Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems

Inside Golden Crown Mountain's library, Locke, wearing his Second Circle badge, walked directly into the Second Circle free access area. The First Circle wizards passing by saw him entering the Second Circle area with a soul aura so youthful, and one by one their expressions subtly shifted, admiration flashing in their eyes.

The Second Circle free access area was also rows upon rows of bookshelves, each protected by powerful defensive school magic, because every Second Circle-grade spell book was extremely dangerous.

These spell books carrying tremendous magical power were themselves the excellent achievements of generalist school scholars, for otherwise a Second Circle spell could never be contained within a single book.

Even using an entire library to house a single Second Circle spell book would be no exaggeration.

At this moment, within the Second Circle free access area stood a Second Circle generalist school Blue-Skin Troll wizard, a generalist expert.

The Blue-Skin Troll wizard's powerful shoulders bore a large head that could only be described as fierce and fanged, yet atop his troll head he wore a delicate pair of gold wire-framed glasses, and he held a book in his hands, the very picture of scholarly elegance.

The troll wizard looked up as Locke approached, paused slightly, and adjusted his glasses, which appeared to be reading glasses for farsightedness. One of his eyes was quite cloudy, and even the good eye had a scar across it.

The troll wizard Akman set down the book in his hands, surprise flickering in his good eye. "Such a young Second Circle wizard... unbelievable. By the God of Truth above, good heavens."

Locke immediately knew from this that Wizard Akman was not a native wizard of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands.

Because Cloud Marsh Wetlands wizards would not associate truth with a god. The habit of doing so belonged to wizards from certain colonial worlds.

Only... a Second Circle wizard from a colonial world... was no easy feat at all.

That colonial world's status would have been substantially elevated by this troll gentleman's existence.

Akman apologized to Locke. "My deepest apologies. I know that wizards from the Cloud Marsh Wetlands do not appreciate hearing the phrase the God of Truth. Ah, I was born in the Troll World. The Troll World's Fifty-Seventh Dynasty of the Troll Empire proactively affiliated itself with the wizard world and accepted the knowledge inheritance of wizard civilization, undertaking a process of modernization reform. I also benefited from this reform five hundred years ago and attended Golden Crown Mountain's preliminary academy, eventually testing into the advanced academy and entering Golden Crown Mountain as a wizard..."

"Only, even though the Troll World reformed and embraced magical knowledge, it was difficult to change the fundamental nature of its theocratic empire. And so in that place, magic is viewed as the grace of a Magic Goddess, and the Magic Goddess is considered a subordinate deity under the God of Truth."

Akman was extremely talkative. Despite his powerful build and intimidating appearance, he was actually quite sentimental.

"And so I have always carried the habit of expressing gratitude to the God of Truth. Incidentally, according to my research, that so-called Magic Goddess should have been a star ring witch who entered that world at the time. Of course, she is now a moon ring witch."

Akman lowered his voice. "Only, advancing from moon ring to sun ring is extraordinarily difficult, so I imagine she will have a very hard time becoming a sun ring wizard."

Locke gave a slight nod.

"I see."

"I understand completely, because I am also not a native wizard of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands."

The troll Akman's interest was immediately piqued.

"You are also a wizard from a colonial world?"

"Which plane? Has it established elemental resonance with the wizard world?"

Locke said, "I am from the southeastern quadrant. The place I come from is called Corfu Island."

"Though for a period of time, I thought that was the entirety of this world. The islanders of Corfu Island called that island the world, and regarded the seven nations on that island as the only seven nations in the entire world."

The troll Akman paused briefly, then said, "The southeastern quadrant falls into the medium-magic zone that is somewhat close to a low-magic environment."

"As for Corfu Island... I have some impression of that island's name. When I was reading the southeastern quadrant Archipelago Chronicle, I came across this island name. It produces three materials useful to the wizard world. The first is Corfu Grass, and there is also a small amount of Dim Light Ore and Cat's Eye Stone, all apprentice-grade materials. Corfu Island's name derives from the third-grade apprentice magical plant, Corfu Grass."

