Chapter 846: Southern Gold’s Overtures and Restarting the Feathered Serpent Pavilion’s Ladder

After thinking it over, Locke still decided to accept the other party's friend request.

The other party quickly sent him a message containing a detailed introduction to the Southern Gold journal. Locke read through it briefly and found it was a journal that had only been established for ten years, currently with only a Second Circle section and no First Circle section.

Moreover, although it called itself a golden magic journal, based on Locke's observation, what was being discussed went beyond golden magic, with the content constantly veering toward the direction of undead magic.

This was enough to leave Locke speechless.

Soon, the other party sent him a message: "Hello, I am Solannas Mortes, a moon ring wizard of the Terminal Garden. It is a pleasure to be in contact with an outstanding archaeologist like yourself who has conducted in-depth research into golden magic. Our Southern Gold has always been committed to helping talented young individuals attain higher standing and greater academic achievement."

"We at Southern Gold hope to cooperate with you. We have noticed that you recently participated in the Small Breath Cup and the Golden Cup, so you should have quite a few papers to publish. We would like to invite you to submit your papers to our Southern Gold."

"Out of our support for young people, and with the backing of the Southern Wizard Capital's White Wizard Association for our work, publishing archaeology-related and golden magic-related papers in our Southern Gold will have a noticeably lower threshold for acceptance."

Locke was taken aback, not expecting that the other party, as a moon ring great wizard, would come directly to invite him personally.

Even less expected was that the other party would openly state that if he submitted to Southern Gold, the probability of acceptance would be higher.

Using this method to entice him into submitting to Southern Gold.

'It appears the power of the Southern Wizard Capital's Sacred Art Tribunal is relatively weak, and the White Wizard Association has been controlled by certain factions like the Land of Six Towers. Otherwise, this moon ring wizard would never dare send me a message like this on our first contact.'

Locke thought.

There were times when one needed to speak vaguely, precisely because one could not judge the other party's position and therefore could not give them any opening to seize on one's words as a handle.

So one could only be equivocal when speaking.

Yet this moon ring great wizard was being so direct, which clearly meant that either wizards from the Southern Wizard Capital were all naive and candid, or this person had something to back them up.

The latter possibility was obviously greater.

Soon, this Wizard Solannas Mortes sent him another message: "Of course, this will in no way affect the academic honor of our Southern Gold. You can take a look at the list of submitters whose papers have recently been accepted by our Southern Gold. You will find that this list has a high degree of overlap with Myriad Phenomena Crossroads."

"Because only the talented young individuals we believe in will receive the privilege of a lowered acceptance threshold. And these people are already capable of publishing papers in journals of the same tier. All of them have been through a selection process."

Locke looked at the two lists the other party had sent over, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

Good heavens. This was beyond high overlap. If one did not know any better, one might assume Southern Gold and Myriad Phenomena Crossroads were the same operation.

One copy for Myriad Phenomena Crossroads, one copy for Southern Gold, was that it?

Locke had never in his wildest imagination expected to find a journal copying another journal.

Locke sent a reply: "I am very honored to receive the invitation from Southern Gold. Only lately I have already mapped out my own goals. If I have a suitable paper in the future, I can submit it to Southern Gold."

After weighing things up, Locke still decided against making Southern Gold his first choice.

The reason was simple.

If he had any papers related to golden magical plants, why would he submit to Southern Gold rather than Myriad Phenomena Crossroads, which carried far greater credibility?

On top of that, he had already mastered the technique of lowering the acceptance threshold when submitting to Myriad Phenomena Crossroads.

However, he could not close that door entirely.

Because he could not rule out considering publishing in Southern Gold in the future. After all, it was a Tier 1 journal, and if a suitable paper came along, it was a viable option.

For an ordinary Second Circle wizard, being able to publish in any Tier 1journal was a decent credential boost.

Wizard Solannas Mortes seemed to have sensed that Locke had already mentally relegated Southern Gold to backup status, and so after Locke's reply, a very long time passed without another message from him.

Locke waited a while, and seeing no further message arrive, he called over three second-class wizard apprentice waitstaff from the Witch's Kitchen and had them carry his three crystallization wizard friends into one of the Witch's Kitchen's private rest rooms.

After arranging everything, Locke walked to the Witch's Kitchen's entrance. Suddenly a snowflake drifted down from above his head.

Locke extended his palm. The snowflake landed quietly in his hand.

He looked up, only to see heavy snow falling from the sky.

What was happening?

Was it not spring?

At that moment, some wizard customers inside the Witch's Kitchen were whispering amongst themselves.

"Here it comes again. There must be a problem along the Heavenly River's coast near the Three Marshes. Has the Heavenly River developed trouble again?"

