Wizards: Starting with Synthetic Gems

Chapter 442 Yunze Cup Private Group

Locke exchanged a few words with them and then returned to his suite in the White Dragon Tower. During this time, a large number of people came to bother him, trying to squeeze their students, or even himself, into his research group.

Even just walking through the passageways inside the White Dragon Tower, there are always a bunch of wizards greeting you, trying to leave an impression on you.

Locke was extremely annoyed by this.

Finally, he simply used the Great Azure Leaf Dragon Sparrow and walked around with the Mind School's magic [Dragon's Might].

In any case, it is quite common for botanical wizards to wear some kind of decorative magical plant on their back or head.

In this way, not to mention apprentices, even first-ring wizards in the White Dragon Tower can only stand in front of him, and most first-ring wizards cannot get within 10 meters of him.

Because once you come this far, you must endure the first ring of magic from the Mind School, [Dragon's Might], and be constantly suppressed by your mind.

Locke was finally able to have some peace and quiet.

When Locke returned to his suite and entered the potion room, preparing for another round of mastermind control potion practice, the gray mist slab in front of him suddenly appeared automatically in front of Locke without being summoned.

Locke frowned because the gray mist stone slab was entwined with the fibrous roots of a water hyacinth-like magical plant, and the roots were even blue.

A water hyacinth entwined itself on its gray, misty stone slab.

Locke recognized where the water hyacinth came from. When he had read a lot of information about the Yunze Cup, he had seen the unique magical plants of Yunze Wetland, so he could naturally recognize that this water hyacinth came from Yunze Wetland and was called [Azure Mist Silk Silk].

Its water hyacinth body is like transparent gauze, which can absorb water vapor and transform it into a kind of therapeutic mist. The lake surface where it appears is always shrouded in mist, which is breathtakingly beautiful.

But it is said that the mist emitted by the water hyacinth, Qingwu Lingluo, is not just for healing others.

The gray mist that enveloped the gray stone slabs quickly turned blue.

A line of text appeared on the gray mist stone slab: "[Hello, Mr. Locke Augustine, participant in the Yunze Cup, please don't be angry. I am a staff member of the Yunze Cup event membership committee of Bonifacius University in Yunze Wetland. I simply used the unique water hyacinth network of Yunze Wetland to connect to the Nigwald Astrological System in your southeastern region.]"

The various wizarding territories are far apart, and for various reasons, their communication systems are not interconnected. Therefore, we can only use some gray-area methods to contact the breeders participating in the finals.

[Next, I can add you to our small group chat for the Yunze Cup finals. This group will continue to exist after I dispel the spell.]

[This is achieved using the water hyacinth network of our Cloud Marsh Wetlands, technically known as 'Floating Whispers,' to connect the association-level communication systems of your various wizarding lands. We can link the letter network of the Six Towers, the Nigwald Astrological System of the Southeast Corner, the Thundercloud Network of the Razor Lowlands, and other communication systems together through the water hyacinth network, and through the methods of the School of Prophecy, allow you to join the same group using the communication systems of your various wizarding lands.]

You can choose to accept or decline. If you decline, we will try to notify you of the competition details in other ways, such as by mail, but this may take more time than notifying you in the small group.

Locke thought for a moment, then typed a line on his gray mist stone tablet: "Agreed."

Soon, a group automatically appeared on the Gray Mist Slate interface.

On the gray mist stone slab, a line of text appeared on the contact interface: "[Welcome to the Yunze Cup Finals group. You can contact us in the group if you have any questions.]"

Locke saw that there were currently twelve people in the group, including ten main participants, one staff member of the competition committee, and one wizard who had not made it to the finals.

The wizard sent a regretful emoji in the group chat, followed by a message: "[It's a pity I didn't make it to the finals. I'll participate in the next Yunze Cup.]"

The next moment, he left the small group on his own initiative.

