Wizards: Starting with Synthetic Gems

Chapter 416 Interviews and Team Building

One month later, in Locke's office.

Locke borrowed the name of the Plutarch family to recruit breeders who wanted to participate in the Cloud Ze Cup from across the entire Six Towers region, and held interviews.

The interview was conducted in two parts. The first part was a preliminary selection conducted by the old wizard Collins and Claudia, and the second part was conducted by Locke himself.

Because some unqualified wizards could be eliminated during the preliminary selection process, the quality of the wizards interviewed in Locke's office was quite high, including both family wizards and commoner wizards.

Locke dismissed one of the family wizards from his office and ordered the next wizard to enter. "Next, please come in."

"The number of commoner wizards submitting their resumes is still very small," Locke pondered. "I estimate that many commoner wizards are still observing, or think this is just another publicity stunt, hence the low number of applicants."

"In the Land of the Six Towers, the only people I can truly command are the commoner wizards. The remaining family wizards are those from relatively marginalized minor clans; otherwise, even if others were capable, I couldn't effectively command them."

"I need to set an example, to attract outstanding ordinary breeders from the Six Towers region to come for interviews. Only then will I have a chance to win the Yunze Cup. Otherwise, relying solely on one person to compete in such a large competition will severely limit our manpower."

Locke scanned Alicia's face and ordered the list and information of various projects in the Six Towers Land to be sent over, looking for useful semi-finished magical plant projects.

At the same time, a young, ordinary first-ring wizard walked into his room. Locke looked up at him and said, "Have we met before? Oh, right, we met in the library."

Locke remembered that the other party was the ordinary wizard who only had level 4 access and could only sit forlornly in the corner of the library, unable to access information.

However, to ordinary students in the Six Towers area, this person is still a high and mighty figure, a big shot.

Everything is relative.

This is also why some commoner first-level wizards are willing to stay in the Land of Six Towers, to live a peaceful life and retire.

Montgomery Paul's eyes lit up with joy when he saw Locke and remembered him. "Lord Augustine, I never expected that you would remember me after only meeting me once in the library. I am Montgomery Paul, a first-level botanist and also a senior breeder."

For Paul, it was a rare treat that a liquefying wizard in the Land of Six Towers remembered his name, something to be happy about.

After all, he had long been outside the mainstream wizarding community at White Dragon Magic Gem University. Knowing that he was just a commoner, he had long since given up on pursuing a teaching position there and had no interest whatsoever.

He didn't even have a single first-class wizard apprentice or a second-class wizard apprentice. He only taught some general courses at the White Dragon Tower and was truly an insignificant marginal figure.

Locke nodded. "Yes, I have a good memory. I've seen you before, so I remember you."

Locke knew that remembering someone could certainly make one happy.

Montgomery said, "I had been saving up for years to buy a ticket to other wizarding lands, and my goal was to go to Spiral Basin."

"Many of the commoner wizards who became first-ring wizards in our Six Towers went there and there are some organizations similar to the Mutual Aid Society. I originally wanted to resign from my teaching position here and try my luck there, even if I couldn't get any teaching position for the time being."

“However, Lord Augustine, you suddenly want to form a team of breeders to participate in the Yunze Cup... so I also want to give it a try.”

“I think this could be an opportunity for me.”

A glimmer of hope appeared in Montgomery's eyes.

Locke looked at the resume Montgomery had provided, slightly surprised. "You haven't published any A-level articles in any associations, nor have you done any major projects related to breeding?"

Montgomery hesitated for a moment, then handed over a new resume. “No, that’s not it. Actually, I’m Eric Plutarch’s ghostwriter. I come from a poor family in the Land of Six Towers. My background is insignificant. Do you know how I got here?”

Locke glanced at him.

Montgomery continued, “Eric Plutarch discovered my talent in the mortal realm of the Six Towers, provided me with food and clothing, gave me a wizarding education, and became my friend. Up to this point, I was grateful to him and wanted to repay him. But then I suddenly realized that in the Six Towers, we common wizards were never qualified to be friends with their family wizards.”

Montgomery's face contorted in pain. "In fact, all the articles on breeding science attributed to Eric Plutarch were written by me!" Locke raised an eyebrow, because Eric possessed at least two Association S-rank breeding science articles, along with a plethora of other Association S-rank articles in various fields, particularly bloodline science.

