Wizards: Starting with Synthetic Gems

Chapter 655 Doubts and Construction of the Abyss Ecological Community in the Mortal Era
A dark sun has appeared in the very center of the city, and the entire city will be drawn into another dimension along with this dark sun.

Locke looked up at the alternate dimension and saw a completely dark world, in which tentacles that seemed to be as large as celestial bodies were moving.

An angel descended from the sky. After she landed, the holy golden angel vanished, and the witch Shirley emerged from among the angels. She glanced at Locke. "Hmm? Locke, what are you doing? Let's go."

"This city is about to fall into that strange space."

Locke was about to leave as well, but he stood there, gazing at the tomb of the princess's bedchamber, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Wait a minute, Senior Sister. Actually, I've always had a question."

The witch Shirley paused, taken aback. "Question? Have you made some new discovery? But it's too late; the city is about to fall into that dangerous space. Those two dark wizards have already used the summoning of the ferryman of the underworld to leave."

“If we don’t leave now, we might fall into that space along with the city.”

Locke looked at the princess's statue in the tomb and frowned.

If I remember correctly, this palace is located in the center of the city. It is the final resting place of the Loom Princess and the place where her echoes are stored.

Locke walked to the very center of the bedchamber, where the princess's coffin was placed—a coffin as tall as a person.

Locke placed his palm on the coffin, and immediately realized that this coffin, which was itself a second-circle sorcerer's artifact, had retained its basic functions even after 70,000 years of historical changes because it had always been in this well-preserved tomb.

It's just not as good as it used to be.

Even so, unless it is forcibly activated, there is absolutely no possibility for Locke to activate it.

Locke tried to put it into the Astral Ring, but to his surprise, the coffin was connected to the city's foundation and could not be taken away.

The foundation of this mausoleum city was probably a single, continuous piece.

The witch Shirley looked at Locke and asked, "Junior brother, what's wrong?"

Locke said, "I feel something's not right. It doesn't make sense."

The witch Shirley glanced at Locke's left wrist. Because of the very dangerous situation he had been in earlier, Locke had already taken off the Angel's Tear bracelet from his wrist.

The witch Shirley turned to look at the black sun in the city and gritted her teeth. "Although this is our first meeting, I feel an instant connection with you. I trust His Majesty the Throne's judgment of you, so from the beginning, I was certain of your abilities."

Okay. I believe you.

"As archaeologists, we need to get to the bottom of any questions we find on-site. Too many archaeologists have completely gone astray in their research because they don't get to the bottom of things, wasting most of their lives on the wrong research direction."

The witch Shirley took out a magic key from her astral ring; the key was about the size of a broom.

"This is the Key of Hector, a second-circle magical artifact that can only be used three times, but it can open all second-circle and lower-circle magical locks in the world. There is one chance left."

"I'll let you use it."

"Only by using this magical artifact can we save it in time."

Locke asked, "Senior Sister?"

The witch Shirley said, “You have super intuition, so I will trust your intuition. Most importantly, what does your archaeology guru tell you? My guru says: The first principle of archaeology is to learn to ask questions and not to overlook any doubts.”

"There was once an archaeologist who, because he discovered a giant skull, mistakenly identified a civilization as a race. It turned out that it was just a group of giant slaves of that race."

"Some archaeologists, after discovering the remains of a shaman, did not conduct detailed stratigraphic investigations. As a result, they failed to discover another shaman's remains beneath that one, and thus mistakenly attributed that remains to an incorrect era."

"If we go in the wrong direction, it could lead our archaeological research down the wrong path for the next fifty years. If that happens, our field of archaeology will be ruined."

The witch Shirley said warily, "Junior brother, as your elder, I must tell you that archaeology is different from botany and potion-making. Because of the irreproducibility of excavations and the long verification period in archaeology, the direction of archaeology must be carefully determined."

“For other crops, at most a few years are wasted before it is discovered that the research direction is wrong.”

"But for archaeological research, if the initial direction is wrong, it can lead to 30 to 50 years of wrong research direction. Especially since this site is about to disappear, the major research paper we do on the site becomes even more important."

