894: Second Ring Flight Magic Plant: The Birth of the Great Mingli Dragon Sparrow!
Within the Queen's Chessboard, the Force Waves deduced various possible past spiritual changes of the Four-Winged Great Green Leaf Dragon Sparrow, even analyzing the underlying principles of its Force Layer changes from the perspective of spiritual evolution.
With a wave of Locke's hand, all thirty-one deduction results displayed on the Queen's Chessboard instantly shattered.
"No. I've deduced Ancestral Evolution thirty-one times within the Queen's Chessboard, and every single one was a failure."
"Fortunately, for safety's sake, I didn't start the Ancestral Evolution immediately. Otherwise, over ten million magic stones would have gone down the drain."
Currently, his regular monthly income had risen to seven hundred thousand magic stones due to the establishment and confirmation of Augustus Wizard Shoes. As the Augustus Shop Alliance grew in fame, his monthly sales of Wizard Shoes seemed likely to increase, meaning this income would continue to grow.
Therefore, Locke spent five hundred thousand magic stones to rent the Queen's Chessboard from the Feathered Serpent Ancient Pavilion. Although the Feathered Serpent Ancient Pavilion was a shop serving Potionology wizards, he couldn't afford to worry about such details right now.
After all, following that planar exploration, a large portion of his gains had yet to be converted into magic stones.
"Money from planar exploration indeed has many unique characteristics; it can easily lead a wizard to bankruptcy."
Locke had a strange expression on his face.
"The vast resources obtained from planar exploration actually have a certain lag time between acquisition and conversion into money due to travel time issues."
No wonder so many Second Ring Wizards were most prone to bankruptcy after planar exploration—it wasn't those with no gains, but rather those who had achieved massive harvests.
It was the same old saying.
Developing a plane was essentially starting a project. If a wizard gained too much, it was equivalent to investing their own resources to develop multiple projects, which meant purely consuming money.
After all, one couldn't treat the development of a project as revenue.
Treating things you want to do, or have just started doing, as an entry point for recovering resources was a mistake; on the contrary, those were all places where resources needed to be outputted.
Locke felt that he had a wealth of resources at the moment, yet because of the delay, he couldn't immediately exchange them for a vast fortune in a short time.
Locke looked at the Queen's Chessboard before him; a day was about to pass.
"This won't work. Using the Moon Cultivation Method or Ancestral Evolution directly, and shining the Moon of Evolution on that Magic Plant... will only cause the Four-Winged Great Green Leaf Dragon Sparrow to collapse."
"What if I first use the tree of prosperity to bestow the miracle of Spring Prosperity upon this Magic Plant?"
The Ancient Tree of Life appeared behind Locke. By now, the Ancient Tree of Life had completed its evolution. It had transformed from a lush, canopy-like tree into one where the leaves were still green, but their edges were now golden.
The entire body was a mix of gold and green, looking elegant and magnificent.
Amidst the spiritual waves of the Queen's Chessboard, a Four-Winged Great Green Leaf Dragon Sparrow began to undergo changes. Immediately after, Locke shone the Moon of Evolution upon the Magic Plant.
An hour later, Locke looked at the deduction results within the Queen's Chessboard.
"It worked. By using the Spring Prosperity of the tree of prosperity, I can strengthen a Magic Plant's vitality through the cycle of the four seasons, thereby increasing the success rate of my Ancestral Evolution."
He had thought of this because of a previous conversation with Witch Catherine. Hearing her mention the cold winter made him realize that the magic power of the entire Wizarding World—the Eastern Border Region—also fluctuated according to the changes of the four seasons.
The essence of the tree of prosperity was the four seasons.
Using the first type of Mist's Power as a base to deduce the cycle of the seasons, although he had only glimpsed a small part of it, it had already brought him great rewards.
Spring Prosperity could increase the success rate of a Magic Plant's Ancestral Evolution, and it could likely also increase the success rate of a Magic Plant's Surging Evolution.
A week later, on the tenth underground level of the Dune Underground Research Institute, Locke bestowed the Miracle of Spring Prosperity from the tree of prosperity upon the Four-Winged Great Green Leaf Dragon Sparrow.
Next, he summoned the Moon of Evolution and applied Ancestral Evolution to it. With a wave of his hand and the sound of an incantation, two enchanted blades—one gold and one silver—flew out and began to prune around the Four-Winged Great Green Leaf Dragon Sparrow.
Meanwhile, Douglas, Witch Mason, Barrett, and Witch Freya stood by to manage the complex magic arrays in the laboratory to enhance the success rate of the Magic Plant's Ancestral Evolution.
Locke proceeded methodically. Because he had performed the deduction with the Queen's Chessboard in advance, most stages were within his expectations.
