Chapter 807: Three-Dimensional Coordinates plus One Dimension of Consciousness

Bonifacius University. The library.

Since the entire campus of Bonifacius was beside Cloud Lake, this library was situated by the lake as well. Unlike Golden Crown Mountain's castle-type library, Bonifacius University's library closely resembled the tall high-rise buildings of his previous life.

Locke followed Witch Georgina into the library. Inside, small ceramic spheres about the size of shuttlecocks flew through the air, each with a pair of feathered wings on their backs.

At this moment, they circled around Locke and Witch Georgina once each, checking the borrowing badges on their persons.

Witch Georgina explained, "These are Bonifacius University's wizard ceramics."

"Bonifacius University is the birthplace of wizard ceramic technology, and as such it possesses the most advanced wizard ceramic technology anywhere."

"These are wizard ceramics of the Flying Ball Messenger type."

"Any request you have, simply tell the Flying Ball Messengers, and they will fully meet all of your library needs. The insides of these wizard ceramics have been set with relevant spells by generalist scholars. While they cannot match a professional generalist wizard, they make up for it in numbers."

Witch Georgina brought Locke into Bonifacius University's library, where inside, bookshelves towered in layers like overlapping mountains and ridges. The shelves were arranged at various angles, and on the ceiling and walls in every direction, wizards and scholars carrying books could be seen walking past.

The majority of those on the library's first level were wizard apprentices, who looked up with reverence at the two Second Circle wizards who had entered, bowing their heads in greeting one after another.

"Teacher Georgina."

"Teacher Augustine."

Witch Georgina looked at Locke with a smile and asked, "Well, what do you think of our Bonifacius University's central library?"

Locke said, "Rich in talent, fully equipped, and the wizard ceramic technology is in a class of its own."

"And its ambitions are also very broad."

Witch Georgina stood with her hands clasped behind her back. She wore a layered fringe-style wizard robe that made her look as though she were draped in a rainbow. Having become a Second Circle wizard had elevated her standing at Bonifacius University, and this seemed to put her in good spirits.

"Your eye is sharp. Among the seven top wizard universities of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, some have a view as narrow as the Storm Tower, limited to their immediate standing. Others, like your Golden Crown Mountain and the Rose Council, are fixated on their standing within the Three Marshlands."

"But our Bonifacius University keeps its eyes on the fifty-three wizard territories of the eastern territory, on the hundreds of wizard territories across the eight great territories, on the various colonial worlds, on new shipping routes, on the Chaos Sea, and on the Blue Cosmos."

Witch Georgina said, "Bonifacius University does not merely want to always be the first in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands. It needs to be the first in the Three Marshlands, a vital component of the eastern territory, and make itself a highly significant presence throughout the entire wizard world."

Witch Georgina said, "Unlike you, who prefer to recruit local wizards or wizards of special bloodlines, Bonifacius University is very open. Half of our students are not from local wizard territories and are not even from the eastern territory."

Locke made no comment, simply listening while nodding.

Unlike the fervent Witch Georgina, Locke knew that goals were only a kind of ideal, and whether they could be realized was what truly mattered.

Bonifacius University was indeed currently the top institution in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, but wanting to compare itself with those super-scale wizard universities in the Raze Lowlands, which had been cultivated through the resources of entire wizard territories, was asking more than the Cloud Marsh Wetlands alone could provide.

So while Bonifacius University itself had considerable strength, three problems were difficult to resolve, making it impossible to compete with those in the Star Domain Sea and the Raze Lowlands.

First, its reputation was relatively limited, which made it difficult to recruit top-tier wizard mentors.

Second, its source of students was still insufficient, and the Cloud Marsh Wetlands was not going to give it any more policy favoritism.

Third, finances.

Witch Georgina and Locke made their way up to the library's sixth floor, the Second Circle wizard section, where all those coming and going were now Second Circle wizards of Bonifacius University.

