Chapter 784: You Shall Be Called Ranger Nicholas Shaw!

Locke turned over in his mind how to absorb this world.

First, he would certainly need to continuously expand the forest in this world and then use the Forest Alliance Curse to maintain the connection here.

But if possible, he might also be able to set aside money in the southeastern quadrant to establish a private fund.

Locke thought back to the breeder competitions he had participated in during his apprentice days in the southeastern quadrant. At the time, his knowledge had been limited and Witch Sophia had also operated outside the established systems, so he had not applied for many internal academy funds.

In truth, however, Lilith’s Cottage had internally established a large number of funds, each created for various different purposes.

After all, as long as one had a sufficiently compelling reason to spend money, someone could always be found to provide it.

'To accelerate advancing to star ring wizard, thinking about it now, it still comes down to spending money, and it can be done in the form of lateral funds,' Locke reflected.

'If an entire academy's worth of students were thinking on my behalf and forging my own power system, the speed could undoubtedly be accelerated.'

But cultivating an entire academy from scratch would take far too long.

And that did not suit his current circumstances either.

And so if he could support the wizard academy he himself had come from, those wizards within it who were studying the Forest Sanctuary and researching the Myst’s Power, those people could be pressed into service in a pinch.

The best way to rally them would be to establish his own fund within the academy, or to set up a competition under his own name.

Just as the Silent Witch had done.

He could then make use of them to achieve his own purposes.

But all of this still required more careful thought.

At this moment, Locke sensed that the Burial Ground in the Louis Plane's core area had already begun to collapse.

Winter separated from death, and great swaths of death winter knights were able to find their rest.

At the same time, Wizard Berbel Morgan let out a wail above Locke's Forest Sanctuary. He stood atop the frost bone dragon and felt his own decline.

He still had hidden reserves, still had methods available.

Having lived for a thousand years, he had accumulated a fair body of research achievements across various subordinate wizard territories.

Even if all of it was the work of low-circle thinking, it could still assist him in this moment.

But the problem now was that he was simply too old.

He was already a thousand years old.

His soul, body, and spirit had all grown aged.

Now that his magic pressure was unstable, he simply could not find the time to deploy those methods.

Wizard Berbel Morgan said, "I hate this."

"I hate white wizards, and I hate black wizards."

"You all twisted my will. My will, my soul, Locke Augustine."

The wizard's robe on his body ignited, and a white bone-encrusted imperial edict floated in midair. Locke had seen this thing before. It was the Grand Sovereign's edict.

The moment it appeared, Locke directly used Pinellia and deployed the Second Circle spell model Summer Grass Mars Bewilderment, intending to prevent him from using it.

Locke had not even considered that he might be carrying a blank Grand Sovereign's edict.

That was the very thing capable of leaving special marks even upon the mysterious Stygian ancient tree, and of having created the ghost iron pillar, the core of five hundred years of the Ghost Sacred Order's ghost studies.

Beneath Wizard Berbel Morgan's robe, his skeletal frame was enveloped in his own green soul flames.

He let out an anguished cry.

"Locke Augustine, even in death I will not let you go. I will drag you down with me. Let us perish together. Ha ha ha, to take a white wizard prodigy with me in death may not be so bad after all."

Wizard Berbel Morgan reached into his own chest and removed a distinctive black-gleaming rib, then cast it toward the blank edict, looking at the young-souled Locke with an expression filled with envy.

"Request the Seal Minister to affix his seal. Request the Audit Court to affix its seal. Request the Central Minister to affix his seal. Request the Court Duke to affix his seal. Request the Bone Palace to affix its seal. Request the Censorate to affix its seal."

"Request the Ghost Palace to affix its seal. Request the Palace Lord to affix his seal. Request the Four Punishment Courts to affix their seals."

"Request the Grand Sovereign's decree."

Locke furrowed his brow, sensing that something had gone wrong. He swept Pinellia through the air, summoning summer magical power in an attempt to interrupt the Grand Sovereign's edict.

But the blazing red Mars flame his Pinellia had summoned merely hovered above the blank Grand Sovereign's edict, unable to approach it in the slightest.

"Ha ha ha..."

Wizard Berbel Morgan burst into laughter.

"Locke Augustine, you are finished. This is the Grand Sovereign's edict. How could low-circle wizards like you ever withstand it?"

