Chapter 774: You Are Not a First Circle Wizard! You Are a Second Circle Wizard!

In an instant, Witch Stephanie sensed a life-or-death crisis.

At the same time, the five witches at her side all moved, converging around her. Bells were wound around the wrists of all six of them, and at this moment those bells were vibrating intensely, clearly a form of magic that could signal to them the degree of danger they were in.

This was the Ghost Sacred Order's unique inherited magic, the Ghost Sacred Bell. Each bell represented the soul of a first-class wizard apprentice who had studied spirit studies.

Three bells could be strung together into a bracelet, requiring no complex alchemical work, needing only a simple alchemical treatment to be fashioned into a wrist ornament.

The sound produced by the Ghost Sacred Bell served multiple purposes. It could disturb the minds of wizard enemies, and had a certain spirit medium prophetic function capable of judging the degree of danger posed by an opponent. It could even be used in conjunction with their unique First Circle magic to deploy the Ghost Shockwave Cannon.

What caused the faces of these Ghost Sacred Order witches to change drastically was that the bells in their hands were shaking as though they might shatter, rattling with frantic intensity, each sound like an urgent summons toward death.

It was entirely a warning sound.

Urging them to flee immediately.

By now, the more cunning black wizards had already spun on their heels and run. Having all carved their way out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, their survival instincts were first rate.

The moment something seemed wrong, of course you ran.

Never mind the details. Run first and sort things out later.

The six witches extended their right hands, shook their bells, and unleashed a Ghost Shockwave Cannon at Locke, a technique that burned soul spirit energy to deliver a direct spiritual assault against the enemy.

But in the next instant, Locke's hand produced a magical plant shaped like a thrusting blade.

He swept Pinellia in a single motion, and in that instant layer upon layer of spell models stacked onto Pinellia. In the next moment, four of the six witches before him, all at the gaseous phase, had their bodies crack apart simultaneously like burning matchsticks igniting all at once.

At the same time, the permanent defensive force fields of the high priestess and the remaining crystallization witch both erupted in violent sparks of friction. Unlike the four gasification witches, these two possessed permanent defensive force fields that were defensive in nature, specifically ghost shields.

The four gasification witches, before the astonished gazes of the assembled black wizards, burst into cascading sparks that shot into the sky and drifted everywhere like fireflies.

The four blazing spirit auras generated by the destruction of their bodies did not only annihilate their magic pressure, physical forms, and souls, along with the permanent defensive force fields fashioned from offensive magic, but also directly ignited their echo resonances.

The crystallization witch attempted to deploy the Ghost Studies First Circle spell model, the Banshee's Wail, but the moment she opened her mouth and began burning soul energy, her throat was destroyed by the blazing summer energy and she was rendered mute.

The entire ruins of Virdantia University, blanketed in grey death energy, were suddenly filled with blazing fire energy. That summer magical power descended like a ray of summer sunlight arriving from a great distance.

It tinged half the sky overhead with the warm glow of a sunset.

The countenance of High Priestess Stephanie changed dramatically with shock.

"It is a Second Circle wizard. It must be a Second Circle wizard."

"Only a Second Circle wizard would possess power like this. Who are you exactly?"

Locke looked at her with some surprise. The headdress she wore, crafted from the arm of a formal wizard, and the Hundred Soul Necklace around her neck, made from a hundred wizard apprentices, were both beginning to self-combust under the pressure of the blazing summer energy.

Locke had merely given Pinellia a light sweep while deploying the Second Circle spell model Lone Tree Cannot Form a Forest, and with that single strike all six First Circle wizards before him had completely collapsed.

The only one whose body had gone undamaged was the high priestess herself.

'The result somewhat exceeded my expectations. First Circle wizards, and crystallization wizards at that, are at least the cream of the First Circle. I had originally thought it would take three magical strikes to achieve this effect,' Locke reflected with the speed of lightning.

'That is right. These First Circle wizards are not First Circle wizards of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands. At some point without my noticing, my own frame of reference has already shifted.'

