Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems

Chapter 656: The Problem With Super Intuition and the Mandelbrot Spiral

Half a month later, Locke, Witch Shirley, Wizard Warwick, and Wizard McKinley completed the first draft of the major paper.The four of them decided to go through a few more rounds of revision before submitting it to the archaeology journal "First Circle History" in the Star Domain Sea.

From the Cinder Esoteric Order, Locke learned that "First Circle History" was a journal that Wizard Warwick and the others had dreamed of submitting to for years, but had never had a realistic chance of being accepted by, and so they had never dared to try.

After all, sending a submission from here all the way to the Star Domain Sea alone cost a considerable sum for postage, and with no real chance of acceptance, there was naturally no point in submitting.

As for who would serve as corresponding author, the four discussed it and decided to handle it themselves.

After all, for a Star Domain Sea journal, it made little practical difference who served as corresponding author.

"First Circle History" was the most prestigious First Circle archaeology journal in the Star Domain Sea and was not particularly prone to seniority discrimination.

If the submission did not go through, they could always aim lower as a backup.

At the same time, they would also use this paper to apply for the Istoria Archaeology Award.

The major paper would largely lay out their findings on the reason the nameless king of the Era of Stars was expunged, the Mortal Age, and their survey of the Loom Princess's mausoleum.

Of course, Locke and Witch Shirley still withheld the final portion of their findings regarding the princess.

That portion, if disclosed, would have been of little benefit and might even have been harmful to their current goals of landing a top First Circle journal and winning an archaeology award.

"Professor Augustine... Professor Warwick, allow me to bring you the materials you requested..." The first-class wizard apprentice black wizard appeared extremely nervous. A wound ran along the corner of his mouth, splitting his entire face as though it had been cleaved in two, and the wound had never formed a scab, with raw flesh turned outward.

Locke glanced at his face and furrowed his brow slightly. "What happened to you? Did you use some kind of face-cutting curse on yourself?"

The first-class wizard apprentice black wizard clearly hadn't expected Locke to suddenly ask about his physical condition, and he replied with some discomfort, "Professor, the face-cutting curse can make my dark energy talent a bit stronger. My dark energy talent is only Level 4, which can't compare to a Child of Element, so I can only use this kind of method to enhance my undead magic talent a little."

Locke furrowed his brow slightly. "The drawbacks outweigh the benefits."

"A Level 4 talent... that's not bad."

He himself had only been at a Level 3 talent back when he was at Lilith's Cottage.

Locke looked at him and said, "Crush some Kurumos Obsidian Snail and apply it to the affected area of your face. It can reduce some of the side effects of the face-cutting curse. I hope that helps."

This was probably Locke's instinct as a potion master, or perhaps a habit left over from his time at the Healing Hand of Lilith's Cottage. The moment he saw the face-cutting curse on this wizard, he had unconsciously and immediately worked out both a solution and a way to temporarily reduce the side effects.

The first-class wizard apprentice black wizard was overwhelmed with joy. He almost immediately dropped to his knees before Locke. "Thank you, Teacher."

"Thank you. You are... so kind."

The black wizard thought for a moment, then held out five hundred magic stones to Locke. "Teacher, this is every magic stone I currently have. As a token of my gratitude, I offer these to you."

Locke glanced at him and said indifferently, "No need. You may go."

The black wizard apprentice froze for a moment, then, just before Locke's impatience could fully surface, immediately chose to leave the room.

Once he was through the door and the sunlight fell across his face, a look of puzzlement crossed his eyes. "Could it be that this official wizard wasn't hinting for me to offer him all my wealth?"

"Then why did he give me advice?"

A look of confusion passed through the first-class wizard apprentice's eyes as he stared at a stone by his feet, growing even more bewildered. "There is no such thing as a free lunch. But could it be that the official wizard truly just offhandedly said something useful to me?"

"That wasn't a trap?"

He suddenly fell silent. "What a pity that when I first entered wizard society, I didn't go to a white wizard academy."

...

Inside the lodgings the Cinder Esoteric Order had arranged for Locke, Locke sat on a leather sofa, took a sip of coffee, and gave a slight shake of his head. "What are these black wizard students thinking? They actually assumed I would care about the little bit of money they have."

"They thought I gave a casual reminder just to squeeze money out of them."

"Well, never mind. A good person in a cruel place is not the good person's fault," Locke said. "I only acted out of instinct as a potion master."

He waved a hand, and a Historical Projection spell model appeared before his eyes.

An ancient flower materialized in front of him.

