Chapter 798: Producing the First Second Circle Potion, The Soul Stabilizing Potion

Three weeks later, in the southeastern quadrant, Locke's avatar was within the Forbidden Forest. The Magical Dragon Rose had appeared on his body, its leaves like dragon wings, allowing him to fly swiftly through the Forbidden Forest.

"The core materials are morella berry juice and a fir tree's heartwood, both First Circle magical plants. Both can be found deep within the Forbidden Forest."

"The peripheral materials, secondary materials, and auxiliary materials total one hundred varieties, but all of them can be harvested within the Forbidden Forest..."

"Seven Star Herb, valerian leaf, Taras date..."

Locke flew through the central section of the Forbidden Forest. Because he was now a guest of the Forbidden Forest, the Forbidden Forest's dangerous magical creatures and the magical plants had not chosen to attack him.

Within a certain range, the Forbidden Forest appeared to allow him to harvest.

Of course, this was limited to the equivalent of casually picking a few things in passing. The approximate allowance was similar to plucking a few fruits to taste while walking through. That was acceptable.

But if he got greedy, the Silent Bee fairy would come out to stop him.

Earlier he had tried to harvest a large quantity of relevant alchemical materials from within the Forbidden Forest all at once, and the Silent Bee fairy had come to find him and stop him.

Should he insist, the Forbidden Forest King might come to find him.

And so within the Forbidden Forest, he harvested only what he needed, nothing more. After all, the Forbidden Forest did not operate on the concept of private property. Everyone simply took what they needed.

The only thing not permitted was hoarding behavior.

Because storing surplus resources beyond what could be used was the first step toward creating private property.

Locke brought the materials back to his research institute within the Forbidden Forest, the one dating five hundred years back. Inside the institute was a makeshift alchemy chamber that had been converted.

The alchemy chamber contained a crucible. Locke had been refining the Soul Stabilizing Potion here using the Forbidden Forest's raw materials for three weeks.

The Soul Stabilizing Potion was a potion with two versions. Without a Spiritual Resonance it was a commonly used potion for entering void regions, but once a Spiritual Resonance was added it became a Second Circle potion.

One could say it was the lowest difficulty tier of potion to refine at the Second Circle stage.

At this point, having practiced for three weeks, Locke felt he had more or less mastered this potion.

"Using wild alchemical raw materials is still more comfortable, even if finding them is a bit more troublesome."

Locke lit the primordial fire, and following the steps, added alchemical materials to the crucible one at a time. On the worktable, he used the Spiritual Vein Suturer to grind the Taras date to a paste.

Because the Taras date was a First Circle magical plant, the act of grinding it was equivalent to rupturing the First Circle magical plant's extraordinarily high-pressure plant cells.

In an instant, a burst of magical radiance erupted from the grafting knife.

Locke's expression did not change. This was a normal occurrence. After all, wizards had permanent defensive force fields, and his grafting knife was a Second Circle magical artifact, so he had nothing to fear from the explosion.

Small explosions frequently occurred when processing First Circle magical plant materials.

Nothing worth concern.

Locke poured the extracted juice into the crucible. Then a flame rose inside the crucible, and at the point when the flame reached its most vigorous, Locke poured in the morella berry juice, which he had extracted in advance and stabilized in a relatively stable state using the special alchemy spell model Stabilize Energy, then tipped it into the crucible.

Then, at the moment the flames inside the crucible licked out like a tongue of fire, Locke tossed the fir tree heartwood, which resembled firewood, into the crucible.

At this point, the crucible was like a fireplace stuffed full of matchsticks, crackling and popping, and because of the complex reactions of natural magical force structural components inside, sparks of every color of the rainbow appeared between this pile of fuel.

These sparks crackled and scattered in every direction like fireflies.

Locke's expression did not change. This indicated the Soul Stabilizing Potion had been refined successfully, but the most critical part was the final step.

Like a dragon painting that needed its eyes to come alive.

If the final step succeeded, this would be a standard Second Circle potion.

His first potion ever refined using normal alchemy methods.