'The black wizards of the southeastern quadrant have a foundation that is simply too poor. These formal wizards may appear as towering mountains in the eyes of apprentices, but in my eyes as I am now, they are truly, truly inadequate.'

Locke gave a slight shake of his head. These black wizards who lorded it over the southeastern quadrant were, in his eyes today, nothing but underachievers, one and all.

'It is not only the Root Fields that lift my magic. Golden Crown Mountain's foundational spell standards, and the deeper understanding of magic that I have accumulated through daily exchanges with Golden Crown Mountain's wizards and reading from the Golden Crown Mountain library, both serve to lift me as well.'

Locke looked at the high priestess and said, "Worthy of some encouragement, managing to survive my attack."

High Priestess Stephanie discovered with a shock that her wizard robes had caught fire. These were the Ghost Sacred Order's ancestrally inherited crystalline-level First Circle magical artifact, the Hundred Grudge Witch Robes, whose creation had consumed a considerable number of the academy's outstanding students.

Yet even this magical artifact, under the pressure of Locke's blazing summer energy, had begun to self-combust.

At this moment, the black wizards who had turned to flee were each discovering with astonishment that, at some unknown point, blood bats had appeared in the sky one after another. These blood bats gathered together, forming a blood-red cloud above, offering them absolutely no chance to escape.

They all turned furious glares on the Blood Lord.

The Blood Lord himself was equally dumbfounded.

For what was sealing everyone in was the Blood Curse Court's own, the Eleven-Pull Death Blood Curse.

One in ten, executed.

This blood curse had originally been used by the Blood Curse Court to prevent anyone from fleeing in the middle of a battle. Among any ten who fled, one would necessarily die, that person struck simultaneously by the cursing force and the combined magic pressure of the remaining nine, making death certain.

To make those struck by the curse aware of this mechanism, the hearts of each group of ten would even become interconnected, a blood thread linking them together.

This was why those black wizards had stopped fleeing.

The Eleven-Pull Death would continuously execute individuals among them, and the moment one person was killed, the remaining members would immediately be regrouped with nine others and the execution cycle would begin again.

And so as long as anyone chose to flee, deaths would follow one after another without end.

In truth, there were also black wizards stubborn enough to decide to gamble on their luck regardless. The rest of them had watched what happened.

Those black wizards who chose to flee died under this ingeniously constructed blood curse, and died thoroughly.

One after another.

When a wizard died, the blood threads connected to the hearts of the other nine wizards linked to that person would snap, but very quickly the remaining nine would find blood threads from yet another wizard's heart connecting to their own once more.

No matter what spell models those black wizards deployed, what magical tools they used, or what potions they drank, all of it was useless.

With their half-baked and shallow spell models, they were entirely incapable of breaking Hussein's Eleven-Pull Death Blood Curse.

What made the Blood Lord's eyelids twitch violently was his realization that the spell model of this blood curse appeared to be even more refined and powerful than the magic researched and produced by his own Blood Curse Court's advanced cursed array research institute.

At the very least, he himself could not manage to use a single blood curse to chain-lock this many black wizards, one curse flowing directly into the next.

Who on earth were these two people?

At this moment, Hussein's facial flesh began to writhe and shift. He had previously used the vampire clan's astonishing mastery of the body to alter his appearance and modify his soul aura.

That was the Second Circle curse-caster spell model, Aura State Alteration.

Aura was an extension attribute of spirituality, and this attribute was of tremendous importance to curses.

Altering one's aura could alter who became the target of a curse.

In truth, many of the seemingly astonishing effects of First Circle blood curses were all built upon the capture of an aura. Once one saw through this, the principles behind many First Circle blood curses became transparent.

The folding of advanced cursed arrays was nothing more than a means of capturing aura more effectively. And so in Hussein's eyes today, the greatest distinction between many blood curses came down to nothing more than differences in the medium of transmission.

The distinction between the Blood Curse Court's blood curses and other schools of curse studies lay in their possession of a set of foundational folding techniques, which had given rise to a blood curse system centered on the capture of bloodline aura.

And that was the core of the blood curse system.