"I recall that the southeastern quadrant has a distinctive topography, in that near the coastline, in the shallow coastal waters, there are some fragmented island clusters. A geomantic wizard once investigated those island clusters and found that they should not have formed naturally. The specific reason for their formation..."

The troll Akman sank into deep thought.

"I cannot quite recall."

"But I remember having read an article on the subject. It was written a hundred years ago by a Second Circle wizard from a mid-sized wizard organization within the Golden Crown Mountain district called Blackrock Academy. He loved to travel and was a geomantic wizard, so he enjoyed writing geographical chronicles of various regions."

The troll Akman quietly recited an incantation, and a spell model appeared in his palm. The spell model condensed into a magical key, which he inserted into his own forehead and turned like a key in a clockwork mechanism, repeatedly winding and stirring his thoughts.

Locke watched with astonishment.

The troll Akman's eyes brightened.

"Found it. I knew I would not have forgotten it. I have been reading too many books recently and recording too much knowledge. My active brain capacity is insufficient. I can only compress some of that knowledge, pushing excess portions into the less frequently used regions of my brain in a compacted state. No wonder I could not remember it."

"Otherwise with my Second Circle spell, Super Memory, I would not have forgotten."

"Oh, this is the Second Circle generalist school spell, Memory City. I have modified my own brain, making this biological body possess an astonishing memory carrying capacity. I can perfectly remember things as complex as a Second Circle spell model along with all of its related theoretical data, and stuff all of it wholesale into my head."

The troll Akman was rather self-satisfied.

"We generalist wizards have taken the modification of our own brains to an extreme level. We can even compress certain less-frequently-used knowledge so that it does not expand, thereby reducing storage space."

"Of course, this also requires developing a complementary Second Circle spell to extract it again..."

"And so I say that the head of a generalist expert is the most precious treasure a civilization can possess. We generalist wizards do not pursue creating new knowledge for civilization. We pursue safeguarding knowledge for civilization. When civilization is struck by a devastating blow, our importance becomes fully and completely apparent."

Wizard Akman's eyes brightened.

"I have it now. That geomantic wizard conducted multi-faceted investigations and used geomantic magic to confirm that a Third Circle-level extradimensional life form had once attempted to descend upon the southeastern quadrant. The wizards of that era fought against it, a battle that shook heaven and earth, and your homeland of Corfu Island came into existence during that war."

"But the precise era is difficult to pinpoint. The article concluded it was at minimum before the Enlightenment Era, and very possibly during the Pure-Blood Human Era."

Locke had not expected that this troll scholar before him possessed such formidable memory, knowing the origin of his hometown's name and the geographical reason for Corfu Island's formation.

Locke asked, "What kind of creature was a Third Circle-level extradimensional life form?"

Wizard Akman said, "The article's author initially believed it to be a disc creature, because the southeastern quadrant, through a coincidence of circumstances, was the home of multiple disc creatures. But this hypothesis was later ruled out. By observing the earth's spiritual veins, he confirmed that the invader of that time had arrived in the wizard world via a massive meteorite impact."

"That rules out disc creatures then."

"But which specific type it was is difficult to say. The Pure-Blood Human Era is also a very distant period in history, and at that time, due to the wizard pure-blood fundamentalism prevalent then, the wizard pure-blood cult emerged."

"The pure-blood cult persecuted many wizards, and a great deal of material was lost. The records from that era were not preserved, which is itself proof that Corfu Island took shape during the Pure-Blood Human Era, because only in that era would the phenomenon appear of completely erasing all of a wizard's accomplishments and the full context of events surrounding them."

Locke thought for a moment and said, "Because the wizards who prevented that disaster in the southeastern quadrant at that time were not among the pure-blood wizards?"

Wizard Akman smiled with a sardonic edge.

"Correct."

"When someone ties truth to bloodline, everything becomes strange."

Locke gave a nod, then asked Wizard Akman, "I came to look through the library's free Second Circle avatar spell books. I was wondering if you could offer any recommendations. Botanical school would be ideal, but alchemy or archaeology school would also work."

Wizard Akman's eyes lit up slightly.

"You are also an archaeology wizard? How impressive. Archaeology wizards are all remarkable. They can excavate a great many things from the ancient past."

