Overpowered Wizard

As Ruvaria explained, she flipped around in the air casually like she was a zero-g astronaut.

“Last, I will help you improve your sealing technique. Hannah would be done with the new sealing items I tasked her with making in secret. Those gauntlets of yours are too crude and rudimentary.”

“But they’re legendary,” Zarian said.

“There are certain grades when dealing with qualities, especially when you go into the higher worlds. Those things on your arms are the lowest grade of legendary. We can do better than that, can’t we?”

Zarian nodded. It sounded like they had a lot to go over. But they were under a hyperbolic time chamber scenario, where the dungeon sped up time inside compared to time outside, so they could make it all work.

Freaking time chamber, yo! I’m in a freaking time chamber! Zarian thought thrillingly to himself, trying to maintain his cool on the outside.

It was hard not to be excited. He could get a lot done for his personal growth. In fact, he added one more to the list, just to see if they could squeeze in a little more.

“Can you help me refine my cultivation for controlling Overwhelming Darkness?” Zarian asked. “So far, I believe my gravity spell will help a lot in the future. I also believe that Para is a great example of restraint against one’s inherent nature, so I’ve been studying her for inspiration. Now that I have Aura Mastery, and you plan to help refine my sealing style, I think I’ll be able to cultivate on the move after some guidance.”

“Yes,” she said simply.

“Oh, sweet.” Zarian blinked up at her. “You’re really different when you’re nice.”

Ruvaria zipped down from the air and circled around him. Then she stopped to a hover with her feet above the spongy ground, her sparkling emerald eyes looking into his starry cosmic eyes.

“Just like you have honored me with a show of fealty, it is a pleasure to be of service to you and help you with your growth. To serve you in return as your teacher in the arts of aura and magic is the highest degree of pleasure. Thus, you get a side of me I haven’t shown to others in a long time,” Ruvaria explained. “Now, let us get started. And do not worry about food. I will be happy to keep you and Para fed, dear student.”

***

Inside the hyperbolic time dungeon, time was harder to track. Anywhere from days to full-on weeks could’ve passed, and Zarian wouldn’t know while following Ruvaria’s lessons.

He didn’t care about time as long as they were on schedule. And he was having a lot of fun learning to be a mystical Aura Master.

First, Ruvaria trained Zarian on how to fly with aura.

It was easier for him under dark conditions because he could infuse his Dark Affinity with Aura Mastery. Then he could jettison around just like he would when he once had straight darkness. Under bright conditions, he had to rely more on shooting pure aura as a force for propulsion. ɽ

Having Para helped a lot when she could transform into various forms. She wasn’t as great at emitting aura under focused conditions for flight compared to Zarian, but her assistance was like adding on smaller thrusters that made flight even smoother and faster.

Their practice sessions led to Zarian crashing into fields of spongy mushrooms multiple times. But eventually, Zarian learned to zip around the air under bright or dark conditions, with or without Para, and enter a hover smoothly.

He felt special when he stabilized himself in the air with Aura Mastery alone, even if it wasn’t the most efficient way to do it. Nonetheless, the way Ruvaria smiled as she hovered in the air in front of him made him feel warm and accomplished.

Next, Ruvaria sat him down into a meditative pose. They went over his traits one by one. He explained them in detail. She told him how to experiment with them for more expansive effects.

He lucked out by having Aura Channeler, since that helped make his experiments very efficient.

Testing out how Aura Mastery changed when infused with different traits was interesting for Zarian.

For example, when he specifically applied Frenzy Zone and Aura Mastery together, it felt like his aura was becoming more ferocious and frenzied. That made it harder to control, which sounded bad.

But he still gained an incredible boost in vitality and toughness anyway, which he could feel a little. He didn’t have to make his body go frenzied. He could trigger the buff by making his aura frenzied, or by making Para’s aura frenzied.

There were other examples of unique changes for traits merged with Aura Mastery, some scarier than others. For example, Lore Eater, when fused with Aura Mastery, could reach out so much farther than normal. It could most likely incapacitate others who didn’t have enough Willpower to defend their minds and their memories.

In fact, now that Para had more aura control, and was better at borrowing Zarian’s traits for herself, Lore Eater was even scarier when used by her. Zarian theorized Para could consume minds in their entirety, especially if she is in contact with a victim. Then she would leave nothing for them to recover with.

And this all was just the tip of the iceberg for them.

