Wizard: My career panel has no upper limit

The visitor from the East was discovered on an ordinary patrol day.

The Bloodline Sentinel squad responsible for the eastern defense line noticed a mark in the middle of the dry riverbed that shouldn't exist during their routine patrol of the dry riverbed at the foot of the hills.

It was a straight groove, about half a meter wide.

Unlike the curved gullies formed by wind or water erosion, this groove is geometrically precise, stretching from the eastern horizon all the way down to the hills, and then abruptly ending.

The sentry crouched down and touched the inner wall of the groove with his finger.

It is cool, hard, and slightly reflective.

When the finger was retracted, it was covered with a layer of extremely fine metallic powder.

The news was quickly relayed back to Shenri City.

"It's not green."

The leader stood up and stopped the increasingly belligerent warriors.

Involuntarily, he recalled the first leader staggering towards the neighborhood on that first cold night.

"Cold, together, warm."

That memory is so clear, so vivid.

So much so that when faced with unknown visitors, this generation's leader subconsciously made the same choice as the first leader.

"The impact of collective memory on decision-making patterns."

Ron marked this observation in his notes:
"The choice made by the first leader has been encoded into the underlying logic of the bloodline civilization."

"It is not just a memory, but also a kind of... cultural gene."

When the visitors from the East finally appeared, the Bloodline warriors encountered a life form completely different from their own.

It was a collection formation consisting of more than a dozen metal units.

Each unit is approximately two meters tall and its shape is somewhere between a human and a spider.

Four metal limbs support an elliptical core module, with a flexible mechanical arm extending from each side of the module.

A lens is embedded at the front of the core module, resembling a simplified "eye".

The bloodline warriors gripped their spears tightly, but no one stepped forward.

The mechanical object also stopped.

The collection team formed a neat semi-circle, with all the lenses pointed at the leader standing at the very front.

A strange tension filled the air; both completely unfamiliar species were instinctively wary and curious upon their first encounter.

The leader took a step, and the soldiers' breaths suddenly tightened.

He took another step, moving to a position about three steps away from the nearest Iron Tide unit.

Up close, every detail of the metal object was clearly visible.

The outer shell is covered with tiny scratches and dents, marks left by friction against rocks during the long journey.

At the end of the robotic arm is a set of sophisticated multi-functional tools.

Clamps, drill bits, and cutting blades are all folded into a compact structure.

The leader raised his palm and reached towards the metal casing.

He didn't know what he was doing; he was just acting on some kind of instinct from the depths of his blood.

A medium has a natural thirst for information; he wants to "understand" the unfamiliar creation before him.

Fingertips touch metal.

Cold and hard, a faint electromagnetic pulse traveled from the outer shell of the Iron Tide unit to the leader's fingertips.

The stellar debris responded instinctively upon receiving the pulse.

At that moment, the leader "heard" the voice.

Iron is needed.

The leader frowned slightly, turned to the soldiers behind him, and said:
"They don't eat light or meat; they eat hard rocks."

"We have a lot of hard rocks."

Several soldiers couldn't help but laugh, while most others, though not laughing out loud, visibly relaxed.

The leader smiled too.

He then turned to the Iron Tide Units and tried to encode the concept of "exchange" into them.

The lens of the Iron Tide unit flickered several times.

Then, one of its robotic arms unfolds, and its end effector grippers open.

A small piece of metal was held in the pliers—it was polished so finely that the leader's face could be vaguely reflected on its surface.

It was a metal product that had already been processed.

The leader took the metal plate and examined it closely, turning it over in his hands.

He sensed its sharpness and hardness, far exceeding any stone or rudimentary metal tool currently used by the Bloodline.

The rock face beneath the hill actually exposes an iron ore vein.

Marked as "low priority" in previous mining operations, the Bloodline has very little demand for iron ore; what they truly crave is pyroxene.

But for these metal creations in front of him... the leader entered the code again.

A low-frequency hum came from inside the collection team, and the leader took out a rudimentary knife.

It's described as a prototype, but it's really only missing the handle.

The leader took it, running his fingers along the edge of the blade, feeling its smoothness and sharpness: "Good."

Ron was replaying all the data from this interaction in the observation room:
"The first cross-species diplomacy was achieved through barter."

He wrote:
"The core logic of the transaction is extremely simple—resource complementarity."

"The bloodline has enough iron ore, but lacks metal processing technology."

"Tiechao has sophisticated metal processing capabilities, but it needs a supply of raw materials."

"The needs of both sides are perfectly complementary, forming a natural basis for trade."

He stopped writing and re-examined the behavior patterns of the "Iron Tide" side.

The mechanical units of the Iron Tide do not possess self-awareness.

All their actions are manipulated by the high priest and his team who take turns managing them, through preset instructions and real-time control.

