Inside the Golden Crown Mountain library, Locke was consulting books in the free access area while holding Albert's detailed information, cross-referencing it with the records in the classics.

"The engraved array runes of the permanent defensive field conflicted with mana. This situation also exists in Cloud Marsh Wetland." Locke's eyes narrowed. "As expected of Golden Crown Mountain's library in Cloud Marsh Wetland. This kind of soul-related information that couldn't be queried at all in the southeastern quadrant can be accessed right here in the free area."

"The identification method is a magic pressure spectrum. Have the wizard drink a spectrum potion, use a mass spectrometer, and map this wizard's magic pressure spectrum for the next hour."

"If the spectrum is continuous, then it proves that there are no foreign objects in the soul, and Albert has some other condition. If the spectrum shows breaks, then it means Albert's soul contains a foreign object."

Locke's expression changed slightly. "A spectrum analyzer. I remember there's one at Lilith's Cottage's Healing Hand treatment center, but the equipment is rather old and the version is outdated, though it should be usable."

"If that doesn't work, I'll have to borrow equipment from Virdantia University. If that still doesn't work, then I'll have to go to the nearest wizard land to borrow equipment."

There was no helping it. In the southeastern quadrant, it was already good enough if any wizard organization possessed this kind of advanced equipment.

Though in Golden Crown Mountain, regardless of what level of experiment it was, there would be several of the most advanced spectrum analyzers available.

Locke summoned the gray stone tablet and used image communication to contact Albert and Halen Vera.

He informed Halen Vera and Albert of his findings.

Halen Vera showed a thoughtful expression. "You're saying that you believe Albert's problem lies in the presence of a foreign object inside his soul?"

Locke said calmly, "After consulting similar cases from Cloud Marsh Wetland, this is indeed the case. Moreover, if this is the situation, then he can indeed use Forest Sanctuary to advance to formal wizard."

"Because the main defensive magic inscription of Forest Sanctuary is not on his soul, this magic will experience relatively little interference. However, if this problem isn't resolved, even if he becomes a formal wizard, I'm afraid it will be very difficult for him to continue with mental power substantialization."

"Soul problems are not trivial matters, even for wizards."

And if mental power couldn't be substantialized, then Albert could only remain an ordinary formal wizard for life, unable to progress even an inch.

A trace of excitement appeared on Albert's face. "Locke... I just need to become a formal wizard. As long as I can become a formal wizard, I'll be satisfied."

Albert quickly realized that Halen Vera was also present, so he immediately corrected himself. "Mentor Augustine, please help me resolve this problem."

"I'm extremely grateful to you."

Halen Vera glanced at him, knowing that he and Locke had a good relationship. He wasn't some old stubborn person. Since Locke was willing to let Albert interact with him as an equal, what could he, an outsider, say about it?

Halen Vera smiled at Locke and said, "Locke, as expected, only by going to bigger places will one gain more knowledge. I can hardly believe that a problem that has troubled our Lilith's Cottage for a year and a half, a difficult issue that many potion masters here felt completely confused about, was immediately solved by you after just meeting Albert once." 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Locke said calmly, "It's not that I'm particularly capable, it's just that there's more relevant information here in Cloud Marsh Wetland."

From the current perspective, his greatest gain in Cloud Marsh Wetland was being able to freely access this high-quality information.

Locke had even searched in the library himself and found that much knowledge that only high-level wizards in the southeastern quadrant knew about, such as curse erosion seeds, could be found casually in the free access area here.

Halen Vera said, "Even just becoming a formal wizard is already sufficient in our southeastern quadrant. A formal wizard possessing Myst's Power is exactly what Lilith's Cottage urgently needs right now."

"Locke, then I'll leave this to you. It's Lilith's Cottage's honor to have produced students like you and Witch Sophia."

Halen Vera continued, "Now, your knowledge in potion studies may have already surpassed mine, so as a wizard and also a potion master, I'm also quite curious about one thing. If the foreign object inside Albert's soul truly exists, is it innate or acquired?"

Locke glanced at Albert and said, "There's a high probability it's acquired. If it were innate, he should have exhibited some physical symptoms."

"Such as confused consciousness, loss of ability to distinguish truth from falsehood, and so on."

"In other words, Albert couldn't possibly maintain normal human cognition."

Halen Vera frowned and looked at Albert, saying, "Then that's strange. Albert, what exactly did you come into contact with?"

Albert frowned, falling into deep thought. "I don't know either."

Locke looked at the collection of information on soul foreign object syndrome in his hands and said, "When foreign objects appear in the soul after birth, it's generally possible it's bloodline mutation, or high-circle wizard soul experiments. If it's not these two situations."