Ruvaria kept encouraging these thought experiments and explorations. No matter how evil the results could be, she smiled as she watched her student discover more nuanced and powerful techniques he could deploy with Aura Mastery and his traits.

“I can beat people without my skills,” Zarian said in wonder.

“You should always try to use your skills for experience,” Ruvaria said. “And try to place self-imposed challenges on yourself to increase experience. The more, the better. But yes, dear student, you can look at the foolish weaklings who attempt to assault you and kill them on the spot.”

Ruvaria laughed with a hint of maliciousness, as if she wasn’t good +4. Then again, outside of certain system mechanics, the two of them were beyond the alignments. Zarian laughed with her, and so did Para.

It was unfortunate that they didn’t have the time to theorize how everything would change based on various combinations. Ruvaria had to keep them on schedule since the time chamber wasn’t going to go any faster compared to the outside.

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At the very least, Zarian thoroughly understood that Aura Mastery was a great base for combination abilities. There was so much flexibility and depth, Zarian imagined most fights would become more experimental for him to see what new things he could discover.

Granted, he would treat the bigger boss fights differently if they were worthwhile.

I would’ve lasted way longer and struck way harder if I had Aura Mastery while fighting the Arch Cherub, Zarian realized. But I don’t think I was ready to get Aura Mastery before this point, so things worked out better this way.

He was fortunate that he’d chosen an upgrade that earned him Unraveled Mind first and remained patient with the next upgrade. He would’ve missed out on Aura Mastery otherwise.

They hadn’t gone into depth with his skills, but Zarian could tell everything was more effective. His Summon Wizard Hat +2 played a larger role with Aura Mastery involved. The beta debuff on his grimoires might as well not exist, because Zarian could truly get past that now.

Next up, Ruvaria removed his gauntlets herself. She had him merge his aura with her aura while using some of his Dark Affinity. She changed a portion of her aura into a dark aura similar to his.

Then she took a seat across from him, her little hands on his, while going over his Bearer of the Twenty Dark Locks Sealing Style.

She corrected him on multiple parts of his process, especially the hand signs. She was very tough about that, which was excellent for him. Months prior, he had nobody truly qualified to help him when he’d formed this technique and gained a legendary trait for it.

Ruvaria was very attentive during this process, especially since the gauntlets were off. It felt like Overwhelming Darkness was waiting for its chance to break free, keeping even the Sorceress Queen wary.

Despite the pressure, Ruvaria ensured Zarian’s sealing style saw major improvements.

As a temporary measure, Ruvaria taught him to use his Dark Affinity and Aura Mastery as basic locks for his sealing style. They bound his hands and arms in whorls, symbols, and geometric shapes painted black on his dark skin, almost like having two full sleeves of complicated tribal tattoos.

“You can cultivate with just this,” Ruvaria explained. “Each time you cultivate, reform these seal marks as I taught you, even with the new sealing items Hannah will make you. Items can fail, but your technique must withhold.”

“Yes, dear teacher.” Zarian nodded. “I gotta admit I’m a little nervous.”

“I am, too. If I fail you, I fail the universe. I’ve seen my fair share of extreme circumstances, but this is by far the biggest. I didn’t think I was capable of this anymore.”

“Capable of what?”

“Bravery.”

Zarian chuckled. “I think you were always capable. Not because of the absolute teaching. But because you love magic so much you want to keep pushing it, even while on a Lesser World.”

Ruvaria lowered her head. Her ears tilted down slightly. A soft blush colored her cheeks. “Yes, well, thank you, my dear student. Now, let us proceed with your cultivation. I hope you find the results of my aid illuminating.”

Zarian smiled as he looked through the eyes of a nearby spider. Para was back to using her battle kilt form. Meanwhile, Zarian’s back was covered in various gravity runes formed by spider webbing. The mini gravity spell array looked well done to Zarian, the spiders’ best work yet.

Feeling satisfied, Zarian let a portion of his mind unravel, falling under Para’s care. She drew him into the essence of her existence as the best skill he had in his profile. Then another portion of his mind, which was the biggest chunk, initiated the cultivation cycle for controlling Overwhelming Darkness.

Zarian hand-signed and chanted. “Overwhelming Darkness: Twenty Dark Locks Sealing Style Technique. Unlock Dark Lock One. The Worm Lurks Buried Deep Under Fabled Myth. One Percent Power Unsealed. Cultivate.”

