Chapter 843: Myriad Phenomena Crossroads’ Overtures and the God Above Gods of the Three-Hole World

Sun Ring Flavi asked Salonius, "Give me one reason you rejected this paper."

Wizard Salonius looked up at Director Flavi, but he did not respond immediately. He neither admitted fault nor argued back, nor did he look for excuses. He simply picked up the paper from the table and began reading through it quickly.

As a moon ring great wizard and the responsible editor of Myriad Phenomena Crossroads, he had the sole authority to reject any paper.

That was his prerogative.

So under normal circumstances, even if he outright rejected a paper, even a sun ring wizard director would have no solid grounds to question him.

As long as a reason could be found to reject the paper.

Wizard Flavi did not rush to press him either, but silently waited for him to finish reading the submitted paper. After all, he had to wait for Wizard Salonius to grasp the full picture before the discussion could continue.

Ten minutes later, Wizard Salonius had speed-read through the paper. His heart gradually settled. "I apologize, Director Flavi. This time it was a work error on my part. This paper's research, while not comparable to that of sun ring or moon ring wizards, is debatable as to whether it deserves Tier 1 even setting aside its special nature."

"After all, it is just an ordinary Second Circle level magical plant. Research on a plant of that grade alone cannot compare in value to research on sun ring or moon ring level magical plants, and the depth of fundamental research theory, while not bad, still lacks a certain degree of refinement. However... there is no grounds to reject it."

"This paper is a secure Tier 2 publication, and an attempt at Tier 1 is possible, though it would come down to luck."

Having read through the paper, Wizard Salonius knew he had no angle for deflection.

The reason was simple.

Even setting aside the special significance this paper's subject of research held for the Twilight Border, the paper might still be publishable in a Tier 1 journal ranked toward the lower end. It would just need a few minor revisions and the addition of a few key experimental data points.

By Wizard Salonius's experience, as long as that young talent from Golden Crown Mountain was reasonably lucky and encountered a reviewer without too strong a bias against inexperience, one who was patient enough to help him revise and point out the paper's issues, then this paper should be capable of reaching a Tier 1 journal.

So his prior act of having his student draft rejection reasons without even reading the paper was a clear case of dereliction of duty.

And taking into account the special significance of this paper's subject for the Twilight Border, this was a paper at the very hottest research direction for the Twilight Border.

This paper could be published in Myriad Phenomena Crossroads almost immediately.

Perhaps at this very moment, someone had already reported this paper to the Golden Dynasty's upper management to gauge their attitude and whether the wizard in question should be given additional recognition.

Wizard Salonius looked up at his student. The crystallization wizard gave a start and said haltingly, "I went to find you immediately at the time. But your secretary stopped me, and then by coincidence, I ran into the director in the corridor. The director cured my cognitive dissonance disorder, and by chance, he saw the paper I was trying to bring to you."

The crystallization wizard was terrified, deeply afraid his direct superior would think he had been scheming behind his back, or taking sides with certain people within Crossroads.

Wizard Salonius nodded. The trace of suspicion and wariness in his eyes disappeared.

He judged through logic that the situation had indeed played out that way. He was not a suspicious person by nature, and he knew his student's character well. Moreover, as a Second Circle wizard, he could perceive more than most, and naturally understood that this was his own oversight.

Wizard Salonius had no choice but to admit his mistake.

"Director Flavi, I bear complete responsibility for this matter. Had I rejected it then, this paper would have been revised and submitted to other Tier 1 journals, which would have been a tremendous loss for our Crossroads and for our Twilight Border."

"I am willing to accept whatever punishment you deem fit."

Sun Ring Wizard Flavi nodded. His manner softened.

"This was indeed a serious work error. Had this paper ended up elsewhere, published in another journal, and had its author stated that we rejected his paper, it would have diminished our journal's authority in the field of golden magic."

"Especially with that so-called Tier 2 journal, Southern Gold, that was recently established in the Southern Wizard Capital."

Flavi's expression became somewhat fierce even at the mere mention of this journal's name.