And the final step was the one step that, after three weeks of effort, he had still not managed to successfully complete.

But today, Locke had a premonition that he would succeed.

'Second Circle alchemy requires very powerful intuition. Meticulous control alone can no longer satisfy this stage of alchemy.'

'And intuition is something I excel at.'

Locke exhaled slowly.

"I hope today I have good luck."

Locke placed the grafting knife against his little finger. The grafting knife came into violent friction with his permanent defensive force field, and spell sparks appeared one after another.

In the instant he released his permanent defensive force field, a cut was made on his little finger, and then a single drop of blood fell into the crucible, which was burning like a fireplace full of firewood.

In the next instant, the entire fir tree heartwood within the crucible developed a series of purple-green cracks.

Immediately after, all of the fir tree heartwood ignited simultaneously, transforming into a single flame that shot upward, swirling and spinning in the air like wind-blown snow.

There was not a single drop of liquid left within the entire crucible.

Locke furrowed his brow. "The final step is still not quite mastered. There is still a slight gap from the simplified steps derived from the Tier 10 Spiritual Resonance."

"But I succeeded."

The flames descended from the air like liquid, like a pouring rain, and within the crucible some purple-green liquid had appeared.

Locke lifted the crucible and swiftly poured it into a temporal gold crystal alchemy bottle, a standard-shaped potion bottle, then stoppered it with a white birch wood cork.

Locke looked at the potion before him, gently swirling it. The potion showed no change at all, and there were no magical force fluctuations whatsoever within it.

'I succeeded. This is a completed Soul Stabilizing Potion.'

A faint excitement stirred within Locke's heart. This was the first time he had successfully refined a Second Circle potion.

This meant he was one step closer to becoming a expert-level alchemist.

Because his Spiritual Resonance studies foundation was insufficient, but thanks to his get-on-the-train-first approach, as long as he fully mastered three Second Circle potions, he could go and sit the certification exam, receive Golden Crown Mountain's reward, advance his credentials, and become an expert-level alchemist.

Unlike First Circle alchemists, whose numbers were relatively common, an expert-level alchemist could raise their standing one tier simply by showing up anywhere.

At Golden Crown Mountain, an expert-level alchemist could elevate an ordinary Second Circle wizard's standing to the level of a moon ring wizard in one stroke.

Locke held the potion bottle up.

"The Soul Stabilizing Potion. After a wizard consumes it, the spirituality within their body becomes completely stable. It is used to resolve the void failure syndrome that wizards develop from extended periods within the void."

Normal living beings were life-forms of the planes, and were simply not in the same category as void-born creatures, life-forms of the void.

The difference between void creatures and planar creatures was greater than the difference between a planar creature and a stone.

When a planar creature entered the void, because their soul could not adapt to the void environment for extended periods, their spirituality would scatter and expand outward into the void. Eventually, for weaker individuals, their spirituality would completely scatter into fragments.

Stronger individuals would still develop severe physical mutations.

Of course, that was the final stage of void failure syndrome.

But the early symptoms of the syndrome also manifested in wizards or other life-forms experiencing dizziness and reduced magic pressure during void travel.

There were also instances of wizards losing control of their magical force.

This was primarily because staying within a void flyer made it relatively easy to use magical formations and the world principles of the wizard world to maintain a magical tide around individual wizards.

But spirituality was a different matter.

When a void flyer entered the void, it was equivalent to the wizard entering a spirituality vacuum.

The reason the void is the void is precisely that the spiritual and material distribution in the great void is extremely sparse.

Because spirituality has the property of diffusing from high-spirituality areas toward zero-spirituality areas, if a living organism remained in a spirituality vacuum for extended periods, their individual spirituality would diffuse outward.

Void failure syndrome reaching its end stage was something that required centuries to develop, but the syndrome showed certain symptoms even in its early stages.

Because even just a small amount of spirituality evaporating from a living organism, though initially inconsequential, could produce serious effects if important portions of the spirituality were lost.

And so the Soul Stabilizing Potion was a strategic resource, hard currency.

