Chapter 835: Thirty-Five Million Magic Stones in Revenue and the Resolve to Go Further!

The wizard world, at the edge of the Golden Crown Mountain district, in the imperial capital of the mortal empire.

The physical bodies of the three Second Circle black wizards in the mortal world dissolved into sand that drifted away in the wind and vanished, and Hussein, witnessing this, showed no surprise.

He folded his arms across his chest, looked at Locke, and said, "Locke, you really do strike with ruthless precision."

The blood mirror formed from Hussein's right eye had witnessed the entire process of the World War Locke had waged against the three black wizards.

All one could say was that an ordinary wizard launching a World War would never find it as effortless as Locke did.

This was something Hussein could not wrap his head around.

It was as though the Grand Magic Locke had forged was fundamentally different from his own.

Locke said to Hussein, "It went well enough. Those three black wizards brought me quite a few good things, so there is no need to thank me."

Hussein smiled and said, "I used the Sacred Blood Ritual Hand to curse them on your behalf, which further reduced their magic pressure and dismantled one of their contingency plans ahead of time."

Locke asked, "How so?"

Hussein's expression turned serious as he asked Locke, "What if those three black wizards had used a vampire transformation curse to lure your subordinates and convert them into vampires, offering them a twisted form of eternal life?"

Locke immediately furrowed his brow.

Hussein said, "I foresaw that scenario in advance. After all, I know that for mortals, eternal life, even a twisted and tormented version of it, holds enormous appeal for many of them. Unless I took something else from them while they were in the process of enjoying that eternal curse."

"Their intellect."

Hussein pointed at the three drops of blood at his feet, which had transformed into three Sacred Blood Ritual Hands, three great hands formed from fresh blood. These were the standard tools of blood-type magic, but in the hands of different wizards, their power differed beyond all comparison.

"This is my invention, the Primal Blood Curse. Through bloodlines and propagation, I cursed the three vampire clans of the Heidelberg Plane and stripped them of their intellect. So in your eyes and in the eyes of your students, those vampires were nothing more than beasts with little intelligence remaining."

A tiger's eye appeared on Locke's forehead and swept across the three tendrils, detecting the terrifying curse contained within them. The geometric spell formula of that high-order curse was so complex that he could not comprehend it at all.

Every step was filled with strokes of genius.

It was clearly a spell Hussein had invented entirely on his own.

Hussein pointed to the curse and said, "This is a curse that can strip sinners of their intellect. The deeper the sin upon one's body, the more powerful the curse becomes. The intellect of the vampires in that world was stripped away by me. So you never needed to worry about your Rangers being turned against you."

Locke understood what he was saying.

After all, the prerequisite for willingly embracing a deeply flawed form of eternal life was at least retaining a considerable degree of intellect.

If being converted into a vampire meant nearly degenerating into a half-beast, or suffering obvious intellectual decline that led to a twisted or severely altered personality, then naturally the temptation of vampire conversion would be rendered virtually nonexistent for them.

Locke thought it over and realized that the move Hussein had made in advance had indeed been of tremendous help to him.

Moreover, this Primal Blood Curse had already been incorporated into a Grand Magic Rune pattern, and it appeared to be the core of Hussein's magic.

'The earlier a wizard is able to construct a power system, the faster their advancement speed in the Second Circle stage and the fewer resources they require.'

Locke watched as the three tendrils reverted to blood and returned into Hussein's body, and he realized that to have reached this point, Hussein had likely already completed the initial construction of his power system.

'Hussein's magic pressure is only just over ten thousand, yet before my clash with the three black wizards of the Pale Pilgrimage, he had already surpassed me in the progress of his power system construction.'

Locke felt the weight of Hussein's terrifying genius.

'If he continues to advance in power system construction while I continue to fall behind, it may only be a matter of a very short time before his magic pressure catches up to mine.'

'I still need to push harder.'

'In next year's special-grade grant application, those whose credentials outrank mine are certainly formidable opponents. But those whose talent is no less than Hussein's, people like Zeno and Antoine, they are my greatest rivals.'

The path of a top-tier genius in the wizard world was not an easy one.

Every step was filled with competition, and one moment of carelessness could knock a person off that track entirely, sending them down to the next tier.

Still, he did not need to worry too much.

Because he was on the verge of unlocking the secret of atavistic evolution, and with a second mode of evolution at his disposal, he could absolutely use it to produce a whole series of projects and publish a whole string of papers.

Locke turned to Hussein and asked, "So, has your Primal Blood Curse been published in any journals?"

