The zombie horde was vast and their assault ferocious, yet the concentrated firepower of Redstone Tech City burned brighter.
Faced with unbroken lines of lead and TNT, the surging undead ground to a halt beneath the outer ramparts.
Ryen watched the kill zones for a moment before casually drawing his Master Ice Staff.
Focusing his mana, he uttered a quiet incantation.
"Hailstorm!"
High above the designated sector, the night sky coalesced into a thick, frost-white cloud that sent a biting chill rippling across the battlements.
Dense, jagged spikes of ice crashed down with the force of thunderbolts, instantly pulverizing an entire sector of the advancing swarm.
That single cast vaporized hundreds of clustered zombies.
As the frozen tempest lingered, additional waves stumbling into the perimeter were shredded into fragments.
The result was pristine, and Ryen smiled with deep satisfaction.
It was a master-tier spell he had acquired through trades on the New Continent only days before.
Its raw burst damage vastly outclassed conventional cryo spells.
While casting such a spell back in Teyvat under amplified atmospheric conditions would cause apocalyptic destruction, within the flattened parameters of the block world, its localized clearing effect was merely a practical tactical asset against tens of thousands of hostiles.
"Ryen, stop squandering your mana!"
Lumine nudged him with an annoyed pout.
"There are endless waves of them out there. Do you honestly expect to wipe out a horde of this size with just a casting staff?"
Ryen turned to her with an amused chuckle.
"When did you become so slow on the uptake? Did I ever claim a staff was meant to resolve this entire siege?"
"Then why are you..."
Ryen swapped his weapon for an Advanced Fire Wand, another piece secured through recent trades across the sea.
Looking at Lumine with a sly grin, he offered a gentle hint.
"Consider the facts: tens of thousands of zombies are pinned against our obsidian walls, unable to climb inside. Dropping a single paving stone from up here would crush a dozen heads."
"Meanwhile, you carry Advanced Wands in your inventory."
"Does the revelation strike you yet?"
Lumine blinked. A second later, pure, unadulterated ecstasy flared across her face.
When she looked down upon the groaning sea of rotting flesh once more, every trace of disgust had evaporated.
It was as though she were gazing upon mountains of glittering treasure.
"Experience! They are literally piles of walking progression points!"
Without missing a beat, Lumine slammed an Ender Chest onto the flagstones. Pulling out two wands at once, she gripped one in each hand, her eyes blazing with ravenous delight as she stared down at the horde.
"This leaves mob spawner towers in the dust! My entire collection of wands is reaching maximum proficiency tonight!"
Ryen laughed softly, giving her head an affectionate pat.
"Not so dull after all. Let us set a modest goal: maxing out the progression bars on two wands before dawn. Reasonable, isn't it?"
"More than reasonable!"
Before Lumine could answer, Tartaglia shouted with unrestrained enthusiasm.
The horde was pinned outside the walls, their numbers were virtually limitless, and the garrison stood behind absolute safety.
What did that signify?
It was an open invitation to farm experience with zero consequences!
At this stage, who among the leaders did not possess several wands?
Exploration across the New Continent had unlocked a substantial portion of the Wizardry mod.
Upgrading wands was no longer a logistical barrier; their sole headache had been grinding the massive pool of spellcraft experience required to ascend an Advanced Wand into a Master Staff.
Unlike SlashBlades, which could easily farm kill counts by slashing trapped mobs at the base of a drop chute, casting staves were volatile.
Many combat spells carried block-damaging properties.
Attempting to farm staff proficiency inside a cramped mob tower risked blowing the entire redstone spawner into dust, which would ruin the facility.
Because of that risk, everyone had been agonizing over how to grind enough experience to max out their weapons.
After months of development, nearly every commander carried two or three wands.
Except for Aether's retinue, of course.
Reaching full progression on even a single Advanced Wand was normally an exhausting chore, requiring thousands of successful mob hits to satisfy the quota.
With Ryen pointing out the obvious, the terrifying siege transformed in their eyes.
With such an absurd density of targets packed below, why fret over missing a spell?
One could close their eyes, fire blindly, and still incinerate a dozen monsters at once.
