Wizards: Starting with Synthetic Gems

Chapter 527 The Pursuit of Nothingness
Locke frowned, and after careful consideration, said, "Breeding science should be about researching a theoretically perfect ecosystem."

Locke realized that the breeding science in Yunze Wetland must be very advanced, so he chose the answer that was least likely to be wrong.

Because the ultimate goal of every breeder is to create the best natural ecosystem within their understanding.

Setting ambitious goals is always a good idea.

Wizard Thomasson's expression softened slightly. "That's a good answer, and it is indeed one of the greatest purposes of botany, but the problem is, that answer is wrong in our classroom."

Wizard Thomasson shook his head slightly, seemingly disappointed. "You wizards have been profoundly influenced by the short-sighted thinking of the outside world."

Wizard Thomasson turned around and wrote on the pure black wall with magical chalk: "We can use rhetorical questions to verify our thinking, thereby helping us to arrive at the correct conclusions. The simplest rhetorical question is: if breeding science cannot help us create powerful weapons or magical plants that provide certain special functions, should we not study each magical plant, classify them, and investigate the reasons for their special characteristics?"

"If meteorological research reveals that the entire weather system is a chaotic system that cannot be predicted or precisely controlled, should we stop analyzing the trajectory of each cyclone?"

"So, what I want to tell you today is the custom of Yunze Wetland."

The wizard Thomasson wrote two words on the wall—'Useless.'

Wizard Thomasson whispered, “In the outer wizarding lands, because resources are scarce and high-level wizards are few, you are forced to constantly pursue the practicality of certain things, which in turn lowers your ceiling.”

"Pursuing practicality and thinking about practicality is certainly good, but the greatest practicality is actually uselessness."

Wizard Thomasson turned to the group of wizards and said, "Let's be frank: all the high-ring wizards in Golden Crown Mountain, and even the entire Cloud Marsh Wetland, are pursuing useless things."

"That is, the pursuit of basic disciplines."

"The biggest change in your understanding after coming to Yunze Wetland is that you must stop pursuing practicality and have an aversion to useless things. You must have come to Jinmian Mountain to learn something, right? Well, let me tell you directly, what you will learn here will definitely be all these useless things."

Wizard Thomasson turned around and took out a pot of flowers with seven colors from his astral ring. "There was once a witch in one of our Golden Crown Mountain academies who loved beauty very much, so she spent a lot of effort cultivating a branch with plum blossoms of seven colors."

"Then, she spent seven years researching why a plum tree branch could produce flowers of seven colors through grafting, and carefully explored the magical pathways involved, as well as the related natural magical metabolites."

The wizards below the classroom were whispering among themselves.

"What's the significance of a branch with seven different colored plum blossoms?" the wizard Daniel asked Locke in a low voice.

"Could it be that this can enhance the performance of magical plants?"

Before Locke could answer, the wizard Thomasson replied directly. "It's meaningless. If you don't count its aesthetic value, then it's meaningless. Even if you include its aesthetic value, it's the kind of aesthetic value that doesn't have much practical use for wizards."

"To be honest, this is not as visually significant as the seven-color plum blossom tree branch magic painting drawn by the sketch artist. But precisely because it is meaningless, that is its greatest significance."

Wizard Thomasson walked onto the podium, and the topic gradually deepened. "Golden Crown Mountain... or rather, the path of seeking truth in the magical world, is all about studying useless knowledge. That witch, apart from discovering several mechanisms of color variation in magical plant branches and publishing a few S-rank articles in the association, has not achieved much else."

Thomasson the wizard said, "For you outside wizards to spend seven years trying to make a plum tree look more beautiful is like being insane."

"But later this witch became the Third Ring Throne Wizard, and her name was Catherine the Witch."

Locke stared wide-eyed in astonishment.

Did your own mentor do something like this when they were young?

Thomasson the wizard said, "Catherine the witch discovered the key to her obtaining the youth cadre fund and becoming a youth cadre in the second-circle wizard stage—the plant light element backflow mutation mechanism in the process of studying this phenomenon."

"Thus, during her second-ring stage, she cultivated a Royal Plum Tree Guardian, a famous second-ring stage tree being with seven types of attack magic."

"Furthermore, it also allowed her to publish a groundbreaking article, 'A Variant of the Magical Frequency Cultivation Method - The Basic Principles of the Rainbow Frequency Cultivation Method,' in the top-tier journal 'Yan Yu Yun Ze,' which is only published by third-ring wizards, during her third-ring stage. That article enabled her to unlock the possibility of obtaining the title of Throne Wizard."

