931: Submitting the special grant Project Application and Obtaining the Chronology Stele!
By this time, both high-level demons had reacted. In their eyes, an Beholder Lord or a eye demon elder was charging at them, and the Beholder race had always been considered relatively weak in terms of combat power among the same level of Abyss Demons.
Therefore, the two high-level demons felt no fear at all.
The high-level Torture Demon didn't even fear the challenge. He raised the greatsword in his right hand and slashed at Locke. The Torture Demon race was known for their physical strength, and as a Second Ring creature, the high-level Torture Demon's physical composition had reached an incredible level.
Locke recalled an article he had read in passing, which explained the difference between the Abyss Demon race and the Hell Demon Race: the Hell Demon Race was like a template—whatever the devils ruling Hell created, the Hell Demons would produce.
The Abyss was different; it was chaotic and disordered, making it hard to say what kind of power it would produce. Torture Demons were a race skilled in melee combat. Their physical density had reached an incredible level, granting them bonuses in both attack and defense due to that high density. Their magic pressure was generated because of this.
As for the other Baator Hell Demon, soul fire ignited on his ram horns. One parchment scroll contract after another appeared on the surface of his body; these were the deeds he had committed across various planes in the Endless Void.
The burning soul fire provided him with infinite power.
He held a mechanical greatsword, with the soul fire acting as its power source, causing the gears at the hilt to spin rapidly under the steam of the soul fire.
He swung the soul sword at Locke.
Both of their magic pressures were just over ten thousand, around eleven thousand each.
This meant the two were evenly matched.
Now, as both attacked Locke simultaneously, just as the high-level Torture Demon and the high-level devil slashed their greatswords toward him, a golden tree appeared behind Locke. The spirit macro on the tree of prosperity transformed into golden phantom leaves that fell forward one by one. A Spring Prosperity fruit hung on the tree; Locke reached out, plucked it, and was instantly enveloped by the power of miracles.
The two high-level demons were stunned. A fruit?
In the next moment, sixty Great Green Leaf Dragon Finchs appeared like sixty blue birds. Locke had now developed the habit of using the Great Green Leaf Dragon Finchs in a formation to attack others, so he had increased his usual preparation from ten to thirty Great Green Leaf Dragon Finchs.
Accurately controlling thirty was his limit, but since the Magic Plants copied by Spring Prosperity were mirrored versions of the original, controlling the original Magic Plant was equivalent to controlling all the others.
At this moment, thirty Great Green Leaf Dragon Finchs coiled around each high-level demon, bypassing their swung greatswords and wrapping their dragon tails around the demons' arms, while simultaneously unleashing Dragon Awe upon them.
The massive Dragon Awe descended upon them, stunning and dazing both demons for a second.
Unfortunately, Locke hadn't yet modified these Great Green Leaf Dragon Finchs with Attila Enchanted Lightning; otherwise, he could have inflicted even greater damage in that instant.
The two high-level demons were lifted by the flock of Great Green Leaf Dragon Finchs and flown into the sky.
A moment later, the two high-level demons broke free from the mental shock of the collective Dragon Awe. They were furious and about to counterattack, but Locke raised the sky-supporting jujube in his hand and swept it toward them.
The massive sky-supporting jujube smashed heavily into them. It possessed the weight of a pillar that could support the world, equivalent to the weight of a small world crashing down on them. The sound of bones breaking came from the high-level Torture Demon's chest, while the high-level Hell Demon fared even worse—even the two ram horns on his head were smashed off by Locke, and the entire high-level demon was sent flying by the blow!
The Blood-Sucking Beast Demon behind Locke was dumbfounded.
Was this still an Eye Demon?
Was the Eye Demon race this terrifying?
The Eye Demon he had attached himself to had just thrashed a high-level Hell Demon and a high-level Abyss Demon at the same time. What kind of existence was he following?
The two high-level demons scrambled up from the void and began coughing. Their eyes were dazed; after all, they had suddenly been collectively thrashed.
