Chapter Summaries

Locke stopped Grant Richard’s rampage by destroying his runaway magic sword with the Sword-Tiger Orchid Dragon Sparrow, then sold orders for the sword-type Magic Plant. The Red Dragon Witch Mormodis asked to join Locke’s team on its journey to the Despair Valley Laboratory, where rumors had spread that Golden Crown Mountain’s lost Magic Plants awaited.

• Grant Richard’s magic sword took control of him, defeated two Star-Ring Wizards, injured the little princess of the Maupassant Family, and attacked Locke.
• Locke used his Sword-Tiger Orchid Dragon Sparrow to break Grant Richard’s sword, freeing Grant and ending the rampage.
• Grant apologized, paid Locke a two-million-Magic-Stone deposit for the Sword-Tiger Orchid Dragon Sparrow, and received a scolding from the Maupassant princess, who then ordered ten plants from Locke.
• Locke spoke with Mormodis, who explained her position in the Triceratops Garden and shared advice about transforming Flying Magic Plants into weapon-type plants.
• Mormodis asked to accompany Locke’s team to the Despair Valley Laboratory, and Locke learned that rumors about its treasures had spread widely.

Locke tested Mormodis’s Wind-Fire Banana Fan Spell Model, demonstrated his magic plants to Wizard Tristan Walden, and continued searching for buyers and new business opportunities. After arriving at Crawler Garden in Rain-Marsh, he reunited with Montgomery, who learned that Locke had reached Star Ring.

• Mormodis gave Locke her independently developed Wind-Fire Banana Fan Spell Model and offered to help him enter the Despair Valley Laboratory, while Locke arranged for his Star-Ring teammates to investigate her background.
• Locke completed the Big Windmill Dragon Sparrow’s enchantment and used its wind-and-fire attack to overpower three Second-Ring elemental demonfolk before reverse-summoning them.
• Locke showed Wizard Tristan Walden recordings of his magic plants, and Tristan approved production of the Great Green Leaf Dragon Sparrow but hesitated to buy the Sword-Tiger Orchid Dragon Sparrow and Big Windmill Dragon Sparrow.
• Locke considered how to counter rival Wizard Shoes Shop Alliances and reached Rain-Marsh aboard the Wizard Airship, where his team confirmed Mormodis had fallen out with a mentor at Triceratops Garden.
• Locke reunited with Montgomery at Crawler Garden, learned that Montgomery and Barbara had advanced there, and told Montgomery that he was a Star-Ring Wizard.

Locke led the Golden Crown Mountain investigators to Despair Valley Laboratory after refusing Crawler Garden’s offer to consult on restoring an extinct fern. At the laboratory, he confronted Fang of Terror’s Black Wizards, but a Maupassant Family Moon-Ring Wizard arrived and offered cooperation.

• Locke met Wizard Tanmon Yuri, discussed Tanmon’s Mosasaur research, and accepted his invitation to dine at Witch’s Kitchen.
• Tanmon offered Locke a million Magic Stones per month to advise Crawler Garden’s Ancient Stegosaur project, but Locke refused because its required Purple Fern had no surviving descendants.
• Locke took the investigation team to Despair Valley Laboratory, where a Triceratops Black Wizard named Goma claimed Fang of Terror owned the site and challenged Golden Crown Mountain’s right to enter.
• Locke challenged Goma’s claim that strength determined ownership and prepared to fight when Goma activated the Ancient Body spell.
• A Maupassant Family Moon-Ring Wizard stopped the confrontation, said Locke could defeat Goma, and ordered Fang of Terror to cooperate with Golden Crown Mountain.
• A Star-Ring Wizard at the Golden Crown Mountain Branch learned that the main branch’s investigators had reached Despair Valley.

Locke’s investigation team entered Despair Valley to study Wizard Probus’s laboratory, a shifting world where the dangers grew with the level of whoever entered. After a Second-Ring Wizard was stranded inside, Locke prepared to descend himself and asked Akes whether the laboratory had evolved again.

