Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems

Locke, taking Wizard Kelt with him, bored into the Death Dragon's tail. Locke forcibly bit off a mouthful of the Death Dragon's flesh and swallowed it directly.

The Sun-Herding Dragon's stomach churned continuously, rapidly digesting the consumed flesh and converting it into blood and muscle.

Drawing on the dragon race's powerful ability to devour and absorb all things, Locke obtained a portion of the Death Dragon's bloodline essence, and simultaneously used that bloodline essence to fill in the missing information of his demon dragon bloodline.

Locke kept gnawing on the flesh of the Death Dragon's tail, and the Death Dragon's body was simply enormous beyond measure, so enormous that the small amount of flesh missing was of absolutely no consequence to it. But it could provide Locke with critically important energy and the relevant bloodline essence.

The Death Dragon's bloodline essence was exceptional in quality. Even the bloodline essence obtained from devouring only a small portion of its flesh was nothing more than scattered fragments that were incomplete and superficial. But even these were like a timely rain, providing Locke with a large quantity of excellent bloodline essence to supplement his demon dragon bloodline.

At the same time, something clicked in Locke's mind.

Of course. For magical creatures as a group, they were not wizards. They had no complex power system at all. And so aside from certain relatively intelligent magical creature groups that had some rudimentary power systems, all other magical creatures relied solely on natural instinct to enhance their power through one method, eating.

For wild magical creatures, even the concept of dedicated and structured training was very likely something that did not exist in their cognition.

An ordinary great dragon, outside of its youth when survival was a concern, probably did nothing more than sleep, wake up, hunt or collect treasure, and sleep again, caught in that cycle.

And so for wild magical creatures, through predation, power could be increased. This characteristic was especially pronounced among dragon-kind creatures.

Locke had previously read in some articles some basic beast-taming concepts from the summoning school's beast-taming magic sub-branch. Magical creatures and ordinary creatures could consume certain things and have simple interactions with the bloodline essence or scattered bloodline factors contained within those things.

The simplest example was that magical creature young that frequently drank the milk of a animal would undergo corresponding changes to their physique.

And so in beast-taming, in the breeding of young magical creatures during the foundational stage, great emphasis was placed on using different magical creatures' milk to provide directional cultivation to young magical creatures.

At this moment, the demon dragon bloodline within his own body was incomplete, the road ahead cut off. Even burning the Sun-Herding Dragon's bloodline essence could not fill in the gap.

So what could be done?

Simple. Eat.

Through eating, and relying on the dragon race's powerful digestive capability, forcibly supplement the missing portion of his bloodline essence.

He did not know whether it would succeed.

But it was the only viable path available to him.

Otherwise, he could only accept the failure of the advancement and endure the recoil.

Wizard Kelt, dragged along by Locke, was jostled around inside the Death Dragon's tail. He clenched his teeth, his magic pressure shell covered in cracks.

"Has this dragon gone mad? What is it trying to do?"

"This is not good."

Wizard Kelt caught a glimpse of the parasites living on the Death Dragon's surface and interior closing in on them.

The Death Dragon was enormous, and so its body hosted a collection of dragon parasites. The majority of these dragon parasites were apprentice-level existences, with a small number of elite parasites at the First Circle wizard level.

They lived on and inside the Death Dragon's surface and body, having formed a specialized ecosystem.

At this moment, a semi-transparent eight-legged insect, roughly three meters in length, its entire body secreting corrosive mucus, was sliding rapidly through the gaps in the Death Dragon's flesh. The tips of its eight legs were all hooked claws that could easily embed into the Death Dragon's flesh and grip tightly.

Beyond that, it had a pointed, hard, and elongated feeding tube that could be inserted into the Death Dragon's flesh at any moment to extract energy from its blood vessels. But as the price for this, both it and its descendants, as dragon scale nightmare lice, would be controlled by the Death Dragon.

Wizard Kelt saw the dragon scale nightmare lice sliding rapidly toward him and this foolish dragon. The lice leapt up, spraying nightmare hallucination compounds toward Locke and Wizard Kelt.

Creating various terrifying hallucinations.

