Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems - Chapter 898

Chapter 893 Becoming a Guardian, a Reversal of Status

The witch Catherine asked the wizard Trajan, “The Frost River breached its banks, causing more than a dozen wizards from the Eastern Boundary to enter the eternally cold winter. Who do you think was responsible?”

The wizard Trajan fell into thought.

“I don’t know, teacher, but I found a lot of traces of water magic at the scene. Someone used water magic to damage the Frost River’s banks. I haven’t found any evidence.” “

But from a perspective of interests, the Frost River breach has the greatest impact on Golden Crown Mountain, on us, and our biggest enemy right now is the Rose Council. So…”

The witch Catherine raised an eyebrow.

“You mean Anna sent someone to do it?”

The wizard Trajan swallowed hard; he knew how terrifying this accusation was.

This was an accusation against a throne wizard.

But from his perspective, the struggle between the two major schools had almost reached the point of open hostility, so his speculation was quite normal.

The witch Catherine covered her mouth and chuckled softly.

“Trajan, you are still young, and there are many things you cannot see through or understand. Even if everyone is a suspect, it is definitely not Anna who did it.”

“With the arrival of the Demon Winter, all things hibernate, resources dwindle, and all industries are declining. This is not something Anna or I would like to see. You don’t need to investigate in this direction anymore. I am quite certain that this matter has nothing to do with the Rose Throne.”

The wizard Trajan bowed to the witch Catherine and said, “Thank you for your guidance, teacher.”

“But we should resolve the issue of the Tianhan River breach as soon as possible.”

“The Tianhan River breach, regardless of who did it, has directly damaged the interests of Golden Crown Mountain and our academy, reducing our chances of winning the Three Kings Tournament by half. If our projects there are affected as a result, then winning the Three Kings Tournament will no longer be an advantage, but rather a burden.”

“Especially now, with the Yunze Council having collectively voted twice in a row to refuse to help the Tianjiang River region.”

The witch Catherine nodded and said, “They don’t want to spend the money; they want someone else to spend it. These days, nobody has spare money.”

“However, you don’t need to worry about this. The breach of the Tianhan River’s banks won’t change the overall trend,”

said Wizard Trajan. “Teacher is right.”

Locke thought for a moment and understood the judgment his teacher had made: the Demon Winter would cause all things to decline, which contradicted the Starfield Sea’s current plan for ascending to magic.

Taking the magic of the four seasons as an example, the Demon Winter would gradually plunge all wizarding lands in the Eastern Realm into winter, while the Starfield Sea’s plan for ascending to magic aimed to maintain all wizarding lands in summer—

a state of rising energy.

Catherine the Witch glanced at Locke, then said to Trajan, “The scale of the Ascension Project in the Starfield Sea far exceeds your imagination. I can only guess a little.” “

Regardless of who breached the Heavenly Cold River’s banks, or what their purpose was, they were fighting against the entire Starfield Sea. Therefore, we don’t need to worry about this matter.”

“Trajan, you only need to go to the project along the Heavenly Cold River as soon as possible and ensure that no one interferes with the safety of our Golden Crown Mountain project there.”

“But you can’t go directly,”

Trajan said, puzzled.

Catherine the Witch pointed out a point.

“The sealing magic along the Tianjiang River is a realm only third-circle wizards can tread. If you investigated it on your own and found anything, it certainly wasn’t something you could have discovered. A third-circle wizard used someone else to tell you, and then wanted to use you to tell me.”

“That third-circle wizard wanted to drag me down, and perhaps even more throne wizards down with him. He wanted to muddy the waters.”

A flicker of panic crossed Trajan’s face, followed by anger.

“He actually used me.”

Trajan stood up, sighed, and bowed to Catherine, saying, “I’m sorry, teacher, I brought you the wrong information.”

Catherine waved her hand.

“If I were to be misled by your incorrect information, then it would truly be my fault. The fact that you brought me this incorrect information means that there is indeed a third-ring wizard orchestrating things along the Tianjiang River, their purpose unknown. But the fact that they noticed you is probably because the highest level along the Tianjiang River is only the Star Ring.”

“As a Sun Ring Archmage, your [Corona Magic Layer] will be like a lighthouse in the night, every word and action under everyone’s watchful eye.”

The witch Catherine pondered, “You need to conceal yourself, to have a plausible reason for your travels. Fortunately, I have a shop alliance headquarters along the Tianjiang River. It’s called [Silver Peach Garden].”

“This shop alliance has been losing money for ten years straight. I recently dismissed its administration and related staff.”

