Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems

Locke and Edgar accepted the Silent Witch's gifts. After a somewhat lengthy award ceremony and his fairly brief winner's speech, the magical carriages began departing from the Silent Throne.

The magical carriages set out from the Silent Throne as their starting point, traveling in all directions.

One competition had ended. Victory was certainly welcome, and even defeat had its value.

After the Cloud Marsh Wetlands' grand event had concluded, many wizards had to hurry back to their workloads. Many Second Circle wizards who had come here had used projection magic, with their true bodies or projections still working.

Locke and the others each boarded a magical carriage hired by Golden Crown Mountain, and within half a day they were crossing mountains and valleys, passing through dozens of ordinary nations.

From flat plains to high mountains, from rolling hills to marshes, they covered distances that ordinary people would struggle to cover in a lifetime, returning to the Golden Crown Mountain district.

However, because the journey was long and they were not being flung through the air as a mode of travel this time, the three of them sat in separate magical carriages and gradually grew drowsy.

Witch Preston leaned against the carriage side, yawning.

"The treatment the academy arranged this time is indeed quite good. The first-class wizard apprentice coachman they hired, being a wizard in the beast-taming magic sub-branch of the summoning school, really does make for a smooth carriage ride."

She dozed off languidly against the carriage.

In another magical carriage, Antoine furrowed his brow. The carriage convoy had by now entered a mountainous region in some ordinary nation's territory. Visible in this area was a preliminary academy set up by Dawnbell Mountain, standing at the top of one of the hills.

In that preliminary academy, a second-class wizard apprentice from Dawnbell Mountain, an elderly man dressed in a principal's robes, stood amid the reverent gazes of the young students of his Dawnbell Mountain Verdun Preliminary Academy, who regarded him like a sage. He looked with some anxiety at the convoy of carriages passing by his academy.

He felt one terrifying magic pressure after another passing through this place, like gods and demons, like mountain ranges pressing down upon his heart.

The academy principal quickly instructed the students inside not to go out at this time, lest they provoke someone they should not.

At the same time, Locke and the others' magical carriage suddenly broke away from the convoy and headed down a small side path, with Wizard Chad's carriage immediately following.

At this very moment, a crimson river suddenly began flowing through the mountain valley, its red current passing beneath the wheels of Locke's magical carriage.

The first-class wizard apprentice coachman hired to drive Locke seemed to suddenly wake as though from a dream. He looked around strangely, his eyes showing puzzlement.

"Strange. How did I end up driving the carriage here?"

He felt for his spiritual connection with the two flame spirit horses, magical creatures he was driving, and calmed them.

Then he turned to apologize to Locke inside the carriage. "I am sorry, sir. For some reason I suddenly drove the carriage to this place."

Inside the carriage, Locke said nothing. He sat on the seat with his eyes closed, as though waiting for something.

A crimson river appeared beneath the entire carriage, the current murmuring past as though it had existed for ages.

In the next instant, the entire carriage suddenly shrank, shrinking in proportional scale. The magical carriage appeared within a rushing red river.

The first-class wizard apprentice showed a confused expression, even less able to understand the current situation. The higher a wizard's circle, the farther they could see.

He was only a first-class wizard apprentice. Naturally, he was being toyed with from start to finish.

After all, there was a Second Circle wizard behind this attack.

He used an apprentice-level beast-taming magic, Secondary Old Horse Knows the Way Curse, which caused the two flame spirit horses to tread their fire hooves through the rushing crimson river without falling into the water, attempting to run out of this current.

But this river was like a heavenly river connecting to the sky.

The entire magical carriage, like a toy within the heavenly river, was unable to break free no matter how hard that first-class wizard apprentice tried. The magical carriage instead sank deeper and deeper within the great crimson river.

By this point, even that first-class wizard apprentice had sensed something was wrong.

A crimson great river...

This could not be the Crimson Deep Court, one of the Five Great War factions, could it?

The Crimson Deep Court, one of the five black wizard factions of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands. Their primary characteristic was devotion to a crimson divine being who claimed to be the Supreme True God. But the predecessors of these black wizards were themselves a group of holy school divine mages.

The first-class wizard apprentice stared wide-eyed. He turned to try to get a response from Locke inside the carriage, but Locke gave absolutely no response.

At the same time, a vortex suddenly appeared within the deep red river, and the entire carriage was pulled directly into it.

Then, as though it could sink indefinitely, the entire carriage plummeted rapidly downward, and down, for what felt like an unknown length of time.

Finally the carriage touched ground.

The first-class wizard apprentice hired by Golden Crown Mountain, his lips pale, looked at the scene before him resembling hell. Ancient blood sacrifice magic had long since been abolished, but the Crimson Deep Court, as a group of lunatics and fanatics from the wizard world, would of course use such magic without any restraint.