No one expected things to turn out this way. The first-ring wizard who sounded like a heretic was now a third-ring wizard of Mount Golden Crown, the Throne Wizard.

That research, which seemed useless at the first stage, eventually became the starting point for Catherine the Witch to discover the light element inversion mutation mechanism of magical plants and the rainbow resonance cultivation method.

The wizards all wore thoughtful expressions.

Wizard Thomasson said, "Studying the most ordinary magical plants, or the weather, or a common plant trait or meteorology, and figuring out its mechanisms and pathways of action, may seem like a waste of time, or a useless subject, but it is actually the most useful thing."

Wizard Thomasson said, “So you have to take this course on your first day of joining, because there are a lot of topics in the Institute of Truth, which are different from the experiments you did before, which were all useless work.”

"Moreover, for a very long time, you will absolutely not find them to be of any use whatsoever. They will be of no use whatsoever except for writing articles."

"These are fundamental subjects that would not be valued in other wizarding territories. For wizarding territories that are short of resources and need to make rapid progress in a short period of time, pursuing these things will not improve their situation in the slightest."

"But Yunze Wetland needs to look to the future."

Wizard Thomasson said, "That's why we need a system of articles. Otherwise, all wizards could just abandon the articles and work on actual projects. Once they've done a project, everyone can see their skill level. But the problem is that a lot of knowledge and a lot of articles are useless, yet they form the basis of those truly useful projects."

Wizard Thomasson said, "Therefore, in this class, what does Plant Science study? It studies the mechanisms and pathways behind the appearance of unknown phenomena in plants. What does Weather Science study? It studies the mechanisms of weather phenomena."

"Plant science is not about making weapons or doing agriculture, but a discipline that studies nature. And meteorology is not about making the weather favorable for everyone, but a discipline for wizards to explore the mysteries of the sky."

Wizard Thomasson said, "That's all for today. get out of class dismissed. I hope all of you new wizards joining Golden Crown Mountain are prepared. Golden Crown Mountain is not what you think. It's all about empty talk and useless stuff."

"If we're only talking about practicality, there are many first-level wizards here, and even their overall abilities and actual engineering development are not as good as those wizards in your original wizarding land."

"If the pursuit of practicality led you to the path of exploring truth, then the pursuit of illusion will allow you to go further on the path of truth."

Thomasson said, "Practicality and nothingness are two sides of the same coin. Pursuing practicality and pursuing nothingness are both beneficial to us. This... even relates to your path after you become second-circle wizards."

"However, let's not talk about that for now. There's no need to explain the specifics beforehand. Once you become second-circle wizards, you'll naturally understand how significant today's lesson is for you. The reason why there are so few second-circle wizards in other wizarding lands, besides the scarcity of resources, is also because their views are flawed."

Thomasson said, "Today's lesson is essentially laying the foundation for you to become second-circle wizards."

All the wizards in the classroom fell into deep thought.

Locke blinked, pondering why the second-circle wizard Thomasson would say that the lesson's content was somehow related to second-circle wizards. Locke and wizard Daniel left the classroom, Daniel muttering to himself, "Useless learning? The pursuit of illusion?"

"I originally felt that after becoming a prophet, the things studied by the spiritual school were too nihilistic, so I studied meteorology. But after arriving at Yunze Wetland, we were asked to adapt to the fact that what we were studying was all nihilistic."

Wizard Daniel covered his forehead, looking puzzled. "This is really too much for me."

"Pursuing nothingness? In our Fission Plains, if I wanted to do that, forget about becoming a formal wizard. I'm afraid I'd be eliminated even at the first-class wizard apprentice stage. Without results, you can't make money; without money, you can't have resources. Those who can pursue nothingness must be people with extremely abundant resources who don't lack money."

Wizard Daniel sighed.

Locke nodded slightly. "However, this is Yunze Wetlands after all. Every wizarding land has its own rules, so we should just do as the Romans do."

The two returned to their staff quarters on the third floor of the castle.

Although it's called staff dormitory, it's actually two adjacent large houses, each divided into rooms. The rooms are extremely spacious and each house is staffed with five standard forest elf servants.

In short, the living conditions for a first-ring wizard in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands are quite good.

Moreover, because of the advanced magical technology in Yunze Wetland, Locke found living here to be much more convenient than living in the Six Towers Land.

As the night passed, Locke sat on his bed and, after a night of meditation, discovered that his magical pressure had increased by 10 again.