This is similar to the green tide; plants don't "think," they simply follow growth instructions.

Machines also do not "judge"; they simply execute operating procedures.

The reason why the great wizards of the Iron Tide chose to respond to the bloodline's trade proposal instead of ignoring or attacking it is also very clear.

The expansion of the green tide also posed a serious threat to the iron tide.

On the northern front of the arena, the conflict between the Iron Tide and the Green Tide has lasted for countless seasons, with each side gaining strength and losing ground, locked in a fierce battle.

At this moment, a new opponent suddenly appeared on the flank of Green Tide, and it was an opponent that had successfully torn a hole in Green Wall. The Iron Tide administrators naturally would not let go of this opportunity to form an alliance.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

This law applies to any form of civilization, even if one party is a mechanical entity without self-awareness.

Because those who command the machinery are ultimately conscious and calculating wizards.

For Ron, the conciliatory attitude of Iron Tide was exactly what he had expected.

To be precise, it was under his impetus.

Months before the Bloodline broke through the Green Wall (outside time), he had already implanted a new "Apocalypse" into the leader through the Echoing Tree.

In that divine revelation, he did not give any specific instructions to the leader.

He simply showed him a picture, a vague image of a “non-green existence.”

The luster of metal, regular movement, and hard objects that can be exchanged.

The leader's interpretation and response to this image were entirely based on his own judgment.

He can choose to ignore it, or he can choose to see it as a threat.

But he chose to reach out, just as the first leader did in the cold night.

"Apocalypse only provided the information."

Ron wrote in his notes, "The decision is theirs."

“If the cultural genes of bloodlines do not include the element of ‘cooperation with strangers,’ no amount of revelation will change their behavior.”

"In other words—the seed planted on that cold night has finally blossomed hundreds of years later."

"The cold night taught them unity, the emergence of the Iron Tide taught them cooperation, and the next step is..."

His gaze passed through the holographic projection and landed on the dark southern border.

There, something beyond anyone's control is stirring.

The existence of the Abyss School on the public server has always been an unspoken "gray variable" among all participants.

Unlike the Green Tide or Iron Tide, the mutant beast hordes they release do not have clear strategic goals or expansion directions.

The behavior of the mutant beasts is closer to that of wildfires in nature.

Unpredictable, difficult to control, and incredibly destructive, but it will extinguish itself after burning all flammable materials.

They roam, reproduce, and kill each other in the gray areas of the arena.

Every few generations, a "mutation wave" will break out, in which a large number of individuals frantically devour each other during the genetic collapse, causing the population to plummet.

Then the survivors reproduce again, carrying even stranger and more unstable genes, and enter the next cycle.

This self-destructive survival strategy seemed illogical to most of the participants.

However, the wizards of the Abyss School have their own theory on this, which they call "extreme natural selection".

The strongest individuals are selected through the most brutal methods, allowing the gene pool to spontaneously evolve new characteristics that surpass the design through constant collapse and recombination.

The problem is that these mutant beasts have a core instruction written into their instinctive drive that is extremely difficult to control: devour.

They devour everything.

Food, fellow creatures, minerals, and even magical particles floating in the air.

Devouring is the sole purpose of their existence, and it is also the only "reins" that the Abyss School can use to guide their behavior.

Want the beasts to head north? Release a high-density mass of magical residue in the north.

Want to stop the herd? Cut off all potential prey within their olfactory range.

It's like waving a piece of meat in front of a pack of wolves; as long as you have meat in your hand, the wolves will follow you.

But if something tastes better than the piece of meat in your hand... then the wolves will no longer listen to you.

The wizards of the Abyss School noticed the anomaly in the hilly area shortly after the battle between the Bloodline and the Green Tide Highlands.

A gap appeared in the green wall on the west side, the north and south highlands changed hands frequently, and signs of iron tide activity began to appear on the east side.

The once quiet edge area suddenly became the most active battlefield in the entire arena.

In this situation, the Abyss School made a typical speculative decision.

Drive a herd of mutated beasts westward to see if they can gain any advantage from this three-way battle.

At the very least, we can obtain some valuable biological samples.

The plant tissues of the green tide, the metal fragments of the iron tide, the bloodline...

Um, what is bloodline again?

The wizards of the Abyss School know very little about this newcomer.

In the publicly available data provided by Antigonus to all participants, the description of bloodlines was extremely brief:
[Placeholder: Ron Ralph]

[Species type: Humanoid (modified)]

[Core Features: Photonic Symbiosis, Spiritual Anchoring]

Current Status: Active

That's it.

They consulted Ron Ralph's public archives and learned about his background—a newly crowned archmage, a potential king, and connected to several great figures. But in the arena, none of these external attributes mattered.

"How much combat power can a creation of a newcomer have?"

