Wizard: My career panel has no upper limit

Of course, Ash remembered that name.

For an existence that has lived for over five thousand years, memory should be a burden.

Too many faces, too many events, too many grudges and entanglements... layer upon layer like tree rings, ultimately compressing the core "self" into an extremely narrow space.

Most great wizards who have lived for over a thousand years will selectively "prune" their memories.

Retain essential knowledge and experience, and discard useless emotions and details.

This is a survival strategy and a form of self-protection.

Ash's trimming method is particularly thorough.

She only retains two types of memories: those related to the research, and those that make her "uncomfortable".

The former is the foundation upon which she survives, while the latter is the means by which she stays vigilant.

The name Ron Ralph, however, belongs to the latter category.

To be precise, it's the "extremely uncomfortable" level.

Looking back now, the cause of that conflict sixty years ago seems as absurd as a poorly staged play.

Ashe herself was not involved in the decision-making process for the Elemental Carnival.

She slept soundly in the azure garden, half-integrated into the petals, just as she was now, indifferent to the affairs outside.

It was Serafina and Darius who took it upon themselves to attempt to use the outside trial participants who entered the Elemental Convergence Point as offerings for a large-scale human sacrifice ritual.

Among those trial participants was a young wizard who was only at the Moon Rank at the time.

Salamander then sent the information about the young wizard to Cassandra.

What happened next was like toppling the first domino.

Cassandra intervened forcefully, and three archmages joined forces to fight her, only to be overwhelmed by her alone.

The void was severely damaged, its deterrent power collapsed, and the school's status plummeted.

Sixty years have passed, but the scars still ache faintly.

But at this moment, when Ashe recalls this past event, the images that appear in her mind are subtly "edited".

The part about the human sacrifice ritual has been automatically omitted.

The fact that the Tree of Life school was the first to provoke the movement is also covered by a thin layer of self-justification.

Ashe's memories tell her that Ron Ralph's appearance led to Cassandra's intervention, resulting in that disastrous conflict.

As for who struck first and who was the real cause of the incident.

These details have sunk to the bottom of the river of memory, buried under thick layers of silt, and can never be unearthed again.

“Ron Ralph…”

She repeated the name again, her face somewhat gloomy.

Anger is too exhausting; she's too lazy to be angry anymore.

At this moment, Ashe was like an old cat whose afternoon nap had been disturbed. Before slowly extending her paw, she first sized up the disturber with her half-open eyes.

"Retrieve his delivery records," she instructed.
"I want to see what new tricks this newly appointed high priest has brought."

Serafina bowed to acknowledge the order, turned and left, but her expression was somewhat worried.

Soon, the three great wizards of the Tree of Life school gathered together again.

"The Bright-Eyed Daughter" Serafina sat at a long table, with the latest data retrieved from the arena management system spread out in front of her.

On her other side, Darius's projection was emitting a low, mechanical hum.

The "Bloodsmith" did not come in person.

Given the extent of his current damage to his ethereal remains, maintaining a remote projection is already the limit.

The projected image quality became rough and unusable, looking like an old, poorly maintained hologram.

"A grayish-white woody plant, with roots extending to both ends..."

Serafina read out the keywords from the data one by one:

"The preliminary judgment is that it is a cross-creation of necrophysics and botany, and the technical route has no direct corresponding precedent in the known literature."

What about a hazard assessment?

Darius's mechanical voice emanated from the projection.

"Currently low."

Serafina tapped a few times on the projector and brought up a set of growth curves:

"The species expands extremely slowly, and within the equivalent time after its release, the coverage area increased by less than two square kilometers."

"In comparison, our green tide expanded to an area more than 600 times larger in the same amount of time."

"From the perspective of resource competition, this species poses almost no threat to us."

"Then we don't need to worry about it."

Darius's judgment was swift and decisive:

"Currently, three forces are eyeing our northern border. Rather than focusing on a newcomer, we should be wary of our old rivals."

Serafina nodded.

Her thoughts were in line with Darius's.

