Chapter 834: Contemplating a Second Grand Magic and the Clear Sky Wizard Stone

Locke passed his hand over Jack's face. A trace of Primordial Fire appeared and suffused Jack's entire body. His injuries rapidly vanished under the action of the reverse alchemy refinement method. Both his physical body and his soul, after being burned and treated by the Primordial Fire according to the Reverse Refinement Method , were restored to normal.

It was just that Jack remained unconscious, clearly not yet recovered from the exhaustion of pushing himself to his absolute limit in the battle.

Locke guessed it was probably the heart's abyss, the crucial component of the soul, that had consumed something.

Or perhaps some other deeper internal soul structure issue.

Of course, by now, through the Reverse Refinement Method , he had extracted Jack's spirituality, restored it all at once, and then converted it all back to its original state. It was equivalent to directly shutting down and rebooting, so Jack was no longer in danger and would only need to sleep through the night.

Not far away, the saintly avatars of the two remaining black wizards were stuck in an awkward position, afraid to attack but with nowhere to flee.

The saintly avatar of one black wizard attempted to invoke the name of the Pale Pilgrimage.

"We are wizards of the Pale Pilgrimage. You cannot..."

The next moment, his saintly avatar's body was blown open with a massive hole. A jade-green fern spear formed from a Second Circle climbing fern pierced entirely through his upper body, completely ignoring the Blood Progenitor True Form's defenses and recovery ability, and in an instant shredded him entirely into fragments.

Second Circle fern spear combined with the World Tree Leaf's energy concentration!

The crystalline jade-green fern spear's body also bore a ring of jade-green leaves.

The last black wizard's saintly avatar let out a furious roar.

"No."

His Blood Progenitor True Form's hands came together, gripping that Second Circle fern spear in its concentrated energy state to try to halt its approach. The fern spear still drove into his abdomen.

He was clearly the strongest of the three black wizards.

At this moment, he recited a spell. The blood that had spilled from the shattered Blood Progenitor True Forms of his two predecessors, scattered across the ground and air, came dripping one by one toward him.

Blood tentacles swirled around his body, and like octopus arms seizing prey, they coiled around his body. The Sacred Blood Ritual Hand sacrificed all the bloodline power of the two Blood Progenitor True Form saintly avatars to him, augmenting his saintly avatar.

Throughout the Heidelberg Plane's year-plus duration of battle, he had been the final winner of the internal conflicts. In the chain of suspicion and infighting among the three black wizards, he had buried the most contingency plans and, after Locke crushed the other two, had in fact taken a portion of their power to strengthen himself.

Unfortunately, before that, Locke had worn away most of the three people's total magic pressure and magic pressure strength.

So even so, he could at most display the expected capabilities of an ordinary Second Circle wizard with ten thousand magic pressure.

This black wizard's vampire Blood Progenitor True Form face was covered in foul blood. He had almost bitten through his own fangs. His body was bent like a bow, even the three pairs of bat wings on his back were beating furiously, his feet floating in midair, spell models appearing behind his feet trying to stop his backward slide.

The magical artifacts on his hands and body cracked apart one after another.

On the Mountain of Light's summit, among the three World-Stealing Celestial Rituals, a stone cup in one ritual center cracked.

Natural magical force leaked through the crack.

Then, with a despairing scream, this black wizard's stone cup completely shattered.

In an instant, his saintly avatar, along with his World-Stealing Celestial Ritual, were completely destroyed.

His saintly avatar was pierced through by the Second Circle fern spear, and then his pupils suddenly contracted. His body became a lingering shadow in the world, a speck of dust, blown by the wind into fragments and dispersed into the world.

The Second Circle fern spear's surface flickered with jade-green luminescence, precisely the force of the forest formed by the Power Leaf-bearing Rangers superimposed and attached to the Second Circle fern spear.

This was in fact a resource optimization.

Originally even Locke could not efficiently utilize the Forest Sanctuary's power, but because this group of Rangers had deepened the connection between themselves and the Forest Sanctuary and the Grand Magic, this was actually an internal resource transfer of his own power.

Locke stepped forward. His saintly avatar automatically disassembled, then appeared on the summit of the Mountain of Light, looking at the two remaining World-Stealing Celestial Rituals before him.

With a casual wave, the Second Circle fern spear descended, transformed into a strike of thunder and fire, and destroyed one ritual center, completely smashing the stone cup.

Then he looked at the final ritual.

That ritual center had blood flowing and churning, forming a giant human face assembled from fresh blood.

"Eye Demon Wizard, wait. If you destroy this ritual, my undying power will be broken by you."

"A deal, yes, we can make a deal. You white wizards all love making deals, do you not?"

"What do you want..."

Boom.

The next moment, the ritual suddenly shattered.

That great face of blood also collapsed and dissolved into a rain of blood that splattered to the ground.

