Chapter 770: Zalan Bailey, Reduced to a Debt Slave, and the Moon of Evolution Within the Forest Alliance Curse

In the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, at Golden Crown Mountain, within the laboratory of Group Two's Dune Plane, the entire climate of the Dune Plane had completely spiraled out of control as a result of the Rose Council's earlier sabotage. Atmospheric pollution had further devastated the Dune Plane's ecology, which in turn had accelerated its deterioration.

Zalan Bailey's original plan had been to restore a measure of green vegetation to the Dune Plane, thereby reversing its ongoing degradation, and to use the combined protection of vegetation and atmospheric management as a dual-layered safeguard. But now, with the environmental remediation having never been carried out at all, that plan had instead sent the Dune Plane into an even worse state than before.

Zalan Bailey himself, on account of Golden Crown Mountain's substantial claim for compensation, had been crushed under an enormous weight of debt. After all his assets had been auctioned off and a considerable number of loans taken out, he was still insolvent, and he was consequently reduced to the status of a debt slave, signing a contract of indenture with the White Wizard Association Bank, one of the Five Great Banks.

The White Wizard Association Bank would dispatch a debt restructuring committee to auction off all his existing assets, including the shop alliance he had established, along with all the labor he would be capable of providing over the next two hundred years.

In other words, he was required to work without compensation for the White Wizard Bank for two hundred years before he could repay his debts and free himself from the status of a debt slave.

At this moment, Zalan Bailey wore shackles on his ankles and a Second Circle magical artifact belonging to the Barrier School around his neck that suppressed his magical defenses. His entire body had been bound with numerous Barrier School sealing spells, and even his Grand Magic, the Dune Ecology, had been locked down by chains of Barrier School sealing magic. The moment he showed the slightest sign of resistance, every magical force throughout his body would erupt simultaneously to suppress him.

Wizard Cis stood beside Locke and said, "A number of the laboratories within the Dune Plane can still be used. I am currently reaching out to some of my acquaintances to come and address the environmental pollution within the Dune Plane. The academy's side will also be sending specialized environmental remediation wizards. I am told they are ecological restoration engineering experts from the Hand of the Jungle."

Wizard Cis let out a sigh.

"Back then, I was truly blinded by greed. It seems that even a sun ring wizard, once controlled by their own greed, can lose all self-restraint."

"I was utterly convinced that Zalan Bailey's scheme would win me the fastest possible breakthrough against the Rose Council's technological blockade, yet I never imagined it was itself a trap."

Locke's main body stood beside him, and inwardly he too was struck with a certain feeling. Who could have imagined that Zalan Bailey had been a spy all along.

The losses of the Dune Plane were clearly impossible for Zalan Bailey to make up on his own. Wizard Cis dared not let Witch Yekaterina bear the remainder, and so he could only fill in what was left himself.

With Golden Crown Mountain additionally absorbing a portion of the loss, the problem had at last been brought under control.

Wizard Cis said with regret, "I never imagined that Zalan Bailey was able to become a Second Circle wizard at all only because he had received support from the Rose Council's wizards. Of course, he himself had not been aware of anything unusual."

"He simply felt that he had stumbled into a series of extraordinary strokes of good fortune, and that becoming a Second Circle wizard had come remarkably easily. What he never realized was that he had become a piece in the hands of a high-circle wizard."

"Every one of those so-called strokes of good fortune was something designed to turn him into that piece."

Locke offered a word of comfort to Team Leader Cis and said, "Team Leader, at least with experts from the Hand of the Jungle coming, the Dune Plane will not collapse entirely."

Team Leader Cis nodded and said, "That is indeed true. Though I normally have little regard for those wizards of the Hand of the Jungle, at a moment like this only their ecological specialists can help me break this vicious cycle."

"The Dune Plane's magical tide energy is continuing to fall. I had originally considered drawing on the Dune Plane's virtual sea to fill the present world, to compensate for the declining magical tide and ecological collapse. But after thinking it through from every angle, I decided against it. Better to wait patiently for the Hand of the Jungle's ecological restoration experts to arrive."

Team Leader Cis said, "I can say that this Zalan Bailey affair has cost me dearly. I have lost at least thirty million magic stones."

"And that is only because the academy was lenient. The primary debt has been borne by Zalan Bailey himself, and so he must perform mandatory labor for Golden Crown Mountain for two hundred years."

Locke looked at Team Leader Cis with some puzzlement and said, "Has the White Wizard Association's direct bank not extended him loans and covered his debts?"

Team Leader Cis said, "Golden Crown Mountain judged that he still possessed a certain labor value, and so purchased his debt contract from the White Wizard Association."

