Chapter 406: Recruiting Personnel

"So the Cloud Marsh Cup competition is a proper competition prepared for a special war. It has its own evaluation standards."

Locke read through the materials and thought, "The Cloud Marsh Cup competition process is as follows: first, each major wizard land must select a breeder team qualified to represent that wizard land in the competition. So there must first be competitions within each major wizard academy, and the teams that win the academy competitions then participate in that wizard land's competition."

"To determine the team that can represent that wizard land."

"After two rounds of preliminaries, then comes the real cross-wizard land competition, the start of the Cloud Marsh Cup main tournament."

"Because it's a cross-wizard land competition, the total number of competition rounds is four. Two rounds are preliminaries, and two rounds are the real cross-wizard land level competition."

"After entering the main tournament, the first round of the main tournament requires this team to submit concept drawings and materials to the committee responsible for the competition for evaluation. The top ten breeder teams will receive financial support from the committee to cultivate the designed magical plant weapons and enter the final round of the finals."

"The final round is when ten breeder teams participate in a defense together—the ten breeder teams each hand over the magical plants they cultivated to affiliated race wizards from the Cloud Marsh Wetland's affiliated planes to use, and they use them in actual combat against those Mekani People."

"The academic defense is the real battlefield. What a grand undertaking!"

"The magical plants' battle records can explain everything."

Locke thought, "However, speaking of which, I can apparently skip the first two preliminary rounds directly. Because I'm the breeder selected by the Land of Six Towers to represent their wizard land. I just still need to form my own team."

"If it weren't for me participating in this competition, this year's Land of Six Towers would probably have refused to participate in the Cloud Marsh Cup competition again."

Locke looked at the competition rewards and thought, "This competition is extremely significant for me. The top ten, meaning those who enter the finals circle, will all receive special magical plants from the Cloud Lake Wetland's Cloud Lake series—First Circle magical plants like Cloud Lake Lotus, Waterside Calamus, or Gallery Weeping Willow."

"One of these. These are commemorative prizes. As long as you can enter the finals circle, everyone gets one. It doesn't hurt anyone's dignity."

"The top five will receive magical plant order rewards, as well as Cloud Marsh Cup award honor certificates."

"Besides that, the top three..." Locke's eyes shifted slightly. This was the key point. "The third and second place will receive an Origin Academy contract. First place will receive an Advanced Origin Academy admission contract."

"Moreover, the Cloud Marsh Wetland White Wizard Association, to thank the breeders from various wizard lands for their active participation, will proactively negotiate with that Advanced Origin Academy on behalf of the first place winner, giving them the qualification to negotiate specific details of the contract with that Advanced Origin Academy."

"They can negotiate many relatively lenient terms. It's equivalent to having autonomous negotiation rights."

Locke thought, "This competition is indeed useful to me."

"Although it would be best if I could directly enter the Star Domain Sea, no one can guarantee that they will definitely be able to obtain a teaching position invitation from a Star Domain Sea wizard academy in a short time. So participating in this competition is equivalent to having one more path."

"The Origin Academy can artificially raise the level of wizard academy I can enter by one tier."

"This competition's top three don't specify which Origin Academy you can go to... probably there's a bunch of Origin Academies simultaneously observing this competition's results. So the committee only guarantees that second and third place can definitely enter an ordinary Origin Academy, and first place can definitely enter an Advanced Origin Academy. But which specific one hasn't been determined yet. This also conforms to the fact that Origin Academies are semi-independent from wizard academies and have certain rights."

Locke pondered, "But as long as I can place in this competition, even if I'm not in the top three, it will be greatly beneficial to me in the future."

"My problem now is... I need to form a reliable team, but the problem is this is very difficult in the Land of Six Towers."

Locke realized a problem, the participating teams from other wizard lands were all strong survivors after two rounds of brutal competition within their own wizard lands and major wizard academies.

And what about his side?

Those worthless family wizards from the Land of Six Towers?

"..." Locke closed the book, somewhat speechless. "If I let those family wizards form a team with me to participate in the Cloud Marsh Cup Combat Magical Plant Competition, I'll probably become a laughingstock, right? Everyone else's teams are full of shrewd and capable talented students or capable wizard instructors. My team would all be... nepotism hires. The difficulty would directly become hell mode."

Locke's expression was peculiar. "Even if my personal ability is strong, this type of competition prepared for large-scale war requires a very high workload. I can't possibly handle it alone."

"I need many assistants."

"I especially need to consider two points. First, the final battlefield is at Cloud Lake, meaning the Cloud Abyss, so the magical plants I design need to consider the Cloud Lake environment."

"Second, these magical plants are for use by wizards from the Cloud Marsh Wetland's affiliated planes. I also need to consider what magic those affiliated plane wizards are good at, their combat style and path, whether they have racial talent abilities, etc... All of these must be considered when designing magical plants for them."

Locke flipped through the materials, frowning slightly, then summoned the library director and instructed him, "Go retrieve for me Cloud Lake's historical magical plant materials, as well as Cloud Lake's ecological data, and Cloud Marsh Wetland's main affiliated plane data over the years."

That library director seemed to have a brain that didn't work very well. After Locke said so much, he actually had trouble remembering it all.

