Wizards: Starting with Synthetic Gems

Chapter 803 Peach Killing Curse and Void Ship Seizure
The Peach Boat uses peach branches as masts and peach blossoms on the branches as sails. The peach blossoms ride the elemental winds and fly at the very edge of the wizarding world.

Locke noticed that the imaginary root of the peach boat extended into the imaginary sea, directly fishing out spiritual energy from it, and then transforming the spiritual energy into magical wind through the peach leaves. The peach trees on the branches used this magical wind to fly through it.

This may be the secret behind Taozhou's ability to fly through the void.

Peach Boat flies on the winds of magic, harnesses the winds of magic with peach blossoms, decomposes the spiritual energy from the Sea of ​​Imaginary Numbers with peach leaves, and quantifies the spiritual energy into the winds of magic through breathing.

This peach-shaped boat contains countless research achievements.

Locke, Trajan, and the others entered the void. Because of the Infinite Mountain, they encountered almost no dimensional gravity, and Momoshu left this world directly.

Trajan looked at Locke and said, "Junior brother, be careful. The void environment is very different from the plane environment."

For a moment, Locke, Trajan, and Valerie Quinn all felt as if some kind of darkness had enveloped their vision, and then it was as if someone had been in an air-conditioned room on a hot summer day and then suddenly stepped out of the cool air-conditioned room and faced the hot world.

For a fleeting moment, Locke even felt that everything in the wizarding world, including the principles of planes, was drifting away from him, and that all things were moving away from him.

A vast and boundless void appeared before him.

That is the Great Void.

There is no up or down, no time, no space, no concept, no spirituality, no magic, and no matter; everything is nonexistent.

There is no birth, nor destruction; no strength, nor weakness.

Everything here seems to have lost its meaning.

"It can't even be considered a blank."

Having come into contact with the Zero Potion, Locke compared the current state with the Zero Potion. The Zero Potion represents the initial spiritual state of things, while this state is not even 'nothingness'.

Because there is no concept of 'nothingness' or 'emptiness'.

Valerie Quinn suddenly bent over and began to retch.

Trajan frowned. "Valerie, you still haven't had enough real combat experience."

Valerie reluctantly raised her head and looked back at the wizarding world, which appeared as a giant sphere of white and blue.

In that instant, she realized that she was standing at a great distance, looking down at the wizarding world from a high place.

In an instant, her perception of size was completely distorted. Her soul and consciousness could not process it; the vast world had now become a giant sphere beneath her feet.

Her instincts couldn't comprehend what was going on.

Then she started gagging again.

"what……"

Valerie Quinn covered her head and began to mutter to herself.

"Size, size, humans, elves, orcs... continents, oceans, skies..."

Valerie Quinn opened one eye and looked at the wizarding world again. Her pupils suddenly filled with terror. She looked at Trajan and said, "Teacher, is our world a beast? Why do I see that world breathing, as if it has life...?"

"That world is chasing after us."

"Teacher, hurry up and speed up the peach boat, that world is going to eat us up."

Trajan the wizard frowned.

Locke, however, realized what was happening.

It is cognitive dissonance and collapse syndrome.

Wizards or creatures suffering from this disease see everything as if it were breathing.

Valerie Quinn appeared extremely terrified, as if something were truly chasing them from behind.

She pointed to a void that was clearly empty and said to Locke, "Uncle-Master, do you see that? The Wizarding World is a monster. It's alive, and it's attacking us. Those are its tentacles..."

Locke frowned. He never expected that he would see this kind of cognitive dissonance for the first time in such a situation, and that it was Trajan's student who had contracted it.

Trajan the Wizard rebuked, “Valerie, that’s just the Wizarding World’s weak gravitational pull on us. Because we are in the near-Earth void, we are still within the Wizarding World’s gravitational field.”

"Stop looking at the Wizarding World. Just stop looking, close your eyes, and then use advanced meditation to enter a state of no-thought for about five minutes. At your level, you should be able to recover."

Valerie Quinn seemed terrified, even trying to wrest control of the mast of the peach boat piloted by the wizard Trajan, a peach branch that resembled a staff.

This branch floats above the peach tree.

It's like a small, floating magic staff.

Valerie Quinn, the witch, reached for the branch. "Teacher, we need to change direction."

Trajan gave her a cold look. "You won't even listen to me, Valerie?"

Valerie Quinn hesitated, glancing back repeatedly, her expression growing more terrified with each glance.

