Wizards: Starting with Synthetic Gems

Chapter 777 Locke's Amazing Discovery

As the full moon rose over the River Styx, Locke, with his second-circle wizard's sensitivity to planar power, perceived the true nature of the River Styx's waters.

"It is memory, emotion, and consciousness; what flows in the waters of the River Styx is human consciousness."

Although I've read quite a few popular science magazines, I'm not completely ignorant about soul science; at least I understand the basic concepts and some simple apprentice-level magic.

However, the study of ghosts is a rather unique branch of the study of souls.

This was entirely within the scope of research for dark wizards, and there was virtually no relevant information in the white wizarding community. So it wasn't until this point that Locke realized something.

'The River Styx is different from the rivers of souls in the afterlife; what flows here is not soul at all.'

Even the abyssal worms and demon fish in the River Styx are reincarnations of souls, but the River Styx is different.

Locke wanted to verify his guess about the River Styx, so he raised his Moon of Evolution and observed the river from top to bottom.

At that moment, countless vengeful spirits from the River Styx reached out their hands to Locke, as if to drag the moon to the bottom of the river.

An immense pressure was acting on Locke's soul.

'So that's how it is. In the first stage, I just couldn't get rid of the water ghost no matter what I did.'

'I swam out of the River Styx because the countless consciousnesses within that river suppressed me at the time. How could one consciousness possibly escape the control of so many consciousnesses within the river!'

Locke chanted a spell, and the Moon of Evolution rotated slightly. Then, the entire moon turned into a black moon because he had imprinted the archaeological spell model onto his Moon of Evolution through the legendary historical record.

Suddenly, a historical reenactment spell model appeared.

"Borrow an hour from the past three hundred days."

The crimson river of faith appeared in the Crimson Deep Garden.

The river, like a dam breaking through the Huai River and flowing into the sea, poured into the River Styx, causing a severe clash between the red and black waters.

As the River Styx violently collided with the red and black rivers, the Moon of Evolution slowly rose, breaking free from the localized suppression of the River Styx.

After all, Locke did not actually enter the River Styx in his physical body; he only connected with a part of the River Styx through the threads of his soul, and the contact between the two was not yet deep.

At this moment, he used archaeological magic to summon the Crimson Deep Garden battlefield that had been illuminated by the Moon of Evolution. In reality, this was just a spell that the black wizard cultist had used to deal with him.

At this moment, he had merely summoned that magic from the past through a legendary historical record.

In truth, he had no control over it; it was just that the magic altered the environment too much, and thus, as soon as it appeared, it directly stirred up the River Styx.

In the present world of wizarding, when the witch Stephania realized that Locke was not a first-circle wizard, nor was he in the stage of soul decay, but a true second-circle wizard, her expression changed drastically.

Second-circle wizards possess absolute power to overwhelm first-circle wizards.

Even if she gathered all the resources of her entire wizarding academy, she might not be able to harm Locke.

She wasn't sure if the ancient magic inherited from the Pale Pilgrimage could actually work on a second-circle wizard.

In fact, the Ghost Cult's magic has one last trick up its sleeve: burning the souls of all the official Ghost Cult wizards to ignite all the Ghost Fireflies, and then launching a suicidal attack on the enemy, striving to perish together with them.

But at this moment, the witch Stephania simply didn't have the courage to cast the spell.

First, the conditions for casting this magic are extremely demanding, and it largely depends on the various wizarding relics of the Ghost Holy Church headquarters.

Secondly, she herself was so shaken by this speculation that she was completely unable to control herself.

All she wanted to do at that moment was escape.

But at that moment, when she looked up, she saw Hussein's Eleven Blood Curse that sealed the place off, and she also saw her ritual magic. She knew then that she could not leave at all.

If she makes any big movements, the ritual magic will fail, and once Locke's consciousness breaks free from the River Styx, she will still die.

Stephania herself knew that four years ago, she almost killed Locke.

If Locke were merely a crystallization wizard at this moment, it wouldn't matter.

But Locke is a second-circle wizard.

That would be a very serious offense.

There was no way she could escape the wrath of the second-circle wizard!

