Ryen hardly minded Lisa's teasing. His profound adoration for his "daughters" was an open secret among the group, so what was there to defend?
He offered a light chuckle. "This is Qiqi and Yaoyao, as you should all already know."
"Qiqi? Is she that little zombie?" Lisa set aside her teasing tone, walking over to Qiqi and gently poking her cheek.
It was indeed cold, but it entirely lacked the stiff, unnatural texture typical of a zombie. Most of them were well aware of Qiqi's tragic past, as Ryen frequently mentioned her. They all harbored a deep sense of sympathy for the girl.
"Did you cure her?" Lisa asked, glancing back at Ryen. Upon seeing him nod, her teasing smile returned in full force. "So, I have gained two more precious daughters as well?"
"They are my precious daughters!" Ryen immediately clarified with absolute seriousness.
Lisa laughed heartily. "What is yours is mine, is it not? There is no difference."
She gave Qiqi's cheek another affectionate rub before returning to her seat beside Ryen. Qiqi's skin was cool to the touch, but having been fully cured, it was soft and exceptionally smooth, much like high-quality cold jade.
"And who are these two?" Lisa asked, her curiosity shifting toward Baizhu and Shenhe.
Ningguang, seated nearby, took the initiative to explain. "They just arrived today. This is Baizhu and Shenhe. We intend for Baizhu to join the Alchemy Workshop and lead our research on potions. He only came into contact with potions recently, yet he already managed to successfully synthesize the Potion of Healing with milk on his own. He is Liyue's greatest physician and possesses exceptional talent for pharmacological research. Shenhe is the disciple of Cloud Retainer and will also be residing here permanently."
The group nodded in understanding. Yae Miko, however, leaned forward with a deeply intrigued smile. "So, are these two your newly recruited reinforcements for tomorrow's final match?" She let out a soft, dramatic sigh. "That is quite unfortunate. We have only just finished coordinating with the Khaenri'ahn team, and now you have brought in two more top-tier combatants? That seems rather unfair to us, does it not?"
Ningguang shook her head, offering a helpless smile. "They will not be participating in the Bedwars tournament tomorrow. They only just arrived. How could they possibly be thrown straight into a Bedwars match? Rest assured, the roster for the finals remains unchanged."
Miko had only been teasing, fully aware that Ningguang would never deploy Shenhe or Baizhu, who had joined just hours prior. They likely did not even know how to properly place a block; sending them in would be a complete detriment. Even the Khaenri'ahn 'reinforcements' had required a full week of intensive, specialized training inside the world before they were ready to compete.
"Have you finalized your roster for tomorrow's finals?" Ryen asked casually.
Seeing the group nod, he smiled in satisfaction. "Excellent. Once tomorrow's match concludes, everyone can head back to Teyvat to attend the Lantern Rite fireworks display. Keqing has been telling me that Yoimiya's designs for this year's festival are grander than ever."
"After the Lantern Rite wraps up, you should all take some time to resolve any lingering domestic affairs. Then, we will prepare to set out and explore the new continent. We will not be leaving this world until we have fully mastered the Electroblob's Wizardry mod, so make sure you are fully prepared."
Venti's eyes darted around, a sly grin spreading across his face. "Honestly, compared to exploring a new continent later, I am far more curious about what the rewards for winning tomorrow's Bedwars finals will be!"
At the mention of rewards, everyone immediately perked up, turning their expectant gazes toward Ryen.
Ryen clicked his tongue, looking slightly exasperated. "Are you all in that much of a rush? I was planning on keeping it a surprise for tomorrow."
"What is the point of a surprise!" Lumine rolled her eyes, crossing her arms. "Instead of some vague surprise, it is much better to just tell us directly so we have more motivation and something concrete to look forward to! That is the only way we will perform at our absolute best! Do you not agree?"
Lumine argued her point with perfect, self-righteous logic. While Ryen found her reasoning highly amusing, upon closer consideration, it actually made perfect sense.