"Hard to say. Looking at this, it seems the Heavenly River's flood season is approaching, which has caused the surrounding wizard territories to fall into elemental imbalance, leading to seasonal chaos and heavy snowfall spreading outward in all directions."

At that moment, a third sun appeared in the sky. Three suns now hung in the heavens, and Locke immediately felt the magical tide in the air become noticeably richer once again.

And this time, it was not merely a single-tier rise in the magical tide concentration gradient. It had risen by at least two to three tiers.

Locke sensed that as the magical tide concentration gradient rose, all the Root Domains floating upon the magical tide throughout the Cloud Marsh Wetlands had also lifted accordingly.

With the various Root Domains rising, the Grand Magics of the wizards anchored to those Root Domains were rising as well.

Locke even sensed that his own magical power was growing spontaneously.

He had not changed in any way, yet he seemed to have been strengthened once more.

Locke gazed at the three suns in the sky, feeling as though the great suns shone down upon him, three fires from the heavens continuously casting their light upon the land.

The Star Domain Sea's magic-raising plan had gone a step further.

But the next moment, what had been just a few drifting snowflakes became a torrent of falling snow, like a sky-shattering avalanche.

A wizard inside the Witch's Kitchen who was clearly from out of the region, appearing to have come from the Heavenly River's coast, had his expression change abruptly. He shot to his feet.

"The magical sealing embankments along the Heavenly River's coast must have developed problems. The Heavenly River's concentration gradient is rising far too quickly. The Heavenly Cold River has burst, and the Heavenly River Floods are coming."

Many wizards began whispering among themselves.

"A Magical Winter is not coming again, is it?"

"This is bad. The last Magical Winter was a hundred years ago. Young people today have no idea how terrifying a Magical Winter is."

"If a Magical Winter comes, does that not mean we will have to go looking for Kindling again?"

Locke looked up the information through the water hyacinth system and found that the Heavenly River was the most powerful magical river in the world, extraordinarily complex, and could no longer be explained by a single cause for its existence.

The forces composing it were immensely complex, with each section of the river different from the last. One could say it encompassed all things.

The Heavenly River ran through the eastern boundary zone, central boundary zone, and western boundary zone, a magical river shared among the three great zones.

The Heavenly River had seven major tributaries and three great lakes. Cloud Lake was the largest of these lakes.

Among the seven major tributaries was one called the Heavenly Cold River, located in the wizard territory along the Heavenly River's coast.

The waters of the Heavenly Cold River were bitterly cold, containing extraordinarily complex ice element magical power within. It was a river of ice-element magical energy.

This river of ice-element magical energy was generally stable in ordinary times, but if something unexpected occurred, it could burst its banks.

Ten thousand years ago, during a wizard war, the weaker side attempted to burst the Heavenly Cold River's banks to turn the tide of battle, but not only did they fail, they destroyed the Heavenly Cold River's embankments in the process, causing the river to change course. This set off the Heavenly Cold River's history of repeatedly flooding over the course of ten thousand years.

Later, even though magical sealing embankments had been built, ongoing financial difficulties had prevented the problem from being completely eradicated.

Only as subsequent rounds of sealing magic continued to accumulate and the embankments grew higher and higher, the Heavenly Cold River had remained stable for a hundred years, leading many wizards to believe the problem had been thoroughly resolved and that there was no need to lift the seals, dredge the riverbed, and completely eradicate the root problem.

But who could have expected that today, because the Star Domain Sea had raised the overall magical tide concentration gradient of fifty-three wizard territories in the eastern boundary zone for the third time, it would trigger the Heavenly Cold River's first embankment burst in a hundred years.

Snow fell thickly from the sky. The Heavenly Cold River's burst would trigger a chain reaction.

The entire eastern boundary zone was likely to suffer an enormous snowstorm disaster.

Even in spring, it would feel like deep winter.

Food production would decline, and impacts would ripple across every aspect of life.

The Heavenly River had an alternate name, the River of the Capital's Domain, representing that it contained limitless magical energy.

For as long as the Heavenly Cold River's embankments remained unrepaired, this endless snowstorm disaster would blanket more than half the eastern boundary zone and continue to spread, possibly even extending into other boundary zones.

Inside the Witch's Kitchen, one wizard slapped his forehead.

"Terrible. The research topic I recently chose was studying tropical magical creatures, specifically the Flame Whirl Snail. That kind of snail has extremely high requirements for ambient temperature. What do I do now? With the Heavenly Cold River bursting, those snails of mine will probably all die overnight."

Someone suggested, "Build a greenhouse?"

That Summoning School wizard's expression was one of anguished indignation.

"Where would I get the money? Are you suggesting I take out a bank loan just for a few snails?"

"I have no choice but to switch research topics. I spent so much effort raising five Flame Whirl Snails and was just about to continue the research. Now it is all back to zero. Damn the snowstorm, damn the Heavenly River's coast, damn the Star Domain Sea."

