Locke was somewhat at a loss. "Thank you, teacher..."

"Thank you so much. This magical artifact is so valuable that I don't even know if I should accept it."

Witch Yekaterina said, "But you truly need it. I can understand the suffering of those with super intuition, the side effects of that divination ability that cannot be turned off."

"I simply believe that your growth needs it, so I'm giving it to you. You can also consider it borrowed, or given to a wizard with the same problems as us. When one day you no longer need it, and you meet a wizard who needs it just as you once did, you can also give it to them."

Witch Yekaterina said, "Alright, in the future you can modify some data a bit before publishing it. This can reduce a lot of trouble."

"You can choose your special plane now."

"The three planes I've selected for you are the Emerald Dream, the Ancient Sky Phantom Realm, and the Rain God Heaven Realm."

"The Rain God Heaven Realm is a special world that potion masters like to contract with. Using ritual magic to borrow the world power of the Rain God Heaven Realm can reduce the difficulty of most high-difficulty potions when brewing them."

"It can reduce the difficulty by about ten percent."

"Unless that potion conflicts with the world power attributes of the Rain God Heaven Realm."

Witch Yekaterina said, "The Rain God Heaven Realm is a special unique world in the endless void. Its formation reason is unknown, how long it has existed is unknown, and its specific purpose for wanting to contract with wizards is unknown. We only know that it desperately desires to obtain wizards' souls and bodies."

"Potion rain perpetually envelops that world. Even Third Circle wizards face danger of perishing if they enter that world."

"But the conditions for the Rain God Heaven Realm to lend power to wizards are very harsh, namely, after this wizard dies, their soul and corpse belong to the Rain God Heaven Realm."

Locke's expression changed slightly.

Witch Yekaterina said, "The Emerald Dream is a unique special world whose world will is somewhat more positive. The Emerald Dream is a world formed by the accumulation of countless plant spirits. You know about spirits, right? They're the spirits that appear before souls, the primitive souls. Plants don't have souls, but they have spirits."

"The world formed by the phantoms of those spirits has made the Emerald Dream into a plane with the special properties of both a natural plane and an idealistic plane. The Emerald Dream sometimes naturally contracts with some mortals in our wizard world. This suddenly gives those mortals who originally had no wizard talent an affinity for wood elemental particles, though generally with lower talent grades, below level 3."

Witch Yekaterina said, "A great figure from the Star Domain Sea, through researching this mechanism, determined that the Emerald Dream entangles with the dream realms of some people in the wizard world from childhood through elemental particles, producing planar gates."

"Their dreams are the gates to the Emerald Dream, so they possess magical talent. Moreover, if any of them are fortunate enough to become formal wizards and possess psychic power, they'll discover that they've already naturally contracted with the Emerald Dream."

Locke blinked, not expecting that this special plane would have such special influence in the wizard world.

Witch Yekaterina said, "The Emerald Dream condenses many natural forces and favors plant-type wizards."

"Many plant-type wizards like to contract with the Emerald Dream."

"But for every portion of Emerald Dream power borrowed, one must mentally go to the Emerald Dream to perform some tasks for it, such as clearing nightmares that pollute the environment within the Emerald Dream."

"Conversely, as long as you clear enough and sufficiently powerful nightmares within the Emerald Dream, you can borrow sufficiently powerful forces from the Emerald Dream."

Witch Yekaterina said, "So many plant-type First Circle crystallization wizards will fall into the Emerald Sleep through 'slumber,' entering the Emerald plane to accumulate more world power that can be exchanged for Emerald Dream power during battle."

"Of course, if you contract with the Emerald Dream, your dreams will also automatically undergo elemental coupling with the Emerald Dream plane, becoming a dream gate."

"This can slightly increase your compatibility with wood elemental particles, though for First Circle wizards, this is an optional benefit."

Witch Yekaterina said, "The world consciousness of the Emerald Dream is influenced by life force, so its danger level is very low and cost-effectiveness is very high. Signing a World Contract with it isn't really a loss."

"The only danger is that if you overdraft and use too much Emerald Dream power at once, you'll have to fall into excessively long slumber to repay the debt you previously incurred."

"Therefore, there's a risk that if you borrow too much power at once, you'll have to spend the next several hundred years repaying the debt."

Witch Yekaterina said, "And the third choice is the Ancient Sky Phantom Realm."

