Wizards: Starting with Synthetic Gems

Chapter 530 Synthesizing a Giant Rubber Duck and a Crown Pineapple!
A week later.

At the foot of Jinmian Mountain, on the canopy of the Big Red Banyan Tree, Locke walked on the canopy of this Big Red Banyan Tree and saw that in the center of the canopy there were a lot of aerial roots, and there was a lot of soil on the aerial roots.

It's exactly about one acre.

The Great Red Mountain Banyan Tree is a level one magical plant. Banyan trees are naturally large in diameter, but the Great Red Mountain Banyan Tree is like a small mountain.

At the center of the canopy of the Big Red Mountain Banyan Tree, a natural field of soil will form.

This is a magical plant that likes to grow its own companion plants. And on this golden mountain where every inch of land is precious, the magical field that comes with the crown of the redwood banyan tree will obviously become the property of the golden mountain breeders.

At this moment, Locke walked to the middle of the canopy of the Great Red Mountain Banyan Tree, placed his palm on it, and gently felt the magical energy within.

It's worth mentioning that although the surface of this magical field is a bit messy, its basic fertility is still quite good, as you can see.

The previous tenant of this magical field had maintained it properly, so I could use it directly without having to let it fallow.

"The banyan tree itself absorbs various nutrients from its roots and secretes them through the root canals and then through the stomata of its branches to nourish the soil in the center."

"In other words, it will manage this magical field to a certain extent on its own. At the same time, Mount Golden Crown collects fire from the sky and fire from the earth, transforming the flames and high temperatures into life energy, which is then fed back into the nearby magical plant forest, so..."

"Here, we have achieved something that other regions cannot do: high-density cultivation of the first-ring magical plants, planting them like ordinary plants."

That's really amazing.

Locke's common sense in the Six Towers was that a single ring-level magic plant must occupy a very large area, surrounded by only a bunch of apprentice-level magic plants. So, his special-grade laboratory in the White Dragon Tower, which seemed to occupy a large area, could only accommodate 3-4 ring-level magic plants.

This is all thanks to the Dragon Crystal Ecological Dome.

Otherwise, they can only be planted more sparsely.

At Mount Jinmian, the concentration of magical tides is several orders of magnitude higher than in the entire Yunze Wetland. Therefore, it is possible to plant first-ring magical plants in rows like ordinary crops.

Locke spent 50,000 magic stones to buy some magic plant seeds and planted them in the soil. Some were apprentice-level magic plants, and some were first-level magic plants.

The selection of these seeds was based on the observations and speculations made by the apprentices he had previously read about regarding the symbiotic relationship between magical plants and magical creatures.

Anyway, the True Knowledge Academy gave him 20 magic stones as start-up funding for his research, so Locke spent 5 magic stones to experiment with the ideas that came to him from the materials he had read over the past week.

Locke chanted a spell, planting all the seeds and then using the [Rapid Growth] spell to accelerate their growth in the soil.

Without the Dragon Crystal Ecological Dome, a Level 1 Magic Plant will grow more slowly. Even for Locke at present, it would take a week to cultivate a Level 1 Magic Plant into adulthood.

But the apprentice-level magical plants quickly grew.

A week later, at the top of the banyan tree on Red Mountain, Locke fused the three giant yellow duck pineapples he had picked. After the three pineapples, which were at the first level, were fused together, they became a level 8 synthetic item.

Locke looked at the description of the magical plant and his spirits lifted. "Level 8 crafted item, Mutant Rubber Duck Pineapple, which can absorb free lightning energy in the air, store it between vacuoles, and release it instantly upon contact with an enemy's body."

"Lightning bees and similar magical creatures like to parasitize giant rubber duck pineapples because the natural geometry of the giant rubber duck pineapple and the lightning energy it stores make lightning bees more willing to build their nests in it."

