Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems

Locke saw a green leaf descend upon this Second Circle climbing fern.

This was a World Tree leaf.

The hallmark of a World Primordial Magical Plant was that it would possess one World Tree leaf.

For a single instant, Locke saw a vision. A lush and verdant tree, with countless leaves scattering outward in all directions. Each World Tree leaf fell into the hands of an ancient creature.

World Tree leaves were the symbol of a Nature Guardian's identity.

Each World Tree leaf was a primordial energy-locking structure.

At this moment, after that World Tree leaf descended upon the Second Circle climbing fern, it transformed into a leaf ring that linked the fern's fronds together, then formed a circular ring of leaves.

It looked just like a green leaf ring encircling the climbing fern.

Locke gripped the fern spear-form climbing fern in his hand and noticed that this leaf ring had bestowed an earth attribute upon the climbing fern.

What function did the leaf ring formed from this single World Tree leaf serve? Locke did not know this himself.

He curiously called upon the climbing fern. From the outside, the climbing fern appeared unchanged. But after testing it, Locke found that this magical plant climbing fern seemed to have undergone two changes.

The first was that the climbing fern's original spores had possessed two attributes: one was the gold attribute, and one was the water attribute obtained from collecting the planar information of the Rain Realm.

But now this climbing fern had developed an earth attribute.

This caused the climbing fern to turn into something resembling muddy water in his hand.

The second change was that the World Tree leaf seemed to have bestowed a completely new attribute upon the climbing fern, while also granting it a special ability.

That was energy concentration.

It could concentrate magical energy in an inconceivable way onto a single point, forming a special attack capable of piercing through an opponent in an instant, like divine punishment falling from the heavens.

In other words, as long as this special energy-locking structure was used, he could concentrate all the power of the climbing fern and himself onto a single point in the instant of attacking, and launch an attack against an enemy powerful enough to pierce through anything.

This could give his climbing fern and related botanical magic inconceivable power.

Locke looked at the World Tree leaf on his climbing fern. He perceived that each Nature Guardian might have one World Tree leaf, which was both the symbol of their identity and the emblem of their power.

The World Tree leaves of different types of Nature Guardians might differ.

But even among fierce beasts, there were many varieties of World Tree leaves, so the one he had received had been randomly selected for him.

Furthermore, it seemed he could extract the World Tree leaf from the climbing fern and place it on another Second Circle magical plant, as long as that plant was one he had personally cultivated.

Locke gently pulled at one corner of the climbing fern's leaf ring, and the leaf came away in his hand, transforming into an oval leaf. The veins of this leaf stood out prominently on its surface like sinews in sunlight, flickering with a crystalline green radiance.

With a slight movement of his thoughts, the World Tree leaf returned to the Second Circle climbing fern, becoming the green leaf ring at the center of the crystal crown spiral staircase that the climbing fern had formed.

Emerald green and ice blue.

This climbing fern was gorgeous beyond compare, like a magical plant that did not belong to the mortal world.

At the same time, a scene forced its way into his mind. A lush great tree was growing in the wind, when suddenly a bolt of thunder-fire fell upon it. The great tree cracked open abruptly.

Sparks flew.

The great tree split apart, then the entire tree began to burn. A wave of natural force radiated from this place and spread outward toward the entire void cosmos.

All the planes swept by this force were stirred by the ripple of this energy erupting. A special force arose, and strand after strand of undying sparks were born.

Within the native lands of those planes, one giant after another emerged. Within the eyes of these giants, an undying spark danced and flickered.

At the same time, Locke felt the fury of the tree struck and split by the thunder-fire. It was as though this was the most primal anger of the Natural Plane.

And he, as a fierce beast in the form of a Nature Avatar, felt that fury as his own.

Fury, betrayal, and raging fire.

In the next instant, the vision vanished.

The voice of the world's will of the Natural Plane appeared in Locke's ear. 'Three-Eyed, we need more guardians to awaken. Three-Eyed, your species has reached its limit. You must go and seek my Fruit.'

Locke's heart stirred with surprise.

First, he had not expected that after his ancient creature reached the Second Circle, he would thereby obtain the complete abilities and permissions of a Nature Guardian, along with the most important thing, one leaf of the World Tree.

For a botanical wizard, this was simply priceless.

Beyond that, the vision the World Tree had shown him also felt very strange to him, and he wanted to investigate it further, because it seemed to contain some particularly significant secret.

What was that tree? Could it have been the World Tree?

But in his eyes at this moment, the World Tree was an infinite world state of trees within trees. The tree that had been struck and split by the thunder-fire looked like an ordinary oak tree, just somewhat larger than most.

And what place was that?

