Chapter 856: Arriving at the Three-Hole World!

Locke's clone went to Golden Crown Mountain's library.

Since the grafted Large Green Leaf Dragon Sparrow still needed at least one more week to reach maturity, he first left Douglas and Witch Mason to handle it.

He himself went to Golden Crown Mountain's library and began looking up materials related to golden magic and botanical spell models.

On Akman's recommendation, Locke took a pile of reference materials and sat down at a library table.

At that moment, seven other Second Circle wizards were also in the reading area.

They looked up at Locke briefly, then lowered their heads again to the materials in their hands.

Some had one hand reading materials while the other simultaneously simulated the spell models described.

Locke sat on a stool, passed his palm over the table, and simulated an apprentice-level golden magic spell model. On the table's surface, golden sand converged into a golden finger.

"The gap between a purely golden magic spell model and a botanical spell model is simply too vast."

Locke looked at the ten fundamental golden magic characters in the book.

"These are the ten commonly used fundamental structural elements of golden magic spell models. As long as I learn them, using them to cast apprentice-level golden magic should not be a problem."

"For wizard apprentices, they believe the fundamental unit of a spell model's construction is those magic characters. Just as the fundamental unit of botanical spell models is the twenty ogham tree characters."

"The fundamental magical runes of golden magic are magical rune characters called Chryses, the golden characters. There are only ten of them."

"In apprentice-level spell models, the higher the circle, the more runes are used, constructing increasingly complex spell models. A simple botanical cantrip might use only a dozen or so magical runes, but a spell model approaching First Circle might internally contain close to a hundred magical characters."

"But for registered wizards, one should recognize that whether it is the ogham tree characters or the Chryses golden characters, these are merely surface appearances. Each of these characters corresponds to a fundamental spell model structure, meaning one rune corresponds to one spell model."

"So-called magical rune construction of spell models is simply the result of high-circle wizards deliberately simplifying magical models. Otherwise, the cost for apprentices to cast magic, the difficulty of learning, and the investment of resources would all need to be multiplied by at least ten or more."

At that moment, as a Second Circle great wizard learning golden magic, Locke drew on other disciplines to illuminate his own, referencing broadly, and came to understand the essential nature of magical rune characters.

A magical rune was the result of a high-circle wizard having simplified the fundamental structure of a type of magic's spell.

One magical rune character corresponded to one complex spell model structure.

In other words, when wizard apprentices learned magical characters and assembled those characters into comparatively simple spell models, they were extremely proud of their minor innovations to the spell models and deeply absorbed in their own sense of achievement.

They, and even many First Circle wizards, had not realized that every single magical rune character they used carried a depth of magical knowledge far exceeding anything they had personally constructed through their own crude spell models.

Locke marveled, "It is not simply that a complex spell model has been condensed into a single magical rune character."

"The spell models these characters correspond to represent the common structural forms of spell models for a magical category."

"As long as these common structures are used, extraordinarily complex and magnificent spell models can be constructed."

"In other words, those spell models are the result of high-circle wizards summarizing the truths of the world."

What gave Locke pause was that the scale of this endeavor clearly surpassed even his conception of Third Circle wizards, or even Fourth Circle wizards.

Take for example the Chryses golden characters before him: only ten characters, yet seemingly containing truth within them.

All the golden magic spell models he had ever encountered seemed unable to step outside the bounds of these ten characters.

On the foundation of these ten characters, through rearranging and recombining them, with some wizards devising new spell model structures and adding them in, alongside other auxiliary magical characters incorporated into the spell model structure, a complex spell model could be fully constructed.

Looking again at these ten characters, Locke felt each one was as vast as a universe.

Every additional look made the spell model structures corresponding to these characters grow clearer, and he even noticed that his previous understanding had been in error in certain details, which he now needed to correct.

In other words, wizards with different levels of understanding of these characters could unlock even more powerful forces hidden within them.

Was this the work of a Truth Wizard?

Or a wizard of even higher standing?

"This is a form of uplifting on another level."

Locke realized something.

"Without these high-circle wizards creating these systematic magical rune character systems, a wizard seeking to understand the magical world and explore truth could only summarize those magical forces point by point on their own. Like a snail, slowly exploring the magic of that direction."