"Then it's that you came into contact with some alien life form. Do you have no recollection?"

Albert's expression became dazed, as if he was thinking hard, but no matter how much he contemplated, he had no memory whatsoever of when he might have contacted such alien life forms.

"These past two years, I've been staying at Lilith's Cottage headquarters, preparing to advance to formal wizard. I haven't gone out at all."

Locke had a hypothesis. "Then during your two years at Lilith's Cottage headquarters, have you heard anyone calling for help, or while walking, heard someone calling your name or anything like that?"

Albert thought hard. "No. After Andy died and you and Sophia left Lilith's Cottage, for a long time, I was almost always alone."

"During that period, I liked to rescue some injured small creatures in the wild. The only thing that could be called rescue would be that. Oh right..."

Albert said, "I remember now. Once in the wild, I heard the cry for help from a pink magic rabbit with an injured left leg. But after I bandaged its wound, it ran away in a flash."

"But that night, I had a very strange dream."

Locke immediately pressed, "What dream?"

After thinking, Albert said, "It was a blue light, a blue ring, that appeared right beside my bed. I suddenly woke up, only to realize it was just a dream."

Locke and Halen Vera's images made eye contact. Both simultaneously thought of the ghost bride that the Blood Master had summoned at Lilith's Cottage headquarters back then. But that ghost bride was all show and no substance, with an even more powerful presence behind it, something that had never been human, or even something that had never been a life form of the main material plane.

Back then, Locke had led a large-scale ecology that temporarily used earth power to suppress that life form.

But Locke knew that unknown life form couldn't be eliminated just like that. It was still trying to fully enter the main material plane, to enter the wizard world.

Halen Vera said to Locke, "Could it be that thing summoned by the Blood Master?"

Locke nodded. "I had my suspicions before. Many victims of soul foreign object syndrome came into contact with outer evil gods or certain extraterrestrial evil entities."

"Cloud Marsh Wetland once had a team of First Circle wizard apprentice explorers who entered a new colonial plane. In that tropical rainforest that seemed to only have primitive tribal civilization stage, these wizard apprentices were attacked by an evil god existence worshipped by those primitive tribal civilizations. As a result, after they returned, without exception, all of them failed to advance to formal wizard."

"The reason was that during the process of eliminating the evil god, fragments of that evil god's soul managed to enter their souls. That was a characteristic of the evil gods in that plane. Those who destroyed them would automatically absorb their soul fragments, to become the next version of them."

"And when I think carefully about it, the only unknown life form Albert could have contacted would be the life form I suppressed using earth ecology back then."

Locke said, "Moreover, I also found information about it in Cloud Marsh Wetland."

Locke held up the magic book in his hand for Albert and Halen Vera to see. On that magic book was a ring emitting strange blue light. "This is a disc being, something that originated from within our wizard world itself."

"This is content researched by earth wizards. Disc beings are produced when violent large-scale geological disasters cause natural forces to remain in an extreme state for extended periods, creating a kind of twisted extreme natural force."

Locke said, "The earth wizards of Cloud Marsh Wetland discovered this kind of thing long ago and have been trying to capture these disc beings."

"Disc beings were born from a geological-scale disaster that earth wizards couldn't pinpoint, and were later expelled from this problem by the life energy of the wizard world's natural state that had recovered at some point."

Locke flipped through the information in his hands and said, "Natural forces in normal states only maintain life, but extreme-state natural forces like disc beings are exactly the opposite. They only want to destroy all life forms in this world."

Locke continued, "Disc beings are a type of twisted natural life form produced by the wizard world. They're strange enough even for us wizards. At least First Circle wizards have no way to eliminate disc beings."

Halen Vera asked, "Why is this?"

Locke said, "Because disc beings are essentially part of the wizard world's nature, albeit the part that was expelled by the wizard world. First Circle wizards cannot destroy nature itself. This is almost on the level of rules."

"The earth wizards call disc beings dark natural life forms. For dark natural life forms to descend again into this world, they need to receive a summons from life in this world itself. Through using life forms of this world itself, whether through possession or combination, their methods are strange and varied anyway. Only then can they descend again into this world."

Locke said, "As dark natural life forms, disc beings naturally hate all life in normal states. Therefore, they desperately desire to return to the wizard world."

"However, the disc being under Lilith's Cottage's land shouldn't have completely descended yet. Otherwise, all of Lilith's Cottage would become a life-forbidden zone."

