In an instant, the entire domain was completely filled with endless flames, like a solar storm, enveloping Locke and Alicia's bodies.

Endless tongues of fire completely consumed the two.

Only that Mage Saint and Mage Venerable, these two mages, the flames bypassed them, so they were safe within this thousand-meter range fireball field.

That Mage Venerable looked at this scene with extreme admiration toward that Mage Saint. "Is this the forbidden curse magic that only Mage Saint level wizards can use?"

"It's truly too powerful. Only when one's mental power completely overlaps with the Mage Saint Hall's elemental source can one use this magic. It's a forbidden curse that can destroy heaven and earth. Grand Mage Sulla has a prohibition that unless it's wartime, any Mage Saint is restricted from using forbidden curses in the Mage Plane. Today I can actually see a Mage Saint lord take action..."

"Forbidden curse magic: Flame Emperor." That Mage Saint's eyes released fiery red light. He snorted coldly. "Foolish demons, no matter how many times you come, the result will be the same. We Mage Saint level mages, under the teachings of the first Mage Saint, the Ancestor of Mages Grand Mage Sulla, have comprehended the mystery of [Domain]."

"Under this domain, I can manipulate your bodies, your magical power, your everything. I can manipulate all elements within the domain. Within this domain, what difference is there between me and the gods in stories?"

"In the three hundred years of glory of my Mage Plane, everyone who comprehends [Domain] can have their name recorded in history, standing at the pinnacle of this world's civilization." This Mage Saint's gaze was cold. "Coming to the Mage Saint Hall city to provoke is you foolish demons courting death."

"Although I don't know why Teacher Sulla cares so much about that prophecy matter, in my opinion, all prophecies are nothing but nonsense. Even we Mage Saints who already know all the mysteries of heaven and earth cannot predict the future. Who else could predict the future?"

"Let's go."

The Mage Saint turned around, about to return to the Mage Saint Hall, go back to the mage tower, and activate the elemental pool there to prevent the demon army from actually attacking.

But the next moment, his pupils suddenly showed shock. "How is this possible?"

The instant he released his domain, he saw Locke and Alicia standing there in midair completely unharmed, not even a single hair damaged.

Alicia was still pondering what exactly a domain was, while Locke stood calmly in place, wearing white wizard robes, looking at that Mage Saint with an indifferent gaze. "Your attack intensity just now was truly too light. You have 1100 magical pressure, but the power of that spell just now absolutely couldn't reach First Circle level. The power was roughly 0.9 Circle."

Locke said, "But you clearly have 1100 magical pressure, and just now that magic's spell model was barely decent. So why is this? Did you hold back?"

That Mage Venerable's forehead dripped with sweat. After all, in his eyes, the Mage Plane's Mage Saints were divine beings, existences that knew all past and future.

They were leaders who, under Grand Mage Sulla's guidance, opened up civilization and moved away from ignorance.

And forbidden curses were incantations that destroyed heaven and earth. Yet such magic just now couldn't harm these two people in the slightest.

That Mage Saint's pupils dilated even more. "This is absolutely... impossible. That was forbidden curse magic."

"No demon can resist my forbidden curse magic. In the past hundred years of history, every time the demon race was about to win, as long as we Mage Saint Hall sent out one Mage Saint, it was enough to suppress their army."

"And what is magical pressure, what are spell models? Are spell models those arrays spontaneously formed by those elemental spirits?"

The Mage Saint's eyes showed incomprehension. "Forbidden curse magic, Great Wind God."

He again deployed his domain and continuously increased the forbidden curse magic's intensity. A thousand-meter-long wind blade slashed toward Locke. That heaven-and-earth-destroying scene even began changing this heaven and earth.

After all, it was only a medium-scale plane. The world's strength was far inferior to the wizard world. If just living, one couldn't tell, but once the battle intensity increased, this world's endurance limit would be tested.

Just a 0.95 Circle Evocation School wind magic sub-direction actually caused the sky above this heaven and earth to transform with wind and clouds, even showing solar eclipse phenomena. The world was using its own way to warn living beings that someone was using an extremely powerful force.

Of course, this kind of magic approaching First Circle also couldn't cause true damage to this world. After all, it was a medium-scale world with relatively complete world power and World's Principles.

It reached the minimum threshold to be called a world.

That thousand-meter diameter wind blade fell toward Locke and Alicia's heads, about to split them in half. That Mage Saint's eyes widened. But the next moment, his pupils suddenly contracted because Locke raised his right hand and with his human right hand, caught that thousand-meter-long wind blade. Then the entire wind blade was incredibly grasped in Locke's palm.