Hussein coughed once.

"There are not many journals on curse studies in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, and submitting to those second-rate journals would be pointless. If I am going to submit, it has to be to the Southern Wizard Capital, or to the Star Domain Sea. The Star Domain Sea's journal submission fee recently went up from forty thousand magic stones to fifty thousand."

"And if it is a Second Circle journal in the Star Domain Sea, the requirements are even higher. My goal is to secure Tier 2 and compete for Tier 1. So I still need to accumulate some solid preliminary experimental data and then bundle it all together for a submission to the Star Domain Sea's Second Circle Tier 1 journal, Darkness and Curses."

Locke had heard of the name Darkness and Curses.

According to his colleagues on Golden Crown Mountain, it was the favorite journal of evil wizards and wizards who favored curse magic, filled with all manner of terrifying cursework, some capable of reshaping an entire world into a hell. Because of this, many divine art practitioners occasionally reported the journal to the White Wizard Association when they were in a foul mood.

Even so, after all those years of complaints, Darkness and Curses was still going strong.

Locke asked, "Why not submit to Law and Contract? That is also a top Tier 1 journal in the Star Domain Sea."

Hussein said, "I would like to. But the papers in Law and Contract lean too heavily toward contract wizards, while the Primal Blood Curse I invented leans toward curse wizards."

Locke nodded, then took out his Ganoderma magical plant and saw that Old Pirate Henry was trying to reach him.

He pointed the Ganoderma magical plant forward, and a beam of light appeared at its tip and shone ahead.

In the sky, a small void flyer shaped like a whale quickly appeared.

Old One-Eyed Pirate Henry, carrying his unbreakable stubbornness and his booming laughter, descended from the sky.

"Ha ha ha, Locke, I have arrived."

A void flyer, through a mechanism similar to that of a light-transmission device, leaped to this positional coordinate via magical light transmission.

"Locke, this is our pirates' light-transmission void ship. What do you think? I told you it could move rapidly within a single wizard territory."

"Each leap through magical light allows for fast travel. With this small flyer, we can bypass the magical defenses scattered throughout the Cloud Marsh Wetlands and pass through freely, raiding wherever we please."

Old Henry jumped down from the whale ship, then his expression shifted slightly. As an old pirate who had spent his life charging through fire and steel, he was acutely sensitive to the smell of blood.

At that moment, he sensed that some kind of major battle had just taken place here.

Old Henry's expression changed abruptly, because the prosthetic magical artifact on his left hand was radiating a bright crimson light, and by reading the color of that light, he understood that more than one Second Circle wizard had died here.

Old Henry grew tense.

"What is it, do you have enemies here? Do you want to board my light-transmission void ship to escape them?"

As Old Henry spoke to Locke, he studied Hussein out of the corner of his eye.

Locke said, "No need. There were indeed three Second Circle wizard enemies, but I just killed all of them. It is actually a coincidence that you arrived right after I finished."

Old Pirate Henry forced a smile.

"Quite a coincidence indeed. Must be the good weather today."

He pointed at the poison blade on his left hand with his right hand and said, "This magical artifact really is inconvenient. I have been wanting to change the function of sensing how many registered wizards have died nearby for a long time. It can only display how many have died without distinguishing whether they were killed by allies or enemies. Ha ha ha..."

Locke gave Old Henry a curious look.

"Old Henry, why is your hand shaking?"

Old Pirate Henry raised an eyebrow, his hand trembling, and said, "I ran a neurotoxin-related experiment recently and damaged some of my sympathetic nerves. It is nothing. Does not affect my piloting."

"Ahem, and this is?"

Hussein smiled pleasantly and said, "Mithril Law Firm, Hussein. I am a lawyer."

Old Pirate Henry immediately let out a breath of relief and smiled.

"A lawyer? A lawyer is good, a lawyer is reasonable."

"Locke, Mr. Hussein, shall we set off now?"

Hussein looked toward Locke.

Locke in turn asked Hussein, "Will the people of the Pale Pilgrimage continue to pursue you?"

His main concern was that after he entered the void, the Pale Pilgrimage would continue pursuing Hussein and catch up to them.

Hussein said in a low voice, "You can set your mind at ease on that. The three you just killed were direct descendants of the Progenitor Wizard. For now, only they could find me through the Ancestral Tracing technique."

"But they had to be extremely close, because I used the blood power of my debt slaves, combined with a confusion curse, to obscure the Ancestral Tracing."