Where did this Eye Demon come from?
Are Eye Demons this powerful?
The high-level Torture Demon gave a furious roar, shaking off the Great Green Leaf Dragon Finchs.
He was a demon born from cruel emotions; how could he endure such a great humiliation? He charged toward Locke like a locomotive, even discarding the weapon in his hand, roaring as he ran, intending to crash into Locke and turn him into mincemeat.
After all, his physical strength was just that great.
In a pure contest of physical strength, Locke had no chance of winning!
However, the moment the high-level Torture Demon stepped on the ground, a Historical Reproduction Spell Model scanned his body. He paused for a moment, and after realizing nothing had happened, he immediately executed a powerful bull charge toward Locke, even shattering a mountain that stood between them.
The high-level devil's eyes flickered. After untying the dragon tails of the Great Green Leaf Dragon Finchs from his body, he judged that Locke was the enemy who posed the greatest threat to him, so he immediately decided to cooperate with the Abyss Demon.
He drew the soul fire energy from within the largest number of soul contracts he had signed, and then Hellfire filled the gear greatsword in his hand. With the empowerment of the Hellfire, the gear greatsword immediately began a series of transformations.
Through a series of mechanical gear rotations and transformations, the gear greatsword actually turned into a dog!
The mechanical dog lunged at Locke, aiming for his head to kill him.
The High-level Devil Commander looked on in confusion as his mechanical dog lunged into the air, seemingly scanned by something.
Steam continuously vented from the mechanical dog's back as it accelerated, pouncing fiercely toward Locke.
Locke looked at the mechanical dog.
"Hmm? There truly are many miraculous phenomena in the Endless Void. That Hellfire seems to have the power to animate inanimate matter; the more soul power is burned, the stronger the animation ability. He burned a massive amount of soul power at once, and the gear sword in his hand actually turned into such a gear dog."
"Does the devil's Hell follow the path of a mechanical civilization? That's quite a hell of a joke."
Locke knew that facing their combined attack was his most dangerous moment.
Locke did not take a single step back.
After being used twice, the sky-supporting jujube could no longer be used for a short time due to the incompleteness of the Spell Model. It shrank to the size of a matchstick in his palm, looking like a tiny succulent.
A Moon of Evolution appeared behind him, shining upon the tree of prosperity. The two acted as an ecological community, and Locke's magic pressure suddenly became even stronger.
The moonlight from the Moon of Evolution poured into the tree-man of the tree of prosperity, who then reached out two large hands—one pressing down on the mechanical dog's head and the other on the head of the charging high-level Torture Demon.
The massive tree-man of the tree of prosperity took a huge impact.
Under the illumination of the Moon of Evolution, the tree-man of the tree of prosperity performed what Locke and the wizard Edgar could only achieve together during the Silent Grail Competition.
The tree-man's roots dug into the earth, and its powerful arms grabbed the two enemies.
In the next moment, it flung the mechanical dog away, grabbed the high-level Torture Demon—who posed the greatest threat—with both hands, lifted him off the ground, and threw him toward the high-level devil.
This process consumed a massive amount of Locke's mana.
At that instant, Locke suddenly extended his right hand, pointing at the two demons.
"Borrowing a Moment from the Past."
The twenty pieces of Historical Spiritual Agility on his body resonated, and immediately, two instances of Historical Reproduction appeared. From the Historical Reproduction Spell Model, a mechanical dog and a past version of the high-level Torture Demon emerged.
Because these twenty pieces of Historical Spiritual Agility strengthened his Historical Reproduction, he was able to collect the enemies' negative energy particle fields during battle and use them on the spot to summon their past selves to attack them.
At that moment, the high-level Torture Demon crashed into the devil, while the devil's mechanical dog bit into the high-level Torture Demon who had been heavily injured by the tree-man of prosperity.
The most powerful killing moves of the two great demons hit each other instead.
In the next moment, both demons were killed by each other's attacks at the same time.
They were both victors, but they were both dead and thus losers.