The magic pressure of that thunder-fire was also inconceivably powerful.

After the thunder-fire split that tree, it released enormous energy that swept through the entire cosmos. The energy rubbing against the planes seemed to produce a special form of living being.

Those living beings possessed undying energy.

Locke thought about it. If his guess was not wrong, those would be the divine beings recorded in the wizard world's mythology.

If that was the case, did he just witness the origin of those divine beings?

But then one question arose. Why was the World Tree so furious about the origin of these divine beings, and why did it feel as though it had been betrayed?

Could it be that the appearance of those divine beings was built upon some form of betrayal, and that they were opposed to nature?

Wait.

Locke suddenly recalled that he had read in wizard world journals that, although divine beings had become something of a distant word for wizards, the wizard world did not consider the divine beings currently encountered across various colonial planes to be genuine divine beings. Those divine beings seemed more like crude imitations that had usurped some of what genuine divine beings once were.

For this reason, wizards divided divine beings into false gods and primordial divine beings.

But there were also wizards who argued that even the primordial divine beings were only crude imitations of true divine beings, because there was now mounting evidence pointing to true divine beings existing somewhere in the distant star realm.

The star realm was the source of true gods, and increasingly more evidence pointed in this direction.

But if one followed the vision the World Tree had just shown him, this view was still probably flawed.

Because in the vision he had seen, those giants, if they were primordial divine beings, would mean that all primordial divine beings very likely originated from that one event of betrayal that had made the World Tree furious.

Locke felt somewhat confused.

"In other words, if my guess is not wrong, divine beings have at least two origins. One is the star realm, and another is that unknown event that made the World Tree furious."

"What exactly is the World Tree trying to tell me?"

Locke thought, "Of course, if those giants were not divine beings, all of these guesses are wrong."

"Or perhaps the World Tree showed me this vision to tell me that all primordial divine beings are my enemies?"

"And there is another problem. Nature Guardians are deeply bound to the ancient creature communities. The catastrophe five hundred thousand years ago that caused almost the complete disappearance of ancient creatures, looking at it now, was not a disaster internal to the wizard world, but a catastrophe that spread across the entire infinite void."

"Is the disappearance of Nature Guardians and ancient creatures, and that catastrophe five hundred thousand years ago, connected to the vision I just saw of the thunder-fire splitting the tree?"

An unsolved mystery that had circled Locke's thoughts ever since the apprentice stage, when he had first encountered archaeological magic, hovered in his mind once more.

Having become a Second Circle wizard, he had obtained more information and seen more things. So his understanding of that ancient catastrophe was clearer, and he naturally discovered even more questions surrounding it.

Furthermore, the World Tree wanted him to find the World Tree's Fruit.

Which meant that as a Nature Guardian, the Three-Eyed Tiger Eye Cat could potentially use the World Tree's Fruit to continue breaking through. Perhaps there was a chance to become a Third Circle-level guardian?

But what was the World Tree's Fruit?

Carrying these two unresolved questions, Locke's consciousness left the Natural Plane.

He returned to the Silent Plane. The Silent Plane at this moment was in the midst of the apocalypse. The celestial river was pouring downward. Because he had been in a state of deep meditation for a while, the Moon of Evolution had only been running on automatic.

At this moment, the great flood from the sky was bearing down to engulf him. Like a jellyfish reaching out a tentacle, it slammed toward him.

Antoine and Witch Preston seemed to have grown very anxious.

"Locke, what happened to you? You suddenly entered a meditation state on your own. Antoine said we had to help you stall for time!"

"Locke, never mind that for now. Omega's power is coming. Quickly think of how to respond."

The rivers descending from the sky like jellyfish tentacles were essentially inverted rivers hanging upside down, as though they were going to split the earth in two.

But in the next instant, the Moon of Evolution tilted slightly and rotated in the sky.

Then, a fern spear in the moonlight transformed into a shooting star and drove directly into that river of tentacles descending from above.

The Second Circle climbing fern, under Locke's Second Circle spell Standing Alone Against the Many, transformed into a fern spear. At the same time, under the power of the World Tree leaf, its magical power concentrated to its absolute limit.

Then, in the sky, that fern spear carved through the air like a bolt of thunder-fire, and slammed into the inverted great river.

A thunderous boom rang out.

The river's water collapsed in an instant, simultaneously transforming into countless water droplets that scattered upward and back into the sky.

A large blue-leaf dragon sparrow appeared at Locke's back and flew back up into mid-air. "You two, I apologize. Something came up just now. I went offline for a bit. I am back now."

White Dragon Princess Witch Preston called out, "Locke, this is the apocalypse. Even First Circle and Second Circle wizards are utterly powerless against an apocalypse. What are we supposed to do?"

