Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems - Chapter 720

Chapter 717 The Stone Sanctuary and Outdated Magic

Locke looked at the Grand Duke of Westminster, ignoring his emotions, and simply said, “You’re lying to me.”

“Grand Duke, I am the Emperor now. If you don’t answer truthfully, you are a traitor.”

“I will kill you!”

The Grand Duke of Westminster’s brow twitched. He hadn’t expected Locke to be so perceptive, to have such amazing insight. Locke’s statement, which had no way to prove anything, was entirely his own, making it difficult for anyone else to question it.

But Locke still keenly sensed that he was lying.

However, the Grand Duke of Westminster didn’t know where the problem lay.

Locke stated directly, “Although, according to you, you betrayed the Emperor and killed him. Back then, you were the Grand Duke of Westminster, possessing a second-circle level of Mind Light within this Mind Network. But with your power, you couldn’t possibly kill a second-circle wizard who had successfully forged a Star.”

“Even a surprise attack wouldn’t have been possible.”

“So, you’re lying to me.” Locke, hands behind his back, looked at him and said, “Of course, all I need is an answer without logical flaws. If you can concoct such an answer right now, I might believe you.”

Locke looked at the Grand Duke of Westminster, who felt as if he had been thoroughly exposed, a chill running down his spine.

The wizards of the Otherworld, coupled with the position of master of this Mind Network, were so powerful that they instilled fear in him.

This wasn’t an overwhelming force, nor an information gap; while these could convince, they only instilled fear.

But Locke possessed an overwhelming insight and wisdom, a kind of overwhelming power that completely extinguished any thought of resistance in the Grand Duke of Westminster.

Locke began, “What you just said is mostly true. But these things are irrelevant to you. Back then, Zorro Rick built this mental network, controlled the Silent Plane, and established the Empire and the Inspectorate.”

“Then, he likely faced rebellion from the nine dukes, who rallied a portion of the three hundred ordinary barons. Judging from the balance of power, you weren’t the Grand Duke of Westminster back then.”

“You were later elevated to this position by Zorro Rick.”

“What you just described is all other people’s business. Back then, the nine dukes led the betrayal of Zorro Rick, and you were likely a royalist, on Zorro Rick’s side.”

Locke raised his right hand, and nine chess pieces symbolizing the light of the dukes’ minds, along with three hundred chess pieces symbolizing the light of the barons’ minds, appeared in his hand.

He grabbed them, and they all fell into his palm.

This imagery represented the role played by this mental network.

The Grand Duke of Westminster gasped, his body trembling.

He wouldn’t submit to Locke simply because Locke was stronger than him.

Locke came from that ideal place—the Great World of the Other Shore—so his superior strength was to be expected.

But at this moment, he felt a sense of submission because of Locke’s wisdom.

The Grand Duke whispered to Locke, “Your Majesty is insightful. Indeed.”

“Your Majesty, you are clearly not me, yet you have read my mind.”

“Your Majesty, you are clearly not from this world, nor have you experienced that period of history. Yet you saw the problem at a glance.”

Locke snapped his fingers, and instantly the legendary historical book, [A Brief History of Ancient Plants], appeared, collecting and organizing some dispensable historical materials from this colonized world and incorporating them.

Although dispensable, it was worth collecting.

“It’s just basic historical research,” Locke said. “A teacher in my world once told me that only wisdom is the foundation of one’s power. Your wisdom is insufficient, Grand Duke, so it’s difficult for you to grasp the power in your hands.”

“You’ve weakened the overall potential of civilization to make all living beings adapt to your intelligence, which has indeed stabilized your power, but it has also weakened the civilization of the entire Silent Plane,”

a deep voice came from beneath the Grand Duke of Westminster’s armor. “Describing me as the successor who killed the first emperor enhances the legitimacy of my rule over this world.”

“I can also believe that I am the symbol of civilization in this world,”

Locke said. “You should be a few generations below Zorro Rick, right?”

The Grand Duke of Westminster’s pupils suddenly contracted. “Your Majesty, your judgment is impeccable. It was indeed nine Grand Dukes who launched the rebellion, and they have all been eliminated. His Majesty Zorro Rick, however, was critically wounded and elevated me, a former royalist, to the position of Grand Duke of Westminster.”

“Then, His Majesty Zorro Rick died in battle alongside the last of the Grand Dukes. And I, in his place, killed the last Grand Duke.”