The webbing flashed from arcane blue to bright purple on Zarian’s back. He felt the conceptual weight of his activities increased tenfold.

He felt Para nurture the unraveled extension of him. She acted as the perfect example of how to restrain himself against the hunger of his Overwhelming Darkness, which helped him to cycle the darkness more boldly.

Most importantly, he kept one last part of him present outside of his cultivation.

Zarian felt a slow and tough thread of darkness flowing through the channels of his spirit. It looped through the same channels and gateways in his body that helped connect everything in his profile with his soul.

He felt his profile wobble, as if his system runes couldn’t work properly while Overwhelming Darkness had so much of his attention for the sake of cultivation. Thankfully, he had Aura Mastery, which worked like a buffer that kept everything empowered, even if it lowered his aura recovery and efficiency by quite a lot.

That was okay. Zarian could be present while cultivating this way. It was hard for him to do much other than the basics, sure, but that was better than zoning out for long periods of time.

Slowly, Zarian stood up.

He walked around.

He jumped up and down.

The background cultivation went on undisrupted.

He hopped from side to side, threw out some punches, then formed a parasite nodachi and swung it around. Para formed an extra arm from the kilt and cast the Black Fire spell. She shot out a torrent of gray and black flames with no problem.

Zarian followed her example. He could do it, too. However, his ability to multicast spells was severely reduced. He could only do one spell at a time while cultivating.

That was okay. Para could cast more spells simultaneously. They could still use his other skills. They could still combine Aura Mastery with other traits, even if inefficiently.

He was making some major progress. Things could only get better from here.

<Your skill, High Rune Mindframe, leveled up from 3 to 4!>

…

<Your skill, High Rune Mindframe, leveled up from 4 to 5!>

…

<Your skill, Overwhelming Darkness, leveled up from 3 to 4!>

“It’s working,” Zarian said, amazed at the notifications. “Dear teacher, it’s actually working. You did it.”

Ruvaria nodded, looking quite pleased. She wasn’t celebrating like she should. Maybe she was still nervous.

Zarian ran over and hugged her. He tossed her up and down while the spectral spiders danced around them. Finally, his dear teacher let herself laugh with her elven musical voice and be truly merry.

Afterward, they had a big celebratory meal with high-quality drinks. They lay about among the mushrooms as Zarian finally had a taste of something hard that wasn’t beer. Apparently, the elves kept the lost secrets of magic wine to themselves.

Ruvaria drank a lot more than Zarian and got a little tipsy, which led to an interesting aura game. She created a specific ball of aura inside of her and told Zarian what to do.

He had to use an aura thread to insert into her body and chase after the ball without colliding with her runes. Normally, that would cause someone discomfort. Maybe even short-circuit their system runes.

However, Ruvaria’s profile was heavily guarded. Each mistake would cause him some painful feedback.

Zarian, of course, was happy to play.

So he entered her body with a tiny thread of his aura. She sent the little ball running just about everywhere, from the crown of her head to the tips of toes and back.

Zarian chased and chased throughout her body. No matter where the little aura ball went, he followed as Ruvaria lay about, wriggling and laughing, ticklish from the entire ordeal.

He ran into her profile runes a bunch of times and suffered the consequences. But he kept going with a relentless fervor, which tormented Ruvaria a little as she laughed so hard she was turning a shade of pink.

In the end, he wasn’t able to get the little aura ball.

But he left Ruvaria breathless and disheveled from all the eager play inside of her body. He was pretty breathless too from how often her body repaid him as an actual challenge.

They drank more high-quality elven wine. She taught him some ancient elven dance moves, which led to them twirling about even more drunkenly after draining some barrels of her stock.

Ruvaria fell into the moat and couldn’t quite get out. So Zarian went in and scooped her petite body into his arms.

Then he slipped and fell.

They gave up and floated in the shining waters of the moat until it was time to go. Ruvaria shared with him a drink that dimmed the effects of the high-quality wine, sobering them up.

Then she dug out the core of the Enriched Faerie Dungeon from under the roots of the boss tree. She offered it to Zarian.

He shook his head.

Sighing, the empress nodded. She stroked her hand over the core’s pearly surface. Then she drove a hard aura spike through the core, shattering it and giving her past victim his deserved freedom. The dungeon faded away forever and returned them to her room.

It was a new morning, which heralded the start of a new adventure. It was time to leave Ride-or-Die Village for a while.