Chapter 801: The Peach Kill Curse and the Void Ship Seizure

The Peach Boat used peach branches as its mast and the blossoms on those branches as its sails, with the peach flowers harnessing the elemental wind to fly along the outermost edge of the wizard world.

Locke noticed that the Peach Boat's virtual roots, which had a main root, extended into the virtual sea and drew spiritual energy directly from it, then converted that spiritual energy into a magical wind through the peach leaves, and the peach tree on the branches used this magical wind to fly through it.

This was likely the secret behind the Peach Boat's ability to enter the void and fly.

The Peach Boat flew on the magical wind, harnessing that magical wind with its peach blossoms, and used its peach leaves to break down the spiritual energy drawn from the virtual sea, converting it into magical wind through a process resembling respiration.

One could only wonder how many research achievements had gone into this single Peach Boat.

Locke and Trajan and the others entered the void. Thanks to the Infinite Mountain, they encountered almost no planar gravity, and the Peach Boat departed from the world directly.

Trajan looked at Locke and said, "Junior, be careful. The void environment is very different from a planar environment."

Locke, Trajan, and Valerie Quinn all experienced a moment where something dark seemed to descend over their eyes, and then it was as though a person had been sitting in an air-conditioned room on a summer day and suddenly walked out of the cool interior into the sweltering heat of the world outside.

For a brief instant, Locke even felt that everything in the wizard world, including the laws of the plane, was moving away from him, that all things and all manner of existence were receding.

A vast and boundless void appeared before him.

That was the great void.

No up or down, no time, no space, no concepts, no spirituality, no magical force, no matter, nothing of any kind whatsoever.

No birth, no destruction, no strength, no weakness.

Everything here seemed to lose all meaning.

"It cannot even be called blank."

Locke compared his current state to that of the Zero Potion, having had prior contact with it, noting the difference between the two. The Zero Potion represented the spiritual beginning of things, while this state was something that could not even be called 'nothingness.'

Because even the concepts of 'nothing' and 'emptiness' had no existence here.

Witch Valerie Quinn suddenly bent over and began dry-heaving.

Wizard Trajan frowned and said, "Witch Valerie, you simply have too little practical experience."

Witch Valerie struggled to lift her head and looked back toward the wizard world, where she saw it as a vast sphere interspersed with white and blue.

In that instant she realized that she was standing at an immense distance, gazing down at the wizard world from above.

In a single moment, her mind's understanding of scale and size became completely disordered. Her soul and her consciousness could not process the image of that enormously vast world having become a great sphere beneath her feet.

Her instincts could not comprehend what was happening.

And so she began dry-heaving again.

"Ah..."

Witch Valerie Quinn pressed her hands to her head and began to mutter to herself.

"Size, humans, elves, beastmen... continents, oceans, the sky..."

Witch Valerie Quinn opened one eye and looked toward the wizard world again. Her pupils suddenly filled with terror, and she looked at Wizard Trajan and said, "Teacher, is our world a beast? Why does it look to me as though that world is breathing in and out, as though it is alive?"

"That world is chasing after us."

"Teacher, speed up the Peach Boat. That world is going to swallow us."

Wizard Trajan frowned.

Locke, however, understood what was happening.

It was cognitive dissonance collapse syndrome.

Wizards or living beings who contracted this condition would perceive everything around them as though all things were breathing.

Witch Valerie Quinn appeared to be in extreme terror, as though something truly was chasing them from behind.

She pointed toward a spot in the void where there was clearly nothing at all and said to Locke, "Junior uncle, do you see it? The wizard world is a monster. It is alive, it is attacking us, those are its tentacles..."

Locke frowned, not having expected that the first time he would witness this cognitive dissonance condition would be in circumstances like these, and that the person afflicted would turn out to be Trajan's own direct student.

Wizard Trajan reprimanded her and said, "Valerie, that is nothing more than the faint planar gravity the wizard world exerts on us. We are still within the wizard world's gravitational sphere because we are in the near-void orbit."

"Stop looking at the wizard world. Simply stop looking, close your eyes, then use the advanced meditation method to enter a thought-free state for approximately five minutes. At your level, that should be enough to recover."

Valerie Quinn seemed extremely frightened and even moved to seize the control mast of the Peach Boat, which Trajan was operating, a peach-wood branch that resembled a staff.

This branch floated above the peach tree.

It was like a small levitating staff.

Witch Valerie Quinn reached for the branch and said, "Teacher, we need to change course."

Wizard Trajan looked at her coldly and said, "Are you refusing to listen even to me now, Valerie?"

Witch Valerie Quinn's face showed hesitation, and she kept glancing back, her expression growing more terrified with each look.