“I simply… cannot forgive him, nor can I forgive myself.”

The Grand Duke of Westminster said in a low voice, “He was my elder. I only wanted to protect him. I only wanted him to be the ruler of this world, the emperor of this world. If it were him, I would support him forever.”

“I am just an ordinary person.”

“Your Majesty. I am just an ordinary person.”

“An ordinary person only needs to care for their family and friends, for those they care about. Therefore, I did not do anything wrong.”

The Grand Duke of Westminster bowed to Locke and said, “Your Majesty. I cannot understand His Majesty Zorro Rick’s thoughts, and I cannot forgive the nine Grand Dukes who betrayed His Majesty Zorro Rick.”

“In my view, after His Majesty Zorro Riker and the nine Grand Dukes died, the world held a national mourning for them. Then… in less than a month, few people remembered them, and in a few years, these people forgot the past.”

“In less than a century, the people of this world have forgotten who brought this blue sky and white clouds to them. I really don’t believe them. His Majesty Zorro Riker was, in my heart, only my brother.”

Tears finally welled up in the eyes of the Grand Duke of Westminster. “No, I should say I can’t forgive the people of this world even more. Every smile on the face of every commoner in this world is an irony directed at my brother—His Majesty Zorro Riker.”

“The people of this world are cruel and ungrateful, having long forgotten the source of their happy lives. They quickly attribute their small achievements to their own talent and hard work, rather than His Majesty Zorro Riker building a canopy for them and purging the last of the Grand Dukes.”

“They remember nothing.”

“They’ve all forgotten,”

Locke said. “You hate them.”

The Grand Duke of Westminster sighed. “I don’t hate them. Because I’m just like them. So, I just feel they don’t deserve a better ruler.”

“They only deserve an emperor like me.”

“I am their choice!”

Locke suddenly turned to the emperor and said, “No, you are not the choice of the billions of humans in the Silent Plane. My spiritual path points to a bright future they desire.”

“But if the future they desire is self-destruction, then the realm I summon is not all green hills and clear waters. Grand Duke, you seem to only see the bad in others, but fail to notice the shining points in their character.”

Locke said, “You only see their ugly past, while I see their pursuit of a better version of themselves.”

“I can borrow the future from the world through you because most of the beings in these Silent Planes are pursuing a better version of themselves in the future, a version of themselves that appears in their ideal world.”

“Perhaps they will struggle to survive now and in the future. Perhaps they will do things that you find despicable, things that you consider lowly. But they do have a pursuit of ‘goodness’,”

Locke said. “I am also exploring what truth is, so my views are just my personal views. But Grand Duke, you have deprived everyone in the Silent Dimension of the right to pursue their ideal selves because you are an insecure person, you don’t believe in them.”

“That’s why you lost to me.”

“Grand Duke, you are only yourself. Please stop dragging the beings of this dimension down with you.”

“Each of us can only represent ourselves.”

The Grand Duke of Westminster’s body trembled, about to speak.

But Locke had already figured out the specific details of the power system in this world, so he had no intention of continuing to argue with the Grand Duke of Westminster.

He looked at the Grand Duke and asked, “Two last questions.”

“First, what is the calamity of this world?”

“Second, did that meteorite from the Enlightenment era become the raw material for the Mind Network’s canopy?”

The Grand Duke of Westminster lowered his head and said, “That meteorite was indeed the raw material for the Mind Network’s canopy.”

“His Majesty Zoro Rick told me that the Silent Plane had too few resources, so he could only use that meteorite as raw material to forge the canopy.”

Locke felt a pang of regret. Although the information on that meteorite was outdated knowledge, it was, after all, a seed of civilization that the Wizarding Lands of the Four Bright Waters had sent free to various parts of the endless void during the Enlightenment era.

If he could obtain it, it would have some reference value, learning value, and most importantly, historical value.

Perhaps, he could even sell it for a high price at an auction.

Who knew it would now become the raw material for the Mind Network?

The Duke of Westminster said, “As for the calamity of this world… I don’t really know what it is. It just happened suddenly during my long reign over this world.”

“I still haven’t figured out what it is or what the pattern of its appearance is. I only know that within my empire, there are always some cultists. These cultists are very strange; they gradually lose their sanity and become monsters. This monster seems to cause a kind of mental pollution that lowers the intelligence of others just by being seen.”

“Your Majesty, I have imprisoned such monsters in a secret prison I established.”