A star ring wizard witch serving as his secretary beside him quietly reminded him, "Director, Southern Gold is no longer a Tier 2 journal. They recently elevated themselves from Tier 2 to Tier 1 by improving their impact factor and inviting well-known Golden School wizards. Director..."

Flavi gritted his teeth.

The witch secretary seemed to realize something and immediately corrected herself. "Though they only got there through connections, and it does not change the fact that they are a second-rate minor journal. I expect they will fall back to Tier 2 in a few years."

Sun Ring Wizard Flavi said coldly, "I am not someone without tolerance. It is just that the golden magic journal set up by those black wizards in the Southern Wizard Capital is, to put it nicely, golden magic, and to put it bluntly, practically necromancy. Those detestable people, hiding their identities as though no one knows they are necromancers, did not dare establish a journal under the name of undead arts, so they dragged our golden magic in as a cover."

"Quite a few naive young wizards have actually been fooled by this idiotic scheme. During such an infuriating period, Wizard Salonius, you almost handed a paper like this away."

Sun Ring Wizard Flavi looked around at everyone, then turned to Wizard Salonius and said, "This matter warrants deducting your year-end bonus. Do you have any objections?"

Wizard Salonius let out a helpless sigh.

"This was a work error on my part. I was far too biased against inexperience."

"Next time, I will read the paper before making my judgment."

To save himself fifteen minutes, he had committed such an enormous mistake.

Damn it.

His year-end bonus.

It dawned on Wizard Salonius only now, and he began to ache over it. He had been saving up a sum of money, intending to acquire a staff he had long had his eye on when the year-end bonus came around.

Sun Ring Wizard Flavi then changed his tone. "Of course, there is a way for you to keep your year-end bonus."

Wizard Salonius's eyes brightened immediately. "Please tell me, Director."

Sun Ring Wizard Flavi smiled and said, "I want this young fellow to enter the project he published this paper on into our Twilight Border's Golden Cup competition. But as far as I know, because of his senior martial uncle the Executioner Wizard, the project he has in hand has already been entered into the Small Breath Cup."

"But I want him to use this project to enter the golden magical plant breeding competition of our Golden Cup. If that happens, our Twilight Border's Golden Cup this year will certainly attract considerably more attention."

"However, as far as I know, Augustine has already entered this project into the Small Breath Cup. So I want you to persuade him to transfer his entry to the Golden Cup."

Wizard Salonius felt a headache coming on. Although he was a moon ring wizard, he had no prior connection with Locke. If it were a wizard from some ordinary small organization, making contact with them would absolutely be doing them a favor.

An ordinary Second Circle wizard would surely show him some degree of courtesy, perhaps even be deeply grateful.

But the issue was that this wizard was a Second Circle wizard from Golden Crown Mountain, a senior researcher.

Golden Crown Mountain had no shortage of moon ring, sun ring, and even Third Circle wizards.

A moon ring wizard looked rather ordinary there, and might not be considered a impressive figure in their eyes.

Of course, objectively speaking, a moon ring wizard in the Three Marshes, or in other wizard territories, so long as it was not the Star Domain Sea, was still a figure of consequence.

They should have their own team by that point.

One could say they were second only to sun ring wizards, placing them above the vast majority.

Wizard Salonius laughed bitterly inwardly. This was a thorny errand. But thinking of his year-end bonus and the moon ring level staff he had his eye on, he said to Sun Ring Wizard Director Flavi, "Understood. Director, I will have my clone take care of this as quickly as possible. I only hope it is not too late."

Wizard Salonius sighed inwardly. One misstep and regret would last a lifetime. Had he known it would come to this, he should have been more patient when reviewing submissions a week ago.

If he had turned even one more page at the time, he would not be in this situation now. On the contrary, having uncovered a solid paper would have counted as a minor contribution on his part.

Director Flavi said, "Wizard Salonius, you need to move quickly. Because you may not only be competing with the Small Breath Cup for him. You may also be competing with Southern Gold for him."

"Once our journal is printed and distributed next month, I expect Southern Gold will have their eyes on him."

