountain, yet you made them enemies of each other."

"You deceived Zalan Bailey, leading him into a con artist's trap. That con artist roams the Eastern Border Region, claiming to help various wizards establish purification factories in colonial worlds, yet he possesses no such technology whatsoever."

"He is nothing but a fraud."

Wizard Cis said coldly, "Zalan Bailey never realized that the person he called a friend was nothing more than a grand liar who bluffed and boasted his way everywhere."

"As a result, he was swindled out of all his money, but he did not dare tell me, and could only borrow at usurious rates. He fell into a chain of scams and was stripped of everything, and at this point the Dune Plane has also suffered severe contamination."

Wizard Cis's eyes were ice cold, his teeth clenched.

"Esther, I have no grievance against you. Why did you destroy twenty years of all my efforts in the Dune Plane? The Desert Rose is one of the main raw materials for the love ring magical artifact that the rose witches developed, but it is only a very small market with no technical barrier."

"How could you bring yourself to go this far?"

Esther started to speak but stopped herself.

Wizard Cis continued, "You and I have been friends for many years, and we only recently won a Demon Realm War together. Whatever you have to say, you can say it after coming back to Golden Crown Mountain with us. Witch Esther, you are a Golden Crown Mountain wizard..."

Locke was listening from the side, his heart quietly racing.

So the reason Wizard Zalan Bailey had harbored such intense hostility and jealousy toward him was because a third party had been scheming in the shadows.

That made sense. Without a third party stirring things up covertly, even if Wizard Zalan Bailey felt jealous of him, his hostility would not have been this intense.

These were things he never would have discovered for a very long time to come, had he not happened to take part in this operation.

It turned out that from not long after his arrival at Golden Crown Mountain, there had been this kind of undercurrent swirling around him.

But why?

Why would the Rose Witch take such a roundabout approach to target Group Two?

And what was Esther's actual allegiance?

If she were a traitor, then her turning Zalan Bailey should have been nothing more than stirring up trouble. It was unlikely to have been a deliberate targeting of himself.

He was simply a tool she had borrowed for the occasion.

If she were a mole dispatched by his teacher, then how much did Witch Yekaterina know about all of this?

Locke's thoughts were beginning to feel somewhat tangled.

Witch Lana, wearing the Golden Celebration Rose wizard robe, heard all of this and turned to look at Wizard Cis. "So your side did not know any of this. Cis, you have one thing wrong."

"Esther has always been one of our Rose Council's people."

The Golden Celebration Rose on Witch Lana's shoulder bloomed fully, and at once streams of enchantment spell light leapt outward, affecting everyone's vision, and what they all saw beneath this enchantment spell was a scene from the past.

Within that scene, there appeared the young face of Witch Esther.

The Witch Esther of this scene was still an ordinary little girl, born on the streets of a free city-state under the Rose Council's jurisdiction. She was the daughter of a proprietor of a local ordinary art gallery.

In the illusion, the young Witch Esther studied hard, took the entrance exam for her local Rose Council preliminary school, passed it, and began learning there, and very quickly came to the attention of the second-class wizard apprentice principal of the preliminary school.

After her aptitude as a Child of Wood Element was identified, she advanced rapidly, making her way to the capital of an ordinary nation under the Rose Council's jurisdiction. There she began studying at a mid-level academy established by the Rose Council, and within less than half a year had become a third-class wizard apprentice.

Originally, her destined path should have been to immediately sit for the entrance examination, gain entry into either the Rose Council's headquarters' advanced academy or the Rose Council's affiliated wizard university, and regardless of which path she chose, very likely go on to become a formal wizard of the Rose Council.

But then the turning point of fate arrived. A witch who looked like a young girl, dressed in a Baroque-style skirt adorned with magical plant rose patterns of every variety, appeared before her.

The young-seeming witch wore her hair in twin tails, her eyes carrying an arrogance that seemed to look down on everyone in the world, as she appeared before the young Witch Esther.

Esther, standing to the side, saw this scene, and her eyes flickered slightly. She gave a respectful bow toward the rose witch in the illusion.

The rose witch in the illusion looked at the young Esther before her with an indifferent gaze.

"Esther, is it. Quite an interesting little girl."

