Chapter 728: The Firetree Silver Blossom Curse
The Silent Plane.
Leaden gray clouds fell like rotting cotton, and the last traces of light were swallowed by the torrential rain. From every direction came the sounds of cities being destroyed by the water. Even the mind network's canopy swayed in the wind and rain.
Factories, furnaces, and industrial cities were all in the process of being destroyed.
In the midst of the apocalypse, everything civilization on the Silent Plane had built looked so terribly fragile. When the world was being destroyed, even those cities were as easily swept away as duckweed.
But the most bizarre thing was that eerie blue light appeared on the retinas of people in these cities. Facing the apocalypse, the majority of them were not even fleeing. Instead they seemed to have accepted it.
The minority who had not been infected by the disc creature were mostly children and young people. These youths looked in terror at those who had stopped resisting, not knowing what to do.
Everywhere was rain.
Cold rainwater fell without stopping, just as that rain had fallen without interruption for one hundred thousand years.
At this moment, on the other side of the Silent Plane.
In the heavy rain, Edgar's holy avatar found Locke and spoke directly. "It is already the end. Locke, are you not curious why this plane is certain to be destroyed? Why that disc creature could descend so quickly? Why one thousand years ago, the Silent Witch could not save this plane?"
Wizard Edgar said, "I have a proposal. I am not sure whether I should raise it. Let us cooperate."
Locke said, "Agreed."
Wizard Edgar paused. "You agreed that easily?"
Even Wizard Edgar had felt that the hope of getting Locke to agree to cooperate was not great, and that it might require some convincing. He had not expected Locke to agree outright.
Locke looked at Edgar and said, "I want to know why Omega can interfere with my realm."
Edgar was silent for a moment, then said, "Then illuminate my Perfect Tree with your Moon of Evolution. As long as you do that, my Perfect Tree will become part of your Moon of Evolution's ecological community."
Wizard Edgar spoke in a low voice. "Before I came to find you, I wanted to exchange a piece of information with you to get you to agree to the deal. Equivalent exchange is our wizard trading principle."
"But I never expected you to agree so easily."
Edgar said, "When I saw your Moon of Evolution, I was thinking that it is an excellent Grand Magic for botanical studies. The spells you incorporated into it, Lunar Blessing Curse and Alternation of Generations, these already old-fashioned spell models in botanical studies, constitute entirely new vitality for this Grand Magic and bestow new value on their existence."
"So what would happen if your Moon of Evolution could illuminate a Grand Magic-level magical plant?"
"Furthermore, I have had an idea about how to evolve the Ancient Life Tree that I have never been able to realize. But after seeing your Moon of Evolution, I believe there is a way to realize it."
"So I want to help complete your Moon of Evolution."
Edgar handed Locke a spell model. "This is the spell I have designed, the Firetree Silver Blossom Curse!"
Locke rapidly read through the spell book Edgar had given him and immediately understood what it was.
This was clearly a part of All Things Return to the Tree. The key point of this spell was to give a magical plant a special flame attribute.
Edgar's development of this magic was presumably his attempt to give his Ancient Life Tree a flame attribute. From the other party's thinking, Locke deduced that he seemed to want the All Things Return to the Tree spell model to have a furnace capable of processing the energy of all things that return to the tree.
That way, the Perfect Tree would no longer be just a filter for death spirituality.
In fact, this would give the Perfect Tree even greater capacity to handle death energy, and could even form an initial destination for it.
'If the Perfect Tree had a flame attribute, following this line of thinking, it would form a death spirituality filter. And continuing to develop it, if at the sun ring stage the Perfect Tree could even... form a complete cycle of reincarnation.'
'Then the All Things Tree could truly be called perfect.'
Locke saw through Edgar's thinking. If one could say his own Moon of Evolution was developing toward the evolutionary studies of plants, then Edgar's All Things Return to the Tree was developing toward the cyclic studies of plants.
One could say that at the Second Circle stage, the two had taken different paths within botanical studies.
But at this moment, the two had decided to cooperate.
