Chapter 962

Chapter 956 The Dragon of the End and the Struggle for the Wyvern Garden of Nexus

The Purification Spring suddenly exploded, its purified water boiling and countless droplets flying everywhere.

Locke emerged from the bottom of the Purification Spring, looking at the immortal dragon scale on the back of his hand. At this moment, the immortal dragon scale was still completely black, except for an eye pattern on it.

“After 32 failed attempts, I finally allowed my demonic dragon bloodline to kill the abyssal energy cycle belonging to the Eye Demon located in my eye through the Peach Guardian Curse. In other words, I originally needed to fail at least 31 times to complete this step. Without the Purification Spring’s ability to reset my stats, I would never have dared to do this outside.”

Locke’s eyes turned completely black, but the next moment, they returned to normal on their own.

“Finally, I managed to complete the plan to repair the demonic dragon with abyssal energy in the last half hour.”

Locke closed his eyes. At this moment, the demonic dragon bloodline within his sea of consciousness had undergone changes. The previously incomplete body was now complete, half of it the original world-destroying demonic dragon, and the other half a body of abyssal energy.

However, this abyssal energy body only had a dragon shape, without any specific features or details.

At the same time, many eyes appeared on the three-headed demonic dragon’s body, those eyes very similar to those of the Eye Demon, and his demonic dragon bloodline still held the Golden Peach, showing a tendency to advance to the Star Ring bloodline.

“It has evolved.”

Locke was slightly pleased to see this. All along, he had been completely unable to interfere with this demonic dragon bloodline, but now he could finally interfere with it.

“As expected… Abyssal energy possesses high adaptability. My guess was correct; almost everything in the endless void can be abyss-ified. Abyssal energy itself has high adaptability; while strengthening the dragon bloodline with abyssal energy, it can repair its missing parts.”

“Although the main framework of this bloodline is still the World-Destroying Dragon, it has been modified by me, creating a difference from the World-Destroying Dragon of the Black Sun Tower.”

“The chaotic abyssal energy should be able to mislead the Black Sun Tower.”

“However…”

Locke noticed the pattern on the dragon scale on the back of his hand switching between an eye pattern and an ouroboros pattern, but the ouroboros pattern quickly disappeared from the dragon scale, leaving only an eye pattern.

Locke pondered, “The collision of abyssal energy and dragon power seems to have produced some kind of different change. What kind of power is that?”

“I’ll go to the library to check the information.”

Locke voluntarily left the Purification Spring, as time had run out. Even if he wanted to stay there, he would probably be forcibly teleported out by the witch array’s restrictions.

Locke changed his clothes, bowed to the old Sun Ring Wizard guarding the Purifying Spring, and then quickly left, heading straight for the library at Golden Crown Mountain. He entered the Second Ring area and found Ackerman.

Ackerman said, “Good evening, Locke. What do you need? Wait a moment…”

The troll wizard’s eyes widened in horror.

“This magic pressure… You’ve become a Star Ring Wizard?”

Locke nodded slightly. “I’m the champion of the Silent Tournament, this speed should be considered normal.”

The troll wizard pursed his lips, revealing an expression of disbelief, envy, and jealousy. “That’s true, your soul is still in a very young stage, the most vibrant state.”

“My goodness, you haven’t yet entered the peak period of a wizard’s life. You know, a wizard’s magical level doesn’t always rise in a straight line; it’s not that simple. In their career, there are times of explosive, rapid advancement, times of stagnation, and times of regression.”

“A wizard’s peak period of achievement is roughly when they’ve just emerged from the blank slate, accumulated their own experience, and no longer have too many fixed, rigid thought patterns about things.”

“And you probably haven’t even entered that stage yet, look at your eyes filled with thirst for knowledge. However, few people can say for sure when a wizard’s breakthrough period will occur. It could be when they are very young, between thirty and fifty years old, or even around a hundred years old. Everyone is different, but they all have one thing in common: they have already accumulated a certain amount of experience and have particularly profound qualifications in a certain field.”

Wizard Ackerman sighed, “I can hardly imagine your future. Perhaps the moment you won the Silent Grail, I should have known that you were a wizard destined to be extraordinary even among the wizarding community of Mount Golden Crown.” Locke smiled and changed the subject

. After all, he was following the path of a top genius in the wizarding world, and this speed of advancement was normal. If he were slower, he might not be able to enter the top academy he aimed for.

“Old Blue Head, I came here today to ask you something. Do you remember a mark of a dragon with its head and tail connected?”

