672: Daniel's Research and the Fifth Link
Witch Camilla quickly replied, asking: 'Continue trading? What kind of trade?'
Locke sent a message: 'You already sold me your natal witch porcelain once anyway. Just sell it to me again.'
'There's no downside for you.'
Witch Camilla asked: 'How many do you want?'
Locke thought for a moment and felt that twelve pieces would be enough to create twelve Porcelain Moon Growths, which would then undergo four syntheses.
The main issue was that each Porcelain Moon Growth consumed a significant amount of resources.
If he could, he would have wanted to synthesize Porcelain Moon Growths hundreds of times to find the best one, but considering the cost, it was unrealistic.
Moreover, having too many wouldn't provide additional benefits.
Just enough was fine.
Across from him in Magic Hub City, Witch Camilla was somewhat shocked. 'Are you crazy, or am I? If you were just buying one or two Cancer natal witch porcelains, I might have a way. You want to buy twelve? That's absolutely impossible!'
Witch Camilla quickly sent Locke the final two messages. 'I refuse to trade. This will definitely alert the Chief Wizard Mentor of Magic Hub City, and I'll be punished then. Nothing will happen to you, but I'll be the one paying the fine.'
'I refuse to communicate with you. Please respect me and do not send any more messages.'
Locke raised an eyebrow, not particularly caring about Witch Camilla's refusal; after all, she had directly refused him like this last time too.
Witch Camilla was an opportunist; for such people, missing any opportunity felt like a personal loss.
Although she was refusing now, she might just be weighing the pros and cons.
Locke thought it over and felt that if he rushed to find her now, it would inevitably put him in a passive position.
If he replied directly, such as by accepting the outcome, it would halt her deliberations.
natal witch porcelain was indeed only found in Magic Hub City, and after reviewing a lot of data, he had confirmed that natal witch porcelain was the best medium for constructing a porcelain moon.
Locke thought: "Let's leave it at that for now."
Locke returned to his dormitory and performed a degree of meditation, only to find that the more he meditated, the more his magic pressure rose, the larger his soul cracks became, and the further he declined.
Locke simply gave up on meditating and decided to stop all actions that increased his mental strength before breaking through to the Second Ring.
He used the simple potion room in his dorm to ignite the Primal Fire and brew a potion.
Locke poured the magic pressure liquid from the cauldron into a crystal potion bottle; the potion was purple, a standard weakening potion.
It could be used to reduce his mental strength.
In essence, this was a poison. It was very difficult to brew, and a typical First Ring Potion Master wouldn't be able to make it at all, with a high failure rate.
"I must try to avoid taking any potions that can strengthen me," Locke thought. "Right now, my magic pressure has reached a point where it cannot be increased even slightly. Every increase is an injury to my soul."
"If I had known, I shouldn't have increased my magic pressure so quickly."
"No..." Locke realized, "This is a deadlock. To obtain magic resources, I must constantly improve myself, and once I improve, every step forward leads toward this soul decline period."
Locke drank the weakening potion to weaken the magic pressure generated by converting natural primal force into mana every moment. "I have to drink a bottle of weakening potion every day to reduce the magic pressure converted from the natural primal force. I didn't expect that at this stage, the backflow of natural primal force would be the most terrible drawback."
"I can't use any Advanced Meditation Techniques anymore either."
"The converted magic pressure might not be entirely reduced by the weakening potion alone, so I also need to increase my spell burden, using magic every moment to lower my own magic."
It was like temporarily creating a reservoir.
Locke snapped his fingers, and a moon immediately descended. The bright full moon landed behind him and simultaneously turned into a sphere, flying into his right eye and entering the sky above his Forest Sanctuary.
"The soul decline period is too terrifying; there's no need for me to build two Great Musics at the same time. As long as I successfully build one Great Magic, I'll be a Second Ring Wizard. It's better to build one Great Magic first, and then build the second one after I become a Second Ring Wizard."
Locke recalled his experience of becoming a Second Ring Wizard through simulated Great Magic within the Historical Stele Spell and quickly made a judgment.
"Right, I should visit Group 2 to see how Witch Mason and the others are doing with the glandular root sac, that special energy-locking structure I found on the ancient flower roots."
After drinking the weakening potion and waiting for it to take effect, Locke immediately jumped onto his Cloud Whale and headed for Little Peach Mountain.
At the summit of Little Peach Mountain, Locke sat on the Cloud Whale and looked down at the mountain in surprise.