The spirituality of three Second Circle wizards was drawn out by Locke, forming a great luminescence of spiritual energy in the Heidelberg Plane. Then a Bronze Cauldron descended from above, containing it all.

Within the Bronze Cauldron, spirituality churned and the Spiritual Resonance on its surface flashed. After spending some time, Locke produced three doses of the Zero Potion.

In this way, he now had eight doses of the Zero Potion.

In the instant he completely killed the three black wizards, the Heidelberg Plane underwent an inevitable drop in magic pressure, and the blood river that had appeared at the Heidelberg Plane's edge began to recede.

The riverbed dried, the water disappeared, like a withering river.

Locke scanned over the Heidelberg Plane's changes.

"I see. The World-Stealing Celestial Ritual can summon the blood river to this world. One ritual summons one tributary of the blood river. So this world originally agreed to let them hold the World-Stealing Celestial Ritual here because of that."

"Now that the rituals are gone, the three blood river tributaries will also recede. Though these tributaries were originally ones the Heidelberg Plane could not make use of."

This was a severe deception.

The blood river entering this world made it appear as though the world had gained a vast river, attracting this world's interest. But the world would soon discover that the blood river had absolutely nothing to do with it or the living beings of this plane.

It could not draw on any power within the blood river.

"Ahh, ahh, ahh!"

Within the receding blood river waters, the tide churned. Those rippling waves seemed to form a giant face, looking toward where Locke stood.

"Locke Augustine, we meet again. Possessor of a powerful bloodline, this time without the wizard world's surveillance, and you are a Second Circle wizard. I can appear before you more precisely."

"Accept the knowledge I offer you. As long as you perform the ritual here to summon me, I will lend you my power. Just as I promised you before, it will be an unstoppable force."

Locke looked at it with an expressionless face. The planar will of the blood river plane had actually appeared as the blood river tributaries dried up.

"I have no interest."

The face formed from ripples on the blood river shattered instantly. The blood waves, receding with the tide, crashed against the rocks.

"Locke Augustine, this is the second time you have refused me. You will embrace the great blood river one day. I am the destination of all powerful bloodline holders. I will have the bloodlines on your body."

Locke frowned, watching the blood river completely disappear from this world.

'What is happening?'

'Why does the blood river take such an interest in the bloodlines on my body?'

'Or does it do this with every person who possesses a powerful bloodline?'

Locke said, "Though the planar will of the blood river plane is a bit too humanized. The humanization of this unique singular plane's planar will is, even within the infinite void, without equal. Conversing with me is like speaking with an individual living being."

Locke looked at the eight doses of the Zero Potion in his hand. With these eight doses, his Moonlight Essence was somewhat more plentiful.

And at this point, the Heidelberg Plane was blanketed in forest, which had also helped the plane recover some of its lost magic pressure, though not completely.

His Forest Sanctuary had extended a second subordinate forest within the Heidelberg Plane.

'Using subordinate forests can solve the problem of the half-plane's insufficient land area of only ten thousand acres.'

Locke thought, 'As long as the Moon of Evolution exists, through ecological corridors, that is, the Forest Alliance Curse, subordinate forests of my Forest Sanctuary can be created here.'

'In the future, my forest can spread to worlds throughout the infinite void.'

'That is a fairly distinctive Grand Magic, I suppose.'

Locke remained in the state of Following One's Heart Without Transgressing and suddenly realized something.

"Hmm? Does this world want to make a deal with me?"

Locke turned to look at Susan. He said to her, "Susan, my dear child, take care of Jack, and of all the Rangers."

Susan looked up at Locke. Although this was her first time meeting Locke's main body, she could still sense that Locke's calm, rational tone was exactly the same as the Master Treeman's.

Susan said to Locke, "Please set your mind at ease, Master Treeman."

Locke smiled ruefully. He really had said he was not a treeman.

At the same time, he turned and stepped forward. In an instant, his figure disappeared from the Heidelberg Plane, entering the World Hall that this world had actively summoned him to produce.

The World Hall was a scene resembling an underground forest, lush and full of flourishing branches and leaves.

Locke walked through it, reading the information here.

Unlike the blood river plane's planar will, which felt almost like a person, the Heidelberg Plane was not large, and its planar will type was not distinctive.

So the Heidelberg Plane had no human-like feeling to it.

Locke could only read the trees in the World Hall, trying through their species, shape, quantity, and distribution to read, or rather guess, the world will's thoughts.

"A deal? The Heidelberg Plane seems quite anxious about the drop in its total magic pressure, and also about the drop in its intelligent life civilization level."

Locke's expression turned strange.

Because he read from this underground forest space that the Heidelberg Plane had apparently originally regarded the vampire race as a supernatural ability race and believed that their strength growth represented the improvement of this plane's civilization level.

