530: Synthesizing the great yellow duck crown pineapple!
One week later.
At the foot of Golden Crown Mountain, on the canopy of a Great Red Banyan Tree, Locke walked across its crown. He saw that in the center of the canopy, there was a large section of aerial roots covered in a significant amount of soil.
It was exactly about one mu of land.
The Great Red Banyan Tree is a type of First Ring magic plant. Banyan-type magic plants naturally have very large canopy diameters, and the Great Red Banyan Tree is like a small hill.
In the center of the Great Red Banyan Tree's canopy, a natural soil field forms.
This is a First Ring magic plant that likes to cultivate its own preferred companion plants. On the incredibly expensive Golden Crown Mountain, the one-mu magic field that comes with the center of the Great Red Banyan Tree's canopy naturally becomes the property of the Breeders on Golden Crown Mountain.
At this moment, Locke walked to the center of the Great Red Banyan Tree's canopy, placed his palm on it, and slightly sensed the magic energy within.
It is worth mentioning that although the surface of this magic field was a bit messy, the basic fertility was still acceptable, as one could tell.
The previous tenant of this magic field had maintained it properly, so he did not need to go through a fallow period and could use this magic field directly.
"The Great Red Banyan Tree itself will take the various nutrients absorbed by its roots, pass them through root canals, and then secrete them from the stomata of its branches to nourish the soil in the center."
"In other words, it will, to a certain extent, take care of this magic field itself. At the same time, Golden Crown Mountain collects celestial fire and subterranean fire, transforming fire and high temperature into life energy to feed back into the surrounding magic plant forests, so..."
"This place achieves what other regions cannot: high-density cultivation of First Ring magic plants, planting them just like ordinary plants."
This point is truly astonishing.
The common knowledge Locke had established in the Six Towers Land was that a single First Ring magic plant must occupy a vast area, surrounded only by a bunch of apprentice-level magic plants. Therefore, although the special laboratory he previously had at the White Dragon Tower looked large, it could only plant 3-4 First Ring magic plants.
That was only because there was a Dragon Crystal Ecological Dome.
Otherwise, they would have to be planted even more sparsely.
But on Golden Crown Mountain, the concentration gradient of the magic tide is several orders of magnitude higher than the entire Yunze Wetland, so it is possible here to let First Ring magic plants be planted in rows, just like ordinary crops.
Locke took the magic plant seeds he had purchased for 50,000 magic stones and planted them into this soil; some were apprentice-level magic plants, while others were First Ring magic plants.
The selection of these seeds was based on the magic plant seeds that he had read about previously, specifically those suspected by apprentices, through observational phenomena, to have a symbiotic relationship with magic creatures.
Anyway, the research startup capital given to him by the True Knowledge Institute was 200,000 magic stones, so Locke spent 50,000 directly to experiment with the ideas he had generated from the materials he had read over the past week.
Locke chanted the incantation, used a spell to plant all these seeds, and began to use the [Rapid Growth] magic to accelerate their growth within the soil.
Without the Dragon Crystal Ecological Dome, First Ring magic plants grow a bit slower. Even for Locke at his current level, cultivating a mature First Ring magic plant requires one week.
But the apprentice-level magic plants grew out very quickly.
One week later, on the top of the Great Red Banyan Tree, Locke fused the three harvested Great Yellow Duck Pineapples. After fusing three First Ring level pineapples, they became an 8th-level synthesis item.
Locke looked at the entry for this magic plant, and his spirit was immediately lifted. "8th-level synthesis item, Mutated Great Yellow Duck Pineapple; it can absorb free lightning energy from the air, store it between its vacuoles, and release it instantly the moment it touches an enemy's body."
"Lightning Bees and similar magic creatures love to parasitize inside the Great Yellow Duck Pineapple, because the natural geometric structure of the Great Yellow Duck Pineapple and the stored lightning energy make Lightning Bees prefer to build their nests within it."
Locke scanned the entry, "As expected, the synthesis entry introduction for an economic crop like the Great Yellow Duck Pineapple will actively mention what magic creatures it mainly forms a symbiotic relationship with."