"All the mortals and wizards in Lilith's Cottage might die. Because disc beings are the embodiment of extreme nature from that great disaster tens of thousands of years ago, lasting for hundreds of thousands of years!"

A trace of fear flashed through Albert's eyes.

Because the disc beings that Locke spoke of were truly too strange, so strange that they sounded like something that even First Circle wizards couldn't deal with.

Locke said to Halen Vera, "However, for earth wizards, disc beings are research material they dream of. The earth wizards of Golden Crown Mountain have always been trying to capture more disc beings for research. Most disc beings are essentially embodiments of twisted extreme earth."

"They're basically oriented toward twisted earth, though there are also some twisted sky and twisted ocean types that would also attract the attention of Life School ocean wizards and sky wizards."

"Teacher Halen, if Lilith's Cottage finds this troublesome, I can inform Golden Crown Mountain about this matter. I think the earth wizards of Golden Crown Mountain would be very happy to help us deal with that disc being."

A flash of interest appeared in Halen Vera's eyes. "So you're saying that because of the Blood Master, our Lilith's Cottage now possesses a resource point that Life School wizards dream of?"

Halen Vera immediately refused. "That won't be necessary. Locke, if that's the case, then it would be like we're sick and need to find other wizards to treat us."

"But in reality, under our Lilith's Cottage's land, we actually possess such a unique life form. That's our best research resource. Lilith's Cottage also offers Life School earth wizard magic categories."

"Moreover, our Lilith's Cottage has a whole bunch of Life School plant wizards."

"Breeders, potion masters."

"So, we'll research it ourselves. Locke, ahem... I still hope you'll keep this matter confidential from Golden Crown Mountain."

Locke found this somewhat amusing yet exasperating.

Indeed, for wizards, this kind of dangerous thing might instead bring huge discoveries. It was both danger and opportunity.

What wizard would refuse this hard-won opportunity?

Opportunity and danger always coexisted.

Locke nodded. "This is the academy's own business. I won't talk too much about it. I only need to focus on the work I'm responsible for."

Albert asked Locke, "But Locke, why is it that just because I saved a rabbit, my soul would be invaded by that disc being?"

Locke looked seriously at Albert and said, "The Blood Curse Court should still be at war with us, right? Then you should understand that for curse masters, any form of agreement is actively allowing curses to enter your body."

"The same applies to disc beings. You proactively extended aid and saved the rabbit that was a disc being's avatar, so in its view, you allowed it to enter your body."

"Your soul."

"A response is consent."

The expression on Albert's face showed he couldn't accept it. He hadn't expected that the origin of all his misfortune and suffering over these two years was simply that two years ago, he casually saved a rabbit in the wild.

Albert said, "But these are two different things. This..."

"I can't accept this..."

Locke said, "I know what you can't accept. But this is the essence of disc beings. Disc beings are embodiments of extreme-state natural forces that naturally hate life forms. The morality, laws, goodness, as well as evil and hatred of life forms, extreme emotions, are all tools it uses to eliminate us. So it took advantage of your occasional act of kindness and then entered your soul."

Locke continued, "The world is just this dangerous."

"Precisely because of this, we wizards need to exist. Exploring the unknown of this world is to prevent people like you from being exploited by existences that have never been human just because of one small act of kindness."

Albert was stunned. "Locke, you really sound like a wizard mentor now."

"Thank you for enlightening me. I understand now. Please help me become a formal wizard. If that's the case, I want to explore this aspect of the problem after becoming a formal wizard, as you said, so that those who come after won't have to suffer this pain."

Locke raised the information in his hands and smiled, saying, "Actually, you're already among those who came after, Albert. You've already enjoyed the benefits that those explorers brought you."

"Without so much information, I also couldn't have pinpointed your problem so quickly. First, let's do the magic pressure change spectrum."

"We always need to confirm what type of disc being it is, or have actual proof that a disc being invaded your soul, causing a foreign object to appear in your soul, rejecting the permanent defensive field you inscribed on your soul's surface."

Halen Vera looked silently at Locke and showed a gratified smile.

Perhaps he could only be an average First Circle wizard for this lifetime, but he had achieved something new in the teaching field. He had cultivated an outstanding wizard.

At least he had taught him for a period of time.

And that was what he wanted.

In the library, Locke discussed with Albert for a while longer, setting up a reading list for him to learn Forest Sanctuary and some things he needed to prepare.

Using the magic pressure mass spectrometer and purchasing Scorched Earth Holly both required funding.

But fortunately, Lilith's Cottage's Myst's Power research center had one million magic stones in funding support for this project.

