One week later.

At the foot of Golden Crown Mountain, on the canopy of a Great Red Mountain Banyan tree, Locke walked across the tree crown and saw at the center position of the canopy large amounts of aerial root sections with large amounts of soil on top of the aerial roots.

Exactly about one acre of land.

The Great Red Mountain Banyan was a First Circle level magical plant. The canopy diameter of banyan-type magical plants was originally very large, and the Great Red Mountain Banyan was like a small mountain peak.

The center position of the Great Red Mountain Banyan's canopy would form a natural soil field.

This was a First Circle magical plant that liked to cultivate companion plants it favored. On Golden Crown Mountain where every inch of land was precious, clearly the one acre magical field naturally included in the Great Red Mountain Banyan's canopy center would belong to Golden Crown Mountain's breeders.

At this moment, Locke walked to the middle part of the Great Red Mountain Banyan's canopy and placed his palm on top, slightly sensing the magical energy within.

Worth mentioning was that although the surface of this acre of magical field was somewhat messy, the basic fertility was still acceptable. It could be seen.

The previous tenant of this acre of magical field had still performed appropriate maintenance, so he didn't need to go through a fallow period and could directly use this magical field.

"The Great Red Mountain Banyan itself will absorb various nutrients through its roots, then through root vessels, secrete them from the stomata on the branches to nourish the land in the center position."

"In other words, it will to some extent manage this magical field itself. At the same time, Golden Crown Mountain collects heavenly fire and earthly fire, using flames and high temperatures to transform into life energy and feed back to the nearby magical plant jungle, so..."

"This place has achieved what other regions cannot achieve, high-density cultivation of First Circle magical plants, planting First Circle magical plants just like planting ordinary plants."

This point was truly amazing.

The common sense Locke had established in the Land of Six Towers was that a First Circle magical plant must occupy an extremely large area, with only a pile of apprentice-level magical plants around it. So his previous special laboratory at White Dragon's Tower looked like it occupied a large area, but could only plant 3-4 First Circle magical plants inside.

This was still because of the Dragon Crystal Ecological Dome.

Otherwise, they could only be planted even more sparsely.

At Golden Crown Mountain, the magic tide concentration gradient here was several orders of magnitude higher than the entire Cloud Marsh Wetland. Therefore, here it was possible to make First Circle magical plants be planted in rows like ordinary crops.

Locke spent fifty thousand magic stones to purchase some magical plant seeds and planted them into this soil. Some were apprentice-level magical plants, some were First Circle magical plants.

The selection of these seeds was all based on those magical plant seeds from the magical plant to magical creature symbiotic relationships that apprentices had speculated about through phenomenon observation in materials he had read before.

Anyway, the research startup funds the Origin Academy gave him were two hundred thousand magic stones, so Locke directly spent fifty thousand magic stones to experiment with the ideas generated from the materials he had read over more than a week.

Locke chanted an incantation and used a spell. After planting all these seeds, he began using [Rapid Growth] magic to accelerate their growth in the soil.

Without the Dragon Crystal Ecological Dome, First Circle magical plants would grow slower. Even for the current Locke, cultivating a mature First Circle magical plant would require a week's time.

But those apprentice-level magical plants quickly grew out.

One week later, on top of the Great Red Mountain Banyan tree, Locke fused three picked Big Yellow Duck Bromeliads. After fusing three First Circle level bromeliads, they became a level 8 synthesis item.

Locke looked at this magical plant's description and immediately felt energized. "Level 8 synthesis item, Mutated Big Yellow Duck Bromeliad. It can absorb free lightning energy in the air, store it between vacuoles, and release it instantly the moment it touches an enemy's body."

"Lightning Bees and similar magical creatures like to parasitize in Big Yellow Duck Bromeliads, because the Big Yellow Duck Bromeliad's natural geometric structure and stored lightning energy make Lightning Bees more willing to build nests inside."

Locke scanned this description, "As expected, the synthesis description for this economic crop Big Yellow Duck Bromeliad will actively mention what magical creatures it mainly forms symbiotic relationships with."