If she had known this day would come, she wouldn't have dared to offend Locke in the slightest back then!
At that moment, Stanley the wizard of the Blood Curse Court and Viltani the witch of the Ghost Church also heard the exclamation of the High Priestess Stephania.

The first thought that flashed through their minds was that it was impossible.

My second thought was that we were doomed.

They had all offended Locke, and at this moment they were naturally despondent, knowing that disaster was imminent.

Who would have thought that a young wizard who had just become a formal wizard and was offended four years ago would become a second-circle wizard in just a little over four years?

Far surpassing them!
Stanley Wizard’s hatred for Locke vanished completely, replaced by fear and dread.

The witch of Veltani even wanted to run away, but looking at Hussein's magic falling under the Eleven Blood Curse, she realized that she had nowhere to run.

Within the River Styx, as the Crimson Deep Court and the River Styx merged, the two different waters caused a severe conflict, resulting in eddies that even genuinely affected parts of the River Styx in the Styx plane.

In the Styx plane, a small section of the Styx River overflowed, creating numerous eddies and splashing water everywhere.

At the same time, the moon that Locke's consciousness had conjured in the River Styx finally broke free of the river and rose into the sky, its bright light shining on the great river.

Only then could Locke look down upon the River Styx.

Only by standing tall can you see far!
Locke finally confirmed his opinion about the River Styx.

"The waters of the entire River Styx do not carry the true waters of the soul, but rather the waters of consciousness."

"The River Styx is like a soul's body, and the water of the River Styx is the water of consciousness."

"In a sense, the River Styx can be likened to the soul of a living organism. Within the human soul's body flows consciousness, which is also the water of consciousness."

"Therefore, the Styx River can summon various consciousnesses; the principle behind this seems not to be complicated."

Since the River Styx is a shell, the other party only needs to use ghost magic to establish some kind of connection between themselves and the 'soul' of the River Styx, and create a magic that blurs the boundaries between the two, so that their consciousness can be attracted into the River Styx.

So-called ghost magic should be the product of a deep integration of soul magic and the Styx plane.

The River Styx allows for the efficient use of the soul energy of the Ghost Cult's apprentices and wizards, which makes it possible to construct those crude but effective Ghost artifacts.

The River Styx is central to the study of ghosts.

Locke realized this.

Similarly, he also realized that the River Styx is a river of consciousness, allowing numerous consciousnesses to flow into it, which should include the consciousness of plants.

"I just don't have a clue how to use this mechanism yet."

Locke looked down at the River Styx. He could break free from the ritual magic at any moment, but he didn't want to. At that moment, he saw a gray-black iron pillar emerging from the surface of the River Styx. The iron pillar was surrounded by many ghostly fireflies, like a pillar that stabilized the River Styx.

The River Styx surged endlessly, and the pillar floated up and down.

"The core of the Ghostly Arts of the Ghostly Holy Cult is all in that pillar."

Locke, after observation, made a judgment.

"It seems that a wizard placed that pillar into the River Styx. If the essence of ghost studies is deeply connected to the River Styx, then the entire ghost studies system carries a touch of ritual magic."

“A low-level spectral wizard shouldn’t even be qualified to use spectral magic. That’s why we need that pillar to reduce the difficulty of using it.” “That pillar is the foundation of spectral magic.” Locke focused moonlight, trying to pull up the pillar.

Eight ancient magical characters suddenly appeared on the pillar.

The general meaning is—

resentment,

Fear of feeding

raving,

Bimu.

All eight magical characters were written in obscure ancient scripts. Locke immediately recognized them as a niche magical script from the Age of Stars. He had only learned about it briefly when researching materials while writing articles about the Age of Stars.

The magical rune composed of these four words flashed with a magical radiance, scattering Locke's moonlight and pushing the Moon of Evolution into the distance.

Upon witnessing this scene, Locke immediately realized that he could not shake the foundation of the Ghost Cult.

"Even a small-town wizarding academy seems to have many secrets."

"What I'm thinking is that the wizarding world is a unified whole, with many places having various connections with other higher-level wizarding lands."

Locke estimated the magical pressure emanating from the pillar.

"At least a Moon Ring Wizard... His magic pressure is lower than that of the Sun Ring Wizards I've met, and about the same as Chad Wizard."

