Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems

Locke's Ancient Tree Fruit Avatar returned to the free library, opened the Second Circle wizard treasure map, and examined it carefully.

It was a nautical chart, depicting a map of an archipelago.

Across the archipelago were numerous unpredictably shifting red dots. Locke counted them and found seventeen marker points on the map indicating treasure coordinates, each red dot in constant motion.

As Locke pressed his palm to the treasure map, the red dots began to gradually disappear one by one, until only a single red dot remained.

Locke looked at that one red dot. "I see. The main reason Witch Zoe gave up on going to find it immediately is that this map has an encrypted combination lock."

"This is Second Circle-grade encryption. Only a wizard meeting specific requirements can cause the treasure to display the correct directional target. Otherwise, even after being able to see the real treasure map, the routes indicated on the map would still be misleading."

"No wait. Since this is a Second Circle wizard's treasure, it would probably not be this stingy. Most likely, the map shows different routes corresponding to different rewards for different types of wizards."

"But none of that would have anything to do with the treasure left behind by that Second Circle wizard of the Pure-Blood Human Era."

Locke lifted his palm from the map, and in an instant the seventeen red dots reappeared, each surrounded by densely packed route indicators.

Locke blinked his right eye, placed the map into the Cosmic Light contact lens in his right eye, and simultaneously, his true body at Golden Crown Mountain took the treasure map out of his contact lens.

At the same time, after the wizard airship entered the Second Sky, Locke's Ancient Tree Fruit Avatar suddenly sensed that the power of his botanical magic had dropped sharply.

"What is happening? Is it because the change in world laws has caused my botanical magic power to decline? No, that cannot be it. Botanical magic is one of the most resistant to being affected by the different world laws of various worlds."

"The Second Sky still contains the laws of life."

At this moment, Locke stood up and looked through the free library's Time-Gold Crystal window to see Fire Palace Guardians attacking the ship from outside.

Within the Second Sky, there appeared to be different divine palaces, and the guardians of these palaces would continuously attack wizard airships.

The Fire Palace Guardians were wreathed in plane laws, which were precisely the laws of life.

Since the laws of life were present, it meant that within the Second Sky's world laws there was still a life component. And so his magical power should not have declined at all.

Locke observed the clouds of fire and the Fire Palace Guardians in the Second Sky through the naked eye and thought, "It does not seem like a decline in magical power caused by different world laws."

"The power loss is approximately one-fifth."

Locke thought, "It feels like I have suddenly stepped down from somewhere..."

Locke suddenly seemed to realize something, and looked at the plane laws within the ship's cabin.

"The interior of the wizard airship still follows the wizard world's, or more specifically the Cloud Marsh Wetlands', world laws. So I have not actually left the world laws of my wizard world."

"It is not the change in world laws causing my power to decline."

"But it is truly because I left some kind of environment that my botanical magic power declined. The biggest difference is most likely that there are not as many Second Circle, First Circle, Third Circle, and Fourth Circle botanical wizards here."

A Second Circle wizard was extremely sensitive to energy and planar force, and could directly observe with the naked eye the energy flowing through the air.

At this moment, the composition of the air within the wizard airship showed no change in either elements or plane laws. The only thing that had disappeared was a great deal of life magic radiance.

"Though I do not know the specific reason, the number of wizards in the same magic sub-school within a region seems to be able to affect the power of a type of magic."

Locke thought to himself, "So when I leave the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, my botanical magic power drops by one-fifth out of nowhere. This is not me becoming weaker. This is me returning to the natural level appropriate for a Second Circle botanical wizard with sixteen thousand magic pressure."

"No one is lifting me anymore."

"This is how great an influence a school of magic has on its wizards."

"No wonder high-circle wizards need an ever-increasing number of wizards in a school."

That was to say, for high-circle wizards, improving one's magical power required not only improving oneself, but also increasing the number of wizards in a direction in one's surrounding environment, using those wizards to lift one's power, boosting one's magical force as if out of thin air.

