Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems - Chapter 780

Chapter 777 Locke’s Amazing Discovery

As the full moon rose over the River Styx, Locke, with his second-circle wizard’s sensitivity to planar power, perceived the true nature of the River Styx’s waters.

“It’s memory, emotion, and consciousness; what flows within the River Styx is human consciousness.”

Although he had read many popular science magazines and wasn’t completely ignorant of soul science—at least he understood the basic concepts and some simple apprentice-level magic—

the study of ghosts was a rather special branch of soul science.

It belonged entirely to the realm of dark wizards, and there was virtually no relevant information in white wizarding society. Therefore, it was only now that Locke realized something:

‘The River Styx is different from the rivers of souls in the afterlife; what flows here isn’t souls at all.’

Even the abyssal worms and demon fish in the River of the Abyss are reincarnations of souls, but the River Styx is different.

Locke wanted to verify his conjecture about the River Styx, so he raised his Evolutionary Moon and observed the river from top to bottom.

At that moment, countless vengeful spirits from the River Styx reached out their hands to Locke, as if to drag the moon to the bottom of the river.

An immense pressure acted upon Locke’s soul.

‘So that’s how it is. At the first stage, I couldn’t escape the water ghosts no matter what.’

‘I swam out of the River Styx because the countless consciousnesses within this river suppressed me at that time. How could one consciousness possibly escape so many consciousnesses within the river!’

Locke chanted a spell, and the Moon of Evolution rotated slightly. Then, the entire moon turned into a black moon because he had imprinted the Archaeological Spell Model onto his Moon of Evolution through the Legendary History Book.

Instantly, the Historical Reenactment Spell Model appeared.

‘Borrow an hour from the past within three hundred days.’

The deep red River of Faith from the Crimson Deep Court appeared.

The river, like a river flowing into the sea, poured back into the River Styx, and the red and black waters clashed violently.

Amidst the fierce collision of these red and black rivers, the Moon of Evolution slowly rose, breaking free from the local suppression of the River Styx.

After all, Locke hadn’t actually entered the River Styx in his physical form; he had only connected to a portion of it through the threads of his soul, and the contact between them was still superficial.

At this moment, he had used archaeological magic to summon the Crimson Deep Court battlefield illuminated by the Moon of Evolution—a spell used by that dark wizard cultist against him.

He had merely summoned that spell from the past through a legendary historical text.

He couldn’t actually control it; the spell had altered the environment too drastically, thus immediately disrupting the River Styx upon its appearance.

In the present world of wizarding, when the witch Stephania realized that Locke wasn’t a first-circle wizard, nor was he in the soul decay stage, but a true second-circle wizard, her expression changed drastically.

Second-circle wizards possessed absolute overwhelming power over first-circle wizards.

Even with the combined power of her entire wizarding academy, she might not be able to harm Locke.

She wasn’t even sure if the ancient magic inherited from the Pale Pilgrimage could truly work against a second-circle wizard.

In truth, the Ghost Cult’s magic has one final move: burning the souls of all the cult’s official wizards to ignite all the Ghost Fireflies, then launching a suicidal attack on the enemy, aiming to perish together.

However, at this moment, the witch Stephania simply didn’t have the courage to cast this spell.

First, the conditions for casting this spell were extremely demanding, largely relying on the various wizarding relics of the Ghost Cult’s headquarters.

Second, she herself was already shaken by this speculation and completely unable to control herself.

All she wanted to do was escape.

But then, she looked up and saw Hussein’s Eleven-Draw Blood Curse sealing the place, and then she saw her ritual magic; she knew she couldn’t leave.

If she made any significant movement, the ritual magic would fail, and once Locke’s consciousness broke free of the River Styx, she would still die.

The High Priestess Stephania herself knew that four years ago, she had almost killed Locke.

If Locke were merely a Crystallized Wizard, it wouldn’t have mattered.

But Locke was a Second-Circle Wizard.

That was a very serious offense.

She had no chance of escaping the wrath of a Second-Circle Wizard!

If she had known this day would come, she wouldn’t have dared to offend Locke in the slightest!