Locke glanced at the entry and thought, "Sure enough, the description of the economic crop, the Giant Rubber Duck Pineapple, will proactively mention what magical creature it mainly forms a symbiotic relationship with."

"Looking at this prompt, I continued my research. The symbiotic relationship between these magical plants and magical creatures can increase my research efficiency by at least ten times, or even more."

Locke looked at the giant rubber duck air plant and fell into deep thought. "The investigation report my apprentice gave me indicated that a flock of thunderbirds inhabiting the forest had multiplied by more than 50% of the average, and they suspected that they had consumed the local specialty magical plant, the epiphytic magical plant giant rubber duck air plant. That's the result."

"But this point is not mentioned in the entry, so it is clear that the apprentice made a mistake."

"However, the lightning bee... if I remember correctly, it is an extremely small bee, only the size of a grain of rice, which is difficult to see with the naked eye. It flies in mid-air like a tiny lightning bolt."

Locke pondered, "If the Lightning Bee were to live among the Rubber Duck air plants, and the Thunderbirds like to eat Rubber Duck air plants, they might eat the Lightning Bee along with it?"

Locke's heart skipped a beat, and an answer flashed through his mind. "So, those Thunderbirds didn't become more fertile because they ate the Giant Rubber Duck Pineapple, but because they ate the Lightning Bee inside the Giant Rubber Duck Pineapple?"

"Is this a multi-layered, nested symbiotic relationship?"

Probably.

That's the wonder of nature.

Proving this is quite simple: rent twelve pairs of Thunderbirds and divide them into four groups.

Three pairs of Thunderbirds in one group are given extra Giant Duck Pineapple in addition to their Thunderbird feed; three pairs of Thunderbirds in one group are given extra Lightning Bee food in addition to their Thunderbird feed; three pairs of Thunderbirds in one group are given both Lightning Bee food and Giant Duck Pineapple in addition to their Thunderbird feed.

Then, in the last group, I only fed the last three pairs of Thunderbirds regular special Thunderbird feed.

Then observe the reproductive status of the four groups of ptarmigans.

Once Locke realized this, he immediately used half an acre of magical field to plant all the seeds of the giant rubber duck air plant magic plants he had.

Meanwhile, he went to the Dragonblood Market to buy the magical creature Lightning Bee and to see if he could rent a Thunderbird that was about to enter its breeding season.

If this experiment were to be conducted in other regions, it would require cooperation from multiple parties. The magical plants would need to wait for them to mature, while the magical creatures would definitely require a longer breeding cycle than the magical plants.

Before long, such a simple experiment could be completed in a year.

But the experimental conditions at Mount Golden Crown were simply too perfect. It was a place with thriving commerce, comprehensive academic disciplines, and a large number of wizards.

There are many wizards on Mount Golden Crown itself, and the number of wizards in the surrounding small and medium-sized wizard organizations is also quite large.

A huge market has been formed here.

Therefore, Locke could directly rent Thunderbirds from those shops, which were likely in their breeding season, to complete his experiments.

Compress the experimental time as much as possible.

A month later, Locke jumped off the head of his cloud whale and landed steadily on the canopy of the Great Red Mountain Banyan Tree.

Upon seeing its master leave, the cloud whale frolicked in the sky, tumbling and rolling in the sea of ​​clouds before settling on a cloud, waiting for Locke to summon it again.

As a means of transportation, this cloud whale is quite useful.

Locke walked quickly to the center of the canopy of the banyan tree on Dahongshan Mountain.

At this time, there were twelve birdcages next to the magic field, in which lived pairs of Thunderbird couples.

Each Thunderbird's feathers are like sharp barbs, growing straight upwards, and their yellow feathers are wreathed in terrifying lightning.

Ordinary people would be electrocuted to death just by getting close to the Thunderbird, let alone touching it.

In some low-magic colonies, the Thunderbird is even revered as a deity.