The mechanical empire of "Iron Tide," the mimicry swarms of the "Thousand Faces" school, and the corrosive fungi from the Abyss Frontier school... these are the real rivals capable of shaking Green Tide's position.

In comparison, the few gray-white shrubs in Ron Ralph are simply not worth mentioning.

The problem is that this matter has already reached Ash's ears.

"I suggest maintaining the status quo."

Serafina glanced at the large lotus seedpod to the side, her tone shifting from declarative to persuasive:

"Our consistent strategy for new high wizards is to first show goodwill and then observe. At least strive for a non-hostile, neutral relationship."

Although the number of Grand Wizards authorized to use the small chessboard is not large, each one is quite powerful and has a different background.

If a fight were to break out every time a new face arrived, the Green Tide would have been surrounded by enemies long ago.

The approach of the Tree of Life school is far more sophisticated than brute force.

Whenever a new Archmage gains access to the small chessboard, Serafina will proactively contact him under the guise of "neighborly friendship."

Sometimes, they donate modified rare plant samples, which are of considerable reference value to most personal research.
Sometimes it involves providing ecological data on green tide areas so that the other party can understand the environmental rules of the arena more quickly;

Even more extreme, if the other party has special needs, Serafina will even arrange for a witch from her school to go to the other party's grid under the guise of an "academic exchange assistant" to provide "assistance".

These modified witches were all exceptionally beautiful, highly talented, and had undergone rigorous training.

Skilled at gathering intelligence, establishing connections, and even influencing decision-making without leaving a trace.

The title "woman with bright eyes" is partly derived from this.

It wasn't because her eyes were particularly clear, although they were indeed very clear, but mainly because her "eyeliner" covered the entire social circle of the great wizards.

Through these carefully placed nodes, every step of Green Tide's expansion was based on thorough intelligence:

Serafina knew everything: which areas were guarded by their masters, which masters were in seclusion, and which great wizards had conflicts that could be exploited.

"But the other party is Ron Ralph."

Darius, who had been silent all along, suddenly added, a faint red light flashing in his mechanical eyes:

"The last time your wizard designed his book, even his spiritual imprint was completely erased in the end."

These words were like a needle, precisely piercing Serafina's most painful memories.

Sheena had taken it upon herself to give Ron the "Illustrated Guide to Ancient Plant Pathology," which contained a necronomical seal, attempting to lure him into a trap with knowledge as bait.

Afterwards, Hina was severely punished.

However, Serafina herself suffered devastating injuries in the subsequent battle and has not yet fully recovered.

"It is precisely because of that failure that we must be more cautious now."

Serafina's tone was steady, but her face was slightly pale:

“We underestimated the power behind him at the time, but now the situation is very clear.”

She projected a file in front of Darius:
"A few years ago, he competed in a phallus collision with three great wizards at the festival and won all of them. One-fifth of Cyrus's phallus collapsed on the spot."

"He obtained the right to use the miniature chessboard through direct authorization from Antigonus von Astra, the 'Mercury Mirror'."

She deliberately emphasized the name Antigonus:
"You should know that Antigonus's ethereal body is nearly 90% complete."

Of the entire group of archmages, only about twenty truly qualify as 'top archmages'—Antigor is among them, and firmly among the top.

"The fact that Ron Ralph was able to obtain the right to use the small chessboard from a great wizard of this caliber speaks volumes about his current status."

“We don’t need to provoke a…” she carefully chose her words: “an opponent with unlimited potential.”

As soon as the words were spoken, the vine-covered wall twitched slightly, emitting a soft hissing sound.

If you didn't know the inside story, this sound could almost be mistaken for some kind of hypnotic white noise.

Darius's projection flickered a few times.

"Antigone..."

His mechanical voice trailed off by half a beat: "Serafina, have you forgotten something?"

"what?"

"When Chief Ashe reached the level of a Grand Wizard, Antigonus wasn't even born yet."

Serafina's glassy eyes narrowed slightly; she certainly understood the deeper meaning behind Darius's words.

No, it should be called "sowing discord".