• Akes explained that Probus’s Echo, Great Magic, and laboratory had fused into a world where Probus believed he was alive, and described the lethal, changing creatures inside it.
• Locke established a guarded camp, while Akes offered cooperation and tried to recruit him into the Maupassant Family; Locke refused and received a warning from Wizard Trajan about the wider forces surrounding the investigation.
• Two Second-Ring Wizards entered the valley and encountered deceptive plants, monsters shaped by their footprints, and a Star-Ring Treant; one of them, Aike, became lost after their magical rope was severed.
• Locke reviewed the surviving Wizard’s footage, deduced that the valley raised its threats to match entrants’ levels, and said he would go in himself, guided by an Eye Grass planted in Aike’s shadow.
• Locke asked Akes whether the Despair Valley Laboratory had evolved again, and Akes’s solemn reaction confirmed his concern.

Locke rescued Wizard Aike from the mutated Great Cluster White Poplar and discovered that Wizard Probus’s Hybridization Cultivation Method still controlled Despair Valley. He found Probus trapped by six masked wizards, but Probus broke free and attacked them with the Phoenix-Tail Bamboo.

• Locke descended into Despair Valley, avoided the Demon Grass Magic Plant, and identified the White Poplar as a mutated Great Cluster White Poplar that had trapped Wizard Aike.
• Locke burned a nearby Wraith Elderberry and warned the Great Cluster White Poplar not to provoke him, then entered its cave to rescue Aike and three injured apprentices.
• Locke used Green Dragon Vine to restrain the Great Cluster White Poplar’s roots, applied Atavistic Evolution to it, and discovered that Probus’s magic bees and hives sustained a vast Hybridization Cultivation Method across the valley.
• Locke sent Wizard Aike and the three apprentices back to the surface, then followed Probus’s Magic Pressure and found six masked wizards trying to capture Probus’s Echo Body.
• Locke warned the six wizards that Probus’s world could not be controlled by their formation, and Probus broke free, pierced them with roots, and shattered their formation with the Phoenix-Tail Bamboo.

Probus Wizard overwhelmed the Rain-Marsh wizards with his strange power, while Locke realized that understanding Probus’s Great Magic might reveal the truth of the laboratory. A Moon-Ring Wizard intervened with the Sun Winged Dragon Great Magic to save his daughter, but Probus regained his power and prepared to fight back.

• Probus Wizard killed or disabled several Rain-Marsh wizards, controlled their bamboo Magic Plants, and suppressed Locke’s Green Dragon Vine with metal-aspected Spiritual Breath.
• Probus Wizard paused when he saw Locke’s Golden Crown Mountain insignia, giving the surviving wizards from Winged Dragon Garden time to reveal their Wind God Pterosaurs and attack.
• Probus Wizard made the attackers’ spells and Magic Plants ineffective, seized the Star-Ring Witch’s Flowing Flame Flying Plum, and moved to kill her.
• Locke decided to return to Despair Valley and rejoin the investigation team, suspecting that the truth lay inside Probus Wizard’s Great Magic or the laboratory’s inner core.
• The Star-Ring Witch summoned her father, a Moon-Ring Wizard whose Sun Winged Dragon Great Magic suppressed the colors and magic power of everyone in Despair Valley.
• Probus Wizard rose with Abyss-colored magic power and declared that the Moon-Ring Wizard and his daughter would die, prompting Locke and the surviving wizards to wonder whether Probus could defeat the Ten-Sun Winged Dragon Great Magic with Void Forging Great Magic.

Probus resisted Wizard Hanser Ke’s Blood of the Solar Eclipse and fought back against the Moon-Ring Wizard, while Locke escaped Hanser Ke’s attempt to manipulate his bloodlines. Locke returned to the investigation camp and prepared to explore Despair Valley, with Akes directing him to Serenity Garden to accelerate his Spiritual Breath cultivation.

• Wizard Hanser Ke used Blood of the Solar Eclipse to separate Probus’s Red Dragon Bloodline from his body, but Probus killed the ambitious clone and kept fighting.
• Hanser Ke’s curse began transforming the three Star-Ring Wizards and targeting Locke, but Locke’s Abyssal Demon Dragon bloodline expelled the injected sunlight energy.
• Probus killed another Star-Ring Wizard and attacked Hanser Ke’s Great Magic, while Hanser Ke tried and failed to pursue the retreating Locke.
• Locke returned to the camp and told the investigation team that Probus was fighting Hanser Ke, then planned to gather information and prepare for entering the laboratory without a magical key.
• Wizard Akes gave Locke a map to Serenity Garden, where Spiritual Breath cultivation could be shortened from years to months, and said the Maupassant Family was repaying Locke’s kindness.