Wizard Salonius's expression shifted slightly, because this was a very real possibility.

Lately, the people at that second-rate journal's office had been subscribing to their journal and then finding ways to directly contact the contributors featured in each issue, trying to solicit them into submitting to Southern Gold.

A brilliant young breeder like Locke Augustine, a young wizard with little established foundation in the Second Circle world who urgently needed papers and projects to prove himself, was exactly the type of contributor that Southern Gold would go all out to pursue.

Wizard Salonius nodded and said, "Understood. I will find a way to persuade this wizard to participate in the Golden Cup's golden magical plant competition."

...

Golden Crown Mountain. At that moment, Locke's main body was already seated aboard the streamlined spindle-shaped Exploration Vanguard.

Inside the Exploration Vanguard's cockpit.

Locke had put on the standard Second Circle wizard explorer equipment.

He wore a deep crimson wizard robe. The textile material was a fire deity wool thread, woven by magical textile workers from the wool of a Second Circle magical creature called the Fire Deity Mountain Goat, mixed with dozens of other materials.

Every corner of it was enchanted with formation arrays, bearing a complete single layer of enchantment called the Flame Radiance Body enchantment spell model.

Once this robe, made from Fire Deity Mountain Goat wool and styled the Flame Radiance wizard robe, was activated, the Flame Radiance Body enchantment spell model on the robe would merge with one's own permanent defensive field shell.

That is to say, it enchanted one's own permanent defensive field.

However, this was something that was practically impossible at the First Circle stage.

Because the permanent defensive field of a First Circle wizard was three-dimensional and could not be inscribed upon.

Locke did not fully understand the specific principles involved. The technique of enchanting a permanent defensive field, within enchantment studies, was already considered extraordinarily advanced, and was the foundational basis for wizard robe magical artifacts.

That is to say, enchanting the permanent defensive field.

At that moment, Locke activated the Flame Radiance Body. He saw a radiance of spirit erupt from the soles of his feet and the top of his head. Of course, this was only visible to those who could see spirituality with the naked eye.

But for those who could, they would see that the top of his head at that moment resembled a volcano in eruption, and his feet continuously released flames.

The Flame Radiance Body was a type of enchantment applied to the permanent defensive field shell. It was a general-purpose spell, however, since this was designed to be a universal wizard robe that could be sold to all wizards, and naturally no compatibility issues could be permitted.

Something sold on the market would certainly have had all compatibility problems resolved beforehand.

In fact, after activating the Flame Radiance Body, Locke felt a certain change occur in his constitution.

He had simply gained a high resistance to the fire magic sub-direction of the Energy Shaping School, and the Flame Radiance Body had increased the strength of his permanent defensive field shell by approximately ten percent.

At the same time, his permanent defensive field shell seemed to have gained some fire magic attributes, allowing it to reflect damage back at enemies when they attacked him.

By conventional reasoning, adding fire magic to one's own permanent defensive field, even just as an enchantment, would immediately trigger a conflict between plant magic and flame magic.

But nothing of the sort happened.

After thinking it over, Locke immediately realized this was absolutely an application of Spiritual Resonance studies.

'What is called the Flame Radiance Body is essentially giving me a new constitution artificially. This works from the level of Standing, adding a layer to my Standing indicating that I possess the Flame Radiance Body constitution. So my constitution became the Flame Radiance Body.'

'And this Flame Radiance Body has also had its spell model carefully designed to purely enchant my permanent defensive field and my own magical power, without causing any interference. This is very likely a research result that those magical textile workers and enchanters achieved through an immeasurable amount of painstaking effort.'

Locke looked at the robe's instruction manual. The Flame Radiance Body's counterattack magical power was in fact tied to the magic pressure intensity of his own permanent defensive field shell.

In any case, it could only enhance his own permanent defensive field by about ten percent, and when an opponent attacked, it would reflect back that attack in the form of flames at one-tenth of the magic pressure intensity of his permanent defensive field.