She was finding it increasingly difficult to restrain herself.

Ten minutes later, Witch Valerie Quinn suddenly struck out. A cluster of peach blossoms appeared from her right hand, and the crimson petals, swirling like a vortex, drove toward Trajan in an attack.

This was Golden Crown Mountain's famous First Circle offensive botanical magic, the Peach Kill Curse!

This spell model had First Circle, Second Circle, and sun ring versions, making it a three-tier spell model across major ranks and a classic botanical offensive magic of Golden Crown Mountain.

Witch Valerie Quinn's eyes were fixed and intent.

"Teacher, the beast behind us has caught up. At this rate, we will all die."

The peach blossom petals formed by the Peach Kill Curse had not yet come close to Wizard Trajan before they were blocked by the permanent defensive force field shell around him, which shone like a solar corona, and burned away into a heap of flames.

Wizard Trajan frowned. Cognitive dissonance was not simply a matter of causing a wizard to see phenomena that did not exist.

If that were all it was, it would merely be a problem of illusions.

The critical point was that once a wizard began to experience cognitive dissonance and perceive all things as breathing, it meant that her brain, her soul, and her consciousness had already developed a problem.

And that would cause her personality to deteriorate as well.

Wizard Trajan recited a spell, and the branches on the Peach Boat immediately gathered toward her automatically, encircling her like a wooden fence.

Witch Valerie Quinn was greatly alarmed.

"Teacher, let me go. That thing is coming. Turn left quickly..."

Wizard Trajan tossed a peach blossom toward the left side, and as that blossom flew through the void for a while, after traveling approximately one hundred meters, it was suddenly crushed by an invisible force.

In an instant, its physical form, its spirituality, and its magical energy were all ground into fragments.

Everything the peach blossom was had been stripped away.

Witch Valerie Quinn froze where she stood.

Wizard Trajan looked at her coldly and said, "You want me to steer in that direction? That is an invisible energy vortex in the void. If we drew close, even I would die inside it."

Wizard Trajan recited a spell, and in the next instant, countless peach blossoms flew out from the sleeve of his right arm. Like a storm, those blossoms spread outward through the formless void ahead.

Within that storm, something became visible.

It appeared to be a vast invisible vortex.

Its scale was many tens of thousands of times larger than the Peach Boat beneath their feet.

Trajan's sun ring-level Peach Kill Curse, before this invisible vortex, was no more than a mayfly trying to shake a great tree, and as he finished reciting the incantation, the peach blossom tornado created by this spell model vanished into the void.

Locke understood that Trajan was using his magical energy to outline the form of the originally invisible void energy, which could not otherwise manifest any shape.

Witch Valerie Quinn snapped back to her senses at once.

Her breathing quickened, then she clenched her teeth and, relying on the strength of a crystallization witch's soul, endured the tremendous soul damage brought on by the cognitive dissonance.

She closed her eyes and made every effort to enter the state of no-thought, in order to forget what she had just seen when she looked at the wizard world from above, so as to be rid of the harm caused by her soul's inability to reconcile the perceived size of the world with its actual scale relative to herself.

Twenty minutes later, Witch Valerie Quinn exhaled a long breath, then turned her back to the wizard world, not daring to look behind her again, and bowed in apology to Trajan and Locke, saying, "Teacher, junior uncle, I am deeply sorry. I lost control of myself."

"I did something extremely foolish just now."

Witch Valerie Quinn looked at Wizard Trajan with awe. ℯℯ𝑙.

Wizard Trajan gave her a slight nod and then handed her a restorative potion.

"It is not entirely your fault. Cognitive dissonance collapse is not uncommon."

"But once cognitive dissonance occurs, your mind is no longer functioning normally. Your judgment fails, and your personality changes drastically."

"Your problem is that as a wizard, you are too easily thrown into a panic. When faced with a problem, instead of calmly analyzing it, you shout and act rashly, going so far as to struggle with me over control of the void flyer and steer us toward truly dangerous ground."

"What you perceived as a monster was nothing more than the faint planar gravity the wizard world exerts on us. It was simply because we are still in the wizard world's near-void orbital range. But due to cognitive dissonance, you interpreted that planar gravity as a monster's tentacles."

Wizard Trajan pressed the question.

"This is why, on the several occasions you applied to join me on void missions in the past, I never let you go to the Demon Hunter Corps to take on any tasks."

"Though it is true that some void tasks are carried out by First Circle wizards, and in no small numbers, they are not suitable for someone like you with no void experience. People like you have a special nickname in the void, which is landlubber."

"This nickname is reserved specifically for First Circle wizards like yourselves who have never been to the void."

