Wizards: Starting with Synthetic Gems

Chapter 956 The Dragon of the End and the Struggle for the Wyvern Garden of Nexus
The purification spring suddenly exploded, the purified water boiled, and countless water droplets flew everywhere.

Locke emerged from the bottom of the Purifying Spring and looked at the immortal dragon scale on the back of his hand. At this moment, the immortal dragon scale was still completely black, except for an eye pattern on the black scale.

"After 32 failed attempts, I finally managed to kill the abyssal energy cycle belonging to the Eye Demon in my eye through the Peach Guardian Curse. In other words, I would have needed to fail at least 31 times to complete this step. Without the ability to reset my stats from the Purification Spring, I would never have dared to do this in the outside world."

Locke's eyes turned completely black, but the next moment, his eyes returned to normal on their own.

"We finally managed to use the last half hour to complete the plan to replenish the dragon with abyssal energy."

Locke closed his eyes. At this moment, the dragon bloodline located in his sea of ​​consciousness had changed. His originally incomplete body had now become complete. Half of it was the original world-destroying dragon, and the other half was an abyssal energy body.

However, this abyssal energy entity only has a dragon shape, without any specific features or details.

At the same time, many eyes appeared on the three-headed dragon's body. Those eyes were very similar to those of the Eye Demon. Moreover, its dragon bloodline still held the Golden Peach and showed a tendency to advance to the Star Ring bloodline.

"It has evolved."

Locke was secretly pleased to see this. He had always been completely unable to interfere with the dragon bloodline, but now he could finally do so.

"As expected... Abyssal energy has a high degree of adaptability. My guess was correct. Almost everything in the endless void can be transformed into the abyss. Abyssal energy itself has a high degree of adaptability. While strengthening the dragon bloodline with abyssal energy, it can also repair its missing parts."

"Although the main framework of this bloodline is still the World-Destroying Demon Dragon, it has been modified by me, resulting in a difference from the World-Destroying Demon Dragon of the Tower of the Black Sun."

"The chaotic abyssal energy should be able to mislead the Tower of the Black Sun."

"only……"

Locke saw the pattern on the dragon scale on the back of his hand switch between an eye pattern and an ouroboros pattern, but the ouroboros pattern quickly disappeared from the dragon scale, leaving only an eye pattern.

Locke pondered, "The collision of abyssal energy and the power of the demonic dragon seems to have produced some kind of unusual change. What kind of power is that?"

"Go to the library and look up some information."

Locke left the Purification Spring on his own, as his time had come. Even if he wanted to stay there, he would probably be forcibly teleported out by the magical array's restrictions.

Locke changed his clothes, bowed to the old Sun Ring Wizard who guarded the Purification Spring, and then quickly left, heading straight for the library at Golden Crown Mountain. He entered the Second Ring area and found Ackerman.

Ackerman said, "Good evening, Locke. Is there anything you need? Please wait a moment..."

The troll wizard gave him a look of horror.

"This magical pressure...you've become a Star Ring Wizard?"

Locke nodded slightly. "I'm the champion of the Silent Tournament, so this speed should be considered fairly normal."

The troll wizard pursed his lips, revealing an expression of disbelief, envy, and jealousy. "That's right, your soul is still in a very young stage; this is the most vibrant state."

"My God, you haven't entered the peak period of a wizard's life yet. You know, a wizard's magical level doesn't always rise in a straight line. It's not that simple. In his life, there are times when he is in a state of rapid improvement, times when he is in a state of stagnation, and times when he is in a state of regression."

"A wizard's period of explosive achievement is roughly when he has just emerged from a blank slate, has accumulated his own experience, and does not have too many fixed patterns of thinking about many things."

"And you probably haven't even entered that stage yet, look at your eyes full of curiosity. However, few people can say for sure when a wizard's achievements will peak. It could be when he is very young, between thirty and fifty years old, or even around a hundred years old. Everyone is different, but they all have one thing in common: they have all accumulated a certain amount of experience and have particularly profound qualifications in a certain field."

Wizard Ackerman sighed, "I can hardly imagine your future. Perhaps the moment you won the Silent Grail, I should have known that you were destined to be an extraordinary wizard even among the wizarding community of Mount Golden Crown."

Locke smiled and changed the subject. After all, he was following the path of a top genius in the wizarding world, so this speed of advancement was normal. If he were slower, he might not be able to get into the top school he was aiming for.

"Old Blue Head, I've come here to ask you something. Do you remember any dragon symbol with its head and tail connected?"

Wizard Ackerman nodded and thought about it seriously.

