Wizards: Starting with Synthetic Gems

Chapter 561 Completing the Hydra Potion and Passing the Third Round of the Heavenly Ladder

As Albert inscribed the last rune, a life force field enveloped his soul, and at the same time, his magic pressure officially broke through 1000, and due to the previous accumulation, it immediately surged to 1100.

At the same time, Gromdal's power was weakened by Albert's permanent defensive force field.

In reality, Albert, panting, looked at his hands. "Is this what a proper wizard is like?"

"This feeling is so strange. It's like the whole world has changed."

Anglu and Aisha looked at Albert with envy. Compared to Albert, they didn't know when they would become official wizards.

No matter what difficulties or setbacks Albert had encountered before, once he became a formal wizard, all of those things became nothing but fleeting memories.

He now has only one identity—a first-circle wizard!
Albert looked at Locke and said gratefully, "Locke, thank you. If it weren't for you, I would never have been able to become a formal wizard."

Locke nodded slightly. "Next, follow the information I gave you to gradually improve the Forest Sanctuary and inscribe the permanent defensive force field runes of the Withering Force Field and the Harvest Force Field. Then, you can use the power of Myster."

“Teacher Harlan Vera should contact you soon. Alright, everyone, this spiritual projection has reached its limit. Let’s stop here for now.”

"Congratulations, Albert, welcome to your official wizarding career."

The next moment, Locke's avatar disappeared.

In the dormitory of the True Knowledge Academy on Mount Golden Crown, Locke deactivated the Gray Mist Slab. "Now Albert is a formal wizard. It shouldn't be long before he completes the power of Myster."

"If I can create the three-headed hydra plant, it will be of great benefit to both me and him."

“After Albert masters the power of Mister, my workload in the southeastern region can be greatly reduced. In this way, I can get 30,000 magic stones every month for free without having to do too much work,” Locke thought. “At most, I will play the role of a senior advisor. I will only be needed when Albert encounters problems that he cannot handle.”

"This is also the most ideal state of cooperation."

As soon as dawn broke, Locke went to Arthas's plantation to conduct the fourth generation of self-pollination. He then went to a public laboratory, reported for duty, discussed things with Mason Witch and others, and then went to the Feathered Serpent's Lodge to continue using the Dragon Nest's Luck Enhancement spell to find a potion recipe that could change plant essences and create a three-headed serpent.

These busy days lasted for some time.

A week later, in the Feathered Serpent Pavilion, Locke drank a bottle of lucky potion, maximizing his luck for the next day.

Next, Locke looked at the potion ingredient box in front of him. This was a potion-making material equipment unique to potion masters, called the Hundred Grid.

There are three hundred small squares inside, each containing a different kind of potion-making material. This is a common tool used by potion makers when preparing new potion recipes. In reality, you just need to put a bunch of materials in the categorized squares so that the potion maker can easily pick out the potion materials they need.

Potions masters can use the Hundred Grid to effectively clarify their thoughts, figure out which materials are more suitable as peripheral or secondary materials, and which materials can be used as auxiliary materials to expel poison.

With the blessing of the Dragon's Nest Luck Spell and the Lucky Potion, along with the failed potion synthesis in the past week and the hints obtained from the entries, Locke felt his mind flowing freely. He quickly selected five secondary materials, eleven auxiliary materials, and five peripheral materials from the hundred squares.

After the recipe is finalized, the next step is to determine the appropriate cooking time and temperature.

But this is actually easier to handle, because different materials have their own specific rules for heat treatment.

Therefore, the cooking time can be designed by considering the materials used and the order in which they are added.

The process is deduced from the result.

At this moment, with the blessing of powerful luck, Locke felt his mind was clearer than ever before.

Three hours later, a pale purple potion bottle appeared in Locke's hand. Locke flicked the potion bottle with his finger, and immediately the potion inside rippled, and magical energy rippled on its surface.

Locke sensed an unseen stroke of luck. "Today is my lucky day."

He poured the potion into the flowerpot and placed a piece of mossy pith next to the hydra seed. Soon, the hydra seed took root and sprouted, and under the influence of Locke's rapid growth magic, the magical tide of Mount Golden Crown, and the mossy pith, it quickly grew into a fast-growing adult hydra.

Locke raised an eyebrow and saw that the nine heads of the Hydra plant had become five.