He only needed to follow the results of the prior deduction.
However, the Queen's Chessboard was only a deduction, not a one-hundred-percent accurate prophecy. Thus, while exciseing conflicting plant factors that emerged during the Ancestral Evolution, Locke still encountered many situations that hadn't appeared on the Queen's Chessboard.
Douglas and the others covered their foreheads with their palms. The magical radiance before them was so blinding that they could barely keep their eyes open.
The massive magic pressure surged like a tide, sometimes ebbing and sometimes flowing, pressing against them and nearly blowing them over.
They had to activate their Eternal Defense Fields at full power to prevent the magic pressure from knocking them down.
The plantain leaves of the Four-Winged Great Green Leaf Dragon Sparrow suddenly turned from green to red.
Locke glanced over.
"Has it finally begun?"
"The Demon Dragon plant essence is finally starting to truly manifest during the Ancestral Evolution."
The Magic Dragon Rose had only converted the entire Magic Dragon Bloodline into Demon Dragon plant essence, so it was very crude. By using the Grafting Cultivation Method, he transferred parts of the Demon Dragon plant essence to other Magic Plants, and then used Ancestral Evolution to express the unexpressed parts, making this portion of plant essence manifest with absolute clarity.
In Locke's view, this had two major benefits.
First, he could use this method to translate the Demon Dragon's bloodline essence. This would allow him to better understand the bloodline of this ancient creature, offering the possibility of crossing the severed path ahead.
Second, it could improve his levels in Breeding Science and Botany.
At this moment, Locke didn't even know why the leaf color of the Four-Winged Great Green Leaf Dragon Sparrow was changing from green to red, while its aerial roots began to proliferate massively.
A flicker of flame appeared.
It was the Demon Dragon's World-Ending Flame.
But the black-purple World-Ending Flame didn't last long before it suddenly faded into gold, and then the gold faded again into a bright red.
Locke suddenly felt a surge of inexplicable anger.
His anger caused his magic pressure to begin rising sharply.
Not far away, Witch Mason and the others were forced to their knees by this magic pressure. Their wizard robes tore, and the magic arrays they were maintaining ground to a halt.
Witch Mason shouted anxiously, "Locke..."
Witch Freya said, "Group leader, what are you doing... the magic arrays can't be maintained!"
The magic arrays throughout the tenth underground floor of the laboratory began to malfunction. Different arrays, left unattended, began to collide with one another.
On the thirtieth underground floor of the research institute, inside Wizard Sith's office.
Wizard Sith saw a magic book on his desk flip its pages automatically, displaying the operational status of the magic arrays on the tenth floor.
Wizard Sith shook his head.
"That fellow Locke doesn't do our Group 2's experiments all day; instead, he spends every day on his own wild experiments. Why does he have to cause such a huge commotion?"
"Forget it, he's my only precious talent left. If he leaves too..."
...Underground Research Institute, Tenth Floor.
Locke was jolted awake by the cries of Witch Mason and Witch Freya. He suddenly realized that the destructive desire in his heart didn't come from himself at all.
He quickly used the Advanced Meditation Technique to enter a state of no-thought, attacking the portion of the Magic Dragon Bloodline's consciousness that had snuck into his own mind.
After completely annihilating it, Locke opened his eyes. His magic pressure returned to normal as he began the final work on the Magic Plant, striving to complete this breeding task.
'The Magic Dragon Bloodline began to have destructive thoughts toward that flight Magic Plant?'
'I don't actually care about that. What I care more about is that the Demon Dragon flame just underwent three stages of regression: first from Demon Dragon Breath to Golden Dragon Breath, and then a third time into a red Dragon Breath.'
Locke's expression was strange as he looked up at the Four-Winged Great Green Leaf Dragon Sparrow above him, which was completely enveloped in dragon fire.
He waved his hand, and the two enchanted blades that had been spinning and cutting rapidly in the air instantly vanished.
The Ancestral Evolution was complete.
The entire Magic Plant was wreathed in bright Red Dragon flame. It wasn't ordinary Red Dragon flame, but a type of Dragon Breath containing a unique Spirit Breath.
"Dragon Breath... Spirit Breath..."
Locke used mana to float into the air and approach the Four-Winged Great Green Leaf Dragon Sparrow. The next moment, a sheet of scorching bright red flame erupted from its plantain leaves.
"As I thought... I was too inexperienced before. I didn't realize that so-called Dragon Breath is simply fire magic igniting Spirit Breath that contains unique life energy."
"That's why Dragon Breath fire is so unique."
"Dragons are deeply connected to Life Magic." Locke looked at the Four-Winged Great Green Leaf Dragon Sparrow before him.