"It is this pillar that provides public services related to the Ghostly Studies of the Ghostly Cult throughout the entire southeastern corner region."

"This approach coincides with the shared imaginary root of my second-ring wizard shoes."

"but……"

Locke thought for a moment.

"Indeed, we should capture a few of the wizards from the Ghostly Holy Cult and slowly explore this secret."

Although this is likely to involve the Pale Pilgrimage in the Five Great Wars and provoke the Pale Lord.

But they were just a group of dark wizards; there was nothing to be afraid of offending.

Moreover, within the dark wizard community, reputation is earned through battle; high status is of little use.

Locke looked around and, finding nothing of value, was about to leave. The River Styx was rather dangerous; he decided it was best not to risk things.

But the next moment, something unexpected happened.

All that could be seen was his black moon spewing out streams of crimson deep-ground water, but suddenly, for a moment, the crimson deep-ground broke free from his control.

Something seemed to be coming from inside that deep, crimson courtyard.

Locke frowned.

"what's the situation."

The things in the Crimson Deep Garden seem different from other magic; they're not so easy to borrow.

It was clearly a crimson deep garden that was reproduced from the past through a negative energy particle field, but it suddenly broke free from the control of its spell model, and something came along the river of the crimson deep garden.

A voice appeared beside Locke.

Those who steal the power of the divine kingdom shall die!

The fallen angel actually crawled over along a phantom crimson abyss. It looked extremely angry, its pupils filled with savagery.

As it crawled over, it kept slapping the river with its hands, making a terrifying sound.

The scale of that demonic pressure was unimaginable.

It wasn't an ordinary second-ring level, because the magical pressure was too violent, so Locke couldn't accurately judge the range of his magical pressure.

The fallen angel crawled out, barely showing its head, and was about to glare at Locke when it was swept away by the River Styx.

The River Styx seemed intent on incorporating the consciousness of this fallen angel into its riverbed!

This is the Styx's instinctive reaction!
Because the River Styx is a river of consciousness, it subconsciously absorbs all beings with a sea of ​​consciousness into its channel, thus directly washing over the tyrannical angel.

The tyrannical angel was enraged.

"The Supreme God says: Truth is violence, truth is bloodshed! Therefore, as long as violence is used, one can touch the truth."

The next moment, he suddenly slammed into the River Styx.

It symbolizes the tyranny, one of the four major value systems of the Crimson Deep, hence the River of Tyranny, a tributary of the Crimson Deep, flows directly into the main channel of the River Styx.

Two kinds of water appeared in the Styx Path.

In the Styx plane, this section of the main channel was flooded by the violent river, causing the water level to rise and threatening to breach the dikes. The Styx River had spread beyond the riverbanks.

The creatures of the Styx world near the River Styx were terrified and scattered like birds and beasts when they saw the river burst its banks.

"Oh no, I don't know why the River Styx has breached its banks."

"The River Styx has breached its banks, life and death are indistinguishable—what exactly happened?"

"Quickly raise the riverbanks of the River Styx!"

"But if the riverbanks are raised, the overflowing Styx River will surge downstream, causing widespread devastation to several worlds connected to the Styx downstream."

"In a critical moment, who can worry about so much?"

"What if people downstream also raise the riverbank? Won't the water flow backwards? Then we'll be the ones flooded again!!"

"If this section of the River Styx cannot be stabilized, and the higher-ups blame us, we'll have several heads to carry on."

The beings of the underworld were engaged in a heated discussion.

Meanwhile, above the River Styx, Locke hadn't expected that his magic would trigger a chain reaction, causing the Crimson Deep Court to flow into the sea.

Locke observed that the River Styx flowed continuously, causing the water level to fluctuate.

The water level is high in one area and low in another.

This caused the part of the gray-black iron pillar that was underwater to be exposed to him for a moment.

"That's not Tie Zhu!"

Locke suddenly realized, "That's a demonic plant."

"What level of magical plant is that?!"

In the area where the water level had temporarily dropped due to the waves, a cycad was revealed beneath the surface of the River Styx.

That iron pillar was just a branch at the very top of that tree.

“What’s planted beneath the River Styx is an iron tree!” Locke thought to himself. “Then my previous calculations of its magical pressure were completely wrong.”

(End of this chapter)