The high priest in charge of managing the herd made this judgment.

So, a group of about five hundred hybrid mutant beasts were driven toward the hills.

Their size ranges from human size to bison size.

Some have multiple segments and compound eyes, resembling centipedes magnified dozens of times;

Some are covered entirely in hard shells and make a dull thud when they move.
There were also a few of the largest ones, their bodies wrapped in translucent tentacles, the ends of which secreted a strong acid capable of dissolving rocks.

The mutated beast horde advanced rapidly along the edge of the gray zone, leaving nothing but desolation in its wake.

The minerals in the soil, the organic matter in the withered grass, and even the tiny fragments weathered from the rock surface were all swept away by those insatiable appetites.

When the herd was about fifty kilometers away from the Bloodline's eastern defensive line, the sentries on the high ground spotted them.

The news quickly spread back to Shenri City.

The leader stood before the Echoing Tree, his palms pressed against the trunk, extracting memories related to the external threat.

I have a lot of experience with the green tide, but my impression of the iron tide is still fresh.

However, very little of the memory bank is retained regarding these chaotic and terrifying creatures in front of us.

Bloodline members only encountered sporadic mutant beasts in the very early stages, before they had ventured deep underground.

It is neither a plant that invades the territory, nor a machine that exchanges resources.

These guys are nothing more than a pack of beasts whose sole purpose is to "eat you".

The soldiers were fully equipped and ready for battle, and the sapphire bombs were all mounted on the launchers.

If those aberrant beasts really charge up, the Sunburn Line and the Radiant Stone Armor Warriors on the high ground should be able to handle a tough battle.

Before making any military deployments, the leader began to listen carefully to those "divine revelations".

The Bloodline had no idea where those occasional, vague images came from; they attributed them to the guidance of the sacred tree.

In the lineage of spiritual mediums, the Echo Tree not only preserves memories of the past, but also occasionally foresees possibilities of the future.

While this understanding is not entirely accurate, it is not entirely far from the truth either.

Because the source of those premonitions was indeed transmitted through the spiritual roots of the Echo Tree.

However, the sender was a wizard in the observation room outside the grid, injecting a specific information packet into the tree roots through a spirit channel.

When Ron designed the genetic template for the bloodline, he used pure chaotic crystals as a "harmonizing catalyst".

The power of chaos did not completely dissipate after completing its reconciliation mission.

Extremely small amounts of chaotic remnants were encoded into the genes of the bloodline, lying dormant in a very inactive state.

Under normal circumstances, these residues would be completely imperceptible.

However, when Bloodline comes into contact with creatures that also carry the abyss's aura, the Chaos Remnant will resonate with them.

When two tuning forks with similar frequencies are struck, the other will vibrate slightly.

The meaning of a revelation is left for the recipient to interpret.

Ron couldn't be sure how the leader would interpret this information.

If he chooses to ignore it, the Bloodline can only use conventional tactics to withstand the onslaught of the Aberrant Beasts.

We can win, but the cost will be high.

If he interprets the implications correctly... then things will get much more interesting.

When the leader awoke from deep meditation, it was already close to dusk.

He clenched his fist, then relaxed it, and quickly made a decision.

………………

When the mutated beast horde arrived at the outskirts of the hills, the way the Bloodline welcomed them astonished even the Abyss School wizards who were secretly observing from afar.

The Sunscorch Line on the high ground was not activated.

The sapphire-armored warriors stood ready behind the defensive line, but their spears were pointed downwards and not raised.

Only the leader descended from the high ground.

His steps were slow, and each step was steady.

The mutated beast horde stopped collectively about twenty paces from their leader.

More than 500 monsters of various shapes and sizes reacted in the same way at the same time.

They stopped moving forward, as if the waves had crashed into an invisible wall.

The leading armored behemoth lowered its head first.

This action has a clear meaning in any animal behavior—submission.

No, it's not entirely about submission.

As the mutant beast lowered its head, its body trembled slightly.

That trembling felt more like a long-lost peace.

A person who has been exposed to noise for a long time suddenly walks into a soundproof room.

The relief of "finally it's quiet" is enough to send shivers down your spine.

The pulsation of the remaining chaos was like a soundproof chamber to the mutated beast.

The aura of the abyss is the frequency they have been most familiar with since birth.

However, in the endless wandering of the public service machines, the mutated beasts, far removed from the origin of the Great Abyss, have not felt this frequency for a very long time.

Their genes become increasingly unstable in an environment lacking "echoes from the abyss" for a long time, which is one of the fundamental reasons for the periodic outbreaks of aberration tides.

And at this moment, a living, warm being, radiating a faint resonance of the abyss, is standing before them.

The leader tentatively stepped forward and placed his palm on the armored behemoth's thick, wrinkled head.