Locke gave a slight nod, understanding now. This amounted to Golden Crown Mountain purchasing Wizard Zalan Bailey's debt, so that through this roundabout arrangement, Golden Crown Mountain had become Zalan Bailey's creditor, and Zalan Bailey, having gone bankrupt under the weight of that debt, was now obligated to work without pay for Golden Crown Mountain for two hundred years.

After all, the mess he had made was simply too vast.

One could also say he was pitiful.

No, in truth, whether it was Wizard Cis or Wizard Zalan Bailey, both had become sacrifices in the academic war between the Rose Witch and the Red Dragon Witch, and both had been made to bear the losses of the Dune Plane.

Locke could not help but feel a certain unease and wariness at this state of affairs.

As his magical level continued to rise, the scale of the projects he would undertake in the future would grow ever larger. And the greater his ability to reshape his surrounding environment, the heavier the responsibility that came with it.

And so it would be best to take the affair of Wizard Zalan Bailey and Wizard Cis as a cautionary lesson.

When conducting ecological modification in the future, he must adhere to the principle of minimal intervention and resist the temptation of impatience. Chasing short-term accomplishments must never be allowed to cause long-term destruction.

Plainly, Wizard Zalan Bailey had fallen into the trap through foolishness, while Wizard Cis had fallen through excessive urgency and a failure to scrutinize things carefully enough.

Wizard Cis gave Locke a nod.

"Locke, it is fortunate that my Group Two still has a talent like you. Going forward, you will have priority access to all resources within my Group Two. Whatever you want to do, go ahead and do it."

"The environmental pollution in the Dune Plane, I will find someone to address. As for the water supply issue, I have already resolved that. I have reached an agreement with the Storm Tower to restore our water supply."

"The only thing is that we can no longer cultivate Desert Roses at our base."

Wizard Cis said, "I will arrange for the apprentices to begin harvesting all the Desert Roses currently planted and sell them off as quickly as possible. Locke, could you help identify some drought-tolerant economic crops that could be planted in my Group Two's underground base."

Wizard Cis said, "I still firmly believe that if Group Two's research is to be conducted more effectively, we must ground it in the pursuit of a commercial market. Only by having sufficient lateral funding can we better carry out Group Two's research and fulfill the tasks that the Throne has entrusted to you and me."

Wizard Cis had evidently come to regard Locke as a peer of equal standing now that Locke had become a Second Circle wizard.

A sun ring wizard and an ordinary Second Circle wizard were both at the Second Circle stage. If anything, one was simply an ordinary person and the other a more formidable one.

But they were considered to have arrived at the same tier.

Wizard Cis strode away quickly.

On the other side, Wizard Zalan Bailey, who was wearing magical shackles and working without pay for Group Two, looked at Locke with a complex expression. Only after Wizard Cis had departed did he speak, in a hoarse voice, "Locke, our competition is over. You won."

Locke glanced at him.

Wizard Zalan Bailey then suddenly asked, "Locke, you and I were never truly enemies, were we? I was nothing more than a piece on the Rose Council's board, and only now do I understand that from beginning to end I was entirely within the Rose Council's calculations."

"While you were the existence the Rose Council could never bring under control. Everything about you has left the Rose Council deeply unsettled."

Locke turned to leave the fifteenth underground level and return to his office on the thirtieth underground level. The reason he had come here in the first place was that he currently held priority use rights over Group Two, which was tantamount to having free access to all thirty levels of magical fields within this laboratory at any time he required.

Since Desert Rose cultivation had been prohibited, all the magical fields here needed to be cleared.

Locke thought he might as well take the opportunity to plant various bromeliad magical plants. Air bromeliad-type magical plants were drought-tolerant after all, and using the facilities for his own purposes in passing seemed reasonable enough.

At this moment, Wizard Zalan Bailey once more opened his mouth in that hoarse voice and said, "Locke, in truth I could even be said to have come out ahead. Looking back on everything I have been through, I realize now just how ignorant I truly was."

"The soul decline period is too terrifying."

"Had the Rose Witch not given me a hidden push, I could never have passed through it. Like a person sinking into a marsh, straining with every ounce of strength and unable to break free."

"So the fact that I managed to become a Second Circle wizard at all is already a gain. As long as I serve Golden Crown Mountain as a debt slave for two hundred years... Golden Crown Mountain is still my alma mater. They will not make things too difficult for me."

"I have already been fortunate. I am deeply grateful for Throne Yekaterina's compassion. Were it not for what she arranged, my situation would have been far more miserable. But my future will likely go no further than this. Two hundred years from now, I will only have regressed, not advanced."

