Wizards: Starting with Synthetic Gems

Chapter 320 Exchange of Sea Gold Sand and Scorching Gold Sand Flow
Dean Thompson explained to Locke, "What you're enjoying is only the most basic service of the Nigward Astrology System. You can only send a maximum of one hundred messages per year. If you want to enjoy a higher level of the Nigward Astrology System, you'll need to... pay. You should be able to see the Nigward Astrology System's payment interface, right?"

Locke nodded, looking at the panel shrouded in grayish-white mist in front of him, and his mouth twitched. This Nigward Astrology System was actually a membership system.

Bronze members pay 3,000 magic stones per month and enjoy features such as accelerated message sending, special message encryption, and basic anti-interference functions, plus 1,000 message sending privileges per year.

Silver members, who pay 5,000 magic stones per month, can enjoy a range of basic value-added services, as well as more advanced anti-magic interference features, and can invite up to ten people to their groups without any limit on the number of messages they can send.

The highest-level Gold Membership requires a monthly payment of 10,000 Magic Stones, or 120,000 Magic Stones per year. This membership offers a dazzling array of features and the ability to create groups of up to 200 people.

Locke instantly realized that this gold membership was actually a service provided to the academy deans of the wizarding organization in the southeastern corner of the region.

Because only the academy deans of the wizarding organizations need to recruit dozens of formal wizards into a group.

The next moment, a message from Dean Thompson inviting Locke to join appeared on Locke's gray fog panel. Locke thought for a moment and chose to accept.

Suddenly, an interface called Lilith Hut Wizarding Society appeared on his gray mist stone slab. In this interface, many official wizards of Lilith Hut were discussing something.

Locke discovered that the ordinary, formal wizards in the academy sent very few messages here, only one or two, while the ones who sent the most messages were Harlan Vera and Lady Morgana, as well as a few other advisors.

There was even an advisor named Francis.

Locke figured out the reason: ordinary, officially recognized wizards had been enjoying free services, and the number of messages they could send each year was limited, so they were very sparing with their words.

The academic cliques and senior advisors within the academy have likely already purchased Silver or at least Bronze memberships, allowing them to freely engage in discussions within the Nigwald Astrology System.

The Nigwald Astrology System is maintained and updated by the White Wizards Association, consuming a considerable amount of resources each year, so it is certainly not allowed for first-ring wizards to use it at will.

It's already quite good that they can provide basic functionality that's free to use.

Locke saw that Harlen Vera had requested to establish a two-way connection with his Gray Mist Slate, and at the same time, he received a message of affirmation and praise from the community interface.

Locke agreed to the other party's request.

Locke also witnessed Francis, who initially kept urging the first-ring wizards at Lilith's Hut to act immediately and abandon the plan, later sending messages to others, saying to trust his plan...

Locke was somewhat speechless. It turned out that the first-ring wizards in the academy had such a Nigwald astrology system, in which they could communicate with each other.

Previously, I was just a wizard apprentice and had no idea that such a thing existed.

Indeed, the world seen through the eyes of a wizard apprentice is completely different from the world seen through the eyes of a professional wizard.

Even if these two people live in the same place at the same time.

Locke exited the guild interface and looked at the military merit points calculated by the association. Locke first looked at the association's method of calculating military merit points. Unfortunately, the association's method of calculating military merit points was based entirely on the number of enemies you killed.

Calculating whether you made any special contributions during the war is complex, difficult, and prone to manipulation. However, if you only count the number of kills you personally carried out, it becomes much easier to calculate.

Killing a wizard apprentice is not considered a military achievement for a first-ring wizard; only killing a full-fledged wizard among the dark wizards can be considered a military achievement.

Killing a formal wizard earns you 100 military merits.

Locke saw that his military merits were displayed as 100.

Locke quickly looked at the exchange list sent by the association. He saw that the list of exchangeable items on the gray fog stone slab had at least thirty pages, and each page contained a level one item.

Dean Thompson seemed quite happy as well.

After reviewing the list of items for exchange, he laughed and said, "It's rare to see the association so generous. It seems we've made quite a bit of money in this war. That's right, you have to make money to fight a war. If you fight a war that doesn't make money, then even if you win, it's the same as losing."

Locke was searching through the list of items for information that was currently useful to him.

Half an hour later, Locke carefully reviewed the list of items. He keenly noticed that there were very few items on the list that could directly or indirectly enhance the mental power of a formal wizard, and most of them were mental power enhancement items used by ordinary wizards. For formal wizards in the vaporization stage, they were completely useless.

Among them, only one item, called the Blood of Sox, can enhance the mental power of a formal wizard in the vaporization stage, but it is useless for wizards in the liquefaction stage.

The blood of Socks appears to be the blood of a powerful life form from another world.

However, you need at least 500 military merits to exchange for them.

You need to kill five ordinary first-ring wizards to obtain a piece of Sox's Blood.

'This shows that resources are indeed scarce for first-ring wizards in the southeastern corner,' Locke thought. 'No wonder some ambitious wizards would never stay here.'

'I just don't understand why any second-ring wizard would be willing to stay in the Southeast Corner. The resources in the Southeast Corner are already strained even for first-ring wizards; they shouldn't be able to support second-ring wizards' progress at all.'

'There might be some special reason.'

Locke continued looking at the item list. Since he couldn't exchange for items that could increase his mana, he would see if he could exchange for items that could make up for the lack of mana in his current spell pool.

After careful consideration, Locke set his sights on a first-ring fern magical plant called "Sea Gold Sand". This first-ring adult magical plant also came with several first-ring spellbooks from the "Burning Gold Sand Flow" series, as well as 10 related A-rank articles and 3 related S-rank articles.

This is equivalent to a complete package of first-level magic knowledge. If Locke wanted to buy it with magic stones, the whole set would probably cost nearly 100,000 magic stones. Moreover, although Sea Gold Sand is just an ordinary first-level magic plant, in the Southeast Corner Region, it still requires some luck and waiting for such magic plants to appear on the market.

However, if you redeem it within the battle merit system, it only requires 100 military merits.

(End of this chapter)