Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems

With all the prisoners in the jail killed by the grand duke, the upheaval did not cease. In an instant, the entire Silent Plane became utterly dark, a night without end.

Dense clouds gathered overhead, and unceasing rain fell.

An enormous magic pressure came from beyond the world.

In the realm, Witch Medea looked up toward that magic pressure arriving from outside the Silent Plane, and a flash of excitement passed through her eyes.

"There is always a way out."

In the deepest part of the realm, Witch Georgina operated the Fate Loom, her expression showing astonishment. "How can there be an existence with such powerful magic pressure within the Silent Plane?"

"If that is the case, why did this thing not appear when we were locked in battle with the emperor?"

"Could this be the truth behind why this world is destined to be destroyed?"

A beam of eerie blue light seemed to be trying to penetrate the realm's gateway and shine toward the deepest reaches of the realm.

Witch Georgina saw a strange blue glow appearing dimly within the realm, attempting to shine toward her.

But because of the isolation between the realm and the mortal world of the Silent Plane, this was impossible.

Only, Witch Georgina perceived that her Fate Loom had been affected by an alien magic pressure.

Witch Georgina's heart lurched. "The realm's gateway has already been shut by that heartless scoundrel Locke. How could this magic pressure possibly penetrate the realm and shine through? What is happening?"

"Is this the content of the second half of this competition? Are all of us competitors expected to face this thing's challenge?"

At the same time, in the mortal world.

At this moment, the sky of the Silent Plane was blanketed by dark clouds, and heavy rain was falling everywhere. Locke, his hands clasped behind his back, looked up at the sky.

Locke stepped out of the prison and saw that the ground had already turned to mud. The sea surface beyond the cliff was churning with waves that would not settle, and the water kept rising.

He seemed to see a vision, an endless downpour that had continued for an unknown number of years.

At this moment, Locke used the magic, Holy Avatar, to draw upon the planar power of this plane, and obtained the identity and name of the disc creature currently descending, Disc Creature, Omega.

A downpour that had lasted for one hundred thousand years.

The same downpour that had once triggered a mass extinction across parts of the wizard world.

The Omega Rain.

At the same time, in the rain falling across various places in the Silent Plane, some of the rainwater condensed into monsters. These monsters continuously attacked people.

And with people under the threat of both monsters and floods, they were even more susceptible to accepting the parasitic blue light.

At this moment, Locke summoned a climbing fern. The climbing fern transformed into a gilded fern spear, and Locke swung the fern spear and smashed a massive water lizard formed from condensed rain into fragments.

"Something is wrong."

"I have already closed the realm's gateway, so it should be impossible to influence the realm. On what basis is the disc creature continuing to affect Witch Georgina and Witch Medea within the realm?"

"By the same token, this disc creature is descending far too quickly. Even in its current state, which is not the crushing peak form it has when it finally reveals itself in previous competitions, it can descend into the Silent Plane in an instant and possess such enormous magic pressure."

"Why does it have the ability to parasitize the living beings of this world at such speed?"

A question arose in Locke's mind.

At the same time, he seemed to feel that a very long time ago, when the Silent Witch was still at the ordinary Second Circle stage and had encountered this kind of situation, she had harbored the same doubts as him within her heart.

A powerful magic pressure surged toward him from all directions.

The sky of the Silent Plane was blanketed with dark clouds and heavy rain, and even the Moon of Evolution was no longer clearly visible.

The disc creature, Omega, transformed into a blue ring of light shaped like Ω and declared to the entire world, "From this moment forward, the countdown to my descent into this world has begun. In seven days, I will descend into this world and destroy it."

"Above life, there exists a deeper truth."

"Return to me, unite with me, and there is a chance..."

Its declaration was forcibly cut off.

Because in the darkness of the heavy rain, in one corner of this world, a magic pressure that many had already forgotten erupted.

It was a surge of magic pressure erupting from the deepest part of the Land of All Spirits that remained in the mortal world, and it was the magic pressure belonging to Edgar.

"Stand aside, weakling. What gives you the right to speak here?"

Edgar's magic pressure emerged from the Land of All Spirits, and at the very center of that Land of All Spirits, an Ancient Life Tree appeared.

That Ancient Life Tree began first as the shadow of a seed, then this shadow seed suddenly took root and sprouted, growing swiftly and vigorously on the earth, transforming into an enormous tree radiating emerald light that stood at the very center of this plane.

The roots of that great tree were massive and its crown was lush, and enormous amounts of magical energy converged toward it. All the death spirituality that had accumulated across the surface of the Silent Plane was mobilized and converged toward Edgar's Land of All Spirits.

