Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems - Chapter 554

Chapter 551 Becoming a Team Leader

In a special laboratory in a colonial dimension.

Witch Catherine played with the magic mirror in her hand.

All the mirrors in her castle are actually connected to this magic mirror, not just the mirrors, but also all the reflective places in the castle.

Through the magic mirror, Witch Ekaterina discovered the truth about Locke’s discovery of ritual magic, and her lips curled up. “Not bad! I was originally surprised that with that little fellow’s comprehension, he shouldn’t have discovered the true purpose of ritual magic so late.”

“But it’s not too late now. Besides, it’s just right.”

The Golden Dragon Fafnir grumbled, “Using a magic mirror to spy on others is totally unbecoming of your station. You still enjoy observing the movements of everyone around you.”

“But, actually, you can just tell the little dragon these things directly. Why are you beating around the bush like that?”

Witch Ekaterina said, “Some things, what you discover yourself and what others tell you are two different concepts.”

“You’re a dragon, not a wizard like us, so you don’t know. For us wizards, discovering this for ourselves is crucial. If I tell him, it would be like removing a step that could help him move up. For him, it would only bring harm and no benefit.”

“He’s a wizard, a researcher at the Academy of Advanced Knowledge. He must possess the ability to discover the truth hidden behind everything. Only then will he have the opportunity to go further.”

The Golden Dragon Fafnir suddenly looked at the witch Ekaterina and finally realized what was happening. “Are you training him?”

The witch Ekaterina curled her lips. “I’d rather he stay at this level for ten years than tell him the answer directly. Fortunately, he hasn’t disappointed me so far. At least so far, his performance has met all my expectations of him.”

The Golden Dragon Fafnir looked at the witch Ekaterina. “Witch Ekaterina, I’ve always believed that the more someone lacks something, the more they like to emphasize it. You always say you like to give people freedom, but have you ever truly given freedom to your researchers?”

“This question really makes me curious.”

Before the witch Ekaterina could speak, the golden dragon Fafnir disappeared. “Haha, don’t get me wrong. I don’t intend to discuss this in depth with you; it would be too much trouble. You know I hate trouble. Let’s just consider it a small amusement in my immortal life. You and I have serious disagreements regarding that little dragon.”

“Let’s wait and see.”

“Let’s see how far this wizard from the outside world can go.”

The Golden Dragon Fafnir chuckled and then disappeared into the special laboratory.

…

In the breeder’s public laboratory, Locke came to his workstation and his face turned dark when he saw the attendance sheet that Gregor had given him.

Wow, 10 points were deducted in one day, and 70 points were deducted in seven days.

In fact, he only needed to sign in at the laboratory, but the problem was that he was in the Emerald Sleep, so he couldn’t even do that, and he happened to run into the muzzle of the point elimination system designed by the witch Ekaterina.

“Teacher, you’re doing me a disservice.” Locke signed his name on the attendance sheet speechlessly.

Forget it, as long as my research is good, the mere 70 points deducted don’t matter.

The only meaning of points is to avoid being eliminated.

Another thing is to strive for the water jade peach, which may have some special effects.

Team leader Celt came over with a female first-class wizard apprentice, rubbing his hands, and said to Locke, “Locke, I really can’t help you with attendance, because this is the rule set by the Lord of the Throne.”

“All wizards in our six groups must abide by this. No one can disobey.”

“So, I can’t help you.”

Team leader Celtic asked tentatively, “For some reason, Lady Throne didn’t ask for leave for you. Although I know you’ve been with Lady Throne this week, since she didn’t ask for leave for you, your points will be deducted according to the rules.”

Locke pursed his lips and nodded. “Okay, okay, Team Leader Celtic.”

Team Leader Celtic handed Locke a box. “Here, this is your reward for passing the third-class fund: a jade peach.”

“Also, this first-class female wizard apprentice is a newly assigned student.”

Locke looked at the first-class female wizard apprentice and found that her magic pressure was even higher than when Gregor came here, which was 750.

Dora Williams wore a gray wizard robe and had a blonde ponytail. She looked very smart and clever.

She immediately saluted Locke. “Hello, teacher. I am Dora Williams, your student.”

Team leader Celtic said to Locke, “According to the rules of the academy, you will be assigned some first-class wizard apprentices in the future. They will be both your students and your laboratory assistants.”

Undoubtedly, because Locke performed very well in the third-class fund last time, this improved his status in the eyes of the top management of Golden Crown Mountain.

Therefore, the quality of the first-class wizard apprentice that Jinmianshan sent to him this time was even better than the last time.

That’s fine.

In this way, it is easier for formal wizards to appear among one’s students.

There would be no need to feel as frustrated as Wizard Newt, who was blocked from leaving the station by his own students.