The solar eclipse phenomenon originally occurring in the sky also suddenly paused, as if someone had pressed the pause button.

Locke's right hand slightly exerted force with a squeeze. Immediately, the entire thousand-meter-long wind blade's surface filled with cracks and suddenly shattered with a rumble. Countless tiny wind element fragments fell toward the ground, carving deep furrows in the dirt.

Such power was indeed formidable, yet couldn't match Locke's single-handed catch.

That Mage Saint suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood, then gritted his teeth and looked up at Locke. "How can there be such a powerful demon? They also don't have any demonic energy. Could they not be demons? No, they must be demons. Otherwise, they couldn't not be our mages, attract the elemental spirits' hostility, yet still be able to use magic."

"But how can there be such a powerful enemy?" This Mage Saint looked at the Mage Venerable beside him. "You run quickly, run to somewhere I can't even see. No, even somewhere I can't see isn't enough. Run as far as you can. Because the forbidden curse magic I'm about to cast next has too much power. I can no longer guarantee your safety."

Locke watched this scene with interest and said to Alicia, "This world's World's Principles are truly much more crude than our world, so First Circle magic's influence here is more severe, with larger scale. For example, that 0.9 Circle magic just now looked grand in scale, but actually I couldn't even be bothered to raise my hand."

Alicia nodded. "Mm. Actually, if that magic hit us, we wouldn't even need to pay attention. Your Life Force Field permanent defensive field and my permanent defensive field [Dragon Scorpion Back Armor] can completely ignore that apprentice-level magic."

The Plutarch family's most core bloodline was dragon scorpion bloodline, a type of artificial magical creature mixing flying dragon and magic scorpion bloodlines. The master work was the [Dark Cave Scorpion Woman] created by Grand Wizard Sulla using spells.

Dragon scorpions possessed the scorpion's powerful defensive power, while also having dragon blood strengthen this defensive power. Therefore, their defense was powerful. So Alicia's permanent defensive field Dragon Scorpion Back Armor's defensive power was also very considerable.

The dragon scorpion's defensive power even far exceeded the defensive power of same-level permanent defensive fields. Even crystallization wizards couldn't break the Dragon Scorpion Back Armor. The only drawback was... this thing only covered the upper body, not covering the lower body, neck, or face.

It was partial defense, but the advantage gained was it could completely protect one's chest and heart position.

At the same time, its surface could secrete spell toxins, poisoning those who touched it.

So previously on the airship, the black wizard could harm Alicia.

Dragon Scorpion Back Armor was the kind that needed to be utilized well and couldn't be used mindlessly. The difference between upper and lower limits was extremely large.

Locke looked at that Mage Saint and said to Alicia, "I roughly know why the opponent can only use 0.9 Circle spells and can't fully utilize his magical pressure. Look, when he uses his magical pressure to the extreme, his domain and his soul produce slight vibrations. These vibrations will become increasingly severe as he uses magic, causing his soul to bear enormous load."

"Essentially, his soul still belongs to apprentice level. He's just using a so-called domain, or rather borrowing that giant magic array, to form a special elemental particle field wrapping his soul, forming a temporary First Circle level magical pressure. But no matter what, it can't change the essence that he only has an apprentice-level soul."

"So when he tries to use First Circle magic, his soul will be destroyed by the First Circle magic's heavy pressure in an instant. He's equivalent to holding a large blade in his hands while being only a child, unable to easily wield that blade."

"Therefore, the magic he casts can never reach First Circle level. And this plane's mages call the spells they gradually increase in power, trying to reach First Circle magic level, forbidden curse magic, and believe using forbidden curse magic consumes one's life."

"But essentially, this is merely because their power system has serious flaws. Moreover, in my view, even so, this problem isn't unsolvable."

Locke raised his hand and caught a thousand-meter-long earth serpent the opponent struck at full force. Then with a fierce grasp, the entire earth serpent began disintegrating, transforming into blocks of stone falling down.

That Mage Saint's face showed shock. He continuously coughed blood. He seemed unable to understand why, despite desperately using three forbidden curse magics that could destroy heaven and earth in the Mage Plane, he couldn't harm these two demons in the slightest.

That male demon was truly too powerful.

Could it be that he truly possessed the ability to kill Grand Mage Sulla?

The Mage Saint felt a wave of fear in his heart. No, Grand Mage Sulla brought magic and civilization to this world, saving humanity from brutal feudal lords' rule. He descended from the sky like a deity, suddenly appearing.