And using their eight hooked legs to attack Locke and Wizard Kelt.

Wizard Kelt thought for a moment, gritted his teeth, and decided not to be in a hurry to shake off Locke after all. His Grand Magic was absorbing special high-grade wind from Locke, which was a rare opportunity.

Beyond that, he had pieced together what was happening at this moment.

The dragon seemed to have run into some kind of trouble and was borrowing him to overcome the tribulation, while he himself happened to be profiting considerably from this dragon's tribulation.

So he had no intention of ending this state.

For now, the two of them, one man and one dragon, were temporarily on the same boat.

Wizard Kelt thought it over. Because Locke was gripping him, he could barely move. But his Grand Magic, the Serene Prairie, deployed behind him, and a stalk of vetiver transformed into a spear that shot out and pierced straight through the head of the dragon scale nightmare lice lunging at them.

In the next moment, more dragon scale nightmare lice came boring in from outside the passage of flesh.

Dragon scale nightmare lice were a type of dragon beetle living within the layer of dragon scales.

These dragon beetles could also spray a special natural magical power structural component capable of inducing nightmares in people, making them an extremely dangerous variety of dragon beetle specific to the Death Dragon.

Legend had it that the Death Dragon would release them into areas it flew over, causing entire regions to be engulfed in nightmares. A portion of the Death Dragon's fearsome reputation had come from this.

Wizard Kelt snapped his fingers, and the three dragon scale nightmare lice that had just crawled into the passage were all run through by his vetiver war spears.

At the same time, a creature covered in blazing crimson tentacles, resembling an enormous virus, crawled in from outside. This was a fused gland octopus, a parasite that lived in a dragon's throat area.

The moment it entered, it extended its tentacles and began spraying into the blood and flesh passage that Locke had bitten open.

Wizard Kelt frowned, because the mixture of biological fluids and magma was also being sprayed in, blocking the entire passage.

Wizard Kelt looked up and attempted to address the Sun-Herding Dragon gripping him. "Sun-Herding Dragon, breathe fire behind us and burn that disgusting fused gland octopus to death. Its saliva is magma with a degree of strong acidity. It is trying to trap us here."

Wizard Kelt had only said it on a whim, but to his surprise, in the next moment the Sun-Herding Dragon gripping him actually listened to his advice. It turned its head, aimed down the passage, opened its dragon maw, and unleashed Blazing Sun Dragon Fire. In an instant, the entire flesh passage was filled with dragon fire. The fused gland octopus let out a deeply unpleasant shriek within the flames, and then turned into a fireball and vanished.

Wizard Kelt said, "Good."

He found that Locke had loosened a portion of his dragon claw grip, such that his body, previously trapped by the claw, could now perform some relatively complex movements.

He immediately gripped a stalk of vetiver in his left hand, used the Second Circle spell model Grass and Wood Divine Weapon, raised the vetiver, and slashed through a blood-red gut tapeworm, a hundred meters long, that had suddenly bored out from the Death Dragon's bloodstream.

This parasite's entire body presented a gold-and-crimson segmented form, with peak First Circle magic pressure. Both its front and rear ends had multiple natural magical metal mouthparts of extremely high hardness that could easily bite through anything.

For an ordinary First Circle wizard encountering this gut tapeworm, they might fall into a brutal struggle, treating it as the greatest opponent of their life.

The gut tapeworm, as a parasite capable of existing inside the Death Dragon, had its body surface covered in a special inscribed skin that allowed it to adapt to strong acids and high temperatures, as well as the various harsh environments within the Death Dragon's body. It also possessed extremely high magical resistance corresponding to the magical power found within the Death Dragon.

To put it bluntly, it was virtually impossible to kill within the Death Dragon's various extreme internal environments. One could imagine that spells below the Second Circle would barely be able to break through its defenses when struck against it.

Because the spell environments those spells created were not more dangerous than the various micro-ecologies within the Death Dragon's body.

At this moment, Wizard Kelt's vetiver divine weapon produced an intense grinding sound against the gut tapeworm's surface, with spell sparks erupting along its body.