That death spirituality transformed into leaf after leaf, and then those leaves, at the peak of their maturity, became fallen leaves and landed on the earth, enriching the soil.

All things return to the tree!

Edgar's magic pressure surged at a breathtaking rate. His magic pressure completely stole Omega's thunder, causing every spectator and every ordinary person in this world to raise their heads and look toward that enormous tree standing in the plane.

That tree reached from sky to earth, like a green sun. The moment it appeared it became a source of light, the source of radiance beneath those dark clouds.

The scale of Edgar's Grand Magic was extraordinarily immense. That tree connected sky to earth, like an axis on a number line, running straight through the Silent Plane.

Edgar broke into a hearty laugh. "Hahaha, it worked. My Perfect Tree worked!"

"Locke, I am not playing any game with you involving three-dimensional coordinates plus one spirituality dimension and making a new map. My Grand Magic is right here in the mortal world!"

"Although it is somewhat forced, I succeeded. Hahahaha..."

"I do not want the Temporal Shadow Fern anymore. I am giving it to you. This Perfect Tree is my true Grand Magic."

At this moment, the Perfect Tree had fully broken free from the Land of All Spirits and become a Second Circle magical plant that ran through the entirety of the Silent Plane.

Disc Creature Omega was furious. It had been in the middle of announcing its seven-day descent declaration, aiming to fill every living being of the Silent Plane with terror so that descending into this world would become easier.

Yet at this very moment, Edgar had suddenly brought down his Grand Magic and stolen all of its spotlight.

Furthermore, Edgar's descending Grand Magic had created a very significant problem.

That is, Locke had already doubled the Silent Plane's magic pressure by descending his own Grand Magic. This meant that no matter how many people it possessed in the mortal world, it could not threaten the realm.

This had already reduced its degree of threat.

And now Edgar had descended a Grand Magic of this scale into the mortal world, one that was even showing a trend of increasing the world's magic pressure by another third.

Its fundamental base was in the mortal world. Its original plan had been to infect the overwhelming majority of living organisms in the mortal world, then launch an attack on Locke, forcibly strike at the realm, completely eliminate all opponents within the Silent Plane, and then complete its own descent.

But this plan, as Edgar descended his Grand Magic into the mortal world and doubled the mortal world's total magic pressure, meant that the proportional share of total magic pressure it had infected was reduced, equivalent to its shares being diluted.

This meant that disc creature Omega was about to lose even its fundamental base in the mortal world.

This was making it look quite foolish.

Because with things as they were, it could absolutely not complete its descent within seven days. Its so-called seven-day descent had become a joke.

And none of this would have happened.

It happened solely because of the Edgar before it.

Disc Creature Omega was furious. Its power gathered in mid-air, transforming the rain into a great flood that surged toward the Perfect Tree.

Only before it came close, the great flood was shattered with a single strike of the Perfect Tree's treant palm.

In the next instant, the Perfect Tree suddenly extended that enormous tree-shaped palm. Although its motion was very slow, its body was so enormous that even slow movement was fast. The treant reached out and caught the blue phantom glow of Omega drifting in the air with one hand, and then, all things return to the tree.

In the next instant, Omega discovered in terror that the portion of its power it had committed was permanently gone.

Immediately after, the Perfect Tree grew five leaves because of this. Those leaves suddenly fell, landing on the earth, then quickly rotting and becoming magical tides that enriched the earth.

Before the Perfect Tree, Edgar's holy avatar condensed. He clasped his hands behind his back and looked toward Omega's blue ring of light flickering nearby.

"Get out of my way. Weakling. The strong grow ever stronger. I have no interest in you. A mere disc creature is beneath mention."

"My true opponent is Locke Augustine."

At this moment, Disc Creature Omega fell into a towering fury.

And Locke had finally figured out what Edgar's follow-up move had been.

The Land of All Spirits could transform death spirituality into plant spirits, achieving balance between life and death, between plants and living beings.

So after Edgar died, following this principle, he would also transform into a plant spirit.

So he had used his own death to transform himself into a plant spirit.

And the plant spirit he had chosen was an Ancient Life Tree he had planted inside the Land of All Spirits in advance.

Locke, also an Ancient Life Tree owner, finally worked out the key.

The Ancient Life Tree and the wizard's own spirituality were linked, sharing tiers. In other words, if he himself had not become a Second Circle wizard, his Ancient Life Tree could not become a Second Circle magical plant.

But as long as he became a Second Circle wizard, his Ancient Life Tree could also become a Second Circle magical plant.

And Edgar's Ancient Life Tree had long since become a Second Circle magical plant.

Only, he had used a Second Circle botanical magic prepared long in advance, Leaves Return to Roots, to transform that Ancient Life Tree into a seed, which he had stored in the deepest part of the Land of All Spirits.