"I have hundreds of impressions about this kind of thing, but some of them involve paid knowledge. I can answer some questions for free, but if you want answers involving paid knowledge, you'll need to pay 100,000 magic stones."

"Mainly because it involves some relatively rare and esoteric knowledge."

"I recommend that you answer for free. Because those paid answers are mostly very niche and isolated cases."

"I think it's unlikely to be involved."

Locke thought for a moment and decided that, just to be on the safe side, he should spend money to purchase a paid knowledge base.

I don't lack that little bit of money.

After all, it's related to him completing his dragon bloodline.

He had now deeply integrated and bound his dragon bloodline power with the abyssal energy, and as a result, he saw the ouroboros pattern on his immortal dragon scales. He should know what that was.

Locke said, "I'll pay 100,000 magic stones. Old Blue, here are ten magic crystal cards."

Ackerman glanced at Locke and took the ten magic crystal cards he handed him. "Your funds are certainly plentiful, Locke."

"The most common ouroboros is the Trekdara two-headed snake. Each snake has two heads, one on the tail and one on the head. They are first-ring magical creatures, special magical creatures in the world of Trekdara. They are currently listed as second-level protected animals. Wizards are not allowed to hunt them at will. If they need to be used to make potions or to make magical artifacts from their materials, they need to apply to the White Wizard Association."

The Ackerman troll said, "The ouroboros pattern you saw is most likely from this magical creature."

"Is this how it is?"

The Ackerman troll pinched a magic pen on the library desk, and instantly the pen projected phantoms into the air.

Locke frowned as he looked at the two-headed serpent Trikdara, and shook his head.

"No, that's not what I'm seeing."

The Ackerman troll glanced at Locke with surprise.

"Isn't that right? Because it's the most common magical creature associated with the ouroboros motif, I thought you were talking about that."

"These are eighty-nine common things related to the ouroboros pattern that I know of, including magical creatures, wizarding academies, and so on. Take a look."

The Ackerman troll wizard grasped the illusion pen, and instantly those patterns and illusions appeared in the air. Locke shook his head after looking at these patterns.

No. None of these are correct.

The Ackerman troll wizard's expression turned serious.

"Neither?"

"That shouldn't be the case. If none of these are it... where did you see that pattern? Is it important to you?"

A look of hesitation flashed across Locke's face.

Wizard Ackerman chuckled, “I asked too many questions. Let me think. Since none of these are it, then the ouroboros pattern you saw is no ordinary thing. Because what I’m about to tell you are all isolated cases in the endless void.”

"Come with me."

"Because it involves secret knowledge at the Star Ring level, we need to communicate in a safer place. Every secret above the Star Ring level may contain certain dangers; otherwise, the Endless Void wouldn't need to mark warning signs on Star Ring organisms."

Locke followed the Ackerman troll wizard to a corner of the second-floor library.

Each book in this corner is bound with a thick, heavy iron chain, as if it were not books being locked up, but evil dragons disguised as magic books.

Each chain is imbued with powerful protective magic.

The Ackerman troll wizard walked up to a bookshelf, then slowly pushed the scaffolding over from a distance, climbed up, and found the seventh shelf.

That shelf was empty; there was only one book on the entire shelf, and even the surface of that book was covered in dust.

The moment the Ackerman troll's hand touched the book, the entire book nearly transformed into a ferocious beast that would devour his hand. It took him a great deal of effort to tame the book with magic, and he turned the pages to show Locke a particular page.

Is this the ouroboros pattern you saw?

Locke stared at the pattern for a long time, because the ouroboros pattern was indeed somewhat similar to the pattern that flashed across the Immortal Dragon Scales, but there were also differences. The ouroboros he had seen was just a pattern of a bare snake's head and tail connected together, but the pattern that Wizard Ackerman had shown him was much more complex.

In that ouroboros pattern, there is a dot in the middle of the ouroboros, and the overall ouroboros pattern is also more intricate.

Locke shook his head. "Not really."

The Ackerman troll wizard seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as he painstakingly put the spellbook away and locked it on the bookshelf.

He said, "This magic book records some very dangerous and failed magical experiments, or dangerous magical items. You said you saw an ouroboros image, but after showing you so much information, you said it didn't resemble the image you saw. So I'm starting to suspect that what you saw was the ouroboros dragon in this book." Locke's brow twitched, and he asked, "Is there anything special about the ouroboros dragon in this book?"

The Ackerman troll said, "Actually, it doesn't have any particularly great background. It's just related to the Southern Wizarding Capital, which likes to study dangerous magic. Fifteen hundred years ago, a third-circle wizard of the Summoning School in the Southern Wizarding Capital conducted a dangerous experiment. He insisted that abyssal energy could be used to enhance the magic of the Summoning School and created a magic gate called the Abyssal Summoning Gate."