Locke waved his hand, and the Moon of Evolution and the tree-man of prosperity disappeared. The Great Green Leaf Dragon Finchs automatically flew back to the Forest Sanctuary, while a bronze cauldron fell from mid-air!
Having just unleashed all his power, he had finally managed to make the two die simultaneously by each other's killing moves.
Locke looked up at the sky and saw that the entire floating continent of the Evil Chessboard seemed to have a special reaction. The whole land was like data about to be deleted, caught between being semi-virtual and semi-real.
The light of victory, which should have belonged to the victor, could not select anyone.
Both were victors, yet neither was.
This caused some kind of change in the entire Evil Chessboard Plane; the Evil Chessboard had to explain what had happened, as independent plane characteristics were the privilege of every plane that joined the Endless Abyss.
On this point, the Evil Chessboard Plane, a plane with the scale of a Great World, could not back down.
It had to maintain its privileges within the Great Endless Abyss!
Therefore, it did something: it intended to select two high-level demons to restart the battle.
The Evil Light formed by the plane power attempted to select the two demons, but at that moment, Locke had just put their corpses into his bronze cauldron.
The Evil Chessboard Plane still tried to make a final effort.
It tried to use the Evil Light to select the two corpses, potentially even attempting to resurrect them, but the problem was that Locke directly... refined the two demons' corpses, intending to refine them into zero potion on the spot!
Locke was now going frantic to save this clone of his.
He didn't care about the consequences; he wanted to throw everything here into chaos first!
At this moment, the plane power of the Evil Chessboard Plane completely lost its target.
In that instant, the Evil Chessboard Plane fell into chaos, and it began to continuously replicate the continent beneath Locke's feet. Locke saw the continent being replicated into a second one, identical to the plane he had broken into two pieces.
Then, the two continents began replicating into four, the four into eight, the eight into sixteen...
The speed was incredibly fast because the Evil Chessboard Plane seemed to want to resolve this issue quickly. As a Great World, it possessed immense power—replicating a bit of land was as simple as eating or drinking.
This sub-plane under the Endless Abyss originally had quite a few loopholes.
Now that Locke had discovered its loophole, in less than half an hour, nearly ten thousand continents had been replicated.
In the next minute, ten thousand continents became twenty thousand.
Another minute passed, and twenty thousand became forty thousand.
After another minute, forty thousand became eighty thousand.
Locke did a quick calculation and found that after 20 seconds, eighty thousand continents had become one hundred and sixty thousand.
In other words, the Evil Chessboard considered this round to have escalated from a minor issue to a major one, thus increasing the investment of plane power, which resulted in an increased replication speed.
"As expected of a Great World."
AI Model: gemini-3.1-flash-lite
Locke said, "This plane power is too exaggerated; Second Ring Wizards are just a drop in the ocean compared to it. However, the logic loophole I found is correct. The Abyss is inherently chaotic, so it seems there are quite a few loopholes in this plane."
At this moment, the continents were replicating more and more, and the Blood-Sucking Beast Demon behind him was completely dumbfounded.
Because the continents were replicating more and more, the dark abyss spatial gaps that originally separated the chessboard continents were actually filled by those constantly replicating continents. The chessboard continents closed up, and gradually, there were no gaps left.
It turned into one whole continent.
The high-ranking officials of the two demon factions fighting were all dumbfounded, and those ordinary demons had no idea what had happened.
What was going on?
Several Third Ring Flame Demons on the Abyss Demon side discussed among themselves.
"It seems like an eye demon is playing tricks. He seems to have exploited a loophole in this world and made it a complete mess. If this continues, we will all be crushed to death by these continents."
"He basically smashed the chessboard. We were about to lose, but I didn't expect this eye demon to help us turn defeat into victory."
"Why does it feel like that eye demon is smarter than the Abyss Wolf Demon? Is the Abyss Wolf Demon no longer the smartest race in the Abyss? Doesn't that mean we need to change our strategist?"
On the other side, the high-ranking devil commanders discussed for a while.