Locke conducted a simple test and found that the five-headed hydra plant did indeed reduce the magical pressure requirements on individuals by at least two-thirds, whereas the original nine-headed hydra plant had extremely high magical pressure requirements on individual wizards.

Therefore, even Locke needs to rely on Hydra's magic pressure storage function to barely use it for half an hour, even though he can increase his magic pressure to 9999 through a series of means.

The current fast-growing five-headed serpent demonic plant has reduced the demonic pressure by at least two-thirds. Of course, even so, it is not the single-plant three-headed serpent demonic plant that I had in mind.

The five-headed hydra is still a tactical-level magical plant, but if the hydra is a heavyweight tactical-level magical plant, then the five-headed hydra is a lightweight tactical-level magical plant.

The Five-Headed Hydra Plant is a legitimate magical plant that can be used by individual wizards, albeit with limited personal use.

Although it is currently only a fast-growing magical plant with limited power, Locke was still somewhat satisfied after testing it.

Although he still hasn't managed to create the three-headed hydra he envisioned, the five-headed hydra plant can temporarily meet his current needs, and might even improve the performance of his hydra series plants on September 1st in Arthas.

"Actually, for me personally, the five-headed serpent might be more suitable than the three-headed serpent. Having five serpent heads means that I can simultaneously add five permanent defensive fields to myself. Combined with my original permanent defensive field, I can use six permanent defensive fields at the same time."

Locke said, “In this way, I can effectively switch between using the power of Myster and other permanent defensive fields. If I use the three-headed hydra plant, I need to use at least two three-headed hydra plants, otherwise I cannot switch permanent defensive fields and can only use the power of Myster.”

"Using two three-headed hydra plants would consume more of my magic pressure and waste more of my energy. I would also need to use two botanical spells at all times to use the two three-headed hydra plants. In a battle between equals, this would expose too much of a weakness."

“But Ms. Mister, there is a second type of powerful permanent defensive force field at the first stage—Life Armor. So, I will definitely need to use six permanent defensive force fields at the same time. Therefore, although the development of the five-headed serpent was an accident, now that I think about it carefully, it is something I need.”

Locke said, "Of course, we can't give up developing the three-headed serpent magical plant. As a single-type magical plant, the three-headed serpent magical plant will definitely sell better, and more wizards will need it."

"Moreover, the Forest Sanctuary is indeed unique in the Southeast Corner Region. But it may not be the case in the Land of Three Swamps. There may be some special magic in the Land of Three Swamps that can switch to a permanent defensive force field."

"Therefore, it is still necessary to complete the three-headed hydra, five-headed hydra, and nine-headed hydra."

Locke conducted some simple tests in the potion room and frowned slightly. He wondered if it was because of the fast-growing magical plants that the five-headed serpent reduced the power of its single permanent defensive field by about 50%.

It cannot perfectly project all its permanent defensive fields like Hydra. Locke thought for a moment and understood why.

Actually, it's not the fault of the magical plants, it's a problem with the total amount of magical pressure.

The magical pressure required by the Hydra is more than three times that required by the Pentahydra.

Therefore, Hydra can stack permanent defensive fields without diminishing the power of these defensive spells, but this is not the case for Pentahydra.

Even if he could barely use the Five-Headed Serpent Demon Plant on his own, the total amount of magic pressure would not be enough.

Therefore, the power of every permanent defensive force field will decrease.

This problem is easy to solve. If five legitimate wizards use the Hydra at the same time, there will be no problem, as the power of each permanent defensive field will not decrease.

One can also use some external magic pressure to provide external magic pressure, in order to compensate for the problem that the five-headed serpent causes a decrease in the defensive power of a single permanent defensive field.

Even if it can't fix everything, it can fix most of the problems.

Moreover, this way, I can sell the magical plants that come with the five-headed serpent, or other equipment. Thinking about it carefully, this doesn't seem like a bad idea.

Locke pondered, "With the five-headed hydra, I've finally solved the problem of the time limit on my Myster power."

Locke glanced at the five-headed serpent in his hand. He saw that the fast-growing five-headed serpent could not withstand the magical pressure Locke had input. Suddenly, the vines broke, and the crocodile chain head burst into flames. The entire fast-growing five-headed serpent fell to the ground and turned to ashes in the flames.