Locke had long suspected that it was impossible for that guy to have done these things himself.

Unexpectedly, when I was recruiting people to participate in the Yunze Cup, I actually encountered one of Eric's article writing services.

Montgomery lamented to Locke, “Eric became my friend from the very beginning with ill intentions. He was like someone cultivating a fruit tree, waiting for it to ripen so he could pick the fruit.”

“From the time I became a first-class wizard apprentice, I wrote articles for him. Even after I finally became a first-circle wizard, I was still writing articles for him.” Montgomery said excitedly, “He even forbade me to leave the Land of the Six Towers. He wanted to continue to exploit me until he had squeezed everything out of me, until he could squeeze out every last bit of me, before he would let me go.”

Locke asked curiously, "Then what about you?"

Montgomery realized he had let something slip, took a deep breath, and then, as if struck by a sudden thought, confessed to Locke, "I haven't bought a ticket yet. Well, actually, I'm planning to sneak into the Spiral Basin. The Spiral Basin is connected to the Six Towers by land, and it's the easiest of all the natural barriers to cross. Many of my predecessors were in the same situation as me. We managed to carve out a relatively safe path through the treacherous terrain, although it's still very dangerous."

"But perhaps that path will allow us to escape the physical coercion of the wizard families on this side of the Six Towers."

Locke suddenly asked, "So, that so-called mutual aid society in the Spiral Basin must have been established by a dark wizard, right? You were originally planning to become a dark wizard?"

Montgomery paused for a moment, then said to Locke, "Lord Augustine, you are truly perceptive."

"Yes, only the Black Wizarding Alliance of Spiral Basin dares to accept us and provide us with protection. The White Wizarding Association of Spiral Basin and the White Wizarding Association of Six Towers are likely to collude with each other and make some deals for economic gain, thus betraying all of us first-ring wizards who have smuggled ourselves over."

Montgomery said to Locke, "Lord Augustine, I can see that you really want to win the Cloud Cup. This is very beneficial for a genius like you. Even though you are a guest of honor of the Plutarch family in the Six Towers and the most valued right-hand man of the Alicia family head, the Six Towers is still not a place for you to stay for long."

“If you choose me, I’m willing to help you. And you’re not afraid of Eric at all.”

"I have personally witnessed Eric's eyes light up with fear when he mentions your name twice. You are Eric's nemesis; no matter how domineering Eric is, he can't do anything to you."

Locke quickly recalled the contents of Eric's two S-level breeding articles. He remembered that one was about the first-ring magic plant [Desert Fox Grass], and the other was about the first-ring magic plant [Climbing Milkweed].

Both of these are two completely new auxiliary magical plants, and their quality can't be said to be low. Although the characteristics of the two magical plants are just average in his eyes, considering that Montgomery's research conditions must be very limited, it can be seen that he himself must be very talented.

The problem is simply a lack of sufficient resources.

Eric was simply exploiting him as a regular ghostwriter.

Locke didn't hesitate much. He definitely needed this kind of talent, and it was truly his luck that his team was able to get such a person.

With Montgomery by my side, my chances of winning a place in the Yunze Cup will be greatly increased.

Locke asked Montgomery a few questions and discovered that the guy's talent in breeding was even slightly higher than his own actual level.

He was able to answer some of his own questions about breeding very quickly.

Some of the questions were ones he had never heard of before and didn't know the relevant information about, but he reacted quickly and could apply what he learned to other situations. His conclusions were often almost identical to those in Locke's materials.

Locke thought to himself, 'Talented indeed. But otherwise, how could these commoner wizards, lacking talent surpassing ordinary wizards, possibly become first-ring wizards in the Land of Six Towers?'

"Essentially, they've already been sifted through by the great sifting process. Every commoner wizard who appears before me was a prodigy in their youth. If I hadn't appeared in the Six Towers, Montgomery would probably have tried to sneak away and escape Eric's pursuit. If successful, he would have gained a new life in the Spiral Basin, becoming a dark wizard."

If he fails, he will die in the perilous terrain between the two wizarding lands, and no one will know.

Locke suddenly realized something: the dark wizard who competed with Grand Wizard Sula for dimensional resources in the mage plane, according to Grand Wizard Sula, also seemed to be from the Spiral Basin.

Could it be that the other party was once a ghostwriter for the great wizard Sura?

(End of this chapter)