This was no longer a defensive crisis.
It was a golden festival of weapon progression!
Realizing this, Ningguang retrieved her personal Ender Chest without hesitation. Gripping an Advanced Earth Wand in her left hand and an Advanced Lightning Wand in her right, she radiated the commanding aura of an arcane sorceress.
Opening the allied communications channel, Ningguang issued crisp, authoritative directives.
"All combat mage divisions, assemble along the parapets immediately and unleash unrestricted offensive magic upon the kill zones!"
"Seize this opportunity to max out the proficiency of your personal wands!"
"The forging corps will divide into two shifts. The first shift will manufacture SlashBlades and distribute them to the lower bunkers to continue grinding kill counts beneath the drop pits."
"The second shift will craft blank wands around the clock, delivering them to the battlements so the garrison can cycle through weapon experience!"
"Manufacture as many wands as possible! Even baseline, non-elemental apprentice wands are acceptable!"
"Move out at once!"
The moment Ningguang's voice cleared the relay, Redstone Tech City erupted into coordinated action.
Dashi and the officers of the combat mage detachment rushed up the stone stairs with glowing smiles.
Though their weapons were merely Apprentice Wands, even entry-tier staves held lethal offensive spells.
Furthermore, expeditions led by Ryen had yielded an abundant archive of spellbooks, allowing the leadership to distribute combat spells throughout the ranks days ago.
Fierce as the siege remained, the baseline peril was minimal behind obsidian battlements.
Standing along the parapet, Dashi and his men hurled cascades of arcane magic into the churning horde, disintegrating clusters of armored undead with every wave.
Watching from the adjacent bastions, standard infantry units looked on with undisguised envy, puffing up the pride of Dashi's detachment.
These were true arcane arts!
Yet the magic wielded by the common army was modest compared to the spectacle unleashed by the leaders.
Now that Ryen had opened their eyes to the farming potential, all tension vanished from the high command.
Drawing upon their vast personal inventories of spellbooks, dazzling cascades of destruction rained down upon the wilderness.
Arcane summons tore through the ranks, lightning cascaded from the heavens, and rolling waves of flame swept the plains.
The blinding radiance of conflicting elements completely overpowered the crimson gloom cast by the Blood Moon.
Wide-area bombardment spells proved devastatingly effective.
Lightning magic in particular created vicious chain reactions across the damp earth.
Had the block world supported Teyvat's native elemental reactions, the entire battlefield would have detonated into an apocalyptic cataclysm.
Even without elemental resonance, the destructive output of their wands was terrifying.
The forward momentum of the horde broke entirely. Within minutes, the ground directly beneath the walls was wiped clean, leaving the spawning algorithms struggling to replenish the vanguard.
"Splendid! This feels incredible!"
Venti waved his wand through the air with childish glee.
"My primary wand has reached maximum progression! All I need now is a Tome of Arcana to ascend it into my very first Master Staff!"
Diluc let out a cool scoff, casually nudging the bard aside as he hurled a bolt of chain lightning into a fresh cluster of hostiles.
"Is this an appropriate hour for boasting? The combined barrage has created a temporary vacuum beneath our sector."
"If you have no wands left to level, step aside. I still have four Advanced Wands awaiting progression."
Venti's face fell, scowling with deep indignation.
"Do not steal my coordinates! This is my prime farming spot!"
"Finders keepers."
The commanders who had been fretting over how to survive the night were now fiercely squabbling over who held rights to the densest clusters of undead.
Ryen watched the chaos with quiet amusement.
Aside from Aether and recent arrivals, nearly everyone in the core circle carried at least three wands.
Avid collectors like Lumine and Ningguang possessed well over a dozen.
Elevating a single Advanced Wand to maximum tier demanded six thousand progression points, which translated to roughly a thousand slain monsters.
With hundreds of advanced wands distributed across the leadership, the night's horde was barely sufficient to feed their appetites.
Who would ever complain about having too many wands?
In the span of an hour, the terrifying zombie siege had transformed from a hated nightmare into a field of beloved experience pinatas.
Scaramouche hurled an explosive arcane projectile downward, clearing the patch of earth directly beneath his feet.