At that moment, Stanley, the wizard of the Blood Curse Court, and Veltani, the witch of the Ghost Cult, also heard the exclamation of the High Priestess Stephania.

The first thought that flashed through their minds was impossibility.

The second thought was utter destruction.

They had both offended Locke, and at this moment, they were naturally filled with despair, knowing that disaster was imminent.

Who could have imagined that a young wizard who had just become a formal wizard and whom they had offended four years ago would become a second-circle wizard in just four and a half years?

Far surpassing them!

Stanley’s hatred for Locke vanished completely, replaced by fear and dread.

Veltani even wanted to run away, but looking at the magic of Hussein falling under the Eleven-Slaying Blood Curse, she found that she had nowhere to escape.

In the River Styx, as the waters of the Crimson Deep Court and the River Styx merged, the two different waters caused a serious conflict, creating eddies that even truly affected parts of the River Styx in the Styx plane.

In the Styx plane, a small section of the Styx overflowed, swirling with eddies and splashing water.

At the same time, the moon, a manifestation of Locke’s consciousness within the Styx, finally broke free and rose into the air, its bright light shining upon the great river.

Only then could Locke look down upon the Styx.

The higher one stands, the farther one can see!

Locke finally confirmed his understanding of the Styx.

“The entire Styx carries not true soul water, but the water of consciousness.”

“The Styx is like a soul’s shell, and its water is the water of consciousness.”

“In a sense, the Styx can be likened to the soul of a living being. Within the human soul’s shell flows consciousness, also the water of consciousness.”

“Therefore, the Styx can summon various consciousnesses; the principle seems not complicated.”

Since the Styx is a shell, the other party only needs to use ghostly magic to establish a connection with the Styx’s ‘soul’ and create a spell that blurs the boundaries between the two, thus attracting their consciousness into the Styx’s channels.

So-called ghost magic is likely a product of the deep integration of soul magic and the Styx plane.

The Styx allows for the efficient use of the soul energy of the Ghost Cult’s apprentices and wizards, providing the possibility for the creation of those crudely made but effective ghost artifacts.

The Styx is the core of ghost magic.

Locke realized this.

He also realized that the Styx is a river of consciousness, allowing numerous consciousnesses to flow into it, including the consciousness of plants.

“But I don’t yet have a clue how to utilize this mechanism.”

Locke looked down at the Styx. He could break free from this ritual magic at any time, but he didn’t intend to. He saw a gray-black iron pillar emerging from the surface of the Styx, surrounded by many ghost fireflies, like a pillar fixing the Styx.

The Styx surged ceaselessly, and the pillar rose and fell with it.

“The core of the Ghost Cult’s ghost magic is all in that pillar,”

Locke concluded after observation.

“It seems a wizard placed that pillar into the River Styx. If the essence of Ghostly Arts is deeply connected to the River Styx, then the entire Ghostly Arts system carries a touch of ritual magic.”

“Low-level Ghostly Arts wizards shouldn’t even be qualified to use Ghostly Arts. That’s why that pillar is needed to reduce the difficulty of using it.”

“That pillar is the foundation of Ghostly Arts.” Locke focused his moonlight, attempting to uproot the pillar.

Eight ancient magical characters immediately appeared on it.

They roughly meant—

Wraith,

Fear,

Stain, and

Paralysis.

All eight characters were written in obscure ancient script. Locke immediately recognized it as a rare magical script from the Age of Stars, one he had only learned briefly while researching materials for his previous article on the Age of Stars.

The magical rune composed of these four words flashed with magical light, scattering Locke’s moonlight and pushing the Moon of Evolution into the distance.

Seeing this, Locke immediately realized that he could not shake the foundation of this Ghostly Holy Church.

“Even a small-town wizarding academy seems to have many secrets.”

“What am I thinking? It seems the wizarding world is fundamentally interconnected; many places have various connections with other higher-level wizarding realms.”

Locke estimated the magical pressure emanating from the pillar.

“At least a Moon Ring Wizard… his magic pressure is lower than the few Sun Ring Wizards I’ve seen, about the same as Chad Wizard.”

