Chapter 833: The Planar Natural Origin Force Bestows Favor! Evolution, Evolution!

Cloud Marsh Wetlands, Golden Crown Mountain.

Locke first requested the remaining research funds from the Small Breath Cup events committee office through the water hyacinth system, then began preparing to verify his hypothesis about why the Golden Foxtail Grass could re-evolve.

The Small Breath Cup side still had over four million magic stones unused, and Locke requested that entire sum at once.

The Small Breath Cup events committee office staff was quite straightforward about it, agreeing to transfer it that very afternoon.

Presumably they felt that given his identity, he was unlikely to default.

After all, there was also his senior acting as guarantor.

That afternoon, Locke received the funds and immediately went to the market, purchasing large quantities of experiment-related consumables.

At the same time, Locke ran into Antoine, who had just returned, in the Blood Dragon Assembly market.

Locke was briefly taken aback, because Antoine was already a Second Circle wizard with a magic pressure of around eleven thousand.

Antoine walked over and greeted Locke proactively.

"Long time no see, Locke. Surprised to see me as a Second Circle wizard?"

Twenty-four gold coins floated behind Antoine, constantly shifting in midair, as though operating according to some magical formation.

No, wait.

Locke focused his attention and saw a Spiritual Resonance resembling some kind of tiger-type magical creature.

'Right. Antoine, in addition to being an energy-shaping wizard, is also an object-control wizard among alchemists. I should have realized long ago that Spiritual Resonance is the hidden true form of things, so alchemists would certainly use Spiritual Resonance as well. Because alchemical materials also involve the hidden true forms of all things.'

'Of course, looking at how Antoine uses his Spiritual Resonance, it seems different from how Spiritual Resonance studies is used in potion studies. That is to say, alchemists and potion wizards use Spiritual Resonance in different ways, constituting two different Spiritual Resonance studies.'

'This means Spiritual Resonance studies is even more vast than I had imagined.'

Locke increasingly felt that the more one knew, the more one realized how much one did not yet understand.

Locke said to Antoine, "Not at all. I have great confidence in your abilities. When you helped me quite a bit during the Silent Chalice."

"You becoming a Second Circle wizard is only natural."

To put it plainly, you are a Third Circle wizard's reincarnation. Even if reduced to humble circumstances, surely you would not fail to reach Second Circle?

Antoine curved the corner of his mouth. Ever since losing to Locke once before, he had been very attentive to Locke's evaluation of him.

Antoine said, "I did not really help you much during the Silent Chalice."

Locke said, "I know."

Antoine looked at Locke in surprise.

"At that time I wanted to see the limits of your ability. Though, contrary to my expectations, you still won the championship."

"Locke, you must be under quite a bit of pressure lately."

"Wizard Brandy said you have been troubled recently trying to find a special-grade grant project. Didn't you two run into each other once? It seems you two even chatted privately."

Antoine said, "And it is not only the competitive pressure of next year's special-grade grant. The ripple effects from the lineage struggle between the Red Dragon Throne and the Rose Throne should also be reaching you."

"Looking at it this way, your pressure must be coming from both within and without."

Locke looked at Antoine in surprise. The two walked side by side along the Blood Dragon Assembly's street, like two old friends who had not seen each other for a long time, catching up slowly.

Locke immediately realized that simply having met Wizard Brandy once before had been noticed by an observant party, and Wizard Brandy had used that one private conversation to immediately start spreading rumors about him.

Antoine was hinting at this in a roundabout way.

Of course he could not say it outright, because he could not be certain whether Wizard Brandy was actually spreading rumors.

Locke frowned. It seemed his earlier approach of keeping his distance from both Brandy and Zhuoma had been exactly right.

My goodness. He had only met Wizard Brandy privately once, and this fellow could already be spreading rumors everywhere.

Outrageous.

'Why would teacher take on a student like this? Teacher is sharp-eyed and sees far ahead. Given her personality of not tolerating even a grain of sand in her eye, she should not be deliberately accepting students like Brandy and Wizard Zhuoma. Or could it be that their talent alone was enough to attract teacher?'

But that did not seem right.

Golden Crown Mountain was not short of geniuses.

The moment a Golden Crown Mountain researcher position was opened, it would instantly be snapped up.

Locke's heart fell into puzzlement. He shook his head, deciding not to think about this problem.