At this moment, Hussein revealed his true face, then snapped the neck of a crystallization wizard from the Bone Cult, drained his blood, and extinguished his soul flame.

At this point, the people of the Blood Curse Court suddenly cried out in alarm.

"It is Hussein! It is actually Hussein!"

The Blood Lord's eyes went wide.

"You traitor!"

And at this moment, the Blood Lord looked toward Locke, and something came back to him. Because Witch Sophia of Lilith’s Cottage had once killed one of the Blood Curse Court's wizard mentors, he had once issued an order to hunt down Witch Sophia and her sole student.

And now he remembered. The powerful and fearsome wizard standing before him was none other than that former Lilith’s Cottage wizard, Locke Augustine.

The Blood Lord said quietly, "You two have been away from the southeastern quadrant for no more than four or five years. How could you have grown so rapidly?"

"What level are you now? First Circle peak? Or the soul decline period..."

Within the Blood Curse Court's ranks, Wizard Stanley had spent these many years circling through various remedies and had at last managed to repair his body using a limb reattachment magic, restoring his lower half, the half that Locke had long ago severed with the apprentice-level magical plant Black Lock Sword Bamboo.

And the missing arm, shattered long ago by Witch Sophia through element infusion damage using the magical plant Hair Pin Flower, had also been restored.

Wizard Stanley could never forget the harm Sophia had once inflicted upon him.

Over these four years, every time he turned these things over in his mind, he sank into a profound fury and attributed his five years of regression rather than progress entirely to Sophia and her student.

He harbored a deep hatred for the two of them. But now that his enemies stood before him, he found himself hesitating, gripped by fear and unease.

Because he did not know what Locke's magic pressure was.

Just now, with a single strike, Locke had directly killed four witches and gravely wounded two crystallization witches.

Wizard Stanley was now seized by dread and unease, because the gap between Locke and himself at this moment was simply too vast.

And yet it had only been four years.

How could such a gap have opened.

That gap was even greater than the gap between an apprentice and a formal wizard.

Surely not...

A thought circled in Wizard Stanley's mind.

But he forcefully suppressed it.

Impossible.

It had only been a little over four years.

How could it possibly be?

At the same time, among the Ghost Sacred Order's formal wizard ranks, Witch Virtani let out a scream of terror, looking at Locke not far away, her entire body trembling.

Back in the day, after the Eye Demon Wizard had become a First Circle wizard, the first witch he had killed was her younger sister, Witch Brittany.

She had only managed to escape with her life thanks to the help of High Priestess Stephanie.

Every time she thought back to the ferocious sight of the young Locke swinging that mushroom magical plant, she was plunged into overwhelming fear. Where was there any room for resentment? At most she vented her feelings by lording it over black wizard apprentices and cursing Locke's name in front of them.

Now, Witch Virtani saw Locke appear before her again, more powerful than ever, and she was so frightened she was trembling from head to foot.

Hussein let out a thunderous roar. His body began to swell and expand continuously. His permanent defensive force field was the Vampire Transformation Blood Curse, which meant his permanent defensive force field shell had been completed even earlier than Locke's.

He stood like a demon god of the abyss, towering over the world, surrounded on all sides by mountains of corpses and seas of blood, with blood-red magical power and boundless sanguine energy, as this blood demon god strolled at leisure, capable of suppressing every demon and monster in this world.

Hussein had no intention whatsoever of letting the Blood Curse Court's wizards off. He reached out, seized one of the Blood Curse Court's formal wizards, and stuffed the wizard into his mouth and began chewing.

The savagery of it sent the black wizards of the southeastern quadrant into a state of terrified panic.

On the other side, High Priestess Stephanie looked at Locke with a dazed expression, then asked with profound disbelief, "Are you that young fellow I almost drowned in the Stygian River back then?"

"How can this be? Who exactly are you?"

"Four years ago, you were nothing but a weak and ordinary First Circle wizard. How could you possibly have become such a powerful wizard in so short a time."