"Looking at this hint entry, if I continue to research these magic plant-magic creature symbiotic relationships, my research efficiency can be increased by at least ten times, or even more."
Locke looked at the Great Yellow Duck Air Pineapple and fell into deep thought. "The investigation report the apprentice gave me indicated that a flock of Thunderbirds residing in the forest had a reproduction rate exceeding the average value by 50%, and it suspected that this was the result of consuming the local specialty magic plant, the epiphytic magic plant Great Yellow Duck Air Pineapple."
"But the entry did not mention this point, so it is obvious that the apprentice judged incorrectly."
"However, Lightning Bees... If I remember correctly, they are a type of ultra-small bee only the size of a grain of rice, difficult to see with the naked eye, flying in mid-air like a tiny bolt of lightning."
Locke thought, "If Lightning Bees also live inside the Great Yellow Duck Air Pineapple, and Thunderbirds like to eat the Great Yellow Duck Air Pineapple, maybe they end up eating the Lightning Bees along with it?"
Locke's heart skipped a beat as an answer flashed through his mind. "So, those Thunderbirds didn't have their reproductive ability enhanced because they ate the Great Yellow Duck Pineapple, but because they ate the Lightning Bees inside the Great Yellow Duck Pineapple?"
"Is this a multi-layered nested symbiotic relationship?"
It is very likely.
This is the wonder of nature.
And proving this is very simple: he just needs to rent twelve pairs of Thunderbirds and divide them into four groups.
For the three pairs of Thunderbirds in the first group, he would add extra Great Yellow Duck Pineapple to their Thunderbird feed; for the three pairs of Thunderbirds in the second group, he would add extra Lightning Bee food outside of their special Thunderbird feed; for the three pairs of Thunderbirds in the third group, he would have them consume both Lightning Bee food and Great Yellow Duck Pineapple outside of their special Thunderbird feed.
Then, in the final group, he would only let the last three pairs of Thunderbirds eat the normal special Thunderbird feed.
Then, he would observe the reproductive situation of the four groups of Thunderbirds.
After realizing this, Locke immediately used half a mu of the magic field to plant all the Great Yellow Duck Air Pineapple magic plant seeds he had on hand.
At the same time, he headed to the Dragon Blood Market to purchase the magic creature Lightning Bee, and to see if he could rent Thunderbirds that were about to enter their breeding period.
If it were in other regions, completing this experiment would require cooperation from many parties; on the magic plant side, one would have to wait for them to grow, and on the magic creature side, they certainly require a longer breeding cycle than magic plants.
Back and forth, once such a simple experiment was completed, a year might have passed.
But the experimental conditions on Golden Crown Mountain are simply too perfect; commerce is developed here, disciplines are complete, and there is a large number of wizards.
There are already many wizards on Golden Crown Mountain itself, and outside of Golden Crown Mountain, the number of wizards in the surrounding small and medium-sized wizard organizations adds up to a lot as well.
A huge market has formed here.
Therefore, Locke could directly rent Thunderbirds that were likely to have entered their breeding period from those shops to complete his experiment.
Compressing the experimental time as much as possible.
One month later, Locke jumped down from the head of his Cloud Whale and landed steadily on the canopy of the Great Red Banyan Tree.
Seeing its master leave, the Cloud Whale happily rolled in the sky, tumbled through the sea of clouds, and stayed within that patch of clouds, waiting for Locke to summon it again.
As a means of transportation, this Cloud Whale is quite useful.
Locke walked quickly to the central area of the Great Red Banyan Tree's canopy.
At this moment, there were twelve birdcages beside the magic field, inside which lived pairs of Thunderbird couples.
Each Thunderbird's feathers were like sharp barbs, growing straight upwards, and terrifying lightning crackled around their yellow feathers.
Mortals, not to mention touching a Thunderbird, would be charred by electricity just by getting close.
In some low-magic colonial Planes, Thunderbirds might even be worshipped as gods by the locals.
Locke looked at the breeding situation of the four groups of Thunderbirds and immediately nodded. "As expected, my guess was correct. It wasn't that the Thunderbirds had their reproductive ability enhanced because they ate the Great Yellow Duck Pineapple, but because they ate the Lightning Bees inside the Great Yellow Duck Pineapple, which enhanced their reproductive ability."