She found it increasingly difficult to control her behavior.

Ten minutes later, the witch Valerie Quinn suddenly made her move. A cluster of peach blossoms appeared from her right hand, the crimson petals swirling like a vortex, hurtling towards Trajan.

This is the infamous first-level offensive botanical spell from Mount Golden Crown, the Peach Killing Curse!
This spell model has first-circle, second-circle, and sun-circle versions, making it one of the three major levels of spell models. It is a classic botanical attack spell from Mount Golden Crown.

Valerie Quinn's eyes were serious.

"Teacher, that monster is catching up with us. If this continues, we'll all die."

Before the peach blossom petals formed by the Peach Killing Curse could even get close to Trajan, they were blocked by the permanent defensive force field shell beside him, which resembled a solar corona, and turned into a pile of flames.

Trajan frowned. Cognitive dissonance is not simply about a wizard seeing things that don't exist.

If that's the case, then it's just a matter of illusion.

The key point is that if a wizard has begun to experience cognitive dissonance and sees everything breathing, it means that there is a problem with her brain, her soul, and her consciousness.

Then her personality will also have problems.

Trajan chanted a spell, and the branches on the peach boat immediately gathered around him, forming a wooden fence around him.

Valerie Quinn was horrified.

"Teacher, let me go! That thing is coming! Quick, move to the left..."

Trajan threw a peach blossom to his left. The blossom flew through the air for a while, about a hundred meters away, before being crushed by an invisible force.

In an instant, its form, spirit, and magical energy were all crushed into dust.

Everything about that peach blossom was stripped away.

Valerie Quinn the Witch stood there, stunned.

Trajan the Wizard gave her a cold look. "Where do you want me to go? That's a void energy vortex. If we get close, even I will die inside."

Trajan chanted a spell, and instantly, countless peach blossoms flew out from the sleeve of his right hand. The peach blossoms were like a storm, spreading across the invisible void ahead.

In the midst of this storm, something emerged.

It was like an invisible, enormous vortex.

Its size was countless times larger than the peach boat beneath their feet.

Trajan's sun-ring level Peach Blossom Curse was like an ant trying to shake a tree in the face of this invisible vortex. As he finished chanting the incantation, the peach blossom tornado created by the spell model disappeared into the void.

Locke knew that the wizard Trajan was using his magical energy to outline that formless void energy that was originally impossible to manifest.

Valerie Quinn the Witch awoke with a start.

She gasped for breath, then gritted her teeth, relying on the strength of the Crystallized Witch's soul to withstand the immense soul damage caused by the cognitive dissonance.

She closed her eyes, trying to enter a state of "no thought" to forget the wizarding world she had just seen from high above. This way, she could avoid the harm caused by her soul's inability to distinguish the size of what she saw from the wizarding world and the actual size of herself.

Twenty minutes later, Valerie Quinn exhaled a breath of stale air, then turned her back to the wizarding world, no longer daring to look behind her, and bowed to Trajan and Locke in apology, saying, "Teacher, Junior Uncle, I'm so sorry, I lost my composure."

"I just did something very stupid."

Valerie Quinn looked at Trajan the Wizard with awe.

Trajan nodded slightly to her and then handed her a bottle of potion to restore her energy.

"It's not your fault. Cognitive dissonance and collapse are quite common."

"Moreover, once cognitive dissonance occurs, your mind will not be normal, your judgment will be wrong, and your personality will change drastically."

"Your problem is that, as a wizard, you are too easily thrown off balance. When faced with a problem, instead of calming down and analyzing it, you shout and scream, and act recklessly. You even tried to take control of the Voidcraft from me, wanting to drive us to that truly dangerous abyss."

"The so-called monsters you saw before were just the weak dimensional gravity of the Wizarding World on us. That was only because we were still in the near-Earth void orbit of the Wizarding World. But due to cognitive dissonance, you mistook that dimensional gravity for the tentacles of monsters."

Trajan the wizard questioned her.

"That's why I didn't let you go to the Demon Hunter Division to accept missions, even though you applied to me several times before."

"Although there are many first-ring wizards who carry out Void quests, it's not suitable for someone like you who has no Void experience. People like you have a nickname in the Void—'landlubber'."

"This nickname is specifically used to describe you first-ring wizards who have never been to the Void."