Locke looked at the Soul Stabilizing Potion before him. "I recall that the effect of the Second Circle Soul Stabilizing Potion is semi-permanent in nature."

"The ordinary Soul Stabilizing Potion generally only lasts for the duration of a single voyage. Conveniently, my main body went with Senior Fellow Trajan to the White Wizard Association's Demon Hunter Corps a week ago to accept a task, and in a few days we will be boarding a small void flyer to carry out the mission."

"This way I can test my Soul Stabilizing Potion."

Locke thought for a moment and decided to take advantage of still having energy and refine another bottle. Senior Fellow Trajan would also be boarding the flyer, after all.

Since this time was specifically for him to gain experience, he might as well refine a bottle of Soul Stabilizing Potion for his senior fellow.

Besides, he needed to refine potions to increase his proficiency and deepen his perception of Spiritual Resonances.

And within the Forbidden Forest, he could use the raw materials without paying.

"I was not fully satisfied with the last bottle. This time I need to optimize it slightly."

Locke reflected, "With my current magical force and energy, I should only be able to refine one more. Then I will need a good long rest."

"With the constant influx of primal force from the Natural Primal Force Plane, my recovery speed far surpasses that of an ordinary Second Circle wizard. So my avatar probably only needs a day or two of rest to basically recover to peak magic pressure."

Locke lifted the crucible and spent half a day of concentrated effort before completing the second bottle of Soul Stabilizing Potion.

Locke had just put away the Soul Stabilizing Potions when he heard again from within the Forbidden Forest the furious roar of some wild creature, along with the sound of chains dragging across the ground and the Forbidden Forest King's roar of anger.

From within the research institute, Locke had long since grown accustomed to the sight and did not find it strange.

Over these three weeks, he had heard this sound many times.

At first he would still ask the Silent Bee what had happened to the Forbidden Forest King.

Later, he simply grew used to it.

"The Star Sea's high-magic plan seems to have triggered many disturbances."

Locke reflected, "Take this southeastern quadrant's Forbidden Forest for example. The Silent Bee told me that it is because the magical tide concentration gradient has been rising too quickly lately, causing certain things that were originally sealed away to begin stirring."

"If this is happening within the Forbidden Forest, what about other places?"

"Would there be even more disturbances elsewhere?"

Locke thought back to the Silent Chalice, when the Mysterious Heavens had sent no wizards to observe the competition.

That had already been very abnormal.

It seemed that the chain reactions triggered by the high-magic plan were beyond what he could currently imagine.

Locke walked out of the research institute and looked at the two bottles of potion in his hand. Within the Forbidden Forest, a fairly powerful alchemy Root Field had appeared and was lifting these two bottles of potion.

"There is a Root Field within the Forbidden Forest."

Locke looked toward where the sound of chains dragging had come from. That was where the Forbidden Forest King was.

"Within the Forbidden Forest, there must be a high-circle alchemist wizard. Either the Forbidden Forest King himself or someone else. Their presence has caused a Root Field to appear within the Forbidden Forest."

"But the Forbidden Forest King is full of secrets. And he himself does not like others prying into his secrets. So let things be as they are."

During this period, Locke had attempted to make contact with the Forbidden Forest King.

One way or another, cultivating a good relationship with an existence suspected to be at the Third Circle level could never go wrong, especially since he planned to use the Forbidden Forest to build a research base here.

But the Forbidden Forest King had not shown himself again.

He and Locke had met only once.

After that, it was the Silent Bee fairy who communicated with him.

The Forbidden Forest King seemed to be resisting meeting with outsiders. Apart from secrets pertaining to himself, he showed no interest in anything from the outside world.

Though he was reluctant to admit it, Locke found that even as a fierce beast, he had great difficulty stirring the other party's interest.

He did not know whether it was the Forbidden Forest King's personality, or because he was only a Second Circle wizard.

Locke sensed a Second Circle-level magic pressure disturbance not far away.

"Hmm? Gakula has finally arrived. That was fast. He must have come straight from the wizard floating vessel without stopping."