"A portion of the Demon Dragon plant essence has been manifested through Ancestral Evolution, achieving stable trait expression in this Magic Plant. The cultivation of this Magic Plant is truly complete."
"I just don't understand how it regressed into this kind of flame?"
"This shouldn't be the Dragon Breath of an ordinary Red Dragon. Could it be that the origin of the Golden Dragon is some kind of mutated Red Dragon?"
Locke realized he understood the Demon Dragon even better now.
"If that's the case, then things get interesting. Red Dragon—special Red Dragon—Golden Dragon—Demon Dragon; they underwent four mutations and evolutions respectively."
"The Black Sun Tower does not allow any creature to independently evolve into a Demon Dragon ever again."
"For this purpose, they even drove the ancient dragon species, the Golden Dragon, to extinction."
"However, if I want to understand the secret behind it, I'm not afraid of trouble. I just need to find a way to make a Red Dragon mutate into a special Red Dragon, and then into the ancient creature Golden Dragon, rather than the modern dragon species, the Gold Dragon."
"Then it might be possible to reproduce the Golden Dragon bloodline. By comparing the Golden Dragon and Magic Dragon Bloodlines, I might be able to fill in the severed path."
"It's very troublesome. But there's no choice. The Black Sun Tower has blocked the evolutionary path of the Magic Dragon Bloodline; bypassing their blockade is difficult."
Even though he thought this way.
To complete an experiment of this level was actually completely beyond his current capabilities.
Because whether it was a Gold Dragon, a Red Dragon, a mutated Red Dragon, a Golden Dragon, or a Demon Dragon, they were all essentially Third Ring organisms... Locke looked at the flight-type Magic Plant before him. Because of the partial expression of the Demon Dragon essence, a power hidden within the Magic Dragon Bloodline had been awakened. Consequently, this Great Green Leaf Dragon Finch was burning with a unique dragon fire across its entire body. It was also extremely irritable, making it impossible for him to get close.
The temperature was exceptionally high.
The Great Green Leaf Dragon Finch was bright red all over, emitting a scorching magical radiance. That radiance was like fire, yet it had the texture of water, flowing slowly. Anything or anyone that got close began to smoke.
"summer magic? No, this flame possesses a power that surpasses my summer magic."
The aerial roots of the entire Great Green Leaf Dragon Finch were particularly developed. The dragon tail had grown five times larger; that fake dragon tail had become so long it could almost wrap around itself in several coils.
Most conspicuous was the change in the Magic Plant's Imaginary Root.
The Imaginary Root had transformed into two Green Dragon horns appearing at the top of the Great Green Leaf Dragon Finch's plantain tree.
Locke had a strange look on his face; this was the first time he had seen something other than the Spirit Breath Cultivation Method cause a change and influence the Imaginary Root.
This was definitely a special case.
According to common knowledge, the Finite Element Cultivation Method + Grafting Cultivation Method could also produce second ring magic plants, and many niche private cultivation secrets had similar capabilities, but changing the Imaginary Root ultimately always required the Spirit Breath Cultivation Method.
"It must be because of the Demon Dragon plant essence."
"This unique Imaginary Root is likely a special expression of a certain plant factor from that Demon Dragon plant essence. I just need equipment to identify this specific plant factor. This is likely a key plant factor, perhaps even related to the Red Dragon mutation."
Locke approached the Great Green Leaf Dragon Finch again and forcibly established a mana grafting relationship with it.
Next, he tested the Magic Plant and found that its two pairs of dragon-horn-like unique Imaginary Roots could lure specific Spirit Breath. That Spirit Breath, when combined with the dragon fire, became the unique bright red Dragon Breath wreathed around the Magic Plant.
And this Dragon Breath possessed powerful destructive force.
In the tenth-floor laboratory, no matter what testing equipment or items were used—such as a Time Crystal test cube—they all exploded instantly under a single strike from these flames.
Because the Magic Plant was enveloped in this terrifyingly destructive Dragon Breath while flying, every flap of its plantain leaves produced a sharp, explosive boom.
"This destructive power is simply abnormal."
Locke's mind was reeling a bit.
"Wait a minute, didn't I develop a flight Magic Plant? What's with this kind of destructive power?"
He manipulated the Magic Plant to land back on the ground.
After just a brief test, Locke found that the Magic Plant's flight speed was indeed very fast.
Witch Mason and the others looked at Locke with lingering fear.
Douglas looked at the one large and three small burning bright red plantain wings behind Locke and asked, "Little boss, didn't you want to develop a flight-type Magic Plant? Isn't this an attack-type Magic Plant?"
Locke thought for a moment. "Don't worry about such details."
"I've given this Magic Plant a name—the Great Mingli Dragon Sparrow!"