"Alright, fine," Ryen sighed, spreading his hands in defeat. "Regarding the reward for the victorious nation in the Bedwars finals... it will be one hundred wands. These, of course, are meant for the participating armies."
"This can be considered the very first batch of direct, exam-exempt recruits for the thousand-man Mage Battalion we discussed previously."
Hearing this, everyone's eyes widened in sheer disbelief.
"O-one hundred wands? That many? Do we even have that many wands in storage?" Ayaka asked, her voice tinged with astonishment.
Logically speaking, everyone had a rough idea of how many Advanced-tier wands existed; at most, there were a few dozen. Even considering the recent haul from the Twilight Forest expedition teams, there was no way they had a hundred of them. Advanced-tier wands were not cabbages you could just pull from the ground.
Ryen shook his head, clarifying gently. "I am referring to Novice-tier wands. We found quite a few in the Twilight Forest, and I traded for a large batch from the wizard towers over there a few days ago."
"They do not come with any particularly intricate spell combinations yet, but we will deal with that once the Wizardry mod is more thoroughly developed. Regardless, Novice-tier wands are more than sufficient to start. They will naturally upgrade as they are used!"
With that clarification, the group finally managed to process the sheer scale of the reward. In simple terms, by distributing one hundred Novice-tier wands, the initial roster for the Five-Nation Alliance's thousand-man Mage Battalion would be officially formed.
The Mage Battalion's strategic positioning differed vastly from the Dragon Cavalry. While each nation could slowly invest time into raising dragons, cultivating a Mage Battalion was exponentially more difficult.
First, the wands themselves were incredibly difficult to obtain. Once a wand was acquired, one had to painstakingly match the correct spells to it. After that came the grueling process of upgrading the wand. At the very least, an Advanced-tier wand was required to be truly effective in a large-scale war.
The transition from a Novice-tier wand to an Advanced-tier one required a staggering amount of resources and, more importantly, a very long time. Even after reaching the Advanced tier, the wand's internal stats, such as spell cooldown reduction and area-of-effect expansion, still needed to be upgraded.
The sheer volume of resources required for this process was astronomical. Currently, most of the core members struggled to upgrade their personal wands, let alone fund an entire battalion.
Even if all of that were somehow achieved, ignoring the absolute impossibility of mass-producing Master-tier wands, they still had to fully equip the mages with Wizardry armor sets.
Calculating the costs, no single nation could realistically afford to maintain a thousand-man Mage Battalion in the short term, and even long-term sustainability was highly questionable. Only by pooling the collective resources of the Five-Nation Alliance could they hope to cultivate a mature, highly capable Mage Battalion in a timely manner.
And once that Mage Battalion reached maturity... the resulting combat power would easily be enough to corner and kill a demon god. The mere thought of it was terrifying.
One thousand Advanced-tier mages on a battlefield, some focused on healing, some providing buffs, some casting curses, some unleashing devastating artillery fire, and others purely focused on crowd control and disruption... Even Zhongli felt a sharp headache forming when he imagined facing the concentrated fire of such a battalion. It would be a genuine, god-slaying army.
"Novice-tier wands are still remarkably powerful, and many Novice-tier spells are barely inferior to Master-tier spells in terms of sheer practicality," Ningguang noted, giving a slow nod of approval. "This reward is certainly something the armies will fight fiercely for." She paused, her gaze narrowing slightly. "But what about the individual reward?"
"Exactly! Compared to a team reward, the individual prize is far more interesting!" Venti blinked rapidly, staring at Ryen with intense expectation.
Ryen shrugged his shoulders, his tone casual. "For the victorious nation, every top-tier combatant will receive one Advanced-tier wand. We definitely have enough of those in stock."
One Advanced-tier wand per person. For the Khaenri'ahns, Kaeya, and the others who currently lacked one, this was monumental news.
However, for Venti and the rest of the veteran members, the reward was rather lackluster. Anyone who had spent enough time in Ryen's world already possessed at least one or two wands. Lumine and Paimon alone hoarded a combined total of eight wands between them, all strictly equipped with the Lich's Bulwark spell. Gaining one more Advanced-tier wand held little meaning for them; it was merely better than nothing.