"He is clearly in quite a hurry."

Locke donned the Magical Dragon Rose. The Magical Dragon Rose seamlessly fitted against his body, bolstering his Demon Dragon bloodline, and he flew rapidly toward that location.

"Silent Bee fairy, please show some restraint. This person is precisely my... student."

In the distance, three ancient tree-men of Second Circle level could be seen. They appeared to be speech-capable trees.

A strange energy emanated from their bodies.

As Wizard Gakula fought with them, that strange energy flowed like something vibrantly wild and untamed, surging continuously into his spell models.

Wizard Gakula's expression was very poor, because his spell models could not hold up for long against that energy and would shatter.

It was as though this place was hostile to civilization.

The ordered spell models would quickly fall into chaos under the impact of that energy.

This caused him to fight with extreme caution and hesitancy, not even daring to bring out his Grand Magic, terrified that the strange energy might flow into his Grand Magic. That would not be a laughing matter.

It could kill him.

Because no one knew whether that strange energy, once it entered the Grand Magic, would be impossible to remove, or might even strengthen.

Wizard Gakula's expression at this moment was extremely poor. He was deeply afraid that Locke had schemed against him, sending him to this notoriously formidable special forest to his death.

The mysterious Forbidden Forest had made many visiting wizards from other regions fall here and come to nothing.

One more or one less would make no difference.

At this moment, hearing Locke's voice, Wizard Gakula was overjoyed, because this at least confirmed that Locke had not deceived him.

Wizard Gakula looked at Locke and said, "Wizard Locke, these tree-men are truly too strange. They have special energy fluctuations on them. My spell models cannot stabilize in this environment at all. Because it is so unusual, I did not dare use my Grand Magic."

"Even my permanent defensive force field has been affected by it."

Locke swept a glance at him, and the tiger's eye appeared on his forehead, looking down from above like a predator watching prey.

Hmm?

Something like the symptoms of void failure syndrome, only void failure syndrome was one's own spirituality diffusing outward, whereas this situation appeared to be one's spirituality being influenced by some extremely powerful external natural force.

'The Forbidden Forest has existed independently for so long and resisted the intrusions of high-circle wizards. It clearly has its own ace in the hole.'

Locke reflected, 'But looking at this situation, it seems giving him a Second Circle Soul Stabilizing Potion might potentially solve his problem. Actually, never mind. The potion is too valuable.'

'I only want to use him to help me resolve the death energy pollution problem in the Forbidden Forest, letting him help me trick the fairy into blessing a speech-capable tree once. Let him overcome this on his own.'

Locke glanced at the three tree-men. Excellent.

If Gakula helped him and resolved the problem, then per the agreement the fairy would bless one of his tree-men, meaning he would obtain a tree-man possessing this special energy.

That was surprisingly generous.

Even receiving just a single blessing was a pure gain for him.

At this moment, Wizard Gakula looked at Locke wearing the Magical Dragon Rose, appearing like a creature with four black dragon heads. He gave a slight shudder without quite knowing why. Looking up at Locke with the tiger's eye open, looking down from above, Gakula found he felt somewhat afraid.

Like prey being watched by a predator.

'Must be my imagination,' Wizard Gakula thought. "I am being far too sensitive. I just entered the Forbidden Forest and immediately suspected Locke of setting me up. Now I am even suspecting Locke regards me as prey."

Locke said to the three tree-men, "This is my student. Please stand down."

The three tree-men immediately exchanged glances, then looked at Locke with awe, sensing the aura of the World Tree leaf emanating from him.

The three tree-men immediately said, "Respected Lord Locke, we are terribly sorry for treating your student as an intruder. We sincerely apologize for all the threatening things we said to him earlier."

"We shall withdraw at once."

The three tree-men slowly departed.

Wizard Gakula was stunned.

What was happening?

Tree-men could talk?

What was this situation?

Although Second Circle wizards had a large variety of tree-man awakening spells, those spells only granted tree-men beast nature, not the most important human-like soul.