Edgar said, "Although the Firetree Silver Blossom Curse has been successfully developed, it cannot truly give my Ancient Life Tree a flame attribute. It can only let flame power temporarily adhere to my Ancient Life Tree, briefly merging the two and creating the illusion that the Ancient Life Tree has permanently gained a flame attribute. But after seeing your Moon of Evolution, I believe this spell can be completed through the Moon of Evolution."
"This is my intuition. Look and see whether it can be accomplished, Locke."
Locke gave a slight nod. He quickly read through the Firetree Silver Blossom Curse and understood that it was the same type of spell as a permanent enchantment for the Ancient Life Tree.
The entire First Circle stage of botanical studies and breeding studies was incapable of forcibly and permanently adding an attribute to a magical plant.
But at the Second Circle stage, this had become possible.
However, it was generally only an enchantment, using botanical magic to give a magical plant another attribute, either permanently or temporarily.
Unfortunately, what Edgar needed was also not something like layering an enchantment attribute onto a magical plant, even permanently.
What he needed was the Ancient Life Tree genuinely producing a flame attribute in the truest sense.
That required a change at the level of plant essences.
And Edgar's overall research approach was clearly completely wrong. In evolutionary studies, he had indeed not gone as far as Locke.
After going wrong at the fork in the road and continuing to build all his subsequent research on that mistake, everything he had done was heading further and further in the wrong direction.
It was like taking the wrong turn at a junction. No matter how hard you tried or how fast you moved afterward, you were only going further and further down the wrong path.
Locke thought about it. But using only the Lunar Cultivation Method of the Moon of Evolution, this Firetree Silver Blossom could indeed be used to achieve a transformation at the plant essence level for a magical plant.
Because the Lunar Cultivation Method would cause planar information to flood into a magical plant, absorbing external information. Once the Firetree Silver Blossom was associated with the Moon of Evolution, it could take the enchantment information produced by the Firetree Silver Blossom and use an enchantment approach to enter a magical plant.
Locke had even thought of more, because the Firetree Silver Blossom Curse was like an enchanting knife, while the Lunar Cultivation Method could force a plant to externally expose its plant essences and absorb all the surrounding information.
The information of the surrounding plane, or the information on the enchanting knife.
He could completely use the Firetree Silver Blossom as a carrier to infuse other plant attributes into a magical plant, thereby giving the magical plant multiple attributes.
Of course, this could only be specifically researched after the competition.
If the Lunar Cultivation Method caused plant essences to be forcibly externalized, then the Firetree Silver Blossom Curse was like an engraving knife in his hands, giving him a tool while using the Lunar Cultivation Method to add whatever information he needed.
And even to carve away the information he did not need.
Locke raised his head and looked at Edgar. The idea Edgar had brought him had saved him ten to twenty years of research time, and had genuinely pushed the development of his Grand Magic forward.
In fact, if not for Edgar, he would not have thought that botanical enchantment spells could be used to optimize the Lunar Cultivation Method. By using the Firetree Silver Blossom as an enchanting knife, he could select and remove the planar information he needed or did not need.
Locke was deeply moved. Edgar was worthy of being the wizard he knew with the highest talent in breeding studies.
After discussing it with him for a while, his thinking about the Moon of Evolution had become much more complete.
Locke said, "Edgar, your Grand Magic lacks the necromancy component. To complete your vision of the Cycle Tree, you would need a large body of necromancy knowledge."
Edgar nodded. "I know. But there is a severe conflict between the life school and the spirit communication school. If I were to study necromancy, I would end up in an unnatural state between life and death."
"I want to use the plant cycle studies within the life school's botanical studies to replace spirit communication school magic."
Locke said, "That is possible, but somewhat forced. Do you know about archaeological studies?"
Locke briefly described archaeological studies. Edgar listened, and his eyes grew brighter and brighter.
Locke said, "Archaeological studies can also fill this gap in yours. If you could have First Circle-level archaeological magic, your Grand Magic's vision could probably be completed."
"Let us trade. I have a copy of First Circle archaeological studies knowledge here. Consider it my exchange for your Firetree Silver Blossom Curse."
Locke snapped his fingers, and the legendary history tome appeared, summoning that portion of archaeological studies information as a ball of light, completing the exchange with Edgar.