High-circle wizards' thinking was something he might not understand.

After all, he lacked far too much information.

Locke looked at Antoine and said to him, "No, that was before. I recently found the key to breaking through."

Locke raised the Golden Foxtail Grass specimen in his hand.

"This is the starting point. Right now I am not short on projects or ideas."

As long as atavistic evolution was completed, he could take the Small Breath Cup, then use atavistic evolution to complete his earlier ideas for the flying magical plant and enter the Golden Cup.

Then, using atavistic evolution, he could carry out a series of experiments related to evolutionary studies, and these experiments would directly advance his understanding of the power system, thereby accelerating the forging of his Grand Magic.

Finally, he could use this as a starting point to find a project eligible for the special-grade grant application.

Additionally, atavistic evolution could also feed back into the Second Circle wizard shoes, taking his shoes to an even higher level. Because atavistic evolution and the Lunar Cultivation Method could be combined.

One could say that from the moment he received the specimen from Throne Wizard Russell of the Twilight Border, he had possessed the capital to hold his ground both externally, in the wizard shoe small-theater battle of the lineage war, and internally, among the Second Circle wizard group of the Origin Academy.

Antoine folded his arms across his chest and looked at the Golden Foxtail Grass specimen in Locke's hand.

"This confident? It is just an ordinary blade of grass. I cannot see why you are this confident. Never mind, I have in my hands the preliminary experimental data from a complete set of projects ranging from First Circle to Second Circle to Third Circle that I left behind when I was a Third Circle wizard."

"It seems that before I reincarnated, I had already prepared contingency plans in advance."

"Had everything arranged for myself."

Locke was briefly taken aback.

"You old reincarnated types really have a lot of contingency plans."

Antoine curved the corner of his mouth and looked sideways at Locke.

"You call me an old reincarnated type? I think you might be one too."

Locke waved his hand.

"I am who I am. This is my first... lifetime."

Locke frowned, because strictly speaking, this was not his first lifetime.

Antoine looked at Locke in surprise.

"You actually hesitated?"

"It seems you really do have secrets."

Locke said with an expressionless face, "No, you are misunderstanding."

Antoine looked deeply at Locke.

"Many high-circle wizards, after reincarnating, if they have not arranged people to receive them, may find themselves in the awkward situation of not knowing their own identity for a very long time."

"There are also more complex situations. Higher-circle wizards can even send their clone into a reincarnation."

Antoine said, "But I am telling you all this simply to tell you, I can also now apply for the special-grade grant, and I am also a senior researcher. That means next year's special-grade grant application, I will also be entering. And I have in my hands a project that my previous life specifically arranged for me."

"That is to say, up to this point, everything in my development has been following the plan my previous life laid out for me. Including the project I am about to enter in a competition. That is the first Second Circle grant project custom-made for me by my previous self."

Locke frowned.

No wonder Antoine had previously had that kind of personality, or rather had deliberately put on that personality.

Besides concealing his reincarnated identity and helping calculate and counter-scheme against the Academic Committee, it was also probably because while others were living difficult lives, he was playing a game where everyone else was an NPC to be ground through.

For him, simply following the plan his Third Circle wizard self had laid out, without doing anything else, was enough to surpass many geniuses.

Antoine curved the corner of his mouth. "How has the worry set in? Locke, this time I am going to beat you soundly. Hey, Locke, I have not finished speaking, why have you already walked away?"

Antoine was quite baffled looking at Locke suddenly speed up and move away.

If it had been anyone else, he would have been angry long ago.

But facing Locke, Antoine smiled ruefully, then flagged down a passing magical carriage on the street.

"How does this fellow come across as even more aloof than me."

Antoine raised his chin and looked at the driver wizard. "I, Antoine, have the Fischer family paying for me."

Inside the magical carriage, Antoine looked out the window and thought, "But now it seems I cannot fully trust my previous life. My previous life had already negotiated plans with the Fischer family elders, and yet at the magical combat competition, I, with both object-control and energy-shaping wizard identities, still lost to an outside wizard casually recruited by the Red Dragon Throne."

"After the Star Domain Sea's high-magic plan, everything changed. Old orders, in the face of ever-rising magical tides, seem to be becoming unreliable. Geniuses grow more numerous by the day."