"Because a Second Circle wizard can use their own formidable magic to determine their correct positional and size relationship relative to the wizard world, this kind of problem does not arise for them."

Wizard Trajan said to her, "Valerie, if the person operating the Peach Boat today had not been me but another crystallization wizard, what do you think would have happened?"

Locke understood now. Simply put, a First Circle wizard's standing was too low, and so merely glancing at the wizard world from outside in the void had caused cognitive dissonance and made them ill.

A Second Circle wizard's standing was sufficient, and so the problem would not arise for them.

Wizard Trajan said to Locke, "Junior, when you organize exploration teams in the future, you will certainly recruit first-class wizard apprentices and First Circle wizards. You must be aware that these wizards can encounter this kind of problem."

"In the early days of the great void exploration era, many wizards died along with their ships because of this. During that period, many primitive void flyers would follow routes after entering the void that, in retrospect, were deeply unsettling and extremely strange."

"In fact, during the great void exploration era, there were wizards who believed that invisible creatures existed in the void, creatures that could pass through void warships with ease and seize control of them. But later, everyone realized that it was not the case of strange creatures seizing the flyers, nor any other external cause. Rather, it was wizards suffering from cognitive dissonance who mistakenly believed that something was chasing them from behind."

"In order to flee, they incited mutinies aboard their void warships."

Locke gave a slight nod, thinking that had Trajan not brought him out on this trip, he would never have anticipated that lower-circle wizards entering the void would face this kind of situation.

It was too dangerous.

After all, in the void, the only thing one could rely on was the flyer beneath one's feet. If someone deliberately sabotaged the flyer, even a Second Circle wizard could be killed in the void.

Locke looked down, and the vast, boundless, blue-tinted wizard world filled his vision.

Of course, since this was the near-void orbit, even if Valerie Quinn had damaged the Peach Boat just now, he could have simply jumped off.

At worst, it would be a skydive from outside the wizard world.

With a Second Circle wizard's defensive ability and vitality, he should have been able to fall back into the wizard world, though it would likely have taken some time and there was the possibility of severe injury, as well as a certain risk of death.

Wizard Trajan said to Locke, "The cognitive dissonance of lower-circle wizards is one thing, but the most fearsome kind is cognitive dissonance in a high-circle wizard."

"Even a Second Circle wizard can experience cognitive dissonance in void regions."

"Seeing the full shape of the wizard world, because of one's Grand Magic, would not throw us into a panic, but directly seeing certain presences or certain phenomena in the void with the naked eye is another matter entirely. Do you know about void leviathans?"

Locke said, "Yes, senior. I have seen one."

Trajan was somewhat surprised.

"You have seen one? How did that come about? Even I have rarely seen them."

"Is this not your first time entering the void? Wait, do you mean that when you were using the advanced meditation method, you used the one-time opportunity to view the Secrets of Creation and saw a void leviathan?"

Locke had no intention of concealing it and nodded, saying, "Yes, you could say I was fortunate. The prototype spell model for my Grand Magic was also obtained from a feather of that void leviathan. I told our teacher about it, and she said that void leviathan was a creature that had never been recorded in the wizard world."

Locke again described the characteristics of that leviathan to Trajan.

After listening, Wizard Trajan shook his head.

"I have not encountered that void creature either. Since our teacher says it is a void leviathan that has never been discovered before, that should settle the matter. Our teacher has read far more literature than I have."

"Locke, your luck is remarkable. But seeing a void leviathan in the advanced meditation state and seeing one directly with a wizard's own eyes are two entirely different things. Locke, never look directly at any void leviathan while in the void. You would die."

Locke thought of Witch Valerie Quinn just now, who had looked directly at the wizard world and subsequently attempted to seize control of the Peach Boat, and immediately nodded and said, "Thank you for the warning, senior. I will be careful."

Entering the void was indeed extremely dangerous. They had only just entered, and were still in the near-void orbit, not yet fully departed from the wizard world, and already a ship seizure incident had occurred.

The one who had attempted to seize the ship was none other than Witch Valerie Quinn herself, a new rising talent of their own teacher lineage with considerable ability.

Such were the dangers of void navigation.

'Void navigation in the modern age of magic is already this dangerous. In the great void exploration era, how many wizards must have died on the road to exploring the void?'

A thought leapt into Locke's mind.

'They risked death to enter the void. Was it for resources?'

'Or was it to explore the truth of things?'

By this time, the Peach Boat had risen to a higher near-void orbital track.

Each time they departed from one near-void orbital track and entered the next, the Peach Boat shuddered, as though it were about to break apart.