The pulsations of lingering chaos flowed from the fingertips into the behemoth's nervous system.

The trembling of the carapace-like behemoth gradually subsided.

In those cloudy compound eyes, something akin to "clarity" flashed by.

It raised its head and looked at the small creature in front of it that exuded an aura of the abyss.

Then, it turned its body to the side, revealing its soft belly that was not covered by its carapace.

Show your most vulnerable side to the other person.

In animal language, this is more thorough than bowing one's head.

The leader gently patted the edge of the giant beast's belly armor, a smile appearing on his lips.

He turned his head and waved to the dumbfounded soldiers on the high ground.

"They don't eat light, nor do they eat stones."

"But they need quiet."

On a distant observation channel, the rotating member of the Abyss School stared in disbelief.

He just witnessed the whole thing.

From the collective halt of the mutated beast horde to the submission of the carapace behemoths, and then to the leader's "pacification" of the entire horde in some unknown way.

"This is impossible."

His first reaction was to deny it.

While the aberrant beasts cannot compare to the truly uncontrollable mutants in the Great Abyss, they are still considered an extremely unruly species.

Even the pheromone control system that the school of thought has built up over countless years often fails, so how could they be tamed by a humanoid individual by patting their head?
But the data doesn't lie.

The aggression index of the beast herd has plummeted from 93 before entering the hilly area to the current 11.

Eleven, this value is even lower than the average level of the herd during the interval between aberration tides.

"Does that humanoid species possess an affinity for the abyss?"

The person on duty pulled up Ron Ralph's delivery records and reviewed them repeatedly.

The deployment parameters did not include any features related to the Great Abyss.

But the results are clear: bloodline individuals can have a calming effect on mutated beast hordes.

Moreover, the effect was so significant that it far exceeded the control methods of their own school.

"This suggests that there are some undisclosed elements hidden in his genetic design."

The high priest on duty frowned.

Speaking of which, as a core member of the Abyss Observatory, Ron Ralph is said to have some "special relationship" with the Great Abyss.

If he had added specific materials to the genetic template of his own species...

“Those mutant beasts won’t just be ‘appeased’.”

The high wizard on duty hovered his finger above the control panel, hesitating to make a move.

He hesitated.

Should we immediately launch countermeasures to sever the mutant beasts' connection?

Or should we continue to observe and see what the other party's intentions are?
During the time he hesitated, the data transmitted from the hilly area changed again.

Bloodline did more than just "appease" the mutant beasts.

They began feeding them, and large quantities of root crops were transported to the lowland areas where the herds gathered.

After consuming these light-energy-rich foods, the genetic instability within the mutant beasts was further reduced.

After several generations of reproduction, the offspring of the mutated beasts that remained in the bloodline territory had already developed significant phenotypic differences from the wild population.

They are more symmetrical in size, their aggression is more controllable, and some individuals have begun to show "following" behavior toward individuals of a particular bloodline.

When Bloodblood warriors patrol the borders riding on the backs of tamed mutant beasts, the once chaotic and disorderly monsters are transformed into disciplined mounts.

The natural defensive capabilities of crustacean aberrant beasts, combined with the radiant stone weapons of bloodline warriors, have created a new type of combat unit.

Beastmen.

The emergence of this unit completely altered the balance of power in the hilly region.

The original weakness of the bloodline was mobility.

They excel at holding high ground, but have limited ability to advance on flat and low terrain.

The Aberrant Beast mount makes up for this shortcoming very well.

Beast riders can run several times faster than foot soldiers in the low hills.

The natural armor of the carapace mounts also provides riders with an extra crucial layer of protection when facing acid attacks.

When the rotating high wizard of the Abyss School finally realized that the situation was irreversible, the predicament he faced was more than ten times worse than initially estimated.

The mutated beast horde was originally supposed to act as "wildfire," creating chaos in the three-way battle.

Instead of acting according to plan, they were incorporated into the enemy's elite forces.

The remaining control methods at their disposal—pheromone guidance, environmental pressure to drive them away—are practically ineffective against these completely domesticated mutant beasts.

Their signal frequencies have been recalibrated by the bloodline, and the old "remote control" channels are no longer compatible.

"That newcomer named Ron Ralph..."

When the high priest on duty uploaded this observation record to the internal communication channel, he used a rare level of labeling:

[High Alert – This person's understanding of the Abyss mechanics may far surpass the highest level of our school.]

This message sparked a brief discussion within a small circle.

The final conclusion was simple and pragmatic—to temporarily avoid direct conflict with bloodlines in the arena.

A venomous snake of unknown origin is far more dangerous than a venomous snake of a known species.

Because you don't know the formula of its venom, nor do you know where the antidote is.

Moreover, in the world outside the arena, the opponent's name is followed by a long list of chilling titles and backgrounds. (End of Chapter)