"Can those plans my previous self laid out for me truly be trusted? If I only bring out the level of the application proposal my previous self prepared, can that really secure next year's special-grade grant?"

"Brandy, Zhuoma, Zeno, none of them are easy to deal with. And then there is Locke on top of that."

Antoine thought it through seriously.

On the other side, Locke walked along the street, thinking, 'I had not expected it. I missed a rival. This Antoine fellow will also be joining next year's competition.'

'Applying for vertical grants in the Second Circle world is harder than I had imagined. But there is no need to worry. I will deal with change with consistency. No matter how the outside world changes, as long as I keep moving forward step by step, I can obtain next year's special-grade grant.'

In the wizard world, one step behind meant every step behind.

He had no desire to wait another year for the special-grade grant.

So next year's special-grade grant was something he absolutely had to have.

Because he needed to become a star ring wizard as fast as possible.

'The wizards who participate in the Star Domain Sea's grand examination are generally at sun ring level, but a small number of exceptional moon ring wizards can also go. And Teacher Sophia, for unknown reasons, participated in the grand examination early.'

'Once Teacher Sophia passes the examination on her side, perhaps I can use the last opportunity for contact to try to reach her.'

'Then, based on the situation, judge at what stage I should enter the Star Domain Sea's grand examination to obtain a top faculty position.'

'But regardless, the younger the better. The grand examination tests not only ranking but also a comprehensive score. Among the criteria, credentials and age are both bonus factors.'

Locke understood why this was so.

For the wizard world, the younger a Second Circle wizard, the more limitless their possibilities naturally appeared to be, representing greater potential.

So for the wizard world, age was a watershed.

This was actually already visible in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, where the researchers in Golden Crown Mountain's Origin Academy were all young people because of the age cutoff.

And if he wanted to pursue top-level faculty positions, he would automatically enter the growth track of the wizard world's top-tier geniuses.

Of course, for truly gifted people, even if they accidentally fell off this track, there should be ways to find other tracks.

It was just that this track was the wizard world's most important path of advancement.

One that could take a wizard from a lower wizard territory all the way to a top-tier wizard university in a leader wizard territory.

Having come this far with the most complete resources available, he should do his best not to fall off this track.

Locke summoned his Rainbow Sparrow and headed toward his dormitory. At the same time he decided he could give those three black wizards a conclusion now.

...

The Heidelberg Plane. Locke's main body stood outside the Heidelberg Plane's crystal wall system.

At this moment, because the world was under the impact of four Grand Magics, the time flow rate was unstable, and this world's time flow had begun to accelerate.

Standing in the void outside, looking down at the Heidelberg Plane from above, one could see that this plane was a fairly traditional spherical planet-type plane.

Just like the Louis Plane.

At this point, one year had passed in the Heidelberg Plane, corresponding to one week having passed in the wizard world.

The Heidelberg Plane's Rangers had grown to an organization of around a hundred thousand people, and the Power Leaves Locke had produced had reached one hundred and thirty thousand in number.

Nearly eighty percent of the Heidelberg Plane's plants had been taken into the Moon of Evolution's ecological community.

The three black wizards, fighting each other on one hand while trying to resist Locke on the other, had been retreating step by step as a result. The church in the plane, along with the vampires disguised as high officials, kings, and great nobles, were being tracked down by the Rangers one by one, their heads chopped off.

For a time, the vampires in the Heidelberg Plane had actually become a marginalized group.

Because of the Rangers' human identities, they won the goodwill of the human population, and humans spontaneously launched a movement to overturn the church and slay vampires.

At the same time, the starlight of the Sacred Dragon Star appeared in this world.

Because part of the foundational spell model of the Moon of Evolution was the Peach Bow and Thorn Arrow, during the transformation sweeping the entire world, the Sacred Dragon Star's starlight naturally descended.

And Locke's magic pressure, absorbing this starlight, actually began to rise slowly.

In just this short one-week period, it had increased by seven points.

This was a result that might originally have required seven months of advanced meditation to achieve.

"Fighting black wizards really does bring so much gain. Ordinary white wizards would find it difficult to make a world suffer divine wrath, and would readily align with me rather than oppress an entire world's ordinary people, becoming enemies of everyone."

Locke was nearly at a loss for words.

After all this, it turned out that hunting black wizards was a fast track to advancing for him.