This mechanical madman is implying: by bringing up Antigonus, you are implying that our chief is inferior to a "junior" who is less than half his age?
Serafina couldn't possibly catch that hat being slapped on her head.

"That's not what I meant."

She responded quickly, but her speech was a beat faster than usual:
"I was simply objectively assessing Ron Ralph's network and background, and offering strategic suggestions based on that."

"Objective assessment?"

Darius's red mechanical eye turned to her:

“Then I’ll give an ‘objective assessment’ as well. The Chief became a Grand Wizard at the end of the Third Age, which is longer than Antigonus’ entire life.”

"The roots of Green Tide have penetrated every inch of the soil of public servers and have been operating for thousands of years."

"A newcomer who's just joined the game, with just a few unknown gray shrubs, can make our intelligence officers so... wary?"

Serafina wanted to retort, but she swallowed the words back down.

"Stop arguing."

Ashe relayed her instructions.

"Serafina".

"exist."

"I heard everything you said."

Her tone was languid, as if she were discussing something trivial that had nothing to do with her:

"Being cautious is good, I don't blame you."

Serafina gave a slight bow.

“But Darius is not wrong either.”

"This is a small chessboard, not the main world."

"External backgrounds, powers, and the protection of the Witch King mean nothing in the arena."

"What matters here is only one thing—business acumen."

She slowly raised her right hand.

That hand was thin and bony, and the veins on the back of the hand looked like withered vines.

But the entire Azure Garden... no, half of the quicksand land, was responding to her gentle raising of her hand.

"No matter how successful Ron Ralph is outside, once he enters the public server, he's just a newcomer who's just gotten his ticket."

“We have been rooted here for over a thousand years. We know the terrain, resources, ecological niche, information network, and everything else inside and out.”

"On this chessboard, we have nothing to fear from anyone."

Serafina's heart sank.

Although Ashe is lazy and mostly indifferent to external affairs, once she makes a decision, she will not change it.

This has never changed in the long span of five thousand years.

"grown ups……"

Serafina made one last attempt:
"If it's just applying pressure in the arena, I have no objection. But if it triggers retaliation from the other side in the main world..."

"Revenge?" Ashe interrupted her: "Have you ever seen anyone make a big fuss in the main world over something that happened on the miniature chessboard?"

"The rules of the arena have been clear from the very beginning: everything that happens here falls under the category of 'academic competition'."

"A loss is a loss, and a win is a win."

“Taking them outside to cause trouble is truly shameful.”

"Besides..." she closed her eyes, her voice becoming indistinct again:
"I just want that junior to understand one thing."

“The arena is not his backyard; here, seniority and management skills are more useful than talent and background.”

"There is no witch king here to protect him, nor any historical projection to summon."

"The simple rule is that only one place can nurture all things."

"Let his little seedlings experience a frost first; it's a way for the elders to give to the younger generation..."

She yawned: "A little something to start the conversation."

Serafina looked at Dalíu.

Those mechanical eyes looked back at her, their red light tinged with smugness.

She sighed inwardly.

If Ashe has to be said to have any fatal flaw...

That is, its lifespan of five thousand years has fostered a deep-rooted arrogance in it.

Last time, they were also "logically correct" in dealing with intruders on their own turf, which was reasonable and justifiable.

But the result?

Serafina sometimes thinks about a question:
Is Ashe able to live so long really because she is strong enough?

Or is it simply because... for most of the past five thousand years, she has been lucky enough to avoid all the truly deadly troubles?

Is this luck running out?

But she had no right to say those words.

Ash is her benefactor, her mentor, and her second mother.

In the existing system of the Tree of Life school, its will is the final arbiter.

"Yes, ma'am." The bright-eyed witch lowered her head.

"So, what are your instructions regarding the specific plan, sir?"

Ashe yawned again, and the petals undulated gently beneath her.

"You and Dalius go ahead and draft it, just don't go too far."

"After all, this is on the Creator's chessboard, so the rules... still need to be observed..."

The order was given, and the flower buds closed up again.

