Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems

At this moment, the Perfect Tree treant had a relatively low energy dissipation rate and a very high conversion efficiency, because Edgar had returned to the Ancient Life Tree through his own act of dying and being reborn.

Large amounts of death spirituality from the Silent Plane, energy that had originally been completely unusable, were converted into leaves of the Ancient Life Tree through botanical principles that even Locke found somewhat difficult to fully understand. Then through the Leaves Return to Roots spell model, those leaves were converted into magical tides that nourished the plane.

Locke furrowed his brow. 'The step of using Leaves Return to Roots to convert the Ancient Life Tree's leaves into magical tides is simple enough. But the part before that, using the Ancient Life Tree combined with the original Second Circle spell model Life Absorption to convert death spirituality into life energy, is something I genuinely cannot see through.'

'Edgar's research into treants has reached an extremely refined level. This magic is full of his personal characteristics. Even if others wanted to imitate it, they would only get half the result for twice the effort.'

In preparing to become a Second Circle wizard, Locke had consulted a great deal of literature on botany and ecology at the Second Circle stage, and indeed there was no mention anywhere of any spell that could convert death spirituality into life energy.

Which meant Edgar had used some special method to achieve this step that went beyond conventional approaches.

It was a botanical method that converted energy into necromantic energy, only this method apparently required him to truly die once and transform into a treant.

Honestly, it was quite risky.

At this moment, Edgar moved against Disc Creature Omega once more. The other treant's hand beside the Perfect Tree treant pressed down upon Omega's body, upon that eerie blue ring of light.

He activated All Things Return to the Tree again.

In the next instant, the enormous avatar that Omega had projected into the Silent Plane collapsed in an instant. Its energy was forcibly converted into death spirituality, and then the death spirituality was converted into life energy.

Watching this scene, Locke immediately identified that Edgar had first used Leaves Return to Roots to convert Omega's power into death energy, then converted the death energy into life energy.

Only there was a considerable energy loss in the multiple conversions.

The conversion efficiency was approximately one tenth.

Ten units of death spirituality could only be converted into one unit of magical tides, and that one unit of magical tides could not even be said to be fully usable.

Because the observation time was too short, Locke had not fully seen through the details yet.

But this efficiency was already quite astonishing.

Because Edgar had achieved the mutual conversion of death and life spirituality, establishing a cycle. Furthermore, the mortal world of the Silent Plane had indeed been borrowed dry by him.

Every additional unit of energy had to be paid to the world-scale realm.

But the mortal world of the Silent Plane still contained massive amounts of death spirituality that even this world itself was unable to utilize. This death spirituality had accumulated over the years and accumulated in the plane. The Silent Plane had absolutely no way to process this death spirituality, no truly effective mechanism.

Over time, this death spirituality that ordinary people could not see at all had piled up on the surface of the mortal world and accumulated in the geological strata, forming an enormous accumulation of unusable energy.

And Edgar's Perfect Tree made use of this death spirituality that the Silent Plane fundamentally could not effectively utilize, constructing a cycle of death spirituality.

In truth, the Temporal Shadow Fern was also a death spirituality cycle, only compared with All Things Return to the Tree, the Temporal Shadow Fern was simply too crude.

Furthermore, the Temporal Shadow Fern could only utilize the death spirituality of people who had just died, while the Perfect Tree could utilize the death spirituality of the Silent Plane that had been accumulating from the very moment of the plane's formation, through all living organisms and plants and all forms of life.

And by using Leaves Return to Roots to convert it into magical tides, it fed it back to the plane.

Its essence was not to create a supposed plant afterworld, a crude version of the Emerald Dream, but to create a Second Circle magical plant that could reach from earth to sky, stand in the mortal world, and form a unique mortal world ecology.

And also a powerful Grand Magic.

"Ecology?" Locke looked toward Edgar, and their gazes briefly met across the distance. "It seems this person's understanding of Grand Magic is the same as mine and Golden Crown Mountain's."

Wizard Edgar extended a palm toward Locke's direction, and in an instant the Perfect Tree treant stretched out a giant hand toward Locke.