But there was also a liquefaction-stage wizard in the Witch's Kitchen who stood up with an expression of excitement.

"Has everyone noticed? Advancing will become considerably easier for us now."

"Before, I thought I still needed twenty or thirty years to reach the crystallization stage. But now, I am so much closer to the crystallization stage."

Locke looked around the Witch's Kitchen. The Star Domain Sea's magic-raising plan had already created quite a bit of disorder. Some were saddened, others were delighted. Some had gained and others had lost.

But regardless, the Star Domain Sea appeared to have no intention of changing its plans.

Locke looked at his Ganoderma magical plant and found that the Cloud Marsh Council had already issued an emergency motion: should resources be allocated to help the Heavenly River's coast repair the Heavenly Cold River?

Beside the two options of providing assistance and refusing assistance, over two hundred votes had been cast in an instant, and the count was still growing.

Locke thought it over and chose to vote for providing assistance.

The reason was simple.

The projects along the Heavenly River's coast had recently been won by Golden Crown Mountain, apparently secured by Golden Crown Mountain's internal Academic Committee, and the party primarily responsible for handling this matter was, as it happened, his own academic lineage.

That is to say, the Red Dragon Throne's academic lineage.

So among those most heavily affected by this Heavenly Cold River embankment burst, it was very likely his own academic lineage that would take the hardest hit.

In other words, he had just found himself to be the subject of the very news he had been watching from the sidelines.

An undeserved misfortune, Locke thought.

At the same time, in the Rose Council, Sun Ring Wizard Hades, who was in charge of affairs, discovered that the Heavenly Cold River, a tributary of the Heavenly River, had burst its banks. His expression immediately turned sour. He personally and the Rose Council both had some assets and properties along the Heavenly River's coast.

Those assets were about to depreciate.

Wait...

Wizard Hades suddenly had a smile appear on his face.

"But at the moment, the majority of the projects along the Heavenly River's coast are on Golden Crown Mountain's side. Ha ha ha. Although our losses are not small, it is as if I have only lost 100, while Golden Crown Mountain's side has lost 300."

As he continued to smile, the smile faded. He shook his head slightly.

"What a foolish way to comfort myself. As a sun ring wizard and white wizard, it is really quite inappropriate for me to have such a stupid thought. Even a single point of asset loss is unacceptable."

"Ideally, we would suffer zero asset losses and only my enemies would lose assets."

"So I still need to support the Heavenly River's coast in repairing the Heavenly Cold River. The Heavenly Cold River's burst is no joke. The Magical Winter disaster will summon those existences outside the heavens that have been stirring with intent against the wizard world. Those black wizards, those disc creatures."

"This must be resolved as quickly as possible."

…

Locke's clone was just about to return to his dormitory. He had recently been planning to make a long-overdue trip to the Feathered Serpent Pavilion.

Because while he had a complete set of materials for becoming a Second Circle breeder and held Witch Yekaterina's exclusive inheritance, he had no Second Circle inheritance related to potion studies. The truly high-quality kind of inheritance.

Locke had previously asked someone to search for one, but could only find inheritances of mediocre quality, not much good.

So he planned to visit the Feathered Serpent Pavilion and see if they could provide any assistance.

And if necessary, he could restart the Ladder test.

He wondered what relationship the Feathered Serpent Pavilion's Ladder had with the Truth Ladder.

But just as Locke was about to head out, Wizard Solannas Mortes, the moon ring wizard from Southern Gold, suddenly sent him another message.

"Perhaps our Southern Gold can make you a commissioned article offer."

"Wizard Augustine, you seem to be looking for a Second Circle archaeology inheritance. We in the Southern Wizard Capital have a copy of the Black and White Magical Text."

Locke, who had been only half-paying attention, suddenly fixed his gaze with seriousness.

There were only a thousand copies of the Black and White Magical Text in existence, not counting those already lost throughout history.

Yet this person was claiming that Southern Gold had access to a copy of the Black and White Magical Text?

Was it true or false?

A trap?

Locke sent a message.

"Would it be possible to borrow the Black and White Magical Text for a reading?"

Wizard Solannas Mortes replied immediately.

"That copy of the Black and White Magical Text is the private property of the Southern Wizard Capital's White Wizard Association's public library, which is to say the Wizard Capital Library. According to the rules, it cannot be lent out. However, we have a special agreement with that library and can obtain a small amount of copied content from it."

"That library is actually managed by a wizard university. Our Southern Wizard Capital's White Wizard Association has something of a unique character. The predecessor of the White Wizard Association here was an enormous composite-type wizard university."

"Wizard Augustine, as long as you submit papers to us, I will do my best to obtain that copied content for you."

Locke narrowed his eyes.