573: Little Vajra Jujube and the Ancient Forest
After some consideration and a brief consultation with Team Leader Kelt, Locke researched the information himself. Confirming that Bruce the trader's words were true, he chose to pay fifty magic crystal cards to purchase this golden tower branch.
This golden tower branch was extremely powerful, so much so that Locke could not even store it inside his astral ring.
"It's time to upgrade my astral ring." Locke looked at the astral ring in his hand.
Upgrading an astral ring was actually quite simple; one just needed to take it to an Alchemy Workshop to merge different astral rings together, causing the spaces of the two rings to fuse.
Locke's astral ring had already been merged several times. Currently, the internal space was about the size of a small soccer field, and its magic pressure had increased accordingly.
However, as a First Ring peak magic plant, the magic pressure of the golden tower branch was still too massive compared to his current astral ring, to the point where he actually couldn't put it inside.
It was like a passage the size of a door being unable to fit a ship into the space behind it.
Trader Bruce immediately said to Locke, "Mr. Augustine, we can arrange for personnel to deliver your golden tower branch to your designated location."
Locke frowned, placed his palm on the surface of the golden tower branch, and forcibly suppressed it temporarily with his mana. Then, using the druids ring augmented by the four elements ring, he opened a dimensional gate and sent it through.
Inside the druids ring was a two-hundred-acre Forest Sanctuary. Under the suppression of the two-hundred-acre Forest Sanctuary and the seedling of the Ancient Tree of Life, along with the lockdown of his own mana, even the golden tower branch had no choice but to submit.
Wizard Bruce remarked, "What powerful mana."
"It seems I was worrying needlessly," Wizard Bruce said with a smile.
Locke looked at Wizard Bruce and said, "I still need some jujube-type magic plants. Do you have any recommendations?"
Wizard Bruce thought for a moment and said, "The Golden Crown Mountain region definitely has the richest variety of peach-type magic plants, and for the same price, they are the best among tree-type magic plants. However, as for jujube-type magic plants, there are also some good ones in this exhibition hall."
"Please come this way."
They wove through the exhibition hall. This secret hall was essentially a small ecological park where many precious magic plants were on display.
Furthermore, the traders of the Golden Peach Garden would only offer these purchase options to a guest if they deemed them qualified to buy.
Locke thought this was a bit like hunger marketing.
Wizard Bruce pointed to a jujube tree with fruit like red agates and told Locke, "This is the Zanhuang Great Jujube Tree. It is a relatively rare jujube-type magic plant."
Locke shook his head. "I don't want these jujube trees with large fruit. I need those magic plants with smaller jujube fruit."
As a senior trader of the Golden Peach Garden, Wizard Bruce immediately understood. "Peach Arc Thorn Arrow?"
"That is truly an ancient and vibrant traditional Botanical magic from the Yunze Wetland. I see, you are trying to assemble the supporting magic plants for the Peach Arc Thorn Arrow."
"Then I understand. Please follow me."
Wizard Bruce led Locke to a jujube tree with an inverted cone-shaped trunk. The tree's form was thick at the bottom and thin at the top, looking like a wooden spike.
It was over ten meters tall. Between the leaves and branches of the jujube tree hung tiny jujubes like grains of rice, and the leaves were elliptical, looking extremely simple and unadorned.
Trader Bruce said, "This is the Little Vajra Jujube. We all know that jujube-type magic plants have a characteristic completely different from other fruit trees, which lies in the 'jujube hanging branches'."
Locke nodded slightly. Jujube trees possess a unique 'hanging branch' system; every year during the fruiting season, soft fruiting branches sprout from the perennial branches, and after the fruit is harvested, these branches drop off completely at a certain point.
Their fruiting depends entirely on these disposable, deciduous, current-year (annual) new branches.
In contrast, most other fruit trees rely on perennial fruiting branches, or while they may fruit on current-year branches, a portion of those branches will become permanent.
Or they might rely on fruiting branches formed the previous year.
In short, jujube trees possess the special characteristic of giving birth to new annual branches every year.
Therefore, wizards call these annual fruiting branches of the jujube tree 'jujube hanging branches'.
The hanging branch is a core important point of jujube-type magic plants.
Breeders can not only focus on cultivating the fruit of the jujube tree but can also manipulate the annual branches, breeding a large number of jujube-type magic plants centered on a special hanging branch system.
The Little Vajra Jujube before him had clearly undergone special breeding and modification of its hanging branch system, which is why the fruit on the branches was exceptionally small.
Like grains of rice.
Clearly, this entire magic plant was designed to strengthen these hanging branches. Because jujube magic plants naturally possess a large number of fast-growing branches, they can use magical power to more quickly obtain more disposable branches in an extremely short time.
Using this mechanism, one could launch many magic plant branch projectiles at an enemy in a very short period.
Whereas for oak-type magic plants like the War Ancient Tree and the Ancient Tree of Life, projecting a branch once would damage their vitality; if they threw too many in a short time, it could even be life-threatening.
But for a jujube magic plant, launching a large number of magic branches in a short time—a 'Spear Toss'—was a common phenomenon.
Trader Bruce said, "The growth environment of the Little Vajra Jujube requires the special resource, Vajra Wizard Stone. Vajra Wizard Stones are masterpieces of Alchemists, but they require a Second Ring Level gravitational refinement array and consume a large amount of resources and exquisite skill to be successfully refined."
