84: Chapter 84 Shadows and Bloodlines

"No wonder only a Level 1 Wizard Apprentice can enter the Echo Secret Realm once a year. For Wizard Apprentices below an Official Wizard, this is a top-tier resource. It can greatly make up for my insufficient understanding and accumulation of Spells and wizard knowledge, further accelerating my progress toward becoming a First-Ring Wizard."

This kind of Secret Realm is a privilege possessed only by formal organizations like the Elius Wizard Academy, and it is also a means to incentivize internal members.

It is a resource that ordinary wild wizards or lone wizards cannot enjoy.

If it were just magic stones, perhaps wizards anywhere could accumulate them, but the legacy left behind after the death of an Official Wizard is not something just anyone can enjoy.

The echoes left behind by the death of an Official Wizard will not exist permanently in the Wizard World; they will be worn away by the world little by little under the erosion of time.

Therefore, wanting to maintain the Secret Realm here for a long time must cost a huge amount of resources.

No wonder that aside from Level 1 Wizard Apprentices being able to enter once a year, only ten thousand magic stones can qualify one for entry.

Furthermore, among these Official Wizards, those who can leave echoes or are willing to leave echoes are a minority after all.

Among these echoes, selecting suitable ones that are fit for long-term maintenance and from which useful memory fragments can be excavated will be even fewer.

Calculated this way, even though the Elius Wizard Academy has stood on this land for a thousand years, I'm afraid there aren't many Secret Realms left behind.

In Ross's view, not only did these require the consent of the Official Wizard before death, but I'm afraid the Official Wizard also signed certain contracts with the academy.

But Ross guessed it shouldn't be forced; at least he himself wouldn't want to be disturbed after dying one day, or have his memories rummaged through by others, even if it were just his own understanding of wizard knowledge.

"Inside this Secret Realm, as long as one fights, they will gain an increase in Mental Energy and acquire the memory fragments of a First-Ring Wizard. As long as I keep fighting, not only can I accelerate the improvement of my own strength."

"Moreover, these petrified monsters are not completely petrified; or rather, they still retain some characteristics from before their death. Therefore, after the petrified exterior shatters, under the long-term permeation of magic power, specific magic crystals will also drop."

"The strength of these petrified monsters before death was not low, being at least at the level of a Level 2 Wizard Apprentice, so the magic crystals they drop are also top-notch Materials. They can not only be used for enchanting, but also serve as auxiliary Materials for refining potions."

After clearing the lizardman corpse in his hands, Ross obtained two dark-attribute magic crystals. As subterranean creatures, the magic power in these lizardmen's Bloodline seemed to have some interaction with the Shadow Plane.

The Shadow Plane, or rather the shadow plane, is not uncommon in many worlds; it is merely related to the scale or strength involved.

Like some crystal-sphere worlds, surrounding the center of the material world, there are often quite a few outer planes outside the prime material world.

Like the Astral Realm, it is generally the plane where the indigenous deities of that place establish their divine kingdoms.

Or perhaps the abyss-wastes formed under the influence of the abyss. If the world's potential is large enough, and the negative energy and emotions accumulated in this world are sufficient, these abyss-wastes will continuously stack up, becoming "Abyssal Layers." In certain worlds, terrifying existences such as the "Bottomless Abyss" might even exist.

As for the shadow plane or the shadow plane, it is one such special plane. This plane itself does not belong to the prime material world, but it is also an existence twin-born as one with the prime material plane.

In other words, the shadow plane is the "shadow" of the prime material plane, but this "shadow" is obviously much more lenient in its rules than the strict prime material plane, while also lacking quite a bit of spiritual matter.

Therefore, in some worlds, powerhouses who cannot yet leave the prime material world will usually utilize the "shadow plane" for rapid intra-world transfer, or call it a "short-distance planar journey."

Meanwhile, the original natives in the "shadow plane" naturally possess the "shadow" Bloodline, and they are usually adept at using "shadow"-type Spells or attacks.

But these lizardmen in the Secret Realm are obviously not indigenous people of the native "shadow plane"; they are probably just an ethnic group living in the gap between some material world and the shadow plane.

"It looks like this unknown First-Ring Wizard either has the experience of traveling to another world—specifically another world with a shadow plane—or else bought otherworldly slaves at a high price."

Phenomena similar to lizardmen living in the shadow plane and subsequently being infected by the magic power belonging to the shadow plane are countless. Some wizards studying outer-plane infection will even stay in other worlds for long periods to explore the conversion rates and causes of different worlds.

As for what use studying these has, before coming to the Secret Realm, Ross might only have had some vague understanding.

But as the memory fragments belonging to this Official Wizard continuously arrived, they merged and were absorbed by him.

Ross also gradually became clear that these studies might seem dry, but they are valued by wizards who take "Bloodline" as the source of their advancement.

In the early stages, some Bloodline wizards chose weaker but more stable Bloodlines in order to steadily advance to Official Wizard. Or perhaps the Bloodline that some Bloodline wizards need to elevate requires a massive amount of time or triggering conditions... All of these require outer-plane Bloodline research. For example, a Bloodline wizard who originally only possessed lizardman Bloodline might reach the peak of their Bloodline upon arriving at a First-Ring Wizard.

Without the conditions of some special circumstances, a First-Ring Wizard might be the peak of his potential, but this wizard would certainly be unwilling to stop here. And these lizardmen possessing shadow Bloodlines have become excellent research Materials. However, unlike the Wizard Apprentice stage, wizards still have a mature advancement system and a relatively safe environment.

After advancing to an Official Wizard, these Bloodline wizards can often no longer easily replace or adjust their Bloodline.

If one wants to enhance the strength of the Bloodline or elevate Bloodline potential, heading to the habitat where these shadow Bloodlines survive—that is, those shadow planes—is a very good destination.

Some cautious Bloodline wizards will even go to the shadow planes of multiple worlds, solely for the stable enhancement of their own Bloodline and to raise their Bloodline potential by even a tiny bit.

After all, the existence of every high-ranking wizard means that a vast amount of magic resources and some uncopyable miracles are required to achieve it.

The wizards of the Wizard World are themselves beings exploring the changes of magic power and wanting to grasp certain rules.

Some high-ranking wizards are almost indistinguishable from gods in the eyes of Mortals in other worlds, from which one can see what kind of knowledge wizards are actually researching.