Seeing this, Serafina and Darius had no choice but to take their leave and go to a side hall to continue their discussion.

"My advice is to strike first."

Darius spoke first.

"Before his saplings have established themselves, we will launch an attack using the edge of the green tide's vine community."

He held up a finger made of alternating copper tubes and tendons:

“Drain all the nutrients in that area, leaving his gray shrubs nowhere to take root.”

"Once they wither, my puppet army will be responsible for collecting the remains..."

"and many more."

Serafina raised her hand, interrupting the other person's somewhat impatient planning.

"Recover the wreckage?"

She repeated the word: "Dariu, what you really want isn't to carry out the Chief's orders, is it?"

The mechanical eye in the projection flashed.

"Serafina, what do you mean by that?"

The bright-eyed witch's fingers slid lightly across the projection table, bringing up a summary of Darius's research archives from the past few hundred years.

"The core of your 'Blood Artisan' is to fuse and modify plant tissues with flesh and blood."

"The grayish-white plant that Ron Ralph planted has the property of 'dual-world rooting,' touching both the material and spiritual realms at the same time."

"Such biological structures that span two dimensions of existence are extremely difficult to find in the material world."

Her gaze shifted from the file to the other person's half-damaged face:
“Dariu, you just want to use the guise of ‘executing the chief’s orders’ to obtain tissue samples and growth data of the Echoing Tree, right?”

As soon as the words were spoken, the hyphae on the moss wall twitched slightly, as if they were pricking up their ears to eavesdrop on the conversation between the two great wizards.

Darius did not deny it, for denial would be meaningless in front of Serafina.

This woman has been running an intelligence network for years; lying under those bright eyes is no different than playing a shadow trick in the sunlight.

"Even so," the mechanical voice said again, "my personal demands do not conflict with the interests of the school."

"If the green tide can crush those gray shrubs along the way during its expansion, the school of thought gains an ecological niche advantage, and I gain research materials. We each get what we need, so what's wrong with that?"

Serafina did not answer immediately, but moved the projector to switch the image to the northern defense line of the Green Tide.

There, the mechanical tentacles of the "Iron Tide" are rapidly encroaching on the territory of the Green Tide.

“Look here, the ‘Iron Tide’ has already advanced a new bridgehead on the northern front, and the ‘Thousand Faces’ mimicry swarm has also increased its infiltration efforts in the southeast direction.”

"These two directions are the areas where we most need to concentrate our resources for defense."

She turned around, her tone already somewhat unfriendly:
"If your puppet troops are transferred to the western district to 'recover the wreckage,' who will cover the northern front?"

"What are you going to do?"

Darius was getting impatient after being repeatedly rejected.

"Are we just going to let a newcomer plant trees in our own backyard and do nothing about it?"

“As I said, the chief has already given the order, and there is no room for discussion on that.”

Serafina sat down again at the long table, her hands clasped on the surface:

"But 'how to implement it' is the part we need to discuss."

"My advice is to avoid using force."

"Without resorting to force?"

"At least, we will not use force in the first phase."

"Lord Ashe's original words were 'Let his little seedlings get a frost first,' and 'Don't go too far.'"

“If we use the military force of the Green Tide to directly crush it, it won’t be ‘frost,’ it will be called ‘logging.’”

"The difference between 'logging' and 'frost' is that the former is a clearly hostile act, while the latter is merely a natural phenomenon."

She will make a gentle swipe on the table, and a soft screen of light will unfold:

"We don't need to deliberately change our expansion strategy; we just need to appropriately 'accelerate' the pace of natural expansion."

"Let the marginal communities of the green tide compress the growth space of the species he introduced through normal ecological competition."

"The advantage of doing this is that even if the other party notices the source of the pressure, they cannot accuse us of 'deliberate attack'."

"Because ecological competition is the basic rule of the arena, you can't say that your neighbor is declaring war just because their lawn has grown into your front yard."

Darius began to calculate.

The calculations did not assess the feasibility of the Serafina scheme, which was clearly the result of meticulous deduction.

He was calculating how much benefit he could gain from accepting the proposal.