At this point, in the Heidelberg Plane, the vampires' territory had almost none left. They had completely retreated and were probably down to only a few tens of thousands, all holed up on the Mountain of Light.

The Rangers organized themselves, intending to conduct a final sweep of the mountain to completely exterminate the vampire group.

At this point, the Heidelberg Plane suddenly saw three saintly avatars descend, belonging to the three black wizards respectively. They seemed to have been driven into a desperate corner and used their last resort, forcing their saintly avatars to descend.

The Rangers, facing these three black wizards who had descended into this world like gods and demons, all had their expressions grow solemn.

The enormous magic pressure enveloped them.

The Rangers, one by one, turned pale, like unclothed people walking across an ice field on a winter day.

At this moment, they felt more fragile than infants.

And Jack and Susan, now the leaders of the Rangers, turned to face the Rangers and called out, "Everyone, do not be afraid."

"Did we not become Rangers precisely to resist those monsters and protect the forest?"

"From the beginning, those monsters were more powerful than us. Only gradually did we reverse the power balance. Now they have descended with even greater power, merely returning us to the situation we started from. But we were prepared from the beginning to pick up our weapons and fight against existences far more powerful than us."

"So there is no need for fear. Our numbers are many, and as long as we work together, we can defeat those three demon gods."

The saintly avatar of one of the black wizards, the six-eyed, six-winged Blood Progenitor True Form, heard these words and let out a snort.

"You know nothing. A mere native, claiming to be able to defeat us?"

"How laughable."

"I might laugh myself to death. How can someone so naive exist?"

That Blood Progenitor True Form floated toward them, like a mountain pressing down toward everyone's heads. A magic pressure full of malice pressed toward them like a storm of blood and violence.

"Numbers have no meaning."

"Natives. We are high-order existences transcending ordinary people."

"Fundamentally different from every vampire you have faced up to now. We three are the origins of the vampires in this world. You could say we are Blood Progenitors."

"Experience despair, mortals. You are so small, like a tiny speck of dust in a tempest, no, you are not even worthy of being dust."

A powerful magic pressure swept toward them. Mixed within the magic pressure wind was terrible curse power, aimed at sacrificially killing all hundred thousand Rangers in one sweep.

The other two black wizards' eyes flickered.

They had been utterly defeated in this ecological community battle, and had been forced to play their last trump card, the saintly descent.

In truth, they were the ones who had been driven to their last stand.

But they did not understand why, even at this stage, Locke still had not made his move.

His Grand Magic, that moon, and that forest, should have accumulated enough total magic pressure.

He could descend as a saint at any time.

All three of their Grand Magics had already shrunk to nearly their minimum scale!

At this moment, all three were in extreme weakness.

They were only performing for the natives.

That black wizard's eyes turned vicious. If Locke still did not make his move, he had absolutely no objections to killing these ordinary people.

After all, these ordinary people were lifeforms of their plane.

Ones Locke had completely poached away from them.

Within the curse wind, the Rangers staggered and swayed. Ranger Jack gritted his teeth.

"No. Along the way, Susan and I, everyone, and the forest, we all won. This is the final stretch."

He looked at the five Power Leaves in his hand.

"The Master Treeman said we are not fighting alone. These Power Leaves fight alongside us in every battle. So never feel that you are fighting on your own."

At this moment, the curse power was turning the skin across Jack's entire body a sickly black.

His consciousness began to scatter.

"Everyone, the forest."

"At this moment, the only thing I can trust is the forest, and the Power Leaves in my hand."

Jack, his consciousness drifting, passed in rapid review through all the events of the past year and more. He had seen vampires disguised as kings sitting on thrones issuing commands, vampires disguised as dukes, vampires disguised as archbishops, all wearing masks of righteousness, when in truth they were nothing but vampires.

Then he realized that among so many illusory existences, only the forest was this real.

He had originally been a low-rank noble knight's squire raised in a strict knight's education, fighting for the honor of his overlords.

But he no longer wished to walk into that hierarchy.

It was full of deception and cunning.

Walking in the forest, he could touch reality and see things from a more objective perspective.

He wanted to fight for the right to protect humanity's harmonious coexistence with nature.

He wanted to protect those behind him.

He wanted to fire his arrows at those vampires who had usurped high positions and force them to return the rights that should have belonged to the people.