He only needed to wait until after his death. His own death spirituality would transform into existence spirituality and become a plant spirit, which could then merge with the Ancient Life Tree in its Leaves Return to Roots state as a seed.

Then he would be reborn as the Ancient Life Tree.

But what was the purpose of all this?

'Once a Grand Magic is established, it cannot be changed. One can only modify and patch it on the existing foundation. Because a Grand Magic is a wizard's second soul, as long as a wizard does not start over, it is impossible to modify a completed Grand Magic.'

Locke thought, 'But Edgar, through the form of death, effectively reset his own build. So he could break free of the Temporal Shadow Fern.'

'Second, if he dies and is reborn, his Grand Magic will automatically carry over. So he had to proactively fracture his Grand Magic in advance and proactively give it to me, using my world-scale realm and the Moon of Evolution for this purpose.'

'In this way, he is essentially starting over completely from scratch. Which means that in this kind of modeling competition, he can construct a Grand Magic twice.'

'What remarkable resolve.'

One could only say this was Edgar. Worthy of being the most powerful opponent he had faced at the Cloud Marsh Cup.

His resolve and way of thinking were indeed things ordinary wizards could not possess.

'This process was extremely dangerous. First, he was gambling, because this time he genuinely died. If anything had gone even slightly wrong, he absolutely could not have come back.'

Locke thought, 'If this were in the real world, this method of his would have been absolutely impossible to succeed. Because in reality, once truly dead, the first rule of necromancy would be triggered, and death would inevitably take something from him, leaving life incomplete.'

'So his thinking could absolutely not have been realized in the real world, and therefore could only be realized in the Silent Chalice.'

'But once realized in the Silent Chalice, the benefits for him were considerable.'

'Because his Grand Magic seemed to use the botanical magic Leaves Return to Roots combined with Life Absorption to create a spell model called All Things Return to the Tree as the foundational spell, and was constructed from that foundation.'

At this moment, Edgar had already used his Grand Magic, All Things Return to the Tree, once in front of Locke.

The treant had seized Omega's blue ring and forcibly refined it, turning it into a few leaves.

To put it plainly, he had directly eaten a portion of Omega.

The key point of the spell model All Things Return to the Tree was that all things would return to the great tree. It seemed to be a hybrid spell combining Life Absorption and Leaves Return to Roots, and should have been developed independently by Edgar himself.

Under this spell model, even Edgar himself, as the master of the spell, had completed one instance of all things returning to the tree.

What could better embody the spell model of all things returning to the tree than this?

As such, the degree of completion of Edgar's Grand Magic was very high. Its energy dissipation rate was so low that it was essentially comparable to his own Moon of Evolution combined with the Kingdom Domain.

Furthermore, judging from its performance just now, the instantaneous magic pressure output multiplier of All Things Return to the Tree was also not low.

Most critically, Edgar had just used his Grand Magic once, but when his Grand Magic attacked, it was absorbing the spiritual energy of others.

So the problem of endurance, which should have been the greatest weakness of an ordinary Second Circle wizard, simply did not exist in the face of the Perfect Tree Grand Magic.

In the spectator area beneath the Silent Throne, many wizards quietly turned to look at the Quinn Jol University spectator section.

The moon ring witch who was Edgar's senior sister looked at this scene and gave a bitter smile. "All things return to the tree. This is indeed far superior to my Temporal Shadow Fern."

"It seems I was doing something unnecessary. Edgar."

All Things Return to the Tree could convert the death spirituality of an entire world, those resources that the world itself could no longer utilize, into magical tides, which were a usable resource.

Its level of refinement surpassed the Temporal Shadow Fern by a further step.

The Temporal Shadow Fern could only convert death spirituality into plant spirits, while the Perfect Tree converted death spirituality and other energy entirely into magical tides.

That was all things returning to the tree.

The moon ring witch understood. Looking at it now, whether it was her or her teacher, they had both interfered with Edgar unnecessarily.

If they had not intervened, perhaps Edgar's performance would have been even better.

No, wait.

The moon ring witch suddenly came to a realization. "The condition for completing All Things Return to the Tree is that its master must die once and return to the Perfect Tree. Only after the Perfect Tree receives this can it become a Grand Magic that balances life and death and establishes a cycle."

"So Edgar, you always intended this. Because only in the Silent Chalice could you have a safe environment in which to die. Therefore, with or without my interference and my teacher's, you would have done it this way anyway..."

"You never had any intention of accepting the Temporal Shadow Fern from the start. From the very beginning you intended to construct the Perfect Tree. And the Temporal Shadow Fern was only the foreplay to constructing the Perfect Tree..."

"You really are a stubborn one."