"I don't want a problem to be discovered but not investigated properly due to our negligence, which could mislead us and all the wizards involved afterward."

The witch Shirley placed the key on the coffin, and immediately a soft sound of magical locks unlocking came from inside the coffin.

"Alright. It's open. You don't need to pay me. After all, it's a joint excavation."

Locke said to her, "Senior sister, thank you for your trust in me."

He never expected that just by expressing his doubts, the witch Shirley would use up the last chance to use the second-circle magic artifact to verify his idea.

Perhaps it's because of her meticulousness as an archaeologist.

Locke pushed open the coffin, looked inside, and was immediately stunned.

It was completely empty.

Locke immediately suspected it was a fake tomb. "This is a fake tomb?"

The witch Shirley shook her head slightly. "The Age of Stars is a very long era, and there are many magical kingdoms."

"Customs and systems can be completely different."

"But... based on the relics from the Age of Stars that have been excavated so far, this should be the real main burial chamber. Look at that dehydrated and carbonized magical plant in front of the coffin. That's a cornflower wreath."

"It's used to protect the main coffin."

"This magical plant is extremely rare. In the Age of Stars, the Magic Kingdom's ability to mobilize resources was not as great as that of the major wizarding academies today. So, logically speaking, this is a true coffin."

"Furthermore, look... there are traces of echoing magic here. This means that the echoes that erupted from the city center earlier... originated from here."

Locke's expression turned serious. "If this is Princess Loom's real coffin, then why is it empty?"

"Where's the princess?"

"Where is the princess's echo?"

"Will that historical landmark curse consume the princess's echo?"

The witch Shirley frowned, hesitating to speak. "Given the patriarch's attitude towards the princess, it's unlikely he would have sacrificed her echo entirely. But a first-ring wizard's echo shouldn't exist for so many years, so it must have undergone special treatment to last for seventy thousand years."

"Therefore, I am more inclined to believe that special treatment was performed..."

"Junior brother? What are you doing?"

Locke jumped directly into the coffin, frowned, and squatted down, running his fingers over the surface of the coffin. "Perhaps there was never any echo inside. This echo might be problematic."

Locke removed the half-rotten magic cloth covering the coffin with his hand, and then he and the witch Shirley's pupils shrank instantly.

Because beneath the cloth lay a line of text: 'Ezra Clarkson, I saw everything you did in this tomb—Maxwell the Wizard left his name here!'

When the witch Shirley saw the two unfamiliar names, she was completely dumbfounded. "Maxwell? Ezra Clarkson? Who are they? Isn't this the tomb of the Loom Princess? Why is there no princess in her final resting place, but instead two unfamiliar names and a strange statement?"

Locke said, "Look, there's also a pig's head he drew."

Following Catherine the Witch, even the usually serious-looking Shali the Witch had a strange expression on her face, because there was indeed a witch above who had carved a laughing pig's head pattern on the coffin.

I must say, this pig head design is actually quite cute.

Moreover, judging from these marks, they don't seem to be magical technology from this era; they appear to be quite old.

This is also an antique.

However, this does not align with the history of the tomb; it should belong to two different eras.

The witch Shirley immediately examined the remaining items and their locations inside the coffin, but found nothing more. "Based on the clues we've found along the way, second-ring wizards cannot enter this city; only first-ring wizards can."

"But even when we joined forces with four archaeology professors to enter this city, it was extremely dangerous, and we left behind many traces along the way. Could someone have entered this tomb undetected and stolen the princess?"

"wrong."

Locke said, “The princess was probably not in here in the first place. Maxwell must have entered this tomb from another era, and he saw or obtained some kind of secret, so he left a message here saying that he saw through Ezra Clarkson’s trick.”

“Ezra Clarkson is the wizard of the Tower of the Black Sun. That matches up. My guess was right. The curse of exoneration on King Otto was actually quite weak, otherwise the four of us wouldn't have been able to break it, and his reputation would have been known to us.”

"If the Curse of Obliteration is to be eradicated, then the four of us archaeological wizards will need to be completely eliminated. Otherwise, once we are released, we will quickly reconstruct the missing piece of history from the Age of Stars."