Locke assigned the investigation team to uncover Probus’s ties to several magical disciplines and entered Serenity Garden, where he built a World in a Bottle to imbue Sea Golden Sand with an Occult Significance. His first attempt succeeded but produced only an Ordinary-level effect, and he prepared to synthesize a taller Garden Grotto-Heaven for a better result.

• Locke tasked Elk and Lion with investigating Probus’s possible connections to Potions, the Insect Curse School, and the Bloodline School, while urging the team to uncover the truth and bring Probus home.
• Locke received a Swampfolk Club invitation and a Shadow Assassin Divine Pearl from Trajan, whose power raised Locke’s Magic Pressure.
• Locke followed the Maupassant Family’s guide to Serenity Garden, where he learned that Black Lamps countered the garden’s dangerous acceleration of time.
• Locke constructed a 189-kilometer World in a Bottle and successfully imbued Second-Ring Sea Golden Sand with Ordinary-level enhanced penetrating power.
• Akes told the Triceratops Black Wizard that Locke could soon achieve Excellent-level Occult Significance, while Locke continued the investigation and began planning a synthesis to create a taller Garden Grotto-Heaven.

Locke and five First-Ring Wizards produced three Worlds in a Bottle, and Locke gave the wizards promising research topics while supporting Williams with her own research. He synthesized a Flower-King Bottle that granted sea golden sand the healing occult significance Heavenly Fragrance Blessing, then left to receive his completed Supreme Meditation Method and arrange tests.

• Locke taught five First-Ring Wizards to shape Verdant Spiritual Breath, covered their practice costs, and completed three Worlds in a Bottle with their help after a month.
• Locke gave the five wizards ten research directions, while Williams selected one of four topics Locke sent her and accepted the chance to use his Frost Magic Mirror Room.
• Witch Catherine traded the broken key to Despair Valley Laboratory to Tumlas for information about his student's search for the Abyss Queen, and they discussed why the investigation had reached a deadlock.
• Locke synthesized the Flower-King Bottle and used it to give Second-Ring Sea Golden Sand the occult significance Heavenly Fragrance Blessing, which converted compatible attacks into healing magic.
• Locke noticed that Witch Catherine had finished his Supreme Meditation Method, considered connecting hadrons to a Spiritual Breath Tetrahedron, and asked an apprentice to find Akes so he could borrow the Garden Spirit Mirror.

Locke’s Flower-King Sea Golden Sand gained Excellent Level Occult Significance, revealing his remarkable progress in Breeding Science and drawing the Maupassant Family into a research partnership. As his team uncovered evidence about Wizard Probus’s past, Locke decided to examine the leads himself and question Probus’s former mentor.

• The Garden Spirit Mirror confirmed that Locke had bestowed Excellent Level Occult Significance on the Flower-King Sea Golden Sand, impressing the Maupassant Family and his investigation team.
• Mormodis gave Locke the Self-Entanglement and Ecological Niche Reversal Curse Spell Models, explaining that she had developed them while keeping her work from an exploitative research group.
• Locke revealed his Flower-King Bottle: Garden Grotto-Heaven, which used the Flower-King Peony’s Verdant Spiritual Breath to raise a plant’s Occult Significance and stood 389 kilometers high.
• Wizard Akes contracted with Locke to develop an attack-focused Garden Grotto-Heaven and enhance three Star-Ring Magic Plants, while ordering the Maupassant Family to treat Locke courteously as part of his effort to build ties with Golden Crown Mountain.
• Lion Wizard, Aike, and Elk Witch reported that Probus had no known connection to the Insect Curse or Bloodline Schools, while Elk uncovered evidence that he had refined Spirit Macro with Magic Flame and had been ostracized by his family and Academic Lineage.
• Elk told Locke that Probus had changed Academic Lineages after betraying a former mentor; Locke asked to review the evidence and requested that mentor’s contact information so he could speak with him.

