Chapter 447: Three Magic Rings and Inspiration
The ability of the Shadow Eye Grass to transfer spells is obtained by watering it with Mammon Devil blood; essentially, the Shadow Eye Grass is a magic plant of the Abyss series.
Because of this, Locke can use the visual transfer spell from a medium-to-long distance, as Abyss Energy itself has the characteristic of long-distance transmission.
Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many Planes invaded by Abyss Energy, resulting in the appearance of Abyss ecological communities.
Even the Wizard World itself contains a large number of such Abyss ecological communities; for instance, the Southeast Corner Region once suffered an Abyss magic plant catastrophe.
Locke determined the Black Wizard's location through the Eye Grass. He crossed the street, stood above the sewer, and used sea gold sand to gather gold sand spore powder to pull the Black Wizard—who had been knocked unconscious and rendered powerless by the Earth-Polarity Elemental Magnetism—out from below the sewer.
He then took the four rings from his fingers: an astral ring and three defense Magic items.
Locke glanced at these three defense Magic items and noticed that the details of the three rings were engraved with their origin; they actually came from the hand of a Second Ring Wizard from Dragonfall Land.
This was because the rings bore the signature of this Second Ring Wizard, as well as his wizard level—a small '2'—and an indication that these were works from his First Ring stage.
"Zosimus Heinrich."
"It seems Dragonfall Land specializes in producing famous Alchemists." Locke used his telekinesis to strike the three Magic items, temporarily clearing the soul imprints left on their surfaces and sealing them. Once he returned, he could imprint his own spiritual mark on these three Magic items, making them his own.
Speaking of which, this was the first time he had obtained defense Magic items.
Judging from the clash just now, these three defense Magic items combined could withstand a full-strength blow from him without using Abyss Energy or the fierce beast panel; they were indeed decent treasures.
At the same time, Locke quickly searched the person but found nothing else except a sheet of letter paper. Additionally, to Locke's surprise, the Black Wizard's astral ring was only the smallest size, with an internal space about as large as a single room, and it was completely empty.
Aside from some casting materials for the Deformation School and some tools and potions useless to him, only a silver dagger Magic item looked fairly good.
Locke likewise cleared the soul imprint from it and placed it into his own astral ring.
Wizard Sfendice arrived in a hurry. Seeing that Locke had captured the Black Wizard, he breathed a sigh of relief and said to Locke, "I will hand over this student of mine, Barnaby, along with several other students, to the Plutarch Family and explain everything here."
"This time... I was indeed presumptuous. Perhaps I was also used by some people with ulterior motives."
Barnaby's face was deathly pale, but he had been sealed by Wizard Sfendice using a Universal Bloodline Spell, a Blood Rope, rendering him unable to move.
After Wizard Sfendice bowed and apologized to Locke, he hurriedly left with Barnaby, heading for the Law Enforcement Hall department of the White Dragon Tower. The one in charge of the Law Enforcement Hall was a First Ring Crystallization Stage wizard from the Plutarch Family.
Clearly, Wizard Sfendice wanted to cut ties with Barnaby, who had obvious connections to the Black Wizard. This situation had forced him to reach the point where he would rather risk offending the Cooper Family than fail to distinguish his responsibilities from Barnaby's.
Locke, meanwhile, looked at the Black Wizard in his hand, who was currently affected by the Earth-Polarity Elemental Magnetism.
The Earth-Polarity Elemental Magnetism emitted by the Three-Eyed Tiger-Eyed Cat's Innate Magic Eye had the effect of interfering with a person's consciousness magnetic field. At this moment, the Black Wizard in his hand clearly had a scattered consciousness magnetic field; without outside help, he would likely remain in a deep coma for at least several weeks.
As Locke was considering how to deal with him—whether to kill him, interrogate him first, use him as flower fertilizer, or as experimental material—the letter paper he had taken from the Black Wizard suddenly floated into the air on its own.
Lines of text appeared upon it—
[I am the person in charge of the large-scale Black Wizard organization, Ladybug Marauder, in the Six Towers Land. Hello, this wizard, Jakes, is one of the assets of our Ladybug Marauder.]
[We, the Ladybug Marauder, specialize in stealing laboratory data for others. Whether it is peripheral data or internal data, we can steal it. Even as long as you are willing to pay a heavy price, we can absolutely steal the experimental data you desire and publish the article ahead of the original project team before they can.]
[Claiming their results as your own.]
[We, the Ladybug Marauder, specifically serve the vast number of wizards who suffer from a lack of published articles.]
