Overpowered Wizard

Chapter 146: B2: C46: Time Chamber 1

Zarian was on hands and knees in front of the shining moat, his shoulders squeezed between two large mushroom caps. He was trying to see how much he’d changed with his own eyes first, but the water glowed with a bright pearly light.

It was an unsuitable replacement for a mirror.

His dear teacher, Empress Ruvaria, daintily skipped from mushroom cap to mushroom cap. She took a seat on a cap beside him, stretched out one leg, and tapped the shining water’s surface with her foot.

She turned a patch of it solid and mirror-like.

Sweeping her bountiful hair behind her, she leaned down next to him while balanced on her seat, like some nymph of the mushroom wilds. She smiled warmly as they both looked at their reflections.

Zarian’s attention was on himself first, his amazement growing. He had little stars in his black, void-like eyes. The same shone from under his dark skin.

That was a stunning sight for him, but Para looked even more otherworldly as she shifted back from being a battle kilt to her true form as the Parasite Cloak +2, blooming like a flower from his back.

She already had a unique light show effect because she could partially scale with Mysticism. Prior to Aura Mastery, she looked like the red edge of the void as stars dimmed and fell into her hungering maw.

Now she shone even more like she had engorged herself on countless nebulae clouds of starry red, orange, and dark yellow colors, which were all trapped within her parasitic limbs and ragged cloak strands. The many stars and cosmic clouds were her prisoners, her toys, her delicious meals. None could escape her all-devouring form as Zarian’s greatest fashion apparel.

When Zarian widened his observations, he noticed how Ruvaria had little starlights glowing from under her pale skin, too. Together, the teacher and student looked even more mystical and ethereal than usual.

Together, they were Aura Masters.

“I can control these, right?” Zarian asked. “I don’t think it’s a good idea that I’m all sparkly all the time.”

“Yes, you can dim away the superficial effects,” she said, smirking. “Still, I hope you like it, Zarian, Para?”

“Yes, ma’am, I like it very much. Very, very much,” Zarian said.

Para spoke through the palm of a new hand. “I can see further. I can see better. I can do more than before. I can really control the aura like its true extension of me.”

Para extended another arm made from the cloak and released a pulse of aura.

The aura flowed out bright and visible to Zarian, more visible than ever before. Prior to now, he seemed to have observed aura using old pixel screen technology. Now he was working with the latest supreme quality stuff. It was high definition, ultra 4K, the best.

It was easy for him to see how Para’s aura extension was partially pure, partially dark, and partially something else he didn’t recognize. So, he paid closer attention.

Para’s aura nudged around the aura motes in the air with ease. Some of the aura motes winked away after some time spent under Para’s manipulation.

Zarian felt a tiny but very noticeable uptick in his aura recovery. He noticed more aura entering his system as Para swirled around the helpless aura motes and ate them with her own aura.

Ruvaria was now laying belly down on a mushroom cap, her legs kicking idly behind her. She was propping up her face with her hands, smiling like a young and bright woman as she watched him and Para.

“You’re looking happy. I almost miss how you would act in only a few settings, cold, haughty, and annoyed,” Zarian pointed out, as he moved some of his own aura about while still watching Para’s playful but ravenous aura moves.

“Yes, I look happy because I am happy,” Ruvaria replied. “It has been a long time since I’ve felt such bliss. The way you are interacting with the world with Aura Mastery is like watching you walk for the first time. I also find this humorous because you are an elite being from beyond the Star System.”

“Well, as long as you treat me like your favorite student who is kinda masochist and lover of all training montages, I think I can live with how you view me,” Zarian said, standing up.

Ruvaria giggled, sounding like elven bell chimes, all musical and magical. The more she acted like this, the more she caught Zarian off guard.

With a big smile on his face, he wandered about the fields of mushrooms. He and Para conducted light experiments.

There was a lot for him to go over. He wasn’t even sure what he was doing. Aura Mastery was a game changer. Everything either felt different, louder, or more complex than before.

Para was fixed on outside experiments. She swept her aura over mushrooms and feasted on the aura in the fungi, which raised Zarian’s aura recovery.

Zarian turned his attention inward.