"I had bad luck and ran into them by accident. As a result, they latched onto my bloodline aura, planted a blood curse on me, and tracked me all the way here. I tried to shake them off and did not want to get entangled with them, but they chose the hard way when an easy path was available."

"As long as I do not come near any other direct descendants of the Progenitor Wizard again, there should not be much of a problem. And I suspect only this one branch, called the Blood Hand, can find me."

Hussein said gravely, "Because the inheritance I received is the Blood Hand clan's blood of inheritance."

The old pirate on the other side blinked his eye and said, "Blood Hand, Blood Eye, Blood Foot, Blood Wing, Blood Heart, and Blood Soul. Those are the six direct descendant bloodlines of the Progenitor Wizards within the Blood Magic Palace of the Pale Pilgrimage. You took the Blood Hand clan's blood of inheritance? That means you must be the Progenitor Wizard's blood vessel?"

Old Henry quietly edged a little further away from Hussein.

A Progenitor Wizard's blood vessel was not someone to be trifled with.

Progenitor Wizards were cruel and bloodthirsty, savage beyond measure, and every time one awakened, it swept through the wizard world and brought catastrophe.

It was said they were also very about taste, and that a wizard of insufficient talent or not cruel enough in temperament was not worthy of being their blood vessel.

So every blood vessel of a Progenitor Wizard was, without exception, a supremely gifted and brilliant killer.

Old Henry turned to look at Locke and swallowed, noting that an Eye Demon Wizard and a person like this seemed to be on rather good terms.

Well, of course.

If Locke had not walked the path of life magic, he himself would likely have been targeted by a Progenitor Wizard, who would have set a trap to lure him into obtaining a blood of inheritance.

Old Henry gave another start.

Wait, that was not right.

Each of the six clans had only one blood of inheritance, corresponding to the sole blood vessel for a single cycle of the Progenitor's awakening and slumber.

During the period of a Progenitor's slumber, many of the six clans' affairs were presided over by the six blood vessels.

The status of a blood vessel within the six clans was a peculiar one. On one hand, the clans regarded them as nothing more than the Progenitor's blood servants. On the other hand, precisely because a blood vessel was the Progenitor's blood servant, it afforded them a certain degree of standing within the clan.

The Blood Hand clan must be in a great hurry right now, desperate to call back the blood vessel that belonged to their branch.

At that moment, Old Henry silently marked Hussein in his mind as an extremely dangerous individual.

The situation now became rather absurd.

For a thousand years, the Progenitor's blood vessel had only ever circulated within the black wizard community. Somehow, this time around, it had ended up in the hands of a lawyer at the Mithril Law Firm, one of the top red-circle law firms in white wizard society, who had become a Progenitor Wizard's blood vessel.

Locke said to the two of them, "I still need to go to the Blood Dragon Assembly to recruit some personnel and prepare a void flyer. So you may need to wait about half a month."

"But it is fine. I have already arranged in advance for my student to prepare accommodations for both of you on Golden Crown Mountain. Whatever you need, whether it is a laboratory or anything else, you can speak to me or to my student, Gregor."

Hussein had already made something of a name for himself in white wizard society by this point, so he said nothing and simply nodded.

"Very well. I will use Golden Crown Mountain as a place to lay low for a while."

Old Henry coughed once, thought it over, and agreed.

At that moment, in the distance, five Second Circle wizards of the Eternal Glory Hall were approaching rapidly in a magical carriage.

To prevent the situation from growing complicated, Locke and Hussein boarded Old Henry's special pirate ship, used the light transmission, and as a beam of magical light, leaped directly toward Golden Crown Mountain.

The five Eternal Glory Hall wizards stepped down from the magical carriage. They were all Lecturing Mages of the Eternal Glory Hall, or contract-based wizard instructors.

At that moment they exchanged glances with one another.

"A major battle just took place here. It seems more than one Second Circle wizard has died."

"Second Circle wizards died? Oh, it appears they were all black wizards."

The group found the second-class wizard apprentice inside the imperial palace and, after hearing the full account from him, they all let out a breath of relief and looked at each other.

"It seems a friend from Golden Crown Mountain happened to pass by and dealt with those three suicidal black wizards on behalf of our Eternal Glory Hall."

"As expected of Golden Crown Mountain. Even among ordinary Second Circle wizards, one strike and three Second Circle wizards are dead. A Second Circle wizard, in many lower wizard territories, is an ancestral-level figure. He killed three of them in a single breath."

"From the description it sounds like the one who acted was the Eye Demon Wizard of Golden Crown Mountain. He did us a favor, and if the opportunity arises in the future, we should thank him. Consider it a debt of gratitude we owe him."

