Cannot reinstall OS; the server cannot be contacted 5k Retina 2017

The server cannot be contacted when trying to reinstall OS.

Just got an M4Pro mini and I am retiring my previous 5k retina 2017 to family service. I erased my hard drive. I have two internal drives, the one that came with the machine (256) and one I added, a 1tb ssd. The SSD became my boot drive after it was installed. TBC both drives were erased.

I erase both drives with disk utility, formatting the ssd to apfs (encrypted). Went into recovery mode, chose reinstall OS. It wants to install High Sierra. HS came with the machine, but it had been updated to the latest ventura. Ventura was not an option, so I figured I would do that later. Hit continue and after a few minutes got a message The Server Could Not Be Contacted. Did a little research here, re set the date in terminal, still no go, same message.

Some have said to connect by wifi, but in the task bar I do not see a wifi icon. I think I am connected by ethernet because when I entered the date command into terminal, the date changed to current.

Would appreciate any insight or rec. TIA