Locke raised an eyebrow; the wizard behind this letter paper actually called this a service.
The letter paper continued to write— [We have detected that Wizard Jakes has lost his ability to act and found that he has fallen into a coma. You will gain no benefit from sending him to the Wizard Prison, and using him as experimental material is of little significance. The wizards of our organization have many contingencies left on them; even if captured, they will not reveal anything related to us, and their bodies will self-destruct to reduce the torture they suffer.]
[Therefore, I wish to make a deal with you.]
Locke raised an eyebrow. No wonder this Wizard Jakes of the Deformation School had almost nothing in his astral ring when performing the mission, only some essentials.
So, is it because when a Ladybug Marauder is captured, the organization behind them will attempt to negotiate?
[The contents of the deal are as follows: If you agree to let this wizard go, we will provide you with a set of checks from the Fairy Family Bank. After we confirm the person has been released, you may withdraw the checks, totaling five magic crystal cards.]
[At the same time, the Three-Element Shield Magic Rings from Master Heinrich that you hold require a special magic lock password; otherwise, even with a soul imprint, they cannot be used. The Enchanted Lock of the Protection School will forever shroud these three rings.]
[Turning them into scrap metal.]
[Additionally, the Shadow Sting Dagger in your hand is the same. The Three-Element Shield can stack elemental shields; three elemental shields stacked together form a multiple magic shield like a golem's, briefly stacking defense power to a level equivalent to a wizard's Eternal Defense Field. The effect is quite good. May I ask if you wish to make this deal with us?]
Locke thought for a moment. Three-Element Shield?
Stacking shields?
He suddenly associated this with the Chain Magic Vine project he was working on and immediately thought, 'Right, I've been going in the wrong direction all along. I don't need to accumulate the wizard's Eternal Defense Field like magic pressure; I only need to stack the wizard's Eternal Defense Field in layers.'
'That would work.'
Locke was suddenly struck by a realization, 'The original Eternal Defense Field Spell Model is very complex. Stacking different Eternal Defense Fields cannot blend like energy and magic pressure; instead, they would conflict with each other and actually become weaker.'
'So, it's not about the Eternal Defense Fields merging with each other, but rather stacking them in layers, just like those Three-Element Shield rings just now, placing three elemental shields on one wizard at the same time.'
'A wizard is like wearing three different sets of clothes, and my Chain Magic Vine can also achieve this. Currently, it can already stack magic pressure, and it can also parasitize an Eternal Defense Field, absorbing a certain Eternal Defense Field through the magic plant and displaying it on the leaves.'
'Then next, what I need to do is not the incredibly difficult merging of Eternal Defense Fields, but rather merging Eternal Defense Fields into different leaves of the Chain Magic Vine, and then letting those leaves stack together. This way, at the First Ring stage, I can stack the Eternal Defense Fields of different wizards in both strength and quantity, turning this into a foreseeable reality.'
Locke suddenly understood everything.
He had thought it was too difficult before, but it actually didn't need to be that hard, and it could achieve the same effect.
Sometimes, inspiration comes just like that.
During the long experimental process, through day-by-day accumulation, one day it all bursts forth, and the train of thought suddenly emerges and becomes clear.
Following this line of thought, the magic plant in his project application wouldn't be difficult to make at all.
Creating it within the remaining eleven months would no longer be a fantasy.
Locke immediately took advantage of his inspiration to adjust his thoughts, modify formulas, and take out pen and paper to record these insights.
The letter paper floating in the air waited for a long time, then wrote— [So, has the deal failed?]
Locke took out a magic quill and quickly wrote a line of elegant text on it— [No, we can trade.]
[But I also need to add a condition to the deal: tell me who hired you to steal my experimental data.]
This person was far too sneaky.
But he was truly curious about who was being so tedious.
There was no response from the letter paper for a long time, then a line of text suddenly appeared— [This is truly a difficult deal; protecting the client's privacy is also something we, the Ladybug Marauder, must do. But we are Black Wizards, so we don't necessarily have to follow the rules that strictly. I can only tell you that the other party is from the Spiral Basin; that is the limit.]
[If you don't believe it, there's nothing I can do. Furthermore, I can activate the Protection School magic on this wizard.]
Locke saw a series of black patterns appear on the Black Wizard's body.
Locke immediately recognized it; it was a Protection School spell—Subspace Seal.
This was a spell that could only be used at the cost of sacrificing one's own life as an offering to a special zone in the void, the Subspace zone. This person and the objects around him would be sealed in the special zone of the void, the Subspace Ring Belt.