Regardless, this Second Circle magical artifact set was strong enough that wearing it directly increased the defensive strength of his permanent defensive field shell by ten percent.

He also wore on his hands a pair of gloves called the Silencer's Gloves, which had transformed into two points of light hidden in the center of his palms.

Ordinarily they could remain hidden, and with the slightest movement of thought, a pair of magical gloves woven from the silk of a Second Circle creature called the Ogura Giant Spider would appear on his hands.

These magical gloves could isolate most biological intrusions, energy intrusions, and curse damage, block magical energy, and reduce the influence of abnormal spirituality.

In short, they could protect him when coming into contact with unknown objects, while also protecting those unknown objects and preventing any unnecessary contamination of precious unknown specimens through contact.

The wizard hat Locke wore was called the Spell Weaver, which could increase his spellcasting speed and boost his instantaneous magic multiplier by approximately ten percent.

The Spell Weaver mask that came paired with it, once put on, made Locke look as though he were wearing a sort of mechanical mask radiating blue iridescent light.

The other wizards in the cockpit presented a similar aesthetic to Locke's own attire, like wizards wearing mechanical masks, full of a fantastical quality.

The ten First Circle wizards of varying ranks, however, wore only ordinary First Circle wizard robes provided by Locke, and on their feet were the Black Great Hummingbird Bromeliad wizard shoes provided by Locke as well.

Which were also currently the finest First Circle wizard shoes in the Three Marshes.

Old Pirate Henry still wore the same attire as before, having only added a pirate wizard hat. He was himself a man-artifact fusion, capable of enchanting himself directly. Many of his components were already magical artifacts, so his need for white wizard society's wizard robes, wizard hats, and similar items was low.

One could only say that Locke had previously forcibly overpowered Old Pirate Henry through a combination of high magic pressure and the double synergy of the magic dragon rose and magic dragon bloodline. But Old Henry still had quite a few magical artifacts on him that were like advanced proprietary technology.

Hussein's situation was not much different. The Blood Progenitor True Form itself served a certain role in substituting for wizard robes.

At that moment, the Endless Mountain continued to rise steadily, and the Exploration Vanguard, under Locke's control, also flew up toward the sky above the wizard world, breaking through the wizard world's barrier.

Old Pirate Henry took a sip of wizard spirits, smacked his lips with relish, and then looked out the cockpit window with considerable excitement. "The great void, I am back. Ha ha ha!"

"Captain Locke, quickly enter the golden navigation route."

"Locking planar gravity onto the target plane..."

Old Pirate Henry's eyes shone with light.

"Excellent. I have not had a plundering assignment in months. My hands have been itching unbearably."

"Damn that notebook system. I think it is designed to be anti-wizard. A single failed plunder actually affects subsequent project applications. The margin for error is far too low!"

Hussein glanced at him, then said quietly to Locke, "Locke, since this operation will be using the golden navigation route, the True Eye will be watching. If our companions do anything out of line, we will also lose civilization credit points. You are aware of this, right?"

Locke smiled.

Old Pirate Henry shot Hussein a glare and took another sip of wizard spirits.

"You think I am some bloodthirsty killer who loves slaughter? Without anything to plunder, do I need to resort to violence?"

"I will follow the captain's orders on this operation. That is the true creed of our pirates."

Old Pirate Henry looked at Locke and gave him his word.

In his eyes, Locke was the captain of this operation and the highest authority responsible for it.

At that moment, Locke guided the Exploration Vanguard void warship and plunged it into the golden navigation route, while simultaneously operating the console to lock in the three-cave world as the plane destination.

Floating in midair inside Locke's cockpit was a staff. This was the void warship's control interface. Wizard void warships could be operated with a staff.

The same as with the Peach Boat.

Locke then turned to look at the ten First Circle wizards. Three of them were at the vaporization stage, four were at the liquefaction stage, and three were at the crystallization stage. He paid them each their monthly salary at the market rate, and on top of that provided them with a void exploration supplement.

That is to say, double the monthly salary.

Among those Locke had hired was a crystallization-stage witch named Ada.