"Where is that an eye demon? Are those Abyss Demons blind? Isn't he in human form? That's a Wizard."
"Wizards are truly ruthless. We wasted so much time with those demons, and he paralyzed the 445th layer as soon as he arrived."
The eyes of one of the high-ranking devil commanders changed.
"We don't have much soul power left. We were about to lose."
"Who knew we'd run into such a madman? Pay attention when opening the teleportation array later; don't let that Wizard enter our Baator Hell!"
A devil commander suggested, "Open a separate teleportation array to the Wizarding World for him later! So he doesn't pester us!"
"I suspect he will definitely enter Hell with us. Since there are nine layers in Hell, and this is the 445th layer of the Abyss, it will be easier for him to leave from Hell than from the Abyss. By following us into Hell, he will feel there is a greater hope of leaving."
At this moment, Locke looked towards the direction of the devil legion. Because he had disrupted the Evil Chessboard Plane, causing the planes to merge with each other, leaving no gaps, he no longer needed to follow any rules and could go directly to the area where the devil legion headquarters was located.
Locke looked at the devil legions setting up a teleportation array.
His eyes brightened slightly; sure enough, disrupting the situation makes it easier to find a turning point.
If there's no opportunity, create one!
He had guessed earlier that since the devils could suddenly appear in the depths of the Abyss, they must have mastered teleportation technology. Since that was the case, he just needed to follow them to leave.
It didn't matter if the destination was Hell.
The reason was that there are only nine layers in Hell! Although the hope of leaving was slim, it was at least better than this ridiculous Abyss. Moreover, if the rules of Hell were different from the Abyss, perhaps the situation where his consciousness was being compressed within one body by the Abyss power would change. So, no matter what, he had to try.
Locke was surprised to find that the Hell demons didn't stop him from approaching.
Hmm?
At this moment, his attraction to the Abyss seemed to have reached its limit. Infinite Abyss power was gathering towards him, and some of his actions seemed to fit the chaotic nature of the Abyss.
The Abyss kept trying to suggest to him that he was the Son of Chaos.
He was chaos.
He possessed powerful chaos power.
As long as he nodded, in the next moment, countless powers of chaos would surge into him, demonizing him into a high-ranking demon.
Countless Abyss powers gathered towards him.
The Endless Abyss kept issuing invitations to Locke, almost going crazy.
Locke's actions just now had won him the full attention of the Abyss's world will, which had determined to make him a Demon God.
But Locke was simply unwilling.
"Are you kidding me?"
Locke felt afraid when he thought of that high-level Torture Demon just now.
"The power of the Abyss really lowers one's IQ. Only a ghost would want to stay here and go crazy with this bunch of brainless guys. Besides, if I stay here, it would be equivalent to changing my power system path. That's too much of a loss. Moreover, although the Abyss has no precedent for lying, it is inherently full of chaos. Counting on it to fulfill its promise is like counting on winning the lottery every day."
Locke saw the Hell demons using soul fire, injecting it into the dozens of huge mechanical snakes around them. Those dozens of mechanical snakes were composed of complex gears. As the gears rotated and meshed, they made 'click-clack' sounds. The Hellfire turned into a steam-like medium, pushing the gears, pistons, and eccentric shafts... The eyes of the mechanical snakes released Hellfire. Immediately after, these mechanical snakes began to rotate around the Hell demons.
They rotated faster and faster. Because the 445th layer plane had completely collapsed, the Abyss Demons were also anxious to leave. Many scattered Abyss Demons had already fled through the plane channel to the 446th layer plane. The planes below the 444th layer were not affected by those high-ranking demons.
Locke saw that the hellish mechanical snakes, which were rotating and crawling wildly around the devil legion, seemed to open some kind of extra-dimensional power. A more evil world opened in the center of their rotation.
"Hmm? The place that small snake leads to is actually not the Great World of Hell, but the Wizarding World."