"I am a Third Circle Throne Witch of the Rose Council."

"I am now giving you a chance to rise rapidly. I have looked at your examination scores. Your magical precision is very high, but your intuitive resonance with magical power is insufficient. In other words, you are talented, but among your kind of talent, you are not the finest type that our Rose Council produces."

The Rose Witch's lips carried a malicious smile, making no effort to conceal her mocking gaze.

"Esther, if you remain within the Rose Council's academy system, no matter where you go, you will always be second. A second who is more than adequate, yet can never be first. Is that what you want?"

In the illusion, the young Witch Esther immediately begged the Rose Witch to guide her future path.

The Rose Witch pointed in the direction of Golden Crown Mountain. "The world is far vaster than you imagine. The Rose Council district is not the entire world, Esther."

"This place is not suited to you. Go somewhere that is. A tree dies when transplanted, but a person thrives."

"Esther, let me give you a long-term and permanent assignment. If you accept it, you may take me as your teacher right now. If you refuse, you may pretend I was never here. I will not tell you who I am, because that would only add to your lifelong regret and leave something you can never make peace with."

The Rose Witch clasped her hands behind her back. "I do not want to be so cruel. What can I say, I have always been this kind-hearted."

In the illusion, Esther naturally chose to take the Rose Witch as her teacher.

And the Rose Witch presented Esther with her long-term assignment.

"From this day forward, you are my final and most treasured disciple."

"Esther, a private teacher-student relationship is one thing, while the teacher-student relationship recognized by the White Wizard Association is another thing entirely."

"When you become a more powerful wizard, you will understand, there is a difference between calling someone your teacher, calling someone your teacher and having that person acknowledge you as their student, and calling someone your teacher and having that person acknowledge you as their disciple."

"Those are three different concepts. Though the form of address is the same in all three cases. We have only the mentorship system, one of the three great pillars of this era, to blame for muddying the true definition of the teacher-student relationship as it existed in the classical age."

The Rose Witch said, "You are currently a third-class wizard apprentice, which is exactly right. Leave this mid-level academy under the Rose Council's banner. Go sit the entrance exam for Golden Crown Mountain's mid-level academy. Once you are in Golden Crown Mountain's mid-level academy, sit for their advanced academy, and I want you to become a student under a student of Golden Crown Mountain's Witch Yekaterina."

"That way you will have washed away the traces of the Rose Council from your past. But that alone is not enough. You must become a student of Witch Yekaterina's and then go to work under her."

"According to my arrangement, during your second-class wizard apprentice period, you will go to work under one of her students. During your first-class wizard apprentice period, you can become one of her ordinary students. Then, during your formal wizard period, I want you to make her call you her student in her own words."

The Rose Witch's lips carried a smile. "And my dear disciple, when you become a Second Circle wizard, that will be the moment you return to your teacher's side."

"This private teacher-student relationship is separate from the mentorship system and therefore creates no conflict, so no one will dare to say a word about it. And in the future, it will be proof that you belong to our Rose Council."

In the illusion, the young Witch Esther's eyes lit up like stars as she gave a respectful bow to the Rose Witch. "Thank you, Teacher."

"I am willing to go to Golden Crown Mountain."

Locke, watching from the sidelines, was completely stunned.

Senior Esther, just who exactly are you a mole for? Golden Crown Mountain, or the Rose Council?

Whose side are you actually on?

In other words, the Rose Council had made use of the mechanism by which, from third-class wizard apprentice to second-class to first-class, one was permitted to change teachers and move between institutions by continually sitting for higher examinations, entirely rewriting Witch Esther's academic history, and through a private teacher-student relationship, confirmed Witch Esther's private allegiance.

Which then raised the question.

Did his teacher Witch Yekaterina know about any of this?

If she did, why had she asked him to help Esther?

If she did not...

Witch Esther looked at Witch Lana and Wizard Cis, then cast a glance toward the terrifying Death Dragon in the distance, the Golden Crown Mountain wizards holding the Death Dragon at bay, and the sky-blotting swarm of wyverns.

Witch Esther said, "There is no need to make things this complicated and drag all of us into such a difficult position. This is Chasm territory, after all. The Death Dragon is already a terrifying enemy impossible for ordinary Second Circle wizards to deal with on their own, and even poses a threat to us as sun ring wizards."