Wizard Kelt gritted his teeth and detonated his magic pressure all at once, only then managing to cut the hundred-meter gut tapeworm in half. But the severed gut tapeworm became even more frenzied, and the mouthparts at both its head and tail ends snapped madly at Locke and Kelt.

For a moment, both Locke and Kelt took some damage, because the gut tapeworm that could bite through the Death Dragon's body could naturally also bite through the Sun-Herding Dragon's body and Kelt's magic pressure shell.

Wizard Kelt said through clenched teeth, "The internal environment of this Death Dragon is truly appalling. Still, it is better than being out there and facing the Death Dragon directly."

"The wind blowing out from inside this dragon is actually a rare resource for me. Disaster and fortune coexist, and this has brought me an unexpected windfall. So right now he and I can temporarily be allies, because the situation has changed, and helping him means helping myself."

Wizards were always driven by self-interest.

At this moment, Locke and he shared a special mutual interest. Naturally, Kelt immediately changed his attitude of calling for Locke's destruction.

The two severed halves of the gut tapeworm were continuously launching attacks on Locke and Kelt, while other fused gland octopuses, dragon scale nightmare lice, and dragon scale lice were boring their way into the flesh passage, attempting to hunt them down.

Meanwhile, Locke was frantically gnawing on the Death Dragon's flesh, filling in that final missing piece of his bloodline information.

"Yes. The most primitive method of improvement for magical creatures is through eating. Eating is the most primal and universal form of evolution in this world."

Locke grasped this, and then began eating with great relish. He was not only eating the Death Dragon, but also swallowing the parasites in one gulp, and chewing enthusiastically on Wizard Kelt's vetiver grassland as well.

Within the vetiver grassland there was a First Circle magical plant called Dragon-Nurturing Grass, which also had a supplementary effect on Locke.

Locke swallowed the dragon-nurturing grass in a single mouthful and felt special forces flowing through his abdomen. Then, like a final critical push, Locke felt his demon dragon bloodline finally break through its last threshold. The half-dragon phantom behind him let out an excited roar, and then bored directly into Locke's dragon body.

At the same time, Locke's bloodline power reached the complete Second Circle level.

Among the three dragon heads, even the central one began exhibiting localized physical characteristics of a Death Dragon's head.

Gaining bloodline evolution through the ancient method of eating would also cause certain changes in one's own bloodline essence corresponding to the variety of things consumed.

This was also one of the foundational principles of the beast-taming magic sub-branch.

Wizard Kelt felt a jolt of alertness. He sensed that something like a qualitative transformation had occurred within the Sun-Herding Dragon.

At the same time, nearly all of the black wind blowing from within Locke's body had been intercepted by his Grand Magic, the Serene Prairie.

For Wizard Kelt, this situation was also a rare stroke of fortune.

Because on his own, he could absolutely not have directly converted a wind of this high a grade. But this magical wind, having passed through the body of that dragon as a medium of absorption and transformation, effectively served as a current stabilizer for his Grand Magic, naturally lowering the difficulty for his Grand Magic to convert wind energy into special soil resources.

Wizard Kelt said quietly, "Has the evolution been completed? I don't know what that special dragon species is, but the advancement seems to have been extraordinarily difficult, requiring so much effort."

"What will it become?"

The Sun-Herding Dragon's entire body had already turned black-violet, and from the original dragon head, two additional dragon heads had grown on either side. But all three dragon head consciousnesses were entirely under Locke's control, and no consciousness splitting had occurred.

Locke's half-body had also grown back, and it had become considerably stronger.

Locke also sensed that the magic pressure belonging to the three-headed World-Annihilating Demon Dragon was flowing continuously into his soul, stabilizing his spell model star system chart.

Within his Self-Consciousness Star System spell model chart, the fire star symbolizing bloodline power released a blazing brilliant starlight.

The World-Annihilating Demon Dragon bloodline's power further strengthened his physical skills, and also strengthened his superintuition ability.

Furthermore, it granted him an independent dragon authority ability. Additionally, special patterns had appeared on his immortal dragon scale, resembling the magical inscriptions on the feathers of a void giant beast. These special black-violet patterns appeared on the immortal dragon scale as well, symbolizing the power of the World-Annihilating Demon Dragon.