Locke uncovered the fuller story behind Probus’s conflict with Martin Ed and learned that Probus’s apparent misconduct had grown out of a principled refusal to use questionable research data. As Locke continued investigating the laboratory accident, Witch Catherine sent him the Supreme Meditation Method and explained its principle of Reduction into Emptiness.

• lion and the other Second-Ring Wizards read records accusing Probus of lying to his mentor, and lion proposed a plan to exploit the clash between Probus’s Great Magic and the Moon-Ring Wizard’s Ten-Sun Winged Dragon.
• Locke added Martin Ed as a contact, challenged the reliability of his account, and argued with the Elk Witch and lion over whether Probus’s past should be judged before the investigation was complete.
• The red-robed witch questioned Locke’s faith in finding a clear answer, while Locke insisted that he would pursue the truth and agreed she could enter the valley with his team.
• Locke confronted Martin Ed with inconsistencies in his account and pressed him to cooperate by invoking his connection to Witch Camilla.
• Martin Ed admitted that Probus had refused to use data obtained through coercion, had lied about submitting an application, and had left the research group because he rejected its pursuit of quotas; he described Probus as arrogant but genuinely driven to accomplish something.
• Locke shared Martin Ed’s fuller account with the investigation team, then received the Supreme Meditation Method from Witch Catherine, who explained that its practice aimed to remove accumulated forms and reveal one’s substance.

Locke studied the Supreme Meditation Method, used Heartforce Thunderbolts to break harmful forms, and received further revelations from the World Tree about a true enemy. After Witch Catherine urged him to gather allies against the Death God Elective Society, Locke turned his attention to the conflict around Wizard Probus and spotted a clue to his power.

• A Star-Ring Wizard from the Sword-Armor Dragon Garden waited outside Despair Valley with his team, hoping to enter the laboratory and claim its Representative Species.
• Locke practiced the Supreme Meditation Method, destroyed several harmful forms, and stabilized his Magic Pressure at twenty-two thousand with help from the Shadow Assassin Divine Pearl.
• Locke saw a vision of the World Tree warning him about a betrayer and a true enemy, then wondered whether the enemy was connected to the three great Void God Clans.
• Witch Catherine told Locke to gather allies and make trouble for the powerful Death God Elective Society, so Locke contacted Edgar and considered recruiting other breeders.
• A witch formation led by lion, the Elk Witch, and other Second-Ring Wizards sent magical energy toward Wizard Probus, while a Moon-Ring Wizard from the Winged Dragon Garden claimed to have discovered Probus's weakness.

Locke used Reduction into Emptiness to resist Wizard Probus, then linked his spiritual breath to the Abyssal presence in the Despair Valley Laboratory and awakened an Ideal World of his own. He opened the laboratory and challenged Rain-Marsh’s Star-Ring Wizards to enter, while the Abyss Queen’s Kingmaking Ritual remained an immediate danger he had rejected.

• Locke fought Wizard Probus to a draw by using Reduction into Emptiness, then flew toward the hidden spiritual breath he had sensed inside Probus’s world.
• Probus killed the Star-Ring Wizard Vale, and the Moon-Ring Wizard from the Winged Dragon Garden weakened Probus briefly before escaping with his daughter.
• Locke captured a wisp of Abyssal Spiritual Breath with Green Dragon Vine and used it to form an Ideal World, opening the laboratory doors above Despair Valley.
• Locke rejected the Abyss Queen’s Kingmaking Ritual, turned his Ideal World into a barrier, and invited Rain-Marsh’s Star-Ring Wizards to enter while warning stronger wizards to stay away.
• Rain-Marsh’s Star-Ring Wizards, including the Sword-Armor Dragon Garden, Armor-Hammer Dragon Garden, Water-Kite Dragon Garden, and Crawler Garden, headed into the laboratory, while Witch Catherine and Tumlas discussed Locke’s actions.

Locke worked through Wizard Probus’s memory-world research project on the Heart-Piercing Lotus and completed its Plant Essence sequencing in one month. His success left him and Belinda poised to enter a deeper layer of Probus’s memories while the other wizards were expelled.

