Wizard: My skills can be upgraded indefinitely.

The next day.

As the first rays of sunlight pierced through the porthole of the Eternal Tower, Ian was reviewing the battlefield reports compiled by the Tower Spirits.

In yesterday's pursuit, the Silver Moon Legion captured three more resource stars.

Serafina discovered a medium-sized super-energy vein, which is expected to yield 15,000 standard units of crystals, a very profitable find.

A standard unit of super-energy crystal weighs 10 kilograms, not including the purple associated minerals within it.

Karendil's injuries were extremely severe, but thanks to Azshara's treatment, his condition has stabilized and the cracks in his soul particles have stopped spreading. However, he will still need at least three months of recovery before he can awaken.

Kerrigan digested her gains in the demiplane within the tower, her dark golden divine crystal glowing subdued, like a lurking beast waiting to reveal its fangs once more.

Everything was looking up, but Ian frowned.

Deep within his spiritual sea, the panel trembled slightly; he was all too familiar with this frequency.

Every time the panel detects an abyssal aura, it's the same pattern.

The problem was that he had Tarling set the sensitivity of the detection array to the highest level and conduct a full-scale scan of the void within a million kilometers around, but the results showed no anomalies.

There were no abyssal fluctuations, no psionic anomalies, only the aura of a wizard.

The panel was still vibrating.

Ian rose and walked toward the porthole, where the Silvermoon Legion's fleet was slowly unfolding in the void.

Large groups of wizard towers and war vehicles, like schools of fish searching for food, scattered toward the resource stars that had not yet been divided up.

Starting yesterday, the entire coalition's posture has changed; it's no longer a battle formation, but a mining formation.

The Wizarding Alliance's reinforcements arrived, sending another thirty Sun Wizards and their massive war legion.

Thirty newly arrived reinforcements, the Sun Throne and the wizards, spread their defenses across every corner of the Zerg world.

One hundred and fifty level-six mother brood mounds were either dead or had fled, and the remaining Zerg remnants no longer posed a threat.

All attention turned to the super-energy crystal mine.

The alliance clearly stipulates that miners can receive 20% of the mineral vein's output as personal profit.

This is incredibly appealing.

One standard unit of super-energy crystal is enough to support a Moonlit Wizard's full-fledged cultivation for a month.

A medium-sized mine vein produces about 40,000 crystals, and 20% of that is 8,000 crystals, enough to push a Radiant Moon Wizard from the initial level 5 to the peak of level 5.

Nobody wanted to fall behind, except Ian.

He stood by the window, feeling the panel vibrate. His unease grew stronger and stronger, like an ice needle slowly piercing his spine.

He remained silent for a long time before opening the encrypted connection with Azshara.

"Lady Azshara."

Azshara's voice came quickly, her tone a mix of excitement and exhaustion. She had used [Civilization Barrier] too many times yesterday and had not yet fully recovered.

"Ian? Why didn't you go and rob the mine? There's a rich mine on the east side of G-7, I specially saved it for you."

"The mineral vein isn't urgent." Ian paused for a moment before delivering his prepared statement.

"I detected some... anomalies at the edge of the G-7 defense zone. They were extremely faint, so faint that no detection method could detect them."

"But my dual cores are particularly sensitive to this kind of aura; I came into contact with something similar in my early years."

Azshara's will paused slightly. "What kind of aura is that?"

"The aura of the abyss was very faint, so faint that I initially thought it was my imagination, but I confirmed it three times."

There was silence on the other end of the connection for a long time, and Ian even thought the communication had been interrupted.

After a long while, Azshara's will returned, and the feeling of relaxation had completely vanished: "Are you sure?"

"I can confirm it."

"Send me your exploration logs, all of them."

Ian had the tower spirit transmit the data recorded on the panel. The data had been carefully edited, erasing all traces directly related to the panel while retaining the characteristics of the abyss's aura.

Any wizard who sees this data will believe that Ian was able to detect the traces of the abyss thanks to his keen sense of the rules.

After receiving the data, Azshara remained silent for an even longer time.

That afternoon, Azshara submitted Ian's discovery in the encrypted channel of the Throne of the Sun.

Her wording was extremely cautious. The Silvermoon Legion detected faint traces of what appeared to be the Abyss at the edge of the G-7 district.

The source is currently unknown, and the intensity is below the detection threshold, but the frequency characteristics match the abyss regular fluctuations by more than 70%.

It is recommended that all personnel enter Level 1 alert mode and strengthen void patrols and monitoring of rule anomalies.

The channel immediately erupted in chatter.

Brûl's will was the first to emerge, its crimson light almost overflowing from the channel.

"The Abyss?! How dare those maggots! Are they trying to take advantage of our war with the Zerg?"

"70% match, but we can't be sure it's the Abyss."

Orion's aura was as calm as the deep sea, but those who knew him well could sense the tension beneath that calm.

"But it is enough to trigger the alert procedure. I suggest that each legion shrink its mining area and maintain the responsiveness of its battle formation."

