Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems

Locke recorded the footage he had captured earlier with his True Sight Orb. It would need to be submitted to the White Wizard Association, the Ethics and Morality Review Committee, and Golden Crown Mountain respectively.

Killing black wizards required no particular explanation. The only complication was the Second Circle witch from Solas Light Foot, for whom he would need to obtain some evidence proving that he had acted in self-defense.

At the same time, he could hold Solas Light Foot accountable and demand compensation from them.

Locke glanced at the rings on the black wizards and the Solas Light Foot wizard agent witch. The astral rings of both parties had fallen into his hands.

Locke opened the astral rings of the dozen or so black wizards and found some First Circle-grade resources inside, though they were all resources of the holy school, along with some rather revolting sacrificial offerings.

The astral ring of the Second Circle black wizard had a powerful defensive school magical lock on it. If forced open, the magical lock would trigger a self-destruct sequence, destroying the ring outright.

Locke then opened the witch's astral ring and found it quite bare, containing only some very low-grade resources. It was difficult to imagine that this was the astral ring of a Second Circle witch.

Beyond that, the astral ring held a pile of documents. Locke pulled out some of them and found that they were a heap of loan agreements and debt collection notices.

He flipped through them briefly and discovered that this witch had fallen into a nightmarish cycle of compound interest and debt repaid with more debt. Based on the sheer scale of accumulated debt on her body, even if she had come into extraordinary luck at that very moment and won tens of millions of magic stones in a wizard lottery, she would not have been able to clear what she owed.

Debt slavery was truly a terrifying thing.

Locke even noticed in some of the documents that her creditors had been diligently citing various laws, apparently attempting to transfer her debts onto her students, family members, and friends.

One document in particular caught Locke's attention. A potion shop called Dragon's Breath had filed a claim before the Holy Mage Court, asserting that Witch Jesse had purchased potions from their shop and given a bottle of low-grade potion to one of her students, and on that basis was demanding that Witch Jesse's student repay the debt she could not pay herself.

This claim had received partial recognition from the Holy Mage Court, which had ordered Witch Jesse's student, who was still at the first-class wizard apprentice stage, to repay Dragon's Breath Potion Shop ten thousand magic stones.

Of course, even so, Dragon's Breath Potion Shop was surely far from satisfied, because their original claim had been for Witch Jesse's student to repay approximately one hundred and fifty thousand in debt, and it seemed they had further plans to pursue more people afterward.

Locke immediately understood why, back when Daniel had been in debt, no one other than himself and Witch Juliana had dared to associate with him too closely.

Good heavens. If you associated with someone like that too often, it became easy for their creditors to find evidence that you had benefited from resources connected to the debt, which they could then use to make you repay it, and from there continue working through your social connections to demand repayment from others associated with you.

"No wonder going bankrupt leads to total social death. This method of debt collection is even more infectious than the blood curse magic of the Blood Curse Court. It is truly terrifying."

Locke searched around and found the astral ring packed full of paper documents related to debt, and even her corpse after death had been mortgaged to more than one wizard bank.

Were it not for wizard law prohibiting the enslavement of people and the use of living wizard organ materials, Witch Jesse would likely have been devoured alive by her various creditors long before her death.

Seeing all of this, Locke furrowed his brow, and without hesitation left Witch Jesse's astral ring and her corpse on the ground.

He left a note beside them that read, "Anyone who contacts me will be charged a storage fee. I was also injured in this witch's attack, and she currently has not a single magic stone to cover my medical expenses. If any creditor knows the contact information of her friends and family, please let me know."

Locke left these seemingly unhinged words not because he genuinely wanted any money, but to prevent any of her creditors from using the fact that she had been killed by him as grounds to take the matter before the Holy Mage Court and argue that he should assume a portion of her debts.

In that case, her body and astral ring were not things he could afford to take either.

This was not a resource at all. It was a debt meme a hundred thousand times more terrifying than the blood curses of the Blood Curse Court.

Locke thought to himself, "The Crimson Deep Court's black wizards are at most a cesspool, but this debt slavery is something one absolutely cannot touch at all."

He had heard that debt slaves had no way of ever escaping the repayment logic that their creditors had designed for them. First, the debt would keep growing, until it numbed them completely.

And second, the dense web of mutual guarantees connected to everything debt-related would drag these debt slaves into a bottomless abyss.

Under normal circumstances, there was only one way to sever a debt, and that was death.

Though ordinarily, even becoming a debt slave would not necessarily lead to death or a truly wretched quality of life. It simply meant constant work.