Wizard Trajan asked, “Teacher, do you want me to take over Silver Peach Garden?”

He smiled, “I remember when I first became your disciple, this shop alliance was a cash cow that could devour gold. How did it end up losing money for ten consecutive years? That shouldn’t be the case. This shop alliance used to be comparable to Golden Peach Garden and Otherworldly Peach Garden.”

Witch Catherine said, “To be honest… I don’t know either.” “

I simply don’t have time to manage that shop alliance. With my limited energy, I abandoned it and entrusted it to the wizard manager. But you and I both know that handing it over to the wizard manager and barely paying attention means that even if this shop alliance just stagnates, that’s already quite good.”

Witch Catherine said, “Silver Peach Garden is dead but not dead. It’s a large and powerful business, so although it lost all of its third-circle business, I remember it still retains a lot of influence in the second-circle business.”

Wizard Trajan nodded repeatedly.

Catherine the Witch changed the subject.

“But I’m not asking you to take it over. Locke…”

Under Trajan’s surprised gaze, Locke stepped forward.

Trajan, sitting in his chair, turned to look at Locke, his eyes filled with astonishment.

“Junior brother…Teacher, do you want junior brother to help you turn that shop alliance around?”

Catherine the Witch said, “Trajan, although you are a Sun Ring Archmage, you are a martial artist, explorer, and plant hunter. To be honest, your breeding skills are quite average. Your botanical talent and level are not bad.”

“But Silver Peach Garden is a breeder’s shop, specializing in selling individual weapon-grade bred products.”

“You lack the management skills, resource integration abilities, and even professional expertise to run it. Therefore, Locke is a more suitable candidate. Of course, I have several other better candidates. But I think we should give young people a chance.”

The witch Catherine looked at Locke and said, “I was hesitating between you and Zeno. However, after seeing your article published in Yunze, I made up my mind. Besides, Zeno has been with the station for a while now, so it’s better for him to focus more on preparing for the special grant.”

“However, Locke, you can also refuse. I know you are also seriously preparing for the special grant.”

“Are you going to refuse?”

Locke took the information about Silver Peach Garden from the witch Catherine and found that Silver Peach Garden was a magical plant sales shop mainly consisting of various stores, currently focusing on apprentice-level and first-ring market customers.

Or rather, it had been living off its past achievements.

Locke flipped through the ledgers and found that this shop alliance had been losing money for ten years, and although people had been sent and replaced, it had not stopped the trend of losses.

The sale of numerous stores had led to the decline of this shop alliance, with its assets depreciating at an increasingly rapid pace. Now, the alliance’s sales revenue had dwindled to a mere 50 million magic stones in net profit annually.

Locke’s brow furrowed; he immediately noticed the alliance’s anomaly. First, they moved away from the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, away from the Red Dragon Witch’s sight, and into the Tianjiang River basin.

This was strange. Then there was the inexplicably shrinking annual shop revenue, which had plummeted to a pitifully low level over the past decade.

This was definitely not normal.

Corruption within the alliance was likely rampant, as the records showed that Silver Peach Garden had once been a renowned magic plant shop, but now this long-established business had declined continuously and was no longer a force to be reckoned with.

Locke gave a bitter smile. He had previously secretly mocked Solas’s Barefoot and Melochy’s Magic Step for being old, but now he was about to take over an even older and declining shop alliance.

Locke said to the witch Catherine, “Teacher, I’m willing.”

Locke knew that only by taking on more tasks within this academic lineage could he obtain a larger share of the benefits. After all, top-tier funding could be earned through merit, but key sub-projects depended on Catherine’s personal will; she could give them to whomever she wanted.

Moreover, judging from his teacher’s words, she probably thought a second-circle wizard couldn’t specifically help her with key projects; the so-called sub-projects were simply a matter of sharing profits.

Therefore, if he wanted to get key projects, he could only rely on working for his cooperating mentor.

Fortunately, he could at least see some progress.

Because within this team, he was clearly moving step by step towards the core.

Moreover, due to his True Dragon bloodline, he was considered a direct descendant candidate from the beginning.

The only problem was that because he clearly didn’t want to stop at Golden Crown Mountain, he couldn’t obtain unique secret techniques like the twelve demonic peaches or the six great demonic rice inherited magic of Golden Crown Mountain.

Besides these unique inherited magics, Golden Crown Mountain should also have unique inherited magics in the bloodline and power schools.