Locke said, "But when I was a First Circle wizard, moving between wizard lands, I did not seem to sense any change in the strength of my botanical magic. That means for First Circle wizards, this kind of lifting may not exist, or its effect is negligible."

"The greatest difference between First Circle wizards and Second Circle wizards is the difference of Grand Magic. So this special lifting mechanism acts upon the Grand Magic."

Locke's avatar closed its eyes and sensed the Grand Magic.

At the same time, his true body at Witch Victoria's Magic Glasses Shop also closed its eyes and sensed the Grand Magic.

He saw that beneath the Grand Magic, the Moon of Evolution, as sensed by the avatar, there was nothing below it at all. But beneath the Grand Magic, the Moon of Evolution, as sensed by the true body, there was a phantom like a square, flat platform lifting his Moon of Evolution up.

Clearly, the issue lay with this thing.

When his avatar left the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, his Grand Magic on the avatar's side had essentially stepped off that square, blue-green platform, walking down from it.

His true body was still in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, and so for his Moon of Evolution, it was still resting upon the platform.

At this moment, Witch Victoria, wearing a red silk-textured wizard robe with golden hair, a decorative and intricately carved silver monocle on her left eye, was sitting across from Locke with her liquification-stage wizard student. Witch Victoria looked at Locke with the gaze of someone regarding a junior, gave a slight nod, and then smiled. "Locke, what did you observe?"

"This should be your first time leaving the Cloud Marsh Wetlands after becoming a Second Circle wizard. You saw it, that thing called a... Root Field."

Locke opened his eyes, looked at Witch Victoria, and said, "Lady Victoria, is the academic term for that thing a Root Field? I can see that my Moon of Evolution, when lifted by it, can gain a full one-fifth more power out of nowhere."

"Wait..."

Locke observed more carefully and discovered that beneath his Moon of Evolution, there were actually three distinct Root Fields.

The first was the blue-green botanical Root Field.

The second was the blue-violet alchemy Root Field. The third was the yellow archaeology Root Field.

The three Root Fields did not stack their power. Each Root Field only lifted a corresponding type of magic within his Grand Magic. That is to say, the botanical Root Field lifted the botanical magic portion of the Moon of Evolution.

Of the three Root Fields, the botanical was by far the largest, its area vast and seemingly boundless, thick and weighty like the earth beneath the sky, with many details visible within it.

Next came the alchemy Root Field, only about two-thirds the size of the botanical Root Field.

The alchemy Root Field could only boost the power of his alchemy magic by approximately fifteen percent.

Last was the archaeology Root Field, small and battered, barely there, contributing almost nothing to his archaeology magic.

Though his Moon of Evolution was primarily botanical in nature, with alchemy secondary and archaeology supplementary.

At their core, both alchemy and botanical magic belonged to the life school, making the two relatively easy to harmonize.

And so the overwhelming majority of his Moon of Evolution was in fact being lifted by the botanical Root Field.

Locke conveyed these observations to Witch Victoria. "The botanical Root Field seems to have formed and been strengthened through the magical resonance of the various botanical wizards across the Cloud Marsh Wetlands."

"And this Root Field can only lift phenomena-level things. So it can only lift a wizard's Grand Magic, with almost no effect on First Circle wizards. Because a First Circle wizard is only an individual, while a Second Circle wizard is a kind of natural phenomenon. And so one phenomenon can be lifted by another phenomenon."

Witch Victoria gave a slight nod and smiled. "The fact that you can perceive it as a lifting already means your observational ability is adequate. If you can further notice that it is formed by the magical resonance emitted unconsciously by wizards into the air, then that would be excellent."

"Your insight is very good. Katya did not tell you about Root Fields. She must have wanted you to observe it yourself. After all, every wizard who sees a Root Field for the first time should feel something move within them."