"This is not seventy percent." A silvery light shone from Ambriros.

"Azshara, I've read the detection log you submitted. This frequency characteristic isn't ordinary abyssal energy."

I have lived in the void for countless years, and I have some understanding of the abyss.

"The structure of this waveform is extremely special, with both erosion and... symbiosis, like something that is merging."

The channel went silent again.

Symbiosis, integration.

Throughout the countless years of war between the wizarding civilization and the abyss, the same terrifying possibility has always been at play.

The intervention of the abyss's primal will.

It wasn't those monsters corrupted by the abyss, nor those fallen abyss lords, nor even the infiltration of the rules of the abyss plane.

It is the will of the abyss itself.

It has no specific form, no individual consciousness, only extreme pollution and devouring!

"Impossible." A Sun Throne member unfamiliar to Ian spoke, his voice filled with barely suppressed shock.

"If the will of the Abyss were to approach this distance, it would be impossible for the three emperors not to sense it."

The "Your Majesty" he spoke of was one of the only three remaining Level 8 True Spirit Wizards in the Wizarding Civilization, and was revered as the Wizard Emperor by the entire Alliance.

"So it didn't get close."

Orion's voice remained steady, but with a hint of sharpness.

"Perhaps it used some method to conceal its existence; if it is the will of the abyss, it can do it."

No one refuted.

Because everyone knows that one of the most core, and arguably most terrifying, abilities of the Abyss's Will is the veil of fate.

At the underlying rule level, the "fate" of all Abyss units is erased from the void.

Countless years ago, the Abyss invasion that nearly destroyed wizarding civilization was a result of being deceived by this terrifying method that was undetectable and unpredictable.

It can erase all traces from the river of time, and even if the Wizard Emperor traces back through time, he cannot detect the slightest abnormality.

Countless years have passed, and although the wizarding civilization has continued to develop, it still lacks effective defenses against this bug-like method.

"Activate full alert."

Bloom's voice deepened, all his rage and arrogance vanished, leaving only a chilling killing intent.

"All Sunburst Legions, establish a joint detection network. From this moment forward, any fluctuation below the detection threshold must be reported. We need to know exactly where that thing is hiding."

The joint detection network was completed by evening that day.

The combined detection domains of the sixty Sun Thrones covered the entire void of the Zerg world colony.

Each of the Radiant Suns contributed their strongest detection methods.

Brûl's Forge can sense minute changes in the temperature of the Void, Orion's Eye of Truth can see through most disguises, and Umbrolos's Starry Sky Domain can detect abnormal fluctuations in the curvature of space...

Sixty detection methods and sixty layers of rule scanning are like giant nets of different materials, sifting through the entire void from different angles and depths.

The result was still empty.

There was not a trace of the abyss, not even a hint of it.

Bloom swore in the channel.

After a long silence, Orion said, "Maintain the highest level of alert and continue monitoring."

For the next two days, Ian didn't sleep a wink.

He had Taring extract the data on the panel's vibrations and, using the most basic pen and paper, meticulously traced the frequency changes, intensity fluctuations, and time intervals to create a waveform diagram.

With each stroke of his pen, his brow furrowed more deeply.

The waveform is not static; it is changing.

Although it was extremely slow and extremely minute, it would have been impossible to discover if he hadn't been drawing it stroke by stroke.

But it is indeed changing; the height of each peak is rising slightly, and the depth of each trough is sinking slightly.

Like a sleeping behemoth, it is opening its eyelids very slowly.

On the third day, the second wave of reinforcements from the Wizard Alliance arrived.

A massive army of wizards and a fleet of engineers emerged from the dimensional portal.

The leader was a veteran of the Radiant Sun, named "Sword of Judgment" Reginald, whom Ian had only seen in the files.

His strength was extremely terrifying, reaching the peak of the Bright Sun realm, only a tiny qualitative change away from the True Spirit realm.

He was followed by ten Sun Gods, each of whom possessed an aura no weaker than Azshara's.

Adding to the original sixty, the Sun Throne now gathered in this Zerg world community has reached a total of seventy.

The allied forces spread out completely and occupied the entire world community.

Each resource satellite is marked, allocated, and guarded.

The mining of the super-energy crystal veins has been fully launched. The mining beams of the engineering fleet cut into the planet's crust, stripping, cutting, and encapsulating the crystal veins that have been buried for hundreds of millions of years.

Boxes of standard units of super-energy crystals were loaded onto transport ships, passed through dimensional portals, and sent to the Wizarding World.

The entire Zerg territory has become a giant mine, with every wizard legion racing against time to dig, seize, and accumulate.

The Silvermoon Legion also received its share.

The Silvermoon Legion also received its share.

Azshara obtained mining rights to six resource planets, and she actually reserved the rich mine on the east side of G-sector for Ian.

Serafina has already led her engineering team to the mine, and the roots of the World Tree are assisting in the cutting, making it several times more efficient than ordinary mining magic arrays.

But Ian's Tower of Eternity is not on any resource planet.

He is moving toward the edge of the world community.