The answer is: almost none.

"Ecological competition" means that the green tide spreads naturally, squeezing out the living space of the Echoing Tree.

In this process, the other gray shrub will either be forced to "migrate" (if it has the ability to do so) or gradually wither away.

Either outcome will not leave Darius with the tissue sample he wanted.

The spiritual structure within the naturally withered plant remains disintegrates rapidly after death.

It's like a book that's been soaked in water; the paper may still be there, but the writing is so blurred that it's illegible.

What Darius needs is living tissue, or at least fresh remains of someone who has just died and whose spiritual structure has not yet collapsed.

Serafina's "natural compression" approach minimizes this possibility.

"You did this on purpose."

He stated his conclusion directly, without bothering to beat around the bush.

Serafina gave an innocent smile.

“Dariu, I am simply following the chief’s orders.”

This is the subtlety of the internal power structure of the Tree of Life school after entering the Fourth Age.

The position of "Bloodsmith" Darius within this school has always been like an alien object embedded in a large tree.

His "blood art" follows the path of flesh and blood fusion, which is completely contrary to the mainstream school's concept of pure life modification.

The young wizards in the school have an unwritten metaphor in private.

If the Blue Garden is a towering tree, then Dalius is an iron nail driven deep into its trunk.

Iron nails do not belong to trees, and trees cannot digest iron nails.

Darius shared the school's resources, patronage, and political endorsement, yet he always maintained his independence.

Ashe turned a blind eye to this for a simple reason: although Darius was unruly, his research abilities and combat prowess as a great wizard were genuine.

In the end, neither of them could convince the other.

Darius's projection vanished amidst a piercing crackling sound of electricity.

Serafina sat alone in a side hall, sighing softly:
"Since the violent approach has been ruled out... let's try another method."

………………

Meanwhile, after the seeds were properly placed, Ron returned to the summoning circle.

Every three days (grid time), he would initiate a cross-dimensional broadcast.

The decoy effect of the Chaos Crystal lasted much longer than he had anticipated.

The crystal embedded in the core of the magic array, like a lighthouse in the sea, projects signals into countless dimensional gaps and dark corners.

Those who came were of all kinds, good and bad.

Most of them are just low-level dimensional drifters—energy fragments that have lost their plane of origin, and tiny aberrations that have degenerated into mere instincts;

There were even a few clumps of "bubbles" that had no research value, which dissipated on their own after coming into contact with the binding force field of the summoning circle, like soap bubbles that could burst at the slightest touch.

He recorded, categorized, and archived these items one by one, and then ruthlessly excluded them.

After these almost useless summons, Ron adjusted the parameters of the summoning circle accordingly.

His previous experience with summoning told him that relying solely on "passive waiting" was too inefficient and made it impossible to control the type of visitors.

Lumps of flesh, condensed fear, the voice of kings—of the three summons, only the last one can be considered a true gain.

This ratio needs to be improved.

He added a set of directional filtering runes between the third and fourth rings of the formation.

These runes act like sieves, enabling them to make an initial screening of visitors from the other side the moment the dimensional rift opens.

Only creatures that meet the preset conditions will be allowed to enter the grid through the crack;

Those that do not meet the criteria will be forcibly bounced back to the dimension from which they came.

"It's like using fishing nets with different mesh sizes to select the fish," Ron thought to himself.

This simple metaphor accurately encapsulates what he is doing at this moment.

The tool received new parameters and rearranged its internal light spots.

It emitted a low-frequency oscillation, and the cross-dimensional broadcast began again.

This time, the wait was longer than before.

About half an hour later (within the sandbox), the outer ring of the summoning circle finally reacted.

The information analysis layer is flashing orange, which means that the danger level of the visitor is between "medium" and "high".

The dimensional rift has been torn open.

What emerged from that crack was not a physical substance, but a pungent, almost suffocating stench.

That smell… Ron searched his memory for a moment and finally identified it as “a mixture of rotten seawater and aged blood.”

Then, a gigantic hand emerged from the crack. (End of Chapter)