Clearly, this was a severe deception.

Vampires were never a normal intelligent life race, and could never bring true advancement to a living plane.

But after the vampire race disappeared, the Heidelberg Plane felt its intelligent life had severely regressed. After all, without the vampire race's supernatural power, the entire plane's civilization was essentially a feudal iron age.

Therefore, the Heidelberg Plane was very worried about Locke withdrawing.

After all, unlike the three black wizards, Locke had not constructed a Grand Magic here at all. Instead, he had used World Tree Leaves to construct a Grand Magic of the infinite void.

In the Heidelberg Plane's eyes, this was equivalent to Locke being someone who could withdraw at any time.

So this plane was attempting to make a deal with him.

"This is... Clear Sky Wizard Stone."

An expression of surprise appeared on Locke's face. He saw large quantities of wizard stones within this plane's heart, which was clearly an entire wizard stone vein.

And these wizard stones were Clear Sky Wizard Stones, useful even to Second Circle wizards.

Clear Sky Wizard Stones were a type of mineral resembling the color of the sky, which could also be considered a special type of gemstone. Locke took one in his hand.

"Wizard stones are extremely special. Worlds of all sizes may have wizard stone veins. After all, these are materials that may have accumulated during a world's initial formation."

"It must be that before the Heidelberg Plane formed, there happened to be some wizard stone veins that fell into the Heidelberg's planar core. These Clear Sky Wizard Stones have little significance for the world, because the magical power is locked inside and cannot be unlocked to develop the hidden force within."

"No, wait."

At this point, Locke remained in the state of Following One's Heart Without Transgressing. By capturing the Heidelberg's planar force, he saw a scene: in the infinite void, there were countless meteorites outside the Heidelberg Plane.

The Heidelberg Plane seemed to be located in a special void region with an unusual abundance of meteorites.

And some meteorites would strike the Heidelberg Plane, and among those meteorites, Clear Sky Wizard Stones were clearly present.

Locke immediately sensed something strange. Because the interior of the infinite void was very sparse in terms of material, yet a continuous stream of meteorites appeared in front of the Heidelberg Plane. Within those meteorite streams, there were even very high-grade Clear Sky Wizard Stones.

"The source of these meteorite streams is highly suspicious. This indicates that near the Heidelberg Plane's void region, there is a special void astronomical phenomenon."

"The scale of void astronomical phenomena is enormously exaggerated. Although these meteorite streams appear near the Heidelberg Plane, their origin may be at an extremely distant location in the infinite void. But this special astronomical phenomenon is still worth exploring."

"These are Clear Sky Wizard Stones."

"Only, the difficulty of exploration may exceed that of directly using the golden navigation route, through the mature planar exploration system, to conduct planar pioneering."

Locke placed his palm on the Clear Sky Wizard Stone. Instantly, the magical power in the azure-blue wizard stone gradually flowed toward his palm. At the same time, he recited a spell, sending one spell model after another into the Clear Sky Wizard Stone.

As his magical power compressed the magical force within the wizard stone, the magical force was extracted from within. The utterly pure void magical power entered his magic pressure, and actually began to slowly increase it.

One point, two points...

Five hundred points in total.

But this also turned the entire Clear Sky Wizard Stone vein within the world's core into white stone.

Locke swept his hand and collected these white stones.

Clear Sky Wizard Stones were an exceptionally unique and precious magical resource.

Hidden within them was a very high-grade energy called void magical power, which could only form during the initial creation of a plane. Second Circle wizards could directly absorb this portion of magical power to raise their magic pressure.

This was one of the rare magical resources that could be considered heavenly treasure for Second Circle wizards.

And these blank Clear Sky Wizard Stones were excellent energy-absorbing alchemical materials. Although not as expensive as intact Clear Sky Wizard Stones, they could still be taken to market to sell to alchemists.

He had once seen in the Blood Dragon Assembly market on Golden Crown Mountain that a single Clear Sky Wizard Stone was priced at ten million magic stones.

The Clear Sky Wizard Stones he had just absorbed were very likely worth around fifty million in total.

So he had been able to absorb the void magical power within those Clear Sky Wizard Stones and directly raise his magic pressure by five hundred points.

Locke said, "This deal can be made. My Forest Sanctuary's subordinate forest and the Ranger system are maintained, and even continue to develop, in the Heidelberg Plane, driving the rise of the Heidelberg Plane's mundane civilization. In exchange, the Heidelberg Plane captures Clear Sky Wizard Stones from the void for me."

"Does this count as supporting the civilization of a mid-scale plane?"

"These black wizards truly were sitting on a treasure without realizing it. There was a heap of Clear Sky Wizard Stones right beneath their feet, and yet they never noticed at all. That must be because the Heidelberg Plane hid these wizard stones from them."