Locke was not surprised by this, because it was just a fast-growing magical plant with weakened functions and limited carrying capacity; it was merely a sample that he had artificially accelerated.

That's why the current phenomenon is happening.

"Next, we need to get the Hydra and Hydra to inbreed as soon as possible, and then give the seeds to Arthas's traders for the transaction."

"Use the money earned from this horizontal venture to support my vertical venture."

Arthas has his own plantation, which doesn't seem to be located in the Wizarding World.

Therefore, Locke doesn't need to find a plantation to plant anything; he only needs to continuously provide Arthas with magical plant seeds.

“I don’t know why, but I have a feeling that I should keep working on it,” Locke said, looking at his crucible and then pondering.

He collected all the materials, then organized the recipes, compiling all the failure records and the final successful recipes into a booklet, and named the potion that could mutate the seeds of the Hydra plant into the seeds of the Five-Headed Hydra plant the Multi-Headed Hydra Potion.

Next, Locke took out the ingredients for the Lucky Potion, then lit a magical flame and let it burn beneath the cauldron.

Ten hours later, at dusk, the various raw materials for the Lucky Potion gradually fused together in the clash between Locke's water and fire elemental potion flames.

As a bead of sweat dripped from his forehead, Locke poured the liquid from the crucible into a pentagonal potion bottle.

Without using the Primal Flame and the Purifying Filter Stone, he successfully crafted two doses of Lucky Potions.

The Feathered Serpent Pavilion gave him a total of ten sets of materials, and he used those ten sets of materials to concoct two lucky potions.

"The third round of the Heavenly Ladder is finally complete."

Locke put away the two bottles of Lucky Potions, left the potion room, and found the green dragon half-dragon on the first floor, handing him the two bottles of Lucky Potions.

"I brewed the Lucky Potion in your Quetzalcoatl's Ancient Pavilion after I had already drunk the Lucky Potion. That shouldn't be considered a foul, right?"

The green dragon half-dragon shopkeeper bowed to Locke and said, "Of course. Improving your luck in potion-making is within the rules of the ladder test. This is different from taking shortcuts. Luck doesn't affect your skills. If you don't know how to make potions, even if you maximize your luck, it's meaningless."

"After all, concocting potions is a very complex and delicate matter."

The green dragon half-dragon flattered, "You can use ten parts of raw materials to make two parts of lucky potion. Your success rate is higher than that of fifty percent of potion masters who have reached this stage."

"Congratulations, you have passed the third round of the Heavenly Ladder. This is your magic box, and the magic key to open it."

Would you like to participate in the fourth round of the ladder immediately?

"The fourth round of the ladder is a problem."

The green dragon half-dragon said, "The higher-ups at the Feathered Serpent Pavilion have set a question for you, as a potion master, to answer. You must complete it within a year and pass the inspection of the Feathered Serpent Pavilion's higher-ups."

"Of course, as a esteemed dragon, you possess special privileges. In this round of testing, you have the right to fail once. That is, if you fail to solve the problem within one year, it will automatically be extended for another year. If your answers do not meet the approval of our Feathered Serpent Pavilion, you will also have a chance to try again."

Locke said coldly, "So, what is the question?"

The green dragon half-dragon shopkeeper bowed to Locke and apologized, saying, "I can only tell you the type of question, but not its specific content. Once the content of a question is told to others, it ceases to be a question."

"The fourth round of challenges usually involves higher-ups from the Feathered Serpent Pavilion setting requirements for you to create a first-stage potion recipe that meets those requirements within a specific timeframe."

Locke nodded slightly, and at the same time used the magic key in his hand to open the magic box, where a small stone was found inside.

The green dragon half-dragon shopkeeper said, "Congratulations, this is the potion master's pet—the Obelisk Stone Demon."

"This is a special potion-making pet bred by earth wizards using special earth elemental creatures. At first glance, the Obelisk Stone Golem looks like just an ordinary stone without any life, but as long as the potion-making master keeps pouring potions on the surface of this stone, the Obelisk Stone Golem will continue to grow."

“Even the upper limit is extremely high.”

"If one can frequently consume second-ring level potion waste, the obelisk stone goblin may even become a second-ring creature."

"Of course, potion makers usually sprinkle the waste from failed potions on the obelisk golems. For potion makers, producing waste is a perfectly normal thing, so they welcome obelisk golems as pets that like to eat waste."

(End of this chapter)