Wizards: Starting with Synthetic Gems

Chapter 392 Tracking the Vanished Soul

Locke left the Elemental Pool, and immediately the hidden passage at the bottom of the pool opened, with a large amount of magical energy water flowing away rapidly and returning to the Elemental Fission Well of the White Dragon Tower.

Locke changed into a new white wizard's robe, tidied his clothes and hair, and then took out a red crystal matrix from his astral ring to test his current mana.

Two numbers appeared on the red crystal matrix: "6000, 7000".

“My mana has reached 6000, while the abyssal energy is still only equivalent to 1000 magic pressure. Very good, this shows that I have controlled the ratio between the abyssal energy and my normal magic pressure very well.”

Locke said.

Once a wizard reaches the first stage of liquefaction, taking Mammon Powder will no longer be effective.

Therefore, Locke needs to find new potions to accelerate the process of materializing his magic.

Fortunately, he can currently access the energy of the elemental pool inside the White Dragon Tower at any time. Even without the aid of magic potions, his mana is growing at a considerable rate through daily meditation.

“I’m currently twenty-one years old. As long as I reach the liquefaction stage before I turn fifty, I can officially submit my resume to the True Knowledge Institute. Now I have another option,” Locke thought.

"Given my current situation, it will take me approximately eight more years to materialize my liquid mana into crystalline mana."

This speed is already very fast, even faster than the advancement speed of ordinary Elemental Children.

After all, formal wizards have long lifespans, and advancing in just ten years is equivalent to not using much time at all.

Locke said, "If I use this elemental pool, I am confident that I can become a first-ring wizard in the crystallization stage within six years."

"But if we could get better resources, we might be able to speed things up."

"In any case, I'll try to submit my application to the top-tier academies of knowledge in the nearby wizarding lands. Let's see if we get a reply," Locke pondered. From the time he became a formal wizard to his arrival in the Six Towers, a total of fifteen months had passed.

A lot has happened in the past year or so.

Locke recalled his first teacher, the witch Sophia.

More than two years ago, she left the Southeast Corner Region and parted ways with me. I don't know how she is now.

Locke noticed that the letter Alicia had given him in the Astral Ring was emitting magical energy, so he immediately took out the half of the letter from the ring.

The note read: "Dear Locke, I have managed to obtain royal jelly and honeydew without attracting anyone's attention, and have my grandfather take it. Please meet me in my grandfather's bedroom at one o'clock tonight."

Locke frowned, pondered for a moment, and then wrote on the half-written note—"Okay."

As a potion master hired to treat the great wizard Sura, investigating the whereabouts of the mysteriously disappearing soul of the great wizard Sura while he was unconscious was indeed his job.

After all, the centaur wizard and the potion-making witch had been busy there for over a month, while he had been working on his own project for the past month, so he really needed to contribute.

Locke first returned to his residence in the White Dragon Tower.

……

At one o'clock in the morning, Locke, relying on the special privileges of the White Dragon Badge in his hand, silently bypassed everyone and arrived at the first floor of the residence of the 30km-high Grand Wizard Sura in the White Dragon Tower.

As Locke stepped out of the floating staircase, the white dragon emblem on his wizard's robe flashed, the maze automatically disengaged, and the guard that should have been in front of the maze was moved away by Alicia.

Locke walked through the maze with an unchanging expression.

The tables and potion ingredients in the lobby on the first floor had been removed. Locke walked through the lobby, up the stairs, and headed to the second floor.

Locke quickly arrived at the Grand Wizard Sura's bedroom on the second floor. At the same time, Alicia, who had changed into a simple white wizard's robe, was already waiting by the Grand Wizard Sura's bedside, looking at the Grand Wizard Sura lying on the bed with a worried look.

When Alicia realized that Locke had arrived, she immediately turned around and looked at him: "Locke, you're here, so we can begin immediately."

“I used the excuse that I wanted to be alone with my grandfather to buy us half a night, but we had to hurry, otherwise they would all come back. And we didn’t know if there was a mole among the people around my grandfather, who that mole was, and who sent him.”

Locke glanced at Alicia with surprise, then looked at her simple wizard robe without a single jewel, and said, "Alicia, you've grown."

Alicia pursed her lips and smiled, "Facing this cannibalistic world independently always helps you grow faster. Only after leaving the protection of adults did I realize how precious those peaceful days were."