Locke could encounter a good number of star ring and moon ring wizards here, but sun ring wizards were rarely to be seen.

He quickly figured out the reason, though.

Currently, because the Genesis Academic Conference was being held in the southern territory, many Third Circle wizards had gone there, which naturally meant that the responsibility of managing the main affairs of the major universities in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands had fallen to the sun ring wizards.

So sun ring wizards should be very busy right now.

Witch Georgina spoke more quietly now than she had on the first floor and said in a lower voice, "My standing at Bonifacius University is still relatively low right now. Bonifacius University is a colossal institution, and I want to contribute my own efforts toward building it."

"I do not know whether my efforts alone will be enough for me to stay on here."

Locke looked at Witch Georgina and said, "Georgina, do you want to remain in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands? I thought you might go to the Star Domain Sea."

Witch Georgina shook her head.

"Bonifacius is my home. And besides, I have a mark against me."

Locke thought, "The Star Domain Sea has always had no ideological stance. They only review credentials and would not look strictly into one's parents' generation."

Locke immediately realized he had spoken out of turn, cleared his throat, and explained, "Your affairs, I only learned about from friends who mentioned them in passing."

From behind her mask, Witch Georgina let out a sound like silver bells ringing.

"You have no need to feel sorry. Locke, you are truly kind-hearted. No one has ever felt embarrassed for knowing about my affairs, or apologized to me for it."

"It was Witch Diana who told you, was it not? It is fine. She has told me quite a few things about you as well."

Witch Georgina said, "But it is myself I cannot forgive. I want to stay here, to build this wizard university, to atone for my mistakes and wash away the shame I carry."

Locke hesitated before speaking.

"Even now that you know we have cooperation with black wizards, and that the five great wars are pushed along from behind by the major wizard universities?"

Witch Georgina said, "Using everything around us to achieve our own goals is one of the eight great virtues of our world. I see nothing wrong with that. Besides, although we cooperate with the five great wars, the conflict outweighs the cooperation. Would you stop hunting void pirates because Golden Crown Mountain provides funding to the pirate mothership?"

"Would you refuse to cooperate with someone who is your enemy if there were profit to be had?"

A laugh came from behind Witch Georgina's mask.

"No, you would not. Abandoning profit is the true betrayal of our society's values."

Locke looked at Witch Georgina, recognizing her as a thorough practitioner of white wizard society's values. Honestly, she should never have studied weaving studies. If she had gone straight into divine studies magic, that would have been far better than what she had now.

Witch Georgina brought Locke to a bookshelf.

"This is where the publicly available free materials are. You do not have our Bonifacius University's Second Circle contribution points and cannot redeem the paid documents here. But I believe the free documents alone should be sufficient."

"Do not look at me like that. I do not have any Second Circle contribution points on hand at the moment either. Contribution points are always in short supply in our laboratory, and even any surplus points have long been claimed by my colleagues to redeem the articles they need."

Locke gave a slight nod.

"They are indeed sufficient."

The free documents in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands were generally materials from more than fifty years ago, and research from within the last fifty years required contribution points to access.

In other words, using only the content in Bonifacius University's Second Circle free section was entirely enough for his current purposes.

Locke spoke a few keywords to the Flying Ball Messenger wizard ceramics, and at once they began automatically seeking out the magical books he needed.

One magical book after another was picked up in the ceramics' mouths and placed precisely before him.

"Just in terms of finding books, they really can compare to a generalist wizard."

Locke flipped through the magical books in his hands.

"Bonifacius University's breeding studies, as expected, has a different developmental emphasis from Golden Crown Mountain's. Golden Crown Mountain's breeding studies leans toward agronomy, while Bonifacius University's leans toward urban greenery."

"The magical plants they study tend toward large-scale environmental modification, placing certain magical plants in regions with the expectation of improving those areas' micro-environments."