This was a typical sub-direction of Protection School sealing magic, and specifically a relatively unpopular and niche exile magic within sealing studies.
This belonged to the same category of magic as the First Ring spell [Forced Exile] developed by the Purple Path of Exile that he had encountered on the wizard airship before, but because activating it required sacrificing the life of a First Ring Wizard, the effect was even more startling.
Locke pondered for a moment and found that the other party was indeed worthy of being called Black Wizards, to actually be able to tattoo this kind of magic onto a Liquefaction Stage wizard.
'I'm afraid this Ladybug Marauder is also using this method to threaten these Black Wizards into working for them,' Locke thought immediately. 'Otherwise, with the skills of these Black Wizards, why would they have to do this kind of dirty and exhausting work of stealing lab data for others? They were probably branded with these sealing spells back during their apprentice stage.'
'Even after becoming Formal Wizards, they are still exploited by even higher-level Black Wizards.'
Worthy of being Black Wizards indeed.
Students in the Six Towers Land generally only need to become First Ring Wizards to at least have the qualification to slack off.
As long as you don't have many dreams, you can live very happily in the Six Towers Land, being a teaching assistant, acting all high and mighty in front of Third-Class Wizard Apprentice students, and lording it over them all day; you can still live as a superior person in the eyes of the Third-Class Wizard Apprentices.
But for these Black Wizards, once they enter the organization, it is as deep as the sea.
Even a genius like Hussein had to put in so much effort and take such huge risks to break free from the Black Wizards.
Locke wrote on the letter paper— [Fine. But I am only letting him go; I am not responsible for helping him get back.]
A line of text immediately appeared on the letter paper, which was a string of check numbers from the Fairy Bank, as well as the activation passwords for the four Magic items.
At the same time, a line of text was left— [Of course, as long as the famous Eye Demon Wizard does not interfere, we have a way to get him back without anyone's help.]
[If the Eye Demon Wizard ever desires our services, you only need to recite this incantation... and then add 'Quickly bring true knowledge and offer it to my hand' at the end to establish contact with the astrology system developed by our Ladybug Marauder. However, the area covered by our astrology system is somewhat large and must remain undetected, so the signal may not be very good; if there is no response once, you can try a few more times, sometimes it might take a few days.]
[Whatever data the Eye Demon Wizard desires, we can steal it for you, as long as you pay. Would you like the development progress of the Ancient Tree of Life of that person from the Sun Shadow Peninsula, currently ranked first in the Yunze Cup, or the development progress of that witch from the Yunze Wetland, currently ranked second?]
Locke simply waved his hand, and the letter paper immediately burned on its own under the effect of the Primal Fire. "Not interested. What difference does it make even if I know someone else's progress?"
"Doing my own work well is the only thing I can do."
The Primal Fire burns everything; even the letter paper was consumed, and the bloodline power hidden within it was instantly secreted out bit by bit, dispersing into the air.
At the same time, Locke saw a new sealing array appear on the chest of the Black Wizard beside him. That was also a space-exile type sealing spell; three concentric circles appeared on his chest, with several black ink marks in the center of the circles. Drops of black ink flew out from the pattern on his chest, then gathered together to become an ink ball.
Following that, the sealing array took about ten minutes to construct.
Suddenly, in an instant, the black ink ball grew larger, enveloping the Black Wizard within it, and then rapidly shrank.
The Black Wizard had already disappeared, and the ink ball also shrank infinitely before vanishing into mid-air.
"This is... it seems to be Dimensional Exile Magic, a spell used to exile certain wizards to a designated demiplane..."
"This was originally a sealing spell; are they actually using this kind of spell to retreat? No wonder they needed me not to interfere; just constructing the array took ten minutes."
"I wonder if he was originally prepared to use this spell to leave the White Dragon Tower. No, this spell can indeed transport one to a designated demiplane, and then one can come out of the demiplane, return to the Six Towers Land, and then find a way to leave the Six Towers Land. But during the exile process, there is damage to both mana and the body."
"Even for the Ladybug Marauder, it should be an uncommon method of retreat."
Locke entered the passwords into the four Magic items, and immediately the four Magic items were activated, with the soul imprints inside completely cleared.
Locke was able to successfully leave his own soul imprint within the four Magic items. "They were actually telling the truth."
Locke opened the grey mist slate, clicked into the small group, and left a line of text. 'Recently captured a Black Wizard from the Ladybug Marauder, who said someone hired them to steal my data. After I caught him, he said the person who hired them is from the Spiral Basin.'