A group of wizards wearing oversized red robes, beaked masks, and pointed hats as tall as a person appeared around the carriage.

Eleven First Circle wizards in total, one Second Circle black wizard, and one ordinary Second Circle witch.

The Crimson Deep Court's Second Circle black wizard addressed the witch Jesse beside him. "Although it took some effort, we have used our Crimson Deep Court's Second Circle spell, Advanced Homing Instinct Curse, to invite this wizard into our Crimson Deep Court's divine kingdom."

The Homing Instinct Curse was a divine school deep court magic sub-branch spell. After obtaining one drop of the target's blood and their true name, it could subconsciously influence the target, causing them to involuntarily walk into the Crimson Deep Court's divine kingdom.

The Crimson Deep Court used this technique to accomplish many inconceivable things, manipulating human hearts even more effectively than psychic school or enchantment school wizards. Furthermore, once someone joined the Crimson Deep Court's sect, their souls were placed under this curse, and their names were made known to the Crimson Deep Court.

So they could never truly leave the Crimson Deep Court, because no matter how much effort they exerted to escape, they would only return once more.

The Crimson Deep Court was the black wizard version of holy school wizards. They were a faith-based school of wizards. Unfortunately, what they had faith in was not the Eight Virtues that formed the foundation of white wizard society, but the three tenets of the Crimson Deep Court's Supreme True God.

The first tenet: truth is dangerous, and therefore the path of exploring truth must be paved with blood.

For this reason, the Crimson Deep Court's cult wizards, these madmen and fanatics, were each expert killers.

The second tenet: violence is a necessary means of pursuing truth, and therefore they must master the art of violence.

The third tenet: pain is power, and therefore the black wizards of the Crimson Deep Court were all fond of physical self-mortification.

At this moment, Witch Jesse looked at Locke, surrounded by the Crimson Deep Court's black wizards, and slowly walked forward, breaking into a loud laugh.

"Locke, we meet again. I told you long ago, I urged you to accept the cooperation requirements of Solas Light Foot and Melechi Magic Step. But you refused, and rejected our good-faith request."

"Your Augustus Wizard Shoes are thriving more and more, which means more and more breeding genius talent will enter this market. But you forgot that capital is profit-driven and relentless. For the sake of its own expansion, capital can stop at nothing."

Witch Jesse looked at Locke with eyes full of hatred. "So you are dead."

Locke finally spoke from inside the carriage.

"So you were abandoned?"

Witch Jesse went pale.

Because Locke had hit upon the truth. She had indeed been abandoned by Solas Light Foot. As a wizard agent for Solas Light Foot, she had long since gone bankrupt because she could not pay her wizard tax. Later, she had borrowed debts to fund research and had accumulated a large pile of debts.

Solas Light Foot was her creditor.

And now her creditor had become frightened. After Locke won the championship of the Spell Combat Competition and the Augustus Wizard Shoes brand gained enormous prestige and commercial value, her creditor had run calculations on what would happen if Locke won the Silent Chalice championship.

Ultimately, the wizard shareholders of the Solas Light Foot shop alliance had realized in horror that once Locke became a Second Circle wizard, Locke would gain the most critically important right of a Second Circle wizard, the right to establish a shop alliance.

Once a shop alliance could be established, following wizard world convention, a large number of wizard investors would make venture investments in it.

Based on past experience, once it reached that stage, Solas Light Foot and Melechi Magic Step would no longer be able to simply and crudely knock the other party out.

The two sides would come to coexist.

So the two major shop alliances could not allow this to happen.

And the only opportunity to interrupt this development was a very brief window of time.

First, they could not attack Locke before he entered the Silent Chalice competition.

That was because at that point they were not yet certain they truly wanted to push things to this extreme. Doing so would inevitably require a large cost to be paid.

For instance, this attack on Locke would at minimum result in one Second Circle wizard going to wizard prison, along with a dozen or so First Circle wizards being implicated to various degrees.

Solas Light Foot and Melechi Magic Step had prepared themselves to sacrifice these wizards to deal with the thunderous wrath that Golden Crown Mountain would bring, and the likely impact on all business in the Golden Crown Mountain district.

If attacking Locke after the competition already required such a large cost to be paid, attacking before the Silent Chalice competition was even less possible. That could easily be mistaken by Golden Crown Mountain as an attack on Golden Crown Mountain itself.

Second, attacking during the competition was even more out of the question.

And once Locke returned to Golden Crown Mountain, it would not take long before he became a Second Circle wizard.

As a Golden Crown Mountain wizard, accessing a World Stone was relatively straightforward for him.