"After all, I am a debt slave, not a faculty member or student of Golden Crown Mountain."

Wizard Zalan Bailey pressed his lips together as he looked at Locke and said, "But I still cannot accept the fact that I was used as a piece by the Rose Council, and that I remained completely unaware of it the whole time, falling entirely under their control."

"Locke, I am not willing to accept it."

Locke walked out of the fifteenth underground level. Ever since Zalan Bailey had directed his actions against himself, and then against Witch Mason, Locke had harbored no goodwill toward him.

Yet Locke also felt a deepened wariness toward the Rose Council take root in his heart.

He returned to the thirtieth underground level, and there he received a message sent by the Silent Chalice Committee.

It was a spatial coordinate.

Three dimensions of space, one dimension of time, one dimension of void coordinate.

These five-dimensional coordinates could pinpoint the location of that medium-scale world within the boundless void.

The Committee Chairman had told him:

'Dear this generation's champion, Locke, this is the prize that belongs to you, a plane that has never been developed. The Silent Witch issued a special directive for us to choose a good one for you.'

'The strength of this medium-scale plane ranks among the more formidable within the medium-scale plane category. Of course, and precisely because of that, the native inhabitants of this world may prove to be very powerful.'

'Champion Locke, you should prepare yourself well. A colonial plane, used well, is an enormous springboard. Used poorly, it will bankrupt you.'

'The last generation's champion, Rush, managed to develop the colonial plane he received through his own personal effort, keeping the plane's resources from flowing into outside hands, and was thus able to become a star ring wizard within three years.'

The tournament committee chairman, Wizard Tontathar, appeared to pay very close attention to the movements of champions and competitors from each generation.

Locke replied to the message.

'Thank you, Chairman and the Silent Witch.'

'Even so, it took Wizard Rush three years to become a star ring wizard?'

Wizard Tontathar replied, 'Indeed, and three years is already very fast. Ordinary Second Circle wizards have been known to spend thirty to a hundred years becoming star ring wizards. There are even those whose natural aptitude is insufficient, whose resources are lacking, who have no backing and have never encountered anyone to pull them forward, and who therefore remain ordinary Second Circle wizards forever.'

'You can ask your teacher how to become a Second Circle star ring wizard. I would not presume to overstep. In any case, it still comes down to reading papers, and reading too few is useless. Resources are also essential. Having the resources of an entire undeveloped medium-scale world is what allows one to advance quickly to star ring wizard, bypassing the time ordinarily required for large-scale accumulation.'

'As a general rule, the champion of the Silent Chalice can become a moon ring wizard within ten years. Wizard Rush had other extraordinary encounters of his own, which is how he was able to become a sun ring wizard.'

'The gap between moon ring wizard and sun ring wizard is a very significant advancement threshold. It is a difficult matter for everyone.'

After a moment, Wizard Tontathar sent another message: 'Though that is not necessarily a fixed rule. The advancement speed of each generation of Silent Chalice competitors has been accelerating. Take the last competition's Wizard Chad, for instance. By previous convention he should still have been a star ring wizard, but the last time I encountered him he was already a moon ring wizard.'

'He must have had his own extraordinary encounters as well.'

'This can be attributed to the increasingly rapid development of magic in recent times, and the growing availability of resources. Moreover, with the rising magical tide, the difficulty of advancing in the Eastern Border Region has also been declining. By your generation, and with the Magic Elevation Plan in effect, the difficulty has declined yet again.'

'You have truly caught a fortunate tide.'

Locke indicated that he understood.

At the same time, he blinked his right eye. In the half-plane contained within his right eye, beneath the surface of the twenty-thousand-acre sea, an old elemental conversion pool had been installed, which had forcibly elevated the magical tide of the entire half-plane, allowing it to bear the force of his Ancient Life Tree.

Locke looked out over his ten-thousand-acre forest.

Because he had overlaid the Lunar Cultivation Method upon the Forest Sanctuary, the area of his Forest Sanctuary had also expanded from five thousand acres to ten thousand acres.

The forest was populated throughout by apprentice-level tree-men, numerous and varied, thirty-seven types in all, every one obtained from the Silent Plane.

At the same time, the forest also held a thousand First Circle tree-type magical plants, including the Gem Holly, the Sunny Sky Birch, the Water Beech, the Sentinel Holly, and others.

And at the heart of the forest, serving as one of its core elements, the Ancient Life Tree possessed a staggering Second Circle-level magic pressure.