Wizard Ackerman nodded and thought about it seriously.

“I have hundreds of impressions about this kind of thing, but some of them involve paid knowledge. I can answer some questions for free, but if you want answers involving paid knowledge, you’ll need to pay 100,000 magic stones.” “

Mainly because it involves some relatively rare and secret knowledge.”

“I recommend you answer for free. Because those paid answers are all very niche cases.”

“I think it’s unlikely to involve that.”

Locke thought for a moment, and just to be safe, he decided to spend money to buy the paid knowledge base.

He didn’t lack the money.

After all, it was related to completing his dragon bloodline.

He had now deeply combined and bound his dragon bloodline power with the abyssal energy, and as a result, he saw the ouroboros pattern on his immortal dragon scales. He should know what that was.

Locke said, “I’ll pay 100,000 magic stones. Old Blue, here are ten magic crystal cards.”

Ackerman glanced at Locke and took the ten magic crystal cards he handed over. “Your funds are certainly plentiful, Locke.”

“The most common ouroboros is the Trekdara two-headed snake. Each snake has two heads, one on its tail and one on its head. They are first-ring magical creatures, special magical creatures of the Trekdara world, currently listed as Class II protected animals. Wizards are not allowed to hunt them at will; to refine them into potions or use their materials to create magical artifacts, an application must be made to the White Wizarding Association.”

The Ackerman troll said, “The ouroboros image you saw is most likely from this magical creature.”

“Is this what you think?”

The Ackerman troll pinched a magic pen on the library desk, and instantly the pen projected an illusion into the air.

Locke frowned as he looked at the Trekdara two-headed snake, then shook his head.

“No. This isn’t what I saw.”

The Ackerman troll looked at Locke with surprise.

“Isn’t it? Because this is the most common magical creature associated with the ouroboros pattern, I thought you were talking about this.”

“These are the eighty-nine common things associated with the ouroboros pattern that I know of, including magical creatures, wizarding academies, and so on. Take a look.”

The Ackerman troll wizard grasped his illusion pen, and instantly, the patterns appeared in the air. Locke shook his head after looking at all of them.

“No. None of these are it.”

The Ackerman troll wizard’s expression turned serious.

“None of them?”

“That shouldn’t be the case. If none of these are it… Where did you see that pattern? Is it important to you?”

A look of hesitation flashed across Locke’s face.

The Ackerman wizard chuckled, “I asked too many questions. Let me think. Since none of these are it, then the ouroboros pattern you saw is no ordinary thing. Because what I’m about to tell you are all isolated cases within the Endless Void.”

“Come with me.”

“Because it involves secret knowledge at the Star Ring level, we need to discuss it in a safer place. Every secret above the Star Ring level may contain a certain degree of danger; otherwise, the Endless Void wouldn’t need to mark Star Ring creatures with warning signs.”

Locke followed the Ackerman troll wizard to a corner of the second-floor library.

Each book in this corner was bound with thick, heavy iron chains, as if they weren’t locking up books, but rather dragons disguised as spellbooks.

Each chain was protected by powerful defensive magic.

The Ackerman troll wizard walked to a bookshelf, then slowly pushed scaffolding over from a distance, climbed up, and found the seventh shelf.

The bookshelf was empty, with only one book on it, its surface covered in dust.

The moment the Ackerman troll’s hand touched the book, it nearly transformed into a ferocious beast, ready to devour his hand. He struggled greatly to tame it with magic, then turned the pages to show Locke a particular page.

“Is this the ouroboros pattern you saw?”

Locke stared at the pattern for a long time. It did resemble the fleeting pattern on the immortal dragon scales, but it was different. The ouroboros he had seen was simply a bare head and tail connected, but the pattern the Ackerman wizard showed him was far more complex.

In that ouroboros pattern, there was a dot in the center, and the overall design was much more intricate.

Locke shook his head. “Not quite.”

The Ackerman troll wizard seemed relieved. He laboriously put the spellbook away and locked it on the shelf.

He said, “This magic book records some very dangerous and failed magical experiments, or dangerous magical items. You said you saw an ouroboros image, but after showing you so much information, you said it didn’t resemble the image you saw. So I’m starting to suspect that what you saw was the ouroboros dragon in this book.”

Locke’s brow twitched. “Is there anything special about the Ouroboros Dragon in this book?” he asked.

The Ackerman troll replied, “Actually, it doesn’t have any particularly significant background. It’s just related to the Southern Wizarding Capital, which likes to study dangerous magic. Fifteen hundred years ago, a third-ring wizard of the Summoning School in the Southern Wizarding Capital conducted a dangerous experiment. He insisted that abyssal energy could be used to enhance the magic of the Summoning School and created a magical gate called the [Abyssal Summoning Gate].”

