Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems

Locke looked at Grand Duke Westminster, gave no response to his emotions, and simply said directly, "You are deceiving me."

"Grand Duke, at this moment I am the emperor. If you do not answer truthfully, you are a rebel and a traitor."

"I will have your head!"

Grand Duke Westminster's brow twitched. He had not expected Locke to be this perceptive, with such astonishing insight. His account, where the dead could offer no contradictions and only he was left to tell it, was essentially impossible for others to question.

Yet Locke had still sharply detected his lie.

Only Grand Duke Westminster could not figure out where he had gone wrong.

Locke said directly, "According to your account, you betrayed the emperor and killed him. You were Grand Duke Westminster at the time, and within this mind network you possessed a Second Circle-level light of the mind. But with your strength, you would never have been able to kill a Second Circle wizard who had successfully completed the star-forging."

"Even a sudden ambush would have been impossible."

"So you are deceiving me," Locke said, clasping his hands behind his back and looking at him. "Of course, all I require is an answer with no logical gaps. If you can fabricate such an answer right now and tell it to me, I would not be averse to believing it."

Locke looked toward Grand Duke Westminster. The duke felt that his entire being had been seen through and grew deeply unsettled.

A wizard from the Other Shore Great World combined with the position of master of the mind network was this formidable, filling him with a kind of dread.

This was not the dread born of being overwhelmed by superior power, nor of being crushed by an information gap. Although both of those could make a person submit and fill them with fear, it remained merely that.

But Locke possessed an insight and wisdom that overwhelmed him completely, and that kind of overwhelming left Grand Duke Westminster without a shred of the will to resist.

Locke said, "What you said just now was largely true. Only those things have nothing to do with you personally. Back then, Zorro Ryke built this mind network and took control of the Silent Plane, establishing the empire and the inspector system."

"Then he must have faced a rebellion launched by the nine grand dukes, who drew in some of the three hundred ordinary great barons. Looking at the balance of power, you were not Grand Duke Westminster back then."

"You were elevated to that position by Zorro Ryke afterward."

"What you described just now was all about other people's business. The ones who led the betrayal of Zorro Ryke were the nine grand dukes, while you back then should have been on the loyalist side, which is to say Zorro Ryke's side."

Locke raised his right hand, and the nine pieces symbolizing the lights of the mind of the grand dukes, along with three hundred pieces symbolizing the lights of the mind of the great barons, materialized in his palm.

He closed his hand, and all of these pieces fell into his grasp.

This image represented the function that this mind network fulfilled.

Grand Duke Westminster drew a sharp breath, his body trembling.

He would not be moved to submit before Locke simply because Locke's power was greater than his.

Because Locke had come from that place of ideals, the Other Shore Great World. It was only natural for someone from there to be stronger than him.

But at this moment, he found himself submitting because of Locke's wisdom.

The grand duke said quietly to Locke, "Your Majesty sees everything with perfect clarity. That is indeed how it was."

"Your Majesty, clearly you are not me, yet you saw through my little scheme."

"Your Majesty, clearly you are not of this world and did not live through that era of this world's history. Yet you saw the problem in it at a single glance."

Locke snapped his fingers, and in an instant his legendary history tome, the Ancient Botanical Concise History, appeared. It briefly collected and organized this piece of colonial world history, which was more or less dispensable, and stored it away.

It was dispensable, but worth collecting in passing.

"It is nothing more than a basic ability to examine historical records," Locke said. "A teacher in my world once told me that in this world, only wisdom is the true foundation of one's power. Grand Duke, your wisdom is insufficient, which is why it is difficult for you to command the power you hold."

"You chose to weaken the overall potential of the civilization so that all living beings would accommodate your level of intelligence. Although you did stabilize your power, you also weakened the entire civilization of the Silent Plane."

A low voice came from beneath Grand Duke Westminster's armor. "Portraying myself as the heir who killed the first emperor strengthens the legitimacy of my rule over this world."

"It allows me to believe myself that I am the symbol of this world's civilization."

Locke said, "You must be several generations removed from Zorro Ryke."

Grand Duke Westminster's pupils contracted sharply. "Your Majesty sees everything with perfect clarity. Back then it was indeed the nine grand dukes who launched the rebellion. All of those people have been eliminated. His Majesty Zorro Ryke was gravely wounded and near death, and he elevated me, who was on the loyalist side at the time, to become Grand Duke Westminster."

"Then His Majesty Zorro Ryke fell in battle alongside the last remaining grand dukes. And I, in his place, killed the last grand duke."

"I simply... could not forgive him, nor could I forgive myself."