Witch Victoria became serious. "Can a great dragon soar to great heights in the sky because of its own power alone? Not only that. It is also because the magical winds of this world are strong, and the stronger the magical winds, the higher it flies."

"The Behemoth, as the overlord of the earth, can bear the weight of an entire mountain range. Is that because its own strength is limitless? No. It is because the firm earth beneath it provides the foundation for its force."

"Every First Circle wizard during the First Circle stage is always very focused on their own individual power, working hard to improve themselves and neglecting the lifting effect of the environment on them. But for Second Circle wizards, who can directly observe with the naked eye the flow and changes of planar force and plane laws, who can directly see the existence of Root Fields, and whose own Grand Magic will be lifted by Root Fields, they will in every respect come to understand the power of the collective and the environment."

"And it is precisely for this reason that they can better understand why, whether it is the Association or the academies, everyone is competing for resources. Because whichever school of magic the funds are invested in, that school will flourish, and when a school flourishes, it becomes somewhat easier for wizards of that school to learn that aspect of magic."

"But these are only the most marginal and superficial knowledge within faction politics, because they only affect a broad range."

Witch Victoria explained, "Take your teacher and the Rose Witch Anna as an example. Both are botanical wizards, and so both their botanical magic and that of their students will be lifted by the botanical Root Field."

"Hmm... the deeper knowledge would be too complex for you right now. This involves the factors of the Truth Ladder. In terms you can understand, the more significant reasons for the conflict between your teacher and the Rose Witch are the competition for exclusive authorization of the high-circle wizards' laboratories, along with the competition for project funding, competition for honors, competition for titles, and most centrally, the competition for resource allocation."

"Mainly, their research paths are simply too similar to each other. And so from the White Wizard Association's perspective, they can only use relatively limited resources to focus on supporting one Throne wizard, to use this research path to become a Fourth Circle wizard. The other one can only be compelled to change her research path and find sufficiently significant points of differentiation within the original research path. This very likely means that one of them will lose the possibility of becoming a Fourth Circle wizard."

Witch Victoria said with an air of ease, "I myself have no desire to become a Fourth Circle wizard. Not every wizard must necessarily become a Fourth Circle wizard."

"In my view, Third Circle is already more than enough. I am no longer capable of continuing to push myself. Staying at the Third Circle stage, teaching students every day, working on the topics I enjoy, that is already sufficient. Why continue to push? Pushing may not even produce results."

"Once one becomes a Third Circle wizard, even in death, one can enjoy the blessings of a past life, naturally and inevitably possessing the aptitude of a seventh-grade elemental child, and walking the path of magic anew is somewhat easier than for most people. Your friend Antoine is an example."

Witch Victoria looked at Locke with a smile. "However, there is one point where your observation was incorrect. Root Fields are not formed by the resonance of wizards' magical power. They are formed by the resonance of the outwardly overflowing magical power of wizards' Grand Magics."

"Have you forgotten? Your Grand Magic in its initial forging stage has an extremely high energy dissipation rate. And so a Root Field is formed by the resonance of the Grand Magics of Second Circle wizards of the same secondary discipline in a given region, forming a network that can capture the dissipated magical power emitted by the basic First Circle wizards of that region, thereby continuing to grow stronger."

"But this is not a self-forming process. This requires a region to produce one Third Circle wizard of the same secondary discipline."

Witch Victoria said, "In other words, a region must first have a Third Circle wizard before a Root Field can possibly form."

"The Cloud Marsh Wetlands has many Root Fields, which creates an advantage that other wizard lands simply cannot catch up to."

Locke asked, "Witch Victoria, does this not mean that only academic schools capable of forming Root Fields can become secondary disciplines?"

"Based on what you have said, whether a Root Field can form is directly tied to whether an academic school has Third Circle wizards and a sufficient number of Second Circle and First Circle wizards."

Witch Victoria looked at Locke with surprise.