In the Yunze Cup group chat, however, he was ignored, and a whole bunch of messages were sent out instead—

[Has that breeding genius from the Land of Six Towers finally joined the group?]

[What a rare guest! It's been a long time since I've seen a breeder from the Six Towers Land.]

Staff: [Yes, because the Six Towers are usually quite isolated, contacting them was difficult before. It took us a long time to finally find the wizard Augustine's contact information.] [I guess you didn't expect the Six Towers team to make it to the finals, so you didn't plan to add them to the group chat from the beginning. When the competition schedule was announced, none of the wizards from Six Towers were in the group; they probably didn't see it. You probably didn't expect that even so, they could still make it to the finals.]

Locke looked at the person who sent such a long message. He seemed to be a wizard from the border between the light and the shadows, named Alaric.

The main research focuses on magical plants with the gold attribute, and the tactical magical plant project proposed this time is also a golden magical plant—the Golden Apple Treant.

From their conversation, I realized that this small group had been around for a long time.

It seems that the main leaders of all the wizard teams that entered the first round of the main competition were brought into this group.

It seems that the name of this small group was only changed in the last few days.

Locke felt a little embarrassed, realizing that he had never received any notification from the tournament committee.

“But that doesn’t really affect my participation in the competition.” Locke sat on the stool in the bedroom and thought, “The information on the past Yunze Cup competitions is available.”

"Based on the data from previous competitions, I can write a good project application; the core principles remain the same no matter how they change."

"Sometimes knowing too much information is useless; it's better to focus on making efforts based on the information you already have."

Locke glanced at the small group chat, preparing to close it as he was quite busy. Suddenly, the wizard Alaric from the border between darkness and light tagged him, asking, "Wizard Augustine, I've been reviewing your project application. How's that magical plant you mentioned, designed based on a permanent defensive force field, coming along? Has it already taken shape?"

Upon hearing this, Locke immediately became alert; this was an attempt to gather intelligence.

The other party was clearly testing my progress and assessing the level of threat I posed to them.

Locke suspected that at this moment, it wasn't just one participating wizard who was watching this small group.

By the way, Alaric is in fifth place, while I'm in sixth, so of course he cares a lot about me.

Meanwhile, the fourth person in the group was Karel Knight, a wizard from the Razer Lowlands, who also tagged himself in the group. "When I first read your project proposal, I thought Augustine was a wizard with a lot of ideas, but I wonder how the progress of this magical plant is?"

"I'm quite interested."

Locke was speechless; the fifth and fourth place winners were both old silver coins.

The first, second, and third place winners haven't said a word yet. Are they genuinely not paying attention, or are they playing the role of Voldemort?
Locke pondered for a moment. Replying to any message could reveal the current progress of his experiment, and these two were clearly very concerned about his experimental progress.

After all, the low ranking of my project application is largely due to the team's insufficient past experience and the difficulty of the research topic.

But if my current experiment is progressing well, then everything will be different.

'It's best not to chat too much in a group full of competitors,' Locke thought. 'If you don't speak up, even a god can't make a move.'

Locke immediately sent two emojis.

Immediately, both Alaric the wizard and Karel Knight the wizard appeared very disappointed.

Wizard Alaric said, "Another one who's been keeping quiet. Nobody's been talking in the group lately. Could it be that everyone's experiments are going well and they're almost finished with their products?"

Wizard Karel Knight replied in the group chat: "It's impossible for it to be that fast. Don't forget, just a few days ago, the team that ranked tenth almost fell apart because of all the connections that were trying to squeeze people in. He hasn't been talking in the group chat lately, probably because he's having a headache."

"It's only been a month since the finals started. Every day after that will be increasingly agonizing for us. The time pressure is immense, the results are not perfect, resources are starting to run out, and morale within the research group is wavering."

"This is only the first month. It's going to get tougher and tougher from here on out. Alaric, stop spending all your time flitting around in the group asking for information. You'd be better off doing some more experiments yourself."

(End of this chapter)