Wizards: Starting with Synthetic Gems

Chapter 53 Turmoil and Rumors

As Locke devoured all the meat on the cart, he channeled his magic into the deep purple jade.

His stomach rumbled like thunder as his digestive system, enhanced by his ancient bloodline, rapidly and completely digested the dried beef.

Locke heard the sound of the gem shattering, looked down, and found that the deep purple jade in his hand had turned into a pile of gem powder.

“It’s the special substance inside the Deep Purple Jade that’s been completely depleted, causing the gem to shatter. I need seven more Deep Purple Jades to completely eliminate the side effects on my body. It will take me at least two weeks to synthesize them all, but this is already pretty good.” Locke pondered, “If it were other second-class wizard apprentices, it would probably take them several years to suppress the side effects.”

"Of course, Lilith's Hut sells potions that can remove the side effects of degraded mental power, but those potions are very expensive and can only be purchased from one's own wizard mentor."

"Moreover, none of those medicines are as effective as the deep purple jade."

All medicines have some side effects, so even if you use expensive medicines to remove the deterioration and impurities inside your mental energy, some side effects will still remain.

Locke could even sense that the toxicity of the medicines within his mental energy caused by taking the Moonlight Elixir and the Concentration Ointment was being cleared away by the Deep Purple Jade.

It can be said that the deep purple jade allows one to maintain a pure state completely free of any [potions].

Locke flipped through his notes on the Course of Everything. The Deep Purple Jade was a specialty of the Starfield Sea, but it was extremely rare in the Southeast Corner Region. Therefore, wizard apprentices in the Southeast Corner Region could not obtain it to cleanse themselves of the poison from the potions.

"The Starfield Sea... Professor Sophia has been mentioning this term quite often lately."

"The deep purple jade contains special energy from the Star Domain Sea—void energy. That sparse void energy is enough to purify all the impurities within my spiritual power."

"Unfortunately, the void energy seems unable to purify the ether element, so the ether element entangled within my mental energy still exists."

Locke frowned slightly as he looked in the mirror in his study. He was still unsure what negative effects the etheric element that was entangled with his mental energy would have on him.

However, it seems that there is no impact at present, so there is no need to be too nervous.

Locke returned to his bedroom, applied some meditation ointment to his temples, and began his meditation for the night.

……

The next day, Locke went to the patrol team's cabin ahead of time to report for duty.

For some reason, this time many of the patrol's wizard apprentices looked at him with strange and surprised eyes.

But when Locke looked at them, they would greet him with a smile or nod to each other.

Since Locke demonstrated his skills during the last mission, he has become popular within the patrol team and has integrated into their group.

Locke frowned slightly at this slightly unusual situation.

It seems that he has caused some kind of trouble and become one of the central figures in the hot news.

Locke had some guesses about this.

He entered Captain Bruno Suarez's office, and Bruno's eyes lit up slightly when he saw Locke. "Locke, you're here today."

"It's afternoon, and we have a rather dangerous mission: to clear out a herd of berserk rhinos that have invaded Lilith's cabin on the outskirts of the city. I'm planning to take you and Hylia with me this time."

Since that incident, in Captain Bruno's mind, Locke was a second-class wizard apprentice with decent combat ability, and naturally he valued him.

Hylia looked at Locke curiously and said, "Hello, Locke."

"I heard you rejected the investment contract from the Reeves family and even said that you don't need investment from wizard families." "Do you know, you've become the talk of the town among the second-class wizard apprentices at Lilith Hut lately."

"Everyone has different opinions."

Captain Bruno became serious and raised his voice at Hylia. "Hylia, why are you saying this?"

"We're all on the same patrol team, why gossip about our own people for the sake of outsiders?"

Hylia shrugged, raised an eyebrow, and made a deliberately comical face to ease the tension. "There are also some wizarding apprentices from the seventy-two local wizarding families in the patrol."

"Furthermore, after I heard about this this morning, I explicitly refuted those wizard apprentices who spread the news."

“I told them that it was just a rumor, and that Locke Augustine was an excellent wizarding apprentice in the patrol.”

Hylia turned to Locke and said apologetically, "I'm sorry, Locke, I just wanted to remind you that the Reeves family seems to have taken some kind of revenge against you."

"These impoverished local wizarding families are really stingy."

Although Hylia and Captain Bruno are also local wizards, they come from ordinary local families, so they don't have much bias in this matter.

In fact, because Locke had fought alongside them, they felt more favorably toward Locke.

Locke frowned; he hadn't expected the Reeves family to resort to such petty tricks.

Clearly, the Reeves family was very dissatisfied with their rejection and therefore wanted to use this method of stigmatizing themselves to prevent them from receiving any investment from wizarding families.

If someone really wanted to get investment, they would be very anxious about this kind of thing, and might even go to apologize in person.

But I am not.

I never considered accepting investment from those 72 local families; that would be like trapping myself in a cocoon.

Locke didn't care much about this, but he made a mental note of the Reeves family's wrongdoing, and then said to Captain Bruno and Hylia, "Thank you for reminding me."

"However, these are just minor tricks that don't really matter. As wizard apprentices, our job is to learn and explore the path of magic."

"Captain, can you tell me about the mission this afternoon?"

Hylia and Captain Bruno nodded in agreement; in their eyes, this rumor was indeed a low-class and despicable trick.

But Locke's apparent indifference to this still slightly surprised the two of them.

Hylia looked at Locke in surprise, wondering why he was so calm.

Captain Bruno said, "Alright, let's get down to business."

"The Berserk Rhinoceroses possess the passive 0.5-level Enchantment skill [Berserk], and there are approximately seven of them. Therefore, we plan to use our numerical advantage to drive them away."

“We will also have some benefits in this process.”

Captain Bruno said, "The magical materials from the slain berserk rhinoceros can be divided equally among our patrol."

"Within Lilith's hut, we can safely kill magical creatures that wander into the city area, which is much safer than hunting and collecting magical materials in the dangerous environment of the wild. This is a perk for our patrol team."

(End of this chapter)