Constitution, dragon authority, dragon breath, immortal dragon scale, bloodline power. These were the improvements he had obtained.

And just when both Locke and Kelt thought the evolution had been completed, a sudden change occurred.

A cross appeared above Locke's head, emerging from deep within the demon dragon bloodline. That cross shone like the light of a dying dark sun. In that moment, four words surfaced in Locke's mind.

"Black Sun Tower!"

The Black Sun Tower wanted him dead.

The Black Sun Tower would not permit a wild dragon to independently evolve a true and complete demon dragon bloodline through bloodline tracing.

The demon dragon phantom appeared behind him again. The Peach Bow Thorn Arrow lodged in the phantom's forehead was nearly completely shattered, while the demon dragon phantom's eyes were glassy and blank, as though it had been brought under control.

And before Locke appeared a road, a road severed in the middle.

On this side of the severed road stood himself, an incomplete demon dragon. And on the other side of the severed road stood the complete demon dragon's position.

In this moment, Locke perceived that message transmitted through prophetic magic from the distant past. The demon dragon bloodline's path forward was severed.

Once the demon dragon lineage had completed its evolution, it had cut off the forward path of every dragon-kind creature evolving in that direction toward that endpoint. It absolutely could not allow another dragon-kind creature to complete independent evolution.

This was the message transmitted from the Black Sun Tower.

When he became a Second Circle wizard and attempted to trace back the demon dragon bloodline, evolving it to the Second Circle stage, he had finally experienced one ten-thousandth of what King Otto and Princess Loom had once endured.

That cold, targeted feeling of being specifically singled out.

The controlled demon dragon phantom looked at him with cold, indifferent eyes, as though looking at a dead dragon.

"The following is a prophecy of the Black Sun Tower. This prophecy is truth, and truth is hereby made eternal. No matter how many ages pass, the children of fate will always appear again and again. And every time they appear, they will be suppressed. Throughout countless ages, every existence that has challenged this path has ultimately proven by its end that this is a road of no return."

"Dragon of a later generation, your path ahead is severed. You have gathered the conditions for completion, and by fortune escaped the whirlwind. But none of that matters, because the road ahead is broken."

"Unless someone from the past can appear in the present. Unless every talented commoner in this world can learn magic without needing bloodline grade. Unless there is not a single wizard in this world who dares to call themselves king."

Locke felt the demon dragon bloodline within his body regressing, as though the Black Sun Tower had activated some hidden contingency buried deep within his demon dragon bloodline.

When he had satisfied all the conditions and finally overcome every obstacle, including the ones artificially added by the Black Sun Tower, in the moment when he believed he had succeeded, the Black Sun Tower would act to shatter all of his luck and hope.

The demon dragon was a taboo the Black Sun Tower absolutely refused to allow anyone to touch.

In this instant, the black wind that had vanished from within Locke erupted once more. But this time, it was after all the body of an ancient creature, a three-headed World-Annihilating Demon Dragon, and so rather than blowing his body apart in a single stroke the way it had before, it made blood pour from all seven of his orifices and caused him agonizing pain.

Wizard Kelt was taken aback.

"What is happening? Has this Sun-Herding Dragon not already completed its evolution? Why has it ended up like this again?"

"There are so many secrets within the Dragon Mountain Range."

"These are... well, the more of these special magical winds the better."

Wizard Kelt looked at the black light cross above Locke's head, his expression immediately a mix of surprise and puzzlement.

On the other side, within his sea of consciousness, Locke watched the cracks in the severed road growing wider and wider. His soul aura and magic pressure, rather than declining, were rising.

He stepped forward, which is to say the demon dragon stepped forward. That dragon claw reached out and gripped the other side of the road, as though trying by force to prevent the two sides from separating.

"It is nothing more than the passing smoke of a bygone age. If I cannot even get past this obstacle, how will I make it in the even more competitive Star Domain Sea? How will I obtain a special-grade grant and a key individual sub-topic? How will I pursue truth?"