Grand Duke Westminster said in a low voice, "He was my elder. I only wanted to protect him. I only wanted to see him become this world's ruler, this world's emperor. If it had been him, I would have been willing to support him always."

"I am only an ordinary person."

"Your Majesty. I am only an ordinary person."

"An ordinary person only needs to look after their close friends and family, the people they care about. So I did nothing wrong."

Grand Duke Westminster bowed to Locke and said, "Your Majesty. I cannot understand what His Majesty Zorro Ryke was thinking, and even less can I forgive the nine grand dukes who betrayed him."

"In my view, after His Majesty Zorro Ryke and the nine grand dukes died, this world held a state funeral for them. And then... in less than a month, barely anyone remembered them. Not many years passed before people forgot the past."

"Within a hundred years, the people of this world had forgotten who it was that brought them that blue sky and those white clouds. I truly cannot trust them. His Majesty Zorro Ryke was, in my heart, a brother who belonged only to me."

Grand Duke Westminster finally let tears fall from the corners of his eyes. "No, I should say, what I am even less able to forgive is the people of this world. Every smile on every commoner's face in this world is an insult to my elder brother, His Majesty Zorro Ryke."

"The people of this world are cold and ungrateful. They long since forgot entirely the source of their happy lives. Very quickly they attributed their small achievements to their own talent and hard work, rather than to His Majesty Zorro Ryke building a canopy for them and clearing away the last of the grand dukes for them."

"They remember nothing."

"They have all forgotten."

Locke said, "You hate them."

Grand Duke Westminster let out a sigh. "I would not say I hate them. Because I am the same kind of person as they are. So I simply feel they do not deserve a better ruler."

"They deserve only an emperor like me."

"I am their choice!"

Locke suddenly turned to look at the emperor and said, "No. You are not the choice of the tens of billions of people of the Silent Plane. My Spiritual Cultivation Society pointed toward a beautiful future they desired."

"But if the future they desired were self-destruction, then the realm I summoned would not be full of green mountains and clear waters. Grand Duke, it seems you can only see the bad in others, and cannot notice the points of light within their characters."

Locke said, "You only saw their ugly past, while I saw their pursuit of a better version of themselves in the ideal they envisioned."

"The reason I was able to borrow the future from the world through you is because most of the living beings of the Silent Plane are reaching toward the version of themselves they hope to become, the idealized self they hold in their vision."

"Perhaps in the present and the future they will struggle to survive. Perhaps they will still do things that make you feel contempt and consider dishonorable. But they genuinely possess this pursuit of what is good."

Locke said, "I am still in the process of exploring what truth is myself, so my view is only my personal view. But Grand Duke, you stripped away the right of every living being on the Silent Plane to pursue the version of themselves they hold in their ideal, because you are someone who does not believe in themselves, and you do not believe in them."

"That is why you lost to me."

"Grand Duke, you are only yourself. Please stop dragging the living beings of this plane along with you."

"Each of us can only represent ourselves."

Grand Duke Westminster's body shook and he was about to speak.

But Locke had already clarified the specific outline of this world's power system, and had no intention of continuing to linger with Grand Duke Westminster.

He looked toward the grand duke and asked, "Two final questions."

"First, what is the disaster of this world?"

"Second, did the meteorite that came from the Age of Enlightenment become the raw material for the canopy of the mind network?"

Grand Duke Westminster lowered his head and said, "That meteorite did indeed become the raw material for the canopy of the mind network."

"His Majesty Zorro Ryke told me that the Silent Plane had too few resources, so he could only use that meteorite as raw material to forge the canopy."

A trace of regret stirred within Locke. Although the materials on that meteorite were an outdated knowledge system, it had still been a civilization seed freely sent to all corners of the infinite void by the Four Clarity Waters wizard land during the Age of Enlightenment.

If he could have obtained it, it would have had some value as a reference, for learning, and most importantly for its historical significance.

He had even considered that it might fetch a high price at auction.

But as it turned out, it had already been made into the raw material of the mind network.

Grand Duke Westminster said, "As for the disaster of this world... I actually do not know what it is. It is only that during the long stretch of time I have been ruling this world, this thing suddenly appeared."

"I have never managed to summarize what it actually is or what pattern governs its appearances. I only know that within the empire I rule, strange cult followers always appear. These cult followers are very strange. They gradually lose their sanity and become monsters, and these monsters seem to produce a kind of mental pollution that lowers the intelligence of anyone who sees them."

"Your Majesty, I have some of these monsters imprisoned in a secret prison I built."

"If you wish to see them, please follow me. I will bring you to the mortal world to see them with your own eyes."

Locke nodded. "Agreed."