“He wanted to create a magical power called Abyssal Summoning. He held an academic exchange meeting, but all the wizards who participated in the meeting disappeared.”

“Not dead, but mysteriously vanished.”

“He, along with those who were invited, and his medium-sized wizarding academy, all disappeared overnight, leaving only an empty academy building and a group of wizarding apprentices who knew nothing.”

“A mark was left at the scene, this Ouroboros symbol.”

“It was a dangerous experimental accident, so it was specially marked, and a high-ring wizard gave this Ouroboros symbol a name—[The Mark of the Dragon of the End].”

“Because it was just an isolated case, I initially thought the pattern you saw couldn’t possibly be related to this one. And indeed, it turns out they are unrelated.”

Locke swallowed hard. He had only wanted to escape the strong influence of the Endless Abyss and use abyssal energy to confuse his dragon bloodline, reducing the probability of the Black Sun Tower locking onto him again.

Who knew he would create something like this?

‘I only used the Peach Guardian Spell to let my dragon bloodline collide with the power of the abyss, allowing the two to deeply merge and complement each other.’

Locke was lost in thought. How could this be related to the Dragon of the End?

‘No, the Dragon of the End is just a name given by high-level wizards of the wizarding civilization to describe that power. It may not be the original name of that power, nor can it necessarily describe its true nature.’ ‘

Besides, I only vaguely sensed the existence of this power when I was using abyssal energy to complete my dragon bloodline. This power is currently very far removed from me; I don’t seem to need to worry unnecessarily.’ Locke

pondered, “Moreover, there’s a significant difference between the pattern Ackerman showed me and the one I actually saw. So perhaps they’re completely unrelated.”

Locke concluded.

Firstly, the current success in replenishing his dragon bloodline with abyssal energy allowed it to rapidly advance. He could even advance to the Star Ring level simply by acquiring a portion of abyssal energy from the abyss environment, and the confusion it created made it difficult for the Black Sun Tower to lock onto him again.

Furthermore, the chaotic nature of abyssal energy itself could interfere with prophecies, meaning the Black Sun Tower’s prophetic abilities might lose their original effectiveness against him.

His original vulnerability—abyssal energy—was suppressed by the dragon bloodline after combining with it, unable to cause any real trouble.

The dragon bloodline acted as a filter, far safer than directly possessing the abyssal energy cycle.

Therefore, logically and emotionally, his development path was absolutely correct.

As for that so-called End Dragon…

Locke absentmindedly looked at the other related materials Ackerman had shown him.

“After all, we can’t be completely sure if the power I saw was the power of the Dragon of the End. So I don’t need to worry too much. But we should still be cautious.”

Wizard Ackerman showed Locke other materials, and after finding that none of them were the case, he immediately said, “Then I can’t help you.”

“Perhaps what you saw was just an isolated case. There are many secrets in the endless void. We wizards may spend our entire lives studying them, but we don’t know if we will ever be able to exhaust these mysteries.”

Locke nodded and said, “That’s why we need to work even harder.”

Locke left the library and returned to his dormitory on Golden Crown Mountain. For the next two days, he was in a state of relative calm.

This was because he had just advanced to the Star Ring Wizard level and didn’t yet have many ideas for further developing his ultimate magic.

His special grant was in the review stage with the White Wizard Association, and whether it would be approved or just a disappointment depended on these next two days. The sub-project that the Red Dragon Throne had promised him was still going through the process, but he should be notified within the next two days.

Therefore, in the past two days, Locke’s main body and his clone did almost nothing except read some spellbooks and give guidance to Mason Witch and others a couple of times. Moreover, he also needed to gather information to investigate the Dragon of the End.

Locke enjoyed a rare period of leisure, but this was disrupted on the third day.

That day, in the library of Mount Golden Crown, Locke saw a wizard from another school approach him, attempting to strike up a conversation. He immediately raised an eyebrow. “You are… a wizard from Nexus? How did you get into our Mount Golden Crown library?”

The wizard from Nexus chuckled. Nexus wizards were all opportunists. He said, “I specifically paid for a library card before coming here, hoping to meet with Mr. Locke Augustine and have a long talk.”

Locke replied with a cold, unapproachable tone, “My Lord Moon Ring Wizard from Nexus, I don’t think I have anything to discuss with you.”

The Moon Ring Wizard handed Locke a business card.