"The Ancient Sky Phantom Realm is also a unique special plane. This is a special plane without ground, but it's not an elemental plane composed of air elements. Rather, it's a life plane similar to the main material plane, so its type is unique."

"The Ancient Sky Phantom Realm is composed of the sky portions from many worlds in the endless void that have already perished. Many races live within it."

"When wizards form contracts with this special plane, their souls don't need to belong to this world after death, but each use requires sacrificing some organ from their body. The more important the organ sacrificed to oneself, eyes, heart, the more powerful sky power one will obtain."

"The Ancient Sky Phantom Realm favors the dragon race, so if we contract with this plane, the sacrifice price we pay will be somewhat less."

Witch Yekaterina said, "You can choose any of these three special planes, but it's best to only choose one of them."

"Any special plane, regardless of good or evil, is dangerous and extremely powerful. Too many entanglements bring us no benefits."

Locke sat on the chair and after thinking, first eliminated the Rain God Heaven Realm.

He had the Primordial Fire and Pure Flow Filter Stone, which could also increase the success rate of brewing potions. He didn't need to use dangerous ritual magic.

Borrowing the world power of the Rain God Heaven Realm meant that after death, his soul would definitely belong to it. It was equivalent to signing a slave contract. In the future, he wouldn't even dare to die.

So he directly eliminated this world.

Locke asked Witch Yekaterina, "Teacher, may I ask you some questions?"

Yekaterina sat back at her desk, picked up an Imperial Syrup Drunken Pear from the fruit plate on her desk, and handed it to Locke. "Go ahead, you don't need to be so polite."

"To me, you're not an outsider."

Locke accepted the drunken pear and took a bite, discovering that the juice of this pear actually mixed the fragrance of wine and pear juice together, and after eating it, it could increase his magical power.

Worthy of being fruit that could enter a Third Circle Throne's fruit plate. Besides having an incomparable taste, it was also very practical.

Locke noticed his magical power was rapidly recovering. This First Circle level Imperial Syrup Drunken Pear's greatest function was probably to quickly restore depleted magical power.

Locke asked Witch Yekaterina his question. "Teacher, what kind of power can the Emerald Dream and Ancient Sky Phantom Realm bring me respectively?"

Witch Yekaterina quickly said, "The Emerald Dream can enhance the power of magical plants, increasing it by at least thirty percent. If you borrow more, perhaps you can enhance it threefold. But in general circumstances, very few wizards can borrow that much power."

"That requires slaying many nightmares."

"The Ancient Sky Phantom Realm can enhance your bloodline power. Depending on the importance of the body part you sacrifice, you can obtain different levels of sky power blessing, also enhancing up to threefold at most. In the endless void, aside from the Blood River plane, very few special planes set the upper limit of world power that can be borrowed to an infinitely large value for individual wizards."

Locke understood. Generally speaking, using ritual magic, the upper limit of world power that could be borrowed to strengthen oneself was roughly around threefold.

Of course, there were also special cases like the Blood River plane.

Back then, to defeat his Myst's Power, Nidhogg had nearly borrowed enough power to directly become Second Circle, so he was directly swallowed by the Blood River plane at that time.

Threefold amplification was already astonishing.

His current normal state hadn't yet reached the First Circle limit of 9,999 magical pressure.

But if he used borrowed world power to strengthen his state threefold, that would be an extremely exaggerated value.

After knowing this, Locke also understood why he had been beaten down by Nidhogg using ritual magic at that time, and even Myst's Power couldn't help him turn the tables.

For First Circle crystallization wizards, ritual magic was indeed a very important method, something that couldn't be used often but could serve as a trump card.

Witch Yekaterina spread her hands. "You choose for yourself."

"Whatever choice you make, I believe it's very wise."

Witch Yekaterina had a habit of never actively interfering with other wizards making their own choices.

She believed that freedom was the most important thing for a wizard.

Only those who could command themselves were qualified to call themselves wizards. Those who could only be commanded by others were nothing but puppets on strings.

Locke began thinking. Although Witch Yekaterina believed that both the Emerald Dream and the Ancient Sky Phantom Realm were suitable for him.

But that was probably because, in her eyes, he was simultaneously a plant-type wizard and breeding genius, and also possessed Primordial Dragon Scales.