"Even though subsequent absorptions of the Clear Sky Wizard Stones will become less effective at raising magic pressure, and by the time my magic pressure reaches eighteen thousand, they will completely stop working," Locke thought, "my magic pressure is currently over sixteen thousand five hundred."

"If the Heidelberg Plane can continuously capture Clear Sky Wizard Stones from the void, then I can use this batch of Clear Sky Wizard Stones to raise my magic pressure and as quickly as possible reach eighteen thousand magic pressure. Then combined with my continuous grinding of Golden Crown Mountain's Second Circle projects to obtain the Tourmaline King Peach from among Golden Crown Mountain's Twelve Magical Peaches, I can... rapidly raise my magic pressure to nineteen thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine."

Locke was even surprised at himself for this plan.

Because after becoming a Second Circle wizard, raising every single point of magic pressure required enormous amounts of time. But who would have thought that at this moment, he could access two resources that every Second Circle wizard dreamed of, the Tourmaline King Peach and the Clear Sky Wizard Stone.

In this way, he could raise his magic pressure to approaching star ring level within a few years.

Combined with this accidental but absolute breakthrough in the power system construction during this World War, this was enough to let him see the path of advancement ahead.

Only unlike others, because of the magical dragon race's talent, he inherently needed to possess two Grand Magics in order to advance to star ring.

Of course, his teacher said she would compensate for this deficiency on his behalf.

He did not know how she had arranged things on her side.

But on his side, Locke actually had some ideas about a second Grand Magic.

Given that forging a single Grand Magic was already exceedingly difficult, a second Grand Magic could not really just strike off on a completely different path, as that would mean spontaneously consuming even more resources and time.

So Locke turned his gaze toward the most promising magical plant in his possession, one with the potential to evolve into a Third Circle magical plant: the Ancient Life Tree!

Just as Edgar had transformed the Ancient Life Tree he possessed into a perfect ancient treeman, Locke should be able to construct a Grand Magic on the Ancient Life Tree, transforming it into some kind of treeman.

This portion was still not fully thought out and would need careful design.

In this way, he could use the Moon of Evolution and that treeman to form mutual ecological communities, just as he and Edgar had done in the Silent Chalice.

Locke turned and left the World Hall.

This World Hall had not originally existed. It was only by using the spell model for summoning the World Hall that it could be made manifest when the world will wanted to contact him.

In other words, wizards who had not mastered the summoning of the World Hall spell model, even if the world will wanted to directly contact them, would be powerless.

Unless it was a special type of planar will like that of the blood river plane.

Locke turned, left the World Hall, returned to the Heidelberg Plane, and appeared before Susan. Susan was holding Jack, the two of them lying beneath a tree.

Susan saw Locke, her eyes lighting with joy. "Master Treeman."

Locke said, "Do not worry. Jack is already fine."

"He will recover after a sleep. Susan, the vampires are gone from this world now, so I must leave this plane."

Susan's expression changed instantly. "Master Treeman, Jack and I have been fighting for so long, and we have also sensed through the lessons our Power Leaves have given us that this world is not the only one. The world is vast, and there are many worlds that suffer the torment of such monsters."

"Many."

"We gradually shifted from wanting to protect our hometown to wanting to protect more people and forests. Master Treeman, can I leave with you?"

Locke gently shook his head.

He had already reached an agreement with the Heidelberg Plane. If he rashly took away its children of fortune, the plane might immediately fall out with him.

Susan's eyes dimmed slightly.

Locke said, "Susan, your world is still ravaged and scarred, its society collapsed and its people fearful. Now is precisely the time when you are needed to help rebuild it."

Susan's eyes brightened slightly.

"Master Treeman, I think so too. I believe that now that the enemies have disappeared, our Rangers' mission has changed from protecting the forest and fighting enemies to guiding people on how to coexist harmoniously with nature, and to planting trees."

Locke said warmly, "Good child. You and Jack are not exceptionally gifted, but your comprehension is excellent. From this day forward, you and Jack are both my students. You are acknowledged as my fourth and fifth students."

"Do not worry. Opportunities to face enemies will not be lacking in the future."

Locke swept a hand, and a gateway of moonlight appeared behind her.

"This is the ecological corridor I have built. Your spiritual energy can cross the ecological corridor, and with the forest's support, you can join battles in distant places through a spiritual avatar form."

"Even places you have never been."

"Our forest spans not only mountains and seas, but also the void."

"Every tree in the forest can support one another. They do not fight alone. Farewell, Susan. Remember, you are never alone. You are a member of the forest."

Susan saw Locke's figure gradually fade and called out anxiously, "Master Treeman Teacher, how can I meet you again and receive the enlightenment of your wisdom?"

Locke's voice came from far and distant.

"Susan, Jack, and all Rangers, when you meditate toward the forest, that is when you communicate with me."