"I have a suggestion. Locke, let us go directly and finish off Edgar, and win this competition. As long as we finish off Edgar, we can leave this apocalypse without having to face it directly."

"Even a Second Circle wizard cannot survive the destruction of a plane. There is absolutely no possibility."

Antoine suddenly spoke. "The destruction of a plane can even threaten Third Circle wizards. That is a chain-reaction level event. So to get through the apocalypse, unless... unless the apocalypse is prevented from happening."

Witch Preston said in astonishment, "Prevented? How is that possible?"

Locke extended his left palm toward the scattering water droplets of the dissolved river before him. In an instant, countless water globules were taken back under the control of his Second Circle climbing fern.

The Flow Arrow Climbing Fern possessed the ability to manipulate water flow. Water flow was divided into two types: one was the spores, and the other was the water indirectly influenced by the spores.

At this moment, the sky in the vicinity had been covered by his climbing fern's spores, so the water flow he had broken apart not only failed to be reclaimed by Omega, but was converted into his own power.

The adaptive combat characteristic of the Surge Evolution Mode under the Lunar Cultivation Method was no mere boast.

At this moment, the climbing fern in his hand and all the magical plants below had undergone adaptive evolution.

This was not only Omega's home field. It was also his.

The water flow he controlled surged back toward the sky in reverse, forming waterspouts. Those waterspouts developed one spell model after another and launched attacks toward Omega's true body above.

Omega seemed to grow extremely furious, its blue ring of light flashing in mid-air. "Augustine, you are only stalling for time. Once the apocalypse has been triggered, it cannot be stopped."

"The collision of two worlds, even I cannot stop it now!"

At this moment, the shadow of that descending jellyfish above in the sky was growing ever larger.

That was correct. The descent of this disc plane was indeed triggered by Omega, but at this point the two worlds had drawn too close to each other.

Even if Omega wanted to retreat, it was unlikely to be possible.

Although its descent speed was very fast, abnormally so, it was precisely this speed of descent that had formed a terrifying gravitational pull between the two worlds.

The apocalypse would certainly occur.

This was something both Omega and all the wizard spectators and judges were certain of, because at this moment even Omega itself could not stop it.

It simply did not have enough power to prevent the collision of two worlds.

For wizards, stopping two worlds from colliding would require no one knew how many research projects and undertakings.

This was not something two wizards who had just become Second Circle could accomplish.

So from a logical standpoint, the apocalypse would certainly occur.

Therefore, the competition had entered its final countdown.

Everyone was waiting for the champion's birth.

Which was to say, the wizard who survived in this plane until the very last moment, the last one standing after all other wizards had died in the apocalypse.

In the next instant, the fern spear carved through the air like a bolt of thunder-fire and drove into that blue ring of light. In just a moment, the blue ring shattered and collapsed.

Although the gilded fern spear was only a First Circle spell and had not yet received any spell upgrades, at this moment combined with the ordinary Second Circle spell Standing Alone Against the Many, along with Locke's Second Circle-level magic pressure, the Second Circle magical plant, and the World Tree leaf, the attack power of this gilded fern spear was already formidable.

Was it time to end this?

A sudden shift came over Locke's eyes. Omega had made one mistake, which was that it should not have invaded his realm.

If it had not done that, he could have simply resolved Edgar and ended this competition, escaping this apocalypse altogether.

But it was precisely because it had invaded his realm, making his magic look like a joke, closing the realm's gateway yet having it come and go freely within the reflection of his moon, the realm, that he could not leave this unresolved.

He had not been able to think this through no matter how hard he tried, so he absolutely had to persist and find the reason why the other party could move freely within his realm.

Otherwise, that would be the greatest flaw within his Grand Magic.

Locke understood that if he did not resolve this unsolved mystery now, even if he left this competition as the champion, this mystery would remain, continuing to trouble him, and might even affect his ability to advance further.

Perhaps it would not affect his advancement within the Second Circle system, but it might have an enormous impact on his future path to the Third Circle.

Therefore, he had to resolve this problem here and now.

At this moment, on the other side, Edgar also looked down toward Locke.

He had also reached his limit. Not because any spell had a problem or flaw.

But because the apocalypse's continuous escalating scale was causing the Silent Plane's total magic pressure to drop every moment, while Omega's magic pressure was rising every moment.

The continuous, endless attacks seemed to have no conclusion.

All effort, no matter how he optimized his spell models, seemed to become a joke in the face of this quantitative advantage at the apocalypse level.

Because no matter how much the spell models were optimized, quality at this moment was simply very ineffective against an apocalyptic quantity.