Locke gave a cold snort.

"Since the Enlightenment Era, where are there any Grand Sovereign wizards left? I cannot stand this kind of mystification."

A sound came from behind the Grand Sovereign's edict.

Both Locke and Wizard Berbel Morgan were startled.

In the next instant, Wizard Berbel Morgan was overcome with wild joy.

"Bone Palace Lord, please have the Grand Sovereign affix his seal."

But unexpectedly, that voice seemed to completely ignore the already-declining Wizard Berbel Morgan, and addressed Locke instead. "Little young one from Golden Crown Mountain, you have quite the audacity. You say we are mystifying things? That is not entirely wrong."

"But what kind of righteous thing is your Golden Crown Mountain?"

"You are all nothing but relics of an old era."

"Your Golden Crown Mountain is also nothing more than a relic left over from the pure-blood age. We are in the same boat, you and I."

Locke felt his mind waver for a moment. The voice of that conversation seemed to contain some profound enchantment magic, and merely hearing it speak caused his spirit to tremble.

He felt an ancient power arriving from the distant past.

Moreover, from the words of the conversation, he perceived that the other party had mastered a great deal that he himself did not know.

For instance, when the other party said that everyone was a relic of an old era, there seemed to be something within that statement that he did not yet understand.

This caused him to involuntarily begin thinking over what the other party had said, wondering whether anything in it was correct.

In the next instant, the starlight of the Sacred Dragon Star appeared in Locke's heart and spirit. His gaze cleared, and he rebutted, "The age of modern magic can accommodate all things."

"The only difference is whether certain people are willing to enter the age of modern magic."

The voice that had appeared behind the edict seemed somewhat surprised.

"Not bad at all. You can actually resist my Undead Resonant Sound. Your willpower is impressive. Among the younger generation you are among the more outstanding."

"Ha. So it is the Sacred Dragon Star's inheritance. That is a magical power from the age of darkness. Young one, do not look down on the power of the past. How much of the power you currently carry on your body does not belong to the power of the past?"

"The past is the most powerful force in this world. Allow me to let you see this, the eternal world that our Pale Pilgrimage has envisioned and partially realized."

The power behind the edict seemed somewhat provoked by Locke's words about not being willing to enter the modern age of magic, and behind the edict a world began to unfold.

It was a world of the dead.

Not a single living creature.

Undead universities composed of various liches dotted that world. Within it could be seen countless undead of every conceivable kind.

The lich-king and the frost bone dragon were among the most ordinary of undead there.

Locke even saw undead Root Fields within that world.

There were also vast undead courts, their internal positions exceedingly complex and bureaucracy rampant, making it clear that this world still operated under a monarchical system.

The various undead universities were subordinate institutions established by the monarchs.

Though it was only a fleeting glimpse, Locke still managed to identify the undead from the Age of Stars, along with the special undead domain versions of various kingdom-class domains that had changed greatly over the passage of time yet still retained traces of their origins.

It was practically an eternal world of death.

The lich-wizards had transformed themselves into eternal beings, wielding wisdom and power, ruling that world forever.

They held dominion there, forever occupying their positions.

Time seemed never to have passed there at all.

Locke was deeply shaken. The other party dared to let him see it, which meant this would not be any kind of secret to a Second Circle wizard.

That was very likely the true face of the Pale Pilgrimage's black wizard world.

And what interested Locke even more was this: he had only glimpsed the Pale Pilgrimage Hidden Spirit Ground from a distance, but that place appeared to have many things similar to kingdom-class domains, yet different.

The tiger's eye appeared on Locke's forehead. The Three-Eyed Tiger Cat's insight enhanced his foundational Second Circle wizard vision, causing that eternal empire's territory to begin to blur within Locke's field of sight.

That world resolved into one circle-like domain after another.

Each circle resembled a kingdom-class domain.

But with differences.

The entire Pale Pilgrimage world appeared to be composed of those circles stacked upon one another.

So that was the Pale Pilgrimage.

No wonder it was one of the great strongholds of necromancers.

Circles stacked upon circles, forming an eternally unchanging static world. With only that fleeting glimpse, seeing only the tip of the iceberg, Locke was already able to sense the grandeur and magnificence of that world.

And that eternally unchanging world.

The voice behind the edict appeared.