In his eyes, his teacher Grand Mage Sulla was this world's god of magic.

"Teacher, I absolutely must kill this child of prophecy for you." The Mage Saint continuously increased his magical pressure utilization rate, making his spell infinitely approach true First Circle magic. He waved the wooden staff in his hands. "All spirits of this world who have received Grand Mage Sulla's grace, please all become my power and eliminate my enemy. Forbidden curse magic: Great Sun God!"

In an instant, from those caves in the ground of the Mage Saint Hall behind him, surging and turbulent magic winds roared out. In this moment, almost over 50% of the modified special elemental particles all gathered toward him.

Within a thousand-meter range centered on this Mage Saint, everything was enveloped in a layer of scorching white light. This magic's power was indeed very close to First Circle magic, though still a bit short.

And the price of casting this forbidden curse magic was for this Mage Saint to completely burn his soul.

"That is to say, that Mage Saint Hall city is the root of this mage system. If that Mage Saint Hall city didn't exist, this mage system wouldn't exist either." Locke pondered. "Essentially, these mages are just people with powerful mental power. They can't be considered wizards. They're just providing humanoid patches for that Mage Hall city's magic, continuously perfecting that magic."

"And even so, that Mage Hall city can currently only allow the mages in this mage system to simultaneously cast two magics approaching First Circle level in a unit of time."

"That is to say, this mage system's power upper limit is simultaneously casting two First Circle magics."

Locke became slightly more serious, using the compressed defensive field technique, covering it on his palm, preparing to once again catch and crush the opponent's magic bare-handed.

Moreover, he began considering whether to kill this native to observe whether this native would form an echo after death.

He was truly quite curious whether a life form without a permanent defensive field structure in its soul but with magical pressure exceeding 1000 would form an echo after death.

Just as that Mage Saint was about to raise his soul to the limit, suddenly a hand appeared on his shoulder, using its magical power to soothe all the restless elemental spirits. This magic also naturally dissipated into nothingness.

Whether the Mage Saint, or Locke and Alicia, all pupils slightly contracted.

Because the newcomer was a white-bearded old man wearing a yellow cloak, eyes full of wisdom. His image was identical to the outer world's Grand Wizard Sulla's appearance, but he currently had a physical body.

Locke's eyes flickered. 'Clone? Twin? Puppet?'

'This old fellow is indeed faking illness. I really guessed correctly. When at the White Dragon Tower No. 2 in the Land of Six Towers, I felt this old man's illness came somewhat strangely. So I stopped treating him and just looked at his medical cases while focusing on my three projects.'

'Fortunately, I didn't treat him like those two did. Otherwise, it would truly be wasting time. No wonder he drove away the famous healer from Spiral Basin [Nyx Santos]. Of course, what if Santos wizard cured the fake illness? That would be troublesome.'

Locke remembered that Santos had previously kept roaring that there was rigging. From the looks of it now, what he said was true.

There really was rigging.

It's just that this rigging was that this old man wasn't sick at all. He was performing here with everyone!

Grand Wizard Sulla lightly patted that Mage Saint's shoulder. "Alright, Faral, it's fine now."

Faral looked at Grand Wizard Sulla, extremely excited. "Teacher!"

Grand Wizard Sulla snapped his fingers. Immediately activating a backup he had left in this native's body using the First Circle magical creature Tree Elder bloodline talent ability [Powerful Charm Human], immediately this native's pupils dilated and his eyes became lifeless. His mind was completely manipulated by Grand Wizard Sulla.

Grand Wizard Sulla casually glanced at him. Faral was just a native, so naturally he wouldn't treat him too seriously, nor would he truly consider this native his student.

"Faral, you saw nothing today. You went out and eliminated two demons. Two demons were destroyed by your domain. You once again defended the honor of our Mage Plane's three hundred years of civilization history."

This native Mage Saint immediately fell into a daze and began repeating Grand Wizard Sulla's words once.

Then he turned around in a daze, regaining consciousness the moment he turned, then ignored everyone and returned to the Mage Saint Hall city in high spirits.

As for that Mage Venerable earlier, he had already been accidentally killed by his domain during the battle.

Alicia saw this scene and couldn't quite believe it. She said to Grand Wizard Sulla, "Grandfather?"

Grand Wizard Sulla turned around and showed her an extremely doting expression. "Mm, it's me. Alicia, you came. You've truly grown up. I've thought of all possibilities, but I never thought you could rely on your own efforts to come to this plane."

Grand Wizard Sulla looked at Locke. "This must be Potion Master Augustine. Truly young and accomplished. Thank you all along for your help to my granddaughter Alicia."