Locke looked at a human-sized mechanical snake outside the dozens of mechanical snakes. That mechanical snake was circling around a center, leaving Hellfire on the spot, but the circle of fire it created was relatively small.
In the sea of fire, Locke vaguely saw a being with horns on its head and wearing a crown, who made a 'please' gesture to him.
'Is the commander behind this devil legion letting me leave?'
Locke was a bit surprised because, according to his original plan, he would likely need to break into Hell and then go through some trouble, just like taking a transfer vehicle, to return to the Wizarding World from Hell.
He hadn't expected the Hell demons to live up to their name as orderly demons, actually opening a door directly to the Wizarding World for him.
Wait a minute.
Locke instantly realized that the devils must have had recent technological progress, and their civilization had leaped forward. They had actually mastered teleportation technology that could go to any region at any time. This was truly astonishing. At least in the information he had come into contact with before, it was never mentioned that the devil legions in the Endless Void possessed this level of technology.
He only knew that Hell was essentially a unified legion commanded by several high-ranking great devils. It was just because the high-ranking great devils were infighting that this disciplined and terrifying legion had been in a 'watching the sea' state for a long time.
Locke remembered seeing in an Archaeology popular science book that, according to the archaeological research results of Archaeology Wizards, the Hell civilization had invaded the Wizarding World in the early days. The decline of the Empire Era was suspected to be related to the invasion of the devil legions, because various ruins left by the devil legions in the Wizarding World had been verified to highly coincide with the late Empire Era and the beginning of the Age of Stars.
Moreover, in the early period of the entire Age of Stars, the frequency of the appearance of devil legions was quite high.
This was because the void coordinates of the devil legions were not very far from the void coordinates of the Wizarding World. Unlike the distant void distance between the Abyss and the Wizarding World, Hell was quite close to the Wizarding World in physical space.
It was just that from the middle of the Age of Stars, the devil legions suddenly disappeared from the Wizarding World.
Some Archaeologists speculated that if the devil legions had suddenly invaded during the Dark Age, the weakest era for the Wizarding World, it was very likely that the Wizarding World would not have existed.
But why did the devil legions disappear from the middle of the Age of Stars in the Wizarding World? The reason was simple. The Great Commander who was originally at the top of the devil legions—the Great Devil Commander—suddenly went missing.
Locke controlled the Magic Dragon Rose and came to the small mechanical snake that the devil legion had left for him alone. At this moment, a soul fire fell towards Locke, and in mid-air, the Hellfire condensed into a red hexagonal star, which fell into Locke's hand.
"This is... a record... a record of this scene..."
Locke held the hellish hexagonal star in the palm of his hand and immediately realized that this high-ranking devil commander knew he hadn't brought a high-level true sight crystal when he went out, so he had specially given him an item from Hell used to store images, so that he could bring this scene back to the Wizarding World to write into his article.
Locke estimated that if he submitted this to the Second Ring first district journal of the Wizard Land in the Siming Waters, which liked to conflict with Hell the most in the Eastern Border Region, it might just pass.
Of course, this might require a bit of luck because he had never had a manuscript accepted in the Siming Waters. Therefore, he didn't have any invisible trust benefits there. Thus, it was highly likely that he could only pass a Second Ring second district journal. After all, he only had these scenes and no data collection. A clever housewife cannot cook without rice; if he only had this thing, he couldn't write any brilliant articles.
"The Hell demons are truly Hell demons; they are just too good at bribing people."
"Knowing that I wanted to write an article, they actually gave me key data, making me feel embarrassed to take action."
Locke nodded to the Third Ring high-ranking great devil in the flames not far away.
That high-ranking great devil said, "I heard that people in your world love making deals the most. People in our world also love trading the most. This Wizard, this commander is very grateful for your sudden appearance and help this time. This hellish hexagonal star is a gift I give you, and I will help you leave the Abyss."
"This is an equivalent exchange."
Locke stood with his hands behind his back, looking at the convoy located in the flames protected by these devils. He saw that the convoy was filled with human-sized cubic stone blocks, and each side of the stones seemed to have runes. That seemed to be the special way for the logistics team of the Hell demons to transport supplies.
