Even while living the good life, Carlos was constantly thinking about humanity's future.

"Spirituality climbing from 20 to 29 points is the last stretch where it can really take off.

After this stage, most people hit a brick wall."

Breaking through from mid-tier to high-tier needed sublimated skills as the key hurdle.

Because only powerful sublimated skill runes buried deep in the soul could handle the pressure of continued spirituality growth.

This was why psionics with sublimated skills were worth their weight in gold.

Crazy strong within their tier, with the biggest barrier to high-tier already knocked down.

Carlos naturally wasn't sweating this part.

Rather, once spirituality hit 30 points and entered high-tier territory, further advancement required spirituality sublimation.

Spirituality in the 30-39 range was called Iron Spirituality.

The process of psionics grinding through high-tier was basically ordinary spirituality slowly sublimating into Iron Spirituality.

After 30 points, spiritual essence gained from hunting monsters would have way less impact on Iron Spirituality sublimation.

High-tier psionics wanting advancement had to go through trials of conviction, willpower, and all that jazz, gradually sublimating Iron Spirituality until hitting Bronze territory (spirituality 40).

Hence Controllers—full title Bronze Controllers, with Bronze referring to Bronze Spirituality.

Carlos mulled it over:

"After high-tier, spiritual essence isn't totally worthless, just way less effective compared to tempering your will."

But after reaching high-tier, Carlos's Dark Knight army would explode in size, harvesting absolutely massive amounts of spiritual essence.

"Not a huge problem. Worst case, advancement slows down, but still way faster than regular psionics."

Setting this worry aside, Carlos reined in his wandering thoughts. He was actually chewing over another major issue.

"In one year, spirituality restrictions are gonna start falling apart!"

This was both a nightmare and a blessing rolled into one.

The nightmare part:

When spirituality restrictions vanished, monsters would run wild everywhere, spawning nastier beasts, no longer stuck in their little corners.

During hunts, danger zones would become total wildcards. You might run into terrifying monsters one or even multiple tiers higher, cranking up the danger big time.

The blessing part: powerful humans could also step in, jumping into action when needed to protect humanity's up-and-comers.

But looking at the big picture, monster numbers—both elites and cannon fodder—far outnumbered humans. The world was about to get a hell of a lot more dangerous.

"According to official background stuff from my past life, spirituality restriction removal was because of deepening dark mist invasion, slowly dragging the Material Realm into dark mist's grip."

Spirituality restriction disappearance was just the opening act. Those dark mist regions would drag the entire world into direct contact with Dark Mist First Layer.

What this meant was pretty damn obvious.

"Dark Mist First Layer is crawling with mid-tier monsters. They'll eventually devour the Material Realm's original dark mist regions, then come for human territories."

"Even the strongest humans, even supreme Silver Weavers, facing that many mid-tier monsters, would be hard-pressed to protect every city-state across the board."

"The only silver lining is that monsters from deeper dark mist layers won't cross over in big numbers short-term."

This was officially called the first expansion pack in his past life: The Fall of the North!

Carlos kept sorting through intel from memory. For humanity, this was definitely a massive shitstorm.

In the original timeline, spirituality restrictions vanished out of nowhere. Psionics caught outside were sitting ducks, running into monsters that didn't belong in their neck of the woods, taking heavy losses.

If Carlos found ways to spread the word before spirituality restrictions ended, letting most people know and telling psionics to get their asses home, this could definitely be avoided.

But this was just the warm-up. Dark Mist First Layer making contact, massive mid-tier monster floods, overwhelming and thick as fleas, would slam into human domains.

Facing beast waves made up of mid-tier monsters, ordinary mid-tier psionics were screwed.

Only high-tier psionics or even Controllers could temporarily hold them back. Countless villages got wiped off the map, castles went under, kingdoms got butchered—nearly half the North went down in flames.

Finally, supreme Silver Weavers made a call.

They rallied pretty much all psionics, building a magnificent Northern Wall that blocked those terrifying beast waves.

Thus kicking off the second expansion: Wall Watch!

Since getting reborn, Carlos had constantly thought about how to deal with this. Even now, he hadn't found better ways to prevent this mess.

Without wiping out dark mist, monster waves would keep spawning.

As long as contact with Dark Mist First Layer existed, beast waves of massive mid-tier monsters were inevitable.

After tons of thinking, he'd actually reached his conclusions ages ago.

The Wall—only the magnificent Northern Wall could block that many mid-tier monsters.

"But the Northern Wall was built after the North had pretty much fallen apart.

Supreme Silver Weavers pulled together all human power, paying huge costs to build that magnificent wall stretching forever at the border between North and the other three domains."

A Northern Wall like that—even showing up with prophecies, human leadership would never go for Carlos's early construction plans.