Locke glanced at the breeding status of the four groups of Thunderbirds and nodded immediately. "Sure enough, my guess was right. The Thunderbirds didn't increase their reproductive capacity by eating the Rubber Duck Pineapple, but rather by eating the Lightning Bee inside the Rubber Duck Pineapple, which is why their reproductive capacity increased."

"Among the four control groups, except for two groups of ptarmigans that ate lightning bees and successfully hatched two ptarmigan eggs, all the ptarmigans in the other groups that entered the breeding season stopped mating."

Locke's eyes flickered. "Therefore, I can boldly conclude that Thunderbirds must continuously consume Lightning Bees in order to hatch offspring."

“Lightning Bee is the key.” Locke wrote down his conclusions in his materials. These were preliminary experimental data. The more solid the data, the easier it would be for the project proposal written using it to pass the True Knowledge Institute project funding.

Locke pondered, “If we continue on this topic, I will mainly do two things next: analyze why lightning bees like to live in giant rubber duck pineapples and build their nests in them, and how giant rubber duck pineapples increase the population of lightning bees.”

"Secondly, how many lightning bees does a Thunderbird need to eat in order to have the ability to reproduce in the natural environment?"

"Because my main research area is on magical plants, I would also like to know the mechanism of action of the lightning bee parasitizing the giant rubber duck pineapple."

If Locke hadn't synthesized the Rubik's Cube, it would have taken him a year and a half just to figure out this step, and even longer if he was unlucky.

Many excellent wizards are stuck on the True Knowledge Institute Fund project for these very reasons.

Studying something is like walking a road with countless forks, but among those forks, only a few are valuable.

If you make the wrong choice, even if you are a genius, you will only waste your time.

Therefore, a wizard's research efficiency is largely determined by their keen ability to discover key research points.

Locke didn't know how his ability to perceive key points compared to other wizards, but with the help and hints of the Synthesis Cube, he knew from the beginning that there was a symbiotic relationship between the Rubber Duck Pineapple and the Lightning Bee. It was the Rubber Duck Pineapple that provided the Lightning Bee with a comfortable nesting environment and a lightning energy field.

Then you won't need to wait in line to use a structural comparison machine to analyze the thousands of natural magical structural components inside the Rubber Duck pineapple, and then slowly guess which natural magical structural components cause the lightning bees to like living inside the Rubber Duck pineapple.

Although Locke has already spent 100,000 magic stones on purchasing magical plant seeds and renting magical creatures, he is very satisfied with the results he has achieved in just one month and one week.

"With such excellent preliminary experimental data, the probability of my project proposal being approved should be greatly increased."

"But that's not enough."

Locke turned to look at the pineapple plants in the remaining half-acre of magic field. The ones planted there were not the giant rubber duck pineapple, but three other types of pineapple.

They are all first-level magical plants.

They are the Big Black Diamond Pineapple, the Blue Swan Pineapple, and the White Pearl Pineapple.

Meanwhile, there were also cages of other magical creatures nearby.

You can use the Synthesis Cube to continuously synthesize pineapple-type magical plants, and at the same time accumulate a lot of relevant data, which can help you speed up the creation of special synthesis recipes.

In that case, the most efficient way for me is not to research and synthesize each magical plant individually.

Instead, they directly studied a group of magical plants of the same type to discover the symbiotic relationships between these magical plants and other magical creatures, as well as the secrets to enhancing the reproductive capacity of specific magical creatures.

For someone like me who has a Rubik's Cube, this is the most efficient way.

Unlike other wizards, I don't need to study one magical plant before moving on to the next.

"If I spend another 100,000 magic stones to rent magical creatures that are in their mating season, I should be able to finish the preliminary experimental reports for the remaining three air plant species by the end of this month."