Although the mortal world of the Silent Plane was currently somewhat peculiar, with not a single Second Circle-level magic pressure signature within his perception, he was at this moment the most powerful existence in the current world, specifically the Silent Plane. He could handle all changes with composure.

And at this moment, examining the cult-follower monsters that Grand Duke Westminster had described was very important to him. It might allow him to find the reason this plane was destined to perish.

Locke brought Grand Duke Westminster with him, left the special permission space, and stepped into the mortal world.

The instant he did, Locke heard Wizard Smith's laughter lingering within the magical winds left behind in this world by his weather studies spell, along with a few words.

"Hahahahaha..."

"Locke, you and I are not done. Right now I am staging my comeback to fight you again!"

"Ah, Medea, you have ruined me!"

"Locke, you won by dishonorable means!"

Listening to these four statements from Wizard Smith, Locke was rendered completely speechless. "The swings in mood are somewhat extreme."

"Was he not still in quite high spirits at the start? Why did he suddenly go from that to cursing me?"

Grand Duke Westminster said curtly, "A rebel and a traitor."

At this moment Locke was a holy avatar, so he directly used the power of the plane to collect information and forcibly learned everything that had happened during his absence.

Wizard Smith had attempted to obtain outside help through the Demon Realm Dice, then been jointly deceived by black wizards from the Spiral Basin and the Twin Demon Realm, and had been directly trafficked away. His current whereabouts were unknown.

And Witch Medea had entered this world.

Witch Georgina had turned things around as a result, directly made her move, and killed Wizard Edgar.

"So the problem originated with Wizard Smith," Locke said with a peculiar expression. He had already calculated everything out.

His plan had been for the Land of All Spirits, which he had injected with Type 2 Tyrant Element through the Moon of Evolution, to collapse first. Yet he had not expected Wizard Smith to self-destruct through his own follow-up move at such speed.

He died too fast. That was the gap in his planning.

'Acting from one's heart without overstepping is, after all, only a mode of coexisting with the world. Human hearts are the most complex things of all. That Wizard Smith accelerated his own demise through his own efforts is something I could not have predicted even in this state.'

Locke felt a measure of regret.

And as time passed, this state of his would also gradually fade.

'Could Wizard Smith have been deliberately targeting me with his own misfortune? That seems unlikely. He is not that kind of selfless person. He was probably simply genuinely unlucky.'

Locke looked toward the Land of All Spirits, traced a finger through the air, and let a climbing fern fall into it.

The Moon of Evolution shone upon it, and the climbing fern immediately completed its tyrantification while simultaneously completing its moon plant transformation.

Both states layered on top of each other at the same time.

The Tyrant Climbing Fern, Moon Plant, transformed into a gilded fern spear that took up its position deep within the Land of All Spirits, completely overwhelmed the remaining magic pressure of Edgar, and the entire Land of All Spirits was almost entirely absorbed into his world-scale realm.

"Regardless of what Edgar intended to do, I should merge the Land of All Spirits completely as quickly as possible."

"Perhaps there is still a chance to prevent it."

Locke thought.

At present his greatest enemy was still Edgar. Witch Georgina had gone into hiding and did not dare act for the time being.

As for the late-joining Witch Medea from Storm Tower, although the competitor had changed, she was considerably weaker than Wizard Smith, and by no small margin.

Each of the four original competitors had joined this competition after continuously honing their Grand Magics and receiving many resources from their respective academies.

But Witch Medea could only rely on herself, and the majority of her time had been spent on scheming against Wizard Smith.

She had only managed to complete the construction of her Grand Magic's foundational spell because of her relatively greater age.

But her Grand Magic was riddled with errors and gaps.

Through the plane's information flow, Locke already knew what her Grand Magic, which had been constructed but had not yet descended, was.

A typical divination school Grand Magic, the Slate Sanctuary.

This was a relatively old standardized Grand Magic. It was not popular in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, but the reason Locke knew of it was that he had encountered its construction in past literature as an example of a classic but dated and currently impractical Grand Magic.

The Slate Sanctuary was a Grand Magic within the divination school premised on the world being a hidden codebook that contained many messages it wished to convey to the world's inhabitants but could not express. The Slate Sanctuary was a Grand Magic that helped the world express the information within its code.

This Grand Magic had many problems and had already been phased out by the divination school itself.

At least in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, that was the case.

First, the current divination school of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, which is to say the mainstream divination school wizards from Bonifacius University and Quinn Jol University, held the view that the world was not a codebook.

Much of the information from divination school workings was simply a partial and isolated perspective produced by intercepting and interpreting the perpetually shifting world principles.

For this reason, a great many divination interpretations were highly problematic.

The world itself was not a dedicated codebook. This was an egocentric cognitive assumption of the old divination school.