"Let us all keep this brief. I have always been a person of the Rose Council, in the past, in the present, and even more so in the future. Therefore, the question of betrayal or not is irrelevant."

"And furthermore, I know more than either of you. Cis, and you too, Lana. You have both underestimated how close I am to the Rose Witch. I am her final and most treasured disciple. Before she becomes a Fourth Circle wizard, she will not waste the additional energy to carefully cultivate another student."

Witch Esther let out a quiet sigh. "The Rose Witch and the Red Dragon Witch have had long-standing conflicts in their research. The peach tree is also a magical plant of the Rosaceae family, and the two of them often find their research overlapping in many areas. One thing led to another, and they became enemies."

"Two hundred years ago, the Rose Witch discovered that the Ten-Person Plan project the Red Dragon Witch was planning, the project with access to Fourth Circle resources, was using a research topic that directly conflicted with her own. At that point, she was already past the point of no return, unable to make large-scale adjustments, and so she had no choice but to set me into play as her piece."

Everyone present fell silent.

No one had expected that academic competition at the Third Circle level could be this brutal.

A single project had been fought over for two hundred years from beginning to end. The Rose Witch had even spent two hundred years laying plans and cultivating a sun ring wizard, only to use her as a spy, to dig out the secrets of the opposing project team.

This was absolutely relentless.

Witch Esther looked at Witch Lana and Wizard Cis, and said, "Both Throne-level figures are extraordinary individuals and the outstanding talents of this age. What is unfortunate is that their thinking constantly collides. Even without hatred between them, what exists now is more terrifying than hatred. Cis, I can tell you this: the new energy-locking structures that your Group Two has developed are of great value to the Red Dragon Throne."

"And equally so to Teacher Rose Witch."

Locke stood nearby going through the motions, while perking up his dragon ears to eavesdrop, and sank into deep thought.

"If the Rose Council truly trusts her that much, why did they repeatedly probe me just now?"

"And what exactly is Teacher's Ten-Person Plan project? From Group Two to Group Six, and Group Three which Esther oversaw, the research topics seem not merely unrelated but to have absolutely nothing in common with one another."

"As a project plan spanning more than two hundred years, the two Thrones would naturally not want to draw more attention and competition. So they would have concealed their true project. Most likely only a small number of people at their level with relevant connections, and people in special circumstances like Witch Esther, would have any inkling of what it actually is."

At this moment, a Third Circle-level magic pressure suddenly descended from the sky, and even the Golden Crown Mountain Third Circle wizard who had been lurking in the shadows, observing the situation and ready to act at any moment, was momentarily taken aback.

"The Throne?"

Esther was also startled, and seemed very frightened.

"Lady Yekaterina, have you finally realized that I have truly defected from you?"

Locke was completely baffled.

What exactly is happening right now? I am utterly lost.

Senior, have you actually defected or not?

It was only now that Locke truly realized how inexperienced he still was.

At this moment, he appeared to have barely just qualified to sit at the table, to be used as a card by others. And the players who could actually play cards had to be at least Third Circle.

Only within this game, sun ring wizards, as the equivalent of wild cards, seemed to have some agency of their own.

And the players would give at least some consideration to the interests of the sun ring wizards.

At that moment, a Dragon Viewing Peach King suddenly descended from the sky, aiming to suppress Esther and every Rose Council wizard around her beneath it.

In an instant, that peach transformed into a mountain.

A Peach Mountain.

In that single instant, everyone felt that peach descending from above like an entire world coming down upon them.

Everyone's magic pressure became utterly helpless in that moment.

It was as though everything was becoming inevitable.

Locke even felt that his own magic pressure was so fragile as to be of no use whatsoever.

A magic peach becomes a mountain, and the world is subdued beneath it.

In the next moment, a shower of cherry blossoms suddenly swept through the sky, and two Throne-level magic pressures clashed against each other.

The voice of the Rose Witch, sounding like that of a child, rang out.

"Katya, this is the first time I have ever seen you in such a fluster. Hahaha..."

"The two of us have been the closest of friends for a thousand years. A thousand years, and I cannot count how many times we have each inwardly wished the other would walk straight out the door and into some calamity. Am I right?"