"Among the four control groups, except for the two groups of Thunderbirds that ate the Lightning Bees and successfully hatched two Thunderbird eggs, the Thunderbirds in the other groups that had entered the breeding period all terminated their mating behavior."
Locke's eyes flickered. "Therefore, I can boldly propose a conclusion: if Thunderbirds want to hatch offspring, they must continuously consume Lightning Bees."
"The Lightning Bee is the key."
Locke wrote down his conclusions on his notes. These were all pre-experimental data; the more solid this data was, the easier it would be for the project application written using it to be approved by the True Knowledge Institute project fund.
Locke mused, "If I continue with this topic, the next steps will mainly involve two things: analyzing why the Lightning Bee likes to dwell within the Great Yellow Duck Pineapple and build nests there, and how the Great Yellow Duck Pineapple increases the population of the Lightning Bee."
"Second, how many Lightning Bees does a Thunder Bird need to eat to possess reproductive capabilities in a natural environment?"
"Since my primary research focus is on magic plants, I had better also understand the mechanism of action for the Lightning Bee parasitizing the Great Yellow Duck Pineapple."
If Locke did not have the synthesis cube, he would need a year or more just to verify this step, and if he were unlucky, even longer.
This is the very reason why many excellent wizards get stuck on True Knowledge Institute fund projects.
Researching things is like walking down a path with countless forks in the road, but among those countless forks, only a few are valuable.
Once you make the wrong choice, even if you are a genius, you are just wasting time.
Therefore, the keenness to discover key research points largely determines a wizard's scientific research efficiency.
Locke did not know how his ability to perceive key points compared to other wizards, but with the help of the synthesis cube and its prompts, he knew from the very beginning that the symbiotic relationship between the Great Yellow Duck Pineapple and the Lightning Bee was simply that the Great Yellow Duck Pineapple provided a comfortable nesting environment and a lightning energy field for the Lightning Bee.
Then he did not need to wait in line to use the structural comparison machine to analyze the thousands of natural magic structural components within the Great Yellow Duck Pineapple, and then slowly guess which natural magic structural components caused the Lightning Bee to like residing inside the Great Yellow Duck Pineapple.
Although Locke had spent one hundred thousand magic stones so far on purchasing magic plant seeds and renting magic creatures, he was very satisfied with the results he had achieved in just one month and a week.
"With such excellent pre-experimental data, the probability of my project application being approved should be greatly increased."
"But this alone is not enough."
Locke turned to look at the pineapple magic plants in the remaining half-acre of the magic field; those planted there were not Great Yellow Duck Pineapple, but three other types of pineapples.
They were all One-Ring Magic Plants.
They were the Great Black Diamond Pineapple, Blue Swan Pineapple, and White Pearl Pineapple, respectively.
At the same time, there were also some cages of other magic creatures nearby.
He could use the synthesis cube to continuously synthesize pineapple-type magic plants, while accumulating a lot of relevant data, which could assist him in accelerating the creation of special synthesis recipes.
Since that was the case, the most efficient method for him was not to research and synthesize the magic plants one by one.
Instead, it was to directly research a bunch of the same type of magic plants together, in order to discover the secrets of the symbiotic relationship between these magic plants and other magic creatures, as well as how to enhance the reproductive capacity of specific magic creatures.
For someone with the synthesis cube, this was the fastest efficiency.
He did not need to be like other wizards, finishing research on one magic plant before moving on to the next.
"If I spend another one hundred thousand magic stones to rent magic creatures that have entered the mating period, I should be able to strive to finish the pre-experimental reports for the remaining three air pineapple-type magic plants by the end of this month."
"And..." Locke took out a Great Yellow Duck Pineapple from the synthesis cube and saw the entry on it—
[Mutated Great Yellow Duck Pineapple, Level 8 synthesis item, great yellow duck crown pineapple. This Great Yellow Duck Pineapple has mutated through the Magic Power Resonance Cultivation Method... By actively secreting natural magic structural components with a Spell Model structure similar to the Royal Lightning Field on the surface of its leaves, the Lightning Bees residing within will be accelerated and catalyzed into a Queen Bee, thereby attracting Lightning Bees to actively build nests within it.]