“If you want to see them, please come with me, and I will take you to the mortal world to see them for yourself.”

Locke nodded. “Alright.”

Although the mortal world of the Silent Plane is quite strange now, and in his perception, there are no longer any beings at the second ring level,

he is currently the strongest in the world (the Silent Plane), and his unchanging nature is enough to cope with all changes.

At this moment, seeing the cultist monster mentioned by the Duke of Westminster is very important to him; perhaps he can find out why this plane is destined to perish.

Locke immediately led the Duke of Westminster out of the special access space and stepped into the mortal world.

Locke then heard the laughter of Wizard Smith, left behind in the magical winds of this world by using weather magic, along with a few words.

“Hahahaha…”

“Locke, this isn’t over yet! I’m going to rise again and fight you once more!”

“Ah, Medea, you’ve ruined me!”

“Locke, your victory is unfair!”

Locke was speechless upon hearing these four sentences from Wizard Smith. “That’s quite a leap.”

“He was perfectly fine at first, why did he suddenly start cursing at me?”

The Duke of Westminster succinctly remarked, “Traitor.”

Locke, now in his saintly avatar, directly used dimensional power to gather information and forcibly learned everything that had happened since his absence.

Wizard Smith, through the Demon Realm Dice, sought outside help, only to be deceived by the combined forces of the dark wizards of the Spiral Basin and the Twin Demon Realms, and was kidnapped and is currently missing.

Meanwhile, the witch Medea entered this world.

The witch Georgina thus turned the tables, directly killing the wizard Edgar.

“So the problem was with Wizard Smith.” Locke’s expression was strange; he had already calculated it. The

Land of All Spirits, injected with the No. 2 Overlord Essence by the Moon of Evolution, was to collapse first, but who knew that Wizard Smith would use his backup plan to immediately bring about his own demise.

He died too quickly; this was the oversight in his plan.

‘Doing as one pleases without overstepping the bounds’ is, after all, just one’s way of interacting with the world. But the human heart is the most complex thing. “The Wizard Smith is accelerating his own demise through his own efforts, something I couldn’t have predicted even in my current state,”

Locke lamented. “

And as time passes, this state will gradually disappear.

” Could it be that the Wizard Smith is using his misfortune to target me? Unlikely; he’s not the kind of person who would sacrifice himself for others. He’s probably just genuinely unlucky.

Locke looked towards the Land of All Spirits, flicked his finger, and a Sea Gold Sand plant fell into it.

The Moon of Evolution shone upon it, and the Sea Gold Sand instantly completed its Overlord Transformation and Moon Plant Transformation.

The two states overlapped simultaneously.

Overlord Sea Gold Sand – Moon Plant, transformed into a gilded fern spear, sitting deep within the Land of All Spirits, completely crushing Edgar’s remaining magical pressure. The entire Land of All Spirits was almost completely merged into his world-class magic realm.

“No matter what Edgar wants to do, I should still try to completely annex the Land of All Spirits as soon as possible.”

“Perhaps, there’s still a chance to stop him,”

Locke pondered.

Currently, his greatest enemy is still Edgar; the Witch Georgina is hiding, not daring to make a move for the time being.

The Medea witch who joined after the Storm Tower, though a different person, was far weaker than Wizard Smith.

Each of the four contestants honed their Grand Magic and received numerous resources from their respective academies.

Medea, however, had to rely solely on herself, spending most of her time scheming against Wizard Smith.

She only managed to complete the blueprint for her Grand Magic in the past due to her age.

But her Grand Magic was riddled with flaws.

Locke, through the information flow of dimensional power, already knew what her completed but undefeated Grand Magic was:

a typical Prophecy-based Grand Magic: [Slate Sanctuary].

This was a relatively old, standard Grand Magic, not popular in Cloudswamp Wetlands, but Locke knew it because he had seen this classic but outdated and now impractical Grand Magic construction in previous literature.

The **Stone Sanctuary** is a powerful magic technique within the School of Prophecy that posits the world as a hidden codebook, containing information it wishes to convey but cannot express. The Stone Sanctuary serves as a means for the world to articulate this code. However,

this powerful magic has many problems and has been discarded by the School of Prophecy itself,

at least in Yunze Wetlands.

Firstly, the current School of Prophecy in Yunze Wetlands—mainstream schools like Boniface University and Quinjol University—believes the world is not a codebook.