So their only window to attack was precisely during the period of Locke's return from the Silent Throne to Golden Crown Mountain.

Although it looked like there was ample time, the actual window for an attack was only this one stretch.

Regardless, this was the only chance they had.

Witch Jesse showed a malicious grin. "It does not necessarily mean I will be sacrificed. If I kill you, I will immediately flee the Cloud Marsh Wetlands. Before that, I will kill you little by little."

"Locke, you have ruined me."

Inside the carriage, Locke said, "It was your creditor who pushed you to do this. What does that have to do with me?"

"That said, I never expected you to cooperate so deeply with black wizards."

Witch Jesse instead showed a look of surprise. "What are you talking about? Did you not know that the five great factions behind the Five Great Wars have each received sponsorship from one of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands' premier wizard universities?"

"Our Rose Council is the Crimson Deep Court's sponsor."

"Storm Tower is the Twin Demon Realm's sponsor..."

"The Five Great Wars originally started as one wizard faction sponsoring black wizards to attack the territories of other premier wizard academies, but it quickly evolved into a dynamic equilibrium system, and this practice and tradition received recognition from the White Wizard Association. The Cloud Marsh Wetlands' White Wizard Association needs those black wizards to ensure the Cloud Marsh Wetlands' major wizard universities are always pushing themselves to excel."

"So the relationship between the five black wizard factions and the seven premier wizard universities is one of mutual exploitation, and it is extremely complex. Oh, right. I almost forgot I was treating you as an equal."

Witch Jesse felt even more irritated in her heart.

As she saw it, in Solas Light Foot's value judgment, she, an ordinary Second Circle wizard, had been assessed as worth less than Locke, a First Circle wizard.

That was why Solas Light Foot was willing to use her and some other First Circle wizards in exchange for Locke.

This was the typical asset-against-asset tactic that a medium-to-large shop alliance like Solas Light Foot would employ.

Using their own inferior assets against the enemy's superior assets, relying on thick margins to win by attrition, achieving the effect of bad coins driving out good coins.

Thinking about it, Witch Jesse's mood worsened further.

Because she realized that in Solas Light Foot's eyes, her value was considered lower than Locke's. And Locke had told her, months ago, that their respective positions were not the same.

This filled Witch Jesse's heart with fury, and that fury fixed itself on Locke. "Stop wasting words on him. Everyone together, quickly kill him, then scatter and flee."

Once Locke was killed, she could already foresee what would follow, a life-or-death sprint to escape.

But this was the only path to survival for her, a debt slave.

However, at this moment, at least before those desolate days arrived, she could enjoy the pleasure of personally killing a genius.

Like pinching an ant to death.

On the other side, the Crimson Deep Court's Second Circle wizard glanced at Locke, then glanced at her.

"This is simply absurd, Belie."

"A Second Circle wizard driven to this point by a First Circle wizard. I have to say, Witch Jesse, your white wizard society is truly absurd. Being a white wizard is so dull. Why not believe in the Supreme True God and comprehend true truth?"

In the next instant, an enormous mace phantom suddenly appeared in this Crimson Deep Court Second Circle wizard's hand.

Locke recognized this as one of the holy weapon series magics of holy school wizards.

A holy weapon was formed by condensing the faith force and holy spirituality from within a wizard's artificially made divine kingdom, and possessed different capabilities depending on the nature of the different artificially made divine kingdoms.

But broadly speaking, all holy weapons had an enormous bonus to damage against spirit bodies.

So theoretically, all holy school magic, even the holy magic of these black wizards before him, had a special counter effect against necromancy.

In the next instant, vast amounts of blood converged within this deep court. This special deep well space, in Locke's eyes, was a special version of a magical realm.

But it seemed somewhat more profound than a regular magical realm.

At this moment, the mace absorbed itself full of blood. Then this Second Circle black wizard raised the mace and swung it down toward Locke. The mace's long handle extended automatically.

In the next instant, the Golden Eye Grass that Locke had automatically summoned was directly smashed apart. The entire Golden Eye Grass was torn to pieces.

At the same time, a spell model appeared on the mace, which was a Second Circle spell from the Crimson Deep Court system, the Martyr's Blessing.

When this mace struck a person, as a holy weapon, it could in an instant convert the target's blood into the spirituality composing the mace, strengthening this holy weapon's combat power.

The entire Crimson Deep Court system, due to its extreme pursuit of violence and pain, made these deep court black wizards of the holy school extraordinarily powerful in combat.

Their holy weapon magic system, along with their holy servant magic, true word system, and commandment magic, were all extremely powerful.

At this moment, the holy weapon slammed down violently toward Locke.

The eleven First Circle black wizards began encircling Locke, chanting a hymn, specifically the Hymn of Pain.