"Quinn Jol University considers a Grand Magic to be a magic source, which means their understanding of Grand Magic is essentially stopped at the level of a magic source or a magical artifact. Indeed, a Grand Magic does exhibit multiple characteristics consistent with magic, being neither purely a single spell model nor purely a single magical artifact."

"Within spell models there are further nested spell models, like an entire skill tree. So my understanding of Grand Magic is that a Grand Magic is a skill tree ecology."

At this moment Edgar finally summoned Quinn Jol's two assistants and quickly instructed them to enter his Perfect Treant and share their Grand Magic Blessing with it.

The two witches looked at each other with bewildered expressions. Faced with Edgar's willful behavior, they could only shrug at this point. After all, the competition was still ongoing, and neither could say much. They directly entered the treant.

At this moment, Edgar quickly constructed a Second Circle spell infused with a Grand Magic Rune for his Perfect Treant, while at the same time activating his Grand Magic, All Things Return to the Tree, against Locke.

The enormous palm of the Perfect Treant reached out to seize Locke, and centered on that palm, countless green leaves appeared swirling in flight. A green magic source appeared within its palm.

The magic pressure layers on Locke's body surface erupted in magical sparks, and streams of energy flowed toward that natural vortex.

All things return to the tree!

Because this magic could also plunder the natural energy on Locke's body.

As a botanical wizard, Locke's entire body was filled with natural magical power.

Edgar's eyes were full of confidence. "Locke, now I have truly descended my Grand Magic. This moment is the beginning of you and me settling our score."

"Hmm?"

Edgar looked toward Locke and cast a First Circle spell, Grass and Wood Eye. His left eye immediately had a small magical plant grass crawl out, wrapping around his left eye like a monocle, forming a spell eye.

Within his eye, Locke seemed to have transformed into nature itself. An boundless natural primal force was pouring into his body in an endless stream. All Things Return to the Tree had absorbed so much energy, yet was still unable to drain it dry.

"This is..." Edgar quickly identified that at this moment Locke was using his permanent defensive force field, Oak Heavy Armor, to establish some kind of connection with the earth underfoot, causing an inexhaustible supply of natural energy to form.

At the same time, in the sky behind Locke, a full moon appeared. That full moon seemed to slam toward the earth, falling from the sky, and the full moon struck apart that treant's arm.

Breaking the Grand Magic, All Things Return to the Tree.

At the same time, in an instant, Edgar incorporated a Grand Magic Rune into a Second Circle spell model. That Second Circle spell model was Life Piercing Kill!

A Second Circle wizard's spell library was constructed around their own Grand Magic. This was not only because of the necessity of tactical coordination, but because the Grand Magic itself embodied the research direction they excelled in the most.

For example, the Perfect Ancient Tree treant before him was the result of Edgar's specialized research direction, ancient treant studies.

The first Second Circle spell he added to his Grand Magic was the Second Circle spell Life Piercing Kill.

Life Piercing Kill was an upgraded version of the First Circle botanical spell Life Long Spear. Its own effect was to pluck a branch from the Ancient Life Tree and transform it into a long spear, hurling it toward an enemy. In a single instant, a torrent of life energy would descend and pierce through the enemy.

And now, after Life Piercing Kill was granted a Grand Magic Rune, the scale of its attack first increased.

Then, with the help of his two assistants, Edgar quickly linked Life Piercing Kill with All Things Return to the Tree.

At this moment, a Life Long Spear carrying the energy of Life Piercing Kill surged toward Locke. The moment it drew close to Locke, the long spear was madly absorbing Locke's energy, in turn strengthening the spear formed from the Ancient Life Tree's branch.

That Life Long Spear's originally bare branch rapidly grew, becoming the form of a tree, and bore down toward Locke.

'Worthy of Edgar,' Locke felt the power of the other's Grand Magic, while that Life Long Spear stopped at roughly one inch in front of his own pupils.

Edgar furrowed his brow. "Could it be that..."

The full moon behind Locke rolled forward once. The silver-blue gradient moon plant Golden Palace Legacy Branch on the Moon of Evolution released a faint peach fragrance. The fragrance transformed into mist and enveloped the tree-form that the Life Long Spear had become.