"I place all my trust, entirely, in you, comrade."

Jack looked at the five Power Leaves in his palm.

"Help me once more, defeat the enemy."

"As long as they are vampires, I can shoot them dead with the bow and arrows in my hand."

A jade-green luminescence appeared across Jack's body. The black fading from his skin began to recede. The Power Leaf bearing the Path of the Sworn Enemy in his left hand actually began to evolve.

An arrow wrapped in vines and grass flew toward that black wizard.

Boom.

The arrow actually struck the Blood Progenitor True Form's body.

A jet of black blood erupted from that black wizard's chest.

"Impossible. A native, a mere apprentice trick. How could it possibly harm me!"

"What is this force?"

The black wizard immediately flew into a rage and was about to raise his arm to crush the Ranger natives before him with his Blood Progenitor True Form.

But the next moment, his eyes went wide. Because, one after another, the leaves in the Rangers' hands lit up with jade-green luminescence.

Then, these hundred thousand Rangers' auras connected with one another. Every battle-hardened Ranger warrior was like a single tree in a vast forest.

A hundred thousand Rangers formed an enormous forest.

This forest was part of Locke's Forest Sanctuary.

As individuals, they were small before the Second Circle wizard who had fallen to his lowest point. But as members of a vast forest, they all belonged to that enormous forest.

And the total magic pressure of Locke's Forest Sanctuary at this moment was several times greater than all these black wizards' magic pressure combined.

So, before these Rangers, this Second Circle black wizard's magic pressure was actually being suppressed in return!

This Second Circle wizard's pupils contracted sharply.

"What the hell. Locke Augustine, Eye Demon Wizard. What manner of being are you."

Above the forest formed by the Rangers, a gentle breeze arose, the natural wind. The trees and leaves rustled in this golden natural wind, and in this moment, Locke descended his saintly avatar.

The instant he descended, that Second Circle black wizard's body directly collapsed and exploded.

One Second Circle black wizard's saintly avatar was blown apart by Locke in an instant.

And Locke turned to look at Jack, and the Power Leaf in his hand.

'How extraordinary. In that instant, the Power Leaf resonated with this native boy. That Power Leaf carrying my simplified version of the beast panel seems different from the other Power Leaves. He triggered the favor of the planar natural origin force's will.'

'Though it lasted only for an instant, and it was through me as a medium. That is to say, in the eyes of the planar natural origin force, he counts as my student?'

'In that instant, he borrowed the beast panel on my side to augment his own magic pressure. This is the only way it would have been possible to harm the Blood Progenitor True Form.'

'Of course, the prerequisite for borrowing was obtaining my permission. The beast panel is indeed special.'

Locke now realized that through the Power Leaves, he had connected his Moon of Evolution, Forest Sanctuary, and beast panel, that is, the three foundations of his power, together.

And the Power Leaf carrying the beast panel, that is, the core power of a Nature Guardian, seemed to possess some powerful evolutionary ability, and had resonated with Jack.

At this moment, Jack, having borne power too immense for him, had cracked skin all over his body and his soul had nearly completely shattered.

He looked at Locke, and before losing consciousness, said to Locke, "Master Treeman, is this your true form? Thank you for giving me power."

Locke caught him.

"Good child, it is I who should thank you."

The Power Leaves in Jack's hand scattered across the ground.

And the Power Leaf: Path of the Sworn Enemy had at this moment grown from 0.1 circle to 0.3 circle.

"This child's conviction actually caused my Power Leaf to evolve to this extent."

Locke's expression shifted slightly.

"Without my intervention, without my modification. The power system I designed has, through self-iteration, broken through its own upper limit, possessing a 0.3 circle spell."

"Is it because of the beast's power?"

"This is almost a characteristic that only a mature power system can possess."

He could feel that the beggar-version beast panel previously on that leaf had only been superficially imitative, but after Jack resonated with the Power Leaf, the evolved Path of the Sworn Enemy had truly entered his power system.

"Who would have thought, accidentally and inadvertently, this would actually cause the beast's power to truly enter this power system. I had originally only wanted to use it against those vampires."

"My Power Leaves seem to have integrated the powers of the Nature Guardian and the Grand Magic."

Locke had only intended it as an experiment. Who would have thought he seemed to have inadvertently produced something remarkable.