The Celtic team leader said, “Besides that, I have ordered Mason, Barrett, and Freya to serve as your assistants.”

“Our six groups originally had eleven wizards, but because two of them were fired, there are only nine left. I will assign three of them to help you research the mechanism of action pathways of pineapple-type magical plants.”

“The remaining six… no, five wizards, are working on the research our six groups have been conducting for the past twenty years – researching the mechanism of action pathways of madder-type magical plants.”

Team leader Celtic raised his hand, patted Locke on the shoulder, and said, “You are my right-hand man now.”

“Our six groups have suffered heavy losses. Three wizards are no longer useful. The newcomers still need some training, so we can only rely on your hard work.”

Team Leader Celt’s attitude towards Locke is different from before. Since Locke has to study 23 kinds of air plants at one time this time, which is almost half of the workload of their six groups in the past twenty years, Team Leader Celt now attaches great importance to Locke, and even directly asked the original three official wizards of the six groups to put down their work and cooperate with Locke.

Form a group within a group with Locke.

Undoubtedly, he placed great hopes on this adjustment, seeing it as a hope for a turnaround within half a year.

After Team Leader Celt left, he walked to another place where there were two unfamiliar researchers.

It seems that after the two researchers in the last six groups who falsified data were expelled, they were recruited as substitutes from the local wizards of Yunze Wetland.

Locke glanced over there. The two new researchers were still very cautious, so their true personalities could not be seen.

Early this morning, Locke heard his colleagues discussing something. It was said that one of them was a formal wizard who graduated from Jinmian Mountain, and the other was a formal wizard who had just graduated and was transferred from Luxu Bridge.

The Academy of True Knowledge was the first job for the two after they became official wizards. Naturally, their resumes during the wizard apprenticeship stage were very impressive, and they were talented people who often participated in various competitions.

Witch Mason, Witch Freya, and Wizard Barrett surrounded Locke.

Witch Freya stood in front of Locke’s workstation and whispered, “Locke, what did you do? How did you become our team leader?”

Wizard Barrett whispered, “I heard. Locke completed a comprehensive analysis of the mechanism of action pathways of four pineapple-like magical plants at once, and discovered a previously undiscovered natural magical structure. He also wrote a project proposal to conduct research on 23 pineapple-like magical plants at once.”

“Many researchers within Group 6 have heard about this. They were all a little amazed. I only knew that Locke quickly completed the third-class project grant, but I didn’t know that Locke’s application for the second-class grant was so impressive.”

Freya blinked. “Incredible indeed. Analyzing the mechanisms of action of so many magical plants, how many pathways can we identify? It would be enough to help ordinary researchers at the Institute of True Knowledge complete their third-class funding projects.”

Locke didn’t expect that the Celtic team leader would form an internal group within the six groups, making himself the leader of three official wizards.

However, this is not bad for me.

After discovering that his performance had never exceeded Witch Ekaterina’s expectations, he began to think about speeding up his research progress.

Compared with Wizard Daniel and Witch Ekaterina’s plan, if he wants to securely obtain the special funding project and the sub-topic of Witch Ekaterina’s special plan, he needs to become even better.

Even better than what Ekaterina the Witch had expected.

Even if it’s just a little bit.

Then you can get one of the three major goals of coming to Zhenzhi Academy.

People with a personality like that of the witch Catherine will definitely gain her great respect and trust as long as they exceed her expectations a little bit.

But it is extremely difficult to exceed her expectations even a little bit.

But now that Team Leader Celtic has taken the initiative to cooperate and made himself the team leader, it will undoubtedly save him a lot of trouble.

Locke thought and considered before speaking, “I remember that the three of you have all completed projects for third-class funding, but your applications for second-class funding haven’t been approved yet, right?”

This is also why Team Leader Celt asked them to put down what they were doing and follow Locke, because the three of them were still in the stage of writing the project book and there was nothing urgent to do.

The three of them nodded quickly. Witch Mason and Locke looked at each other. Through their eyes, they confirmed that they both knew about the mysterious society hidden in Golden Crown Mountain and were both in the stage of being tested by that mysterious society.

In this way, Locke and the Mason witches are natural allies.

There is a special bond between them.

Witch Mason said, “Second-class funding projects are harder than we thought. So the three of us are looking for research topics, and we’ve all been rejected more than once.”

“The three of us originally planned to give it a try and see if we could complete the second-class fund before leaving the Zhenzhi Academy.”

“If one of us three can apply first, the other two will provide resources and do their best to help him complete the project. After he leaves the station, that person will provide some resources as compensation to the others.”

Witch Freya nodded quickly. “The three of us are good friends, so we made this private agreement.”