In the next instant, a spell model appeared on that Life Long Spear's tree-form.

Second Circle botanical magic, Lunar Blessing Curse!

The treant formed from the Life Long Spear let out a roar that seemed to come from the depths of life. Its wisdom was awakened.

The tree stirred from its ignorance, all things awakened from chaos, and the moonlight of the Moon of Evolution entered the long darkness.

A full moon appeared in the sky of that prolonged foolish darkness, and then the treant woke.

"Who... has awakened me?"

The Life Long Spear transformed into a treant. That tree, carrying the energy of the First Circle spell Life Long Spear, the Second Circle spell Life Piercing Kill, and the enhancement of Edgar's Grand Magic, All Things Return to the Tree, was awakened by Locke into a treant.

This treant was so powerful at this moment. Its crown was its face, its roots were its legs and feet, its branches were its two hands.

And in an instant, because it had become a living being and because of the Lunar Blessing Curse, it joined Locke's ecological community. It had also established no magical grafting relationship or any other connection with Edgar, and so in an instant broke free of his control.

The Life Long Spear treant bowed slightly toward Locke, then turned to attack Edgar. "Are you the enemy of my master?"

"The dignity of the forest's master shall not be profaned."

In the next instant, the treant landed on the ground like a rampaging beast and charged toward Edgar's holy avatar.

Even Edgar had not imagined that Locke could use the Lunar Blessing Curse this way.

The Lunar Blessing Curse itself was only a specialized variant of wisdom awakening type spells, a Second Circle spell broken off from the Third Circle spell Ancient Awakening.

It was used solely to awaken treants.

Botanical wizards would use this magic to awaken treants and gain their loyalty.

But because breeding studies and botanical studies had diverged so far, this magic had actually been marginalized for a very long time.

Because it was no longer fashionable to casually awaken a treant on the fly. In the current era, treants all followed the high-precision and elite development path, with every treant requiring large investments of magical resources for careful cultivation.

The practice of casually cultivating treants had been eliminated long ago.

But Edgar had never imagined that Locke would find a creative use for the Lunar Blessing Curse, which was originally used to awaken treants. He had taken what was essentially a support-oriented spell and forcibly awakened the Life Long Spear formed from the layering of several of his spell models with it, taking control of it away from him.

One could only say that the combination of the Lunar Blessing Curse with the Moon of Evolution had built a Grand Magic with a development path unlike any other.

So much so that while Edgar was still in a daze, the treant had already arrived before him, and the tree, whose body possessed tremendous physical power because it was infused with the energy of the First Circle spell Life Long Spear, the Second Circle spell Life Piercing Kill, and Edgar's own Grand Magic All Things Return to the Tree, delivered a direct treant iron fist straight to his face.

"Damn!"

Edgar's permanent defensive force field was torn apart in a single instant, and he was sent flying backward.

Edgar's holy avatar had barely gotten back up from the ground when he saw the treant had already leapt into the air, bearing down on him like a titan.

"Impressive. Wait, actually it is my own magic. Locke, your Moon of Evolution can directly awaken enemy plant magic into treants. That is truly vicious."

Edgar quickly withdrew his Grand Magic's enhancement from the treant, while simultaneously incorporating the second Grand Magic Rune spell into his Grand Magic, Life Spear Formation!

Life Long Spears broke free from the Perfect Tree treant's crown like they cost nothing, forming a spear formation that attacked the treant.

In a single instant, the treant was destroyed by that enormous quantity of spear formation attacks.

Every single Life Long Spear within this spear formation was the strongest First Circle botanical attack magic enhanced by the Grand Magic.

At the same time, the Perfect Tree treant used All Things Return to the Tree, gathering total magic pressure, then like a gun turret rotating its barrel aimed directly at Locke.

Locke showed a look of surprise and was about to use the Moon of Evolution at full power, but in the next instant, Edgar seemed to realize something and directly cancelled his own magic.

Edgar looked at Locke, sweat running down his brow.

'This person, being a botanical wizard and a breeding genius himself, somehow has magic that is entirely oriented toward fighting other botanical wizards.'