A gleam appeared in Locke's eyes. "Their research on rhizosphere studies is quite in-depth, and there is a large body of research on virtual roots as well. This is a real windfall. Reading magical books here gives me the feeling of gaining insight through analogy, as if I have come to see breeding studies from an entirely new angle. This is highly inspiring."

Witch Georgina glanced at Locke, who was absorbed in magical books and showed no sign of heading to the laboratory to begin experiments.

She frowned slightly, a look of puzzlement in her eyes.

Because breeding studies was an experimental discipline, and among experimental disciplines, because of life cycles, it had an almost uniquely long experimental period, only marginally shorter than astronomy.

So most Second Circle breeders were typically covered in soil and had at least one clone busy at work in the laboratory's magical fields all day long.

Anyone who did not know better, seeing this, would inevitably say, is this not just a farmer?

So why was Locke just sitting in the library?

Witch Georgina said nothing further. Her long experience of being looked down on had cultivated in her a character of careful words and cautious actions. It was only when facing Locke, this old rival, that she spoke a few more words than usual.

Perhaps his clone was already busily at work in the magical fields of Golden Crown Mountain.

...

Golden Crown Mountain. Locke's ancient tree clone had finally returned to this sacred mountain from which a golden sun hung above.

Though his first step was to bring Witch Stephanie to sit on Little Peach Mountain and watch a sunrise with her.

High Priestess Stephanie looked at Locke with wary eyes.

"Lord Augustine, what have you brought me here for?"

Locke stood with his hands clasped behind his back at the highest point of a stone beside Little Peach Mountain's peach orchard, looking toward the sky, pointing at the sun above, and said, "High Priestess Stephanie, how long has it been since you last looked at the sun in the sky?"

Witch Stephanie smiled bitterly.

"We necromancy wizards are not permitted to bathe freely in sunlight, as it disperses the death energy we accumulate. Not only we necromancy wizards, but virtually all death mages are the same."

"So this is one of the rare occasions I have seen a sunrise since becoming a wizard."

Locke smiled and said, "Then just before you die, I have brought you to see a sunrise. Would that not mean you could die without regret?"

Stephanie fell silent for a moment at these fierce words.

"Eye Demon Wizard. To ordinary people or other wizards, the morning sun rising might be a beautiful sight, but to me it is merely something I cannot touch and find repellent. There is nothing here to fill a regret."

"Eye Demon Wizard, what you want me to say, I truly cannot say. If I told you, I would have no more value to you. And my secrets are held by the Pale Pilgrimage. If I betray them, my fate will be terrible."

"So unless you give me the opportunity to join a lower-tier institution affiliated with Golden Crown Mountain, I cannot speak. No matter how you torture me, that remains the case."

"Even if you invite me into Golden Crown Mountain's prison, my stance will be the same."

Witch Stephanie looked at Locke with tension.

"Although you are a Second Circle wizard, I have already placed a magical seal on my soul."

"If that seal is forcibly broken, my soul will self-destruct."

Witch Stephanie seemed to understand clearly that her only chance at survival lay in Locke wanting to obtain the core spell inheritance of the Ghost Sacred Order's necromancy from her.

Over these past few days, in order to survive, she had indeed been squeezing out bits and pieces of it little by little.

But always like squeezing toothpaste.

The ritual spell model of the Ghost Sacred Order that Locke truly wanted still seemed very far from being fully revealed.

Locke turned to look at Witch Stephanie, placed his index finger to his lips, and said softly, "Quiet, please. Golden Crown Mountain's sunrise is extremely beautiful. This is a White Wizard Association-certified Five-A scenic area. I brought you here simply to let you see the sunrise."

"Look, over there."

Witch Stephanie looked with a puzzled expression, not understanding why Locke had brought her here.

At this moment, she saw that the sun had just risen into the high sky above Golden Crown Mountain, and one by one, formal wizards on small flyers were heading in the direction of that sun.