He nearly blinded himself. The system runes that combined Zarian’s spirit with the integrated profile were so bright they were painful for his heightened aura perception. He heard Empress Ruvaria giggling with her musical, elven voice as he flailed around and struggled to dial down his aura perception.

Then everything became much easier for him to examine. It was here that his Unraveled Mind and High Rune Mindframe worked brilliantly, because some of the deep complexities involved with runes specific to his profile became more understandable, less fuzzy.

Then he looked past them and deep into his soul and saw a dense and horrifying bead of fathomless darkness waiting to be unleashed. As he looked into the bead of the abyss, the abyss looked back.

He couldn’t quite understand what was happening until he thought back to his gravity studies. He compared his studies to what the Faerie Guardian and its dungeon were doing.

“The dungeon is speeding up time,” Zarian said. “We’re in a hyperbolic time chamber.”

Zarian’s heart skipped a beat, and his eyes widened. “Oh, Gilbert’s God, we’re really in a time chamber. This is like a big bucket list item, and I’m living it.”

That was stunning for him to think about.

Everything that was happening was stunning.

Gobsmacked, Zarian stumbled over to his teacher. He fell to his knees in front of her mushroom seat and bowed his head to her. Para followed his example and lowered the cloak and parasite limbs to the ground humbly.

For most of Zarian’s time in the Infinita Star System, he played the role of the big man in charge. For this occasion, he surrendered himself to his teacher fully, releasing all false pretenses of control. There was no need for him to stroke his own ego.

He was living his greatest dreams, after all.

“You truly are a dear student,” Ruvaria said, sounding honored by the respect he paid her. “Now come, let us enjoy the splendors of learning.”

Ruvaria released a powerful pulse of aura. Zarian and Para raised up sharply as a shiver passed through him and her both. Zarian watched the elf launch into the air. When he looked deeper into her being, Zarian noticed the system runes were so bright it was too blinding for him to examine.

When he expanded his observations, he caught sight of powerful aura currents flowing about that responded to Ruvaria. Everyone had aura inside and outside of them, but Zarian hadn’t grasped how much aura Ruvaria could truly control outside of herself naturally.

From what he could tell, she had a lot going on for her. She was extremely powerful. Too powerful.

“Ruvaria, tell me the truth,” Zarian said. “How strong are you?”

“Theoretically, I can defeat a low Paragon,” she answered.

“That’s crazy,” he said. “Paragon Rank starts at Level 300. You’re Level 184.”

“I have advantages that others don’t. Time and patience in a Lesser World. I have outlived many of the gods while experimenting and grinding consistently for ten thousand years. I am older than over half of the major gods, in fact.”

“When Lovewar addresses you, does she call you big sister?” Zarian asked.

“Yes, she does.”

“Wow. Seriously?”

“I am very serious. If you wish to hear something practical, I’ll say this. I once turned away two Champions in the mid 200s who hadn’t nerfed themselves properly about two thousand years ago. And this was when I was weaker. Now and then you have regressors who slip past the rules of the Star System and try to have their fun without restraint in a Lesser World, especially one as famous as Corma. I’ve done this frequently for this world and for other worlds across the universe.”

Zarian nodded slowly, taking it all in. Every time he learned more lore from Ruvaria’s perspective, his mind was blown.

He remembered Arnold of Ambrose saying that nobody had defeated regressors in over three eras. Clearly, Arnold didn’t know everything despite how wise, dignified, and truly good he was.

There was always more to learn. There were more secret lore and hidden aspects out there.

Even though Zarian was technically bigger than the Infinita Star System, being here was a feast for those with true explorative minds and adventurous hearts.

Despite its flaws, Infinita was a very interesting place for him.

“Why is Corma so famous?” Zarian asked.

“There’s me. There is also Carrowmore and their forsaken tournament.”

“Ah, yes. Is that the reason you haven’t wiped it off the map?”

“Let’s not talk about that for now, okay?”

“That’s fine. There are plenty more amazing things. Like me. And you.” Zarian smiled.

Yeah, his dear teacher was stupidly overpowered, which made him a little sad that she had no ambitions to ascend beyond a Lesser World. But her so-called cowardice had led to their meeting, which was a major gain for him.