This could also be considered Locke doing a collaborative project.

Just cooperating with his old alma mater.

Locke dismissed the gray stone tablet. At the same time, he received a letter delivered by an owl messenger. It stated that he had passed the application for Tier 3 Origin Academy funding, and they were disbursing 300,000 magic stones to him. Additionally, he could now use the equipment in the laboratory worth more than thirty million magic stones.

For example, the Cold Ice Mirror, Sunlight Mirror, and Electromagnetic Mirror in the laboratory.

If he only needed to verify an already-discovered natural magic structure component, he would only need to use the structure comparison machine, at most adding the Cold Ice Mirror.

Actually, the structure comparison machine was already sufficient. Using the Cold Ice Mirror was just for rigor.

But if he wanted to analyze new natural magic structure components, he would also need to use the other two of the breeder's three great mirrors.

Each mirror was something that outside wizards found difficult to access.

"I have the Synthesis Cube helping me determine research directions. Completing those four projects won't require anywhere near three hundred thousand magic stones." Locke contemplated. "In order to quickly achieve a Tier 1 Origin Academy funding project, there's no need to wait for these funds to be approved one by one."

"Using a portion of these three hundred thousand magic stones, I can completely continue discovering more coexistence relationships between bromeliad magical plants and bird magical creatures' reproductive abilities."

"I'll use that one acre magical field on the Great Red Mountain Banyan to discover more symbiotic relationships between bromeliad magical plants and bird magical creatures. I'll rent a few more acres of magical fields to plant the four bromeliad magical plants I've already designed research frameworks for. I'll analyze them as quickly as possible and complete the projects."

After returning all the information, Locke went to Dragon Blood Market and once again rented one acre of normal matrix-type magical field at the foot of the mountain from Fertile Field Contract.

At the same time, Locke purchased large quantities of breeding items, preparing to plant large amounts of Big Yellow Duck Bromeliads and cultivate more Big Yellow Duck Crown Bromeliads.

By the time Locke finished a full day's work and returned to his dormitory, it was already midnight.

In a simple laboratory in his dormitory, Locke looked at a lightning bee living inside a Big Yellow Duck Crown Bromeliad in an isolation ecology bottle. Queen bee patterns had appeared on its body.

Locke confirmed that the effect of the Royal Lightning Field was to cause the lightning bee to undergo bloodline transformation, becoming a lightning bee queen.

What surprised Locke was that he had also placed an electric ant, an apprentice-level magical creature, on the surface of this Big Yellow Duck Crown Bromeliad. As a result, this electric ant also underwent some kind of bloodline mutation, becoming an ant queen. Its magic pressure was faintly between First Circle and apprentice level.

Locke's expression became strange. "Although saying this might sound somewhat harsh, this ant's soul level is already higher than the soul level of the natives of the Mage Plane, the colonial plane of the Land of Six Towers."

"On one hand, it benefits from the very high magical tide concentration gradient in the Golden Crown Mountain to Landbridge area. On the other hand, it's because of the natural magic structure component similar to the Royal Lightning Field secreted on the surface of the Big Yellow Duck Crown Bromeliad's scale-like leaves."

"This is truly amazing."

Locke thought of something. Since lightning bees and electric ants could evolve by feeding on certain substances on the surface of Big Yellow Duck Crown Bromeliad leaves, could the Three-Eyed Tiger Cat's transformation into a Second Circle creature also be due to consuming some plant in its natural environment at that time?

Had that magical plant become extinct now, or did it still exist?

If it was extinct, then for him to transform the Three-Eyed Tiger Cat's bloodline to Second Circle level would be very difficult.

Unless he combined archaeology and breeding to directly revive that ancient magical plant.

There was another point. Locke looked at the Big Yellow Duck Crown Bromeliad before him. "Conducting basic research can indeed always lead to discovering some unexpected things."

"The symbiotic relationship between magical plants and magical creatures isn't only reflected in enhancing their reproductive abilities. It can be manifested in all aspects, such as causing the symbiotic magical creatures to undergo specific types of evolution or transformation."

"The natural magic structure component secreted by the Big Yellow Duck Crown Bromeliad is exactly such an example. In that case, if I continue this type of research, I can discover even more magical plants that can help magical creatures' bloodline evolution."

Locke thought, "If I can help the Three-Eyed Tiger Cat's bloodline evolve, would this project's level be enough for a Tier 1 or even special funding level Origin Academy funding project?"

"One step at a time."

"Adapt to circumstances."

Golden Crown Mountain still had too many unknown things for him. What he currently saw was only the tip of the iceberg.