Approximately five days later, they had arrived at the void region known as the Thirteenth Near-Void Orbital Track, and by now they were sufficiently far from the wizard world that in Locke's eyes it had become something no larger than a small marble.

The gravitational pull of the wizard world on them had become extremely faint.

Valerie Quinn kept her back turned to the wizard world throughout, not daring to look in that direction even once.

Wizard Trajan cast a stern look at her.

"Valerie, if you keep on like this, there is no point in your having come here at all. You need to try looking at the wizard world. Even just one minute per day would be worthwhile. That is the only way you will make progress."

Witch Valerie Quinn immediately stood and bowed to him, saying, "Understood, teacher."

She sat down and began attempting to look toward the wizard world.

In the direction away from her line of sight, Wizard Trajan curved the corner of his mouth into a satisfied smile.

Locke observed this scene and thought, 'Senior Trajan is a strict teacher. He seems to deliberately maintain a stern image in front of Valerie. But he himself is far less severe than he lets on.'

Looking at it logically, the fact that Valerie had never entered the void to carry out a task even before reaching the crystalline stage meant that either Trajan considered her completely incapable, or that he was quite protective of her.

That he did not want her to take risks.

It was probably the latter.

When Wizard Trajan turned to look at Locke, his expression carried more warmth, and he asked in a low voice, "What do you think of Valerie?"

Locke said, "Very intelligent."

"Very good."

Wizard Trajan said quietly, "I think so too. Do not let her hear that, or it will go to her head."

"I believe that given another ten to fifteen years, she has a chance of becoming a Second Circle wizard."

"She cannot compare to you, of course."

Wizard Trajan said, "Junior, you are a true genius. But this world has far too many of what one might call mediocre ordinary talents."

"If she becomes a Second Circle wizard before the age of fifty, I consider that excellent."

Wizard Trajan thought it over and said, "No, it should be called exceptionally excellent. I do not dare to be too warm with her in person, mainly because I cannot quite determine the general pace of progress for a wizard of her caliber. I myself became a Second Circle wizard before the age of thirty."

"So I am afraid that if I am too easy with her, she will become complacent. Because I am not entirely certain whether her slow pace is a normal kind of slow or a lazy kind of slow. The main thing is that no matter how I look at it, it is too slow for my standards."

"But within a teacher lineage, talents of this level are very important as well."

Wizard Trajan said quietly, "Talents who are too exceptional, like the two of us, end up on the path of innovation and cannot easily inherit another's doctrines wholesale."

"While a talent of this level, on the other hand, can inherit your teachings perfectly, as though they were sacred law."

Locke agreed with this deeply and nodded.

At the same time, Locke noticed that on this level of the near-void orbital track, many small void flyers had appeared, and in the distance there was a void port that had been stationed here for a long time.

That void port was taking on and offloading large quantities of supplies.

Most of those supplies came from distant colonial worlds, and some were being transported from the wizard world to the various colonial worlds.

Due to the Second Sky, void transport did not seem to be as convenient as airborne transport, so the main channels for domestic supply transport within the wizard world ran through the wizard floating vessel supply routes.

Wizard Trajan glanced over at the void port and said, "That is the extraterritorial port. In an earlier age, this place was called the extraterritorial battlefield, but now it is an ordinary port."

"Some black wizards have their eyes on these void ports. Of course, relatively few black wizards would dare to attack a port directly, but they will intercept the void transport ships."

"Once a void transport ship enters a void deep voyage, its position becomes difficult to determine and tracking it is highly challenging, and void navigation itself is dangerous, so black wizards prefer to intercept those void transport ships in the near-void orbit."

"And our task is to patrol the Thirteenth Near-Void Orbital Track and capture black wizard pirates."

Wizard Trajan gripped the small peach-wood staff with his right hand, turned the bow of the vessel, and headed off into the distance.

"Ordinary void transport ships fear encountering pirates, but we are temporary demon hunters, so we are quite different. We are here to apprehend the black wizard pirates. Those heads can be exchanged for payment."

"My magical eye has a special function and can track black wizards."

"Let us go. I know their location."

Locke had recently been running short on blank spiritual raw materials as well, and his supply of moon essence was not abundant, so evolving his magical plants had involved robbing Peter to pay Paul. At this moment, therefore, he was in high spirits.

"Senior, excellent, let us go."

Wizard Trajan burst into loud laughter.

"Everyone says I am mad, and yet here I have found a kindred spirit. Junior, I like your personality. Ha ha ha, I will not have to worry about being alone from now on."

Witch Valerie Quinn glanced at her teacher, then muttered inwardly.

'Junior uncle, you have no idea just how mad our teacher can truly be. Ah...'