“Because a second-circle wizard can use their immense magic to determine their correct position and size relative to the wizarding world, this problem won’t occur.” Wizard Trajan said to her, “Valerie, if the one piloting the Peach Boat today wasn’t me, but another crystallized wizard, what do you think would have happened?”

Locke understood. Simply put, the first-ring wizard's rank was too low, so he only glanced at the wizarding world from afar in the void, and his cognitive confusion caused him to fall ill.

However, a second-circle wizard's rank is high enough that such a thing wouldn't happen.

Trajan the Wizard said to Locke, "Junior Brother, when you organize an expedition in the future, you will definitely recruit first-class wizard apprentices and first-ring wizards. You must be careful, as these wizards may have this kind of problem."

"In the early days of the Great Void exploration era, many wizards lost their ships and lives because of this problem. At that time, many primitive Void flying machines would take very strange and chilling paths after entering the Void."

"Even during the Great Void Exploration Era, some wizards believed that there existed a kind of creature invisible to the naked eye in the void. These creatures could easily travel into void warships and seize control of them. But afterwards, everyone discovered that it was not that there were strange creatures taking over the aircraft, nor was it anything else. It was simply that the wizards, due to cognitive dissonance, mistakenly believed that something was chasing them from behind."

"In order to escape, they launched a mutiny within the void warship."

Locke nodded slightly. If Trajan hadn't brought him out, he really wouldn't have expected that a low-level wizard would encounter this situation when entering the void.

This is indeed too dangerous.

After all, in the void, the only thing one can rely on is the flying machine beneath one's feet. If someone deliberately damages the flying machine, even a second-ring wizard could be killed in the void.

Locke looked down and saw the vast, boundless, azure wizarding world before his eyes.

Of course, since this is near-Earth orbit in the void, even if Valerie Quinn destroyed the peach boat just now, she could simply jump down.

At worst, we can just do a giant parachute jump outside the Wizarding World.

With the defensive capabilities and vitality of a second-circle wizard, they should be able to return to the wizarding world, although it may take some time, and there is a possibility of serious injury and death.

Trajan the wizard said to Locke, "It's one thing for low-level wizards to have cognitive dissonance, but what's most worrying is cognitive dissonance in high-level wizards."

"Even a second-ring wizard can experience cognitive dissonance in the Void."

"Seeing the entire wizarding world, thanks to the immense magic, won't throw us into disarray. But seeing certain beings or phenomena in the void with the naked eye is a different story. Do you know about void behemoths?"

Locke said, "Yes, senior brother, I have seen it."

Tula was somewhat surprised.

"Saw it? How did you see it? I don't see many of those things."

"This should be your first time coming to the void, right? Wait, you mean, when you used the advanced meditation technique, you took advantage of that one-time opportunity to view the [Secret of Creation] and saw the void behemoth?"

Locke made no attempt to hide anything, nodding and saying, "Well, I guess I was just lucky. The prototype for my ultimate spell was also obtained from a feather from that Void Beast. I told my teacher about this, and he said that the Void Beast was a creature that had never been recorded in the wizarding world."

Locke described the characteristics of the giant beast to Trajan again.

After listening, the wizard Trajan shook his head.

"Hmm, I haven't seen that void creature either. Since the teacher said it's a void behemoth that has never been discovered before, then it should be correct. The teacher has read far more literature than I have."

"Locke, you're lucky. But seeing a Void Beast in an advanced meditative state is completely different from seeing it directly with a wizard's eyes. Locke, never look directly at any Void Beast in the void. You'll die."

Locke thought of Valerie Quinn's behavior earlier, how she had started vying for control of Peach Boat after looking directly into the wizarding world, and nodded, saying, "Thank you for the warning, senior brother. I will be careful."

Entering the void was indeed extremely dangerous. We had only just entered, and were still in near-Earth orbit in the void. We hadn't completely left the wizarding world, yet we had already encountered a ship-stealing incident.

The one who wanted to seize the ship was actually Valerie Quinn, a talented young witch from their own academic lineage.

This illustrates the dangers of navigating in the void.

'If traversing the void in the modern magical age is this dangerous, how many wizards perished on their journeys during the Great Void exploration era?'

A thought popped into Locke's mind.

'Are they willing to risk their lives to enter the void? Is it to obtain resources?'

Or is it to explore the truth?

At this moment, Taozhou had already reached a higher near-Earth void orbit.

Each time the Peach Boat leaves its original near-Earth void orbit and enters a new one, it vibrates, as if it is about to disintegrate.