By now, the entire Little Peach Mountain was shrouded in demonic qi. The evil power of the Twin Demon Realm coiled around the summit like a mass of dark purple mist.
Even the radiance of the sun behind Golden Crown Mountain was blocked by this demonic qi.
At that moment, Daniel also arrived riding a Rainbow Sparrow. He had just paid off his debts recently and was in a happy mood.
Wizard Daniel looked at Locke and said, "Locke, you're at Little Peach Mountain too; heading to a Colonial Plane? By the way, I'm getting tired of riding this Rainbow Sparrow."
Locke looked at the peacock-shaped rainbow he was sitting on and said, "Want to swap?"
Daniel had been waiting for those words. "Sure! I'm just tired of it. Riding this Rainbow Sparrow all day feels really dull. I've been eyeing your Cloud Whale for a long time."
Locke smiled as the Rainbow Sparrow landed near him, and he jumped onto it, commanding his Cloud Whale with a look to fly toward Wizard Daniel.
Locke asked Wizard Daniel, "Is your debt paid off?"
Wizard Daniel smiled and said, "Just paid it off last month. I expect my second-class project will be wrapped up in another half a year or so."
"If I hadn't been scammed, I probably would have finished it long ago. Sigh, nothing can be done," Wizard Daniel said. "My experience was limited before; there were some losses I simply couldn't avoid taking."
"Couldn't avoid it, couldn't avoid it."
"By the way, Locke, I'm heading to the Gray Mist Plane. My mentor and his research group are waiting for me there. I lost a lot of face in front of them before. Thanks to the encouragement from you and Senior Sister Julian, I was able to keep going."
"So, I have to hurry over now. Because of what happened before, my current status is a bit low." Wizard Daniel curled his lip and shrugged. "Not everyone is like you and Senior Sister Julian, who don't judge people by their past."
Daniel felt a bit irritated thinking about those wizards in his current research group who gossiped behind his back and looked at him with strange eyes.
In White Wizard Society, debt isn't scary; bankruptcy is.
He had suddenly owed too much money before and could only borrow from the bank to pay it back.
As a result, he couldn't pay back the bank and almost went bankrupt, nearly becoming a debt slave.
Fortunately, at that time, Witch Julian brought him an investor; otherwise, he really would have gone bankrupt and become a debt slave.
He would have had to rely on selling his labor to pay off his debts.
Thus, Wizard Daniel had tasted the full spectrum of human coldness and warmth.
He had now paid off his debts to various friends, but some wizards in the research group still looked at him with suspicious eyes and made jokes about him behind his back.
In this White Wizard Society, which is largely built on a credit system, someone who has been on the brink of bankruptcy inevitably gets labeled with a stigma.
Thinking of this, the originally happy Wizard Daniel's mood turned gloomy. "Except for you and Senior Sister, basically no one wants to deal with me now. The upside is that it makes the world feel very quiet all of a sudden. I'm forced to put all my energy into the project."
Wizard Daniel looked at Locke and said, "I've had a very good idea recently. It's still related to mist. If it succeeds, it will definitely surprise everyone."
"That's good," Locke nodded and said, "A wizard's only moat is their research results. Daniel, don't worry about what others think."
"It's enough to do our own thing well."
"Think about a bright future," Locke said. "Sometimes, one needs to have some idealism; otherwise, if everything is too realistic and that reality is too harsh, life becomes difficult to bear."
"I think, from our first day at Golden Crown Mountain, when the Second Ring Wizards told us to pursue the ethereal and avoid the mundane, they might have meant this. Who knows," Locke said to Wizard Daniel.
Sitting on the Cloud Whale, Wizard Daniel looked up at the sky, at the great red sun behind Golden Crown Mountain that looked like a divine wheel. "Pursue the ethereal?"
"You're right. Sometimes reality is too harsh; if one doesn't pursue the ethereal, it's truly too hard to get through."
"When I owed so much money and no one wanted to talk to me or help me... if I couldn't sink into the illusory, it would have been very hard for me to survive."
"Maybe the High-Ring Wizards of Golden Crown Mountain didn't mean that at all, but pursuing the ethereal certainly helps us through the most painful low points," Wizard Daniel said. "I guess it's about having dreams."
"Oh, speaking of which," Wizard Daniel said with a long face, "I have a student who, during my lowest point, tried several times to use connections to find himself a different teacher. I've noted down that grudge."