The magic of the Power School is irrelevant to me, and while the supernatural purgatories of the Power School are said to be excellent opportunities and special secret realms for inheriting wizarding traditions, they are also unrelated to me.

However, the special bloodline magic inheritance of Mount Golden Crown is relevant to me.

Working for a school of magic will at least bring tangible benefits.

Catherine the Witch smiled with satisfaction.

“Excellent, facing challenges head-on, undaunted by difficulties. Locke, ordinary gains can be obtained by going with the flow, but great gains require going against the tide. You will reap the rewards you deserve in the Silver Peach Garden. I believe you will gain much from your trip there.”

Locke pondered for a moment. He already possessed two great spells, so with just one more clone potion, he could obtain a second clone.

Once he had a second clone, he could work 72 hours a day.

He could then send this clone to the Silver Peach Garden along the Tianjiang River.

After all, he was already a second-circle Grand Wizard; if he only worked 48 hours a day, it would be too lazy.

Catherine the Witch casually remarked, “By the way, you’ve been getting quite close to that little girl, Rose the Witch, lately? You should know she recently went to the Tianjiang River.”

Trajan the Wizard paused, momentarily stunned upon hearing Rose the Witch’s name.

“Rose? I saw her once at my junior brother’s celebration banquet for advancing to the second ring. I didn’t remember her well then, but recently she seems to have won both the Red and Purple Holy Grails.”

“Oh, junior brother, the Red Holy Grail is one of the seven-colored cup competitions of the Garden Alliance in the Rainswamp. There aren’t many large wizarding universities in the Rainswamp, so they use a very novel wizarding university model: various medium-sized wizarding universities unite to form a large Garden Alliance.”

“The various universities then become part of this large Garden Alliance.”

“The seven-colored cups are the most prestigious competition promoted by this large Garden Alliance. There are currently eight colors in the seven-colored cups, each color representing a different type of competition. The Red Holy Grail is for breeding, and the Purple Holy Grail is for magic weavers.”

“She’s recently become quite famous for winning two different colored cups consecutively in the Rainswamp.”

“What’s she doing along the Tianjiang River? The Tianjiang River is humid, with high relative humidity and a high concentration of water element particles. The magical textiles from the Cloud Marsh Wetlands don’t sell very well there, but magical umbrellas do.”

“Oh, right. The Rose Throne has several businesses that want to expand along the Tianjiang River, including some shops related to magical plant breeding.”

The witch Catherine didn’t know much about these details, so she didn’t interrupt.

After all, these were Rose Throne’s academic businesses, and only the less important ones. Aside from wizards like Trajan, who were temporarily in charge of the Red Dragon lineage, most wizards wouldn’t bother with the details of those consistently loss-making and obscure businesses.

Moreover, the ownership structures behind many of these shop alliances were complex,

with no direct connection.

Locke smiled bitterly to himself, realizing he couldn’t avoid the witch Rose no matter where he went.

The pull of the academic competition is so strong; there seems to be a hidden ecological niche competition between myself and Rose the Witch, and I don’t know why we always seem to run into each other.

It looks as if whoever loses has to make way for the other.

This is probably because our ecological niches within this academic network are similar, so we can both cooperate and easily clash, with an unavoidable conflict of interest between us.

Trajan encouraged Locke, “Don’t be afraid. This time is different. I remember now, the Rose Throne has a shop alliance along the Tianjiang River called the Olaye Shop Alliance. It’s a new alliance, only five years old, and it’s losing money every year, requiring extra funds to subsidize it. Compared to Silver Peach Garden, the Olaye Shop Alliance is just a fledgling alliance, not yet established, and could go bankrupt at any time.”

Trajan smiled at Locke, “Junior brother, this time it seems you and Rose have switched roles. You now represent the established shop alliance, while she represents the emerging one.”

“This time you can be in a superior position, waiting for the opportune moment, unlike when your Augustus was struggling against those two established shop alliances.”

Locke raised an eyebrow.

This was just a nice way of putting it.

In other words, this time it was finally his turn to take over the old, barely surviving shop alliance, while she was in charge of a newly established one starting from scratch.

In other words, this time Rose was the pursuer, and he was the defender.

Locke said to the witch Catherine, “I understand, teacher. I started out selling magical plant weapons, so I have confidence in this industry.”

Catherine nodded and said, “That’s good. You’ve already condensed your second great magic, so take this.”

She handed him a magic book.

Locke saw that the book’s title was “Twin Forging Method.”