Many prophetic messages are merely fragmented and isolated interpretations of the ever-changing principles of the world.

Consequently, many prophecies are highly problematic.

The world itself is not a dedicated codebook; this is a self-centered understanding from older schools of prophecy.

Secondly, powerful magic like the Stone Tablet lacks the instantaneous amplification of magical pressure, a feature popular only during a period when offensive magic was not the foundation of powerful magic.

Furthermore, it suffers from high energy dissipation and poor energy compatibility.

It could be said that the [Stone Sanctuary] is a form of magic riddled with errors from its past development in the process of the development of Great Magic.

However, it seems that Medea, unlike the researchers of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, couldn’t easily access the most cutting-edge knowledge, and thus could only construct this kind of Great Magic, which everyone considers old-fashioned, outdated, and obsolete.

In this way, Medea has no impact on the competition.

Locke didn’t know what she would do next.

In short, it felt like she had pushed herself to the limit.

However, that wasn’t the point.

At this moment, the competition and analyzing why the Silent Plane was destined for destruction were the key issues.

Locke looked towards the Magic Realm, but Georgina had already hidden in its deepest part, and Medea seemed to have also hidden there.

These two seemed to be playing hide-and-seek with him.

Locke’s expression was strange.

Although the Magic Realm was indeed shared, he did have a backup plan.

He could close the gates of the Magic Realm, which meant closing the gates of the Magic Realm through the mortal world.

The two had entered his own realm, like turtles in a jar, where his own tree-people race roamed freely.

If he closed the gates of his realm, they would be unable to leave and enter the mortal world.

Locke acted immediately, expending energy to close the gates between the realm and the mortal world.

Thus, the realm could not interfere with the mortal world,

and the mortal world could not interfere with the realm.

Georgina, the witch hiding deep within the realm, was currently sitting at her loom, studying the Moon of Evolution and weaving.

At that moment, she immediately realized that Locke had controlled the gates of the realm and closed them.

“Damn it, the realm is for public use, but the gates are his alone!” Georgina gritted her teeth. “So wicked.”

“He even had this trick up his sleeve!”

The wizards below the Silent Throne, one of them knowing Locke’s past nickname in the southeastern corner of the region was the Eye Demon Wizard,

began to discuss among themselves.

“In this way, the Dharma Realm and the mortal world can no longer connect. Wouldn’t that dark wizard and Georgina be trapped inside? If he doesn’t open the gate, they won’t be able to get out. The situation is still under his control!”

“The Eye Wizard’s heart is truly filthy!”

“I really thought that Dharma Realm was for public use. I even mocked Edgar, Smith, and Georgina for refusing to enter, thinking they were being petty. I never expected he could close the door between the Dharma Realm and the mortal world.”

“Edgar’s refusal to enter the Dharma Realm seems to have other reasons.”

At this moment, the wizards of the Academic Committee in the Golden Crown Mountain audience area all shook their heads.

This is too cunning.

At this moment, the Witch Victoria in the audience area covered her mouth and laughed, “This student has quite the shameless style of Katya back then.”

After hearing this, the student of the Witch Victoria coughed to cover his embarrassment.

In the Silent Dimension, after Locke completely closed the gate between the Dharma Realm and the mortal world, he and the Duke of Westminster immediately entered the capital and found the Duke’s special prison.

Under the respectful gazes of the inspectors, the two entered a tightly sealed prison perched on a cliff overlooking the sea, its walls hundreds of meters high.

This prison was called [Markta Prison]!

As Locke and the Duke of Westminster walked the prison corridors, Locke saw many bald men with only a single hair on their foreheads.

They were drawing circles on the floor and walls.

These men seemed dazed and insane, constantly drawing circles.

Some were muttering to themselves, saying they saw blue light

and blue arcs.

The Duke of Westminster said, “I don’t know why these people have become like this. They attack humans randomly at night.”

“But for some reason, they are terrified of electric lights, or perhaps they are simply avoiding them.”

“Therefore, people in this world don’t venture out at night, away from light sources.”

Locke nodded; he knew this too.

Suddenly, a middle-aged man with only a single hair on his forehead lunged at them, gripping the iron bars with both hands, seemingly trying to strangle them. “I saw it, I saw a higher mysteries existing above humanity. Everything is meaningless now,”

Locke said, pursing his lips. “What the hell?”

“Could it be a disc-shaped creature?”

(End of Chapter)