"Excellent. Your thinking is sharp. You spotted the key point immediately. That is precisely the case."

Only now did Locke fully understand why the stakes for Bonifacius University's push to establish the new textile school were even higher than he had originally thought.

Before this, he had assumed at most it amounted to the new textile school's wizards making noise about splitting off, and what splitting off meant was simply dividing up interests and dividing up the authority of voice. But looking at it now, this was a matter of splitting Root Fields.

"So whether or not a Root Field can form is the key to whether a category of magic qualifies as a secondary discipline."

Locke thought to himself, "Then the new textile school's immediate primary goal is not to push for becoming a first-tier discipline. That is only a grand, overarching goal meant to give the new textile school's wizards a sense of direction."

"What they need to fight for right now is to first make the new textile school a secondary discipline, which means forming their own Root Field. But doing so would require pulling away many wizards from the textile school's Root Field. This would cause the textile school's Root Field to weaken and shrink, reducing its lifting effect."

"This is a profound, fundamental conflict of interests."

At this moment, Locke thought of even more.

So the three wizard lands of the Three Marshes having different development directions also reflected their different attitudes toward Root Fields.

Clearly, the reason the Thunder Marsh Lowlands had chosen to develop around three centralized wizard universities was to generate three super Root Fields, using this to compete with the Star Domain Sea. Otherwise there would be no way to compare with the Root Fields formed by the Star Domain Sea's numerous wizards.

And so the three resource-concentrated wizard universities of the Thunder Marsh Lowlands were all single-discipline wizard universities.

That made sense.

The Thunder Marsh Lowlands was pushing extreme specialization, but could a single wizard land develop on the basis of three individual categories of magic alone?

No.

The simple absence of certain magical categories would drive up material prices for specific environments in ways that would be very problematic.

And so the Cloud Marsh Wetlands had to bear the role of the Three Marshes' comprehensive development route, pursuing broad integrated development to supplement the Thunder Marsh Lowlands' deficiencies.

Even providing the Thunder Marsh Lowlands with an environment that could counter the Star Domain Sea's attraction.

The benefit of integrated development was possessing a complete magical category supply chain, with a wizard land having more Root Fields. But the downside was being unable to form super Root Fields.

Locke realized that just as his Moon of Evolution was lifted by three Root Fields, a wizard's Grand Magic was rarely purely of a single kind.

And so multiple Root Fields had the advantages of multiple Root Fields, while a single super Root Field had the advantages of a single super Root Field.

But it seemed the Three Marshes had not only formed three interconnected wizard lands because of the Cloud-Lake geography. The Root Field issue alone had already driven the integration process of the three major wizard lands.

The Cloud Marsh Wetlands and the Thunder Marsh Lowlands each bore different responsibilities within the Three Marshes.

The Rain Marsh Swamplands, on the other hand, was even stranger. It had none of the medium-to-large-scale wizard academies of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, let alone anything comparable to the Thunder Marsh Lowlands' top-tier wizard universities. It was all small wizard academies and mid-sized wizard academies.

Clearly, the Rain Marsh Swamplands had taken the multiple Root Fields path one step further, bearing the full magical category responsibilities of both the Cloud Marsh Wetlands and the Thunder Marsh Lowlands.

Because even the Cloud Marsh Wetlands' seven premier academies, looking at it now, had still concentrated their resources to a significant degree and were sustaining fairly impressive Root Fields.

Locke thought, "Now that I know of the existence of Root Fields, I can better understand the division of labor within the Three Marshes. The integration of the Three Marshes is far deeper than I had imagined, not at all the superficial arrangement I once assumed."

"Then in the future, might there come a day when the Root Fields of the Three Marshes are shared?"

"The development strategy of the Three Marshes itself seems to be heading toward an integrated path."

In that case, the three super wizard universities of the Thunder Marsh Lowlands were essentially being collectively lifted by all three of the Three Marshes together.