Locke held his reference materials and began comparing them against the ancient flower. "The botany materials at the black wizard academy are truly sparse, but they're just barely sufficient. As I suspected, the distribution of petals and leaves on this ancient flower is completely abnormal. Truly bizarre. This is a Black Sun Tower-made unnatural plastic flower worthy of its reputation."

"Disturbingly strange. This is simply not a plant."

"Generally speaking, the flowers of magical plants arrange themselves along some kind of spiral, growing according to some mathematical rule, which allows for the optimal and near-optimal distribution of resources, including light, space, water, magic tides, and growth dynamics."

"They typically follow a golden angle spiral, an equidistant spiral, an equiangular spiral, or some kind of composite spiral, but all of them necessarily reflect a mathematical beauty that conforms to a mathematical pattern born from the optimal distribution of resources."

"But this ancient flower... the eerie feeling it gives me comes from the fact that it does not conform in the slightest to the natural laws that arise from natural growth."

Locke followed his own spell model and used a magical quill to draw a most unusual spiral on a sheet of drafting paper, a spiral that could absolutely never appear in natural growth from an energy-utilization standpoint.

"Between each nine-layered-petal flower, smaller flowers grow, and within those smaller flowers there are even smaller flowers, like nested spirals that share no regularity with one another, no symmetry at all, entirely random."

"At the microscopic level, the surface patterns of the flowers also run through this spiral... This kind of spiral is quite distinctive, but there is one called the Mandelbrot spiral that closely resembles it, almost identical. Yet this type of spiral is simply nowhere to be found in botany."

"Only a very small number of cauliflower magical plants and a handful of fern magical plant leaves might bear a faint resemblance, but even those are absolutely not the same. In the field of force-shaping magic, however, this spiral appears everywhere, and in lightning magic and water magic it appears constantly as well, because the Mandelbrot spiral is most commonly seen in rivers and lightning."

Locke's expression turned strange. "It is clearly a fake plastic flower, not a flower at all, and yet it insists on pretending to be one."

"Since it is a flower imitating a real flower, the growth patterns and markings of its petals and leaves are completely unlike those of a plant, and instead resemble the vortex patterns of lightning and rivers."

"So utterly random."

"I should record this spiral curve first. This brand-new spiral, similar to the Mandelbrot spiral but with subtle differences, appears to be some kind of energy-locking structure."

"Continuing to research it might yield new discoveries."

Locke sat on the sofa, and the more he studied the flower, the more he felt its unsettling strangeness.

No wonder King Otto had told him not to go near it, not to let curiosity take hold, and had believed that researching it would bring no benefit.

Locke took one of the flower's seeds from his astral ring, removed the Angel's Tear bracelet from his wrist, and then used an ordinary grafting knife to nick his index finger. Blood immediately began to flow.

"As long as I drip my blood onto this seed, according to King Otto's description, this plastic flower will bloom..."

"My super intuition is telling me that I... should let the blood drip on it."

Locke looked at the seed, placed it on the table with his left hand, and moved his right index finger to hover above it. He was just about to flip his hand over when, at that very moment, Locke suddenly withdrew his hand. "Something is wrong here."

"King Otto told me that even the Black Sun Tower needed to use sacrificial magic and spread rain made of blood in order to sow the ancient flowers. This flower destroyed an enormous dynasty. I must handle this with great caution."

Locke thought further. "But my super intuition is actually telling me... that I should immediately drip a drop of blood onto this seed. Wait, this super intuition comes from the demon dragon bloodline."

"The demon dragon bloodline is on my side in most situations. But last time, it stabbed me in the back. It was my teacher who helped me with the Peach Bow Thorn Arrow."

Locke took out the Wish Lingzhi magical plant and sent Witch Yekaterina an image-call request.

He should still ask his teacher about this.

This matter was too significant.

To Locke's surprise, since he had expected Witch Yekaterina might not bother responding to him, she picked up immediately.

Witch Yekaterina was sitting before a dressing mirror with her hair loose, while a half-dragon maidservant was combing through it.

The half-dragon maidservant was a magical hairdresser, a niche profession within the prophecy school.

By cutting hair, a magical hairdresser could alter a person's outward appearance and facial features, thereby indirectly shifting that person's luck, or making them appear more imposing, or nudging their appearance toward whatever direction the wizard required.

Every morning, Witch Yekaterina needed a dedicated magical hairdresser to tend to her hair.

Witch Yekaterina looked at Locke. "Locke, it has been a long time. When are you planning to come back?"

Locke said, "Teacher, thank you for thinking of me. Senior Sister and I are guests at the Cinder Esoteric Order right now. The experience has been decent."

He gave a brief account of what had happened, going through everything quickly except for the matter involving the princess, which he passed over with only a simple description, skipping the details and specifics.

