Chapter 836: The Atavistic Evolution Experiment Completed, the Golden Spike Wheat Field Reappears!

Golden Crown Mountain, the Blood Dragon Assembly market. Locke first rented a single room for each of the two at a hotel in the Blood Dragon Assembly market at the price of one hundred thousand magic stones per month. Since he only needed to pay for half a month, the total came to one hundred thousand magic stones.

There was no way around it. While there were rooms that went for as low as ten thousand magic stones a month, the problem was that those rooms were either shared with other wizards or so small they amounted to little more than a single room with no accompanying laboratory or space for equipment.

Hussein and Old Pirate Henry were, all things considered, Second Circle wizards. One was a brilliant lawyer, the other a seasoned and ruthless poison blade wizard who had seen his fair share of killing.

It would naturally be unbecoming of him to be so stingy as to put them in rooms like that.

So he settled on a treatment that was neither extravagant nor shabby for the two of them.

Both of them looked around the Blood Dragon Assembly market hotel and seemed fairly satisfied.

Whatever else could be said, the living environment was not bad.

The inherited wizard formation of Golden Crown Mountain drew in the sun's fire from the sky at all hours, transforming it into a special magical tide that descended upon the area, making experimental work here far superior to anything down the mountain.

One could say that every time Hussein visited, he felt that even the magical tide in Golden Crown Mountain's air was considerably stronger than in other regions.

Had Locke not vouched for Old Henry and asked Golden Crown Mountain's monster-hunting forces to turn a blind eye, someone of his standing would ordinarily never be able to set foot on Golden Crown Mountain in his lifetime.

And so Old Henry's eyes were spinning with excitement. He would have gladly had Locke put him up there for a full year.

Of course, that was never really going to happen.

Because he was a void pirate, and a void pirate without plunder had no income. He had no concept of saving money whatsoever.

Locke looked at Old Henry and asked, "This should be your first time on our Golden Crown Mountain, Poison Blade Wizard. Are you comfortable settling in? If there is anything you need, let me know."

Old Pirate Henry was a man of lifelong pride. He turned his head away, let out a grunt, and said, "It is... it is fine."

"There are many alchemy shops on this street."

His eyes were practically glowing.

This was his first time coming into contact with so many shops run by white wizard alchemists, and it was a truly magnificent sight.

The shops at the pirate mothership port were half-selling, half-robbing. Face a stronger party and they were merchants; face a weaker one and they became brigands outright.

So this was his first time being immersed in the commercial logic of white wizard society's powerfully developed mercantile world.

Locke looked at the two of them and said, "I have arranged with the hotel manager to use the hotel rooms over these next few days as interview locations to recruit about ten registered wizards."

Henry thought it over. For exploring an undeveloped medium-scale plane at the level Locke had previously described, ten First Circle wizards and three Second Circle wizards were actually still on the lean side.

Three Second Circle wizards was sufficient, but the number of First Circle wizards would ideally be doubled.

The current ten First Circle wizards could barely be called just enough.

Henry said, "Everything else can be cut back on, but there are three positions that cannot be skimped on. The first is a diviner. Our pirate ships carry specialized alchemists who craft divination-type magical artifacts, including magical eye types."

"Your white wizard society should also have plenty of diviners with void navigation experience. A diviner is essential for void and planar exploration. In fact, when we lose our sense of direction in the void, they can often... save the lives of an entire ship full of people."

"The second position is a potion wizard, specifically one specializing in healing. Oh, actually we can skip that one."

Old Henry glanced at Locke.

He had only just remembered that Locke himself was an outstanding potion wizard, though he was not sure whether his level had reached Second Circle yet.

"The third is an alchemist who can repair void warships. But I can handle that myself. Whenever I am on the ship, repairing it has always been my job."

Locke nodded.

In that case, he only needed to make a point of recruiting one divination wizard.

Locke thought of Witch Georgina.

But that would not work. Witch Georgina was different from Hussein. Hussein owed him a substantial debt of gratitude, whereas if Witch Georgina came, he would need to cut her in on the profits.

The most reasonable approach was still to interview an outstanding First Circle crystallization wizard and hire them through a contract.

After all, with his own strength, he had more than enough to keep First Circle wizards in check.

Locke said to the two of them, "If either of you has a trustworthy student, you are welcome to bring them along."

Neither of them responded.

One was a pirate, and the other had no one truly trustworthy at the Mithril Law Firm.

Locke scanned them both. Well then, counting on these two to help him recruit people was clearly not going to happen.

He had originally been hoping the two Second Circle wizards could bring their own students along.

Locke then briefed the two of them on the information he currently had about the Three-Hole World.

Once he finished, both of them were left in a daze.

Hussein's eyes showed a look of puzzlement.

"How can there be so many Second Circle level existences in the Three-Hole World? Gods? Those giants living on the crater rims, are they really false gods?"

Old Henry said, "Even an ordinary medium-to-large-scale world generally operates at about this level. And exploring a medium-to-large-scale world carries a non-trivial death rate for Second Circle wizards."

"The infinite void has no shortage of ferocious and ruthless worlds."