'I almost forgot. His Moon of Evolution can forcibly evolve my magical plants. Previously my Temporal Shadow Fern died from his forced evolution.'

'If he uses the Moon of Evolution to amplify the Lunar Blessing Curse, using the Peach Bow Thorn Arrow to increase the instantaneous magic pressure output in a single moment, he could awaken all the Life Long Spears I am using into treants.'

'In that instant, all my botanical magic would attack... me.'

A chill ran down Edgar's spine. Fortunately he had worked out in advance that the Moon of Evolution was itself a light of evolution capable of carrying various forms of magic.

Were it not for this, just now he would likely have had a group of extraordinarily powerful treants harvested from his own magic by Locke.

Rather than the group of ordinary treants Locke had awakened in the realm.

Those ordinary treants did not even have the combat power to enter the battlefield and function as combat units.

After all, magic had kept advancing. Those ordinary treants casually awakened on the fly could not even withstand the magic pressure rampaging freely across a battlefield.

Let alone anything else.

In the spectator stands beneath the Silent Throne, many wizard spectators had thoroughly enjoyed the exchange.

The consecutive clash between Locke and Edgar had fully displayed both persons' botanical studies levels and botanical studies styles.

The back-and-forth between them looked on the surface like a simple magical exchange, but was in fact already quite characteristic of the combat style of Second Circle wizards.

It was fundamentally a battle between two people's magical systems.

Second Circle wizards possessed their own spell library, and within the spell library strict logical relationships corresponded to one another, forming a spell style.

Unlike the First Circle stage's still-embryonic spell styles, a Second Circle wizard's spell style represented their academic system and academic thinking.

So at the Second Circle stage, one's academic lineage would be far more important than at the First Circle stage, and this would even manifest itself within their spell systems.

And the clash between Locke and Edgar just now had begun to show both the differences and the similarities in how both approached botanical magic.

The Moon of Evolution's ability to forcibly evolve magical plants, the ability of All Things Return to the Tree to convert death spirituality into life energy to make oneself into a magical gun turret, had both left a deep impression.

At this moment, in the Silent Plane.

Wizard Edgar looked at Locke. 'Right now both his and my magic pressure are at 16,000.'

'For a Second Circle wizard, every additional 3,000 magic pressure grants one Grand Magic Rune.'

'I have three Grand Magic Runes, while he has four. No, five Grand Magic Runes.'

The moon's dark face naturally gave Locke's Grand Magic one additional Grand Magic Rune, and Edgar also quickly recognized that the legendary history tome of an archaeological wizard would give Locke the advantage of yet another Grand Magic Rune.

Only both of them had just become Second Circle wizards, so at this moment their spell libraries were incomplete.

Edgar had so far only completed two Second Circle spells for himself. Even so, this was considered highly impressive.

After all, these were all Second Circle spells he had learned at the First Circle stage but lacked the ability to cast.

On top of that, he still had to learn the spell model of the Temporal Shadow Fern.

Edgar thought, "Thinking about it carefully, continuing to fight is to my disadvantage."

"The only option is to find a way to construct the third Grand Magic Rune spell."

Edgar assessed the situation. Although Locke had five Grand Magic Runes, his spell library should also be facing the problem of being incomplete.

Two of them were fixed, which was the Peach Bow Thorn Arrow fixed to the moon's dark face, and the spell fixed to the legendary history tome, which appeared to be the archaeological spell Historical Reconstruction.

Edgar was still in the middle of thinking when the sky of the Silent Plane suddenly darkened.

Heavy rain descended.

Disc Creature Omega's blue ring of light shaped like Ω appeared in the sky of the plane once more.

Then both Locke and Edgar saw a vision.

It was the rain that had fallen in a certain region of the wizard world for one hundred thousand years.

It was an endless, vast downpour.

Lasting a full one hundred thousand years.

Unceasing, torrential rain, great waters drowning the world, as though a flood was falling from the sky.

All living things without hope.

In this prolonged despair, nature became extreme, and this region was later abandoned by the wizard world.

A flood that lasted for one hundred thousand years. That was the true nature of Disc Creature Omega.