"He wanted to create a magical power called Abyss Summoning. He held an academic conference, but all the wizards who participated in the conference disappeared."

"It's not death, but a mysterious disappearance."

"He and all those who were invited, along with the medium-sized wizarding academy he attended, vanished overnight, leaving behind only an empty academy building and a group of wizarding apprentices who knew nothing."

"A mark was left at the scene, which is this ouroboros symbol."

"This was a dangerous experimental accident, so it was specially marked, and a high-ring wizard gave this ouroboros a name—[The Mark of the Dragon of the End]."

"Because it was an isolated case, I previously thought that the pattern you saw could not possibly be related to this pattern. Of course, it turns out that it is indeed unrelated."

Locke swallowed hard. He just wanted to get rid of the strong influence of the Endless Abyss on him and use the energy of the abyss to confuse the bloodline of the demonic dragon, reducing the probability of the Tower of the Black Sun locking onto him again.

Who knew I would end up creating something like this?

'I merely used the Peach Guardian Spell to allow my dragon bloodline to collide with the power of the abyss, causing the two to deeply merge and complement each other.'

Locke was stunned, wondering how this could be related to the Dragon of the End.

'No, this End Dragon is merely the name given to that power by high-ranking wizards of the wizarding civilization. It may not actually be the original name of that power, nor does it necessarily describe its true nature.'

'Besides, I only vaguely sensed the existence of this power when I was using abyssal energy to replenish the demonic dragon's bloodline. This power is still very far away from me at the moment, so I don't seem to need to worry unnecessarily.'

Locke pondered, "Besides, there's a significant difference between the pattern Ackerman showed me and the pattern I actually saw. So perhaps they're completely unrelated."

Locke made a judgment.

Firstly, the use of Abyss Energy to replenish the Demonic Dragon Bloodline has been very successful, allowing the Demonic Dragon Bloodline to advance rapidly. One can even advance the Demonic Dragon Bloodline to the Star Ring simply by obtaining a portion of Abyss Energy from the Abyss environment. Moreover, it has confused the Demonic Dragon Bloodline, making it difficult for the Black Sun Tower to lock onto one again.

Even the chaotic nature of the abyss energy itself can interfere with prophecies, which means that the prophetic abilities of the Tower of the Sun may lose their original effect even on itself.

The original hidden danger—the abyssal energy—was suppressed by the dragon's bloodline after combining with it, and could not cause any trouble at all.

The dragon bloodline acted as a filter in front of him, making him much safer than if he had directly accessed the abyss energy cycle.

Therefore, from both a moral and logical standpoint, my development path is absolutely correct.

As for that so-called Dragon of the End.

Locke glanced absently at the other related materials that Wizard Ackerman had shown him.

"After all, we can't be completely sure whether the power I saw was the power of the Dragon of the End. So I don't need to worry too much. But I should still be on guard."

After showing Locke other materials and finding none of them were correct, Wizard Ackerman immediately said, "Then I can't help you."

"Perhaps what you saw was just an isolated case. There are many secrets in the endless void, and we wizards may spend our entire lives studying them, but we don't know if we will ever be able to exhaust these mysteries."

Locke nodded and said, "That's why we need to work even harder."

Locke left the library and returned to his dormitory at Golden Crown Mountain, where he spent the next two days doing nothing.

This is because he has just advanced to the Star Ring Wizard level and doesn't yet have many ideas on how to further develop his ultimate magic.

His special grant was currently under review by the White Wizarding Association; whether it would be approved or just a disappointment depended on the next couple of days. The sub-project promised to him by the Red Dragon Throne was still in the process, but he should be notified within the next two days as well.

Therefore, in the past two days, Locke's main body and his clone did almost nothing except read some magic books and give guidance to Mason Witch and others once or twice. In addition, he also had to find information to investigate the Dragon of the End.

Locke was enjoying a rare moment of leisure, but this was disrupted on the third day.

On this day, Locke saw a wizard from another school approach him in the library of Mount Golden Crown and try to strike up a conversation. He immediately raised his eyebrows and asked, "You are... a wizard from the Nexus? How did you get into our Mount Golden Crown library?"

The wizard from the Nexus chuckled. Wizards from the Nexus were all opportunists. He said, "I paid for a library card before I came here because I wanted to meet with Mr. Locke Augustine and have a long talk."

Locke said with a cold, aloof tone, "My Lord Moon Ring Wizard of the Nexus, I don't think I have anything to discuss with you."