Locke nodded.

"For now, the void cube has only gathered this much information. We will just have to figure things out once we get there."

"I hope we can recruit an outstanding diviner."

Hussein said, "It would be best to recruit from Quinn Jol. If not from Quinn Jol, then from Little Repose Mountain. Those are the finest divination wizard universities in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands." Little

"Whatever you do, do not hire a diviner from a minor wizard university. I am not willing to run into unnecessary dangers during void navigation just to save a few magic stones."

Old Henry said, "Do not worry. My ability to read the direction of starlight is first-rate. As long as we do not encounter anything out of the ordinary, there will not be any problems."

...

Half a month later.

Golden Crown Mountain, Dune Plane, underground laboratory floor ten, Research Group Two.

Locke looked at the thirty acres of Golden Foxtail Grass before him. Over this period, he had burned through over four million magic stones and made use of every piece of equipment in Research Group Two, borrowing from outside what Group Two did not have.

At that moment, Locke wore a single-lens solar magic mirror and looked at a Golden Foxtail Grass plant before him. The plant had been parasitized by a golden lantern vine. The golden lantern vine, being a dodder-type magical plant, was no longer a self-sustaining plant.

Its chloroplasts had almost entirely disappeared. Raised protuberances covered its stem surface with papillary organs that had differentiated into penetrating pillars, their slender stems breaking through the surface of the host magical plant's outer layer. It then used its specialized haustoria to pierce beneath the host's surface and begin drawing out the nutrients within.

The golden lantern vine possessed not only penetrating pillar stems and haustoria, but also small fruit resembling tiny golden lanterns hanging from it.

So its outward appearance was actually quite pleasing to the eye.

Locke used the Moon of Evolution to shorten the growth cycle of magical plants and accelerate the experiments, then carried out repeated trials.

He continually had the golden lantern vine parasitize the Golden Foxtail Grass, continuously purchasing Golden Foxtail Grass seedlings and seeds and spending resources to use the Moon of Evolution to accelerate their growth and development.

Without sparing resources, Locke found that the majority of Golden Foxtail Grass seeds, once parasitized, would be rendered unable to reproduce entirely.

The Golden Foxtail Grass was a Second Circle magical plant, but before completing its development, meaning during the seedling stage, it was only at the level of a First Circle or even apprentice-grade magical plant in terms of magic pressure.

During the seed stage, once parasitized, the golden lantern vine would simply drain it to death.

The Golden Foxtail Grass seedling, however, once parasitized, had a chance of surviving without withering and dying.

Under these circumstances, the Golden Foxtail Grass seedling was at risk of having the vast majority of its nutrients drained by the golden lantern vine due to its small size and low total magic pressure, with even a portion of its phytogen drawn away in the process.

"The golden lantern vine, when parasitizing non-arboreal magical plants, may inadvertently absorb a portion of the host plant's phytogen due to the host's small size."

Locke took note of this. "More interestingly, the golden lantern vine is one of the rare parasitic magical plants that actively works to keep its host alive."

"So, after the golden lantern vine has taken half of the host plant's phytogen, turning the host into a haploid, it will actively give half of its own phytogen to the Golden Foxtail Grass as a gift."

Locke had finally come to understand what Wizard Russell meant.

Because after this relationship came about, the Golden Foxtail Grass before him clearly showed atavistic traits of the original Golden Spike Wheat as part of its magical plant characteristics.

The Golden Spike Wheat he had once seen in the spell model of historical reenactment seemed to appear before him once again.

It could not be called completely identical, but it bore at least seventy percent resemblance.

Locke looked at the plant before him: its stalk shone like gold, its three slender leaves had edges thin as cicada wings yet radiated a dazzling golden light, and when the breeze stirred gently, those leaves would resonate with a clear chime like the sound of a bronze bell set.

The golden wheat fields that had covered the hills and valleys of the Twilight Border in ages past seemed to have come alive once more.

Most striking were the ear tips, which bore not ordinary wheat awns but three hundred and sixty slender golden sun needles that automatically adjusted their angle with the arc of the sun, absorbing its radiance and converting its energy.

Locke contemplated, "It was a golden lantern vine that inadvertently parasitized a green foxtail grass seedling, absorbing its entire set of phytogen and turning it into a haploid magical plant. Before the green foxtail grass could collapse under that condition, the golden lantern vine shared one of its own phytogen sets with it."

"Because the green foxtail grass had lost one set of phytogen, the content of the special undead-magic-constructed plant factors within it that caused its regression naturally dropped by half. The phytogen set the golden lantern vine shared with the green foxtail grass combined with the green foxtail grass's own remaining phytogen set, which naturally revived more of the historical traits the green foxtail grass had once possessed."

"Because of nature's miraculous power, a single act of magical plant parasitism set the green foxtail grass on the path of evolution once more, and over the course of many years, it became the Golden Foxtail Grass. Nature's mighty force proved greater than the necromancers' magic from thousands of years ago."

"According to Wizard Russell's understanding, and in line with my repeated experiments, this is most likely the reason why the Golden Foxtail Grass could undergo re-evolution."

Locke understood what this represented.

