Overpowered Wizard

Chapter 171: B2: C71: Bearing Gifts 1

Zarian noted it took four days for Naomi to fully recover from her debuff. Having her back to peak performance led to some interesting, brutal, and badass developments.

They were on their third day journeying to the central stronghold of the Blood Prairie Savages. The stony forests and trees became sparser. Patches of crimson grass dominated more often, choking out the colorful wildflowers and wild hedges that were more prevalent further south of the Walled Continent.

Their rune cart and possession of oddities traveled closer to the edge of the Blood Prairies, where the beasts became more cunning, and the monsters became more haunting. Yet, there were few creatures of the prairies as terrifying as Naomi.

She took it upon herself to be the chief trainer and night guard, which she was a natural fit for. She was the least likely to get weary because of her high stat points in Strength and Agility, making her the most physically competent without buffs.

Zarian rewarded her by dropping a big rock on her at night for her to lift and carry. Sometimes, the rock would be the size of a small barracks building or much larger. Loner would have to take over driving the rune cart while Naomi was on the ground with her latest training implement.

Each of these wonderful gifts from Zarian had arcane webbing covering their surfaces that spelled out a runic array. When the spell array flashed bright violet purple, gravity magic raised the rock’s weight until it was close to crushing her.

Only then was it perfect for her.

She only trained that way for half an hour straight, three to four times a night at random, while still keeping a lookout for Zarian as he cultivated during the night. Eventually, Loner learned to be the primary cart driver at night regardless of Naomi lifting something huge and incredibly heavy or not.

Without fail, Naomi outlasted each big rock they found and came out a little disappointed. Then she sadistically took out some of her frustrations about being too strong on the other three Floridians after breakfast.

The way she pressed her will upon Bianca, Gilbert, and Hannah would scare most adventurers or outright kill them, as if she was crushing bugs under her heel. But her fellow Floridians stayed committed all the way no matter the pain.

Hell, some of them gave in to the insanity. They embraced the suck. Or, in other words, they completely snapped!

“Hit me, Bianca! Just hit me!” Gilbert roared.

His legendary armor had deep scorch marks and cuts and half-melted breaks it struggled to self-repair. Even the shield, one of the most advanced defensive crafts Hannah had made, looked worse for wear.

He looked bad, too. Red in the face. Bloodied and bruised.

Gilbert had enough juice in the tank to heal himself quickly. But he learned through trial and error, through blood and sweat, that it was better to stay battered and bruised and maintain that state of suffering. This was optimal for strengthening his abilities with buffs.

Suffering and sacrifice was Gilbert’s nature, so he embraced that as he yelled at Bianca.

“I’m God’s realest soldier! I’m out here with the villains and the false idols, with the dragons and the witches! I’m out here putting in the work! So don’t hold back on me! If you care for me, you will hit me with everything and watch me rise, rise, and motherfucking rise again!”

Bianca came to a complete stop.

Something unnatural and powerful rippled through the air. Something so unfathomably deep and shocking, it nearly matched the power of Metatron’s good +7.

It was hard to grasp. It was fleeting, almost coy. It was there and not there. But it was like the first crack of a bullet nobody expected, snapping Zarian out of his focused studying and aura training. Para froze up and turned rigid, with the Grimoire of Weird Morphs crying in the grasp of her many hands. Ɍ

Zarian felt a strange sensation.

Uncanny nervousness.

Naomi said it the best in a few words. “Yo, Bianca, chill, don’t kill him.”

“I hear you, Gilbert. I feel you. We are connecting right now and it’s beautiful. I won’t turn away from what you are expressing. So I will give you everything with love.”

The way Bianca spoke with a chilling and kind voice had Zarian covered in goosebumps. Para shivered all down the length of her cloak.

Zarian, Para said through their mental link. I think our understanding of free good was wrong. What if it’s not weaker than traditional good because it’s more free and harder to grasp? What if it’s stronger than traditional good because it’s harder to grasp because free good must come from a place that’s the pinnacle of goodness itself?

“That’s fucked,” Zarian mumbled.

Bianca became a supernova of power and light that blinded everyone. Most of that supercharged and explosive light flashed forward over Gilbert and burned his eyes out of his skull and dried up his exposed skin to the point of making it crack and flake. He barely had any time to heal when Bianca crossed the distance.

With one sword strike, she sent him skipping across the ground like a stone across a lake’s surface.