"Only I cannot understand why, in our white wizard society, the number of wizards in this discipline is rather small, and it is very rarely the case that a mainstream wizard academy would set archaeology as a core subject. Do you not find this strange? I have always found this point very strange."

Locke paused, and indeed, the higher one's circle, the clearer one's perception of the world.

Right.

Why was it that white wizard society was quietly suppressing archaeology?

Archaeological magic was absolutely powerful, yet it could not flourish within white wizard society. This was unreasonable.

Even granting historical reasons, archaeological magic should by now be thriving.

Locke immediately sensed the existence of an invisible hand quietly suppressing archaeology.

Of course, all of this was only speculation without any solid basis.

Perhaps it truly was nothing more than various coincidences that had resulted in archaeological magic failing to prosper within white wizard society.

But if there truly were a wizard quietly suppressing it, would it be the Star Domain Sea?

No, that was wrong.

Looking at things now, the Star Domain Sea's scholarly city had written its desperate desire to recruit archaeology wizards directly into their hiring requirements, and the scholarly city was not a minor power within the Star Domain Sea.

So even if there were some latent force suppressing archaeology wizards within white wizard society, it was not a force from the Star Domain Sea's side.

The Star Domain Sea's defining characteristic was the absence of all prohibitions.

And if nothing was prohibited, they were unlikely to do something like this.

Locke came back to himself, realizing that a brief exchange with this Wizard Akman had immediately expanded his understanding.

Conversing with these Second Circle generalist wizards could quickly fill in the gaps in the broader perspective a Second Circle wizard should possess.

"Wizard Akman, please recommend some avatar spells for me."

Wizard Akman smiled. "Of course. Let me think. Here is a reading list. You can have a look."

He took a blank piece of paper from his astral ring, and at his mental direction, lines of black text appeared on the paper.

Locke glanced at the reading list, which contained the names of various spell books.

Locke said, "Very well, thank you."

Following the reading list, Locke searched through the free access area's content. In truth, the free access area essentially contained material whose patent periods had expired and which were already outdated, with no secrets of any kind remaining.

But because wizard civilization had a sufficiently long history, even these outdated materials were more than sufficient for constructing avatar spells.

There was absolutely no need to purchase a dedicated Second Circle spell book.

The avatar spell domain was in a state where its level of development had already exceeded normal needs, and so outdated avatar spells, lacking as many variations, were actually better suited to his requirements.

Locke found two avatar spell books centered on treants as their core, along with an avatar potion recommended on the reading list.

The two treant-centered avatar spell books were good.

Only, he had not actually invested much in treant magic up to this point, which was different from Wizard Edgar's situation.

The Lunar Blessing Curse was the one spell for which he had put large amounts of resources and effort into treant magic, but even that spell was at its core an outdated one.

At its core, the Lunar Blessing Curse was powerful because his Grand Magic was powerful, and because his evolution studies level was impressive.

Locke's attention was actually drawn to the avatar potion.

"The core material of the avatar potion is Reincarnation Blood, three hundred milliliters of fresh blood from the reincarnation of a Third Circle wizard."

"The secondary materials are a Chimera Heart, a Gryphon Heart, and the dragon heart of a Two-Headed Wyvern."

"The auxiliary and peripheral materials combined total sixty-nine varieties, the majority of which are used to harness the power of the Third Circle Reincarnation Blood and harmonize the energy of the three magical beast hearts, combining these two forces into the avatar potion."

An odd expression crossed Locke's face.

"After a wizard consumes the avatar potion, an avatar will be created from the basis of their shadow. The wizard's own shadow will not disappear, but a version of themselves will be born from their shadow."

"The avatar potion's greatest strength is that the avatar it creates will possess ten thousand magic pressure, Second Circle-grade combat power, and will share experience, memories, consciousness, magical understanding, and more..."

Under normal circumstances, the reincarnation blood of a Third Circle wizard would be extraordinarily precious and difficult to obtain, but the problem was that he happened to know a Third Circle wizard's reincarnation.

And as an alchemist, he needed a Second Circle potion formula to practice with, so as to confirm as soon as possible that his alchemy level had reached the Second Circle standard.