Wizard Barrett said to Locke, “Of course, you are the team leader now. You are the boss. We will obey you as our team leader.”

Locke nodded and offered his first suggestion as team leader. “Then I suggest you cancel this agreement.”

Locke knew that he and the three were essentially on the same level, so he did not use a commanding tone to address the apprentices, but a tone of negotiation.

This is a technique for managing people at the same level, which I learned in the Six Towers.

In horizontal management, the most feared thing is to mistakenly think that you are the leader and can order colleagues to do things, which often offends others.

Therefore, I can only give advice and always remember that we are all colleagues.

Be like a businessman and win these people over with benefits.

Locke said to the three of them, “Follow me, all three of you can complete the second-class fund project.”

The three of them’s eyes lit up.

Witch Freya said, “Okay, the three of us will listen to you, Team Leader.”

Barrett nodded and said, “Yeah.”

Mason Witch said, “I’ve had a good impression of Locke from the very beginning, since the first day you, the team leader, joined our team.”

Locke looked at him. They both had a special bond, so it was naturally easier for them to open up to each other.

The core of horizontal management is to create irresistible reasons for cooperation.

Locke, on the other hand, accurately grasped the key point of the three people – the project.

As long as I can bring projects to this newly formed team, I will become the de facto leader of this team.

Of course, this was also the first time that Locke had such in-depth cooperation on the same level. Before, when he was in the Six Towers, because of his relationship with the great wizard Alicia and Sura, he was naturally half a level higher than Montgomery and others because he possessed the authority of his family wizard.

But at this moment, it was different. Although he was very good in Group 6, there was no spokesperson for any interest group standing behind him.

Therefore, Locke could sense that managing this small team this time was different from before.

Locke looked at the three researchers. Although these three researchers were far inferior to Daniel, they were all geniuses if they were to go outside.

At least they are all geniuses far superior to Albert.

With their help, I should be able to discover more natural magic structure components next time, right?

However, if they only discovered more natural magic structure components, it would probably be beyond the expectations of Witch Ekaterina, because she believed that she possessed the super intuitive dragon talent.

But the experiments that Group Six is responsible for should at most be able to discover more natural magic structural components.

What else can be done?
Locke fell into deep thought.

Locke retrieved three documents from his workstation and gave them to three colleagues. “This is the preliminary experimental data for three types of pineapple magic plants I created. I couldn’t have done it all by myself. Now that we have four official wizards in our team, we have four times the opportunity to apply for access to the three magic mirrors. All four of us can use the three magic mirrors to analyze…”

“We should strive to make our group’s data on pineapple-type magical plants even more comprehensive than that on madder-type magical plants.”

“Please help me finish this project first, and I will help you find a suitable topic to apply for your funding.”

Locke said, “The four of us helping each other can create a power that none of us originally possessed.”

As a peer relationship, shaping a common goal is the most important thing. Otherwise, everyone in the group will just shirk responsibility, with unclear boundaries of responsibility. They will agree on the surface, but in reality they will not be very motivated.

The biggest feature of a peer relationship is that there is no power between superiors and subordinates.

For example, he had the power to decide the future of his students Gregor and Dora Williams with just one word, but he did not have such power over his three colleagues.

Therefore, you need to create common goals and common enemies to form cohesion within the group.

Witch Mason, Wizard Barrett, and Witch Freya were indeed inspired by Locke’s encouragement and the future he described, and became very positive.

After the three of them temporarily left their workstations, Locke turned his attention to the new student Williams, and handed a bottle of advanced Weeping Nightshade potion to Gregor.

Locke asked Gregor, “By the way, Gregor, are you going to participate in the apprentice-level competition?”

Gregor’s face turned pale as he recalled his previous experience of participating in a breeder competition and failing miserably. “No… Teacher, I don’t want to participate in the competition.”

Williams’ eyes lit up, and he quickly stepped forward and said to Locke, “Teacher, I want to sign up for this year’s Yunze Wetland Apprentice Breeder Competition.”

Gregor decisively and silently stepped back, trying to reduce his presence.

Locke looked at Gregor strangely. “Why are you so reluctant to participate in the competition?”

Williams also looked at Gregor strangely. “Isn’t it good to listen to the teacher and participate in the competition?”

Gregor was extremely nervous, his face pale. “Very…very good, the teacher is usually very nice to me. But the problem is…I can’t handle it mentally. Last time I participated in the competition, I didn’t get any results.”

Locke frowned slightly. He had originally wanted to let Gregor take Williams with him, but now it seems that this idea is impossible.

It would be better for him to let Williams take care of Gregor instead, as the personalities of these two students are completely opposite.

Of course, Gregor’s character also has its advantages. At least she doesn’t have to worry about him doing something dangerous without her knowledge.

(End of this chapter)