In Witch Stephanie's eyes, Golden Crown Mountain and the sun appeared to have established some kind of magical formation between them, through which fire energy from the sky could be harvested, converted into a magical tide, and brought down upon Golden Crown Mountain as energy to nourish the magical plants.

This made Golden Crown Mountain and the sun of the wizard world seem nearly connected as one.

Witch Stephanie was inwardly astonished. This was, after all, the top-tier institution among the major wizard territories of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands. Such methods were things she had never even seen in the southeastern quadrant.

Yet as she continued to watch, something seemed increasingly wrong.

Those wizards on the small flyers approaching the sun, even with the shell of the permanent defensive force field protecting them, were repeatedly scorched all over their bodies like shrimp stripped of their shell, due to being too close to the sun through that special magical formation connecting heaven and earth.

Some First Circle wizards even fell from the sky due to the heat, dropping from their small flyers.

Witch Stephanie was shaken by what she saw.

Because the wizards piloting those small flyers, travelling back and forth within the special magical formation, were not wearing the attire of Golden Crown Mountain's faculty and staff.

Witch Stephanie opened her eyes wide, looked at those wizards whose bodies were being scorched nearly to the point of peeling from sunlight, and swallowed.

"Those people are not Golden Crown Mountain's wizards, are they."

Locke nodded and said, "This job pays very well, thirty thousand magic stones per month. But the damage to the body and soul is severe. Doing it for a short time will not kill you, but it does leave serious aftereffects. And setting aside the aftereffects, just look at them, working practically inside the fire of the sun, barely short of bursting into flame."

"Stephanie, you guessed correctly. Those people are Golden Crown Mountain's wizard prisoners."

"They cannot even be called debt slaves."

Witch Stephanie looked at Locke with confusion and fear in her eyes.

Locke smiled and said, "In legal terms, if a person were treated this way, it would long ago have triggered an ethics and morality review. But the problem is that black wizards do not count as people. So, looking at this scene, where exactly is anyone being treated unjustly?"

"High Priestess, in the moment you refined the wronged souls of your own students into your magic, you should have understood that if you do not treat others as people, others can treat you as not being a person."

The color drained entirely from Witch Stephanie's face in an instant.

"Eye Demon Wizard, I have regrets."

Locke said, "Oh?"

Witch Stephanie sighed.

"Every time I think back to how, that year, I did not force myself to kill you, and instead exchanged you for a formal witch of our Ghost Sacred Order, I feel regret."

"That year, I made a mistake."

"This is my ritual spell model. Take it, Eye Demon Wizard."

Witch Stephanie extracted a spell model from her own soul.

She said, "I only hope you will let the sacred wizard tribunal sentence me to death rather than send me to a place like that."

Locke examined the spell model she had given him and at last confirmed that this was indeed what he wanted.

A light came into Locke's eyes.

"I see. The core of this ritual magic is the superimposition of two individuals' consciousness waves, and then by using the special properties of the Stygian River, what is completed at the level of consciousness can be projected into reality."

Locke was inspired by the thinking behind this spell model.

At the same time, through this spell model he learned that the founder of the Ghost Sacred Order appeared to be an existence within the Pale Pilgrimage's ranks known by the title of the Necromantic Lich.

That being had used the special properties of the Stygian River to create a consciousness wave superimposition magic of extraordinary skill.

Truly in a class by itself.

It was also for this reason that this spell had been the Ghost Sacred Order's five-hundred-year secret, known only to the high priestess.

"Necromantic Lich?"

Locke said the name softly.

Witch Stephanie seemed somewhat frightened.

"Eye Demon Wizard, please do not speak our patriarch's name carelessly. It will bring misfortune."

Locke glanced at her, then lowered his head in thought. 'This old one's thinking gives me a feeling that is not exceptionally clever, yet has been tempered through long experience.'

'The Necromantic Lich must be a wizard who has lived for a very long time.'