These two worlds, one favored plant-type wizards, the other favored the dragon race.

One could enhance his magical plants, the other could enhance the bloodline within his body.

Locke didn't hesitate much. Although he possessed the Scorpion Woman Ring and had three drops of true blood in his body, his foundation was still as a plant-type wizard.

Therefore, if he chose to contract with a special plane, he would definitely still choose the Emerald Dream.

Moreover, the ritual magic price of the Ancient Sky Phantom Realm, which required sacrificing important body parts at any moment, was really too frightening compared to the Emerald Dream's task-doing requirement.

The Emerald Dream seemed much gentler in nature by comparison.

Locke said to Witch Yekaterina, "Teacher, I choose the Emerald Dream."

Witch Yekaterina nodded, "Mm, this is a very good choice. But it also means that in the deep development of bloodline studies and plant studies, you've chosen plant studies."

"If you had chosen the Ancient Sky Phantom Realm, you would have discovered just how much that special plane favors dragon bloodlines."

"You've given up on deeply excavating the dragon bloodline. Actually, if you took the dragon bloodline as your core and excavated its potential to construct your own bloodline studies system, it would be easier to become a Second Circle wizard."

Locke shook his head slightly.

There were many secrets hidden behind this dragon bloodline. Unless absolutely necessary, he didn't want to place all his hopes on it.

Rather, with plant studies, he had walked step by step and was already very solid, and it had extremely high compatibility with his golden finger.

Witch Yekaterina's lips curved up, saying, "Actually, I once made a similar choice, and I made the same choice as you."

For some reason, Locke felt that Witch Yekaterina's gaze toward him became even gentler.

"Between excavating dragon bloodlines and developing breeding studies and plant studies, I chose the latter." Witch Yekaterina said, "Actually, I only discovered later that choosing the latter made it easier to become a Third Circle wizard. If I had deeply excavated the dragon bloodline back then, it would indeed have made it easier for me to become a Second Circle wizard, but that bloodline would have transformed into an insurmountable chasm preventing me from continuing forward at the Second Circle stage."

Locke didn't quite understand, after all, this knowledge was too distant for him. "Teacher, then why did you let me choose freely before?"

Witch Yekaterina said, "I wanted to see your choice. Moreover, wizards who go against their own choices find it even harder to become Third Circle wizards."

"Besides, for many wizards, becoming Second Circle is already satisfying. So these two choices are difficult to judge as right or wrong."

Witch Yekaterina took out a contract from her astral ring. "This is a Ritual Book created by a Third Circle wizard of the Summoning School. Although there are other ritual magic contracting methods, so far, using the Ritual Book to contract is the safest among all methods."

"This is a path explored by countless wizards at the cost of their own lives."

"Look over the contract. If there are no problems, sign your name in the lower left corner."

Locke read through the ritual book several times. After confirming there were no issues, he used a magic quill pen to write his name in the ritual book.

The next moment, another string of profound text appeared beside his name.

Locke immediately realized that this was the name signed by the Emerald Dream as the other party, but he couldn't recognize those characters at all.

That was one of the world's most profound secrets, the world's primordial script.

As the contract was completed, Locke sensed a peculiar world power descending into this space, expressing joy and an invitation to him.

This joy quickly transformed into extreme enthusiasm in a certain moment, as if desperately hoping he would immediately go to the Emerald Dream.

Witch Yekaterina frowned. "Hm? Why is the world power so active... The degree of favor the Emerald Dream shows you can actually reach this level..."

Locke suddenly felt drowsy, and a mass of emerald-colored magical radiance appeared in the depths of his consciousness. "Teacher..."

Witch Yekaterina frowned and embraced Locke, saying in a low voice, "Don't be nervous. This is the Emerald Dream inviting you to participate in the Emerald Trial. Usually only special wizards are chosen for this. Ordinary plant-type wizards and breeders would absolutely never encounter this."

"Wizards who pass the Emerald Trial will be able to borrow special power from the Emerald Dream plane in the future. You can understand it as unlocking special borrowing privileges."

Witch Yekaterina had originally wanted to give a few more instructions, but discovered that Locke was already drowsy. "But why can this student of mine attract such favor from the Emerald Dream plane?!"

Witch Yekaterina frowned, looking at Locke's forehead, falling into contemplation. "He must have something on him that can extremely attract the Emerald Dream plane."