Wizards: Starting with Synthetic Gems

Chapter 417 Tactical-level Magical Plants

Locke snapped out of his daze and said to Montgomery, "I don't care about your past grudges with Eric, but my team really needs someone like you. If you're willing, you can join our team."

Locke said, "It's just that our competition team has limited funds, so I can only give you a monthly allowance of five thousand magic stones for living expenses. Do you have any objections?"

"If there are any problems, we can talk about them."

Although the Plutarch family gave him one million magic stones, Locke still wanted to be frugal.

Knowing how to control expenditures, spending money where it's needed and saving where it's needed, is something a project leader needs to know.

Through his recent experience on several projects, Locke has become increasingly adept at controlling costs.

Montgomery was taken aback when he heard Locke say that he received a monthly allowance of 5,000 magic stones. He then smiled wryly at Locke and said, "Lord Augustine, to be honest, I only earn 1,500 magic stones a month as a teaching assistant at White Dragon Magic University."

“The Plutarch family needed to ensure that I fell into poverty, that I sold my labor to earn extra money to live on and do research.”

"So, the fact that you can give me five thousand magic stones every month is already a lot. I'm very satisfied."

Locke was almost speechless. Five thousand magic stones a month was considered a rather low salary for hiring an ordinary first-level wizard.

Little did they know, the Plutarch family was even stingier than they had imagined.

Locke thought for a moment, "I remember that the White Wizard Association provides stipends to each university's faculty positions. I remember that even for teaching assistants, the association would provide a stipend of two thousand magic stones per month, and the university would only need to pay a small portion of the salary. It seems that they deducted five hundred even from your basic stipend."

Locke was speechless. "That's like not paying you any salary at all, but instead making money off you."

No wonder the prestigious families in the Six Towers Land are so wealthy; it's because they squeezed their money out of the local wizards of the Six Towers Land.

After all, the land of the Six Towers itself doesn't have much absolute wealth, so they can only plunder wealth from these local wizards.

All the wizarding organizations registered under the White Wizarding Association allocate teaching positions based on the number of students.

The specific rules vary from place to place.

In places like the Six Towers, approximately every twenty first-class wizard apprentices can earn an additional teaching position and receive a subsidy from the White Wizarding Association.

The specific rules are quite complex, and because Locke has not officially joined any institution, he doesn't know much about them.

But in any case, the reason why teaching positions are valuable is because their number is limited.

Behind this often lie specific resources of the wizarding land, as well as corresponding subsidies from the White Wizard Association.

It now appears that this portion of the funds was intercepted by the Plutarch family.

Locke and Montgomery talked for a while longer and signed a basic contract drafted by the contractor. Then Locke interviewed some wizards and selected three capable first-class wizard apprentices from them.

Currently, his team has assembled a first-ring wizard, Montgomery, and four first-class wizard apprentices.

Next, by increasing the number of first-ring wizards and first-class wizard apprentices, we can officially participate in the Cloud Ze Cup.

Locke looked at the empty office and thought, "With Montgomery's example, I think the commoner wizards in the Six Towers should know that I'm not joking or putting on an act. Next, the number of commoner wizards coming for interviews should be even greater, and I need more first-ring wizards and first-class wizard apprentices."

Locke had looked at the past records of the Yunze Cup, and the participating teams often had dozens of members.

After all, the Yunze Cup is a serious project involving the design of tactical weapons, which requires a great deal of information and expertise.

Developing such a tactical weapon requires an exceptionally large workforce. It's a design for a medium-scale war, not a typical individual soldier weapon.

Locke has read the requirements for the Cloudze Cup. The goal of the competition is to design a multi-player cooperative magical plant that can be operated by 3-5 formal wizards, rather than a single-soldier weapon.

If it were a person with a regular individual weapon, a single breeder would be enough to handle it; at most, they would be a little tired, but it would still be possible to complete the task.

But that's not necessarily true for tactical weapons.

That's like the difference between designing a gun and designing a main battle tank.

If designing ordinary individual magical plants is merely the personal work of breeders, then designing a tactical-grade magical plant like this is what truly signifies entering the realm of warfare weaponry.

Only tactical-level magical plants that require the combined operation of multiple first-ring wizards have the potential to form a decisive firepower network or a kind of steel torrent in war.

In his office, Locke perused documents borrowed from the Land of Six Towers, pondering, "This is also the first time I've designed a tactical weapon for a medium-scale war, which is completely different from the logic of previous individual weapons."

"I can get some inspiration from the botanical magic I recently learned called 'Connected Branches'."

"This is a completely new field for me. It's not easy to participate in a competition that crosses the wizarding land level. Everyone who participates in the Yunze Cup will be the most talented breeder in their respective wizarding land."

This competition, from the very beginning of the main event, has become a duel between the breeding geniuses from various wizarding lands.

Locke looked at his gray mist slab, which contained a large amount of breeding-related materials sent to him by his teacher, Harun Vera, especially literature on tactical-level magical plants.

Locke immediately replied, "Thank you, Professor Harlan, thank you for helping me find the information."

Because the information about the Six Towers was too basic, Locke had to ask his teacher at Lilith's Hut to send him some materials.

Harun Vera replied to herself with a message: "Of course. I would have liked to see you participate in the Yunze Cup. Our Southeast Corner Region will also participate in the Yunze Cup this time, and we are currently holding the preliminary rounds. Our breeding team from Lilith Hut is competing fiercely with the breeding teams from Four Seasons Garden and Vildantia University for a spot."

"Fortunately, the University of Michigan and the University of Niflheim in the North are not involved in this competition, so the competition is not more intense."

"The Yunze Cup has been held for many years, and its prestige increases with each edition. After the last Yunze Cup was held, the competition came into the view of many wizards in the mainstream wizarding society of the Wizarding Land and became a stepping stone to obtaining better teaching positions."

“Dear Locke, you need to be careful. Even you, if you don’t take it seriously, may not be able to get the ranking you want in this kind of competition.”

Harun Vera sent a message saying, "Anyway, I'll be keeping a close eye on your ranking in this competition. You should set a good example for your juniors."

Locke looked at the message Harlen Vera had sent him, both amused and exasperated.

Okay, Teacher Harlan has started subconsciously motivating himself again, and using his reputation and achievements to motivate his current students.

"The materials sent by the teacher have solved my problem of insufficient materials. As expected of a gold member, they can send so much information at once."

"The rest is to analyze the winning entries of the Yunze Cup over the years and then choose a topic. This step is very important. If I choose the wrong topic, I won't even be able to get past the first round of the main competition." Locke thought to himself, "Then there's no way I can lead my team into the finals."

Tactical weapons are defined as weapon systems used to directly support war operations and strike enemy tactical targets. Their core purpose is to change the local battlefield through powerful firepower or rapid and precise attacks.

In the past, main battle tanks, anti-tank missiles, machine guns, and drones were all considered tactical weapons.

They need to carefully consider which type of tactical-level magical plant to develop. This will determine whether they can pass the first round of the main competition.

(End of this chapter)