Disc Creature Omega officially began preparing to descend into this plane.

Beyond the void, it had locked onto this plane and was beginning its descent.

Although at this moment, because of Edgar and Locke, its ownership stake in the Silent Plane had been diluted to an extremely severe degree, for some reason it was still determined to risk the descent.

Even though descending like this would greatly reduce the probability of success and cause tremendous damage to its true body.

At this moment, everywhere across the Silent Plane, ordinary people were being bewitched by the blue ring of light of Disc Creature Omega.

Locke sensed a sense of urgency from this disc creature's demeanor.

What was it urgent about?

At the same time, from within this heavy rain, the vassal race seeds that the disc creature had captured while conquering other worlds came flying out.

Rain Mantises, Cascade Golems...

"Conquer everything!"

Disc Creature Omega's voice carried a kind of madness and erosion. "Destroy and invade everything here."

"My great, never-ending rain is about to descend. My vassal races will attack you in endless waves. As the speed at which I possess the ordinary people of this plane increases, both I and my vassals will grow stronger moment by moment. The weaker the plane, the stronger I become. The more ordinary people accept my parasitism, the stronger I become."

The sky was filled with countless Rain Mantises. These creatures seemed to fall like raindrops, without end, clearly the vassal races this disc creature had accumulated from conquering countless worlds.

At this moment, Locke finally understood the difficulty the Silent Witch had once faced.

These mantises, apprentice-level and spread to every corner, even some First Circle water element special creatures, were all living organisms captured and assimilated by Disc Creature Omega from other worlds.

Their numbers were endless.

Although they were very weak for Second Circle wizards, for an ordinary Second Circle wizard this was a profoundly unequal army-scale war.

It was not the kind of army-scale war one Second Circle wizard should be facing alone.

It was the kind of war a wizard academy should be fighting.

The moment Omega spread rapidly through this world, from a wizard's perspective, both sides were in a state of unequal warfare.

At this moment, what struck Locke as strange was that for some reason, this disc creature was able to bypass him entirely and pour that monster army into his realm directly.

'Was the first half of the Silent Chalice competition the fighting between competitors, while the second half is a survival competition?'

'Even if this final problem cannot be resolved, it does not matter. As long as one's Grand Magic can hold out longer than the other competitors', the winner is determined.'

Locke instantly realized that this competition had already entered its decisive point.

In the realm, Witch Georgina became serious.

"I see. This is actually an excellent way to demonstrate the power of my new textile studies Grand Magic."

"Then let us end this competition by seeing who can hold out the longest."

Inside the realm, Witch Medea, who had been coasting along and had absolutely no intention of working for Storm Tower, stared wide-eyed in astonishment.

"What, they are expecting someone of my ordinary level to fight the vassal races of a disc creature?"

"This is literally an infinite wave mode."

She blinked and gave a bitter smile.

"This is difficult. I can manage some tricks in murky waters, but if it is a real fight, at my level, there is absolutely no way I can survive long against this endless and never-stopping assault."

"But there is always a way out. I have found a way to escape from here."

...

In the mortal world, Locke and Edgar glanced at each other.

Edgar suddenly spoke. "Locke, after our exchange just now, you must have found that you and I cannot easily create a decisive gap between us for the time being, correct?"

Locke smiled. "I simply cannot kill you in a short time. I can still create a gap. There is a difference between those two things."

Edgar's brow twitched, and he said calmly, "I have a proposal. We both know that neither of us wants to win by simply stalling for time, getting by from day to day, and seeing who can last longer in this endless rain. Neither of us is that kind of wizard, correct?"

"I have a proposal. Why do we not call a temporary truce? I want to go deal with that disc creature."

Locke looked up at the sky. Beyond the Silent Plane, an entity that was somewhat larger than the Silent Plane itself existed as a colossal presence.

Dimly, it took the form of a giant jellyfish.

It was drawing closer to the Silent Plane.

That was Omega, currently pressing against the crystal wall system of the Silent Plane.

Locke said, "Omega's true body possesses at least a moon ring level of magic pressure. An unbridgeable gap in magic pressure exists between it and us, like heaven and earth."

