Locke said to Director Morrison, "Then Director Morrison, I accept your advice. Your advice should be the best for me."

"I'm willing to sign a contract with Golden Crown Mountain."

Director Morrison smiled. "Wise choice."

"In a few days, two contracts should arrive in your hands—one from Golden Crown Mountain, one from Bonifacius University. Either way, you can look at both contracts I negotiated with them simultaneously and compare the conditions both sides are offering you."

Director Morrison said, "If you enter Golden Crown Mountain, then your cooperative mentor will be Witch Yekaterina."

"Entering the Origin Academy means learning while working, so Witch Yekaterina is both your mentor and your boss."

"Lady Yekaterina recently wants to join the Ten-Person Plan. I believe she'll have you join the team and start working quickly."

"Lady Yekaterina is on the Academic Committee side. After you enter Golden Crown Mountain's Advanced Origin Academy, you need to first understand which faction you belong to. Golden Crown Mountain's Academic Committee and your academy's Council of Elders don't have a good relationship. Don't get it wrong and unknowingly offend other wizards."

Director Morrison said with a smile, "Little Locke, you're the champion of our tenth Cloud Marsh Cup. After entering Golden Crown Mountain, you must work hard."

"Your future achievements will affect our Cloud Marsh Cup's reputation."

Director Morrison said politely, "Little Locke, if you have any matters in the future, feel free to contact me."

Locke expressed his thanks, then disconnected the video call.

Director Morrison's last sentence was probably just courtesy. After all, he was truly too busy.

If he bothered him with troublesome matters, it wouldn't be appropriate. If he asked him to help with simple matters, it would be even more inappropriate.

However, having a Second Circle wizard's contact information was already quite a good gain for him.

Locke snapped his fingers, closed the gray stone tablet, and said in a low voice, "Large organizations have the benefits of large organizations, but they also bring personnel complexity and numerous faction issues."

"It seems Golden Crown Mountain has at least four factions."

Council of Elders, Academic Committee, Landbridge, and Executive Patrol Group.

"That means after joining the Advanced Origin Academy, I can obtain the advanced meditation method I've dreamed of from the start. At the same time, I need to strive to obtain special-grade funding—that's millions of magic stones in funding."

"Secondly, I need to fulfill three major tasks—teaching tasks, project tasks, and article tasks, obtain the graduation certificate, then I can walk out of the Advanced Origin Academy and move toward a wider world."

Locke walked down from the second floor and left Feathered Serpent Pavilion. He walked to the largest breeding shop on White Dragon Street and indicated, "Are the two Sea Gold Sands I previously reserved in stock?"

The vaporization stage wizard from this shop who received him was also the family head of a medium-grade prestigious family in the Land of Six Towers. This old wizard looked at Locke with extremely respectful eyes. Whether it was Locke's identity as Cloud Marsh Cup champion or his feat of sending Basil family's Wizard Nidhogg into the Blood River Plane, both deserved his respect.

The old wizard said in a low voice, "Sea Gold Sand is a specialty of Twilight Border. We have almost no inventory in the Land of Six Towers, but since you want it, naturally I cannot fail to deliver."

"Using quite a few connections, I finally gathered seven Sea Gold Sands."

"The normal selling price for Sea Gold Sand outside is thirteen thousand magic stones per plant, but in the Land of Six Towers, these shipping costs plus the consumption of using personal favors..." The old wizard's face showed some difficulty. "So our shop decided to raise Sea Gold Sand's selling price to twenty thousand magic stones."

"Mr. Locke, is this acceptable?"

Locke nodded and said calmly, "Here, these are fourteen magic crystal cards."

There were no problems. The only problem was that he had become penniless again.

The money he had just earned from selling Geralas Aging Potions was all gone again in a turn.

Locke's surface was calm, but internally he was somewhat speechless.

He completed the transaction with the old wizard and after checking that all seven Sea Gold Sands had no problems, turned to bid him farewell and left the shop.

For himself two years ago who had just become an official wizard, wanting to obtain even one Sea Gold Sand was very difficult, requiring exchange through 100 military merits in the southeastern quadrant. But for his current self, obtaining Sea Gold Sand wasn't so difficult—as long as he had money.

The reason Locke needed so many Sea Gold Sands was for synthesis.

Walking back to his residence in White Dragon Tower, Locke said softly, "Unfortunately, I'm about to leave the Land of Six Towers now, so I don't have time to apply for a project through the Land of Six Towers to develop Sea Gold Sand."

Synthesizing Sea Gold Sand required large amounts of raw materials and doing some work. Actually, if he found people to help, he could produce results faster.

However, the problem wasn't big.

During the past year, his mastery of the Five Great Cultivation Methods had progressed further, so borrowing this part of his growth, he could try to independently use seven Sea Gold Sands for synthesis and cultivation.

After all, he wasn't standing still. He had grown considerably.

The ecological garden where he previously cultivated the Hydra still had ready-made equipment, with the Dragon Crystal Ecological Dome and Tacitus and Leopold helping him. He still had a chance to upgrade Sea Gold Sand once in a short time.

Unfortunately, his greatest assistant in the Land of Six Towers, Montgomery, had already left the Land of Six Towers for Rain Marsh Swampland.

Otherwise, he would be more confident.

Half a month later, since he wasn't creating a magical plant from nothing but only strengthening the original Sea Gold Sand to a certain degree, Locke produced a mutated Sea Gold Sand after half a month.

Tacitus and Leopold had already returned.

Below the Dragon Crystal Ecological Dome, Locke waved his hand. A massive Sea Gold Sand emitting golden light fell into his palm.

This Sea Gold Sand didn't look like a fern plant but more like a tree.

"As expected, my previous speculation was correct." Locke looked at this Sea Gold Sand and said, "I synthesized Sea Gold Sand in the direction of tree ferns, and as a result, I actually created a special synthesis formula in half a month, and the strengthening satisfies me greatly."

"This means as long as I have sufficient knowledge and continue progressing in breeding studies, my speed at creating special synthesis formulas will also increase as I improve in the breeding studies field." 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

"Using grafting cultivation to graft Sea Gold Sand with the most special tree fern magical plant among fern plants strengthened Sea Gold Sand."

Locke looked at the current attributes of this Shining Sea Gold Sand—

[Level 8 synthesized item, Shining Sea Gold Sand, created by grafting Sea Gold Sand with Cyathea tree fern using grafting cultivation method, and using mana co-frequency cultivation method to strengthen both's vitality and promote fusion.]

[Sea Gold Sand successfully transformed from ordinary fern plant to tree fern magical plant. The tree fern's pseudowood structure made Sea Gold Sand's body size much larger, basic magical power stronger, with all powers doubled.]

In other words, Locke used tree fern to make Sea Gold Sand arborescent, thereby strengthening Sea Gold Sand.

Of course, tree ferns weren't really trees. Trees could continuously thicken, but tree ferns were just accumulations of aerial roots forming something that looked like trees but was actually still a fern plant.

Fern plants couldn't continue growing their main body after reaching maturity.

Tree ferns just used leaf stalks and aerial roots to layer themselves like armor. The actual true stem was hidden inside with a diameter of only a few centimeters, still not exceeding the range of fern plants.