And Witch Jesse's attack on him, and the opportunity it had given her to become a black wizard, was in essence a transaction.

At least those debts she owed to Solas Light Foot could be written off entirely, on the condition that she could truly escape into black wizard territory and successfully evade Golden Crown Mountain's retribution.

At this moment, among the wizards watching from the surrounding mountains, quite a number had placed orders for the wizard shoes Locke had designed, while many others got back into their magical carriages and began making their way home.

Locke's water hyacinth system had received a flood of messages.

He opened it and found people seeking to purchase the Great Blood Wave Bromeliad wizard shoes, along with some communications from Second Circle wizards that drew his attention.

Some of them appeared to be wizard shareholders of Solas Light Foot and Melechi Magic Step, who, as though having completely forgotten the unpleasantness of earlier, and as though utterly disregarding the fact that just moments ago these same people had wanted him dead, were now warmly messaging him and urging him to establish a shop alliance as quickly as possible, make use of his rights as a Second Circle wizard, and open up shares in the wizard shop alliance so that they could invest money in him.

Locke even noticed that among the Second Circle wizards contacting him, there was even an ordinary Second Circle wizard from the Rose Council.

This person was extremely warm toward him, seemingly having perceived the potential of pure magical plant wizard shoes and having concluded that there was no reason to stay loyal to just one boat.

The Rose Council's Wizard Shiree Owen had sent him a message:

"Breeder Locke, the wizard shoes you have designed have, by my assessment, reached a first-rate level within the industry. I believe you should establish a shop alliance as soon as possible and open up equity to quickly secure startup capital."

"I have great confidence in your wizard shoes and hold your concept of pure magical plant wizard shoes in high regard. Because I admire your talent so greatly, I very much look forward to the establishment of your shop alliance."

"I am Shiree Owen of the Rose Council, a fairly well-known investor within the industry."

Locke read this message and gave a cold laugh.

Anyone capable of sending him a message like this at this particular moment could only be a wizard shareholder or person with related interests from those wizard shoe shop alliances that had hired black wizards to ambush him. And yet, after seeing him break through the situation, they could set aside all of the hostility that had come before and send him something like this so effortlessly.

All one could say was that capital truly could disregard everything in pursuit of money.

Locke did not reply, because he was not necessarily short on money at the moment. His funds had been depleted earlier because he had needed to purchase a World Stone, but money should be flowing in steadily over the coming days.

Moreover, opening up equity would raise a whole series of complications. He currently had no pressing need to acquire large amounts of capital quickly, and so there was no reason to rush.

Locke noticed in the water hyacinth system that there was also a congratulatory message from Witch Scarlett.

Just as Locke was about to close the water hyacinth system, a streak of light suddenly flew toward him from the sky. He paused, and then realized it was a silver badge with two characters written on it, "Second Circle."

Locke took the Second Circle badge, and was momentarily taken aback. He had registered his formal wizard badge at the southeastern quadrant with Lilith's Cottage, and through that registration had obtained the right to use the various communication systems available only to formal wizards.

But he had not expected a Second Circle wizard badge to suddenly fly to him from out of nowhere. He was not sure whether this was a particular feature of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands or whether all wizard lands worked this way.

As Locke pinned the badge to his chest, the water hyacinth system in his hand underwent another change, and a new interface appeared.

Locke clicked on it with curiosity, and a cyan lotus pedestal pattern appeared before his eyes. Atop the lotus were arranged seven perfectly round lotus seeds resembling pellets of elixir, while the sound of a flowing stream filled his ears.

Then he suddenly found himself standing on a green lotus leaf, with a gentle current flowing beneath it and a few carp swimming in the water. Before him stood an enormous lotus root structure, which was currently empty of anyone.

At that moment, Locke saw a line of text appear on his retina, "There is currently no council session in session for the Golden Crown Mountain district."

An interface appeared before him, with an emblem in the upper left corner depicting a white lotus root bearing seven blue-green lotus seeds.

Locke raised an eyebrow. What was this?

This special space had clearly been constructed using multi-school combined techniques, and was embedded within the water hyacinth system and the Second Circle wizard badge magical artifact.

That explained why the badge had been delivered to him immediately in this manner, and why the badge itself was a Second Circle magical artifact.

So it had this particular special function.

Most likely, every formal wizard of the White Wizard Association, upon becoming a Second Circle wizard, would be issued a wizard magical artifact representing the mark of a Second Circle wizard and drawn into this special space.

At this moment, Locke could see that the interface was divided into two levels.