"Locke Augustine, I can see that you too are a person of talent. How about this. Look at Berbel Morgan. In his past life he was a white wizard, only an ordinary First Circle wizard, who lived to five hundred years of age."

"After his death, he lived a second life within our Pale Pilgrimage."

"You can continue being a white wizard for now, pursuing truth within your white wizard universities. But if one day you die, you can enter our Pale Pilgrimage after death and live a second life."

"How about it? This deal is surely a guaranteed gain for you, is it not?"

"If you join our Pale Pilgrimage, I will grant you the Bone Palace's rank of Grand Death Knight General, which is higher than Berbel Morgan's mere Lich General rank."

"A Lich General commands only one undead catastrophe. A Grand Death Knight General commands ten lich-kings and ten undead catastrophes."

"This is my investment in your future. As you are now, you are far from worthy of this official rank."

Wizard Berbel Morgan was dumbfounded. He had intended, after Locke dismantled his Grand Magic, to use the blank edict to trade one-for-one with Locke. But the Palace Lord had apparently taken a liking to the other party and actually promised to receive him into the Pale Pilgrimage after his death.

This left Wizard Berbel Morgan with a helpless sense of betrayal.

He had guarded the southeastern quadrant for the Pale Pilgrimage for hundreds of years, working diligently to cultivate leeks here for them. Could they not at least satisfy this single modest wish of his?

Locke, seeing the other party propose a deal, gave it serious thought. The rule in white wizard society was that whenever anyone proposed a deal, no matter who they were, one was obliged to think carefully about whether it was profitable.

Making a profit was nothing to be ashamed of.

Locke asked, "In your Pale Pilgrimage, what is the price for living a second life?"

The Palace Lord said, "Your soul belongs to the Pale Grand Sovereign forever. And your second life must be completely obedient to the Grand Sovereign. The Grand Sovereign's interests take precedence over yours. Your undead catastrophe is a part of the Grand Sovereign's undead court."

Locke said, "That will not do. I would be at a loss."

As a white wizard, Locke immediately saw through the other party's trick.

After a wizard died, there was already a normal cycle of life and death available, allowing for reincarnation.

Joining the Pale Pilgrimage would be equivalent to walking voluntarily into someone else's soul-catching banner.

This was supposed to be living a second life?

This was being enslaved by a high-ranking necromancer through undead magic.

'The Pale Grand Sovereign must have studied at a white wizard university, to describe something this cruel as living a second life.'

'Anyone of insufficient intelligence might be deceived by this.'

Setting aside the fact that becoming a Third Circle wizard brought with it the privilege of several lifetimes without spiritual decline and ancestral blessings, along with a special crown magic lasting ten lifetimes, even a sun ring wizard apparently enjoyed certain reincarnation privileges.

And moreover, simply becoming a formal wizard granted one the privilege of reincarnating with one's soul intact rather than having it dissolve.

This was the same whether one was a First Circle wizard or a Second Circle wizard.

An ordinary soul, upon reincarnation, might need to dissolve like matter being shattered into fragments before reincarnating, recombining with other soul fragments to form a new soul.

For a First Circle wizard's reincarnation, the great majority of the soul could generally remain intact, though everything reset from the beginning.

For a Second Circle wizard's reincarnation, the complete integrity of the soul could be essentially guaranteed, though again everything had to be wiped clean and started from scratch.

It was said that from the sun ring wizard stage onward, a trace of magical force could persist through reincarnation, while a Third Circle wizard's reincarnation even carried the crown magic along with it, allowing the blessings of ten lifetimes to be enjoyed.

And so the Pale Pilgrimage's terms were only truly enticing to ordinary people and apprentices. For a First Circle wizard, it appeared advantageous but was in reality a significant drawback. For any Second Circle wizard, it was simply absurd.

To say nothing of what it meant for someone like him, who aspired to become a high-circle wizard.

The Palace Lord behind the edict did not seem offended.

"No matter. The young are far from death. You still have a great deal of time ahead of you."

"One day I will come and ask you again."

The Palace Lord finally spoke to Wizard Berbel Morgan.

"The blank edict was not given to you for you to sacrifice your own life, activate the edict, and use it to kill a mere ordinary Second Circle wizard."

"That edict was for you to use against the Forbidden Forest's master."

