Wizards: Starting with Synthetic Gems

Chapter 124 Beginning of Fame
After purchasing a large amount of magical resources, Locke left the Chimera Market with satisfaction.

It was already dark when I returned to my house.

But the witch Sophia sent one of her elven servants to wait at her door to deliver a letter to her.

Locke took the letter, ignoring the elven servant who bowed to him, and opened it. He found that it was a reply from the Breeder Competition Department of the White Wizard Association.

"Huh? I did pass the preliminary round."

Locke saw the standard letter from the competition committee congratulating him on being selected for the finals and inviting him to submit his second magical plant creation, along with a report on it, to continue participating in the finals of the White Wizard Association Breeder Competition.

“Only the top 300 entries from the entire Southeast Corner Region can enter the finals,” Locke said. “This is a long-established competition organized by the white wizarding community of the entire Southeast Corner Region. Basically, all qualified breeding assistants will participate to compete for resources.”

"Therefore, there will be thousands of entries in the preliminary round."

“But my work fought its way out from among these thousands of submissions.” Locke looked at the ranking list of the top three hundred that had been sent with the letter, a strange emotion showing in his eyes.

If before he was merely exploring the wizarding world of the Southeast Corner within Lilith's Hut, now he was finally making his mark in this region, participating in a competition of the entire Southeast Corner for the first time, and winning.

Locke looked at the ranking list and began searching for his work's ranking. "My work is ranked... fifth!"

"My work actually ranked fifth."

Locke glanced at the brief award citation on the leaderboard: 'An exceptionally excellent work, perfectly enhancing the power of the Palm Fire Lotus. The committee unanimously agreed that if the Palm Fire Lotus hadn't been relatively simple, the ranking could have been two places higher.'

Locke's eyes were subtle, and he was slightly excited. His work had not only won the preliminary round in the entire southeastern region, but had also achieved a commendable fifth place in the preliminary round.

They outmaneuvered all the breeders in the southeast corner region.

"However, what kind of monsters are the top four? They are even ranked higher than my Crystal Palm Fire Lotus."

Locke quickly scanned the top four works and found that the authors of the top four works were all first-class wizard apprentices, and not even newly promoted first-class wizard apprentices.

They've participated in this competition more than ten times, hoping it will earn them magical resources.

Therefore, they are very familiar with the scoring criteria for the competition and are very experienced.

The top four works do indeed look better than my Crystal Palm Fire Lotus.

“There are still many skilled breeders in the southeastern region, so I can’t be careless.” Locke pondered, “I heard from Teacher Sophia that during the White Wizard Association’s breeder competition, everyone will definitely not show their full strength when participating in the preliminary rounds.”

"Because the purpose of the qualifiers is simply to get into the finals."

"Therefore, many breeders with strong abilities will not give their all in the preliminary rounds. Many people who can usually make it into the top 100 in the preliminary rounds may not even make it into the top 100 in the finals."

“So I still have to keep working hard.” Locke clenched his fist. “There were people ranked higher than me in the preliminaries, and there will only be more and more experts in the finals.”

"It seems I have to put in some effort in this area, otherwise I might not be able to get into the top fifty and obtain a large number of magic stones as a reward."

Locke's purpose in participating in this competition was, from the very beginning, to obtain a large amount of magical resources; all other purposes were secondary.

Of course, if I can achieve a good result in this competition, it will be much easier for me to apply for various things from the academy in the future.

Locke's eyes turned serious as he walked back to his room to meditate that evening.

Every major leap forward is built up little by little from those small steps of progress.

……

Lilith's Cottage, a port city, in an ordinary alley, in an inconspicuous semi-basement, this semi-basement has only one window above the ground.

The remaining half of the room is located underground.

This is the house where the poorest people among ordinary people live.

When it rains, rainwater will flow into this semi-basement. After the rain recedes, the corners of the semi-basement will become moldy and emit a pungent stench, making it impossible for ordinary people to live here.

In this filthy living environment, ten dark wizards dressed in black robes were secretly plotting their plans.

In the dim light, the eyes of these dark wizards emitted a crimson glow, and when they spoke, they revealed terrifying fangs. These dark wizards were vampires transformed by the Blood Curse Court and subjected to blood curse modifications.

"Damn white wizards, they're not strong in combat, but they're full of tricks. Their weatherman has semi-permanently altered the climate in the heart of our Blood Curse Court, damaging our school's resource reserves."