'This being created such an exquisite spell model through the accumulation of experience alone.'

'And moreover...'

Locke had not previously had a clear understanding of the difference between a permanent defensive force field shell and a permanent defensive force field. He had only just become a Second Circle wizard, and while he had obtained the permanent defensive force field shell through combat before, he had never fully understood it.

When he had read books at Golden Crown Mountain on the subject, it had all been rather unclear.

But at this moment he finally understood what it was.

A normal permanent defensive force field was simply a three-dimensional structure within the soul.

That was the First Circle wizard's permanent defensive force field.

A Second Circle wizard's soul and Grand Magic each possessed an identical permanent defensive force field, and so after becoming a Second Circle wizard, the two permanent defensive force fields would overlap.

According to Golden Crown Mountain's explanation, one of the two permanent defensive force fields would transform into the original three-dimensional structure, and the other would transform into a single dimension of consciousness.

That is, three-dimensional spatial coordinates plus one dimension of consciousness.

Locke had previously read this with only a vague understanding, unsure where this one dimension of consciousness came from. After all, spirituality was not unfamiliar to wizards. Everyone could see it with spiritual sight at the first-class wizard apprentice stage, and seeing spirituality at the level of primal force was also achievable at the Second Circle stage.

So three-dimensional coordinates plus one dimension of spirituality was not difficult for him to grasp.

And his permanent defensive force field shell was a kind of change designed by high-circle wizards that would form without obstruction at that stage.

So Locke had never had much of an understanding of it before.

But at this moment, looking at the consciousness wave superimposition magic of the Ghost Sacred Order set by the Necromantic Lich, Locke suddenly realized something.

If an ordinary permanent defensive force field was equivalent to a wizard being under the protection of a car, then the permanent defensive force field shell was the ground on which that car stood.

This spell model revealed something to him. In the theoretical doctrine of necromancy studies, or of the Necromantic Lich, the world was understood as follows:

Consciousness is not produced by the soul. Rather, the soul exists within consciousness.

Consciousness constitutes a dimension.

Locke had also perceived this point from the spell model left by the Necromantic Lich in the Ghost Sacred Order. The Necromantic Lich seemed to believe that the soul was the inner observer of consciousness, that the soul was contained within consciousness, which was why a person could feel that the 'I' was still the same 'I.'

Because the 'I' was this stable soul body, while consciousness was a special spatial structure resembling an ocean.

Like a cup of water. The soul was the water inside the cup, and consciousness was the cup itself.

'Wizard civilization's consciousness sea and permanent defensive force field likely both drew reference from this achievement of soul studies.'

Locke thought, "The reason Golden Crown Mountain's library speaks so vaguely about this is because even the authors did not understand it themselves. Moreover, this is different from the three-dimensional plus one-dimensional spirituality of the dharmic realm and the virtual sea, which are things we can directly observe. The consciousness dimension indicated by the Necromantic Lich's spell model and the permanent defensive force field shell still only exists as a result derived within soul studies."

"Whether it truly exists is difficult to confirm."

"Whether the permanent defensive force field shell really is three-dimensional coordinates plus one dimension of consciousness, I imagine the relevant researchers would all be unable to produce hard evidence to prove it. Perhaps that is simply a mistaken view."

In other words, this was the first time Locke had encountered, in the wizard world, a structure of his own body that he completely could not understand, with the wizard world itself speaking only vaguely about it.

Of course, it was also possible that the high-quality soul studies materials he could access were simply too few.

The Three Marshlands were not strong in this direction of magic.

Locke thought, 'But this thing that could be called a conjecture does not need to be proven in the Stygian World. It already exists there. Because the Stygian River is a consciousness plane. That is the special planar rule of that place.'

'Of course, based on the soul studies materials I have access to at present, I cannot confirm whether this conjecture holds in the wizard world and other life planes, or whether it is only a special phenomenon that requires magical power to create individually, a special kind of soul structure.'