Chapter 415: Tactical-Level Magical Plant

Locke came back to his senses and said to Montgomery, "I don't care about your past grievances with Eric, but my competition team does need talent like you. If you're willing, you can join our competition team."

Locke said, "However, our competition team has limited funding, so I can only give you a monthly living subsidy of five thousand magic stones. Do you have any objections?"

"If there are problems, we can still negotiate."

Although the Plutarch family had given him one million magic stones in funding, Locke still needed to spend it frugally.

How to control expense spending, spending funds where they should be spent and saving where they should be saved, was also something a project leader needed to know.

Through practice with several recent projects, Locke had become increasingly skilled at controlling cost issues.

Montgomery was stunned when he heard Locke say there was a monthly living subsidy of five thousand magic stones. Then he gave Locke a bitter smile, "Lord Augustine, to be honest with you, my monthly salary as a teaching assistant at the Magic Gem University is only fifteen hundred magic stones."

"The Plutarch family needs to ensure I'm trapped in poverty, forcing me to sell my labor and earn additional funds to live and conduct research."

"So, being able to give me five thousand magic stones per month is already quite a lot. I'm very satisfied."

Who would have thought the Plutarch family was even stingier than he had imagined.

Locke thought for a moment, "I remember the White Wizard Association provides stipend subsidies for teaching positions at each university. I remember that even teaching assistants receive a two thousand magic stone subsidy from the association each month. The institution only needs to pay a small portion of the salary. It seems they've even deducted five hundred from your basic subsidy."

Locke was somewhat speechless, "That's equivalent to not paying any salary at all, and actually making money off you."

No wonder the prestigious families in the Land of Six Towers were so wealthy. Of course, it was all extracted from the local wizards of the Land of Six Towers.

After all, the absolute wealth of the Land of Six Towers itself wasn't very much, so they could only extract wealth from these local wizards.

Those wizard organizations registered under the White Wizard Association all allocated teaching positions based on student numbers.

The specific rules varied by location.

In the Land of Six Towers, approximately every twenty first-class wizard apprentices could add one teaching position and receive subsidy funding from the White Wizard Association.

The specific rules were quite complex. Because Locke hadn't formally joined any institution yet, he didn't know the details very clearly.

But regardless, the reason teaching positions were valuable was because their numbers were limited.

Behind them were often specific resources in this wizard land, plus corresponding subsidy funds from the White Wizard Association.

Now it seemed this portion of funding should have been intercepted by people from the Plutarch family.

Locke talked with Montgomery for a while longer and signed a basic contract drafted by a contract master. Then Locke interviewed some more wizards and selected three useful first-class wizard apprentices from among them.

Currently, his team had assembled one First Circle wizard, Montgomery, and four first-class wizard apprentices.

Next, by adding some more First Circle wizards and first-class wizard apprentices, they could officially participate in the Cloud Marsh Cup.

Locke looked at the empty office and thought, "With Montgomery's example, I think the civilian wizards of the Land of Six Towers should know I'm not joking or putting on a show. Next, the number of civilian wizards coming for interviews should be higher. I still need more First Circle wizards and first-class wizard apprentices."

Locke had looked at past Cloud Marsh Cup competition records. Participating teams often reached dozens of people.

After all, the Cloud Marsh Cup was seriously designing tactical-level weapons, involving an extremely large amount of data and fields.

Developing this kind of tactical-level weapon magical plant required an unusually large workforce.

This belonged to the design of medium-scale warfare weapons, not ordinary individual soldier-level design.

Locke had read the Cloud Marsh Cup requirements. The competition objective required designing multi-person cooperative magical plants operated jointly by 3-5 formal wizards, not individual soldier weapons.

If it were ordinary individual soldier weapons, one breeder would be sufficient to handle it. At most, he would be a bit tired, but completion would still be possible.

But tactical-level weapons were different.

It was like the difference between designing firearms and designing main battle tanks.

If designing ordinary individual soldier magical plants was just breeders' personal works, then designing this kind of tactical-level magical plant could be considered truly entering the hall in the field of war weapons.

Because only tactical-level magical plants that required multiple First Circle wizards to operate jointly could form decisive fire networks in war, or have the possibility of some kind of steel torrent.

In the office, Locke flipped through documents rented from the Land of Six Towers, thinking, "This is also my first time designing medium-scale warfare tactical weapons. The logic is completely different from previous individual soldier weapons."

"I can get some inspiration from the plant magic Connected Brancheses I've recently learned."

"This is a completely new field for me. Cross-wizard-land level competitions aren't easy to participate in. At that time, everyone participating in the Cloud Marsh Cup competition will be the most formidable breeder geniuses from their respective wizard lands."

This competition, starting from the main event, would be a showdown among breeder geniuses from major wizard lands.

Locke looked at his gray stone tablet. On it were large amounts of breeding studies-related materials sent by his teacher Halen Vera, especially literature related to tactical-level magical plants, in enormous quantities.

Locke immediately replied, "Thank you, Teacher Halen, thank you for helping me search for materials."

Because the materials in the Land of Six Towers were really too low-level, Locke could only request his teacher at Lilith's Cottage to send him some materials.

Halen Vera replied with a message, "It's only right. Your participation in the Cloud Marsh Cup is also what I hope to see. This time our southeastern quadrant will also participate in the Cloud Marsh Cup. Right now, our southeastern quadrant is holding preliminary competitions. The breeder team from our Lilith's Cottage is competing with the breeder teams from Four Seasons Garden and Virdantia University for spots. It's quite intense."

"Fortunately, Cryptfire Academy and the northern Niflheim University have nothing to do with this competition, or the competition would be even more intense."

"The Cloud Marsh Cup has been held multiple times. Each time it's held, its prestige rises somewhat. After the last Cloud Marsh Cup was completed, this competition has already entered the sights of wizards in mainstream wizard society in quite a few wizard lands and become a stepping stone to obtaining better teaching positions."

"Dear Locke, you need to be careful. Even you, if you don't respond seriously, might not be able to achieve the ranking you want in this kind of competition."

Halen Vera sent a message, "In any case, I'll pay close attention to your ranking in this competition. Make sure to set a good example for your junior classmates."

Locke looked at the message Halen Vera sent him with mixed feelings.

Well, Teacher Halen was unconsciously starting to push him again and using his reputation and achievements to motivate the students currently under his tutelage.

"With the materials sent by my teacher, it solves my current problem of insufficient materials. Truly worthy of being a Gold member, to be able to send so much information at once."

"What remains is analyzing the winning works from past Cloud Marsh Cups, then selecting a topic. This step is very important. If I choose the wrong topic, I won't even pass the first round of the main competition." Locke thought, "Not to mention leading my team into the finals."

The definition of tactical-level weapons was weapon systems used to directly support war operations and strike enemy tactical targets. Their core was to change the local battlefield through powerful firepower or rapid and precise attacks.

In his previous life, main battle tanks, anti-tank missiles, machine guns, and drones all counted as tactical-level weapons.

Exactly what kind of tactical-level magical plant to develop required careful consideration. This point determined whether they could pass the first round of the main competition.