"You will not allow me to trace back the demon dragon bloodline? Then I will do exactly that."

Locke snapped his fingers, and a legendary historical tome appeared on the severed road. He then used the archaeological magic spell, History Reenactment, to forcibly summon from historical records a collection of past wizards.

He had already encountered the Black Sun Tower's prophecy before, within the Historical Boundary Marker Curse.

He knew that this prophecy had a format. Generally speaking, after the "unless" in a prophecy, three limiting conditions would appear.

This was in essence an ancient form of a lever.

Using this method of constraint increased the potency of the prophetic magic.

But correspondingly, as long as the three conditions could be addressed, the Black Sun Tower's prophecy would collapse on its own.

This prophecy of the Black Sun Tower had presumably been embedded deep within the demon dragon bloodline a very long time ago. Every dragon-kind creature that attempted to trace back the bloodline and become a demon dragon would encounter this situation when completing the bloodline to the Second Circle level.

But the conditions for lifting this prophecy had only been severe in the ancient past.

Within the Eastern Border Region, every commoner with aptitude did indeed have the right to learn magic. It was only a matter of whether they were discovered or not. Even if they were discovered late, they could still study magic.

It was simply likely that they would be treated as expendable material, or even as experimental subjects on the black wizard's side.

But this condition had already been satisfied.

And for the third condition, throughout the entire modern magic era, the parliamentary system was one of the three great pillars, which meant that the forebears of the wizard world had indeed fought to ensure that no one in the entire wizard world dared call themselves a king.

After the Enlightenment Era, even the most despotic wizard monarchs, those far more tyrannical than Wizard Kings of old, no longer existed.

To say nothing of the Wizard Kings specifically designated in the prophecy.

At this moment, every entity that called itself a king amounted to little more than role-playing. The truly powerful and despotic wizard monarchs and Wizard Kings of the Age of Stars had been crushed during the Enlightenment Era into never daring to claim kingship across any of their subsequent lifetimes.

After the Enlightenment Era, no wizard had dared to do such a thing.

And so the only limiting condition for lifting the prophecy was actually the first one. But there was also another issue. Archaeological magic had originally been sponsored and founded by Princess Loom's ancestral master, created as a field of study for posterity to turn the tide in later ages.

The founding ancestor had been utterly devoted to the Princess. His school of thought had flourished in later generations, forming one of the most important pillars of the black wizard world.

Without archaeology, the black wizards could not have hoped to stand on equal footing with the white wizards who possessed a comprehensive research system.

And at this moment, Locke used a single casting of History Reenactment to directly satisfy the final prophetic condition.

And so the prophetic power collapsed on its own.

The severed road that had appeared before Locke sealed itself shut out of nowhere.

Then Locke directly controlled the demon dragon phantom, evicted the Black Sun Tower's contingency, the Peach Bow Thorn Arrow restored itself, and the demon dragon phantom strode forward, crossing over that road.

In that moment, in a distant time and space, the Black Sun hanging over the world trembled.

Beneath the Black Sun, many demon dragons raised their heads, looking toward that Black Sun trembling as though in an earthquake.

This was... a challenge.

On the desolate throne beneath the Black Sun sat a corpse, and beneath that spectacle of a giant's corpse, a group of black wizards were worshipping it.

Worshipping a corpse.

One wizard in a black robe gave a cold laugh.

"What extraordinary luck."

"Should we act directly?"

The other wizard in a black robe deliberated. "We should. Although it is only a mere Second Circle creature, and the road ahead has been severed anyway, posing no threat to us. And we do not belong to that era, so intervening would consume too many resources."

"But if it survives, we will still act directly."

"Regardless of the cost, any existence that lays a hand on the demon dragon bloodline must be eliminated completely and utterly."

"But it is as good as dead. Let it live to its final moment with the identity of a demon dragon. This is my compassion toward an ant."

The first black-robed wizard to speak inserted three sticks of incense upside down before the enormous corpse.

"The White Wizard Association side has been a great deal of trouble lately. They seem to be starting to perceive our true nature."

"The Demon Elevation Plan in the Star Domain Sea is too vast in scope. Its purpose is unclear."