High Priestess Stephanie was astonished and furious at the same time. She seemed to feel that Locke had overturned everything her common sense told her was possible, and as she began to chant an incantation, ghostly white ribbon-like soul devouring worms appeared at her side, then swarmed toward Locke.

Locke could not even be bothered to move and simply stood where he was.

Before those worms could get anywhere near Locke, they were seized by the blazing summer energy of the magical plant Pinellia, each one igniting and transforming into ribbons of fire.

At the edge of the Forbidden Forest near the ruins of Virdantia University, that large-footed silhouette appeared once more.

Stephanie summoned another Ghost Spirit Infant. But the summoned creature had not yet fully stabilized its soul form before it was incinerated by the blazing summer energy.

The entire area seemed to transform completely into summer.

It was clearly the middle of the night, yet it blazed as though a sky of fire were burning at dusk.

High Priestess Stephanie swallowed, and only now did she come to accept that the little wizard she could once have effortlessly crushed with a single spell had grown into an existence wielding terrifying magic.

The high priestess looked at Locke with eyes full of incomprehension. This rate of growth was beyond the understanding of any wizard who had remained in the southeastern quadrant.

The high priestess immediately abandoned all resistance and said to Locke, "Wait, Lord Augustine."

"You are already this powerful. What need is there to kill me? Whatever you want, as long as I have it, I can give it to you."

At this moment, Locke smiled lightly and said, "Child's play."

He reached out his hand and seized a black thread. That thread wriggled between his index finger and thumb like a worm.

At the end of the black thread was a ghost firefly, hovering in a state of invisibility.

It had clearly drawn on the power of ritual magic, existing in a dual state between planar force and biological form. If one were not a Second Circle wizard with eyes capable of directly perceiving the flow of planar force, then only a First Circle crystallization wizard possessing a special spell model that enhanced perception could have any chance at all of detecting this creature.

"Back then, as I understood it, I was cursed by you after killing your formal wizard, and then was suddenly dragged by you into the Stygian River. Now I see it. When I was pursuing the two witches, Virtani and Brittany, the worms hidden within their souls flew out and scattered into the air of that underground research facility."

"As time passed, the number of these worms would increase somewhat, gradually entering my soul, and you then dragged my consciousness into the Stygian River."

"Of course, having killed Witch Brittany, the worms hidden within her soul would certainly fly out and enter my soul."

Locke had deliberately allowed this high priestess of the Ghost Sacred Order, under the pressure he exerted and her desperate need to survive, to deploy that ritual magic once more. By doing so, he was able to observe the full chain of cause and effect behind what had happened back then.

The ritual magic he had encountered back then had been far less miraculous than it had appeared.

It was full of little tricks.

Like watching a magic performance. Before one understood the principle, it seemed wonderful and inexplicable, but once the principle had been perceived, the impression changed entirely.

Locke traced the black thread formed from the spirituality of the resentful soul and seized the semi-transparent soul worm.

"I see it now. This worm is the core of your ritual magic, and you have achieved the maximum possible reduction in the time required to activate the ritual magic by inscribing the ritual needed for the magic into the scepter in your hand, the scepter that symbolizes the authority of the Ghost Sacred Order."

"This makes it possible to activate a ritual magic in under half a minute."

This was in fact also the earliest origin of the magic wand.

In the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, the earliest magic wands had originally been used specifically to reduce the cost for crystallization wizards of using ritual magic and to shorten the time required to activate it.

Witch Stephanie had essentially created a primitive version of a magic wand for herself.

Or it was also possible that it was the Ghost Sacred Order's ancestral primitive version of a magic wand passed down through generations.

Witch Stephanie's expression was deeply troubled. Her last hidden card, the Ghost Sacred Order's inherited spirit staff combined with the chain magic attack of the ghost firefly, had been completely seen through by Locke.

She was left with absolutely no options.

Yet just as Witch Stephanie was at her wit's end, Locke, to her shocked and bewildered eyes, placed the thread of the ghost firefly that had previously been evaded onto his own shoulder.

And so the interrupted ritual magic activated once more.