Meanwhile, Locke saw on the gray fog stone slab that the witch Catherine had said that he could go to the sixth group's laboratory at six o'clock this morning, and that she had already told the group leader, the wizard.

At the same time, the witch Catherine told herself that because choosing an advanced meditation method was related to her advancement to the second-circle wizard, she could not make a choice casually.

Therefore, she plans to wait until next month, when she holds a group meeting, to give herself an hour to guide herself in choosing an advanced meditation method.

Locke had no objection to this.

Since he hasn't even reached the first stage of crystallization yet, choosing an advanced meditation method in advance would be of no practical significance to him.

Moreover, it would be troublesome if you made the wrong choice. It would be more reliable to have a throne wizard choose for you.

……

The next day, at six o'clock in the morning, Locke, refreshed after meditating all night, immediately went to the laboratory, where he encountered the wizard Daniel, who was yawning the whole time.

Locke looked at him with a puzzled expression, as he remained drowsy.

Wizard Daniel waved his hand at himself. "Don't worry, it's just that in my Fission Plains, I've never gone back at 2 a.m. and worked normally at 6 a.m. So it takes a little time to get used to... this fast pace."

"Damn, I only slept for four hours, I'm not used to it. Locke, you look great? What did you do last night?"

Locke said, "I meditated for half the night."

Wizard Daniel: "..."

Wizard Daniel paused for a moment, looked at Locke carefully, and muttered, "For a moment, I thought you were a native wizard of this region. You've adapted to their crazy schedule so quickly."

"I still need to get used to it."

Locke hesitated for a moment and said, "Daniel, you're going the wrong way. I remember the direction to the meteorology lab is on the left, but I should be on the right."

In the corridor, Wizard Daniel nodded and raised his hand, saying, "Thank you."

Locke walked along the corridor on his right, found his destination, pushed open the laboratory door, and immediately saw a vast garden behind it.

The garden is filled with birdsong and fragrant flowers, and features various large-scale breeding equipment as well as numerous magical fields.

There are many wizards at the first stage of crystallization here, and second-stage wizards are also conducting experiments around the magic field.

At that moment, a middle-aged second-ring wizard, wearing a modified wizard's robe, a jacket with many large pockets filled with magical plant seeds, and fluorescent moss bracers on his wrists, walked over with a frown.

The middle-aged wizard picked up a magical gold watch, glanced at the time, and immediately frowned. "You're late! Throne Catherine told me you'd be here at six o'clock, but it's 6:01:03 now. You're a full minute late!"

"Three more seconds."

Locke was utterly shocked. He never expected that a second-circle wizard would stand at the entrance of the public laboratory for breeding at the Institute of True Knowledge, holding a magical clock and waiting for him, telling him that he was one minute and three seconds late.

The middle-aged wizard looked at Locke and frowned. "Although you are a wizard recommended by Throne Catherine, and I am also a group leader under this Throne, I should be very satisfied with you in theory, but now I have two major complaints about you."

"My biggest complaint is that you were one minute late on the first day. What do you expect to achieve in the future?"

"My second major complaint is that you are only a first-ring liquefaction stage wizard, not a first-ring crystallization stage wizard. This lowers the average magic level in our group. I would say that my main complaint about you comes from this."

Locke ignored the second-circle wizard's fuss and asked, "Wait a minute, sir second-circle wizard, I remember my contract with the Institute of True Knowledge stipulates that I can conduct research projects independently, so I shouldn't be affecting Group Six personally..."

The second-circle wizard frowned, his brow furrowing as if it could trap a fly. "Now I have three major complaints about you. The third is that you seem to lack any sense of community."

"Going it alone is a waste of time; cooperating with others is beneficial to everyone."

“My name is Celt.” Celt, a second-ring wizard, pursed his lips. As an ordinary second-ring wizard, he dared not disobey the orders of the Throne of Catherine, and he also knew how much the other party valued the young man in front of him. Therefore, even though he had three major grievances against Locke, he could only watch him join the group.

"Inside the laboratory, the personnel are divided into four categories. The first category is you researchers, the second category is us chair mages from Mount Golden Crown, and the third category is these first-class wizard apprentices who are jointly trained. Some of them may become your students in the future."

"Finally, there is His Majesty the Throne."

“I am the group leader here, which is considered a mid-level mentor, while you are a junior mentor, and Your Majesty is the senior mentor.”

“Researcher Augustine, I hope I won’t have any more complaints about you in the future.”

(End of this chapter)