"To vindicate the nameless king and fill in the missing past of the wizarding world."

"But this curse of expulsion not only didn't affect the four of us, it also affected the city."

“That nameless curse is far more powerful than the nameless curse we fought against several times in the Historical Boundary Curse Space,” Locke said.

The witch Shirley swallowed hard. "You mean..."

Locke said, "I suspect that there are actually two exoneration curses in this tomb. One exoneration curse is aimed at King Otto, and the other is aimed at Princess Loom."

“I finally understand where the incongruity lies. I ask you, we know King Otto and his surname, his family. But do we know Princess Loom's surname and family?”

The witch Shirley was taken aback, and she shook her head. "But we clearly used the Princess's Echo. We learned so many names within the Princess's Echo, but her name was nowhere to be found!"

Locke nodded: "And what about the princess's achievements? What did the princess do? In the echoes of history, the princess is merely an appendage of King Otto. The princess seems like an ordinary person. That makes things even more problematic."

"Can an ordinary person be the financial backer of our archaeological wizard patriarch? Can they design something that will last for 70,000 years and then defeat the Tower of the Black Sun?"

"Then there's only one answer."

"The princess has also been cursed with disgracing!"

"Moreover, the curse of the Tower of the Black Sun on the princess is stronger than the curse on King Otto."

The witch Shirley was practically going crazy over Locke's deduction.

They weren't there to search for treasure, but to conduct scientific research, so she was currently in a state of brain death. "The curse of the Black Sun Tower on the princess has surpassed the curse on King Otto? The inscriptions the princess left in various places mentioned that the Black Sun Tower looked down on her!" Locke said, "Ezra Clarkson, the Black Sun Tower's human representative, entered this tomb and tampered with it. Everything we see here has been modified by him. If the Black Sun Tower truly looked down on him, why would Ezra Clarkson enter this tomb and go to such lengths, using King Otto's secret to hide the princess's secret?"

The witch Shirley shook her head and said, "If that's the case, why didn't the founder mention it?"

"Locke, everything you've said is just speculation. There's no direct evidence to prove your point. Whether this so-called Maxwell wizard even has that name is uncertain. Maybe he's just a tomb raider, or some other archaeological wizard."

Locke's tone softened slightly. "Senior sister, this is just a guess."

"But two of the exoneration curses are true. The exoneration curse on the princess is more severe than the exoneration curse on the nameless king, and that is also true."

“The patriarch didn’t say… perhaps he dared not say, or was unable to say.” Locke recalled the young wizard’s words and actions. “His greatest expectation in this matter was that I would inherit King Otto’s legacy.”

The witch Shirley's face lit up with joy. "Inheritance? Excellent... I'll tell my teacher when we get back; she'll be so happy."

"With your help, the teacher might be able to start another archaeology research group, and she can just be a co-author."

Locke said, "Senior sister, the key point is that I believe that in the eyes of the Black Sun Tower, Princess Weaving is a greater threat than King Otto!"

"I find the emergence of Otto's mortal era itself very strange."

"King Otto only grew up under the rule of the immortal lich, and had to fight against his ancestor who had lived for four generations as a young boy. What I want to say is that King Otto must have received help from the Tower of the Black Sun in his early years."

"Moreover, he should have had a partner by his side, perhaps even a princess. That makes the weak and useless princess we see in the historical reenactment very strange. If the princess could overcome the Tower of the Black Sun, she shouldn't have done nothing in the echoes."

"King Otto insisted on separating power from authority, but why did he suddenly envision an era of mortals? Why would he trust the power of mortals..." Locke pondered. "If he didn't believe that wizards could simply transform themselves into liches, why would he abandon wizards altogether and completely side with mortals?"

"There's an inexplicable logical leap here because the truth has been distorted. Also, the Black Sun Tower's reaction was far too extreme."

Locke found more logical flaws. "The Heliotos Royal Court was already fragmented at that time. Even if they did nothing, it was only a matter of time before the Heliotos Royal Court split apart."

"The Tower of the Black Sun needs no intervention."

The witch Shirley pondered, "Indeed, if the Tower of the Black Sun was resisting the arrival of the mortal age, then King Otto's mortal age would have ended in failure long ago. Did they intervene directly because they feared a mortal age that had collapsed on its own?"

