In the editor-in-chief's office of the "Southeast" journal, the editor-in-chief wizard of the southeastern quadrant's journal "Southeast", a First Circle crystallization wizard, was flipping through articles and categorizing them.

These articles submitted to "Southeast" would undergo preliminary selection, eliminating those that were obviously unqualified or submitted to the wrong journal, and letters would be sent back to inform those wizards of the rejection of their article submissions.

But after the preliminary selection, external review experts still needed to be found—at least two or more experts in the same magic school magic sub-direction and same magic sub-field to conduct double-blind peer review. Only after obtaining opinions from two or more experts and synthesizing the editorial board's opinions could the article be published in the journal.

This was just "Southeast's" requirement. Larger journals had even stricter requirements.

After all, the southeastern quadrant wasn't a particularly high-level wizard land.

At this time, after the "Southeast" editor-in-chief finished reading Locke's article about Myst's Power, his expression changed slightly. "This is..."

"Myst's Power? The submitter is a wizard from the southeastern quadrant. Although he's currently in the Land of Six Towers, he can indeed submit to 'Southeast' and meets the requirements." The editor-in-chief wizard quickly realized the key to the problem. "Myst's Power was once Lilith's Cottage's highest secret. Back then, to verify that Myst's Power truly existed, how much bloodshed and turmoil did Lilith's Cottage stir up? How many riots did it trigger?"

"Inhumane experiments even interrupted Lilith's Cottage's upward momentum and resulted in serious warnings from the White Wizard Association."

The editor-in-chief wizard looked at the article before him and quickly realized the significance hidden behind this article.

If this article was real, then this article was absolutely extraordinary.

He wasn't an expert in this area, so he needed to find experts outside the editorial board to conduct professional reviews and provide review opinions to see whether this article's value was high enough or if it was just making a mountain out of a molehill.

The editor-in-chief wizard hurriedly opened his gray stone tablet and, after hiding the submitter's name according to regulations, sent two copies of the materials to two peers in the relevant field—

Dean Earl Thompson and Wizard Halen Vera.

The editor-in-chief wizard checked the articles these two had previously published in "Southeast" and articles published in the Association library. They had several articles related to Myst's Power, so according to the principle of finding reviewers, these two should be asked to evaluate that article about the creation and principles of Myst's Power.

The editor-in-chief wizard frowned. "Now we just need to wait for the opinions of the two experts. If it's real, that would really be incredible. I remember this wizard is also from Lilith's Cottage, right?"

"After so many years, I didn't expect those wizards at Lilith's Cottage would finally get their wish."

...

On the other side, at this time, Locke's submission to the "Cloud Marsh" journal office had also been delivered. In the "Cloud Marsh" editorial office, a Second Circle editorial wizard was flipping through letters. After reading Locke's submitted article about using Myst's Power to accelerate becoming a First Circle crystallization wizard, he was slightly stunned.

"Did he submit to the wrong place? How can a First Circle wizard directly submit to 'Cloud Marsh'? 'Cloud Marsh's' minimum submission standard requires Second Circle wizards. Oh right, this young person should be an outside wizard, so he doesn't know this."

The "Cloud Marsh" editorial wizard Earl Harley smiled slightly. "But actually the quality of this article is quite high. Looking at this submitter's name, he should be the Cloud Marsh Cup champion, right..."

"Worthy of being a wizard who could win our Cloud Marsh Cup championship." After Earl Harley investigated Locke's past resume and saw that Locke was the Cloud Marsh Cup champion, he immediately added three points of goodwill toward Locke out of thin air.

Locke's origin was the southeastern quadrant. Later, he received funding from the Plutarch family of the Land of Six Towers, then won the championship of Cloud Marsh Wetland's Cloud Marsh Cup breeder competition.

Winning this competition championship also became part of his background.

As a wizard of Cloud Marsh Wetland, Earl Harley naturally became more trusting when he saw that Locke was the Cloud Marsh Cup champion and wouldn't think his article was nonsense.

Earl Harley thought for a moment and wrote a rejection opinion to Locke in tactful language. "Dear Wizard Augustine, thank you for your submission."

"But 'Cloud Marsh' only accepts excellent articles about important discoveries published by Second Circle and above wizards. You can choose to submit to 'Cloud Marsh's' important sub-journal 'Grass Cloud Marsh'. Although it's a sub-journal, it's still a Tier 1 journal in credibility."

"Secondly, although your article quality is high, you yourself don't seem to have become a First Circle crystallization wizard. Without a successful example, it's unfortunately too regrettable. So to avoid your rejection by 'Grass Cloud Marsh', I hope you can provide actual proof."

...

At the same time, inside the Poisonous Valley wizard secret realm, while Locke was tracking Nidhogg, he felt his gray stone tablet vibrating frantically. He summoned the gray stone tablet and saw Teacher Halen Vera sending him a message, asking if he had recently submitted an article to "Southeast".

Halen Vera sent him a message—'Although I know that making private contact violates blind review principles, Locke, I still want to know if you recently submitted to "Southeast"?'

'Have you successfully obtained Myst's Power?'

Locke was about to reply when he heard an angry roar behind him. He turned around and saw half the sky behind him had already been dyed blood red. A blood river poured down from the sky, pouring into Nidhogg's body.

Nidhogg used ritual magic, suppressing the Sea Gold Sand in his body. At the same time, his body became as large as a small mountain again.

Like a giant.

Nidhogg let out laughter. That laughter was the power of some kind of sonic magical creature, shaking Locke's eardrums painfully.

Under the enhancement of the Blood River Plane's power, Nidhogg used his remaining five spider legs to slash toward Locke's neck.

"So this is your ritual magic? It seems to be a state enhancement type, not a curse type." Seeing the opponent first forced to show his trump card by him, Locke immediately breathed a sigh of relief and summoned the Hydra, coiling it around his body.

Myst's Power transformed into a giant axe and chopped toward Nidhogg. At the same time, Locke took out a True Sight Orb from his ring and recorded what was currently happening.

"Teacher Halen Vera, regarding everything about Myst's Power, hearing is still false, seeing is believing."

At this moment, Nidhogg enhanced by ritual magic and Myst's Power in Locke's hand collided together.

Nidhogg roared, "This is ritual magic unique to crystallization wizards. You're only a liquefaction wizard. You absolutely cannot resist this power."

The next moment, two powerful forces collided together.

Locke immediately felt a powerful external force, an external force not belonging to Nidhogg, descending on the axe of his Myst's Power.

At the instant the two force fields made contact, Locke seemed to perceive that he wasn't fighting Nidhogg, but fighting a portion of the power of the Blood River Plane behind Nidhogg.

The so-called ritual magic was using magic rituals to borrow other powers to enhance one's own power.

From Locke's current perspective, this counted as a lower beggar's version of Grand Magic, because the power of ritual magic actually didn't belong to oneself, but was merely borrowed from outside.

And it might even require quite a price.