Locke realized that those must be some kind of treasure, treasures that the Hell demons would risk going deep into the Abyss, entering the deep Abyss, to take away.
Locke looked at the circle of fire prepared for him by the devils.
'Hell is also eyeing the Wizarding World covetously. Now that the level of Hell civilization has been upgraded, and they have mastered teleportation technology that is considered exaggerated even in the void, they can be said to have traded bird guns for cannons. I estimate that they will also attack the Wizarding World in the future.'
'The methods they used in the Abyss this time will likely become weapons used to attack the Wizarding World next time.'
Locke thought, 'Therefore...'
'If I don't snatch their supplies, it would truly be unreasonable. There's no other way; if I don't enter Hell, who will? It seems I still have to rob them today!'
Locke threw the empty potion bottle in his hand into the sea of fire, confirming that the bottle could safely pass through the sea of fire and truly enter the Wizarding World.
This was not a trap set by the devils.
The next moment, his figure suddenly began to disperse like an ink painting, and the spirit macro afterimage drifted out of Locke's body like a wisp of green smoke.
At the same time, a Hell demon said in panic, "A box of supplies is missing."
"It was that ruthless Wizard who did it."
Locke picked up a stone block from the supply cart and ran. His figure shuttled through the devil legion, and those devil legions attacked Locke madly.
But they only hit the spirit macro clone and missed. The Hell demons became angry one after another.
"He ran towards the direction of the Abyss Demons."
"No, that's an illusion, you saw it wrong. He has already run into the Hellfire portal..."
At this moment, Locke's main body jumped directly into the portal. Looking back, he saw that the high-level Third Ring devil's Hellfire had summoned a mechanical dinosaur that was opening its mouth to bite at him. The mechanical dinosaur seemed like a cosmic steel fortress; its movement caused the heavens to collapse and the earth to crack, accompanied by the thunderous sound of mechanical bearings rotating and meshing.
Because he had jumped into the Hellfire gate in time, the mechanical dinosaur missed its target.
A devil commander looked at the supreme commander and said, "Bad news, that Wizard got away with one of our hell's Chronology Stele. We clearly already gave him benefits, who knew he would still steal a hellish treasure. Damn Wizard, luckily we didn't let him enter hell. Commander, our previous judgment was correct."
"Commander, now that a Chronology Stele has fallen into the hands of the Nightmare Legion, what should we do?"
The High-level Devil Commander looked at the group of Abyss Demons not far away, who were still glaring at them, seemingly feeling that these hell devils had just persecuted an eye demon from among the Abyss Demons.
He raised his right hand.
"It's fine, it's just a Chronology Stele. The Chronology Stele has the special effect of accelerating time; if a Wizard gets it, they will definitely use it. Then let that Wizard use it. As long as we don't continue to pursue it, he will use it directly without leaving any future trouble. That Wizard is very close to becoming a Star Ring Wizard; what he needs most right now is to accelerate time."
"Now, transport these Chronology Steles to Baator."
"Our only enemy now is the Endless Abyss. Do not cause extra trouble."
Under his command, the devil armies began to move, and started to retreat in an orderly manner.
As representatives of the order-aligned faction, the devil legions strictly obeyed orders; even the retreat of their army looked quite spectacular.
...
Golden Crown Mountain, Droma's personal laboratory. He looked at the tall crystallized palm in front of him. This was the first time he had successfully completed the Magic Plant Crystallization of a second ring magic plant within his own laboratory.
Although Droma was resentful that Brandy had obtained the project from the Rose Council, and he also knew that what he created through his own efforts would naturally likely lag behind the perfected project in Brandy's hands.
But he had worked so hard to reach this point, how could he possibly give up?
He had to know that he could not delay completing his station this year!
For this last chance, he had to give it his all. With this crystallized palm, he could at least write a decent application, so he wouldn't be left without any chance at all.
