Kali gritted her teeth, her lips pale. As a life form approaching a First Circle wizard, the thunder elemental lord had currents flowing across its surface like the prototype of a permanent defensive field. This magic continuously backlashed against her through the Guardian Tree's roots and stems.

But in order to obtain Locke's complete forgiveness and make her relationship with Locke more intimate, becoming a normal teacher-student school relationship, Kali had gone all out at this moment. Even though her body kept trembling, she didn't release the control-type plant magic.

At this time, Locke flew in mid-air, his magic pressure continuously climbing. He glanced at Kali and the other first-class wizard apprentice.

After calculating their limit endurance time in his mind, he leaped across the thunderstorm zone and arrived above the thunder elemental lord's head. Purple-black magic pressure accompanied the swing of Black Chain Sword Bamboo. The Green Grasp spell model surrounded this rare magical plant, forming emerald green spell models.

The thunder elemental lord sensed the enemy above its head and was immediately both alarmed and angry. Its body had no detailed outline, like a plastic bag floating in mid-air, only its components were streaks of lightning after lightning.

The Guardian Tree's roots and stems were entangled on its body surface. The plant magic spell models on those roots and stems were breaking bit by bit, and the Guardian Tree's roots and stems were also becoming charred.

The thunder elemental lord hurriedly raised both hands. Its hands first came together, then when it pulled them apart again, violent and willful lightning crackled between its two hands.

A voice from a First Circle lightning magic wizard echoed across this wasteland.

[Momentary brilliance is the strongest!]

All the electric arcs on the thunder elemental lord's hands and body gathered into its palm. Then it pushed forward, and a highly compressed blue lightning energy beam shot toward Locke's brow. The instant it cut through the air, it ionized the air, causing arc after arc to appear in the air.

This was First Circle magic, Positron Beam!

Locke wanted to use Plant Mimicry: Bird of Prey to dodge, but he suddenly discovered that because he had fought with large numbers of thunder elements earlier, his body was already covered in static electricity. At this moment, that highly condensed lightning magic would automatically lock onto him because of the static field on his body and follow him.

At this moment, in this exchange, Locke could accurately feel this First Circle lightning magic wizard's philosophy—lightning magic pursued momentary power, and all previous exchanges were merely for this one moment.

Locke seemed to feel a First Circle wizard standing before him, telling him that what was truly dangerous about lightning magic wasn't the thunder and lightning, but the instant of complete silence afterward.

"No time to dodge. Then I won't dodge. When brave warriors meet on a narrow path, the courageous one wins." Locke's eyes became determined. He raised Black Chain Sword Bamboo and used Green Grasp, infusing all his magic pressure into it. Immediately, purple-black magic pressure coiled around Black Chain Sword Bamboo, forcibly withstanding the incoming ionized particle beam, actually trying to forcibly split this magic apart.

Locke then activated his ancient creature bloodline. A natural magic eye appeared on his forehead. At the same time, he concentrated all his mana and fired a geomagnetic force that struck the thunder elemental lord's body.

Immediately, all the magical energy on the thunder elemental lord's body detonated, transforming into a violent explosion.

In the flying dust, Locke fell toward the ground, breathing lightly. "I didn't expect I would actually be outmaneuvered by a thunder elemental lord in a secret realm."

"I should be more cautious in the future."

"I passed through two major secret realms and became too relaxed. Black Chain Sword Bamboo is all charred. Fortunately, this is in a secret realm and didn't really happen. In reality, my rare magical plant is still safe and undamaged. If this weren't in a secret realm, my losses would be too great. I need to take this as a warning. However..." Locke opened his right hand, and inside lay a Tesla Discharge Flower, a seed, and a thunder elemental lord's core crystal.

At the final moment, he had quickly flown before the thunder elemental lord and with one sword strike completely split this elemental creature lord, the most powerful existence in this secret realm, in half.

Killing it.

Discharge Flowers only had a chance of dropping when killing relatively powerful thunder elements in this secret realm, but now it seemed this magical plant could be guaranteed to drop by killing the thunder elemental lord.

Locke put away this magical plant that Anglon had been longing for and placed it in his astral ring.

This type of magical plant was a potion consumption type magical plant, only usable as potion material. Although he currently had no use for it, perhaps someday in the future he would.

Therefore, he didn't plan to take it out to make a trade with Anglon.

As for the thunder element core crystal, it was the thunder elemental lord's life crystal core. Only slightly higher-grade elemental life forms would have this body structure. It was good material for making golems.

But the last seed made Locke pause slightly, because this was a high-grade magical plant, which was to say a First Circle magical plant seed, the Ten Thousand Jun Grass.

"Not bad harvest." Locke said, "Ten Thousand Jun Thunder Whip Grass is relatively rare even among First Circle magical plants. It belongs to the First Circle level rare magical plants."

"It's said that Ten Thousand Jun Grass possesses ultra-high intensity lightning energy. At the same time, one whip strike is extremely heavy. As long as it's coordinated with the corresponding First Circle magic, it's the most terrifying weapon."

"I didn't expect that by killing the thunder elemental lord in this secret realm, I could actually obtain this magical plant's seed."

Locke looked at the two first-class wizard apprentices rushing over.

Kali hurriedly said, "Senior, are you injured?"

Locke shook his head slightly and said to the two, "Let's leave this secret realm. We've all reached our limits now. Staying longer would only needlessly increase the burden of death without any additional gains."

Kali and the other first-class wizard apprentice hurriedly nodded, expressing agreement.

They had both died in wizard secret realms and knew that kind of death's pain. Moreover, this kind of death within a secret realm, it was hard to say whether there were side effects.

Although the academy said there weren't any, there were still first-class wizard apprentices who, after dying once in a secret realm, repeatedly experienced that kind of death pain daily. This indicated that death in secret realms would still cause soul-level damage.

Just minor but if someone's soul was naturally special, they would be in big trouble.

After Locke brought the two people and left the secret realm, Locke accepted their thanks and returned alone to his residence.

With the three secret realm opportunities used up, his understanding of First Circle magic had deepened. He could immediately start attempting to break through to formal wizard.

What remained was going to the Forbidden Forest to obtain that sealed research project. However, before that, he first needed to go collect his advancement potion, then attempt to break through to formal wizard in the Forbidden Forest.

Locke glanced at Kali and the other first-class wizard apprentice looking at him from behind with respectful gazes. "With the protection of Halen Vera's relationship network, I don't need to worry about any complications arising at this final juncture."

"But I'd better not reveal to outsiders that I'm preparing to break through to formal wizard. I'll tell them after I've broken through. That won't be too late either."

"Although breaking through to formal wizard like this would also be good, I'm still somewhat unwilling. I want to see the true face of that special-grade research project before making a decision about which First Circle magic to inscribe on my magic pressure structure would be better."