Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems

Although the emperor resisted with every fiber of his being, at this moment he could not deny that Locke had used a logic he could understand to persuade him.

At this moment, Locke was the master of the mind network, bearing the light of the mind that symbolized the emperor. That made him the emperor of the Silent Plane.

If he, Grand Duke Westminster, did not answer seriously, he would be doing something no different from what a rebel and traitor would do.

He was unwilling to be a rebel and traitor.

Grand Duke Westminster let out a sigh, replaced the helmet on his head, and began to speak. "This is already a very old story."

"Your Majesty."

Locke did a mental calculation of the time until the collapse of Wizard Smith's Grand Magic and the time until the collapse of Wizard Edgar's Grand Magic.

If all went well, Wizard Edgar would be the first to be eliminated from this plane.

He was also the person in this competition who posed the greatest threat to him.

And once Wizard Edgar was eliminated, keeping Witch Georgina around would no longer serve any purpose. He would immediately enter the realm and eliminate Witch Georgina.

He needed to manage his timing carefully.

Because Wizard Smith was wearing a Prisoner of Fate magical garment, and once he died, Witch Georgina's Grand Magic could receive a portion of the existence spirituality of fortune corresponding to the misfortune produced by his death.

Although this would not be enough to let Witch Georgina turn things around, it could create some trouble for him.

So he needed to keep careful control of the timing.

'These opponents are more troublesome one after another. My super-intuition is warning me that I absolutely cannot move against Edgar a second time.'

'Based on that, Georgina's presence is advantageous to me. Until Edgar's follow-up move is removed, I cannot move against Georgina first.'

'Because if I do and Edgar's follow-up move is actually triggered, I would just be making a wedding garment for him.'

'However, without removing Georgina, I cannot eliminate Smith first either. Otherwise I would be providing energy to Georgina's Grand Magic.'

Locke thought, 'So after calculating every angle, the approach that best serves my interests is actually to not be present and wait for my enemies to bring about their own destruction.'

'If nothing goes wrong, by now they should already be out of options.'

Grand Duke Westminster looked toward Locke and began to speak. "A very long time ago, the Silent Plane was not this empire, not this industrial civilization as it is now. At that time this world was very primitive, with dozens of nations, every one of them very poor. We fought every day..."

"Not only that, because the void in this world's sky would drop down strange creatures resembling living things, none of our nations could guarantee their own safety. None of us could be certain of surviving. All of us were thinking about what our future held, yet none of us had ever thought about the possibility of changing this world."

Grand Duke Westminster's eyes became hazy and distant. "Emperor, can you imagine it? At that moment, one person suddenly stood up and told us that the truly powerful can decide what the future of this world should be, rather than investigating what this world originally was."

"Even a sky that ugly and dangerous could have a canopy built over it to conceal it, and a sky that all the ordinary people of this world could love could be built for them..."

Grand Duke Westminster had clearly fallen into some special reverie, and his voice filled with a nostalgic warmth. "He made all of us miss him dearly."

Locke perceived that something was off. "All of us? You... and who else?"

Grand Duke Westminster said, "All the old ones who followed him back then, myself included. But now only I am left. I have erased every trace of all of them besides him, and the people who knew of his existence have also all disappeared."

Locke was not surprised by this. This man was a tyrant and an autocrat.

But an autocrat had no ability to build a civilization on their own.

So someone must have built this civilization for him, and he had subsequently risen above them and taken possession of this position.

...

In the Silent Plane, Wizard Smith, inside the space of his Meteor from Beyond the Heavens, felt that the star power within this Grand Magic was now in complete chaos, and all the star-prayer devotees within had died as a result.

They could no longer help him reduce his energy dissipation rate.

At this moment, Wizard Smith steadied his mind. He drew the gambler's die from his soul, then threw it forward.

The six-sided die rolled across the ground, and at the instant when it was about to land with the face showing the number one facing upward, the die suddenly rolled forward again and landed with the number six facing upward.

At the same time, in the spectator stands, at Storm Tower's position, a First Circle crystallization stage wizard also threw a similarly appearing die forward.

That die landed with the number two facing upward.

This wizard's expression shifted, and in an instant his magic pressure was absorbed by the die and transmitted to Wizard Smith at the location of the other die.

In the space of the Meteor from Beyond the Heavens in the Silent Plane, Wizard Smith's face lit up with delighted surprise as he felt an infusion of externally sourced magic pressure flow toward him.

This magic pressure was exactly the timely rain he needed, helping him stabilize a portion of the chaos within the Meteor from Beyond the Heavens.

But it was not enough.

He looked at the die in his hand, ready to do it a few more times.

This was the world rarity, the Gambler's Die, and there were two of them in total.

According to Witch Medea's explanation, two wizards could each throw one and wager their magic pressure against each other.