Alicia took a bee from her astral ring. The bee's wings shimmered with a green light, and its head had some crystalline substances, like a crystalline mask.

This is a typical feature of the Crystal Bee; its yellowish-brown mask is actually a composite type of earth element particle condensate, which can provide a certain degree of defense.

As Alicia released the crystal bee, it first circled in the surrounding air, seemingly looking for a place to hide.

But soon, as if it had suddenly smelled something, something extremely attractive to it, the crystal bee suddenly changed its flight path and headed towards the sleeping Grand Wizard Sura.

Soon, the crystal bee changed direction and headed towards the third floor.

Alicia and Locke immediately followed and used their authority to unlock the maze lock on the third-floor corridor to prevent the Crystal Bees from being unable to pass through it and thus unable to reach the place where the Great Wizard Sura's soul resided.

Upon stepping onto the third floor, Locke paused for a moment, because the walls of the third-floor hall, unlike the first and second floors which were filled with treasures, were completely bare.

Locke pondered for a moment and then understood that the great wizard Sura had placed all the treasures on the first and second floors, because only the first and second floors were used to entertain outsiders, while the floors above the third floor were originally his own private space.

For over a hundred years, no wizard has ever been invited to go.

Therefore, it is probably for this reason that the great wizard Sura believed there was no need to place those treasures on the third floor or above.

The crystal bee darted through the corridor, stopping and starting, pausing briefly in every room on both sides of the corridor, as if checking something.

Alicia whispered, "Could Grandfather's soul be here?"

"But why did my grandfather's soul leave his body and come here? My grandfather wasn't a wizard who studied ghosts, so leaving his body would be risky for him."

The crystal bee landed on the door of a room.

Alicia waved her hand, and the door opened automatically.

The crystal bee immediately flew inside impatiently. The room behind the door was empty, with nothing inside. The crystal bee immediately flew to the high position in the center of the room, but the next moment, it was cut in half by an invisible blade and died instantly.

Alicia was taken aback. "A defensive magic circle? How could there be a magical trap in an empty room like this?"

Locke frowned, observing carefully. At the same time, he flipped his left hand, palm up, and a Shadow Eye Grass appeared in his palm. After Locke used the botanical magic [Eye of Plants] spell model, it turned into a blur, moving through the shadows in the corner of the empty room in front of him, and then appeared in the deepest corner of the shadows. At the same time, the eye grass rolled upwards, as if rolling its eyeballs.

Then, Locke closed his left eye, which connected with the Eye Grass, allowing him to see the world as the Eye Grass saw it.

The spell model "Eye of the Grass" has a certain ability to break invisibility spells.

"Hmm? There's an invisibility circle in this room," Locke said. "It seems to be a part of the Protection School's [Invisibility Circle] magic."

"I cannot destroy it. If I destroy it and make it visible, it will immediately trigger a chain reaction of magic circles and activate all the magical traps in this room."

Locke pondered for a moment, then placed his hand on Alicia's shoulder. The spell model [Eye of the Plants] could strengthen the connection between the plant and himself, and grant the plant the ability to see through invisible things, while also granting Locke the ability to share his vision.

Instantly, through Locke's physical contact, Alicia's left eye also connected with the Shadow Eye Grass, allowing her to see the hidden layers of magic arrays in the empty room.

Alicia was quite surprised. "Locke, the Eye Grass you developed is really amazing. Ordinary scouting magical plants don't have the ability to so easily see through this first-level defensive spell."

"It was that demonic plant that enhanced the power of your Eye of Plants spell."

“No, this is not the time to talk about that. Locke, I recognize these magic circles. One of them is an invisibility magic circle, but the main magic circle is a sealing magic circle, and it can be opened directly with the White Dragon Badge.”

Alicia raised the badge in her hand, and instantly the magical badge emitted a beam of light that shone into the air. Then, a mysterious white dragon pattern, representing the Plutarch family's symbol, appeared in mid-air, and the magic circle automatically deactivated.

A spatial vortex appeared in the empty room.

Locke stared at the spatial vortex, still puzzled. "What is that? A weapon? Equipment? An entrance?"

Alicia froze, but she recognized him. "That's right, Locke, you've never left the Prime Material Plane through a dimensional portal to enter any other plane, have you?"

“Locke, that’s a dimensional portal to other planes.”

(End of this chapter)