The topmost level displayed the Cloud Marsh Council, while the level below showed the Golden Crown Mountain District Council.

The Cloud Marsh Council appeared to be inaccessible to him. He could only see a preliminary interface and a single recent agenda item displayed on it.

The Golden Crown Mountain District showed no recent agenda items and no voting options, though there were some past agenda items. Locke skimmed through them and counted eleven in total.

All of them related to the construction of public facilities within the Golden Crown Mountain district, or to certain public policies within the Golden Crown Mountain district.

Locke also noticed one agenda item that had been initiated by Golden Crown Mountain's side, "Proposal for the Construction of a Large-Scale Magical Plant Specialty Market in the Seven-Color Nursery Area."

This Golden Crown Mountain District Council seemed to be the tier of council where he, as a Second Circle wizard, could most directly participate, and within this interface his identity was listed as Councilor Locke Augustine.

At the Cloud Marsh Council level, he could only see partial pages and was clearly subject to strict restrictions.

The space before him was evidently the Golden Crown Mountain District Council space.

It was an illusion space.

But the Cloud Marsh Council interface displayed considerably more important content. First, there was only one recent agenda item, and strangely, past agenda items were not visible to him at all.

What he could see appeared to be limited only to Cloud Marsh Council agenda items that he had voted on after joining the council.

This was entirely different from the Golden Crown Mountain District Council level, where he could browse through multiple past agenda items.

The current Cloud Marsh Council agenda item read, "Abolition of the First Circle Wizard Tax Exemption!"

Locke quickly clicked through the page to understand what the First Circle wizard tax exemption actually meant.

In broad terms, as members of the White Wizard Association, First Circle wizards were in theory supposed to pay an annual membership fee. However, the Eastern Border Region Council's policy had long prioritized exempting First Circle wizards from membership fees, with Second Circle wizards paying the membership fees on behalf of First Circle wizards, treating this as a benefit provided to First Circle wizards.

As a result, during his entire period as a First Circle wizard, Locke had been a member of the White Wizard Association and had never once paid any membership fee at all.

Because he had been under the new member benefit protection period all along.

Locke noticed that beside the agenda item were two numbers, with opposition on the left and support on the right.

At this moment, the number in opposition and the number in support were roughly equal.

Approximately 261 to 237.

Of course, this was surely not the total number of Second Circle wizards in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, only a small fraction of them.

"The wizards voting right now should all be Second Circle wizards. So why are there actually more Second Circle wizards opposing the abolition of the First Circle wizard tax exemption than there are supporting it?"

Locke thought for a moment, then looked at the detailed description within the agenda item, and immediately noticed a critical piece of information.

"Only wizards who have paid their membership fees may join the wizard parliament."

"So that is it. The Eastern Border Region's regional council has long been calling upon various White Wizard Association branches to waive membership fees for First Circle wizards. So First Circle wizards within the Eastern Border Region's various tiers of councils, namely the three tiers of the Eastern Border Region's council system, have no voting rights."

"The reason so many Second Circle wizards oppose abolishing the First Circle wizard tax exemption is that once First Circle wizards are required to pay membership fees, First Circle wizards will also gain voting rights in the Cloud Marsh Council."

"If they gain voting rights on certain agenda items related to the Cloud Marsh Wetlands' White Wizard Association, that will change a great many things."

If only Second Circle wizards had voting rights, then wizard organizations with more Second Circle wizards would hold a dominant position.

If First Circle wizards also had voting rights, then wizard organizations with more First Circle wizards would hold the dominant position.

So clearly, behind this agenda item, two powerful forces were battling each other behind the scenes.

Locke instantly realized that these forces might not even be located within the Cloud Marsh Wetlands.

Because the matter of First Circle wizard tax exemption had been ordered by the Eastern Border Region Council, meaning that across the entire Eastern Border Region, all fifty-three wizard lands, and every First Circle wizard throughout them, had been exempt from taxes.

And this had been maintained for a very long time.

But now the councils of the various wizard lands were being asked to vote on it individually and make their own choices, which meant there was an Eastern Border Region-level power that wanted First Circle wizards to have voting rights as well.

Only Locke had no idea which forces were fighting each other behind the scenes.

"Indeed. The world of Second Circle wizards is truly entirely different from that of First Circle wizards. It turns out that for Second Circle wizards, the public affairs and shifting situation of a wizard land can appear before them in such concrete and specific detail."

"And the broader situation of the entire wizard world is not divided into completely separate and distant parts either. Within the various councils, it is possible to see something of the overall direction in which the wizard world's situation is flowing."

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