...

After Locke and the others departed, a small girl stepped out onto the streets of the mortal imperial capital. She wore a stiff, washed-out grey-white coarse cotton dress with a hemline that fell just below the knee.

She wore her hair in two pigtails and stared, with her naked eyes, directly toward the imperial palace, the direction where those five Second Circle wizards were.

"I originally thought the wizard world would be as boring as ever after all these years. Who would have thought that after this revival, so many interesting figures have appeared."

The girl curved the corner of her mouth. "Looks like there is something to play with. Teacher Yekaterina, you did not expect this, did you? I am back. Ha ha ha ha. I told you that you could not bring yourself to kill me."

"Ha ha ha."

"I also have this ever-rising magical tide to thank for it, which has made my original seal no longer unbreakable. Teacher Yekaterina, you cut off my path of advancement and betrayed me, your own student. I will see you utterly ruined. I can see it already, your academic lineage and that other lineage are locked in fierce battle."

"Then let it begin with destroying your academic lineage."

...

Half a month later. Golden Crown Mountain, the Witch's Kitchen.

Witch Scarlett sat across from Locke and placed eighty million magic stones in payment before him.

Witch Scarlett felt as though her own hands were trembling. In her entire life, she had never handled a sum this large.

If anything were to go wrong, she would not be able to repay this even if she spent ten lifetimes as a debt slave.

So when she handed the magic stones to Locke, she visibly let out a long breath of relief.

Locke said, puzzled, "Was it not seventy million magic stones?"

Witch Scarlett took a sip of her blue-fish tea, cleared her throat, and said to Locke, "Lord Augustine. Arthas has decided to switch to a partnership contract with you, so the split is now sixty-forty in your favor, sixty for you and forty for us."

"Arthas will continue to provide you with its sales and production chains. This is an order from Arthas's upper management."

"So the net revenue from this transaction is fifty million magic stones. Under the new contract, you receive thirty million in profit and our side receives twenty million. On top of that, Arthas's upper management has designated you as a premium partner and has extended a special additional concession of five million magic stones to you this time, bringing the total to eighty million magic stones."

During that half month, Locke had dispatched his clone to personally escort the goods.

In the end, nothing had happened. Once the goods arrived at Arthas's headquarters, they were immediately distributed to various locations through Arthas's logistics network.

Solas Light Foot had not been foolish enough to attack Arthas's logistics network.

After all, at its core, Arthas was a platform that provided breeders and other wizards with a complete set of logistics, manufacturing, and sales services. If Solas Light Foot dared to hire people to attack Arthas's ground logistics, even the Rose Throne backing Solas Light Foot might not be able to weather the consequences.

After all, behind Arthas stood a group of Fourth Circle wizards.

Locke calculated that he needed to set aside a sum to repay his loans, but the remaining forty-five million or so magic stones were entirely his.

Witch Scarlett said to Locke, "Our first Second Circle wizard shoe has achieved excellent results. Perhaps we can raise the price going forward? If we raised it to something like Blue Ribbon's starting price of three million magic stones per pair, what do you think?"

Locke thought for a moment and said, "What would happen if we raised the price?"

Witch Scarlett thought it over and said, "Sales could potentially drop by half, because the reason our wizard shoe sold so well this time was precisely because of the low price."

"Our wizard shoe still has a certain gap in quality compared to Blue Ribbon. However, even if sales were halved, I believe revenue could still increase by at least a third, possibly even half."

"After all, we would have tripled the selling price."

Witch Scarlett appeared quite satisfied with the current state of affairs. She curved the corner of her mouth.

"I should be able to earn the Platinum Trader title by year's end. This is all thanks to your tremendous support."

"It is truly my honor to be your business partner."

"With the sales we achieved this time, we have already become a wizard shoe alliance with a respectable name in the Star Domain Sea. We are fully capable of raising our prices now."

"From here on out, we can sit back and start making money."

Locke furrowed his brow, drummed his fingers on the table, and for the first time felt a sense of dissatisfaction with this business partner.

"Scarlett, and then what? What plans do you have after that?"

Witch Scarlett's expression shifted to one of bewilderment.

"And then? Lord Augustine, is this not enough? Your purely plant-based wizard shoe, an original creation, achieved such success on its very first appearance. You could already call yourself a renowned wizard shoe designer."

"Your wizard shoe has been far too successful. I have even heard that newspapers want to interview you."