Locke didn't respond.
Wizard Daniel glanced at Locke. "I'm joking."
"How could I?"
Wizard Daniel said to Locke: "Let me tell you about my recent concept. Don't look at me like this; I'm also a winner of the Three Ze Cup. I entered Golden Crown Mountain as the most outstanding First Ring Weather Master in the Three Ze Lands."
"They all think I'm down and out now, but I don't see it that way."
Wizard Daniel opened his palm to Locke, and a water droplet appeared there, constantly evaporating, then turning into many small droplets.
Those small droplets also evaporated, forming a patch of magical spiritual mist.
Wizard Daniel took out a toxic gas bead alchemical item from his astral ring. After crushing it, all the toxic gas entered the mist.
Immediately, the spiritual mist turned into a green poisonous mist.
Locke said, "Is this your idea? Just turning into poisonous mist. It's a very common First Ring Spell Model, quite ordinary."
Wizard Daniel blinked, suddenly realizing something. He then took out the heart of a dark-attribute magical creature from his astral ring, crushed it, and forced out the magical energy. This dark energy then combined with the small cloud of mist in his right palm.
Wizard Daniel asked, "Look, do you see anything?"
Locke looked at the mist cloud and shook his head slightly.
Wizard Daniel blinked and then looked down at the mist cloud in his hand. "My demonstration before was wrong; the second one I showed you is what I wanted you to see."
"Look, some of this dark energy has merged into the mist."
Locke glanced at Wizard Daniel. "Hmm... maybe a little. Huh? It's very little, almost negligible, but... it's very persistent."
"Are you saying mist has the potential to become an excellent energy-locking structure?"
Wizard Daniel said, "Energy-locking? You react too quickly. That is my idea, but I hadn't explained it yet. You thought of it first, which really robs me of any sense of achievement."
Locke said, "No, it's just that I've been studying energy-locking structures lately."
Wizard Daniel was stunned for a moment. "The energy-locking structures of Magic Plants? Oh, the special structural organs used to store and convert life energy in Life Magic, right. In meteorology, we mainly study macro-energy scheduling, the coupling interface between environment and energy, the capture of meteorological-level energy, and cross-regional energy transport issues."
"So, the scale is larger. And it's not just energy-locking, but also transport. Look at this mass of magic weapon; because water turns into droplets, it essentially has an exaggerated surface area and corresponding surface tension."
"Moreover, there are some mechanisms I haven't fully researched yet. If successful, this would be an excellent distributed energy storage network and a controlled energy transport carrier influenced by wind load and temperature differences."
Wizard Daniel said: "There is a very important concept in meteorology, which is roughly equivalent to the energy-locking structure in your Life Magic: the energy transport carrier."
"In aerology, an energy transport carrier is something that can achieve macro-fluidity of energy and serve as an energy transport object. This small detail I discovered from ordinary mist might help me complete a different kind of Great Magic."
"I'm currently gathering data to complete the final piece," Wizard Daniel said. "I'm not bragging, but if I hadn't been deceived by that detestable witch back then, I would have definitely been among your opponents in the finals of the Spell Fighting Competition."
"Locke, you might not have been the champion."
Locke smiled. "Yes, I believe you."
Locke looked at the mist in his hand and thought: 'I've always wanted to find the fourth link between Moon—All Things—Me to increase system redundancy.'
'Later, I wanted to use the Forest Alliance Spell to establish a redundant structure. But the redundant structure is still insufficient. And my conversation with Daniel today suddenly made me realize that my Forest Alliance Spell has a serious flaw. Or rather, a flaw of plants—plants have limited mobility.'
'Using the Forest Sanctuary as an energy storage structure means facing the problem of moonlight energy being localized in a certain area of the earth and becoming overly concentrated.'
Locke carefully reconsidered, and a chill suddenly rose behind him. 'Back then, the reason I was invincible in the Historical Stele Spell was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants of the era; those people didn't understand my Great Magic. Moreover, I didn't face truly powerful ancient wizards. Thinking back, the Great Magic I constructed back then had far too many loopholes.'
'An energy storage environment with overly concentrated energy is a very serious problem.'
'Not to mention the issue of not having an energy transport carrier.' Locke looked at Daniel and began to think. 'If Daniel can research this mist, it sounds like I could borrow it to further enhance my Great Magic.'
'This friend was indeed worth making.'