“Their stupid potions have also polluted our water sources and land. Mortals who eat the food contaminated by those potions will develop a resistance to our curse, which will make things very troublesome.” In the darkness, vampire Howard twisted his neck as if something was wrong with it, twisting it incessantly, and he seemed somewhat neurotic.

"The academy's higher-ups have forbidden us from indiscriminately casting curses on mortals within the territory. At this time, casting curses on them could easily cause them to develop targeted curse resistance."

"The academy's higher-ups are worried that this is a massive experiment being conducted by those hypocritical white wizards, using the mortals of our territory to test for a bloodline that specifically generates resistance to the curse already present in our school..."

"The White Wizard is always so hypocritical!"

"We want revenge, we want to kill." Howard's eyes flashed with a bloodthirsty and neurotic rage. "The academy's higher-ups have issued the highest-level revenge order, instructing us apprentices who are infiltrating Lilith's Hut to begin a targeted hunt for the breeders and potion-making geniuses at Lilith's Hut."

"This is a response to the provocative behavior of those drug sellers."

"Recently, those pseudo-saints released the rankings for the preliminary rounds of the Breeder Competition, and the academy's higher-ups have instructed us to conduct targeted killings based on that ranking list."

"We must hurt them, we must make them feel fear!"

“Hunting them according to that list is the right way to go,” Howard said nervously. “As long as we hunt down just one of their geniuses, the academy will give us a huge amount of magical resources as a reward.”

"Don't say the academy didn't give you opportunities before. Now the opportunity is right in front of you. If you want to become a first-class wizard apprentice, or even a full wizard, with our meager qualifications, do you think you can succeed without fighting hard?!"

Most of the dark wizards present had only level 1 or 2 aptitude.

Howard is the only one with a level 3 qualification.

Unlike the white wizarding society's extreme pursuit of geniuses, the black wizarding society also pursues geniuses, but not to the same degree.

That's because in the dark wizarding world, resources are the most important thing.

Unlike white wizarding societies, dark wizarding societies do not have a relatively reasonable allocation of resources, and geniuses without resources will have very limited development.

More importantly, dark wizards have a whole host of shortcuts. The biggest motivation for many people to learn dark magic is that they believe learning white magic will only lead to a mediocre life, and only by learning the extremely radical dark magic can they achieve a breakthrough.

Although these hopes are largely a form of self-deception.

The other wizarding apprentices of the Blood Curse Court exchanged glances. They were all excited when they heard that the academy would give them huge rewards; of course, they wanted to get these huge rewards.

But when they thought about the current situation, they were also a little scared.

“But Howard, there’s very little we second-class and third-class wizard apprentices can do as undercover agents here.”

“Those useless white wizards always hide in their greenhouse-like homes and never come out normally…”

"Our strength is insufficient..."

A powerful magical pressure erupted from vampire Howard, pressing down on every apprentice of the Blood Curse Court present.

The wizarding apprentices of the Blood Curse Court were horrified.

"Howard, you've become a first-class wizard apprentice? You broke through here? How is that possible?"

"My God, even though you have a level three aptitude, you're only 25 years old. You couldn't possibly have become a first-class wizard apprentice so quickly. Besides, just six months ago, you were only a second-class wizard apprentice!"

A second-class wizard apprentice vampire, his eyes flashing with intense jealousy and greed, said, "How did you do that? Can you tell me your method?"

Howard the vampire chuckled smugly. "That's exactly what I was about to say."

"I was able to become a first-class wizard apprentice because the academy's higher-ups conducted an experiment on me. Also, the academy provides us with special support because the academy's prohibition against mortals in its territory eating food has caused a large-scale famine."

"The academy's higher-ups have simply taken advantage of this famine to create a wave of undead creatures. Soon, the wave of undead creatures will split into three waves and attack Lilith's Hut territory, which will cause chaos."

"And chaos is the best opportunity for us, the Blood Curse Court, to fish in troubled waters."

"As for the matter of first-class wizard apprentices..." Howard chuckled. "This was something the academy's higher-ups wanted me to disclose to you all."

The nine vampires of the Blood Curse Court immediately revealed astonishing greed and jealousy towards Howard.

They all craned their necks, ready to hear Howard reveal the secret to his ability to become a first-class wizard apprentice in Lilith's Cottage territory.

(End of this chapter)