One month later, in the special-grade laboratory.

Locke gathered the magical plant divisions cultivated by Montgomery and others, along with the magical plant branches he had cultivated using the Synthesis Cube. Using a magical force field, he cut partial plant factor fragments from these plant essences, constrained them with the force field, placed them in his hand, and after simple design, injected them into a Chain Vine seed.

At this moment, beneath the Dragon Crystal Ecological Dome, Locke used the First Circle life magic Rapid Growth. That Chain Magic Vine rapidly grew out, but unlike the previous green chain appearance, this First Circle Chain Magic Vine's overall color had turned black-iron.

Half a day later, Locke, along with Witch Barbara, Wizard Tacitus, and Wizard Montgomery observing nearby, all showed delighted expressions.

Locke transplanted the cultivated color-changing Chain Vine from the soil and infused magical power into it. "As a single-soldier weapon, this First Circle magical plant is already extremely good." 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

"As a magical plant manipulated by multiple people, its performance is also quite good. You all try it too."

The four wizards simultaneously manipulated this Chain Magic Vine. The Chain Magic Vine quickly burrowed into the ground, then emerged from another location. All four could clearly see through their magical power connection that after the Chain Magic Vine entered the ground, it circled around them again and again.

Witch Barbara shot a blood flame at this magical plant. This universal bloodline spell blood flame, which burned bloodlines, hadn't even gotten close before it was completely scattered and dispersed into the air by the swinging mutated Chain Magic Vine.

Witch Barbara was clearly shocked. "In just one month, we can create a magical plant of this strength. This magical plant has connected our magical power together, overlapping and strengthening each other, and stores magical pressure through Rust Bead Flower, thus becoming what it is now."

She fully used her dryad bloodline, and immediately her face transformed into that of a dryad elder.

With a wave of her hand, some tree branches from the ecological garden extended over to attack the four people, but the Chain Magic Vine swung continuously in an instant and blocked all the attacking branches.

Then, Witch Barbara, Montgomery, and Tacitus all three simultaneously launched spell attacks at the Chain Magic Vine, all of which were easily blocked by the Chain Magic Vine.

Witch Barbara exclaimed in delight, "The speed of this progress has surpassed my imagination."

"The attacks of three First Circle wizards couldn't shake it at all. I can feel that if we choose to attack, this Chain Magic Vine will instantly transform into a terrible weapon, stacking the magical pressure of all four of us to attack the enemy."

"Up to this point, this magical plant already has very practical combat significance."

Locke nodded slightly. "This is also thanks to Montgomery thinking of using the variegated mutation mechanism."

This Chain Magic Vine changing from dark green to black-iron was variegated mutation, a type of somatic cell mutation unique to plants, and also the main breakthrough achievement in Locke and others' research this month.

That variegated mutation would cause changes in the magical plant's color and form special spell patterns inside it.

Variegated mutation was a common method in botanical enchantment.

By changing the pigment in the internal magical power structural components of plants, enchantment arrays were formed inside the magical plant to strengthen it.

This was also a path suggested by Montgomery. Over this month, they consulted large amounts of literature, trying to make the magical plant's variegated mutation pathway produce spell pathways with stacking magical pressure effects.

The biggest difference between magical plant enchantment and ordinary enchantment was that magical plants were living things, so all enchantment methods had to rely on their natural growth.

And they as wizards could only guide the magical plant's variegated mutation color change pathway through external intervention to produce corresponding magical power pathways.

Montgomery said honestly, "No, the greatest credit still goes to Boss Locke. If I were to work on this variegated mutation direction myself, not to mention whether I could do it, even if I could, it would take at least five years, or even ten years."

"But we only provided you with raw data, and you were able to turn my idea into reality within one month."

Montgomery said admiringly, "This is really too incredible."

Tacitus pondered, "But this is still not enough. This magical plant is indeed very excellent, but it can only stack our magical pressure and cannot achieve what was planned in the project proposal, stacking wizards' permanent defensive fields."

"Taking this magical plant outside, it would indeed be very excellent and worth investing in, but in the Cloud Marsh Cup competition, it's still quite inadequate."

"After all, our opponents are... Ancient Life Tree, Luna Laurel Tree, these mythical treants."

"We still need to continue working hard on this stage's foundation, seeking the possibility of stacking permanent defensive fields."

Montgomery comforted him, "This is only our first month of formally working. No need to rush. Being able to achieve such results in the first month is all thanks to Boss Locke's genius, and also thanks to him getting us this laboratory, which shortened all the original experimental processes to one day. Working experiments in this laboratory, one day equals one month in an outside laboratory."

Witch Barbara said, "No need to boost others' morale either."

"Their project proposals sound good, but whether they can be realized is another matter. Everyone's situation must be similar. They might also be worrying in their own laboratories, completely unable to create the kind of magical plant described in the project proposal."

"So we don't need to worry too much. Just keep working steadily."

Wizard Tacitus smiled slightly. "That's right. Now we're competing on patience. After all, after entering the finals, every research group is already going all out. We've already displayed all our intelligence and wisdom, so what we can still do, and the key that can decide victory or defeat, lies in patience."

"The research group that becomes anxious first will definitely lose the initiative."

Locke used the life magic Rapid Growth to accelerate this magical plant, making it quickly bloom and bear fruit, leaving seeds, and kept the seeds in his hand.

"A major drawback of variegated mutation is that the magical plant's growth conditions become more demanding and recovery ability decreases, so some breeders don't like to use plants' variegated mutation mechanism to enchant plants."

"However, for creating this kind of rare magical plant, using the variegated mutation mechanism is really all too normal."

Locke distributed the seeds to everyone. "Cultivate them, and continue breeding subspecies based on them. We need to conduct staged finite element cultivation, continuing to use finite element cultivation on the foundation of these already cultivated qualified magical plant subspecies."

"Besides that, there are two other subspecies that are also worth continuing directional cultivation using them as prototypes."

Selecting subspecies for the next stage of directional cultivation was like reaching a fork in the road and seeing which way to go.

Once the wrong path was chosen, it would be very difficult to produce results.

So Locke chose three subspecies that currently seemed relatively successful to continue cultivating.

After all, some subspecies appeared to have stronger magical plant traits than other subspecies, but the path ahead was actually a dead end with no way forward.

Once they walked to such a fork, they would just be unlucky.

Therefore, research required patience and calmness, the ability to endure countless failures, and that sense of disappointment when nearly achieving results, only to still fail in the end.

Otherwise, giving up easily or being extremely anxious would only make one's research progress slower and slower.

Additionally, perfectionists were also very difficult to deal with.

Because every research couldn't possibly be perfect. Being too perfectionist would get stuck in one place unable to advance for a long time, with no efficiency to speak of.

Locke said to everyone, "I think the current three magical plant subspecies are all pretty good First Circle magical plants. Perhaps we can ask around outside to see if any wizards want to purchase them."

"These research by-products can also be sold, and the funds we get can subsidize our research group, and we can also distribute this private money to you to help you improve your magic level."

"However, since they're tactical magical plants, the market is actually limited."

The magical plant subspecies from their laboratory all required at least 2-3 people to manipulate. They were tactical magical plants for war purposes, so wizards with intent to purchase their magical plant subspecies were unlikely to be individual wizards. Therefore, sales channels were indeed rather limited.