Naomi jumped in and caught Bianca off guard with a punch to her side. She kicked Gilbert behind his leg. Then she pushed her foot against his back and sent him flying once more, but this time straight into Bianca.

The both of them crashed into a dilapidated tower in a wide courtyard covered in red grass blades. It came tumbling down on top of them in a roaring heap.

“Don’t stop, keep fighting,” Naomi ordered.

There was no movement at first. Then Gilbert rose out of the rubble with a roar. He held Bianca by the collar of her breastplate and jumped into the air before swinging her around overhead for a slam that formed a crater beneath them.

Naomi threw a spike into Gilbert’s head, but that didn’t stop him from raging. He lifted Bianca up again and slammed her down. Then he did it again and again to return some of the many hits he’d taken.

Bianca flagged, Gilbert kept slamming her into the crater, making it deeper, and Naomi held back, allowing Gilbert to get his revenge. When he finally lifted Bianca out of the crater, he shield-bashed and punched Bianca through low-lying walls, wild hedges, and patches of red grass.

He took her from field to courtyard, from castle walls to stony treelines, and back. Then, if that wasn’t enough, Naomi allowed Gilbert to have an even bigger advantage by letting Slip jump in.

That saddened the Sleipnir a little. He liked Bianca. But the eight-legged horse and his rider still jumped the shit out of the Light Princess.

Bianca took it all with a bloody smile and a serene spirit. Her free good +5 had dimmed again, acting unreliably as usual, but what she’d shown when fighting at peak power had left a mark on the rest of the party, especially Gilbert.

Zarian let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Para relaxed a little at a time. That was the scariest version of Bianca they’d seen yet.

It was much scarier than Bianca when she had good +5. Bianca with free good +5 at its peak felt like facing serenity, love, and nirvana forged together into the sharpest and fastest blade.

What would happen if Bianca could do that with free good +6? Free good +7? Or beyond?

Scary.

And awesome.

Zarian felt giddy.

He adjusted his assessment of Bianca. She was the definition of a wild card. Her baseline was high Tier 3. That could change to baby Tier 4 with the right trigger.

Now let’s get back to where we left off, Para, Zarian thought.

Yes, Zarian! Para thought in return.

Above the brutal sparring, the sky turned dark, violent, twisting into turmoil. Angry mystic lighting forked with dark flashes. Sudden thunder claps blared above like bombs going off.

Water vapors condensed and formed blocky dark clouds. Hurricane winds blew about like banshees on the prowl. Hail fell, some as big as softballs and melons, which added to the troublesome training down below.

Zarian and Para battled each other constantly with their diverging auras. Zarian leaned more and more into his dark mystic aura and conjurations. Para leaned more and more into her devouring aura and predatory tactics.

Zarian bent the elements faster and faster. He formed more lightning bolts. He blasted out more thunder claps. He sent howling twisters. One, two, three, sometimes even four at once.

Yet, Para kept hounding him like a determined huntress, an apex predator, a monster of hunger and super intelligence. She snuffed the lightning. She quieted the thunder. She unraveled the twisters.

As Zarian created, Para destroyed. As Zarian bent the elements to his Aura Mastery creativity, Para wiped away the elements with her Aura Mastery hunger. Then Para took a bite out of his aura before getting shoved back and having to work for her food again.

The game turned even more chaotic. The sky twisted with a malevolent and dark fury that most wizards or adventurers couldn’t truly appreciate. Then things got ... freaky. Zarian’s thunderbolts came out more wild, with dark sparks of flame spitting across the sky like fireworks.

He turned the storm above into multiple high category storms that roared as a dozen funnels formed around him. More flames spat out of nowhere, sometimes joining with the wind vortexes from the sheer friction and magical chaos Zarian caused just to hold back Para’s monstrous nature.

It was a hell of an intense game.

But it didn’t seem that way when looking closely at the two at the center of all the mystical chaos and wild weather phenomena. Zarian and Para held grimoires in their hands, the wizard using his natural own limbs while the cloak had formed multiple from her material. They were studying and learning from the spell pages while causing mini cataclysms that would’ve wiped out the city of Central Bramblevale with enough time and a couple of sweeps around.

Even more astounding was how they battled against each other’s auras, studied complex wizardry from their grimoires, AND kept Hannah under constant pressure while in terror of having her profile invaded and her aura eaten from the inside out.