This was a mutated version of the Great Yellow Duck Pineapple that Locke had synthesized using two Great Yellow Duck air pineapples and a portion of royal jelly.
Looking at this Great Yellow Duck Pineapple, which looked unremarkable except for slightly more intricate patterns, Locke thought to himself, "My guess was indeed correct; as long as I continue to synthesize every day, sooner or later I will be able to synthesize a special recipe."
"Some special recipes are very likely to produce special natural magic structural components that did not exist before."
Locke's expression was strange.
He needed to investigate some materials to see if a natural magic structural component like the Royal Lightning Field existed.
If it did not exist, then the current situation would be very interesting.
He had synthesized a brand-new mutated version of the Great Yellow Duck Pineapple, and this Great Yellow Duck Pineapple would secrete a substance that had not yet been discovered (though it might exist in the natural world).
Then he could directly use the special Great Yellow Duck Pineapple he had cultivated to discover a brand-new natural magic structural component.
Locke frowned. "Cultivating new magic plants and then discovering new types of natural magic structural components is not impossible."
"I also need to check if there is such a magic called Royal Lightning Field... If there is no such magic, then I can also hand this component over to the wizards in the lightning magic sub-discipline of the Shaping School, let them study this substance to obtain a brand-new lightning magic."
Locke stood on the Great Red Banyan Tree and smiled, "Basic research work is indeed very interesting; by drawing inferences about other cases, I have discovered even more things."
"I might have even discovered a brand-new Spell Model for a Shaping School lightning magic, and its naturally existing magic-like natural structural component in the natural world. This is something I did not expect."
Locke understood a little more about the significance of basic research.
Golden Crown Mountain pursued intangible things, likely because people usually do not know what is tangible.
If one were doing things that were relatively common in society, then following the crowd and adhering to the public's perception would be fine.
But if they stand at the forefront of exploration, exploring the truth, then they would not know what is practical and what is a waste of time.
Therefore, Golden Crown Mountain believes that one should not judge and classify everything as intangible or practical, but rather, based on interests and hobbies, explore things that one is interested in.
Therefore, Golden Crown Mountain is generally focused on theoretical pursuits.
Locke mused, "But to be honest, only a wizard organization like Golden Crown Mountain, which needs to stand in the future, needs to be so theoretical. If it were other wizard organizations, they wouldn't even be able to solve their immediate survival problems, and if they were still so theoretical, I fear they would disband the next moment."
"Therefore, do what is appropriate for your position," Locke realized. "Some concepts have no right or wrong, only what is suitable or unsuitable for oneself."
"Third Ring Wizards can set their sights on the long term, but as a small One-Ring Wizard, I had better focus on building my resume to obtain better resources."
Locke shook his head. "I must not be led astray by the thinking habits of Golden Crown Mountain. Golden Crown Mountain and Lu Xu Bridge are high and mighty, being one of the seven top wizard organizations in the Yunze Wetland, and are very famous in the Eastern Border Region. Yet I am just an ordinary One-Ring Wizard at the Liquefaction Stage, and not even a Crystallization Stage wizard."
"I must have a reasonable understanding of my own situation."
"I cannot just because I am in the True Knowledge Institute of Golden Crown Mountain, consider myself to be Golden Crown Mountain and a Third Ring Wizard!"
Locke checked his savings.
A month had passed, and he had added another 160,000 magic stones, plus his previous savings of 360,000 magic stones.
But because he had spent 100,000 on experiments this month, and some scattered living expenses totaling 1,000 magic stones, he currently had 419,000 magic stones left.
That is, forty-one magic crystal cards and 9,000 magic stones.
Seeing that it was already night, Locke headed towards the classrooms of the True Knowledge Institute.
After a month, the three major classroom courses were almost finished, and today was the last lesson on teacher skills improvement.
After finishing the three major courses, I should be starting my teaching tasks, right?