"Berbel Morgan, you are foolish. Do you have any idea how many resources of the Pale Pilgrimage a single blank edict costs?"

Wizard Berbel Morgan clenched his teeth.

"But Locke Augustine has been advancing too rapidly. He is a dangerous white wizard. He comes from the southeastern quadrant and in less than five years went from a First Circle wizard to a Second Circle wizard."

"He is dangerous."

The Palace Lord let out a contemptuous laugh.

"And so what? We do not care."

"You are ultimately a low-circle wizard, and your view of things is incomplete."

"All people die eventually. No matter how capable he is, can he avoid death? Every living person is nothing more than a potential ally of ours. We do not fear these enemies."

"You, on the other hand, used the Grand Sovereign's edict on someone other than the Forbidden Forest's master. Had I not stopped you, the Grand Sovereign might well have been moved to fury, and then commanded the three institutions to audit us simultaneously. When His Majesty rages, ten thousand corpse-subjects submit."

"Berbel Morgan, your application for seals was not in accordance with proper procedure, and so it was rejected by me. You wanted nine institutions to seal it for you, to have it pass as a Grand Sovereign's edict?"

The Palace Lord said, "Do not even think about it."

Locke was left standing to one side in momentary stupefaction.

Nine institutions?

Before it had been six.

Good grief, had the bureaucracy grown even more elaborate over these five hundred years?

The Pale Pilgrimage's bureaucratic culture was quite severe.

Locke felt somewhat speechless. It seemed that even setting aside the various drawbacks of living a second life in the Pale Pilgrimage, he could never go there. He simply did not like a place so suffused with death and stagnation.

Still, what exactly was the connection between the Pale Pilgrimage and the lich-kings of the Age of Stars?

Was there a relationship between the two?

The Palace Lord commanded, "Lich General, your magic pressure has declined. You must use the Grand Sovereign's edict correctly, in accordance with the edict His Majesty entrusted to you."

Wizard Berbel Morgan immediately understood something.

In the present world, his main body knelt down in the direction of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands. This left everyone watching, whether the White Wizard Association's white wizards who had come to support or the black wizards still present, thoroughly bewildered.

Wizard Berbel Morgan, kneeling, said, "Please let the Grand Sovereign issue his decree."

In that instant, both his avatar and his main body collapsed completely.

At the same time, Locke's partial consciousness in the Louis World watched the blank edict disappear, and the Palace Lord's voice appeared in Locke's ear.

"Heh heh... young outstanding wizard of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands."

"The Pale Pilgrimage's doors will always be open to you. The next time you face the brink of death, I will come to receive you and give you a second chance to choose."

Locke gave a cold snort, his gaze indifferent.

They had set their sights on him.

But he was nothing like the Wizard Berbel Morgan who had come to nothing.

Locke was not afraid. After all, Golden Crown Mountain and the Pale Pilgrimage were organizations of equivalent standing.

The Pale Pilgrimage was one of the great strongholds of necromancers. And what was Golden Crown Mountain, if not one of the finest high-efficiency agricultural universities in the Eastern Border Region?

They were in the same boat.

He had people behind him.

A wizard from a small organization being targeted by such a vast organization might have cause to panic.

But Locke had fallen into thought. 'The world I saw had indeed made extensive use of kingdom-class domain technology. Only more advanced.'

'Yet the Pale Pilgrimage is a world of eternal stasis. They are not likely to achieve technological advancement. If my guess is correct, the Pale Pilgrimage must have its own wizard university somewhere in the wizard world.'

'Only it is very probably not in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands. Otherwise their technological advancement cannot be explained.'

Locke picked up on this sharply.

Could it be that among the Cloud Marsh Wetlands' seven top universities, one of them was the Pale Pilgrimage's?

No.

None of the seven top universities specialized in undead research.

Could it be in the Southern Wizard Capital?

Locke shook his head slightly.

Never mind. This matter had little to do with him. He was not a high-circle wizard and had no need to concern himself with problems of that scale.

He should focus on himself first, and think about his own projects.

"Berbel is dead. The black wizard alliance's operation in the present world can be counted as a failure."

Locke reflected, "Although I became involved without intending to, I have still disrupted one of the Pale Pilgrimage's operations. And there seems to have been a Rose Council scheme intertwined with this as well."