The effect of this spell was that after Locke was killed, Locke could maintain the ability to continue moving and continue experiencing pain for a period of time, but he would already be dead.

This spell had been created by these Crimson Deep Court lunatics in order to create more pain.

At this moment, Locke summoned two more Golden Eye Grass plants, and using the First Circle spell model, Same Breath Connected Branch, connected the aura of the two Golden Eye Grasses using Photosynthesis, strengthening them.

But in the next instant, these two Golden Eye Grass plants were also shattered by the mace in an instant.

That holy weapon mace possessed a special effect of causing the enemy to experience twice the pain of the injury in the instant of striking, making it truly an instrument of torment.

At the same time, Witch Jesse, her eyes filled with excitement, summoned a Devil Serpent Vine and used a botanical magic to attack Locke.

That Second Circle magical plant, the Devil Serpent Vine, like a winding emerald-green poisonous snake, lunged toward Locke, aiming to be the first to attack and taste Locke's blood.

At the same time, the Second Circle black wizard recited a second spell. Deep Court True Word, Paralysis.

Locke immediately felt his entire body as though in a state of paralysis, with half of his body going numb.

On the magical carriage, the first-class wizard apprentice who had been hired was already scared senseless. He had not expected that just taking a job would lead him into a situation like this.

However, inside the magical carriage, Locke let out a soft sigh. He opened his water hyacinth network. At this moment, inside the Crimson Deep Court's divine kingdom, it was naturally impossible to contact the outside world.

But in truth, he had already communicated with Wizard Chad half an hour ago.

Just thirty minutes prior, Wizard Chad had sent Locke a message.

'Based on my years of strategic transfer experience in the New Sea Route, I believe... well, I think we are being tracked. Only right now we are mixed in with the main convoy, and I do not know which of those trackers blending into the magical carriage convoy are tracking us specifically, or someone else.'

'The other side should have two Second Circle wizards and over a dozen First Circle wizards. Both of those Second Circle wizards have loose and scattered magic pressure, barely over ten thousand. Truly painful to look at.'

'They are coming in force. I want to report this to our Golden Crown Mountain's sun ring wizards and have them handle it. I think this little interlude should be over fairly quickly.'

Locke sent a message to Wizard Chad on the water hyacinth chat system.

'Do not do that. Senior Chad, I have been short on money recently, so this is a good opportunity to advertise my wizard shoes. If that is the case, I have a good idea.'

'Figuring out who they are targeting is very simple. We just proactively split from the convoy in a bit and we will know.'

Wizard Chad immediately sent a reply.

'Wait, Locke, you have only just finished the competition, and you should not be a Second Circle wizard right now.'

'What you need to do right now is go back and rest, and digest the gains from your time in the competition, then use the resources obtained through the competition to become a Second Circle wizard.'

The last message Locke sent to Wizard Chad was,

'I apologize, Senior Chad. I am already a Second Circle wizard. Money has been very tight recently, so these people have conveniently given me an excuse to advertise my wizard shoes. I might as well rough up some small fry. Since the whole main convoy is nearby, this is my last chance to seize a promotional opportunity.'

At this moment, the magic pressure of Locke inside the magical carriage surged directly past ten thousand, past thirteen thousand, then past fourteen thousand, fifteen thousand, finally reaching... sixteen thousand.

At this moment, the World Tree leaf in his hand emitted a faint green glow.

In the instant he had received the World Tree leaf, Locke immediately realized: if the World Stone was a certificate of recognition from the world's consciousness of a medium-scale plane, then this World Tree leaf was a World Stone at the infinite void level.

The World Tree leaf, as the symbol of a Nature Guardian, was naturally a Second Circle item in itself, the very emblem of the Second Circle.

So in truth, the moment he obtained the World Tree leaf, he had already become a true Second Circle wizard.

And even better than that.

Because the World Stone he was using was not one limited to a single plane, but the nature of the infinite void itself.

Of course, as the other prize from the competition, the coordinates of an undeveloped plane were also something he needed.

No wizard could resist a treasure as coveted as this.

Witch Jesse and the Second Circle black wizard felt the enormous magic pressure, like a sun suddenly descending, emanating from inside the carriage. Their expressions changed drastically.

What!

How was this possible!

How could there possibly be someone who, the instant they left the Silent Chalice, directly became a Second Circle wizard?

Did he not need any period of adjustment?

At this moment, inside the magical carriage, Locke rested one hand against his cheek. "Everyone, I, the Eye Demon Wizard, announced my arrival to the entire Cloud Marsh Wetlands during the Silent Chalice."

"What, did you not receive the notice?"

A full moon rose from behind the magical carriage Locke was riding, its moonlight radiant and pure. It was the Grand Magic, Moon of Evolution.