Locke quickly read through the Firetree Silver Blossom Curse and, with Antoine and Witch Preston's help, completed the Firetree Silver Blossom Curse.
So the Moon of Evolution illuminated the Perfect Tree. Because this time there was no need to evolve a First Circle magical plant into a Second Circle magical plant, Locke only needed to draw back ten percent of the Zero Potion from his treant group and infuse it into the Perfect Tree.
The lunar essence of the Moon of Evolution flowed, while the Perfect Tree automatically entered the state of externalizing plant essences and absorbing external planar information.
At this moment, a great commotion arose among the spectators beneath the Silent Throne.
The Silent Chalice had been held for over two hundred years, and never once had a competitor chosen to cooperate with another at the final stage.
Cloud Marsh Wetlands wizards were extremely competitive. Each of them was practically wishing they could have forty-eight hours in a day.
Performance metrics were the highest benchmark in this wizard land.
So no matter how many editions the Silent Chalice had been held, the competitors who reached this final stage had never once chosen to cooperate. They would always think of every means possible to win as quickly as possible.
And this edition was the first time two competitors had chosen to cooperate.
The wizards from this wizard land were each accustomed to intense competition, and when they competed, efficiency was what they valued most.
Which was why no wizard from this land had ever chosen to cooperate during the Silent Plane's apocalypse in the past.
But it so happened that both Locke and Edgar were not native wizards of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands.
This edition's Silent Chalice featured two competitors who were not locally born wizards. That had been unusual to begin with.
And on top of that, they had both pushed to the final stage.
For Edgar and Locke, wizards who had risen from a lower-tier wizard land, the competition was certainly important, but what mattered most was the meaning behind the competition.
But this was precisely something the Cloud Marsh Wetlands wizards could not understand. Which was why their reaction was so enormous.
And Wizard Chad and Wizard Rush, as competitors in the previous edition and native wizards of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, also could not understand why Locke and Edgar were cooperating at this point, or what the foundation of their cooperation was.
The competition arena was buzzing with discussion.
The seven sun ring wizard judges all looked at each other, each seeing surprise in the other's eyes.
Even they had not anticipated the situation developing in this direction.
"The Silent Chalice has been held for so many editions, and we have never seen competitors cooperate with each other at the final stage. Have they forgotten this is a competition? The apocalypse had nothing to do with them to begin with."
"These two people's desire to win is simply too strong. By my estimate, they genuinely do want to resolve the difficulty of the apocalypse. Although it is difficult to believe, this is truly the greatest foundation for their cooperation. Otherwise, the two of them would have no reason to cooperate at this point."
"This kind of quality is indeed something native Cloud Marsh Wetlands wizards would find difficult to possess. This is truly beyond expectations."
"Which is why the Cloud Marsh Wetlands needs to absorb talent from outside wizards, to inject new blood into our Cloud Marsh Wetlands."
In the Silent Plane, the Perfect Tree was now enveloped in moonlight. Under the Moon of Evolution, it obtained a large quantity of Fallen Rain Realm information. Since it was already a Second Circle magical plant, there was no possibility of it being unable to bear this.
At the same time, flames gradually appeared on the branches and leaves of the Perfect Tree.
It had gained a flame attribute.
A set of Rain Realm plant essences and a set of flame plant essences were both written by Locke into the Perfect Tree's plant essence sequence.
This caused moon patterns and flame patterns to appear on the Perfect Tree's body.
The Perfect Tree seemed to have become a Firetree in Silver Blossom, releasing dazzling radiance in mid-air, like a tree amid fire, radiating a brilliance like the sun.
The Perfect Tree, having adapted to the Rain Realm environment, directly activated All Things Return to the Tree. In an instant, all the water in the entire Silent Plane began flying toward the Perfect Tree.
Edgar saw this scene and curled the corner of his mouth into a wide smile.
"Hahahahaha, Locke, I will concede for now that you won. Your Moon of Evolution, as a botanical Grand Magic, is truly magnificent."
"It actually truly managed to give my Perfect Tree both water and fire dual attributes!"