"And..." Locke took out a giant yellow duck pineapple from the Rubik's Cube and saw the entry on it—

[Mutant Giant Rubber Duck Pineapple, Level 8 Crafted Item, Giant Rubber Duck Crown Pineapple. This Giant Rubber Duck Pineapple underwent a mutation through a magical resonance cultivation method... By actively secreting natural magical structural components resembling a royal lightning field on its leaf surface, lightning bees residing within it are accelerated into queen bees, thus attracting lightning bees to actively build nests within it.]

This is a mutated version of the Rubber Duck pineapple that Locke synthesized using two Rubber Duck air plants and a portion of royal jelly.

Locke looked at the seemingly ordinary pineapple with slightly more intricate patterns and thought to himself, "I was right. As long as I keep synthesizing every day, I will eventually be able to synthesize the special formula."

"Some special formulas may contain special natural magical structural components that were not originally present."

Locke's expression was strange.

He needs to investigate some data to see if there are any natural magical structures similar to the Royal Lightning Field.

If not, the current situation would be quite interesting.

I synthesized a brand new mutated version of the Rubber Duck Pineapple. This Rubber Duck Pineapple will secrete a substance that has not yet been discovered (but may not exist in nature).

Then you can directly use the special giant yellow duck pineapple that you have cultivated yourself, and discover a brand new natural magical structural component.

Locke frowned. "It's not impossible to cultivate new magical plants and then discover new types of natural magical structural components."

"I also need to check if the Royal Lightning Field has this kind of magic... If it doesn't, I can give this ingredient to the wizards specializing in lightning magic within the Evocation school, so they can study this substance and develop a completely new lightning magic."

Locke stood atop the banyan tree on Red Mountain and smiled, “Basic research is indeed very interesting. I’ve made connections between different areas and discovered even more.”

"It's even possible that a completely new spell model for lightning magic from the Evocation school has been discovered, along with its naturally occurring magical structural components. This is something I hadn't expected."

Locke had gained a slight understanding of the significance of basic research.

Jinmian Mountain pursues the intangible, likely because people usually don't know what is real.

If it's just doing things that are common in society, then going with the flow and following the public's perception is fine.

But if they stand at the forefront of exploration, seeking the truth, then they won't know what is practical and what is a waste of time.

Therefore, Jinmianshan believes that we should not judge anything as illusory or practical, or categorize it, but rather explore what interests us based on our own interests and hobbies.

Therefore, Jinmian Mountain as a whole is a theoretical project.

Locke pondered, "But to be honest, only a wizarding organization like Golden Crown Mountain, which needs to focus on the future, needs to be so idealistic. If it were another wizarding organization, it couldn't even solve its immediate survival problem. If it were to be so idealistic, it would probably disband at any moment."

"So, do what you're supposed to do in your position," Locke realized. "Some ideas aren't about right or wrong, but about what suits you best."

"A third-ring wizard can have a long-term vision, but I'm just a lowly first-ring wizard right now. I should try my best to build up my resume to get better resources."

Locke shook his head. "We must not let the mindset of Golden Crown Mountain lead us astray. Golden Crown Mountain and Lu Xu Bridge are high above, and are one of the seven top wizard organizations in Yunze Wetland. They are very famous in the Eastern Boundary. But I am just an ordinary wizard at the first stage of liquefaction, not even at the crystallization stage."

"I need to have a reasonable understanding of my situation."

"Just because you're in the Temple of Truth at Mount Golden Crown doesn't mean you're part of Mount Golden Crown or a Third Ring Wizard!"

Locke checked his bank account.

A month has passed, and I have gained another 160,000 magic stones, in addition to my previous savings of 360,000 magic stones.

However, because I spent 100,000 on experiments this month, and also spent 1,000 magic stones on some miscellaneous living expenses, I currently have 410,090 magic stones left.

That is, forty-one magic crystal cards and nine thousand magic stones.

Locke saw that it was already night, so he went to the classroom at the True Knowledge Institute.

After a month, the three main classroom courses are almost finished, and today is the last class to improve teachers' skills.

After completing the three major courses, I should be able to start my teaching duties.

(End of this chapter)