As long as both sides input their magic pressure into the dice simultaneously and then threw, the one with the higher number won.

The wizard who won the gamble would receive the combined magic pressure of both parties and temporarily possess the other's magic pressure.

Although the transferred magic pressure could not regenerate, it allowed him to temporarily hold another wizard's magic pressure.

In other words, he could use this world rarity, a soul artifact, to gamble with wizards outside the competition and then rake in their magic pressure.

And as the next candidate head of the Smith Family and a Storm Tower researcher, he could control who gambled against him.

Furthermore, this die had a hidden function.

When a Second Circle wizard gambled against a First Circle wizard, the Second Circle wizard could cheat.

Because this die's ability had a limitation. It was impossible for a river to flow backward into the sea, so the fairness of the wager only applied between wizards of the same tier.

For wizards of different tiers, the higher-tier wizard would always be in an undefeatable position.

This was a conclusion he had arrived at after running many experiments, which was why he was now using it with complete confidence.

Furthermore, he could also have Medea apply divination school magic to the wizards gambling against him to reduce their luck in the wager, which meant he would always stand in an undefeatable position.

Upon finding this turning point, Wizard Smith immediately broke into a hearty laugh. "Hahahahaha, I should have used this world rarity sooner. Worthy of being a fine thing from the New Sea Route."

"Though I could not have used it much earlier either. After all, something this good had to be kept hidden. I did not even mention it to my family."

Wizard Smith injected all of his magic pressure into the die. He was going for a big one.

The Gambler's Die had one more hidden mechanism, which was that both parties could inject their magic pressure into the dice and wager with everything, winner takes all.

However, both sides needed to inject magic pressure of roughly the same magnitude.

If one party's magic pressure fell below the required magnitude and they also lost, that party would have to use whatever they had left, their existence spirituality, their light of the mind, their soul, their permanent defensive force field, everything else they possessed, to compensate.

At this moment, a cold gleam flashed in Wizard Smith's eyes.

Right now his Grand Magic needed a large amount of flowing magic pressure capital to stabilize it, and the temporarily available magic pressure from a few First Circle crystallization stage wizards was nowhere near enough to fill the void.

And even if the Meteor from Beyond the Heavens was stabilized, he still would not be a match for Locke.

If he was going to play, he should play for something big.

Just winning their magic pressure would not do, since they would recover it within a few days.

Only by gambling in everything they had and winning it all would that energy be sufficient for him to turn the tide.

With this in mind, Wizard Smith pressed his palm onto the die, a covetous gleam in his eyes. "I want to win more. This feeling is too good."

He thought to himself, 'The Smith Family running those black factories every day, making us look like black wizards in the business of trafficking people. When I think about it, it is not even as fast as using this world rarity to gamble with others and win everything they have.'

'This feeling is absolutely exhilarating.'

"I want more, I want even more. Medea, keep finding people to gamble with me."

Wizard Smith was delighted to discover that even a Grand Magic could be counted by this die as an asset to be wagered, and he threw the die forward.

At the same time, in the mortal world, Witch Medea curved the corner of her mouth. She squeezed past a wizard, gripped a die, and spoke, "Smith. You are protected by a Second Circle magical artifact that shields you from divination school magic affecting your mind and interfering with your judgment."

"Wizard Smith, you have constant access to high-circle wizards. You can examine your own condition at any time and confirm that you are not being affected by any magic."

"Wizard Smith, you have far too many resources that could overwhelm me."

"But so what!"

"In this world, there are still ways for the weak to overcome the strong. Since I cannot use magic on you, I will use the simplest, most primitive, most effective method, deception. I used your greed, constructed a scenario, and made you believe that was a world rarity."

"And then you believed it. You did not dare have anyone appraise it, because you were afraid others would covet your world rarity. Understandable, a world rarity is an extraordinarily precious treasure even for someone like you. But if I truly had something like that, why would I offer it to you?"

"On what grounds?"

"Because you would give me a job with a lot of overtime work that still pays overtime allowances? Hahahaha, what a fool."

"Let me be clear with you. There is no gambler in this world who never loses. The moment you started gambling, you were already on the road to losing."

Witch Medea threw the die in her hand forward.

And three Storm Tower sun ring wizards erupted in furious rage. Their magic pressure bore down on her like three mountains crushing down upon a single ant.

"Insolence!"

"Fool!"

"Stop this, or Storm Tower will make sure you have no path to survive anywhere in this civilized world, above the earth or below it! Your future will be utterly ruined! You will never find a job again! You will never publish another article!"

In an instant, Medea found herself surrounded on all sides and facing a dead end. Yet she remained calm in the face of crisis, lifting her chin as her hair flew in the wind.

"Ha, I have nothing left to lose. I am willing to fight you all to the death!"

When one has already become a black wizard, why fear being enemies with the entire world in this society of white wizards?