Only in this way could they compete with the higher-tier academies of the Star Domain Sea.

Witch Victoria thought for a moment and said, "For you Second Circle wizards, Root Fields can probably be understood roughly this way. For sun ring wizards and higher-circle wizards, you can try to understand them more deeply."

"Going back to the conflict between your teacher and the Rose Witch, the outcome of their competition also involves one more point, which is the struggle for relative control over Root Fields. For Third Circle wizards, we can do much more on top of Root Fields."

"Play with many more possibilities. But unless necessary, there is no reason to do so. That easily triggers academic lineage wars and ignites critical points of conflict."

"But you have only just become a Second Circle wizard. This knowledge is still far too distant for you. You only need to know that Root Fields are man-made constructs."

"And so for something man-made, there is far too much room for manipulation."

Locke gave a slight nod, stood up, and bowed respectfully to Witch Victoria. "Thank you for your teaching, Witch Victoria."

"You have helped me understand what a Root Field is and what it does."

Witch Victoria curved the corner of her mouth. "You are so polite, Locke."

Locke asked, "Witch Victoria, is there any way you could help upgrade the level of the half-plane inside the Cosmic Light contact lens..."

"The half-plane is currently unable to support a Second Circle magical plant's virtual roots."

Witch Victoria raised an eyebrow and looked surprised.

"A Second Circle magical plant? A First Circle magical plant is already the king of magical plants. A Second Circle magical plant is an advanced magical plant that only a medium-scale world could possibly produce one or two of. Even in the infinite void it is not something commonly seen."

"A mere half-plane naturally cannot support a Second Circle magical plant. A Second Circle magical plant's virtual roots, even the lowest grade of virtual root, the sparse root, will draw on the power of the plane's virtual sea."

Witch Victoria sighed. "If a world's virtual sea is not sufficiently powerful, it becomes very troublesome. Under normal circumstances, the existence of a magical plant is always the optimal solution within its environment."

"From a long-term perspective, the existence of a Second Circle magical plant can help increase the energy within a world's virtual sea. But in the short term, it actually consumes power from the virtual sea. And the virtual sea is the key to a world's support of its present-world layer. If it is drawn upon carelessly, it is like overextracting groundwater from a region, draining it dry and leaving damage for future generations."

"The present-world layer may directly collapse."

"Just like land that collapses after losing its groundwater support."

"In the past, wizard civilization during the Pure-Blood Human Era chose for a period of time to use virtual magic as the characteristic of Second Circle wizards, but it was later abandoned during the wizard autocracy era, and this is precisely the reason."

"Switching to Grand Magic can be said to be the one meaningfully constructive thing those wizard monarchs who did nothing good in the autocracy era actually accomplished."

Witch Victoria took out a historical spell book from her astral ring and handed it to Locke to look at.

"You can read through this book. I have been reading it recently."

Locke took the spell book and said solemnly, "Of course, Witch Victoria. I will read it carefully."

"We can always draw lessons and strength from history."

Witch Victoria curved the corner of her mouth.

"So what I am saying is, planting First Circle magical plants within a half-plane can still be done with magical resource supplementation. But planting Second Circle magical plants within a half-plane is a different matter entirely. It is like directly drawing groundwater from an area prone to subsidence. It would cause the present-world layer of that half-plane to directly collapse."

Locke asked with confusion, "Witch Victoria, is there truly no other way?"

If it could not be planted within the half-plane, there would be no way to have his Forest Sanctuary travel with him, and he would need to think about how to protect it.

Perhaps he could establish an academy?

Locke gave a slight shake of his head. That was laughable. He was planning to go to the Star Domain Sea. Where would he find the time to find a place and establish a wizard academy?

A Second Circle wizard at most could establish a wizard university in somewhere like the southeastern quadrant.

Witch Victoria said, "Let me think of something for you. Your requirement is fairly unusual. Other Second Circle botanical wizards do not have such a strong need for this."