Furthermore, even if the special grant failed, he could still take this project to apply for the second ring fund. After all, when every Second Ring Wizard applied for the second ring fund for the first time, the difficulty of obtaining it would be slightly lower.
Droma gritted his teeth in hatred whenever he thought of Zeno, Brandy, and Locke Augustine. Oh right, there was also that annoying Antoine, who acted arrogant all day and was also unpleasant to look at. He was clearly a waste before, but suddenly he wasn't a waste anymore.
Didn't these people know that just standing next to others caused psychological damage to them?
Wizard Droma recalled how he had successfully ostracized a Wizard last year, forcing him to leave Golden Crown Mountain.
A smile curled on his lips. This year, he had originally intended to use the same method to deal with Locke Augustine. As long as he could get Locke Augustine into their circle, he would have plenty of ways to deal with that Wizard.
It was a pity that Locke Augustine never took the bait.
The other party seemed like they didn't need a circle at all, completely rejecting any circle, which resulted in him having no way to make a move on that guy.
Now that it was almost time to submit the application, it seemed there was no need to ostracize him. Moreover, he heard that he hadn't kept up with the Magic Plant Crystallization research, which was equivalent to ruining himself... there was no need for him to cause extra trouble.
Just as Wizard Droma was daydreaming, a streak of Hellfire suddenly appeared above his laboratory. The simple defensive wizard array inside the laboratory reacted automatically, forming layers of three-dimensional defensive barriers in mid-air. However, the next moment, the Hellfire crashed into these defensive arrays like a meteor, smashing through them, and then the Hellfire fell straight towards that crystallized palm tree.
In just an instant, the crystallized palm tree suddenly bent into an abnormal arc. Immediately after, before Locke had reacted, and before Wizard Droma, who had his mouth wide open, could react either, the crystallized palm tree snapped. With a "crack" sound, it split open, and countless barbs emerged from within.
Wizard Droma was stunned on the spot.
"Ah! My Magic Plant!"
The crystallizer, specifically used for Magic Plant Crystallization, was also invaded by hell energy. The crystallization rays ejected from the nozzle also turned into something like Hellfire rays.
This ray fell onto a cubic stone floating in front of Locke, shining directly onto a palm-like pattern in the center of the stone. After receiving the hell energy shot at it, the palm pattern immediately began to clench inward, then rotated half a circle to the right, then the palm rotated a full circle to the left, and then, with a "click" sound, it rotated another half circle to the right.
"Crack."
The stone, which had originally seemed like a solid object, opened up, revealing the object inside. It was a stele that looked like a necklace or a tag. As soon as this stele appeared, it caused the surrounding objects to age rapidly.
Wizard Droma stared at his broken crystallized Magic Plant, stunned, while his eyes were involuntarily drawn to the stele.
He immediately realized that it was not some ordinary Magic item, but a special stele with the special ability to accelerate the flow of time. As the Chronology Stele accelerated, some dust fell off the surface of the stele.
It looked like the stele was a consumable item, like chalk.
Intense greed immediately appeared in Wizard Droma's eyes. He was just about to reach out to grab the stele, but who knew that the next moment, Locke would reach out and grab his left wrist.
Locke crawled out from the thick smoke left behind by the extinguished Hellfire.
He discovered that this method of teleportation was not flawless.
One had to endure an exceptionally powerful impact during the teleportation process itself. If he were just an ordinary "demon," he would likely have been missing limbs during the process, or even turned into a pile of minced meat.
"Cough, cough, cough..."
A puff of black smoke came out of Locke's throat, and only then did his throat stop hurting.
"Troublesome. This is a bit too uncomfortable. Wizard Droma, what are you trying to do?"
Wizard Droma immediately withdrew his hand and widened his eyes, watching as Locke placed the stele that was floating in mid-air into the stone box and closed the stone box again.
Because the entire process required Hellfire energy, Locke directly operated the crystallizer that had been contaminated with Hellfire and whose energy had been alienated to complete all of this.