• Locke recognized that the Bitter Love Tree had trapped the wizards in a memory world and learned that they had to uncover the evolution of two key Heart-Piercing Lotus traits to escape.
• Wizard Probus spared the apprentices from compensation for the contaminated Magic Fields and set them to work on the Heart-Piercing Lotus Evolutionary Tree Atlas before disappearing from the memory scene.
• Locke left the other wizards to work independently, shared Probus’s preliminary research with Enid and Barbara, and recruited Belinda to help organize materials.
• One month later, the other wizards admitted they were struggling to finish the project, while Locke had completed the Heart-Piercing Lotus Plant Essence sequencing.
• Wizard Probus summoned Locke and Belinda to his office, and the remaining wizards were expelled from the memory world and erased when they tried to resist.

Locke Augustine and the Maupassant heir worked with Wizard Probus in his Memory World, where Probus proposed enhancing Cloud Rice with Occult Significance and revealed his painful past. After leaving the laboratory, Locke organized his team’s next steps and returned to Serenity Garden with a new idea for binding hadrons and creating a Garden Grotto-Heaven.

• The expelled Star-Ring Wizards left the laboratory and vowed to bring Rain-Marsh’s strongest talents to challenge Locke, while Barbara suspected he was drawing powerful wizards there for a purpose.
• Enid’s Moon-Ring Wizard father failed to breach Locke’s barrier, realized it was an Ideal World, and left with Enid as Akes arrived.
• Wizard Probus invited Locke and Belinda Maupassant to research Excellent Level Occult Significance for Cloud Rice and explained how he had come to accept his past.
• Catherine’s warning led Locke to delay further research with Probus; after leaving the laboratory, he told Lion and Elk to study the surrounding ecology rather than risk their chance to enter again.
• Locke returned to Serenity Garden and used Probus’s research on Heart-Piercing Toxin to devise a way to work with hadrons, wondering what Occult Significance a hadron-made Garden Grotto-Heaven might possess.

Locke and Mormodis developed a hadron connection bridge and used it to create the 439-kilometer Hadron Flower King Bottle, which transformed his Sword-Tiger Orchid Dragon Sparrow into a powerful star-ring magic plant. The chapter ended with Tumlas revealing that he had reincarnated eighty-one times to reach the Third Ring, while Witch Catherine said modern academic research might let a wizard achieve such advancement in one lifetime.

• Locke studied how to connect hadrons with heart-piercing toxin and asked Mormodis to help strengthen the connection.
• Locke and Mormodis modified her spell model over ten days, then joined their connection bridges to the verdant cornerstones made by the five crystallized wizards.
• Locke completed the Hadron Flower King Bottle, which measured 439 kilometers tall, and used it to cultivate the Sword-Tiger Orchid Dragon Sparrow into a star-ring magic plant with Superstrength Vigor.
• Locke tested the plant's destructive power, received Mormodis's Uproot the Grass and Eradicate the Roots spell model, and sent Dean Elliott a recording of the new plant.
• Witch Belinda offered to buy the Sword-Tiger Orchid Dragon Sparrow for the Maupassant Family, while Locke considered using it against the White Ice Tower's magic artifacts.
• Tumlas told Witch Catherine that he had undergone eighty-one reincarnations before reaching the Third Ring, and Catherine said academic research might allow a wizard to reach that level in one lifetime.

Locke prepared the Great Demon Sword Tiger Orchid Dragon Sparrows to aid the Tidal Grand Wizard Tower after Loren Kif refused his contact request and tried to pressure him into withdrawing. Meanwhile, Locke’s challenge to Rain-Marsh’s breeders stirred the Swampfolk Club into action, and a mysterious Moon-Ring Witch arrived at Despair Valley to confront Probus.

• Locke promised Headmaster Elliott that his upgraded platform and super sword-tiger orchid dragon sparrows could counter the White Ice Tower, while Elliott explained the tower’s siege and identified Loren Kif as a driving force behind the conflict.
• Locke learned that the White Ice Tower was disrupting his Silver-Clad Peach Garden business and attempted to contact Loren Kif, but Loren ignored the request so he could pressure Locke into abandoning the Tidal Grand Wizard Tower.
• Locke decided to stop negotiating and prepare the Great Demon Sword Tiger Orchid Dragon Sparrow, while planning further Hadron Bottle research and cultivation work.
• At the Swampfolk Club, Margo Bennett said Locke had challenged Rain-Marsh’s star-ring wizards, prompting the club’s breeders to grow angry and agree to confront him after learning who he was.
• A white-robed Moon-Ring Witch fought Probus above Despair Valley and accused him of ruining her life, so Locke recognized her as someone from Probus’s past and alerted the investigation team to identify her.