The Moon Ring Wizard handed Locke a business card.

“I am Seleucus, the chief wizarding instructor of the Nexus. Mr. Augustine, I would like to ask if you have any aspirations or goals regarding teaching positions after leaving the Institute of True Knowledge.”

Locke's expression was strange.

The Seleucus wizard didn't feel he had acted rashly at all.

“I have discovered that Mr. Augustine and our Camilla witch have a very good relationship.”

"Before I came, I specifically asked the witch Camilla what you like the most, and she said you like witch porcelain the most."

Immediately, the Seleucus Wizard smiled and said, "As long as you can join our Magic Nexus City, I guarantee that Mr. Augustine can obtain a senior title within five years."

"By the way, if you want witch porcelain, we can really provide as much as you have. Substitute witch porcelain, natal witch porcelain, elemental witch porcelain, primordial witch porcelain, combat witch porcelain... whatever kind of witch porcelain you want, we can provide it all."

The Seleucus wizard said, “I believe our academy is your best choice. I happened to watch Mr. Augustine's dissertation defense, and it was very impressive. Another characteristic of our academy is its youthfulness. We implement a highly efficient elimination policy; any wizard who does not meet our requirements will be immediately eliminated. This ensures that our academy always maintains an atmosphere of a young team…”

Locke: "???"

Locke had initially thought that Camilla the Witch's shamelessness and opportunism were her personal traits, but it turned out to be part of the atmosphere at their academy.

How can someone say that their college is the best choice for them?
No matter how you look at it, staying at Golden Crown Mountain is much better than teaching in Demon Pivot City.

If I leave Golden Crown Mountain and enter Demon Pivot City, wouldn't that be equivalent to the platform being downgraded?

Locke coughed, feeling that it wouldn't be right to leave so abruptly without giving a Moon Ring Wizard any face, so he could only say, "I haven't thought about where I'll teach after leaving the station yet."

“I appreciate Seleucus’s kindness. But I would like to ask, what makes you think that the City of Demons is more suitable for me than Mount Golden Crown? I remember that the main focus of the City of Demons is on the research of magical porcelain, not on the research of breeding.”

The Seleucus wizard's eyes darted around, but he still refused to give up. He took out a porcelain necklace, the pendant of which was strung on a red cord, with tiny porcelain pieces hanging in the middle that looked like tiny flames.

"Witch porcelain is a special magical artifact that utilizes the power of spirits. Mr. Augustine, the natal witch porcelain you came into contact with before could absorb the power of stars from specific constellations and transform it into specific spirit energy, which was then stored in the witch porcelain to enhance your magical pressure."

"The history of witch porcelain is very long. It is said that when witches were still in the primitive stage where they were barely clothed, some witches began to make witch porcelain using very primitive methods, such as the more famous cursed doll witch porcelain, or certain sacrificial items."

"Look, this is a Primordial Fire Ceramic Heart. It can collect the primordial souls—spirits—that drift in nature, and generate temperature and magical pressure, then conjure up the Primordial Fire of the Soul."

"The Soul Flame is a very useful refining flame for you potion makers, isn't it?"

"This is a typical elemental magic porcelain. According to modern wizards' research, magic porcelain has been defined as a magical artifact that converts spirit energy for specific purposes. Such a good thing can be used for free as long as you can enter our Magic Hub City."

Locke clearly understood that it was free to use, not a gift or a loan, which meant that it was hard to say whether he would still have this benefit if he actually joined the company.

However, Locke quickly realized that he shouldn't be thinking about this for no reason.

It's a complete waste of time.

I almost got sidetracked by this Moon Ring Wizard.

At this moment, another wizard from outside Golden Crown Mountain walked up to Locke and sneered.

"The Nexus? Never even heard of it. Mr. Augustine, don't waste your time with such a small wizarding academy. My place is the Wyvern Garden in the Rainswamp. We offer better benefits and are basically on par with the Golden Crown Mountain academy."

The Seleucus wizard's face immediately turned red.

Before the new wizard could finish speaking, another wizard chuckled. He was holding a book and wearing a Rootcrown emblem on his chest.

"This is ridiculous. The Pterodactyl Garden is a wizarding academy on par with Golden Crown Mountain?"

"That's just a clever way of putting it. You don't really think so, do you? There's a huge difference between the two."

Locke suddenly realized that with his advancement to the Star Ring at the dissertation defense, he seemed to have become a hot commodity in the eyes of some wizarding universities, and they were already secretly coming to the Golden Crown Mountain library to find him.

　The next chapter will be posted tomorrow during the day. The author is going to sleep now. Goodnight, everyone.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)