Wizard Droma only then reacted.
"How did you suddenly appear in my laboratory?"
Wizard Droma asked aggressively, "You are violating the Wizard Law by doing this, not to mention the internal management principles of Golden Crown Mountain. You also broke my equipment, and the Magic Plant that I took a month to create..."
"You need to pay compensation!"
"Besides that, you also need to go to the Academic Affairs Department."
"This is a serious illegal act."
Wizard Droma's heart jumped violently at this moment, and malice appeared in his eyes. He had the illusion that he had finally caught a handle on Locke.
Wizard Droma could no longer tell whether he was angry or excited, or perhaps both.
But in any case, his heart was beating rapidly. He quickly realized that this time, Locke really had a handle in his hands.
He could make a big fuss about the costs of the crystallized Magic Plant and the equipment repairs.
Furthermore, Locke might miss this year's special grant application because of this incident.
It should be said that he would definitely miss it.
Locke looked at Wizard Droma. He hadn't expected that after all his tossing and turning, he would actually be teleported into a laboratory on Golden Crown Mountain, and it even happened to be Wizard Droma's laboratory.
Looking at him, it seemed he didn't want to let the matter rest.
Locke carefully recalled the Wizard Law, but to be honest, according to the Wizard Law, in his current situation... he really hadn't broken the law, nor did he need to pay compensation.
In essence, he had been knocked over here by an enemy.
He couldn't determine the landing location at all.
Even if he had to pay compensation, they wouldn't be able to find him.
If this were an internal struggle between Wizards, in this situation, he might still have to bear partial responsibility, at least compensating Wizard Droma for the basic costs. But the problem was that he had been... teleported here by hell demons.
His battle against hell demons and Abyss Demons was equivalent to waging war against the enemies of the Wizard Civilization.
And the damages in war were countless, and one didn't really follow ordinary logic.
At this moment, Locke took out the Ganoderma Magic Plant and explained to Wizard Droma.
"Teacher Yekaterina needs to see me immediately. I was teleported here by hell demons. It seems the hell demons won't give up."
Locke patted Droma's shoulder.
"This is an act of war, there's nothing to be done."
Wizard Droma was dumbfounded.
What a great "act of war."
Wizard Droma recalled the flames from just now and immediately realized that Locke might really have been knocked over by demons. But if that were the case, then it really was an act of war, which carried special exemptions. Not only was Locke not at fault, he actually had merit.
Wizard Droma deeply regretted that he had previously dismantled some of the defensive wizard arrays in the laboratory assigned to him by the academy to save money and sold them.
That was why this laboratory was so fragile.
At this moment, Wizard Droma even felt guilty. If the academy discovered that he had dismantled the defensive wizard arrays and sold them in exchange for magic stones...
Wizard Droma's expression changed repeatedly. The only way to hide it was to swallow this loss, not talk about this matter, and pretend that it had never happened.
Locke was also afraid that Droma would force him to pay back the money, so he changed the subject: "Wizard Droma, has your application been submitted? Hmm... I remember that performance at the special grant application defense is very important, so besides writing a good application, you also need to study the preferences of the judges and improve your own defense performance..."
Wizard Droma gritted his teeth.
"Augustine, I don't need you to remind me."
"By the way, this review panel has a total of five experts, including two experts invited from outside, one of whom is Master Patrick Finch. The other one is Master Hao Brooks from Quinn Joel."
Locke frowned.
He hadn't expected that one of them was actually the originator of that crystallization technology. How did this guy manage to get into the external expert review team for Golden Crown Mountain?
Wizard Droma lifted his head and said, "This was personally invited by the high-level officials of the Academic Committee. Master Hao Brooks was said to have been invited by the Senate."
Locke realized that the intensity of the upcoming internal special grant application would likely far exceed his imagination.
The Senate and the Academic Committee were fighting again in this place.
Locke quickly left the laboratory.
He had to submit his application immediately.
This fierce competition was finally approaching its final curtain call. Who would the prize eventually fall to?