The witch Catherine said, “This is a great magic forging method I designed specifically for you. It uses one power system as its core to forge two great magics simultaneously. As long as your power system can interpret both of your great magics at the same time, the forging progress of your two great magics will be completely synchronized.”

“Take it back and study it carefully. Your senior brother Trajan and I have important matters to discuss.”

Locke nodded and immediately bowed to the two, saying, “Well then, I’ll be going, teacher, senior brother.”

As Locke left the office and closed the door, he seemed to hear the witch Catherine saying something about [Magic Plant Crystallization Technology]…

Locke’s pupils contracted slightly. This technological route had actually entered his teacher’s field of vision?

However, Locke wasn’t one to eavesdrop, so he closed the door.

The witch Catherine glanced at the closed door, then continued to look at the wizard Trajan and began to converse with him.

After closing the office door, Locke left directly.

Information is most vulnerable to eavesdropping, and it’s always best to only hear half of what’s said.

Since Professor Catherine didn’t want to tell him this information, it was best not to hear a single word, or if he did, to pretend he didn’t hear it.

Otherwise, only hearing half of a piece of information was very dangerous.

Locke took the information about the Silver Peach Garden, preparing to go back and study it. At the same time, he picked up the Ganoderma lucidum plant and discovered that the witch Catherine had sent him the location of the peach garden, indicating that she had already issued the order and that the Silver Peach Garden had received information that he had been appointed by her.

Because the Silver Peach Garden was the personal property of the witch Catherine, she could appoint it directly without consulting the shareholders’ meeting or the board of directors.

When Locke returned to the underground research institute in the Dune Plane 2, he also received a notification from the Sea Queen.

On the Water Hyacinth System, the Sea Queen sent him a message:

‘Locke, next Wednesday, I will be teaching a class at the Root Crown Court. The first class will mainly be about the clone potion. Prepare yourself; you are required to prepare at least three Two-Cicada Spirit Macros.’

Locke already possessed a copy of the Two-Singing Cicada’s Spirit Macro Imprint, so he didn’t need to purchase three more.

A Spirit Macro Imprint is the product of many Two-Singing Cicada Spirit Macros combined, possessing a certain stability and allowing for multiple uses, while a single Spirit Macro is usually destroyed after one use.

Simultaneously, the green leaf wings of the Demonic Dragon Rose on his back vibrated as he flew through the Dune Plane. Previously, the fragile ecosystem of the Dune Plane was almost completely wiped out, but now, thanks to the Sith Wizard’s personal funds and substantial investment, the Dune Plane’s ecosystem has been somewhat maintained.

Giant golem robots, purifying heavy elemental particles, floated in the sky.

They were carrying out a mission above this plane, purifying the large amount of heavy elemental particle pollution left in the world’s air due to Zaran Bailey’s reckless measures.

The numerous oases that Zaran Bailey created in this world, without the support of his exploitative strategy, quickly turned back into yellow sand.

As it turned out, Zaran Bailey’s reckless strategy back then only caused harm and brought no benefit to the Dune Plane.

In the second underground research institute,

Locke arrived at the spot where he had grafted the Four-Winged Azure-Leaf Dragonbird and the Demonic Dragon Rose. He saw that the two magical plants, aided by the witch array in the second research institute, had barely completed the grafting. They were only maintained daily by the support of verdant spiritual energy and various witch arrays.

It was like giving a person intensive treatment every day to keep them alive.

Locke had already spent approximately ten million magic stones on this magical plant.

The witch Mason turned and saw Locke approaching, smiling slightly. “Team leader, your plant’s vital signs are stable. Please rest assured.”

Locke nodded.

The grafting was now forcibly completed. Under his powerful grafting healing spell model, the spiritual fusion of the rootstock and branches allowed the Four-Winged Azure-Leaf Dragonbird to obtain the plant essence transformed from the bloodline essence by the Rose Throne.

This, however, led to a certain degree of degeneration in the Four-Winged Great Azure Leaf Dragon Sparrow.

But that’s alright.

His initial goal was to obtain the essence of the Demonic Dragon.

What he wanted was to be able to use the Reversion Evolution on it.

The Evolution Moon behind Locke flickered faintly.

However, before using the Evolution Moon to induce the Reversion Evolution, he needed to do something else:

simulate it on the Queen’s Chessboard.

Because if it failed, all his millions of magic stones would be wasted.

Locke realized that rashly attempting the Reversion Evolution would be too risky.

He had to first simulate a relatively accurate result using the Queen’s Chessboard before attempting the Reversion Evolution; only then could he complete his flying magical plant creation!

(End of Chapter)