"Of course, it's also possible that the Tower of the Black Sun has a habit of personally getting involved."

Locke said, "But the Black Sun Tower did not personally intervene in the matter of Otto's ancestor, the immortal lich king, but instead used Otto. Similarly, the Black Sun Tower supported Otto in eliminating one of the four problems of that era, the immortal ruler, so that he could lead troops to annihilate him."

"This is the first half of the historical reenactment, but the logic suddenly changes in the second half. The Tower of the Black Sun frequently and directly interferes with the world, as if it has been forced into a desperate situation... But according to the historical content we know, the Tower of the Black Sun could not possibly have been forced into that situation by the mortal era and the [Heliotos Royal Court]."

Locke fell into deep thought. "We need to obtain more information about the relationship between the Tower of the Sun and the Age of Stars, as well as the specific ways in which the Tower of the Sun ruled the Age of Stars, before we can further compare and uncover the truth."

"Based on the current clues, I believe that the princess may have come into contact with things that the Tower of the Black Sun could not accept, even before Otto during the Age of Stars."

"That thing is likely related to the way the Black Sun Tower ruled the Age of Stars. It may also be related to the reason why the Black Sun Tower has disappeared."

The witch Shirley suddenly looked up at the outside of the bedchamber and urged, "We really have to go. I just used the Historical Projection spell to copy this whole place. I also copied the general outline of the entire city. Combined with the Historical Projection copied by those two dark wizards, we should be able to create a large replica."

"Let's leave here first and then investigate our questions. If we both fall into that dark sun, even if we learn the truth, we won't be able to publish an article and tell the world!"

Locke nodded, but frowned. 'If I can't figure out the key questions in this tomb, it will be even more difficult to understand them after I leave.'

'The princess is a woman of great talent and ambition; she is certainly not an ordinary person.'

'Otherwise, she couldn't have defeated the Tower of the Black Sun. If she had foreseen that the Tower of the Black Sun would enter her tomb, what would she have done? What could she have done to ensure that the information passed down to future generations wouldn't be tampered with?'

'Let's take a gamble.'

Locke summoned the Abyss Devourer, Sea Gold Sand, which transformed into a Tyrant Fern Spear and then thrust it towards the princess's statue in the bedchamber.

'Boom~'

The statue instantly turned to dust.

The witch Shirley was startled. "Junior brother? Are you crazy? Why are you destroying cultural relics?"

Locke said, "I can't care about that anymore!"

"There's none?"

Locke stabbed at the coffin beside him, instantly creating a large hole in it. Although it was a second-ring magical artifact, it had become unstable due to the passage of time.

The reason we didn't use brute force to destroy it before was simply because we didn't want to damage the ancient artifacts.

Locke continued to use the Golden Fern Spear to damage the coffin. Still feeling that there wasn't enough time, Locke threw down ten Diamond Succulents and used Golden Eye Grass to protect himself and the Witch Shirley.

The next moment, the coffin finally split open from the middle, and a magical deer hide book floated away.

Locke quickly caught the book, glancing at the text written on the magical creature's skin. He read it aloud rapidly: "The four major problems of the Age of Stars—undying rulers, the eternal war between the kingdoms, and the depletion of all resources caused by the Little Ice Age..."

"But behind these four questions lies the real problem, and I've discovered that the real problem lies with the Tower of the Black Sun. A warning to all future magical kingdoms: do not trust the Tower of the Black Sun. I am about to usher in a new era..."

The next moment, the entire magical deerskin was engulfed in black flames, and in an instant, the deerskin was completely burned.

Locke only had time to read one-tenth of the content...

Locke and the witch Shirley exchanged a glance, and for a moment, they remained silent.

Only now did they realize that they had greatly underestimated the secrets contained within this tomb city.

That secret was even subject to numerous restrictions and concealments.

It is something that their two current first-ring wizards cannot access.

Locke grabbed the witch Shirley and flew into the sky. "Let's leave first. For now, this is the best we can do. As archaeological wizards, at least we haven't neglected our duties by discovering that the entire tomb has been tampered with."

