Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems-Chapter 122: Initial Fame

After purchasing a pile of magical resources, Locke left Chimera Trading Market with satisfaction.
By the time he returned to his residence, it was already dark.
But Witch Sophia had sent one of her elf servants to wait at his door and deliver a letter to him.
Locke took the letter, ignoring the elf servant who bowed to him, and opened the letter, only to find it was a reply from the White Wizard Association's breeder competition department.
"Hmm? I did indeed pass the preliminaries."
Locke saw the standard letter written by the competition committee, congratulating him on being selected for the finals and inviting him to submit his second magical plant work along with the file for his second magical plant work to continue participating in the White Wizard Association breeder competition finals.
"Only the top three hundred works from the entire southeastern quadrant can enter the finals." Locke said, "This is an established competition organized by the entire southeastern quadrant white wizard society. Basically, all breeder assistants who are qualified to participate will join to compete for resources."
"So the number of preliminary entries will reach thousands."
"But my work fought its way out among these thousands of works." Locke looked at the ranking table for the top three hundred that came with the letter, showing an inexplicable emotion in his eyes.
If before he was just gradually exploring the southeastern quadrant wizard world within Lilith's Cottage, now he was finally making his mark in this region for the first time, participating in a competition covering the entire southeastern quadrant and achieving victory.
Locke looked at the ranking table and began searching for his work's ranking. "My work is ranked... number... fifth!"
"My work actually ranked directly at fifth place."
Locke looked at the brief winning reason on the leaderboard: 'Very excellent work that perfectly enhanced the power of Palm Fire Lotus. The committee unanimously believes that if Palm Fire Lotus weren't relatively simple, the ranking could even be two places higher.'
Locke's expression was subtle, his mood slightly excited. In the entire southeastern quadrant, his work not only won the preliminary round but also achieved fifth place in the preliminaries.
He had outperformed numerous breeders in the southeastern quadrant.
"However, what kind of monsters are the top four to rank even higher than my Crystal Palm Fire Lotus?"
Locke quickly scanned the top four and found that the authors of the top four works were all first-class wizard apprentices, and not newly promoted first-class wizard apprentices either.
They had participated in this competition over ten times, relying on such competitions to win magical resources for themselves.
Therefore, they were well-versed in the competition's scoring standards and were experienced veterans.
The top four works indeed all looked somewhat better than his Crystal Palm Fire Lotus.
"There are still many expert breeders in the southeastern quadrant, I still can't be careless." Locke thought, "I heard from Teacher Sophia that in the White Wizard Association breeder competition, everyone definitely won't show their full strength during the preliminaries."
"Because the purpose of the preliminaries is just to enter the finals."
"So many breeders with strong capabilities won't exert their full strength in the preliminaries. Many who can often enter the top hundred in preliminaries might not even make it into the top hundred in the finals."
"So I need to continue working hard." Locke clenched his fist, "Even in the preliminaries, people ranked higher than me. In the finals, there will only be more and more experts."
"It seems I must put in certain efforts in this regard, otherwise I might not be able to enter the top fifty and receive large magic stone rewards."
Locke's purpose in participating in this competition was to obtain large amounts of magical resources from the beginning. All other purposes were incidental.
Of course, if he could win a good result in this competition, applying for various things from the academy in the future would be much simpler.
Locke's expression became serious. He walked back to his room to conduct tonight's meditation.
Every major leap was accumulated bit by bit through those small improvements.
...
Lilith's Cottage, port city, in an inconspicuous semi-basement in a commoner's alley. This semi-basement only had one window exposed above ground level.
The remaining larger half of the room was below ground level.
This was a house where the poor among commoners lived.
On rainy days, rainwater would flow back into this semi-basement. When the rainwater receded, this semi-basement house would have moldy corners emitting pungent odors that ordinary people simply couldn't live in.
Yet in such a filthy living environment, there were ten black wizards wearing black wizard robes sneaking around here, discussing their private plans.
These black wizards' eyes emitted red blood light in the dim environment. When they spoke, they revealed terrifying fangs. These black wizards were all vampires from the Blood Curse Court who had accepted blood curse transformations.
"Damn white wizards, their combat power isn't strong, but they have many other cunning tricks. Their weather masters have semi-permanently changed the climate environment in our Blood Curse Court's heartland, striking at our school's resource reserves."