Second, Grand Magics like the Fate Slate, which lacked an instantaneous magic pressure output multiplier, were things that had been popular during a past period when attack spells were not used as the foundational spell for a Grand Magic. That era had long since passed.

Furthermore, the energy dissipation rate was very high and the energy compatibility was also extremely poor.

One could say that the Slate Sanctuary was a Grand Magic that bore many marks of past developmental errors in the evolution of Grand Magic.

But it stood to reason that Witch Medea was different from the researchers from the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, unable to easily access the most cutting-edge knowledge at her fingertips. That was why she could only construct a Grand Magic that in everyone's eyes was stodgy, outdated, and obsolete.

With that being the case, Witch Medea would have no influence on this competition whatsoever.

Locke did not even know what she was supposed to do next.

Overall, it felt as though she had trapped herself in a dead end with no way out.

However, that was not the key point right now.

At this moment, the competition and finding the reason why this plane was destined to perish were the key points.

Locke looked toward the realm. Witch Georgina had already hidden herself in the deepest part of the realm, and Witch Medea also seemed to have hidden herself within the realm.

These two seemed to want to play hide-and-seek with him.

Locke's expression was peculiar.

Although the realm was indeed public, he genuinely had a follow-up move in reserve.

He could close the realm's gateway, which is to say close the doorway connecting the realm to the mortal world.

That would mean these two women, once inside his realm, were like turtles trapped in a jar. The realm was full of his treant species throughout.

And once he shut the realm's door, they would be unable to leave the realm and could not enter the mortal world.

Locke acted immediately after the thought came to him, directly expending energy to close the gateway between the realm and the mortal world.

In this way the realm could not interfere with the mortal world.

And the mortal world could not interfere with the realm.

In the deepest part of the realm, Witch Georgina, who had hidden herself there, was sitting beside the Fate Loom and studying the Moon of Evolution, weaving away.

At this moment she immediately perceived that Locke had taken control of the realm's gateway and shut the door.

"Terrible. The realm is public property, but the door is his alone." Witch Georgina gritted her teeth. "What a vicious heart."

"And he had this move up his sleeve too!"

Beneath the Silent Throne, some wizard in the crowd had apparently learned of Locke's old nickname in the southeastern quadrant, the Eye Demon Wizard.

Everyone began discussing it.

"With this, the realm and the mortal world are completely cut off from each other. Are that black witch and Witch Georgina not trapped inside with no way out? As long as he does not open the gateway for a single day, they cannot leave for a single day? The situation remains entirely under his control!"

"The Eye Demon Wizard really has a vicious heart!"

"I genuinely believed that realm was for public use, and was even laughing at Edgar, Smith, and Georgina for not being willing to enter, thinking they were being small-minded. I had no idea he could close the gateway from the realm leading back to the mortal world."

"Edgar's refusal to enter the realm seems to have had another reason entirely."

At this moment in the Golden Crown Mountain spectator section, the wizards from the Academic Committee were all shaking their heads.

This was simply too crafty.

And at this moment, Witch Victoria in the spectator stands covered her mouth with a laugh. "This student has quite the shameless flair that Katya had in her day."

Victoria's student, upon hearing this, coughed once to mask the awkwardness.

In the Silent Plane, after Locke sealed the gateway between the realm and the mortal world completely, he and Grand Duke Westminster then pressed forward without pause into the imperial capital, where they found the grand duke's special prison.

Under the respectful gazes of the inspectors, both walked directly into a prison located at the edge of a seaside cliff, its walls alone standing hundreds of meters high and completely impenetrable.

This prison was called the Makta Grand Prison.

Locke and Grand Duke Westminster walked through the prison's corridors. He saw that many of the inmates in these cells were bald, with only a single strand of hair in the middle of their forehead.

Furthermore, they were continuously drawing circles on the floor and walls.

These people had dull, vacant expressions, appearing mad or possessed, drawing circles over and over on the ground.

Some of them were also muttering to themselves, saying that they had seen a blue light.

And blue arcs.

Grand Duke Westminster said, "I have no idea why, but these people became this way. They will charge at people at random during the night and attack them."

"But for some reason, they are extremely afraid of electric lights, or perhaps they are simply trying to avoid the lights."

"Because of this, the people of this world will not casually go out at night and move away from light sources."

Locke nodded. He was already aware of this.

Suddenly a middle-aged man with only a single hair on his forehead lunged toward them, gripping the iron bars with both hands and apparently attempting to grab both of their throats. "I have seen it! I have seen that above humans there exists a higher truth. Nothing has any meaning anymore."

Locke pursed his lips. "What on earth."

"Could these be disc creatures?"