Under Locke's furrowed brow, he barely managed to remember Locke's requirements with difficulty, then quickly turned around to find the first-class wizard apprentice who had found the Cloud Marsh Cup materials earlier, ordering him to quickly search for materials for Locke.

That first-class wizard apprentice said fearfully to the director, "Director, this isn't Cloud Marsh Wetland. How could we possibly have so many detailed materials?"

"Perhaps the library at the Land of Six Towers' White Wizard Association branch might have them. That library is also in the White Dragon Tower..."

The library director practically shouted at him, "Even if you can't find them, you must find them for me. I don't want to hear excuses. Unless you don't want to work here anymore, you understand!"

That first-class wizard apprentice said nervously, "But Director, why are you only asking me alone to search? Others... others can do it too."

The library director sneered and said, "Who told you to be capable?"

...

Locke directly ignored this scene and became even more certain in his heart that for this Cloud Marsh Cup participation, he absolutely couldn't bring family wizards along.

Some commotion arose in the library because Alicia walked in.

Alicia sat down in front of Locke. She wore a simple white wizard robe and said to Locke, "Locke, I've already persuaded the family elders and had the Land of Six Towers register for this Cloud Marsh Cup."

For competitions like the Cloud Marsh Cup, even obtaining registration eligibility was extremely difficult.

Individuals and ordinary wizard academies couldn't possibly register. Only the White Wizard Associations of wizard lands in the Eastern Border Zone had the qualification to register.

However, this was currently the easiest competition for him to participate in.

Because other competitions of the same type and scale basically either required the local wizard association to register, or required special titles, such as being a student of a certain Second Circle wizard or even a Third Circle wizard, using their recommendation letters to register.

Or having certain awards, being a wizard who had published many advanced articles, to be able to register.

Now that the Plutarch family was willing to fully support his participation in a competition of this scale, it was already quite fortunate for him.

Alicia looked at Locke strangely. "What's wrong? Locke, you don't look very happy."

Locke shook his head. "It's not that I'm unhappy. I'm thinking about what to do about the competition team."

Alicia was puzzled. "Recruit from all the wizards in the Land of Six Towers. My Land of Six Towers' prestigious families have an abundance of talented wizards. With my help, your team can be assembled within a week, and its members can include members from all the major prestigious families in the entire Land of Six Towers."

"What's there to worry about?"

Locke: "..."

No, that's exactly what I'm worried about.

If it really went like that, his project team would be full of spoiled rich kids he couldn't command at all. If things went wrong, he'd also have to be their collective nanny while helping them pad their resumes.

This was different from Locke's original intention.

Locke hesitated for a moment and said, "Alicia, I mean, can we broaden our thinking a bit and select... those commoner wizards?"

"For this competition, I want to use those commoner wizards."

Alicia before him showed a puzzled expression. "Why? Dear Locke, aren't those family wizards more capable?"

Alicia suddenly remembered what happened on the airship and showed a hesitant expression. "Perhaps that's not necessarily true."

"Then do as you wish. I've already persuaded the clan elders to invest one million magic stones in your competition project team."

"This money will first go to the finance office, and then your competition team will submit expense reports to exchange for resources."

Locke nodded slightly. Separating finances from accounts was a basic management concept.

This was definitely necessary. Although it would make things more troublesome on his side, it could reduce corruption in his competition group.

This point was also beneficial to him.

Locke said to Alicia, "Then I'll first take that unfortunate commoner-born first-class wizard apprentice over there in the library who's sweating profusely. I think his abilities are decent."

"As for the others, forget it."

Alicia agreed immediately without consideration.

After all, for her, a small library worker didn't require special attention.

"Of course, it's all up to you."

"Locke, do you have any other requirements?"

Locke thought for a moment and said, "I want to hold a public interview open to the entire Land of Six Towers and select the people I need from it."

Alicia nodded. "Alright, that's not difficult either. As your financial backer, I can easily arrange this. By the way Locke, let's talk about something related to you. Don't you have the primordial fire?" Alicia said using a voice that only the two of them could barely hear.

"I also want to see how the primordial fire is used."

"I have a good place where I can obtain rare magical materials and purchase premium magic formulas. That place is called [Feathered Serpent Pavilion]."

"The Feathered Serpent Pavilion is a place specifically for us potion masters. It has branches in many wizard lands and also provides potion room services. When preparing potions in their potion rooms, you don't need to worry about being disturbed. We can also purchase many related potion studies equipment there. It's very convenient."

"Come on, I'll take you. Let's go see the power of the primordial fire."

Locke thought for a moment and didn't refuse. First, Alicia was currently his major financial backer, and the resource allocation she gave him was incredibly generous, beyond comparison even to a Plutarch family wizard.

Second, he did indeed have plans to purchase premium formulas and use the primordial fire.

Locke casually instructed the director to put the materials on his desk back in their original positions and preserve them well, as he might need to use them again later, then left together with Alicia.

That library director, seeing how intimate Locke and Alicia were, was already so frightened he didn't dare breathe heavily. He kept wiping cold sweat, watching the backs of the two as they left, not knowing what he was thinking.