Edgar said, "I know. The power gap between us and it is enormous, so from the competition's ruleset, it is not even an opponent we are required to defeat. The apocalypse descending is only meant to serve as a backdrop. As long as the competitors among ourselves settle who wins, the competition ends."

"But I have an obsessive personality."

"If I do not resolve the problem I can see right in front of me, my obsessive tendencies will kick in. So right now I do not want to fight you anymore. I want to go resolve that problem."

Edgar looked up at the sky at the shadow that kept drawing closer, a shadow larger than the entire plane, his eyes full of eager anticipation.

"Why can this disc creature descend? Why can it parasitize the living beings of this world so quickly? Why can it directly enter your realm and erode it?"

"It would be a real pity not to figure these things out."

Locke also fell into thought.

From his perspective, he could simply move against Edgar directly, then charge into the realm, find the remaining two and win the competition.

Of course, what Edgar was saying was also what he was currently thinking about.

The realm was extremely important to him, because the realm was not just an ordinary Kingdom Domain.

His Grand Magic was a life school magic, an imitation of the moon plane. The more closely it approximated a true moon, the lower the energy dissipation rate and the more complete the Grand Magic.

And the realm existed alongside the moon plane. Only by adding the realm could the Moon of Evolution become powerful.

But right now that disc creature was using some method he could not understand to invade his realm at will, even when the realm's gateway was closed.

This gave Locke a deep sense of crisis.

It was equivalent to there being a massive backdoor within his Grand Magic, one he could not understand.

A backdoor so large that vast numbers of wizards across the Cloud Marsh Wetlands had already seen it, while he himself still could not understand what was actually happening.

That was something Locke could not tolerate.

Locke made a judgment in his heart. At this moment, the thing most important to his interests had become resolving the mystery of the realm's backdoor.

The championship of this competition was not even as important as this.

The importance of knowledge far outweighed a mere championship.

If the Moon of Evolution had a serious flaw, that would truly be the situation that was most catastrophically bad for him.

Locke made a gesturing motion of invitation, watching Edgar's holy avatar rapidly depart.

His Perfect Treant stood in the mortal world like a green sun, and naturally could not leave or move.

Beneath the Silent Throne, quite a few wizard spectators who saw this were stunned.

Because they very rarely saw any wizard suddenly stop attacking their competitor in order to explore knowledge.

Edgar's reason was his obsessive personality. As someone who believed in the principle of the strong growing ever stronger, he could not stand watching a disc creature descend and destroy a plane right before his eyes.

Even if this plane had been destined for destruction long ago.

For Locke, he simply had to observe this situation and identify the reason the disc creature could bypass his realm's gateway and enter his realm.

But both persons' choices were unlike the more traditional wizards of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands.

In contrast, Witch Georgina's relatively pragmatic attitude was actually the more common choice for local Cloud Marsh Wetlands wizards.

Cloud Marsh Wetlands wizards were an intensely competitive lot, busy every day with feet barely touching the ground. Now that the competition was approaching its final stages, they would naturally treat the outcome as the higher priority.

Only Locke and Edgar were different.

The Quinn Jol University wizards were baffled as they watched. They all looked toward the moon ring witch, who shrugged.

The Golden Crown Mountain wizards also blinked and exchanged bitter smiles with each other.

At a moment like this, only these two would set aside the competition's outcome and move around freely, creating additional variables out of thin air.

When Locke clearly held the upper hand and only needed to play it steadily to take the championship.

Wizard Fischer of the Council of Elders did not quite understand. "At such an important moment, how can one disregard the academy's interests and act purely on one's own inclinations?"

A sun ring wizard on the Academic Committee said, "Lord Fischer, rest assured. Locke should have this under control."

"Besides, does this competition not have the Council of Elders's Third Circle wizard reincarnate participating as an assistant? That should be able to help him."

Wizard Fischer complained, "The Throne lord has barely invested any energy on this side."

...

In the Silent Plane, Locke, his expression somewhat grim, flew through the realm. "The disc creature completely ignored the realm's gateway and invaded here. How exactly was that accomplished? Strange..."

"Antoine, what do you think?"