"Looking at this hint description, if I continue researching these magical plant to magical creature symbiotic relationships, my research efficiency can be increased at least tenfold, or even more."

Locke looked at the Big Yellow Duck Air Bromeliad and thought deeply. "The investigation report the apprentice gave me shows they believed a thunderbird flock inhabiting the forest had reproduction numbers exceeding the average value by 50%, and suspected it was the result of consuming the local specialty magical plant, the epiphytic magical plant Big Yellow Duck Air Bromeliad."

"But the description didn't mention this point, so clearly that apprentice's judgment was wrong."

"However, Lightning Bees... if I remember correctly, those are a type of ultra-small bee only the size of rice grains, difficult to see with the naked eye. They themselves fly in mid-air like a tiny lightning bolt."

Locke thought, "If Lightning Bees live inside Big Yellow Duck Air Bromeliads, and then thunderbirds also like to eat Big Yellow Duck Air Bromeliads, they might eat the Lightning Bees along with them?"

Locke's heart jumped as an answer flashed through. "So those thunderbirds didn't enhance their fertility by eating Big Yellow Duck Bromeliads, but by eating the Lightning Bees inside the Big Yellow Duck Bromeliads?"

"This is a multi-layered nested symbiotic relationship?"

Very likely.

This was the magical part of nature.

Proving this point was very simple. He would rent twelve pairs of thunderbirds and divide them into four groups.

Three pairs of thunderbirds in one group would have Big Yellow Duck Bromeliads added to their thunderbird feed. Three pairs of thunderbirds in another group would have Lightning Bee food added besides their specialized thunderbird feed. Three pairs of thunderbirds in another group would consume both Lightning Bee food and Big Yellow Duck Bromeliads besides their specialized thunderbird feed.

Then, in the last group, he would only let the final three pairs of thunderbirds eat only ordinary specialized thunderbird feed.

Then observe the breeding situations of the four groups of thunderbirds.

After Locke realized this point, he immediately used half an acre of magical field to plant all the Big Yellow Duck Air Bromeliad magical plant seeds in his hands.

At the same time, he headed to Dragon Blood Market to purchase the magical creature Lightning Bees and see if he could rent thunderbirds about to enter their breeding period.

If this were in other regions, completing this experiment would require cooperation from multiple parties. The magical plant side would need to wait for it to grow, and the magical creature side would definitely need an even longer reproduction cycle than the magical plants.

Back and forth, completing such a simple experiment might take a year.

But Golden Crown Mountain's experimental conditions were really too perfect. Commerce was developed here, disciplines were complete, and the number of wizards was numerous.

Golden Crown Mountain itself had many wizards, and outside Golden Crown Mountain, the number of wizards in those surrounding small and medium wizard organizations added up was also many.

A huge market had formed here.

So Locke could directly rent from those shops thunderbirds that were very likely entering breeding period to complete his experiment.

Compressing the experiment time as much as possible.

One month later, Locke jumped down from his cloud whale's head and landed steadily on the Great Red Mountain Banyan's canopy.

The cloud whale, seeing its master leave, happily rolled in the sky, tumbling through the sea of clouds, and stayed in that cloud mass waiting for Locke to summon it again.

As a mode of transportation, this cloud whale was quite useful.

Locke quickly walked to the Great Red Mountain Banyan's canopy center area.

At this moment, beside the magical field were also twelve bird cages with pairs of thunderbird couples living inside.

Each thunderbird's feathers were like sharp barbs, growing straight upward vertically. Terrible lightning coiled around their yellow plumage.

Forget about touching thunderbirds, mortals would be electrocuted into charcoal just by approaching.

In some low-magic colonial planes, thunderbirds would even be worshipped as divine spirits by locals.

Locke looked at the breeding situation of the four groups of thunderbirds and immediately nodded. "As expected, my guess was correct. Thunderbirds didn't enhance their reproductive capacity by eating Big Yellow Duck Bromeliads, but by eating the Lightning Bees inside the Big Yellow Duck Bromeliads. That's what enhanced their reproductive capacity."