Yet his primary wand remained a few hundred points shy of maximum progression.
Frowning in frustration, he glanced toward Aether's sector, noticing a dense pack of mutant zombies charging that coordinate.
Without hesitation, Scaramouche strode over and began blasting the targets.
"Hey! Insolent puppet! That is my defensive zone!"
Aether glared at him with furious eyes.
Scaramouche did not even glance back, his voice cool and indifferent.
"I carry three wands awaiting ascension; you possess only one. By objective calculation, I require these targets far more than you do. Step aside and farm my cleared sector."
"Outrageous! You are openly looking down on me!" Aether snapped, his teeth grinding in frustration.
"I am merely stating logistical realities," Scaramouche replied, channeling another burst of arcane energy into the horde.
With precious experience on the line, he had zero interest in trading verbal barbs with the Abyss Prince.
If he farmed aggressively tonight, he could bind a Tome of Arcana tomorrow morning and ascend his first Master Staff.
Scaramouche had yearned for a Master Staff for weeks.
Not far along the battlements, Arlecchino and Candace watched the blinding display of spellcraft in utter bewilderment.
"Focus your efforts on grinding wand experience," the Tsaritsa advised softly, turning toward Arlecchino. "Ascending an Advanced Wand requires a substantial investment of progression points."
"However, a Master Staff grants an unyielding sixty percent amplification to your elemental output. Equipping one elevates your combat parameters to the threshold of an ancient god."
The Cryo Archon tossed a frost-aligned Advanced Wand into Arlecchino's hands.
Beside them, Dehya passed an Advanced Lightning Wand to Candace.
"Opportunities like this do not come twice," Dehya grinned. "Level them up quickly before the others clear the field."
The moment Arlecchino's fingers closed around the staff, her breath hitched.
The elemental circulation within her body surged violently, the density and purity of her internal energy escalating to an unimaginable height.
In that singular breath, Arlecchino realized why these weapons were treasured so fiercely.
She nodded firmly, pushing every lingering question into the back of her mind.
If an Advanced Wand granted such overwhelming power, what manner of titan was a Master Staff?
Right now, competing for targets was the only priority; if the horde was wiped out, she would have to wait until tomorrow night.
The dynamic of the entire battlefield shifted as the allied leadership embraced the siege with ravenous enthusiasm.
This was possible only because the horde had undergone merely a single evolutionary cycle, leaving them unable to breach obsidian foundations.
Grinding experience was a privilege confined to this early window.
Watching the leadership turn the battlefield into an industrial leveling zone, Ryen smiled with quiet satisfaction.
Treating crisis as an avenue for growth was the hallmark of seasoned commanders.
As for how they would address the final week when the undead achieved complete mutation...
Solutions would present themselves when the time came.
For now, maxing out their staves was the smartest tactical move.
"Ryen, hand me your wands."
Hu Tao bounded over to his side, her amber eyes sparkling with vibrant mischief.
Ryen raised an eyebrow, smiling down at her.
"Which one do you desire?"
"Give me all of them!"
Hu Tao caught his forearm, swaying lightly on her heels. Ryen laughed, gently tapping her forehead with a knuckle.
"Little greedy spirit."
They were merely casting staves; if Hu Tao wanted them, Ryen had no reason to withhold them.
He carried an extensive collection. Excluding those resting in the manor's armory, he held thirteen spare wands in his spatial inventory alongside his Master Ice Staff.
"Hmph! This Director is doing you a massive service!"
Hu Tao stuck out her tongue playfully, drawing a Sorcery-aligned wand and scanning its spell configuration before aiming it toward the swarm below.
"You carry so many staves; leaving them unranked is a terrible waste. This Director holds only a few, and they are already capped at maximum proficiency, waiting only on Tomes of Arcana."
"Therefore, I shall graciously serve as your personal leveling assistant tonight."
Understanding her sweet intent, Ryen pulled her into a warm embrace, his voice dropping into gentle affection.
"Then I must express my deepest gratitude to my precious Director."
Hu Tao lifted her chin with proud, cheerful triumph.
"Of course! You are my beloved partner, and I am your most attentive steward!"
~~----------------------
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