Witch Ada was a wizard who had graduated from Little Repose Mountain and specialized in pendulum divination.

At that moment, she let a small iron ball fall from her sleeve, quietly recited a spell, and began divining for good and ill omens, observing the trajectory of the iron ball.

The ship also carried two students brought by each of the ten registered wizards, who also served as their assistants. The salaries for these students were paid by the ten registered wizards themselves.

Locke did not have the standing to give them direct orders.

In a certain sense, these wizard apprentices were simply one piece of equipment belonging to the First Circle wizards he had hired.

He only needed to instruct those registered wizards, and the registered wizards could in turn direct their own students to help them carry out Locke's orders.

At that moment, Witch Ada's two students began recording the results of their teacher's pendulum readings.

Witch Ada's eyes released a bright azure arcane light.

"Esteemed Great Wizard Augustine, one who is close to life, one who commands wisdom. I will now maintain continuous pendulum divination throughout our journey and will inform you of any anomalies. My two students will record the results of my pendulum divination, which I perform once every twenty minutes, compiling the results into a pendulum spectrum."

"I will use the results of each twenty-minute pendulum reading to foretell our short-term fortune and misfortune, and by reading the pendulum spectrum, to foresee our overall future and past."

"I, Witch Ada of Little Repose Mountain, will ensure our void navigation is safe and free of worry, and will do my utmost to prevent accidents."

Hussein and Old Pirate Henry both nodded repeatedly upon hearing this. They were extremely satisfied with Witch Ada whom Locke had brought aboard.

Although Hussein's original target had been for Locke to recruit a divination wizard from Quinn Jol, Little Repose Mountain had itself branched off from Quinn Jol.

So the divination wizards of Little Repose Mountain were also of very high quality.

Old Pirate Henry laughed and said, "With this many of us acting together this time, it is quite a large void exploration team. I am truly looking forward to this void exploration."

...

The Three-Hole World. At that moment, the Three-Hole World, across a vast distance, was locked onto by the Exploration Vanguard void warship.

On the crater rims, eleven giants were in their palaces enjoying the service of the world spirits they had illuminated, existences called Eves, watching beautiful song and dance performances.

But at that moment, their palaces suddenly began to shake continuously. The ornately carved ceilings began to collapse, the exquisitely crafted crescent-white pillars began to fall, and one by one the giants enjoying Eve's service rose from the ground, seized the weapons placed beside them, and glared out at the entire world.

They stood one by one on their crater rims, gazing down at the mortal world below the craters, the region they called the Great Land.

But they detected no trace of anything that could shake their divine power and bring their palaces crumbling down.

At that moment, the Oracle Giant among the giants suddenly said, "The God Above Gods has sent word. He says that the power which descended last time has once again locked onto our world. With its arrival, our divine power will begin to wane daily. Because our divine power is built upon us being the mightiest beings of this world, the sole rulers, and the sole divine beings."

"When an outsider's power locks onto our world, it intervenes in the fate of our world, and so we siblings are no longer the sole rulers of this world, and our divine power will decline."

"The God Above Gods says the outsider is exceedingly powerful, possessing unimaginable strength. When his breath descends upon our world, it becomes a storm that tears the world apart. When his gaze falls upon us, our world is set ablaze everywhere. He is a demon god!"

The Flame Giant furrowed his brow. "I fear no enemy who comes to challenge me. In my youth, I once single-handedly overturned seven demon wolves on my own. You all know my prowess. My trident will burn my enemies to nothing like a roaring inferno."

The Ocean Giant said, "Let us ask the God-King's opinion. He is the mightiest among us. Even if all of us together gripped a rope, he could give it a gentle tug with his wrist and pull every last one of us from the Great Land up onto the crater rim and hang us on that rope."

At that moment, a female giant spoke. "Wait. If that outsider has already been written into the fate of our world, can we influence his fate by manipulating the fate of this world?"

"We still have one brother dwelling beneath the Great Land, manipulating the life and death of the mortals on the surface, and within his domain lives his daughter, who can manipulate fate. Perhaps he can be of help."