Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems-Chapter 215: A First-Class Wizard Apprentice Who Failed to Break Through

On the gallery's two walls hung with exquisite red carpets were suspended magical paintings drawn by wizards from the Illusion School.
The figures or landscapes in these magical paintings were even moving in some cases.
For example, in a painting depicting an elegant and dignified wizard lady, the serious female wizard's gaze moved following the changes in Locke's position.
Those eyes always frowned, as if troubled by something.
When Locke tried to step back and distance himself from this painting, the wizard lady in the painting actually had her pupils dilate as well, as if she were always staring intently at Locke.
"I heard that magical paintings drawn by sketch artists have many unique functions. I hadn't had much contact with them before, but now that I see them, I know it's indeed true," Locke said in a low voice.
Sketch artists were a wizard profession from a magical sub-direction within the Illusion School.
It was said that the magical paintings in the hands of powerful sketch artists even imprisoned real souls within them, and could even make the figures in the paintings attack enemies.
However, that required high attainments in Illusion School spells, at least formal wizard level.
The owner of this gallery should still be far from having such capabilities.
"Is there a customer here? Sorry, sorry, please wait a moment. I have a custom magical painting for a customer that's in the finishing stage. Only the last step remains, gently sweeping the canvas with a linseed oil fan brush to blend the scenery into the ambient light."
A young man's voice came from the depths of the gallery.
About three minutes later, a young male wizard with long hair, bangs covering his eyes, and an artistic, melancholic appearance hurriedly came out and stood beside Locke.
Sketch artist Elagabalus glanced at Locke, who was staring at that wizard lady magical painting, and smiled, "Strange customer, you also think that painting is quite good, don't you."
"This is one of my best works, finally completed after one year and one month. From every angle, it's incomparable, without any flaws."
A trace of nostalgia and sadness flowed from Elagabalus's melancholic eyes. "This is a portrait of my first wife. After she failed in her attempt to break through to formal wizard, she contracted a terrible condition where her whole body would periodically heat up. No matter how I tried to treat her, I couldn't cure her, and could only watch her die in the end."
"Before her death, she begged me to use a magical painting to preserve her beauty and wisdom in this world forever, so I painted the most beautiful version of her."
"This is one of the functions of magical paintings, helping others preserve their best image forever in this world. Even wizards have many things that cannot be recovered due to the passage of time."
Elagabalus snapped his fingers, and as he softly chanted an incantation, a magical radiance fell upon that portrait. Immediately, the wizard lady's portrait projected directly into mid-air, transforming from a two-dimensional painting into a three-dimensional one.
Moreover, the three-dimensional portrait still seemed to be looking at others, those beautiful eyes still tightly locked onto the two people in the gallery.
Locke knew this was the Illusion School cantrip model 0.5-circle [Phantom Projection].
The essence of magical paintings was still illusion.
However, as a wizard who had never encountered magical paintings before, Locke couldn't figure out for the moment how this magical painting was made or what the internal principles and details were.
After all, this wasn't his specialty.
However, as someone who came to invite a sketch artist, he only needed to know that the sketch artist could indeed help him draw a map of the Curse Techniques Research Institute, and could even create a magical painting map.
Seeing that Locke kept his back turned to him, Elagabalus apologized slightly, "Sorry, customer, I kept you waiting just now."
"When I get busy, I tend to forget priorities."
"May I ask what you came in for that you need my help with?"
Locke turned around to look at Elagabalus.
He saw that this person had long hair, wore a specially made black wizard robe, and also wore many heavy metal accessories. Just around his neck hung a heavy gold necklace with a very intricate design, and in the middle of the gold necklace hung a fist-sized emerald gemstone.
All ten of his fingers wore various gold rings with different gemstones embedded in them.
This guy was covered head to toe with decorative items. Although male, his temperament was more androgynous, and he even wore eye shadow.
Locke turned around and said to Elagabalus, "Periodic heating throughout the body?"
"That's typical bodily elemental structure imbalance!"
As a potion master assistant and also a staff member of the Healing Hand Treatment Center, Locke quickly gave his judgment. "It should be that when forcibly attempting to break through to formal wizard, due to some unknown reason, your wife's bodily and soul structural elements lost balance."
"This caused your wife's body and soul to no longer maintain themselves, finally entering slow death."
"This is a relatively rare phenomenon. In potion studies, it's also considered a very rare case. I've only seen such a case once in the materials at the Healing Hand Treatment Center of Lilith's Cottage."
"Because ordinary magical experiments rarely cause the elemental structure composing an object to lose balance, this phenomenon." Locke sighed, "This counts as a typical wizard disease. Except for conducting extremely dangerous magical experiments, it's difficult for extreme environments to appear in natural settings that would cause a normal object's elemental structure to become imbalanced."
Locke said, "This situation might require potions made by potion masters to treat. Or, using [Volcanic Core], [Heart of Extreme Ice], and [Lung of Storm] to configure a Triangle Force Potion. Perhaps through external elemental infusion, it could forcibly maintain your wife's bodily elemental structure."
"But it's hard to say. This is just my ideal hypothesis. Perhaps the situation would be worse, and it might further reduce your wife's lifespan instead."
Locke said helplessly, "Under normal circumstances, it's very difficult for the elemental composition of a living being to be broken, even during combat it's hard to achieve."
"The energy magnitude required for that is simply too enormous."
"Your wife's condition was also rare."
Locke fell into deep thought. If so, then wizard apprentices breaking through to formal wizard was indeed a very dangerous act.
Witch Sophia also often reminded him that if he could reach 800 mental power as quickly as possible, that seemed to reduce many of the risks involved in breaking through to formal wizard.
Sketch artist Elagabalus was stunned for a moment.
Then he looked at the badge on Locke's chest, and after seeing that Locke's badge included both a potion master assistant badge and an Outstanding Apprentice badge, Elagabalus immediately smiled with understanding.
"So this customer, you are a potion master. No wonder you could tell at a glance. Back then, I consulted many healers before confirming the diagnosis."
Elagabalus was somewhat surprised by Locke's acuity. "You only heard me describe my wife's symptoms once."