Were it not for the insufficient resources of this half-plane, the Ancient Life Tree's magic pressure would not be the barely over ten thousand it currently stood at, but would match the magic pressure of his main body, sixteen thousand and one points.

This forest had come to fully embody the character of an ancient forest.

The total combined magic pressure it represented was beyond imagination, and were it to continue expanding, there was no telling what heights it might yet reach.

'At present, the further the Forest Sanctuary expands, the greater the number of permanent defensive force fields I can inscribe, and the greater my total magic pressure,' Locke reflected. 'Currently, the number of permanent defensive force field spell models I have inscribed stands at seven, while the forest as it currently stands should be able to support the inscription of fourteen spell models. As the forest's total magic pressure continues to swell, the number that can be inscribed is expected to grow further.'

The reason he had previously stopped adding to the selection of permanent defensive force fields was, on one hand, that he had already acquired two mist powers, which was sufficient. On the other hand, at that time seven permanent defensive force field spell models had already reached the upper limit that his Forest Sanctuary could accommodate.

And before he had become a Second Circle wizard, before the Ancient Life Tree had broken through to the Second Circle, his Forest Sanctuary's capacity had reached its ceiling.

And so during the First Circle stage he had inscribed only seven spell models.

At that time, even forcing the inscription of additional spell models would have yielded perhaps nine at most.

Nine had been the upper limit.

This was constrained by the ratio between a wizard's own total magic pressure and the forest's total magic pressure. Once the forest's total magic pressure grew too far beyond the wizard's own, that wizard would no longer serve as the forest's core, their standing continuously weakening until they became nothing more than an ordinary tree within the forest.

And so the number of spell inscriptions that could be made within the First Circle stage Forest Sanctuary was in truth capped.

Unless the wizard did not care about their standing being reduced to that of an ordinary tree within the forest and simply expanded the forest without restraint.

The forest had no ceiling, but the wizard's own growth very much did.

Without the Ancient Life Tree, Locke estimated that he would in the First Circle stage have been capable of holding only six permanent defensive force field spell slots.

At this moment, a moon rose over the sky of the Forest Sanctuary. That was the Moon of Evolution.

And not only that, this same moon also appeared in the sky above Witch Williams's Forest Sanctuary and above Wizard Albert's Forest Sanctuary.

Other wizards' Grand Magics were anchored within a medium-scale plane, attested to by the core world-force of a single plane at the Second Circle breakthrough.

But Locke had used a single leaf from the World Tree of the Natural Plane to attest his Second Circle breakthrough.

And so his Grand Magic had undergone a certain peculiar transformation.

Locke raised his head and looked up at the sky above the Forest Sanctuary.

'To think that my original intent to fulfill Wizard Lewis's dying wish and develop the Forest Alliance Curse would lead to a return of this nature.'

'The path I am walking now is not the normal Grand Magic route at all.'

Locke looked at the moon in the sky, and a sense of trouble began to settle over him.

"Normal Grand Magics are all anchored within a medium-scale world, attested by a World Stone. But I..."

He took out a World Stone and rested it in his palm, looking at it with a wry smile.

"What exactly have I done? I never used a World Stone at all. Instead I used something extraordinarily similar to a World Stone, a single leaf from the World Tree. I did not attest the Second Circle of a plane. I attested the Second Circle of the boundless void. By all logic, my Grand Magic should manifest in the void."

"But I myself exist within the void."

"And so my Grand Magic has become this strangely peculiar thing, existing only within my own Forest Alliance Curse."

Because no World Stone had been used in attesting the Grand Magic, the physical existence of his Grand Magic was anchored in no medium-scale plane whatsoever.

Instead it existed in the present world of the wizard realm, for the present world was itself a part of the boundless void.

He had attested the Grand Magic of the Natural Plane, and this present world was itself a part of the void's nature.

And so he could only allow his Moon of Evolution to be lodged upon the Forest Sanctuary and manifest through the Forest Alliance Curse in the sky above every Forest Sanctuary.

In essence, this meant that every wizard who had learned his Forest Sanctuary lineage had become part of his ecological community, a component of his own Grand Magic.

Locke was not entirely sure whether this was the right way for things to be.

In any case, the situation was peculiar.

'As long as more wizards use the Forest Sanctuary to become formal wizards, I can bring more formal wizards into my ecological community.'

Locke said with an odd expression on his face, "It seems I have walked a path that is quite unlike anyone else's. Next time I have the opportunity, I still need to have a talk with Teacher Yekaterina."

"To hear what perspective she has on this."

Back during his wizard apprentice days, he had consumed so much rosy jade gem essence that his spiritual force had become tinged with ether elements, making his spiritual force somewhat heavier than that of an ordinary wizard.