'Language is the mark of civilization. Tree-men have civilization? They are an intelligent species?'

Wizard Gakula was completely baffled.

"Impossible, this... this is not really possible."

"Unless one used the teacher's Dragon Observing Peach King, who could grant a beast human-like nature?"

The sound of the Silent Bee fairy's apology came from beside Locke.

"Oh, I am terribly sorry. Because of the black wizards who had been entering the Forbidden Forest in large numbers earlier, I strengthened the Forbidden Forest's tree-men, and they almost accidentally killed your student."

"That was the Wild Surge. It is energy stored in the depths of the Forbidden Forest from ancient primordial times. Wild Surge energy can increase the numbers of wild creatures, but it suppresses the force of human-like consciousness. Sigh, if I had not suspected that the young wizard had some connection to you, Lord Fierce Beast, and held the speech-capable trees back a little, I am afraid the young wizard would have died."

Locke gave a slight nod without passing the Silent Bee fairy's words on to Gakula.

After all, there was no good way to tell Gakula that he had just nearly died.

'I had not expected the Forbidden Forest to be dangerous to this degree.'

'Which means the deepest core of the Forbidden Forest is very likely saturated with Wild Surge energy, the primordial state of civilization. Ordinary wizards entering the Forbidden Forest's core might very well face death.'

Locke looked at Wizard Gakula and said, "Gakula, you have arrived. I spent some effort negotiating with the Forbidden Forest."

"And also made some not inconsiderable sacrifices."

Locke waved his sleeve. Wizard Gakula's expression immediately became one of guilt and remorse.

Right. This place was so dangerous, and yet Locke had somehow arranged for him to operate here safely and conduct research. How much effort must Locke have put in behind the scenes?

Wizard Gakula even felt that Locke was extraordinarily loyal and good to him.

Locke said to him, "You can move freely within the Forbidden Forest's central region, but absolutely must not damage a single blade of grass or tree here, and must not do anything unnecessary. Otherwise, when the Forbidden Forest's anger is roused, neither you nor I will survive."

Wizard Gakula immediately promised, "Understood."

He still had a lingering fear from those three tree-men just now.

"Wizard Locke, rest assured. I understand what is at stake here. The first rule of field work is to follow the rules."

"You can count on me. Locke, you are truly loyal. I did not expect you to provide me with this kind of research environment. From this day forward, you are Gakula's friend. Whatever article I write from this research, you must have first authorship."

Wizard Gakula followed behind Locke, and the two of them moved freely through the Forbidden Forest.

Gakula looked at the surrounding forest, which had returned to calm and appeared to hold no danger whatsoever. He was filled with admiration.

At this moment, some of the Second Circle spell models within his consciousness sea had actually fallen into disarray.

That mysterious energy was truly strange.

When it suffused the air, certain functions within his soul seemed suppressed.

This had terrified him greatly.

That sensation was like a fish coming onto land, or a bird falling to the ground.

He was desperate to escape that environment.

Locke smiled at Wizard Gakula. "We are all researchers at Golden Crown Mountain, all the teacher's students, all people of the same academic lineage. When you do well, I do well too. People of the same lineage do not deceive each other."

"Gakula, this is where the death energy pollution occurred. Begin your research."

Wizard Gakula looked at that stretch of land with longing, and at the same time put on a small botanical studies device he had brought with him, a single-lens electromagnetic magic mirror.

Locke glanced at that piece of equipment.

Wizard Gakula explained, "A piece of equipment I borrowed from the Group One team leader. This way I can conduct better observations. I had no choice. During field surveys, it is impossible to bring a full electromagnetic magic mirror along."

"This one has somewhat reduced functionality, but it will do for now. After all, this is field work, conditions are a bit harsh. But only Second Circle wizards have the qualification to borrow it, and one has to queue for a very long time. The usage fee for borrowing it once is five hundred thousand magic stones."

"The advantage is that I can borrow it for a very long time. As long as I do not return, I do not need to give it back."

"Real death energy pollution. It falls within the scope of elemental soil evolution. Excellent. Excellent."