"But with the uplifting of these magical characters, those of us who come after can stand upon the achievements of those who came before. No wonder wizards of the wizard world so easily achieve higher accomplishments than people from other worlds."

Was it that other worlds lacked intelligent people?

Not at all.

Rather, the intelligent people of the wizard world were uplifting every subsequent member of the wizard world.

He himself, as someone who had entered the wizard world as an ordinary mortal of average aptitude, had from the very beginning been learning from the essential works written by Fourth Circle wizards, or even higher-circle wizards.

Before, his limited perspective had caused him to see only the impressive things created by First Circle and Second Circle wizards, mistaking that for the full might of magic.

Now that he was himself a Second Circle wizard, he realized that the most impressive, the most truth-laden thing was precisely what he had encountered on the very first page of the very first textbook during his apprentice days.

Everyone wanted to obtain the magical inheritance of high-circle wizards. But looking at it this way, who in the wizard world was not receiving the inheritance of high-circle wizards?

Locke said, "If I were in another world, completing two breakthroughs beyond the limit would likely require effort and time far exceeding what it has taken now."

"The Age of Enlightenment... that era changed everything, leaving no one in the wizard world bold enough to claim dominion, and establishing the existence of the White Wizard Association. I wonder how turbulent and magnificent that era must have been."

Locke composed himself and began reading earnestly through the magic books and papers related to various golden magic spell models.

Although the foundation was the Chryses golden characters, First Circle and Second Circle spell model structures were still enormously vast in scope. The Chryses golden characters were only the foundation.

At the First Circle stage, many wizards would add a good number of auxiliary magical characters to construct special spell models.

And at the Second Circle stage, a Second Circle great wizard would use both fundamental magical characters and auxiliary magical characters to construct spell models.

At the same time, based on their unique understanding of a direction of magical power, they would add their own distinctive and original spell model structures.

This was why magic at the Second Circle stage all possessed a high degree of originality.

It was also why at the Second Circle stage, the lineage showed itself more significantly in the individual.

Because different lineages would certainly have different original spell model structures.

Locke thought: "I can come to understand golden magic gradually. For designing the second pair of Second Circle wizard shoes, I can first learn the Chryses golden characters."

"There is no need to truly learn from the very beginning. That way, without five to ten years of time, it would be very difficult to produce results. However, I only need to rely on the special nature of the Magical Dragon bloodline, combined with the partial spell model of the Sephiroth's Grip I witnessed, to make adjustments and modifications and produce a version of golden magic suitable for my wizard shoes."

In essence, he was adapting from existing work.

Because the Sephiroth's Grip had already been lost to history, but it was an extraordinarily powerful spell. He had only memorized a portion of it, and reproducing that portion was already enough to enhance his wizard shoes.

"One must thank the golden dragon clan for casting their spells without ever concealing their spell models."

"An open-source structure, as it were."

"The fundamental magical runes used by this Sephiroth's Grip are the Chryses golden characters, along with three types of auxiliary magical characters. However, in this era there are generalist scholars. Wizard Akman, in less than five minutes, helped me identify the categories of those three auxiliary magical characters."

"So I only need to first familiarize myself with these four types of magical characters."

Familiarity was not the same as mastery.

Of course, because this was an adaptation rather than a development from scratch, producing a crude version of the Sephiroth's Grip would be considerably simpler.

But time would still be required.

Locke read through the Chryses golden characters magic book once, then said, "As expected, learning this will be very straightforward for me. Golden magic has a characteristic: people with certain bloodlines find it only a fraction as difficult to learn. The higher the grade of a wizard's specific golden bloodline, the lower the difficulty of learning golden magic. I do not know the grade of the world-ending magic dragon's bloodline. Only when I read the Chryses golden characters..."

Locke said, "I have the peculiar sensation of retaining everything at a glance."

"Now my clone can study here while the laboratory has Mason and the others handling things, and my main body can begin officially entering the Three-Hole Plane and starting the pioneering work."

...

The Three-Hole Plane. The spindle-shaped Exploration Vanguard revolved outside the crystal wall system of the Three-Hole Plane. It had taken them more than half a month to pass through the ruins of that destroyed plane's meteorite field, leave the void leviathan's location, and find the Three-Hole Plane.

