Ancient Wizards: A Little Progress Every Day

Dargo watched this absurd "offering" farce from the back row, his impatience growing.

"To qualify for the selection, the first step is to fawn over a piece of rotten wood like a dog?"

He asked the question coldly in his mental space.

"Most ancient sorcerer schools had this kind of perverse selection mechanism."

Arajan's calm and collected consciousness came through: "The original intention was to dampen the tempers of the trial participants and make them understand that passing on knowledge comes at a price. You'll get used to it."

"I didn't prepare such boring local specialties."

Dago watched as a second-circle wizard in front of him stammered out a lame, corny joke to the treant, and somehow managed to gain the qualification to pass the level.

The criteria used to judge this old tree bark are completely illogical. "What suggestions do you have?"

"You can directly use high-purity magic stones to smash it."

Arajan suggested, "The longer a magical creature lives, the more deeply ingrained its greed for pure energy becomes."

Dago severed the mental connection and fell silent.

As time went on, only five lucky individuals out of the twenty trial participants managed to stand on the right side.

Two people brought food that suited their tastes, one told a lame joke, and the other used wind blade magic to scrape off the stubborn dead skin that had been stuck to the treant's back for decades.

The most breathtaking thing was the blue-robed witch—

In front of everyone, she ripped off her robe and showed her still full and fair body, though no longer young, to the ancient tree that had lived for who knows how many years. Miraculously, she was granted entry.

When only Dago remained standing alone, all eyes were on him.

"Alright, the last bug."

Having devoured a large amount of "sincerity," Tataka is now even more arrogant and inflated than before.

It looked down at Dago, its curved branches probing into the dark ear canal, probing wantonly. "What do you intend to use to impress Lord Tataka? Let me make it clear beforehand, Lord Tataka is not interested in the bodies of human beings."

Upon hearing this, the blue-robed witch standing in the group of those who had passed the test defiantly puffed out her unusually full breasts, and looked at Dago with a hint of condescending pity.

Dago slowly raised his right hand.

"Snap—"

A dull-colored, rough-surfaced low-grade magic stone traced a perfunctory parabola through the air and precisely struck Tataka's protruding, massive wooden nose.

The magic stone bounced off and fell to the ground, rolling a long way on the moss-covered stone slab before finally coming to rest in front of a clump of weeds.

"Open the door."

Dago swung his arm down, slightly raised his eyelids, and spoke to the giant tree-man in a calm tone.

"Well……"

Tataka's ear-picking branch suddenly froze in mid-air, its huge brownish-yellow eyes staring intently at the low-level magic stone on the ground, which even a dog wouldn't sniff, its expression showing an extremely human-like astonishment.

The other wizards standing to the right also gasped in shock, staring at Dago as if he were a madman.

In that instant, a deathly silence fell beneath the massive canopy of the banyan tree.

"What...what did you just say?"

Tataka's wooden face began to contort in utter disbelief.

"Splash splash splash—"

The old banyan tree's massive root system wriggled wildly underground, churning up the soil.

The tree-man raised its body, slamming its imposing, aged face close to Dago's, bringing with it a gust of rotten, foul wind: "Insect, repeat that fart you just made?"

Without even blinking, Dago extended his index finger and casually pointed to the inferior magic stone on the ground.

"I said, open the door after you get the money."

He paused, then added earnestly, "Please hurry up, I'm in a real rush."

"Shhhh—!"

Half a breath after the words were spoken, the dense foliage above their heads and the thick rocky ground beneath their feet began to tremble violently.

A terrifying rage, like an active volcano about to erupt, completely exploded inside the giant banyan tree.

"You reckless madman! You have successfully provoked the great Tataka!"

"roar--!"

The enraged treant unleashed a roar that shattered the clouds.

The space was subtly distorted by the sound waves, and in the center of the platform, the entire old banyan tree rose from the ground.

Tens of thousands of thick branches and tough vines, like Medusa's wildly dancing snake hair, accompanied by a piercing sound, wove a net of death from all directions, sweeping over Dago and strangling him.

"Retreat, retreat quickly!"

The wizards on the right were terrified and desperately tried to back away.

In the heart of this devastating massacre, only Dago remained unmoved.

His hands hung naturally at his sides, as calm as if only a gentle breeze had passed by.

"It seems your money offensive isn't working too well, Arazan."

Dago chuckled to himself in his mind.

"..."

For the first time ever, Arazan remained silent.

"Then I'll just have to knock on the door in my own way."

Dago lifted his eyelids and faced the thousands of vines that were falling like pythons and spears, and took a step forward with his right foot.

Within the misty spiritual space, the first hexagonal soul crystal suddenly lit up.

Then came the second one, the third one... Boom!

Eleven soul crystals burst forth with dazzling light at the same instant.

A dense, almost tangible amber-gold halo, centered on Dago, expanded dramatically like a supernova explosion.

"Buzz—!"

An invisible yet incredibly powerful pressure field instantly took over this area.

The void was like the surface of boiling water, with large swaths of distorted and overlapping images.

The hair ornament binding the back of her head shattered silently, and her long, black hair flew wildly like a demon in the windless environment.

Dago walked forward with a calm pace, step by step.

He was like a golden sun suddenly rising from the abyss.

The banyan tree branches and steel vines, imbued with immense power, instantly touched the golden force field within three feet of his body—

It couldn't even last a second before being crushed, peeled off, and disintegrated into countless tiny wood chips amidst a teeth-grinding "crunch."

Completely crushing everything in its path!

A one-sided and utter defeat without any suspense.

Dago stepped over the shattered wood chips scattered on the ground, looked up at the tree trunk frozen in place above, and his voice, as cold as ice, echoed through the valley for a long time:

"Who do you think you are, to represent Spirit Mirror Lake?"

"If a wizard seeking truth must grovel and beg before a piece of rotten wood to even begin to learn the way—"

"Then I'd rather not go into Spirit Mirror Lake."

The voice wasn't loud, but each word struck the hearts of the wizards who had retreated to a distance like a heavy hammer.

Several second-ring wizards felt their knees go weak under the overwhelming pressure, while the red-haired third-ring wizard stared wide-eyed in utter horror, making a gurgling sound as if he had seen a ghost, trembling as he uttered two words: "A...miracle?!"

The gatekeeper treant Tataka, who was roaring wildly just a second ago, seemed to have all his life drained the moment he touched that amber-golden light.

The wildly dancing vines fell limply like dead snakes.

"Bang!"

With a loud bang, the giant banyan tree, as imposing as a mountain, trembled violently and its massive body buckled, causing it to kneel heavily before Dago.

It raised its two thick wooden arms, its ten fingers digging deep into its own chest.

With a piercing sound of wood tearing apart, the tree-man forcefully ripped his chest open to both sides.

At the heart of that dark and deep tree hollow, a blue vortex entrance, radiating mysterious spatial fluctuations, slowly rotated and appeared.

The massive tree-man's head pressed humbly against the earth, facing Dago, and spoke in a low, booming voice, filled with both boundless fear and utmost reverence:

"Welcome to our great wizard..."

"The gates of Lingjing Lake are open only for you."