Wizards: Starting with Synthetic Gems

Chapter 259 Distributed Mind Power
“This potion…” Locke’s expression changed. “I’ve only ever heard of the Swarm Consciousness potion before. It’s a divine potion among wizards specializing in plant magic, a dream come true for them.”

"Even among first-ring potions, this one is quite difficult to refine, and the materials are extremely rare. Some of the materials are only in stock, or have even become extinct. It is an extremely precious first-ring potion."

"But I didn't expect the potion to have such a unique effect."

After taking the Swarm Consciousness potion, Locke began to break out in a cold sweat. Every surge of powerful magical energy was invading his cells, strengthening his magic power, and even having a partial effect on modifying his spirituality.

At the back of Locke's brain, illusory tendrils of thought appeared, fluttering about like the dreadlocks on the back of Locke's forehead.

Of course, these mental tentacles do not actually exist; they are merely Locke's "psychic manifestations," and they will disappear when the psychic energy is released.

As the Swarm Consciousness potion altered a portion of Locke's inner spirituality, the details of the illusory thought nerve tentacles appearing on the back of his head became increasingly realistic.

At the same time, Locke experienced a hallucination.

In the center of a dark and deep world, there was a cold, black sun, and countless swarms of bees were moving around it.

These subterranean bee swarms seem to possess countless consciousnesses, communicating with each other, with unique psionic signals flowing within them.

When they need to find food, they release special psionic waves to generate more underground swarms of bees in the colony; when they encounter enemies, they release special psionic waves representing crisis to increase the proportion of swarm warriors in the entire colony.

The entire tribe lacked any individual consciousness or what could be described as intelligence.

However, the entire group, as a consciousness, possesses advanced wisdom, and each individual is a separate neuron within this group.

And what connects each individual is this special spiritual energy.

This is a distributed mode of intelligence evolution that differs from that of independent intelligent individuals.

Individuals, seemingly devoid of intelligence, become the smallest unit of the collective brain; a collective is a collective consciousness.

As the images within the illusion shifted, Locke seemed to transform into a subterranean queen bee, establishing a psychic connection with countless subterranean swarms.

In reality, Locke, sitting in the chair of the makeshift laboratory, already had many psionic neural tentacles growing at the back of his brain.

These psionic tendrils plunged into all the magical plants Locke carried—Black Lock Bamboo, three newly replenished Omen Mandrake Vines, Great Blue Owl Banana, Crystal Palm Fire Lotus, the Iron Wire Goosegrass seeds he carried, Clivia and Rotten Earth Amorphophallus, and the Thunder Purple Sweet Potato Vine parasitizing the Rotten Earth Amorphophallus.

In an instant, Locke formed a deeper and closer connection with these magical plants. These magical plants not only formed a magical grafting relationship with him and were controlled by his plant magic spell model, but they also entered the distributed mind-energy system built around him.

In other words, he and these magical plants formed a small ecological network with the wizard as the individual.

As the main body of this ecosystem, becoming the main body of this small ecological network, the connection between oneself and these magical plants is closer. One can feel the simple emotions emanating from them and can more easily distribute the magic power of these magical plants.

Through this psionic network, one can understand the current state of one's magical plants, which helps in thinking about how to better cultivate them.

This greatly enhances one's skills in the field of breeding.

Locke sat in the laboratory chair, pondering, "No wonder this potion is so coveted by botanical wizards. Its true main effect is that it can help me build my own distributed psionic network."

Distributed psionic networks are widely visible in natural environments, commonly found in various insect swarms, forest vegetation, moss and lichen systems, etc.

'These insect and plant groups, in the course of natural evolution, have adopted a distributed thinking model, which is completely different from higher animals, which, in their development, pursue the growth of individual intelligence.'

"By consuming the Swarm Consciousness Potion, wizards can enhance a portion of their spirituality, gaining access to a type of distributed intelligence—the psychic information network—developed through millions of years of evolution by insects and plants. This can improve a botanical wizard's understanding of plant magic, enhancing their overall power, which will greatly benefit my future."

'Currently, this has at least increased the direct combat capabilities of all my magical plants by 30%. This is because, during combat, I can better allocate my mana and the Talmud tree energy within my heart through the psionic network, channeling it to the magical plants with which I have established a magical graft relationship.'

'I suspect that wizards specializing in insect manipulation magic within the Life School will also experience a similar, significant enhancement.'

'Being able to take this potion is like winning the lottery. It's a truly unexpected delight.'

'The main ingredient of this potion seems to be the brain of the queen bee from a swarm of bees in the underworld. I just don't know which region that underworld, with its cold, black sun, is in.'

The wizarding world is vast; I've only glimpsed the tip of the iceberg, and I'm far from seeing its true face.

Locke also realized that because of the spiritual essence deep within his brain and soul, an energy called "psychic energy" was generated, so his magical pressure and mana were enhanced after taking the Swarm Consciousness Potion.

Locke then realized that enhancing personal magical power was merely a side effect of the Swarm Consciousness Potion. Its true purpose was to help wizards obtain the culmination of millions of years of evolution by the swarm—the Distributed Mind-Based Psionic Network.

Locke placed his palm on the amethyst matrix, and immediately the number 780 appeared on the crystal ball.

Locke's brow twitched. "It actually increased my mana by 30 points. It's just a pity that the principle behind this potion's ability to enhance my mana is that it automatically increases my mana while generating a psionic network for me. So, after taking the second bottle of Swarm Consciousness Potion, I won't be able to gain much more mana."

The remaining 20 mana points are of exceptionally high quality.

I estimate that every point I gain will require tremendous effort or a huge amount of magical resources.

After all, once you reach 800 mana, you enter a period of inefficient leveling up. If you rely entirely on yourself to level up like wizards did in the past, you'll waste time.

Therefore, the closer one's mana is to 800, the more difficult and resource-intensive it becomes to increase by each point, while the benefits are not significant.

This is probably why modern wizards pursue the use of advancement potions to become full-fledged wizards.

In order to skip the time-consuming boost from 800 mana to 1000 mana.

Locke suddenly realized that the three ancient creature bloodlines within him seemed to be reacting because he had created a distributed psionic network. This psionic network within the plant and animal ecosystem seemed to be mysteriously connected to the ancient creature bloodlines.

Locke pondered for a moment, and just before this special synergy was about to disappear and the potion was completely digested, he suddenly used the archaeology spell [Summon Tomb Spirit] on himself!
The main ingredient of the Swarm Consciousness Potion is the queen bee of an unknown swarm of bees from the underground world, so it is possible that there exists a negative energy particle field that can be captured by oneself.

Each time I read it, the profound and hidden knowledge from the past further enhances my archaeological skills.

Moreover, this concerned his own research on the bloodline of ancient creatures, so Locke did not let the opportunity pass and directly used the summoning of tomb spirits.

'A typical botanical wizard probably wouldn't have discovered this secret. Even if they possessed ancient biological bloodlines and happened to have the opportunity to consume the Swarm Consciousness potion, they lacked archaeological skills. Even if they made a discovery, they would ultimately have to abandon it.'

Locke thought to himself, "I am able to have this condition because I have three disciplines combined."

Inside the makeshift laboratory, Locke's eyes lit up with delight. "I've got it! Sure enough, this potion also contains a negative energy particle field that I can capture using archaeological spells!"

"this is……"

(End of this chapter)