Ethan looked up at that eye.
His mental crystal vibrated wildly within his mental sea, and all ninety-nine layers of light patterns lit up.
It was resonance.
It was an instinctive, uncontrollable resonance between his mental crystal and the origin power of this world.
The eye slowly rotated.
A golden gaze descended from the sky, sweeping across every high tower, every building, and every paved stone path of the Blood Bone Tower Academy.
It swept over the apprentices sweating profusely on the training grounds, the wizards buried in research inside their laboratories, and the students queuing to exchange supplies in the Logistics Hall.
Finally, it fell upon the gap in the cultivation room's ceiling that Ethan's gaze had pierced through.
It fell upon Ethan.
The moment the gaze made contact, Ethan felt his mental crystal get touched by something.
The touch was incredibly light, like a feather brushing across the surface of water.
A very faint golden halo emerged on the surface of the mental crystal.
The halo expanded outward from the center of the crystal, spreading along the ninety-nine layers of light patterns and illuminating his entire mental sea in a pale gold.
The World Consciousness was watching him.
It was confirmation.
Confirmation that this individual, who had just completed the transformation of his life-tier, was a child of the Wizard World.
Confirmation that his mental crystal, his body, and his soul were all branded with the origin mark of this world.
Confirmation that he was worthy of receiving the gift.
The golden eye blinked slowly.
Then, the light arrived.
Pale gold specks of light drifted down from the eye like a silent snowfall.
The light specks landed on the floor of the cultivation room, causing fine golden patterns to emerge on the stone surface.
The light specks landed on the walls, adding a hint of faint gold to the grain of the wooden walls.
The light specks landed on Ethan.
The moment they touched his skin, they silently seeped inside.
There was no burning, no stinging pain, and not a single hint of discomfort.
Only warmth.
It seeped from his skin into his muscles, from his muscles into his bones, and from his bones into his marrow.
Finally, it gathered in his mental sea.
The mental crystal began to spin wildly.
The golden light specks scattered across his mental sea, flying like countless fireflies in a night sky.
They orbited the mental crystal, arranging, stacking, and fusing layer by layer.
Filled by the golden light specks, the light patterns on the crystal's surface became clearer and more stable.
Even the minor imperfections left behind during the fusion process—which Ethan himself hadn't noticed—were filled and smoothed out bit by bit by the golden light specks.
The quality of his mental crystal was rising.
Beyond peak-grade, the standard classifications that had circulated in the Wizard World for countless years were no longer sufficient.
Ethan did not know what this level of quality was called.
But he could feel it.
The connection between his mental crystal and this world was at least thirty percent tighter than before.
In the future, no matter where he went or which world he entered, this connection would never break.
The origin mark of the Wizard World would be permanently branded into his mental crystal.
The speed at which the golden light specks drifted grew slower and slower.
The final few specks of light landed on Ethan's shoulders, seeping into his skin and merging into his mental sea.
The golden eye slowly closed.
Starting from the pupil, the golden light retracted inward, like a receding tide pulling back from a beach.
One by one, the runic patterns along the edge of the iris went dark.
The last to disappear was that vertical slit pupil.
The rift in the sky sealed shut.
The clouds spread out once more, and the sunlight poured down from above, pleasantly warm.
The ceiling of the cultivation room returned to its original state.
Stone slabs, wooden beams, roof tiles—layer by layer, they re-emerged in Ethan's perception.
It was as if the scene from just now had never happened.
Ethan stood where he was.
The mental crystal rotated slowly in his mental sea, its surface shimmering with interwoven light patterns of emerald-green and pale gold.
The ninety-nine layers were stacked with perfect precision, each layer resonating simultaneously with the other eighty-three layers.
His total mana surged significantly once more after the infusion of the golden light specks.
The purity of his mental power had also increased quite a bit.
The gift of the World Consciousness was neither grand nor flashy.
Just like that, it came to an end.
His advancement to an Official Wizard was complete.
From this day forward, he was no longer some Third-Tier Apprentice.
He was a First-Tier Wizard.
First-Tier Wizard, Ethan Leo.
He glanced at the time on the wall.
The crystal display embedded in the stone wall showed the year, month, day, and hour, with pale blue light patterns flowing slowly across its surface.
Ethan stared at the row of numbers for two seconds, his lips slowly curving into a wide grin. “It's already been that long. Today is actually my birthday? How nice.”
An Official Wizard.
From entering the Blood Bone Tower Academy at sixteen until now, it had been a full ten years.
He had finally crossed that threshold.
Ten years.
A twenty-six-year-old Official Wizard.
While this age might not be entirely unique, it was certainly rare.
Now, it was time to go register his certification as an Official Wizard.
However, the sight outside the villa made him pause in his tracks.
Vibrant greenery was bursting everywhere.
And that wasn't just a figure of speech; it was literal.
The lawn in front of the villa had grown to half a person's height, the blades of grass as thick as fingers, with their edges glowing with emerald-green fluorescence.
The shrubs in the flowerbeds had expanded three to four times in size, their branches squeezing out from the edges of the flowerbeds and crawling all over the courtyard walls.
Several vines had burrowed out from the base of the walls, climbing upward along the surface and coiling into a massive ball near the second-floor windowsill.
Even more absurdly, these plants could move.
A half-person-tall thorny shrub had uprooted itself, waving its prickly branches in the air like a drunken hedgehog.
Several vines crawled slowly along the ground, their tips curling and stretching as if exploring their surroundings.
A flower that was originally only the size of a fist had now bloomed to the size of a washbasin, its petals opening and closing while making faint popping noises.
A ring of Spirit Bone Guards surrounded the villa.
Hundreds of skeletons stood in a large circle, their bony hands clutching bone blades, straining and struggling to cut down the wildly growing plants.
Shredded leaves flew everywhere and sap splashed in all directions. Several Spirit Bone Guards were whipped by the thrashing thorny branches so hard that their skeletal frames rattled.
Just as one Spirit Bone Guard severed a vine, three new sprouts shot out from the cut.
It let out a silent curse, swung its bone blade in a wide arc, and chopped the sprouts along with the vine into pieces.
Another Spirit Bone Guard had its bony hand bitten by the washbasin-sized flower and was pulling hard to get free.
The fine teeth along the edges of the petals gnawed on the bone with a grinding crunch. The guard held the back of its blade with its other hand, tapping the petals one strike at a time.
The scene was utterly chaotic.
And this wasn't even counting the layers of apprentices crowding around the perimeter.
Ethan stood at the entrance, and before he could say anything, a figure descended from the sky.
Wizard Blood Fury landed right in front of him, his dark red robe fluttering loudly in the rushing air currents.
The moment his feet touched the ground, his crimson eyes swept over the mess filling the courtyard before locking onto Ethan.
“Kid, what the hell are you doing?”
The moment the words left his mouth, his expression shifted.
Blood Fury's pupils contracted sharply.
Although the energy fluctuations leaking from Ethan's body had mostly been restrained, Blood Fury still managed to catch them.
That was a radiation field unique to Official Wizards.
It was a radiation field that could absolutely never appear on a mere wizard apprentice.
This kid advanced?
Damn, is he hacking?
Rate on N.U.