Speaking of which, Aether had been coveting Lumine's wands for quite some time. He had tried everything from gentle persuasion to cunning manipulation, but Lumine adamantly refused to take the bait. She refused to give him a single wand, leaving Aether half-dead with frustration.
It was not that he lacked a wand entirely, but... his situation was incredibly frustrating. He possessed an Advanced-tier Healing wand, yet every single spell loaded into it was an offensive Fire or Ice spell. It was completely useless!
He would have preferred a standard Elemental wand to boost his overall elemental output, or a Healing wand that possessed absurdly overpowered support spells like Zhongli's. A Healing wand loaded with DPS spells lacked any synergy whatsoever. His wand was effectively the worst-built weapon among the entire group. Frankly, it was completely useless.
"Just an Advanced-tier wand? Well, whatever, I suppose a free reward is still a reward," Lumine grumbled, shaking her head in disappointment. "I thought you were going to give us some new accessories. Those are way stronger than Advanced wands."
Aether shot his sister a dark, resentful glare. It was easy for her to say that when she was sitting on a mountain of wealth. Did she really think everyone was as loaded as she was?
He glanced around the room and noticed that the majority of the veteran members also seemed rather unenthusiastic about the wand reward. Aether fell silent.
So... the only true paupers left in the group were him, Kaeya, and the Khaenri'ahn team? How utterly tragic.
"What is the rush? That was merely the appetizer," Ryen smiled mysteriously, lowering his voice for dramatic effect. "This is the very first Five-Nation Bedwars tournament. How could the grand prize be something so mundane?"
"So... there is something better?" The group's interest was instantly re-ignited, and they leaned in closer.
Ryen nodded slowly. "This is the individual reward for the MVP, the single best-performing player within the victorious nation. This is specifically to encourage all of you to pull off brilliant, highlight-reel plays during the match and put on a spectacular show."
"Therefore..." Ryen paused, reaching into his inventory.
He withdrew a deeply unsettling, purple-and-black staff. Even though the sun had not yet set, the aura radiating from the weapon bizarrely plunged a large area of the room into heavy, suffocating darkness. An eerie, sinister energy seeped out from it, sending a primal chill down everyone's spine.
This staff... unlike the others they had seen, it felt less like a wizard's tool and more like a demonic artifact. A dark purple gemstone sat atop a pitch-black shaft, exuding a deeply bewitching and corrupting presence.
Without a shadow of a doubt, this was a Master-tier wand.
"Now that is a heavy investment!" Venti practically leaped out of his seat. While the wand's aura was undoubtedly sinister, a Master-tier wand was still... unbelievably precious.
Counting everyone present, how many people actually possessed a Master-tier wand? Every single time one appeared, it proved to be an artifact of unparalleled power. Ryen and Zhongli's Master-tier wands allowed them to warp time and achieve absolute invincibility, respectively.
As for Hu Tao and Lisa's Master-tier wands, the spells themselves were almost secondary. The raw stat buffs provided by those two wands directly elevated their inherent elemental power to the level of a demon god, and not just a low-tier one.
Any Master-tier wand dropped into Teyvat would instantly trigger a blood-soaked war of cosmic proportions. Even within the Minecraft world, they were incredibly difficult treasures to obtain. Looking ahead, the total number of Master-tier wands in existence would always remain strictly limited.
"A Master-tier wand... an absolute supreme treasure capable of elevating an ordinary Allogene to the level of a demon god!" Aether's eyes burned with intense desire. An Advanced-tier wand was enough to make him jealous, but a Master-tier wand? With that kind of power, he felt he could fearlessly charge straight at the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles. It was the ultimate manifestation of individual power.
Ryen smiled at their reactions, his voice slow and deliberate.
"The reward for the MVP of the victorious nation is a Master-tier Necromancy wand. The Staff of the Nether Realm's Calling!"