Simply put, without hitting rock bottom, how could they make such expensive decisions?

So Carlos never planned to build a wall as magnificent as the original timeline's.

"The key is stopping beast waves."

Carlos's plan was to cut things off at the source.

According to his past life memories, where Dark Mist First Layer touched the Material Realm was an ice plain with several towering ice mountains.

Just building a magnificent wall spanning the ice plain there and defending from the walls could intercept terrifying beast waves outside the Material Realm.

As for dark mist regions within the Material Realm, their monsters were nothing compared to Dark Mist First Layer's beast waves.

"If sis goes with my plan, recruiting enough mid-tier psionics,

One year's time... should be enough..."

Compared to the original timeline, Carlos's Northern Wall would definitely be way shorter, with plenty of prep time.

"Red Spirit should show up soon."

Carlos's mission for Red Spirit was having it tell his sister that it was time to get moving...

Ember City—the North's most important city-state, hands down.

Most of the North's supreme Weavers, unless they had other business, generally hung out here, guarding the supreme Sacred Fire, making joint decisions on major affairs of northern fortresses.

Humanity's elite garrison troops constantly patrolled the tall outer walls, keeping watch against monster attacks.

Red Spirit showed its passage token, quickly getting through the outer gates. Along the main road, villages of all sizes were scattered around, with villagers working hard farming between heaven and earth.

"Is this the city-state where master lives?"

Everything along the way caught its eye.

Ember City gave Red Spirit a totally different vibe from other city-states—a sense of kick-ass vitality.

The tall fire-red knight traveled without a hitch through the outer city, passing through village clusters until reaching the inner city.

Red Spirit had heard master mention that Ember City was split into inner and outer sections.

The outer city area was mainly where regular villagers farmed, cranking out tons of food for Ember City, keeping it self-sufficient.

The inner city area was Ember City's heart—important facilities, precious materials, various institutions, where nobles, psionics, merchants, and such lived.

The ancient, solid inner city wall loomed ahead. Red Spirit sharply sensed powerful defensive formations carved within, giving it a serious sense of threat.

"Look, what's that?"

In the inner city guards' vision, a fire-red figure approached at breakneck speed, covering huge distances in heartbeats.

"Holy shit!"

An unknown steed wrapped in flames thundered to a stop before the gates, rolling heat waves with incredible presence.

On horseback, a tall knight in crimson flame armor with an unfathomable aura. The red rose on his chest bloomed like flames, mesmerizing all who saw it.

"Which family's knight is this?"

Guards felt like they were facing a blazing furnace, sweat beading on their skin.

The dutiful inner gate guards immediately shouted:

"Transit pass!"

The fire-red knight stayed silent.

Snap!

An alchemical ring flashed, landing in the guard's hand.

The guard placed it on nearby alchemical equipment. Blue light flashed before returning the ring to Red Spirit.

"You're good to go!"

"Clop!"

Red Spirit spurred the Ghostly Dark Steed beneath, galloping inside, leaving a trail of fire on the ground.

After Red Spirit left, guards couldn't help whispering.

"The pass belongs to the Valois family."

"Incredible presence, especially that heavy armored mount—feels like nothing in the city comes close."

"..."

...

Valois mansion.

Iris sat in the great hall, brow furrowed.

"How the hell did those twins just vanish?"

"No signs of a fight in the courtyard, nobody saw them leave."

"How am I gonna explain this to my brother..."

Iris felt pretty damn irritated.

She'd just finished dealing with Rock Sand City's moles, only to get back and find the twins missing.

She had a strong gut feeling this whole thing was definitely not simple.

A servant reported:

"My lady, an unknown knight has showed up outside with a retainer token, asking for an audience."

"Huh? Unknown knight, retainer token?"

Iris was puzzled. Had something happened to one of her family's retainers?

The servant hesitated, then added:

"Never seen them before. The token's got 'Red Spirit' carved on it."

Iris's cool composure cracked.

Red Spirit—wasn't that the helper who'd recently pitched in finding the moles?

"Let it in."

Definitely sent by her brother. Hope nothing's gone wrong.

Clop clop!

Heat waves rolled in as a deadly flame-armored knight appeared in the great hall.

Iris looked up and down uncertainly.

"Red Spirit?"

Compared to Rock Sand City,

Red Spirit's appearance had totally changed—from the previous small creature to suddenly becoming a tall heavy-armored knight.

Iris barely recognized it from the familiar spirituality.

"Wow!"

Master's sister!

Red Spirit nodded like crazy—it was definitely itself.

Iris stared in disbelief at the transformed Red Spirit. Its aura had dramatically improved from a month ago—practically reborn.

Faintly, it even gave her a sense of threat.

Unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable.

Iris suddenly thought of something, asking in shock:

"Red Spirit, have you entered Controller territory?"