"Those stupid potions of theirs have also polluted our water sources and land. When commoners eat food contaminated by those potions, their constitution develops resistance to our curses, which becomes very troublesome."
Vampire Howard twisted his neck in the darkness as if there was something wrong with his neck, constantly twisting it, and he was somewhat neurotic.
"The academy higher-ups have forbidden us from randomly casting curses on the commoners within our territory anymore. Casting curses on them during this period easily makes them develop targeted curse resistance."
"The academy higher-ups worry that this is a massive experiment conducted by those sanctimonious white wizards, using the commoners in our territory to test out constitutional bloodlines that specifically produce resistance to our school's existing curses..."
"White wizards are always so hypocritical!"
"We must retaliate, we must kill." Howard's eyes flashed with a mixture of bloodthirst and neurotic anger, "The academy higher-ups have issued the highest level revenge directive, requiring us apprentices lurking in Lilith's Cottage to begin targeted hunting of breeder and potion master geniuses from Lilith's Cottage."
"This is the response to those drug-selling provocative actions."
"Recently those false saints released the breeder competition preliminary rankings, didn't they? The academy higher-ups require us to conduct targeted hunting according to that list's rankings."
"We must hurt them, make them feel fear!"
"Hunting according to that list is definitely correct." Howard said neurotically, "As long as we hunt one of their geniuses, the academy will give us massive magical resource rewards."
"Don't say the academy never gave you opportunities before. Now the opportunity is right in front of you. If you want to become first-class wizard apprentices or even formal wizards, with just our little talent, can we succeed without risking our lives?!"
Most of the black wizards present only had 1st and 2nd level aptitude.
Only Howard had 3rd level aptitude.
Unlike white wizard society's extreme pursuit of geniuses, black wizard society, while also pursuing geniuses, was relatively less focused on it.
That was because in black wizard society, resources were the most important.
Black wizard society wasn't like white wizard society with relatively reasonable resource distribution. Without resources, even geniuses would have very limited development.
More importantly, black wizards had many shortcuts available. Many people's greatest motivation for learning black magic was because they were destined to be mediocre for life learning white magic, and only by learning extremely radical black magic could they achieve breakthroughs.
Although these hopes were largely self-deception.
The other Blood Curse Court wizard apprentices looked at each other. Upon hearing that the academy would give them huge rewards, their eyes all showed excitement. Of course they wanted to obtain these massive rewards.
But when they thought of the current situation, they felt somewhat afraid.
"But Howard, with just us second-class and third-class wizard apprentices acting as spies here, what we can do is very limited."
"Those white wizard weaklings always hide in their greenhouse-like homes and rarely come out..."
"Our strength isn't enough..."
A powerful magical pressure burst from vampire Howard, pressing down on every Blood Curse Court apprentice present.
These Blood Curse Court wizard apprentices were all shocked.
"Howard, you've become a first-class wizard apprentice? You broke through here? How is that possible?"
"My god, although you have 3rd level aptitude, you're only 25 years old now. You couldn't possibly reach first-class wizard apprentice so quickly. Moreover, half a year ago, you were still a second-class wizard apprentice!"
A second-class wizard apprentice vampire, with intense jealousy and greed flashing in his eyes, said, "How did you do it? Can you tell me this method too?"
Vampire Howard smiled proudly, "I was just about to mention that."
"I was able to become a first-class wizard apprentice because the academy higher-ups conducted an experiment on me. Also, the academy will give us special support. Because the academy's prohibition on commoners eating food has already caused large-scale famine."
"The academy higher-ups simply used this famine to create an undead creature wave. Soon there will be undead creature waves divided into three waves attacking Lilith's Cottage's territory, which will create chaos."
"And chaos is the best opportunity for us Blood Curse Court people to fish in troubled waters."
"As for the first-class wizard apprentice matter..." Howard chuckled, "This is exactly what the academy higher-ups want me to make public to all of you."
The nine Blood Curse Court vampires immediately showed amazing greed in their eyes, along with jealousy toward Howard.
They all stretched their necks, preparing to hear Howard tell them the secret of how he could become a first-class wizard apprentice in Lilith's Cottage's territory.