Witch Yekaterina was not an archaeology wizard, and she was also a Third Circle wizard, so there was no problem telling her things.

Moreover, besides himself and Witch Shirley, she had no other First Circle archaeology wizards under her.

For the parts involving the princess, Locke used a simplified description that sidestepped the details, stating only that the Black Sun Tower had placed an Expungement Curse on both the mausoleum's owner and the nameless king, and that he wanted to investigate a certain message the mausoleum's owner had left for him.

He used this method to shield himself from the Expungement Curse's influence.

Witch Yekaterina applied a special shade of lipstick and then said, "Oh, you did well. Do not research that resin sphere anywhere other than Golden Crown Mountain."

Locke said, "Teacher, does that mean Golden Crown Mountain has a way to counter the Expungement Curse?"

Witch Yekaterina said, "Yes. It does."

Only now did Locke realize that the magic pressure of King Otto, the dominant power of the Era of Stars in ancient times, might have been roughly on par with Witch Yekaterina's.

After all, both of them were fairly close to the Fourth Circle.

Even if King Otto's magic pressure was slightly higher, it could not have been higher by much, and Witch Yekaterina had the crystallization of modern magical civilization on her side.

Witch Yekaterina said, "As for the side effects of the Expungement Curse alone, you have no need to worry. Golden Crown Mountain, as one of the Seven Top Academies of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, naturally has no reason to fear the side effects of a mere Expungement Curse."

"But do not research it in other regions."

"You will die, Locke."

Locke's heart gave a jolt.

Sure enough, his earlier judgment had been correct.

Witch Yekaterina said, "Let me have a look at the seed of that so-called plastic flower."

Locke turned around, aimed the Wish Lingzhi at the tabletop, and showed Witch Yekaterina the ancient flower seed.

Throne Lord Yekaterina had been casually and meticulously applying her lipstick up to that point, but upon seeing the seed on the table, she let out a soft sound of surprise. "The Black Sun Tower..."

"This thing... there are traces of sacrificial magic on it, and besides, this is not a seed. It is an artificial construct. And moreover, it is an artificial construct that is trying to disguise itself as a normal seed."

Locke asked with curiosity, "Teacher, have you made sense of it?"

Witch Yekaterina said, "Yes. Stay away from that inauspicious thing."

"You mentioned earlier that dripping your own blood onto it would cause it to 'grow.' I strongly advise you not to. Because you are my last and most beloved disciple, I truly have no desire to watch Shirley bring back your dried corpse."

Locke's heart gave another jolt. "Teacher? My super intuition confirmed my safety and urged me to drip the blood on it as soon as possible."

A thoughtful look crossed Witch Yekaterina's face. "Hmm... prophetic ability can neither be entirely disbelieved nor entirely trusted. But in any case, this is merely a soul artifact. Let me ask you: since it is a soul artifact, it cannot grow like a true seed and living organism. So what would it need in order to obtain life and grow as a natural creation does?"

Locke's heart lurched. "It would take my life... and then it would have life."

Witch Yekaterina smiled. "Not entirely dim. But your level of being is not yet sufficient. If you were to become a Second Circle wizard, I believe your level of being would be enough."

"Sacrificial magic has long since vanished, replaced by ritual magic. You could certainly observe and study that seed carefully, drawing comparisons and references. There is still much to be gained from it."

"As for dripping blood onto it?"

"I advise against it."

Locke bowed to Witch Yekaterina and said, "Teacher, thank you for the warning. You've helped me escape disaster."

A cold sweat broke out across Locke's back.

These ultra-ancient objects were truly far too dangerous. He hadn't expected that he had nearly gotten himself killed just now.

Witch Yekaterina said, "I wouldn't say I saved you either. The fact that you came to me specifically over this matter shows that you already had your own doubts."

"Locke, you should approach these ultra-ancient objects with a much more cautious attitude. They are of mysterious origin, full of danger, and are not harmless little white rabbits you can play with as you please."

Locke bowed to Witch Yekaterina once more. "Thank you for the reminder, Teacher."

Witch Yekaterina said, "Show me your Full Moon Growth."

Locke chanted the incantation and summoned a full moon.

Witch Yekaterina looked on with satisfaction. "Not bad. The essence of this Grand Magic is quite high."

"Although it is still rough and crude, and amounts to very little at present, it at least starts from a very elevated foundation."

"Rather than a Grand Magic that is small but complete, I would prefer you to choose a Grand Magic with lofty ambitions that is temporarily crude and unfinished. With lofty ambitions, even if you cannot fully realize them, you will gain far more in the process of striving toward them."