"Among the four control groups, besides the two groups of thunderbirds that ate Lightning Bees successfully hatching two thunderbird eggs each, all other groups of thunderbirds entering breeding period completely stopped mating behavior."

Locke's eyes flashed. "So I can boldly propose a conclusion, thunderbirds must continuously consume Lightning Bees in order to hatch offspring."

"Lightning Bees are the key."

Locke wrote down his conclusion in his materials. These were all preliminary experiment data. The more solid this data was, the easier the project application written using it would be to pass through the Origin Academy project fund.

Locke thought, "If I continue this topic, next I'll mainly do two things. Analyze why Lightning Bees like to lodge in Big Yellow Duck Bromeliads and build nests inside, and how Big Yellow Duck Bromeliads increase Lightning Bee population numbers."

"Second point, how many Lightning Bees do thunderbirds need to eat in order to possess reproductive ability in the natural environment."

"Because my key research scope is on magical plants, so I'd best also know the mechanism by which Lightning Bees parasitize inside Big Yellow Duck Bromeliads."

If Locke didn't have the Synthesis Cube, just investigating this step would require a year and a half. If luck was bad, even longer.

Many excellent wizards got stuck on Origin Academy fund projects for exactly these reasons.

Researching things was like walking a road with countless forks, but among countless forks, only a few forks had value.

Once the wrong choice was made, even if you were a genius, you were just wasting time.

So the keen ability to discover key research points largely determined a wizard's research efficiency.

Locke didn't know how his ability to perceive key points compared to other wizards, but he had the Synthesis Cube to help. With the Synthesis Cube's hints, from the start he knew the coexistence relationship between Big Yellow Duck Bromeliads and Lightning Bees was just that Big Yellow Duck Bromeliads provided Lightning Bees with comfortable nesting environments and lightning energy fields.

Then he didn't need to queue to use the structural comparison machine to analyze the thousands of natural magic structural components inside Big Yellow Duck Bromeliads, then slowly guess which natural magic structural components caused Lightning Bees to like lodging inside Big Yellow Duck Bromeliads.

Although up to now, Locke had already spent one hundred thousand magic stones purchasing magical plant seeds and renting magical creatures, Locke was very satisfied with the results he produced in just one month plus one week.

"With such excellent preliminary experiment data, the project application I write should have a greatly increased probability of being approved."

"But just this isn't enough."

Locke turned to look at the bromeliad magical plants in the remaining half acre of magical field. What was planted there wasn't Big Yellow Duck Bromeliads, but three other types of bromeliads.

All First Circle magical plants.

Respectively Big Black Diamond Bromeliad, Blue Swan Bromeliad, and White Pearl Bromeliad.

At the same time, there were also some other magical creature cages around.

He could use the Synthesis Cube to continuously synthesize bromeliad-type magical plants while accumulating quite a bit of related data to help him accelerate producing special synthesis formulas.

Since that was the case, what was most efficient for him wasn't to research and synthesize magical plants one by one.

But to directly research a bunch of the same type of magical plants together, thereby discovering these magical plants' symbiotic relationships with other magical creatures, as well as the mystery of enhancing specific magical creatures' reproductive capacity.

For him with the Synthesis Cube, this was the fastest efficiency.

He didn't need to research one magical plant, then research the next one like other wizards.

"If I spend another one hundred thousand magic stones to rent magical creatures entering mating period, I should be able to strive to complete the preliminary experiment reports for the remaining three types of air bromeliad magical plants within this month."

"Moreover..." Locke took out a Big Yellow Duck Bromeliad from the Synthesis Cube and looked at the description on it,

[Mutated Big Yellow Duck Bromeliad, level 8 synthesis item, Big Yellow Duck Crown Bromeliad. This Big Yellow Duck Bromeliad underwent mutation through Magic Resonance Breeding Method... By actively secreting natural magic structural components similar to the spell model structure of Royal Lightning Field on its leaf surface, Lightning Bees lodging inside will be accelerated to catalyze into queen bees, thereby attracting Lightning Bees to actively build nests inside.]