It had only been through long-term consumption of Golden Crown Mountain's wizard tea, along with certain potions and Golden Crown Mountain's special magical peaches, that this side effect had eventually been purified away.

And so Locke had developed a fairly high tolerance for the side effects that could arise from a wizard's study and experimentation with magic.

That was the risk that had to be accepted in the pursuit of truth.

'Speaking of which, for this period I should make good use of the magical fields in Group Two's laboratory to cultivate large quantities of bromeliad magical plants, taking advantage of the equipment here to complete the design of my Second Circle wizard shoe,' Locke reflected. 'And at the same time use this opportunity to help Witch Mason and her two companions complete their Tier 1 fund application.'

'After all, having used someone else's labor for an extended period without giving anything substantive in return would breed resentment even among the best of friends. To keep a team functioning at its best, one must offer real and tangible benefits. I am not a wizard lacking in resources, so it would be better to share something useful with them.'

'Right, I nearly forgot about the matter of the Ghost Sacred Order. I still need to visit Witch Stephanie.'

At this moment, Locke's avatar in the southeastern quadrant looked toward the convoy he was trailing. He had overheard the seven gasification wizards within the convoy discussing a latest strategic conference that the black wizard alliance of the southeastern quadrant was to hold at Virdantia University.

Locke found this very strange to hear.

The headquarters of the White Wizard Association in the southeastern quadrant was located, if he recalled correctly, at Virdantia University.

Could it be that after he had left the southeastern quadrant, the black wizards had seized Virdantia University and taken control of the White Wizard Association's headquarters here?

'No, the black wizard alliance alone could not possibly have the strength for that. There must be an outside force that has intervened in the situation here. I wonder whether, with Virdantia University fallen, the Four Seasons Garden and Lilith’s Cottage are still intact. Patty has likely ended up in this convoy as a captive for that very reason. But why has the White Wizard Association here not sent a request for aid to the Association's main headquarters?'

Locke cast his mind back to the wizard laws. He had previously looked through a number of wizard law texts and read several of the simpler chapters.

That was right. Regional White Wizard Associations maintained their independence, each operating like an independent state.

But to request aid from the Association's main headquarters was to signal that the regional association had lost the ability to govern its own wizard territory. This would trigger mandatory payment of heavy taxes and asset restructuring, bringing in forceful oversight from the Association's main headquarters across multiple departments, including the Revenue Division.

And so under ordinary circumstances, unless left with no other option, a branch of the White Wizard Association would never file a request for the main headquarters to intervene.

This was no different from filing for bankruptcy with the main headquarters.

It would result in every interest within that wizard territory being placed entirely under the main headquarters' control for a very long period.

Locke continued following behind the convoy. Since this convoy was heading to host the black wizard alliance's strategic conference, he might as well follow along and attend.

He would see just who had intervened in the southeastern quadrant.

Of course, the primary purpose remained locating the Ghost Sacred Order and finding a way to obtain the magic that the former Ghost Sacred High Priestess had once employed.

That magic had given him the inspiration for the Stygian Phantom Root server, and obtaining it was an absolute necessity. It was very likely tied to a critical key for whether he could ever crack the virtual root problem.

Locke looked toward Patty's carriage at the rear of the convoy.

"Patty right now... looks like a dead person, and yet also not quite. So that is it, she is in the middle of a blood clan transformation. The black wizards have forcibly begun turning her into a blood thrall."

"Patty, how have things gone so badly for you."

At this moment, within the rearmost carriage of the magical convoy, Patty Aissa, as a second-class apprentice witch, was enduring things with a bitter expression on her face as she waited upon the Blood Curse Court's top-ranked wizard candidate seed, Graeme Stein.

Patty looked at Graeme Stein's face, brutal and his temperament as volatile as weather, and felt a bitterness in her heart beyond words. She stepped forward within the carriage and said, "Lord Stein, all of the magical materials you require for the ritual have been prepared. They are right here."

She held out a tray bearing the still-beating hearts of various creatures.

Stein gave a cold snort, picked up a still-beating ox heart from the center of the tray, and began chewing it in his mouth.

"The taste is quite good."

"I wonder what the heart of a weak and lowly white wizard like you would taste like."

Patty's face went pale, and she immediately knelt down with the tray held before her.

"Lord Stein... I served a formal wizard alchemist at Virdantia University. I have extensive knowledge of herb identification. My studies were in herbal identification. And what is more, I have considerable familiarity with a great many types of medicinal compounds. Having a blood thrall like me will certainly give you a greater advantage over the other wizard candidate seed lords."