Locke survived the White Frost Witch’s assault in Despair Valley and helped drive her off, then turned the incident into a lead in his investigation of Wizard Probus’s past. Ten days later, Locke successfully imbued three Maupassant Family magic plants with Excellent Level Occult Significance and learned the witch was likely Aqinlan Aquitaine, while Probus may once have won a major breeding-science award.

• The White Frost Witch used Qiu'en spinach to freeze spiritual breath across Despair Valley, but Locke broke through her spell with the Great Demon Sword Tiger Orchid Dragon Sparrow and identified the plant.
• Wizard Probus’s Three-Wrath Foxtail Bamboo harvested the distress of wizards throughout Despair Valley and battered the witch, while the laboratory drew in her white frost spinach; she escaped after freezing a vast cloud into a falling block of ice.
• Wizard Probus shattered the falling ice, and Locke pursued the witch to an abandoned hilltop before deciding to publicize the investigation and use the seized equipment as a lead.
• Locke and his team completed three Hadron Bottle · Garden Grotto-Heavens, and he identified the White Frost Witch as likely Aqinlan Aquitaine while discovering that Wizard Probus may have originally won the award later given to Wizard Brennus.
• Witch Belinda brought three Maupassant Family Star-Ring Wizards to inspect their cultivated plants and pay Locke thirty million Magic Stones; they learned he had imbued all three with Excellent Level Occult Significance and invited him to Witch’s Kitchen.

Locke tested the Maupassant Family’s Magic Plants, sent a powerful plant system to the besieged Tidal Grand Wizard Tower, and submitted three Garden Grotto-Heaven papers to Thunderstride. After developing the Bitter King Bottle and directing the investigation team, he faced the Swampfolk Club’s directors, who arrived to challenge him.

• Locke used Anbo’s Person-Locking Willow to trap him, then refused the Black Wizards’ invitation and returned the extra ten million Magic Stones Belinda offered.
• Locke’s Magic Plant combination system helped the Tidal Grand Wizard Tower break the White Ice Tower’s attack, while the Ice Witch retreated after seeing the Great Demon Sword Tiger Orchid Dragon Sparrow damage her defenses.
• Locke unveiled the Bitter King Bottle, discussed his three submitted papers and his plans for the White Frost Witch investigation, and told the Elk Witch to investigate the Swampfolk Club’s directors.
• Thunderstride managing editor Wizard Kevin recommended accepting all three of Locke’s papers.
• Patrick Keaton, Purple Witch Bella, Wizard Kent, and Grandet arrived to challenge Locke, who dismissed Grandet and told Bella she fell just short of his standards.

Locke challenged the Swampfolk Club’s Star-Ring Wizards and overwhelmed Wizard Kent before agreeing to compete with the club’s directors in the Despair Valley Laboratory. A Sun-Ring Wizard from the Starfield Sea then made Locke’s challenge an official medium-scale contest, which Locke named the Probus Truth-Revelation Contest.

• The Purple Witch, Wizard Kent, and the Swampfolk Club’s directors confronted Locke, and Kent tested him with his Magic Pressure.
• Locke used his magical plants and Great Demon Sword Tiger Orchid Dragon Sparrow to counter Kent’s Red Naked Fern, while Kent’s Tyrannosaur Garden unexpectedly strengthened Locke’s Dragon Bloodline.
• Locke defeated Kent’s defense and broke Director Grandet’s Orchid Sword before the directors stopped fighting and accepted his challenge to compete in the Despair Valley Laboratory.
• Locke told Wizard Patrick that they could not be fellow travelers, and Patrick agreed to a fair contest between the club’s strongest Star-Ring Breeder and Golden Crown Mountain’s strongest.
• A Sun-Ring Wizard from the Starfield Sea told Locke that his challenge had been selected as a medium-scale competition, and Locke named it the Probus Truth-Revelation Contest.
• The Sun-Ring Wizard and his avatars delivered invitations to Locke and the Swampfolk Club’s directors for the contest’s inaugural competition.