After that, another week was needed to enter the Three-Hole Plane's near-void orbit.

Because Locke was a newcomer, under Old Pirate Henry's patient instruction, he spent a little over a week and finally entered the near-void orbit closest to the present world of the Three-Hole Plane.

Old Pirate Henry said to Locke, "That is it. Now we do not need to worry about being flung away by planar gravity, or being dragged into the present world by planar gravity and crashing directly onto the surface of the Three-Hole Plane's mortal world."

"Captain, you really do learn quickly."

Locke said, "Fair enough."

The main reason was his high perceptiveness owing to the ancient creature bloodline, along with his long-standing innate talent for precise control of magical power.

Locke looked at the Three-Hole Plane. The surface of the Three-Hole Plane was a ripple of emerald blue, with rivers running green.

According to the earlier intelligence gathered by the void cube, the reason the great rivers of this world appeared green was that many seeds from the lotus that upheld the crater rims and the great land floated throughout the rivers.

This caused the rivers to appear green in color.

At the same time, the planar principles of this world had no conflict with those of the wizard world.

The deviation in related planar principles would have some effect on the power of spell models.

But on the way here, they had already micro-adjusted their spell models based on the void cube's exploration results, so entering this world would essentially have no significant impact on them.

Locke said, "According to the intelligence gathered by the void cube, in this world, water magic of the Energy Shaping School receives a bonus, while magic of the Mind School collectively ceases to function. The world is composed of wind, water, fire, earth, and ether elements."

Old Pirate Henry pressed against the observation window and looked carefully, his expression one of astonishment. "A characteristic of medium-scale planes is that the world's crystal wall system will give birth to many half-planes. If the civilization of this world develops to a certain level, they will begin to explore outward. They may very well remain at the stage of exploring within the crystal wall system, mistakenly taking those half-planes within the crystal wall system for entirely new worlds."

"They would form a mistaken understanding of the size of their own world and their position in the infinite void."

"They would treat those half-planes as other worlds."

"Small-scale planes cannot produce half-planes. The half-planes of small-to-medium-scale planes lack systematic structure. But this plane before us... its crystal wall system has not only produced half-planes, but has also produced one, two... two and a half upper-tier planes."

"The ability to produce systematic upper-tier planes is a characteristic of medium-to-large-scale planes."

"This plane is actually very close to becoming a medium-to-large-scale plane. Good heavens. It is nearly just one step away from becoming a medium-to-large-scale plane. Why did it suddenly stop?"

"It is on the verge of advancing to medium-to-large-scale plane status. Why has it remained at this level for so long?"

"Under normal circumstances, even when a world fails to advance, it still leaves traces of the failed attempt... rather than staying at this stage for a long time and doing nothing at all."

Old Pirate Henry pointed at the world ahead. Within the crystal wall system of this world, one upper-tier plane existed at the summit of the crater rim, and one upper-tier plane existed beneath the crater rim underground.

The remaining half upper-tier plane was located in the ocean.

Locke said, "Second Circle wizards cannot yet enter this world directly. Everyone, we need to first send some people into this world. I need you to bring my treeman avatar into it and plant the first tree seed on the great land of this world."

"Everyone, Second Circle level existences are present in this world. Therefore, for registered wizards, the danger is very significant. Who will enter first?"

Some wizards volunteered.

In the end, Locke selected three wizards at the gas stage.

Because their entry would cause the least disturbance and the world's degree of rejection toward them would be lowest.

At the same time, Locke sensed a divine power surging from a distant place, attacking the Exploration Vanguard.

"Hmm?" Locke looked back and saw the Flame Giant drawing a bow and arrow in the mortal world below, attempting to fire a flame arrow at them.

But Locke simply operated the control staff and raised the Exploration Vanguard by one void orbit altitude, easily dodging the attack.

The giant could only watch as its attack fell toward the great land below.

Old Henry laughed heartily. "These natives..."

"Without interstellar civilization-level capabilities, the natives of this world will find it very difficult to project their attacks to the near-void orbit. Their power is confined within the crystal wall system."

Hussein said, "Whether they truly are natives remains to be seen. I feel as though they do not belong to this world at all. They are practically like parasites in this world, having stagnated the entire world's development."