Locke intended to probe the principles of this spell model and determine whether it might help him crack the problem of virtual root costs, and he employed the most efficient method possible.

He would experience it directly himself.

'Wizard Kelt spent so long goading me that I am brimming with drive and energy,' Locke reflected. 'After all, this is only an avatar. And it is only ritual magic deployed by a crystallization witch. I should experience it firsthand to properly get a look at what is inside.'

At the same time, to drag the consciousness of a Second Circle wizard's avatar into the Stygian River required a terrifying amount of magic pressure and ghost fireflies.

Witch Stephanie had no choice but to forcibly draw upon the reserves she had planted within the souls of the Ghost Sacred Order's numerous formal wizards. Those black wizards each felt their entire bodies heat up, then their souls spontaneously combusted, and ghost fireflies flew out one after another.

This single activation caused heavy casualties among the Ghost Sacred Order's formal wizards. At least a quarter of the formal wizards had their souls combust directly.

Charging the ghost fireflies.

This was not because the high priestess was selfish or ruthless enough to do this deliberately. It was simply that the Ghost Sacred Order's ghost magic system was designed this way.

Once the ritual magic began operating, to pay the cost of dragging the opponent's consciousness into the Stygian River, the corresponding ghost fireflies simply had to be paid.

These ghost fireflies contained within them a trace of the Stygian River's power.

Their might was formidable.

Locke opened his eyes. His expression became odd. Both his main body at Golden Crown Mountain and his avatar in the southeastern quadrant stood up simultaneously.

His main body said, "As I anticipated, this had no effect on my main body. But this magic did send the portion of my consciousness within my avatar into the Stygian River."

"The mechanism is interesting. Pulling the consciousness into the Stygian River, and then through the consciousness influencing the body that carries it. My avatar experienced a bone-deep chill as though it had been submerged in the Stygian River."

Locke's main body was in the research institute of the Dune Plane.

Wizard Cis happened to be passing by and looked on with great satisfaction.

"Locke's avatar said it was going home to visit family, and yet here the avatar is still going back to find projects and gather ideas. Now that is what I call dedication."

He turned to a newly arrived ordinary Origin Academy crystallization wizard behind him and said, "Do you see that? This is the standard of our Golden Crown Mountain."

"This Second Circle wizard is a senior researcher here. But after becoming a Second Circle wizard, not only has he not slackened off, he is working forty-eight hours a day."

"Time is life. Research is fundamentally a matter of the ratio of input to output. However much time you invest, that is how much return you will receive. As long as you can spend the full one hundred and sixty-eight hours per week in the laboratory, you will absolutely be able to apply for a third-tier project fund, a Tier 2 project fund..."

The newly arrived crystallization wizard's eyes brimmed with moved admiration and fighting spirit.

"Researcher Augustine is truly so hardworking."

In the southeastern quadrant, Hussein turned his head to look at Locke with a strange expression.

"Locke is really pushing himself hard. Even I would not want to be stubborn enough to take a ritual magic head-on."

"Having a friend like this, it seems I need to push myself harder too."

"The lineage left by the ancestor wizard in the southeastern quadrant, either I bring it under my control, or it must be destroyed. That damnable ancestor wizard, his inheritance is actually a trap!"

At this moment, the consciousness of Locke's avatar successfully immersed itself in the Stygian River. He felt once more that cold, suffocating sensation.

Countless water ghosts within the Stygian River grabbed at his legs, trying to drag him down into the deep current.

And then Locke's body suddenly vanished, transforming into a full moon, a full moon floating within the Stygian River.

Witch Stephanie in that same instant felt the crushing weight of Second Circle magic pressure bearing down upon her soul. Her expression changed drastically, her face a mask of despair, her eyes wide with absolute shock.

"You are not a wizard in the soul decline period."

"You are not a First Circle wizard."

"You are a Second Circle wizard."

In that moment, every black wizard present fell completely silent.

The Blood Lord too seemed to think of something and looked toward Hussein with an expression of horror.

In this moment, these black wizards finally understood what it meant to call someone a genius, and what it meant to call something truly terrifying.