"The reputation of the Vajra Wizard Stone is second only to the Five Elements Wizard Stone and is very rare. Therefore, wanting a Little Vajra Jujube to grow into an adult form is an extremely rare occurrence."
"Other than the Vajra Wizard Stone, the Little Vajra Jujube isn't too picky about anything else; it can grow even in the most barren regions."
"The fast-growing branches of the Little Vajra Jujube possess a special power, concentrating most of its magical energy. They can transform into Vajra Sharp Swords and form a swarm of swords to launch an attack at the enemy."
"The most terrifying thing is that the Little Vajra Jujube possesses the nearly indestructible characteristics of the Vajra Wizard Stone—hard to block, hard to influence, and hard to change... the Unchanging Vajra."
"It's just that wielding this magic plant requires powerful mana; the slightest carelessness could lead to a backlash."
Locke nodded slightly. In fact, the golden tower branch from earlier was the same; it was just a matter of the degree of backlash.
Powerful magic plants like these all have the issue of magical backlash.
However, as a Natural Guardian who also possessed the Ancient Tree of Life seedling and the Forest Sanctuary, he could transform into a forest ecosystem and utilize the Distributed Psionic Network. Thus, he had many advantages over an ordinary Botanical Wizard when it came to the issue of magical backlash.
Ordinary wizards indeed had to worry about whether they would suffer a backlash from wielding too many powerful magic plants at the same time.
Locke observed the spirituality of the Little Vajra Jujube and briefly judged that this magic plant was indeed suitable for the Peach Arc Thorn Arrow Spell Model.
Or rather, the reason Wizard Bruce dared to recommend this magic plant was because it was the most suitable for the Peach Arc Thorn Arrow.
Locke inquired, "How much for this magic plant?"
Wizard Bruce said, "Five hundred thousand magic stones!"
Facing Locke's surprised look, he immediately said, "Mainly because the Little Vajra Jujube is on the same level as the golden tower branch. Although it doesn't benefit the study of an Advanced Meditation Technique, it possesses Second Ring characteristics, and the Little Vajra Jujube has a special ability."
"It can block damage for the wizard with whom it has established a mana grafting relationship."
"The Little Vajra Jujube will absorb magical damage and negate it by dropping its hanging branches. This function can play a crucial role at certain critical moments."
Locke nodded slightly; that was a death-substitution function.
Locke thought it over carefully. Forget it, since he had already spent five hundred thousand on the golden tower branch, buying another Little Vajra Jujube was no big deal.
Moreover, he had already asked Team Leader Kelt, who told him that the items in this exhibition hall were indeed things that ordinary wizards could not come into contact with.
That is to say, despite the high price, many wizards couldn't buy them even if they wanted to spend the money; these were the luxury goods among magic plants.
The golden tower branch and the Little Vajra Jujube were both expensive and symbols of status.
Since the Peach Arc Thorn Arrow was related to his Advanced Meditation Technique, the purchase was not a loss.
Locke looked at a few more luxury magic plants before finally deciding to return to the Golden Peach Garden's main storefront.
Because he estimated that his Forest Sanctuary could still increase its total biological mass, and he needed to pay attention to diversifying the species of the main First Ring tree-type magic plants in his Forest Sanctuary to prevent monoculture.
So, back at the storefront, Locke purchased 81 First Ring shrub-level magic plants called Gem Holly from Trader Bruce at a price of 4,000 magic stones each.
Gem Holly is a shrub within the holly family, different from the powerful combat-type magic plant like the Red Earth Holly.
Gem Holly is just a shrub and only a functional First Ring magic plant; it is considered among the weakest in terms of power among First Ring magic plants.
It has almost no power.
Therefore, the price was cheap.
But Gem Holly is extremely beautiful, its leaves resembling various colored gems, with each plant looking like a Christmas tree.
It looked very festive.
Most importantly, like other holly trees, Gem Holly is a steadfast, silent guardian of the forest; it can actively share nutrients with other trees in the forest through its roots and symbiotic magical fungi.
Furthermore, Gem Holly has the ability to purify soil, making it a commonly used First Ring magic plant for the shrub layer of a forest.
If Locke transplanted the 81 Gem Holly shrubs and the 105 beech trees into the Forest Sanctuary, his Forest Sanctuary would possess three hundred and two First Ring level adult magic plants.
Under the governance of the Ancient Tree of Life seedling and himself, it would become a powerful forest community—an ancient forest.
As a gift, Wizard Bruce gave Locke a number of green manure-type Apprentice-level magic plants and wind-fixing element-type Apprentice-level magic plants, mainly various grasses, legumes, and vines.
These were not charged for.
In this way, Locke had spent one million, nine hundred and fifty-four thousand magic stones in this single store today.
But it was all worth it.
This way, his Forest Sanctuary would become what Dean Levis called an 'Ancient Phase' forest!
Moving from the mature phase to the ancient phase!
Under Locke's planning, the core area would reach 500 acres, and the area for Apprentice-level trees might also be 500 acres, totaling a massive thousand acres.
Becoming a thousand-acre forest.
And the druids ring contained fifteen hundred acres of land internally.
Only in this way could he fully utilize the druids ring augmented by the four elements ring, while also allowing his magical power to grow to an unparalleled level, strengthening his Second Ring characteristics!