About five days later, they arrived at a void region called [Level 13 Near Earth Orbit]. At this point, they were far enough away from the Wizarding World that it appeared as a small marble in Locke's eyes.

The gravitational pull of the wizarding world on them has become extremely weak.

Valerie Quinn kept her back to the wizarding world, not daring to look over.

Trajan gave her a stern look.

“Valerie, if you’re like this, you don’t even need to come here. You need to try looking at the wizarding world, even just one minute a day would be good. That way you can improve.”

Valerie Quinn immediately stood up and bowed to him. "Yes, teacher."

She sat down and began trying to look towards the wizarding world.

Trajan, the wizard, turned his back to her and a satisfied smile appeared on his lips.

Seeing this, Locke pondered, "Trajan is a strict teacher. He seems to be intentionally maintaining a strict image in front of Valerie. But he himself is far from being that strict."

Logically speaking, Valerie had never entered the Void to carry out a mission before becoming a Crystallizer, which suggests either that Trajan thought she was completely incapable, or that he cherished her.

I don't want her to take any risks.

It's probably the latter.

When Trajan looked at Locke, a smile appeared on his face, and he asked in a low voice, "What do you think of Valerie?"

Locke said, "Very clever."

"very nice."

Trajan whispered, "I think so too. Let's not let her hear it, lest she get too proud."

“I think that if we give her another ten or fifteen years, she could become a second-circle wizard.”

"Not as good as you."

Trajan the wizard said, "Younger brother, you are a true genius. But there are too many mediocre geniuses in this world."

"I think it's quite remarkable that she became a second-circle wizard before she turned fifty."

Trajan pondered, "No, she should be extremely talented. I dare not be too friendly in front of her, mainly because I am unsure of the general rate of progress a wizard of her caliber can make. I also became a second-circle wizard before the age of thirty."

"So, I'm afraid that if I'm too nice to her, she'll become complacent. Because I'm not sure if her slowness is normal or just lazy. The main thing is that, either way, it's too slow for me."

"But within the academic lineage, geniuses of this level are also extremely important."

Trajan whispered, "Too brilliant geniuses, like us, will eventually take the path of innovation and cannot properly inherit someone's doctrines."

"And geniuses of this caliber can perfectly inherit your theories as if they were golden rules."

Locke agreed wholeheartedly and nodded.

Meanwhile, Locke discovered that many small void spacecraft had appeared in this near-Earth void orbit, and there was also a void port in the distance that had been stationed there for a long time.

The void port was churning out large quantities of supplies.

Most of those supplies came from distant colonial worlds, and some were transported from the wizarding world to various colonial worlds.

Because of the 'Second Sky', void transport does not seem to be as convenient as air transport. Therefore, the transport of supplies in the Wizarding World mainly relies on the Wizarding Airships.

Trajan the wizard glanced at the void harbor.

"That's the extraterritorial port. In the past, it was known as the extraterritorial battlefield, but now it's just an ordinary port."

“Some dark wizards will set their sights on these void ports. Of course, there are relatively few dark wizards who dare to attack the ports directly, but they will intercept those void transport ships.”

“Once a void transport ship enters the void and embarks on a long voyage, its location becomes difficult to pinpoint, and it is extremely challenging to track. Furthermore, void travel itself is dangerous, which is why dark wizards prefer to intercept void transport ships in the near-ground void.”

"Our mission is to cruise the 13th level of the near-Earth void orbit and capture the black wizard pirates."

Trajan grasped the peachwood staff with his right hand, turned the bow of the boat, and sailed away into the distance.

“Ordinary void transport ships are afraid of encountering pirates, but we, as temporary demon hunters, are different. Instead, we are going to arrest dark wizard pirates, and those heads can be exchanged for money.”

"My magic eye has a special function; it has a way to track down dark wizards."

“Let’s go. I know where they are.”

Locke was also short of raw materials for blank spiritual essence recently. His own lunar essence was not abundant, and he had to rob Peter to pay Paul to evolve his magical plants. Therefore, he was very interested at the moment.

"Senior brother, that's great, let's go."

Trajan the wizard laughed heartily.

"Everyone says I'm crazy, but I never expected to meet someone who shares my interests. Junior brother, I like your personality. Hahaha, I won't have to worry about being lonely anymore."

Valerie Quinn glanced at her teacher and muttered to herself.

'Junior Uncle, you have no idea how crazy Teacher can be. Sigh.'

(End of this chapter)