“It’s this pillar, providing public services related to the Ghostly Cult’s Ghostly Studies to the entire Southeast Corner.”

“This practice coincides with the shared imaginary root of my second-ring wizard shoes.”

“But…”

Locke pondered for a moment.

“Indeed, we should capture a few Ghostly Cult wizards and slowly explore this secret.”

Although this might involve the Pale Pilgrimage in the Five Great Wars and provoke the Pale Lord, they

are just a group of dark wizards, so there’s nothing to be afraid of offending.

Moreover, among dark wizards, reputation is earned through battle; high status is useless.

Locke looked around, finding nothing useful, and was about to leave. The River Styx was quite dangerous, and he shouldn’t overdo it.

But the next moment, a sudden change occurred.

His Black Moon spewed out streams of crimson deep courtyards, but suddenly, for a moment, the crimson deep courtyards broke free from his control.

Something seemed to be approaching from within the crimson abyss.

Locke frowned.

“What’s going on?”

The things within the crimson abyss seemed different from other magic; they weren’t so easily borrowed.

This crimson abyss, clearly recreated from a past timeline through a negative energy particle field, had suddenly broken free from the control of its spell model, and something was coming along the river of the crimson abyss.

A voice appeared beside Locke.

‘Those who steal the power of the divine kingdom, die!’

The fallen angel was actually crawling along a phantom crimson abyss, looking extremely angry, its pupils filled with savagery.

As it crawled, it continuously pounded the river with its hands, emitting terrifying sounds.

The scale of its magical pressure was unimaginable.

It wasn’t an ordinary second-ring level; because the magical pressure was so violent, Locke couldn’t accurately judge its range.

And as soon as the fallen angel emerged, just as it was about to glare at Locke, it was swept away by the River Styx.

The River Styx seemed to be drawing the fallen angel’s consciousness into its riverbed!

This was the Styx’s instinctive reaction!

Because the Styx is a river of consciousness, it subconsciously absorbs all beings with a sea of consciousness into its channel, thus directly washing over the tyrannical angel.

The tyrannical angel was enraged.

“The Supreme God said: Truth is v*olence, truth is bloodshed! Therefore, as long as v*olence is used, truth can be touched.”

The next moment, he slammed into the Styx.

It symbolized tyranny, one of the four major value systems of the Crimson Deep Court, so the tyrannical river, a tributary of the Crimson Deep Court, directly flowed back into the main channel of the Styx.

Two kinds of water appeared in the Styx channel.

In the Styx plane, this section of the main channel was flooded by the tyrannical river, causing the water level to rise and risking a breach, as the Styx overflowed its banks.

The creatures of the Styx world near the Styx scattered like birds and beasts upon seeing the Styx breach its banks.

“Oh no, the Styx has breached its banks for some reason.”

“The Styx has breached its banks, life and death are in chaos, what happened?”

“Quickly raise the Styx’s banks!”

“But if we raise the banks, the overflowing Styx will surge downstream, and the worlds connected to the Styx downstream will be devastated.”

“At this critical moment, who can worry about such things?”

“What if the people downstream also raise their banks? Won’t the water flow backward? Then we’ll be the ones flooded!!”

“If this section of the Styx can’t be stabilized, how many heads do we have to bear when the higher-ups blame us?”

The creatures of the underworld discussed fiercely.

At the same time, above the Styx, Locke hadn’t expected his magic to trigger a chain reaction, causing the Crimson Deep Court to flow into the sea.

Locke saw that the Styx’s waters were turbulent, resulting in uneven water levels.

One area had a high water level, another a low one.

This caused the part of the gray-black iron pillar that was submerged to be exposed to him for a moment.

“That’s not an iron pillar!”

Locke suddenly realized. “That’s a magical plant.”

“What level of magical plant is it?!”

In the area where the water level had temporarily dropped due to the waves, an iron tree was revealed beneath the surface of the River Styx.

The iron pillar was merely the very top branch of that tree.

“A magical tree grows beneath the River Styx!” Locke pondered. “Then my previous calculations of its magical pressure were completely wrong.”

(End of Chapter)