"However, since you've come here, it means that even though I deliberately faked illness to hide my true purpose, among some of my old enemies, interested parties still seem to have noticed my true purpose."

Grand Wizard Sulla looked at the back of Locke's hand. "This is the Divination School's First Circle magic: Destined Death. By spreading a large amount of rumors in a place, making numerous mortals believe, then collecting these beliefs, constraining all future possibilities to the future conveyed in that prophecy, thus gathering destiny's power, granting a wizard maximum power to kill his enemy."

"Very complex, right? I also think so. Divination School magic is always so slow and dawdling. Ironically, in this world, time never waits. So being so slow and dawdling often causes those Divination School wizards who fancy themselves able to manipulate fate to always miss opportunities."

Grand Wizard Sulla smiled. "So when I was a student, I strongly resisted learning entrail divination courses."

"I believed this kind of magic was meaningless. Using divination magic also easily distorted fate. Leading to originally being able to win, but because of manipulating fate suffering backlash, leading to losing instead. I really felt this kind of magic was very tasteless."

"By the way, I learned at Sunshade Peninsula. In that era, wizards there hadn't yet promoted learning astrology courses, but liked using animal entrails for divination. At that time, I remember to skip class, I really thought of many methods."

Grand Wizard Sulla smiled. "Even later, my mentor even forcibly ordered me to learn entrail divination to appease that course's wizard mentor's anger toward me."

Grand Wizard Sulla, like a kindly old man, pulled the two young people to ramble on about his youthful past.

Locke glanced at the Mage Saint Hall city behind him filled with flames of war, slightly frowning, but still asked. "Grand Wizard Sulla, of course, I know this matter has nothing to do with me. However, as a potion master you invited to treat your illness, I'm still very curious why you deliberately faked illness? Does this mean that now in the Land of Six Towers there's nothing for me to do and I can leave?"

Locke looked at Grand Wizard Sulla cautiously.

Grand Wizard Sulla looked at Locke, then looked at Alicia's eyes when she looked at Locke. The corners of his mouth slightly curved. "Wizard Augustine, please rest assured. My Plutarch family is a prestigious family of the Land of Six Towers. We won't do anything to harm our own guests."

"Moreover, those three projects you organized, I think you're doing very well. You're a talent. Our Plutarch family as your financial backer has cooperated well with you so far."

"Elsewhere, you probably also couldn't possibly get so much freely usable funding." Grand Wizard Sulla smiled kindly at Locke. "As for my faking illness, I naturally have a reasonable explanation. Actually, I'm..."

Grand Wizard Sulla's expression changed. He turned to look at the Mage Saint Hall city behind him, then sighed slightly. "Failed to advance to Mage Saint?"

The distant demon legion, for unknown reasons, after that female native failed to advance, stopped attacking and began orderly retreat.

Grand Wizard Sulla's face showed disappointment that was difficult to conceal. It seemed that female native's advancement disappointment made even the deeply scheming him unable to accept. "It shouldn't be like this. Why, no matter how many times I try, can't a thirty-second Mage Saint be born? Could it be that the magic array I set up itself has problems?"

Grand Wizard Sulla turned to look at Locke. His tone became considerably more intimate. "Locke, you just said you have a way to let this world's native Mage Saints truly use First Circle magic. Is that true?"

"Can you tell me? I can make a deal with you. Don't you like doing projects? My granddaughter can only give you one million five hundred thousand magic stones in research funding, but I can give you more. Moreover, I can give you more excellent personnel. Projects don't just need funding, but also equipment and manpower. I can give you all of these."

Grand Wizard Sulla said, "This year's Eastern Zone combat magical plant competition, I can also recommend you to represent the Land of Six Towers to participate. That competition is organized by the Eastern Zone's third largest wizard land Cloud Marsh Wetland's White Wizard Association. Multiple wizard lands from the Eastern Zone will participate. The appeal is considerable. At least this year there will definitely be eleven wizard lands participating. Although it can't be considered a true zone-level competition, it's also a cross-regional competition."

Grand Wizard Sulla courted. "If you can lead a team to win rankings there, it will have enormous benefits for your future search for teaching positions. Moreover, this competition has no participation restrictions. As long as one is from an Eastern Zone wizard land, one can obtain a competition slot. Therefore, perhaps this year our Land of Six Towers can also exceptionally participate."

"Some other small competitions between multiple wizard lands, I can also support your participation. However, the premise is that you, Locke, can help me, and secondly keep secrets for me."