Quite a few sections of the Perfect Tree's root system had already begun to rot.

Edgar's holy avatar directly joined the battlefield, continuously using some First Circle magic he was familiar with, but even that could not hold back the tide.

At the same time, Witch Medea, who had boarded the fragment of the Star God Realm and plunged into the disc world, was also pale-faced. She had dived headfirst into a world of endless rain.

She had already been in this world for a very long time, yet the entire Fallen Rain Realm turned out to be nothing but ocean and raindrops. She could not find any land.

It seemed this world had no land at all.

Witch Medea was pale, because if she could not find land, she could not make landfall.

As a First Circle wizard, she had no way to find a place to set foot on and think of a way to replenish her magical power.

In truth, even a Second Circle wizard in this situation would have no solution either, only lasting a little longer.

She had to find land within the Fallen Rain Realm.

But if this place simply had no land...

Then she was done for.

...

In the Silent Chalice spectator section, everyone was waiting for the champion to emerge.

In truth, who could hold out longer against the apocalyptic collision was proof of whose Grand Magic had better energy dissipation rate and energy compatibility.

Team Leader Chad also looked up at the competition and smiled. "Locke's new cultivation method seems to have more than just the one advantage of high efficiency. The magical plants he cultivated seem to have adapted to the power of the Fallen Rain Realm. Because of this, his advantage over Edgar is a bit greater."

"It seems the question of who will claim it... this time, the Silent Chalice championship will go to our Golden Crown Mountain, Landbridge."

Quinn Jol's Wizard Rush looked displeased but did not argue back.

Because the Moon of Evolution's spell model was genuinely the most exquisite among the four competitors.

So exquisite that it made people wonder whether it was something a First Circle wizard had independently designed, or whether Golden Crown Mountain had arranged for Second Circle or even Third Circle wizards to participate in the design in advance.

Wizard Chad felt for the first time how wonderful it was to have an impressive student, and his mood soared. His round face broke into a broad smile. "I never expected that in the Three Kings Tournament we hold an advantage, and at the simultaneously held Silent Chalice we can also hold an advantage."

"Hahahahaha..."

"This year is truly a lucky year for our Golden Crown Mountain. As long as we perform well in the Demon Realm War too, our Golden Crown Mountain, Landbridge's academic standing will be rock solid. Just from the outstanding students recruited this year, we may bring in hundreds more Child of Elements than any of yours."

"Hahaha..."

Wizard Rush's expression darkened. "Chad, you talk too much."

This year, Golden Crown Mountain had indeed gained an advantageous position in quite a few of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands' public undertakings.

The seven premier universities of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands themselves had rankings, and those rankings determined the allocation of many resources.

Bonifacius University was generally ranked first, and Quinn Jol ranked second.

Golden Crown Mountain was generally in third.

Storm Tower ranked seventh, and the Rose Council was in fourth, sometimes moving up to third.

Cassirose Arts University was generally in sixth or fifth.

But looking at this year's trend, something was off.

At the same time, Wizard Chad suddenly froze. "Wait, Locke, what are you doing?"

"You were practically about to win. What are you doing?"

Wizard Rush, as a sun ring wizard, also froze for a moment, then immediately showed an expression of disbelief.

And most of the wizard spectators present also showed expressions of shock and incomprehension.

At the same time, far away in Witch Yekaterina's office, Witch Yekaterina was wearing a smile as she looked at the wizard before her.

A Third Circle wizard from the Root Crown Court.

They were taking advantage of the fact that the major premier universities were all distracted by the Five Great Wars and various top competitions, to hold an urgent private discussion about a project.

Witch Yekaterina seemed to sense something, looked back in the direction of the Silent Chalice, then turned back to the Root Crown Court wizard before her. "Jack, as I said before, you should consider changing who you call a friend."

Wizard Jack thought it over, then slowly said, "You have persuaded me."

"I must say, Katya, your timing here is excellent. Right now everyone's attention is drawn to the Five Great Wars and the major competitions. Even the Rose Witch of the Rose Council, your old rival, has had the vast majority of her attention drawn away."

"As a gesture of good faith, let me first tell you one thing. Among the six teams under you, there is one Second Circle sun ring wizard who is a spy cultivated by the Rose Council. Beyond that, within your second team there is an ordinary Second Circle wizard who is..."

A flash of fury crossed Witch Yekaterina's eyes. "I see. That explains why the Rose Witch's side always manages to produce research that clashes with my results and gets published just before me."

Wizard Jack smiled. "What is interesting is that your student Locke Augustine, in his push to compete in the wizard shoe market, is targeting one of the back gardens belonging to the Rose Witch's students. Are you certain this was not your idea?"

"Katya?"