"This Golden Foxtail Grass before me, through my repeated application of the process, has shown atavistic traits once again."

"In fact, I only need to optimize two steps to perform a perfect artificial atavistic evolution."

"The first step: soak the semi-developed Golden Foxtail Grass seven times in a mixture of yellow mushroom extract at a ratio of seven to one."

Locke did not use a crucible or direct immersion. Instead, he used the Firetree Silver Blossom Curse, causing an enchanted blade to appear in his hand. The enchanted blade absorbed the yellow mushroom extract and then flew toward the Golden Foxtail Grass, injecting itself into the plant.

He then used a powerful growth accelerator to speed up the Golden Foxtail Grass's growth, and when certain abnormal atavistic factors began to appear in the plant, he used a magical force field to excise them in advance.

After seven injections of yellow mushroom extract, Locke obtained a Golden Foxtail Grass that had undergone further atavistic progression.

That Golden Foxtail Grass had already begun to develop the key plant factors of Golden Spike Wheat and started absorbing the surrounding radiance.

"The second step: remove the parasitic relationship."

Locke used the Firetree Silver Blossom Curse to excise the golden lantern vine.

With that, the Golden Foxtail Grass severed its parasitic relationship with the golden lantern vine.

At that moment, the Golden Foxtail Grass clearly possessed at least one key plant factor from the Golden Spike Wheat's essential golden phytogen group.

Under Locke's unfettered channeling of magical resources, with the application of various nutrient soils and even a substance called Emerald Spirit Breath, which could increase the growth speed and quality of Second Circle magical plants, the magical plant grew at a rapid pace and reached maturity.

Locke established a mana grafting relationship with the magical plant, reached out, and the plant flew into his hand.

Looking at the magical plant before him that was drawing in his magical radiance, Locke knew it had achieved a considerable degree of atavistic progression.

"The atavistic evolution is complete."

"By adding the yellow mushroom extract into my Moon of Evolution as one would with a Zero Potion, I can use the Firetree Silver Blossom Curse to send it into a magical plant's body. First use the golden lantern vine to turn the target magical plant into a haploid, then have the golden lantern vine share a phytogen set with it, and then proceed with atavistic evolution. Both the success rate and the degree of atavism achieved upon success will be improved."

Most critically, this entire mechanism sidestepped the triggering of the undead magic embedded in the foxtail grass family's phytogen.

It seemed that this process of extracting the phytogen to create a haploid and then sharing a phytogen set to restore it to a diploid weakened the effect of that undead magic, or perhaps simply made the foxtail grass something no longer purely a foxtail grass.

Locke thought, "This combined approach will also be applicable to other magical plants. Because the golden lantern vine's act of absorbing and then sharing phytogen precisely increases the likelihood of atavistic evolution occurring under natural conditions."

At its core, the golden lantern vine's own phytogen was very sparse. It was the kind of magical plant with almost no plant factors of consequence.

Its phytogen carried very little information.

Yet it could share its phytogen with another magical plant, allowing that plant to assemble a normal diploid.

In other words, after a magical plant became diploid, the element that truly did the work was its own original phytogen, while the golden lantern vine's phytogen was essentially coasting along and doing nothing.

It was like two people in a partnership where only one was working and the other was simply along for the ride.

This meant that as a magical plant developed, it would more fully express the traits encoded in its own phytogen. Combined with Locke's yellow mushroom extract, the mechanism suppressing atavistic factor expression could be directly disrupted, triggering atavistic evolution.

While a complete return to ancestral form was impossible, judging by the current degree of success, it could achieve roughly seventy to eighty percent of a full atavistic reversal.

Of course, this was also due to the fact that sufficient research data on the Golden Foxtail Grass existed.

Locke thought, "The precision of the atavistic progression can still be improved. The parasitic mechanism of the golden lantern vine can be further optimized, and the ratio of yellow mushroom extract to white jade aloe can still be adjusted."

"For now, however, the atavistic evolution has been successfully completed. And I can also proceed with my flying magical plant experiment."

Locke took the magical plant in hand and opened a video call with the Small Breath Cup events committee office.

Although the Small Breath Cup's entry deadline was still half a year away and the competition itself was more than half a year off, he did not have that much time to waste.

He would simply submit the work directly and bring the competition to an end.

He was very satisfied with the completion level of this project, and if the Small Breath Cup side was equally satisfied, it would be more or less possible to claim the championship in advance.

As for the specific arrangements, he would let the Small Breath Cup studio make its own judgment.

He could now focus on the Golden Cup and planar exploration.

In this way, his progress among the competitors for the special-grade grant should be considered fairly fast.

He had just received a substantial sum of funds, which meant he could immediately develop his Golden Cup entry and the second wizard shoe.

'If the Small Breath Cup can settle my results early, I can immediately obtain one Tourmaline King Peach.'

Locke thought, 'Right, I should also turn my attention to the other markets controlled by the Rose Throne. With the background of the lineage struggle now in play, whatever I do will be attributed to my teacher, which means I can actually reach into markets that would otherwise be off-limits.'

'It is time to look at what other markets can earn more money.'