Locke carried her and flew into the sky, his pupils turning into golden vertical pupils as the power of his bloodline resonated with the black sun beneath his feet.

Meanwhile, the black sun, which had previously paid no attention to them, now began to attract them.

They wouldn't let the two leave.

"Damn it, are they going to eliminate us too?" Locke gritted his teeth and used the Porcelain Moon Growth Technique. Instantly, a moon rose in the sky, illuminating the past and present.

In an instant, all the magical plants in the entire city went berserk.

The magical power generated thus became a propulsive force, pushing Locke and the witch Shirley away.

The black sun swallowed the entire city, and a demonic dragon seemed to emerge from it, glance at Locke, and then disappear back into the sun.

Locke gritted his teeth and recited the ritual magic he had been preparing before flying away, summoning a torrent of spirits and the power of the dream's plants to grow to enormous size by drawing on the dimensional power of the Emerald Dream.

Two Abyss Devouring Bodies, Sea Gold Sands, appeared above his head, and simultaneously, due to their gigantic power, they transformed into a towering mountain.

Locke discovered that using the growth of the Porcelain Moon and resonating with the power of the Emerald Dream seemed to grant him more authority to use the power of the Emerald Dream, thus his normal gigantification ability was also enhanced.

The witch Shirley looked at Locke in confusion.

Locke chanted the incantation, and the two Golden Fern Spears combined into a magnificent Fern Spear the size of a small mountain!

The terrifying demonic pressure, like a meteorite, plummeted towards the black sun below.

Locke poured all his magical pressure into the magnificent fern spear. "Whatever secrets the Black Sun Tower tries to hide, I will eventually uncover them. Let me leave a natural mark upon this city."

The Brilliant Fern Spear fell under the curse of exile, entered the Black Sun, landed in the city, and simultaneously entered that mysterious space along with the tomb city.

The roots at the grip of the Brilliant Fern Spear spread rapidly in all directions, absorbing the surrounding energy to sustain itself.

The Glorious Fern Spear is composed of Abyssal Devourers and can survive by absorbing Abyssal energy.

Therefore, Locke simultaneously submerged his own porcelain moon into the Abyss River, and then sent that porcelain moon into that world, where it hung in the sky above the city, transforming into the moon to illuminate the brilliant Fern Spear, ensuring that the Fern Spear would not be destroyed.

Locke said to the witch Shirley, "This gives me the possibility of finding and restoring this city after I become a high-ring wizard, through my Brilliant Fern Spear."

The witch Shirley nodded. "I never imagined your botany was so advanced that you could do something like this."

Locke nodded slightly.

The main species is the Abyssal Sea Gold Sand, which possesses a special self-sustaining organ that can devour abyssal energy to live, much like a plant growing under the sun.

And this place is also the River of the Abyss, where the growth of its own porcelain moon can store and refract the energy of the abyss.

Only when all these conditions are met can Locke use this combination to carve out his glorious Fern Spear in that tomb city.

Furthermore, Locke could vaguely see, from above, a small abyssal ecosystem forming around the magnificent fern spear that had transformed into a small hill and was planted in the city.

When the Porcelain Moon grew and entered the Abyss River to absorb the river water, it also absorbed many primitive worms. As a result, these primitive worms followed the moonlight into its magnificent fern spear, using it as their habitat.

In a very short period of time, a small abyssal ecological community was formed.

'This can be considered fighting poison with poison,' Locke pondered. 'The only ecosystem that could have survived in the special space of that Black Sun Tower and later formed a connection with me is the Abyss ecosystem.'

The witch Shirley said, "It's a pity that you put so much effort and resources into that Porcelain Moon. Now you've left it in the city, and you don't even care."

Locke and the witch Shirley were flying above the River Abyss.

Locke chuckled, "It is a bit of a pity. However, from my current perspective, that Porcelain Moon growth has more flaws than merits. I have a better idea."

"Therefore, it needs to be reconstructed. I wouldn't feel too bad about putting it into it."

"Furthermore, through the experiment just now, I suddenly realized that my Mirror Moon system can now attempt to construct a unique ecosystem."

(End of this chapter)