Witch Scarlett took another sip of her blue-fish wizard tea.

Locke furrowed his brow, gave her a long, searching look, and then said, "No, this is not enough. We need to go further."

"What we have now barely qualifies us as a third-rate wizard shoe alliance. We need to enter a higher market and build a better reputation. And it is not only that, I intend to revolutionize this market."

"In the original wizard shoe market, prices are steep and additional fees are plentiful, and a great many wizards from the Three Marshes who want to explore the void must purchase wizard shoes but are forced to give up due to the price."

Witch Scarlett said, "Lord Augustine, what do you mean?"

Locke said, "The pricing of Second Circle wizard shoes should be defined by us. This first pair, the Great Blood Wave Bromeliad wizard shoe, is my own work, so the price will not change. In fact, once our wizard shoe alliance grows in the future, I intend not only to improve the product further but also to lower the price further."

"I want to make wizard shoes something that is no longer expensive, no longer the exclusive possession of a wealthy minority of wizards, but something every wizard in the Three Marshes can afford."

"It is like the founder of Solas Light Foot, the wizard Solas, who hundreds of years ago wanted to create the finest shoes in the world, to make wizard shoes not merely an ordinary magical artifact but a magical artifact that helps wizards explore the void. He did achieve that at the time, but he stopped there, and his wizard shoes grew more expensive with each generation."

Locke said to Witch Scarlett, "Scarlett, I am now setting my sights on becoming a second-rate wizard shoe alliance. In the Second Circle market, I intend to surpass Blue Ribbon, surpass Solas, and surpass Melechi. And in the future, I intend to become the finest wizard shoe alliance of all."

Witch Scarlett was stunned.

"The wizard shoe market is one of the private garden markets belonging to two Third Circle wizards. Although the market is not enormous, it is a reservoir they use to accumulate vast funds for themselves. If that is the case, we would very likely find ourselves directly going up against those two Third Circle wizards. Wait..."

Witch Scarlett caught on.

Locke's academic lineage was in an adversarial relationship with those two Third Circle wizards.

In any other market, if Locke acted this recklessly, he would very likely be struck down by the iron fist of a high-circle wizard looking down from above. But this wizard shoe market, held in the hands of the Rose Throne, happened to be the one place that allowed Locke to act so boldly.

Because everyone would simply interpret it as something done at the Red Dragon Throne's instruction.

Even those two Third Circle wizards would have no choice but to compete on equal footing.

Witch Scarlett had not expected Locke's ambitions to run this deep.

Locke said to Witch Scarlett, "Wait for my second wizard shoe creation. The quality of that one should be considerably higher, and that is when we can raise the price. Raising the price now would be cutting off our own path. Our future does not end here."

Witch Scarlett said, "Understood, Lord Augustine. Whatever you want to do, I will do it with you."

A flame of fighting spirit ignited in Witch Scarlett's eyes.

So be it.

The bold starve not; the timid starve for nothing.

As long as Locke wanted to push forward, she would follow.

This was her best chance at becoming a Second Circle wizard.

And in others' eyes, she was now aligned with the Red Dragon Throne, which would actually earn her the protection of the Red Dragon Throne's academic lineage, keeping her safe from people scheming against her from the shadows.

Witch Scarlett had seen far too many cases of traders offending high-circle wizards and being directly dismissed, or being set up and turned into debt slaves.

But now she too had a high-circle wizard behind her, her own people. Given that, why not open fire on those high-and-mighty interests?

Witch Scarlett thought it over, then suddenly turned to Locke with a suggestion. "If you are this confident in your second creation, can you tell me something about its direction? Solas Light Foot and Melechi are currently running themed events. We may be a humble little alliance, but if they can do it, so can we. They hold large themed events and invite famous explorers. We hold small themed events and invite up-and-coming explorers."

Witch Scarlett smiled and said, "After all, a smaller ship turns more easily."

Locke thought it over, recalling the golden giant hand the mutated dragon had wielded that could reverse energy, and said, "Then the direction for the second wizard shoe should be some form of golden magic."

"A wizard shoe that is unaffected by surrounding energy, spirituality, and matter, suitable for a certain kind of extreme exploration."

"Even in the most treacherous and complex planar environments, it can adapt. A First Circle version, a Second Circle version, and even an apprentice version can all be made. One line, three versions."

Witch Scarlett said with delight, "That really is a fine direction. That would be the extreme exploration category of wizard shoes. That kind of wizard shoe commands enormous attention among the explorer community! It is the very foundation that Solas Light Foot was built on!"