This was a mutated version of Big Yellow Duck Bromeliad that Locke synthesized from two Big Yellow Duck Air Bromeliads and one portion of royal jelly.

Locke looked at this Big Yellow Duck Bromeliad that looked plain and ordinary, with only the patterns becoming slightly more complex, and thought, "My guess was indeed correct. As long as I continuously synthesize every day, sooner or later I can synthesize special formulas."

"Some special formulas very likely produce special natural magic structural components that didn't originally exist."

Locke's expression was strange.

He needed to investigate some materials to see if natural magic structural components like the Royal Lightning Field type existed.

If not, then the current situation would be very interesting.

He had synthesized a completely new mutated version of Big Yellow Duck Bromeliad, and this Big Yellow Duck Bromeliad would secrete a substance that hadn't been discovered so far (though not necessarily non-existent in nature).

Then he could directly use the special Big Yellow Duck Bromeliad he cultivated to discover a completely new type of natural magic structural component.

Locke frowned. "Cultivating new magical plants myself, then discovering new types of natural magic structural components isn't impossible."

"I also need to check if there's such magic as Royal Lightning Field... If there isn't such magic, then I can also hand this component to Evocation School's lightning magic sub-direction wizards and have them research this substance to obtain a completely new lightning magic."

Locke stood on the Great Red Mountain Banyan, smiling, "Fundamental research work is indeed very interesting. Drawing inferences from one instance, I've instead discovered more things."

"Even, I've very likely discovered a completely new Evocation School lightning magic's spell model, and its naturally occurring magic-like natural structural component in nature. This I didn't expect."

Locke understood some of the significance of fundamental research.

Golden Crown Mountain pursued illusory things, very likely because people usually didn't know what was practical.

If doing some relatively common things in society, then going with the flow and following public cognition was fine.

But if they stood at the forefront of exploration, exploring truth, then they didn't know what was practical and what was wasting time.

So Golden Crown Mountain believed not to judge anything as illusory or practical, not to classify, but to explore what interested them based on interests and hobbies.

Therefore, Golden Crown Mountain overall pursued the illusory.

Locke thought, "But honestly, only wizard organizations like Golden Crown Mountain that need to stand in the future need to be so illusory. If it were other wizard organizations, even survival problems before their eyes couldn't be solved. If they were still so illusory, I'm afraid they'd have to disband the next moment."

"So, do what's appropriate for your position." Locke reacted. "Some concepts have no right or wrong, only suitable or unsuitable for oneself."

"Third Circle wizards can take a long-term view, but I'm now just a small First Circle wizard. I should try my best to build up my resume to obtain better resources."

Locke shook his head. "I absolutely can't let Golden Crown Mountain's thinking habits lead me astray. Golden Crown Mountain and Landbridge are high and mighty, one of Cloud Marsh Wetland's seven top wizard organizations, very famous even in the eastern quadrant. But I'm just an ordinary First Circle liquefaction stage wizard, not even a crystallization stage wizard."

"I need to have a reasonable understanding of my situation."

"I can't treat myself as Golden Crown Mountain and a Third Circle wizard just because I'm in Golden Crown Mountain's Origin Academy!"

Locke checked his savings.

After a month passed, he had gained another one hundred sixty thousand magic stones, plus his previous three hundred sixty thousand magic stones in savings.

But because he spent one hundred thousand on experiments this month, plus some miscellaneous living expenses costing one thousand magic stones, currently he had four hundred eleven thousand nine hundred magic stones remaining.

That is, forty-one magic crystal cards and nine thousand magic stones.

Locke saw it was already evening and headed to the Origin Academy's classroom area.

After a month of classes, the three major classroom courses were almost finished. Today was the last teacher skill improvement course.

After finishing the three major courses, he should have to do teaching tasks, right?