That evening, Locke returned to his room in White Dragon Tower and immediately began studying the first First Circle archaeology spell in the Tome of the Tombstone, Summon Historical Phantom.

This was a spell that copied specific character information from negative energy particle fields and reproduced them in the present world for a short time.

The revived character couldn't exceed 70% of the wizard's own magical pressure, could only exist for one hour, and only one historical phantom could be summoned. However, this spell had countless wonderful uses and could later evolve into many powerful archaeology magics.

Moreover, this spell could be used to summon historical phantoms to fight enemies, delay enemies, and also inquire about ancient history.

It had many wonderful uses.

Locke couldn't help but sigh. No wonder archaeologists had an extraordinary status among black wizards. This magic category was indeed exceptionally powerful.

After one night passed, at dawn the next day, Locke sensed a notification from the gray stone tablet. He opened it and saw that the Cloud Marsh Cup finals small group owner had @everyone and posted a video message.

Locke clicked on that video message, and immediately the gray stone tablet displayed a scene.

First was a wingless cylindrical hypersonic missile descending from the sky, landing in a wizard conference hall and directly blowing it up.

The next scene showed countless steel flying mechs flying in the high altitude, launching attacks on the wizards on the ground.

Locke scanned the Mekani people in this scene with surprise. Clearly the opposition had traces of mechanical civilization.

Then came mecha units as large as small mountains charging toward the wizard forces. Artillery coverage, ammunition maxed out, the sky everywhere filled with mechs, while the ground had giant robots, plus hypersonic cruise missiles launching decapitation-style beyond-visual-range attacks on the wizards' leaders.

The next moment, those mechs projected large amounts of thermobaric bombs toward the ground, burning the oxygen in the air. Then large numbers of unmanned automatic turrets began shooting countless bullets in all directions.

After the first round of beyond-visual-range hypersonic missile decapitation tactics came the sea, land, and air three-way firepower suppression advance.

At the same time, in this video, the wizard forces, that is, the mages from the Cloud Marsh Wetland's subsidiary plane, the Suarez Plane, suffered heavy casualties. First, they didn't react in time to the Mekani people's beyond-visual-range decapitation tactics, and quite a few powerful first-rank wizard apprentices were killed in the first moment.

Second, during the firepower suppression process, they were caught completely off guard by the opposition.

Locke keenly perceived that the Mekani people weren't just an ordinary mechanical civilization. The bullets and ammunition they used seemed to have been specially modified by wizard civilization.

For instance, the bullet material seemed to use Stillness Iron, that special magic alloy material that couldn't be destroyed by magic, sufficient to counter quite a few wizards' magic.

As for bombs and missiles, the high-energy explosive substances filled inside them, Locke was very familiar with them. They were precisely Fire Magic Potions with medium difficulty to prepare among First Circle potions.

Their energy density was extremely high, far exceeding any ordinary mortal high-energy gunpowder material. So under continuous firepower bombardment, even First Circle wizard level mages were eliminated by the Mekani people's firepower coverage.

The Mekani people were undoubtedly defining another form of warfare.

At the same time, a piece of music and introduction appeared in this video. Only then did Locke realize this was a competition highlight reel used to build atmosphere and give participants pressure before the Cloud Marsh Cup entered the finals.

[When will the flames of war cease?]

[When will the blade rest!]

[The predecessors of the Mekani people were a technological civilization from a medium-scale world conquered by a team led by a Second Circle alchemist, and after being modified by the alchemist, gained power surpassing their original civilization.]

[At the same time, Second Circle level prosthetic masters granted them superhuman physiques, giving them mechanical-flesh prosthetic bodies. Bodies as large as small mountains are both mechanical and flesh bodies.]

[The combination of magic and technology, magic energy cannons, Gauss bullets, hypersonic cruise missiles, beyond-visual-range warfare defines a new future. This is a severe test for all breeders.]

The video scene switched again.

Locke saw the final frame freeze on a steel fortress flying out from below the Cloud Lake, and a cold mechanical voice issued from within. 'Eliminate all forces of the invading wizard lord, eliminate all minions of the nightmare legion. System 0213, continue mission execution.'

'Confirm execution units...'

'Activate annihilation mode...'

At the same time, after this video, the frame froze on a light-computing supercomputer deep within that steel fortress, jointly modified by mechanical technology and magical civilization.

Video voiceover: [The Second Circle alchemist, for experimental observation purposes, installed the super machine soul of that original technological civilization intact into that magically modified technological civilization and re-observed its choices. Because an accident occurred in the experiment, the Mekani people and that machine soul escaped and are now attacking our industries at Cloud Lake at will.]

[Young breeder rising stars, you will dominate the outcome of this revenge war by those mechanical ghosts against our wizard civilization!]

[The winner of this Cloud Marsh Cup competition will receive a prize specially sponsored by Second Circle alchemist 'Raymond Griffin', an expensive First Circle alchemy equipment, a Death Ray Celestial Sphere.]

Locke was somewhat dumbfounded. He absolutely didn't believe the so-called alchemist Raymond accidentally lost control of the experiment and the Mekani people escaped.

'Wouldn't it be deliberate release, letting the Mekani people run rampant, then observing the reaction of that magic super machine soul that was installed?'

'It's not impossible. And because it can't be proven to be deliberate, he can escape blame. The Mekani people escaped to Cloud Lake. I remember below Cloud Lake is the Three Marsh Land's magic experiment waste disposal site. Generally speaking, experiment losses of control that escape there won't result in too severe punishment for that wizard.'

The more Locke thought about it, the more he felt this Wizard Raymond deliberately leaked the experiment. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

At the same time, in the small group, the ten participants appeared one after another in discussion.

The first place Edgar David wizard from Sunshade Peninsula sent a confident expression, then added a determined expression, and finally sent two expressions: a fist and a flame.

The second place Witch Diana from Cloud Marsh Wetland stated, "I see. But my project team has already made all preparations. I will completely terminate the Mekani people."

It seemed Witch Diana's project was progressing well.

The third place Yennefer simply didn't speak, unknown how his experiment progress was going.

The fourth place wizard from Thunder Marsh Lowlands stated, "If someone hadn't hired a black wizard to steal my data, the results I produced would definitely be better than now."

Needless to say, that wizard from Thunder Marsh Lowlands had never emerged from the shadow of having data stolen.

The fifth place Alaric asked in the group what Locke wanted to ask. He @the small group owner. "Was it really an accidental leak and not deliberate?"

"The more I look at it, the more I feel something's wrong. Why install that machine soul thing from the technological civilization we conquered, without modification, into an enhanced magic supercomputer?"

Similarly, the next several wizards also discussed intensely.

From these people's discussions, Locke saw some were full of confidence, some were full of complaints, and some still wanted to use the last bit of time to catch up.

In the last month before the finals, because each major project team's project progress was different, each wizard's information was different.

The small group owner @everyone again, "All respected participants, one month from now is when the finals officially begin. We will issue free ship tickets to all participants, inviting all participants to bring their respective project teams to Cloud Marsh Wetland to participate in the final competition, conduct actual combat war tests, and observe the war between subsidiary plane wizards and the Mekani people!"

"Please everyone seize this last month's best catch-up time!"