"Now that Berbel is dead, the world channel will close before long. I must use this time to rapidly expand the forest and stabilize this world."

"Otherwise, this world war will have been fought for nothing."

Locke appeared in the Louis World's collapsing Burial Ground and placed his palm upon the three winter plum trees. Then he activated the synthesis function of the synthesis magic cube.

In the next instant, the three winter plum trees began to be synthesized.

Since becoming a Second Circle wizard, the synthesis magic cube's capabilities had also undergone a tremendous upgrade. Not only could it synthesize Tier 8 items, it could now also synthesize Tier 9 and Tier 10 items.

At this moment the three winter plum trees were designated as Tier 9 items.

Under the previous version of the magic cube this synthesis would certainly have been impossible, but the current cube could synthesize Tier 10 items and so was still capable of it.

The three winter plum trees began to synthesize.

The rate of time's passage in the Louis Plane and the wizard world was different, and this calculation was very difficult, because the ratio between the two was not fixed. It had a great deal to do with the gradient of magical tide concentration: the higher the gradient, the slower time flowed, while the lower the gradient, the faster time flowed.

Time was ultimately a subjective thing. In essence what was called the passage of time was the pace of the sun and moon's alternation, the rate of material decay, the perception of the rate at which things changed.

The lower the magical tide concentration gradient, the lower the world's level, and the faster time flowed.

But previously, because of Wizard Berbel's presence, this world's time flow had been very close to that of the wizard world.

Because of his existence, the time flows of the two worlds had been continuously approaching each other.

Now that he was dead, the Louis Plane's time flow, which had been forcibly tethered, returned to its natural rate. Only five minutes in the wizard world, and a full day had passed here.

The Louis Plane.

Locke sensed that after Wizard Berbel's death, this world's magical tide concentration gradient was continuously declining.

Wizard Berbel's existence had been a double-edged sword for this world.

On one hand it had nearly turned a living plane into an undead plane. On the other it had raised the plane's magical tide concentration gradient and overall level.

Now, as his Grand Magic collapsed, this world was returning to its original state.

After all, the reason time flowed so quickly here in the first place was precisely that this world's magical tide concentration gradient was relatively low.

'I still age at the wizard world's rate,' Locke realized.

'There are truly still so many things about this world I do not understand.'

"In this way, my lifespan in this world has somehow increased by over a hundred times."

Locke's expression was odd.

"Though it is not meaningful. Because once the magical tide concentration gradient drops, the things I can do here are limited."

"It could even cause my power to decline."

"Of course, as long as I cultivate forest here and raise the magical tide concentration gradient, the time flow can align with that of the wizard world."

"The study of time is truly complex, and plane studies is an even deeper knowledge system."

Locke used the Moon of Evolution to continuously catalyze the forest, allowing this world to be covered in vegetation once more, in order to reach the minimum conditions for a stable Forest Alliance Curse to form.

If he simply left now, this world would be lost.

And so he had to immediately expand the forest and consolidate his victory.

"Need to accelerate."

Locke looked at his native student in this world, the human youth. "What is your name?"

The human youth paused. "Teacher, my father called me Dogwhelp."

"He said a humble name brings hardiness, that growing up with a strong body would make me the best hunter in the tribe."

Locke shook his head slightly.

"You have grown up and become the hero who saved this world. That evil undead will not appear again. From today you are my student."

"I will teach you how to connect with nature, understand this world, and how to guard this forest. You need a proper name."

The human youth said to Locke, "Please, teacher, give me a name."

Locke thought for a moment and said, "We will use a name common in my world. You can be called Nicholas Shaw."

'Teaching him knowledge and making him a wizard is not possible. That would only be replicating the wizard world's power system, and this place is the place where my Grand Magic's derivative world exists.'

'I need to modify it, creating a power that belongs to myself. But that is not something achieved in a single day or night. I shall use this native apprentice as an experiment.'

Locke said to Nicholas Shaw, "Shaw, I am a Ranger. I will make you the first Ranger in this world."

Locke thought of the forest guardians from his previous life, the rangers, and casually gave his power system a name.

After all, it was just a name.

The important thing was the power system within it.

And regarding the important thing.

He had not yet worked it out. For now it was still a blank.

He had still read too few papers.

On returning, he would have his avatar go to the library to read documents every single day.