Witch Gabriel quickly realized that now was not the time to discuss these matters. In fact, she was in a more dangerous situation than ordinary formal wizards because her permanent defensive field was an auxiliary-type magic, Arcane Divination.

This magic, if you said it was powerful, was very powerful. If you said it wasn't powerful, it also wasn't powerful.

In any case, on a frontal battlefield, it at least couldn't serve as a turtle shell.

Witch Gabriel corrected herself when speaking to Locke, "Locke, it's great that you've become a formal wizard. Currently, most of the First Circle wizards at Lilith's Cottage's main campus are not at the academy."

"Lady Morgana, Mentor Halen Vera, five Senior Advisors, and the Dean are all not within the academy."

"Currently, there are only two Senior Advisors inside Lilith's Cottage, and including you and me, only nine formal wizards."

"The two Senior Advisors and those First Circle wizards have all been targeted by the black wizards and trapped in encirclement. But fortunately, these First Circle wizards' permanent defensive fields were all wizards who chose First Circle defensive magic, so for the time being they're just entangled and their lives aren't in danger yet."

"Our academy's large-scale defensive field has been artificially shut down, but the small-scale defensive fields in various zones are still active, so we can barely maintain defense."

Locke frowned, clearly feeling something was wrong in his heart.

As a large wizard organization, Lilith's Cottage had dozens of First Circle wizards, but at this moment, the number of First Circle wizards stationed at the main campus was actually only nine formal wizards.

This was obviously very strange.

At this time, the voice of Advisor Francis appeared in the Nibelung Astrology System, "Locke? You've actually become a formal wizard?"

Advisor Francis's voice seemed somewhat tense. He should be in combat with black wizards right now. "Excellent. Although there are fully a hundred formal wizards on the opposing side, in the current situation, having one more formal wizard means one more glimmer of hope."

Another voice appeared within the astrology system. It was the Sacrifice Potion formulator Claudia Forbes. The old Witch Forbes said, "Locke, right now only you haven't been targeted and deployed against by the black wizards, so you have an opportunity to go to the Garden System main campus area and restart our defensive field."

"Before those black wizards destroy our defensive field core device."

"Currently, the black wizards are besieging the potion storage I'm protecting and the potion materials storage that Senior Advisor Francis is protecting. Although we can maintain the situation for now, given enough time, we will definitely be breached."

"This black wizard attack is truly too fierce," Claudia Forbes said. "But if you can restart the large-scale Life Force Field protection device, we can block the black wizards outside and wait for the Dean and the others to return."

Advisor Francis asked, "Locke, what permanent defensive field magic are you using?"

Locke hesitated for a moment and said, "Life Force Field."

A trace of delight appeared in Advisor Francis's voice. "A wise choice."

"Excellent. Since your permanent defensive field is a Life Force Field, the probability of you completing this task becomes much higher."

Witch Gabriel said, "I can use the astrology system to send you the map information for restarting the defense system."

"Our defense system was shut down by first-class wizard apprentice Anglon. From what we can see now, Anglon used the convenient access he had to figure out how to shut down the defense system."

Locke nodded. "I can try, but I can't guarantee success."

"By the way, how are the wizard seeds within the academy doing now?"

Witch Gabriel said, "Alas, those wizard seeds are facing targeted hunting. This time the black wizards came with great force. It seems the Black Wizard Alliance wants to go to all-out war with the White Wizard Association."

"The southeastern quadrant won't be peaceful from now on."

Witch Gabriel reminded Locke, "There's another problem. Due to the Black Wizard Alliance's independent transformation of this region, the plants in this area currently appear to have all gone on strike."

"The elements have lost balance, creating many crises, but those crises are all minor matters of destroying the city. More importantly, the power of plant magic will decline."

"The longer time drags on, the power of you plant-based wizards' plant magic will continuously decline due to the lack of wood element particles."

Locke sensed his current magic and discovered there was no decline in mana. He frowned slightly and quickly figured out the reason.

That's right, he could use the Forest Sanctuary magic and utilize the forest prototype formed by six Scorched Earth Holly plants to gain the blessing of his own forest.

In other words, he alone was a forest ecology. He could use the Forest Sanctuary located in the Forbidden Forest to obtain wood element particle replenishment from there, and didn't need to rely on wood element particles in the environment.

This counted as a small advantage of his own.

Who would have thought that being in the current special environment would actually become an advantage?

Locke's understanding of plant magic deepened a bit more. 'By transforming myself into a forest ecology, I'm like a walking forest, possessing stronger adaptive ability to the environment.'

'This is one developmental direction of plant-based magic, but it doesn't seem to be a common developmental direction for plant-based magic wizards in the southeastern quadrant.'

Most plant-based magic wizards still viewed themselves as members of an ecosystem, just using plant magic and using powerful magical plants to strengthen themselves, following the route of enhancing their status as independent individuals within an ecosystem.

In other words, making themselves as strong as possible as individual living beings within an ecosystem but because Locke used the Forest Sanctuary as his permanent defensive field, he was following the route of turning himself into an ecosystem.

Locke walked through the city. Following the divination magic that Witch Gabriel gave him, he bypassed one undead legion after another ahead and headed toward the underground body of the defensive device within the port city.

Even when encountering small-scale enemies, as long as Locke deployed his Life Force Field barrier, he could rely on the anti-undead characteristics of the Life Force Field to eliminate those ghosts, skeletons, ghouls, and those black wizard apprentices.

Walking along the way, Locke felt his luck was pretty good. He hadn't encountered any of the opposing formal wizards.

He was now very close to the location of the underground device body of Lilith's Cottage's defense system but just at this moment, as Locke walked within a narrow alley, his left arm suddenly became scorching hot, and a bat pattern appeared on his arm.

"It's that guy Stanley's curse."

"Because it's a First Circle curse from a First Circle wizard, that's why it wasn't cleared from my body before."

Stanley's voice appeared not far away. "Look what I've discovered? Augustine, you're actually not dead yet? How did you manage to escape from so many of our wizard seeds? And they also had the six-layer curse barrier I personally created!"

"Hehe, well then, I can kill you with my own hands now."

"Hahaha, do you feel fear? Being hunted by a First Circle wizard, your academy can no longer shelter you. You... wait a moment... what? When did you become a formal wizard??"