“I am Seleucus, the chief wizarding instructor of the City of the Nexus. Mr. Augustine, I would like to ask if you have any aspirations or goals regarding teaching positions after your departure from the Institute of True Knowledge.”

Locke’s expression was strange.

Wizard Seleucus, however, did not feel that he was being presumptuous at all.

“I have noticed that Mr. Augustine and our witch Camilla are on very good terms.”

“Before I came, I specifically asked Witch Camilla what you like best, and she said that you like witch porcelain the most.”

Immediately, Wizard Seleucus smiled and said, “If you can join our City of the Nexus, I guarantee that Mr. Augustine can obtain a senior title within five years.”

“By the way, you want witch porcelain? We can provide as much as you want—surrogate witch porcelain, natal witch porcelain, elemental witch porcelain, primal witch porcelain, combat witch porcelain… whatever kind of witch porcelain you want, we can provide it all,”

said the Seleucus wizard. “I believe our academy is your best choice. I happened to watch Mr. Augustine’s defense, and it was quite brilliant. Another characteristic of our academy is its youthfulness. We implement an efficient elimination policy; any wizard who doesn’t meet our requirements will be immediately eliminated. This ensures that our academy always maintains a young team atmosphere…”

Locke: “???”

Locke originally thought that Camilla’s shamelessness and opportunism were her personal traits, but it turns out it’s the atmosphere of their academy.

How could she say that their academy is his best choice?

No matter how you look at it, even staying at Golden Crown Mountain is much better than teaching in the Demon Nexus.

If he left Mount Golden Crown and entered the Nexus, wouldn’t that be equivalent to his platform being downgraded?

Locke coughed, feeling that leaving directly without giving a Moon Ring Wizard face wouldn’t be appropriate, so he could only say, “I haven’t thought about where I’ll teach after leaving the station.”

“I appreciate Wizard Seleugu’s kindness. But I’d like to ask, Wizard Seleugu, what makes you think that the Nexus is more suitable for me than Mount Golden Crown? I remember that the main focus of the Nexus is on the research of magical porcelain, not on the research of breeding.”

Wizard Seleugu’s eyes darted around, still unwilling to give up. He took out a porcelain necklace, the pendant of which was strung on a red cord, with small porcelain pieces hanging in the middle that looked like tiny flames.

“Witchware is a special magical artifact that utilizes the power of spirits. Mr. Augustine, the natal witchware you encountered before could absorb the stellar power of specific constellations and transform it into specific spirit energy, storing it within the witchware to enhance your magical pressure.”

“Witchware has a very long history. It is said that when wizards were still in the primitive stage of barely clothed people, some wizards began to create witchware using very primitive methods, such as the well-known cursed doll witchware, or certain sacrificial items.”

“Look, this is a Primordial Flame Core. It can collect the primordial spirits—spirits—floating in nature, generating temperature and magical pressure, and then mimicking the Primordial Flame of the Soul.”

“The Primordial Flame of the Soul is a very useful refining flame for you potion masters, isn’t it?”

“This is typical elemental magic porcelain. In modern times, magic porcelain has been defined by wizards as a magical artifact that converts spirit energy for specific purposes. Such a good thing is free for you to use once you enter our Nexus City.”

Locke clearly understood that it was free to use, not a gift or a loan. That meant whether he would still have this benefit if he actually joined was uncertain. However, Locke quickly realized that he was   wasting his time

thinking about this. He   had almost been led astray by this Moon Ring wizard.   At this moment, another wizard from outside Mount Golden Crown approached Locke and sneered.   “Nexus City? Never even heard of it. Mr. Augustine, don’t waste your time with such a small wizarding academy. My academy is the Wyvern Garden in the Rain Swamp. We offer better benefits, and we’re basically an academy on par with Mount Golden Crown.”   Wizard Seleugu immediately blushed.   Before the new wizard could finish speaking, another wizard scoffed, holding a book and wearing a Rootcrown emblem on his chest.   ”That’s ridiculous. The Wyvern Garden is a wizarding academy on par with Golden Crown Mountain?”   ”That’s just a clever way of putting it. You don’t really think so, do you? The difference between the two is enormous.”   Locke suddenly realized that with his advancement to the Star Ring level at his dissertation defense, he seemed to have become a hot commodity in the eyes of some wizarding universities, and they were already secretly sneaking into Golden Crown Mountain’s library to find him. (The next chapter will be posted   　tomorrow during the day. The author is going to sleep now. Goodnight, everyone.   ) (End of Chapter)