Overpowered Wizard

Chapter 142: B2: C42: Hide and Seek

His cloak snapped out and sprouted dozens of deadly limbs. Zarian prepared to hand-sign and chant for One Percent Power.

He looked around and saw he was in an old stone hallway. Ancient roots dangled from the cracks in the ceiling. There were rings upon rings of mushrooms that covered the floor, with a layer of thick, loamy, and moist dirt underneath. The doorway he used to get here was gone, replaced by a wall covered in thick roots behind him.

Little motes of concentrated energy bobbed around in the air like blue glow flies. The air was rich with aura, more than he’d ever felt before in one location.

There were no immediate dangers he could sense. Zarian and Para remained at the ready as they finally addressed the gold notifications hovering in the air.

<You’ve entered the Enriched Faerie Dungeon (Epic-Level 70).>

<You’ve been brought here under friendly but highly challenging conditions. No mini-map. Find the Dungeon Mistress, Empress Ruvaria, Daughter of the Absolute King.>

Daughter of the Absolute King? Zarian thought in wonder. How much lore do you have packed in you, old lady?

“It’s not what I expected, but I guess I can fit a game of hide and seek in my schedule.” Zarian lowered his hands. “I have to admit, you are crafty as hell, empress. You set a whole teleportation trap I failed to spot and had it triggered before I could counter with my void magic. You really are the Sorceress Queen.”

There was also a chance that Empress Ruvaria had grafted the entire dungeon into the VIP guest room right under Hannah’s nose. Zarian wouldn’t put it past the empress to achieve a complex, hairy-brain thing just so she could show off to the human whipper snappers.

“I think this is a game I can win, depending on if you’re going to give me a fighting chance,” Zarian said. “Ready to play, Para?”

“As long as we don’t run out of food, I will be happy to play,” Para said.

“True that, true that.”

Zarian studied the hallway with his best abilities. His High Rune Mindframe skill was growing, too, while facing a new challenge.

The mystical structures partitioning his mind became sturdier. His thoughts moved faster and neater.

Para benefitted as she safely merged with the same portion of his Unraveled Mind he’d used to study the essence of her nature. The more of his messy mind he gave over to Para on a loan, the more she could empower his body.

With High Rune Mindframe, Zarian and Para could share more of each other under safer conditions. They could avoid losing oneself to the other, especially in Zarian’s case.

<You skill, High Rune Mindframe, leveled up from 1 to 2!>

The skill was definitely a high quality one. Zarian had used it from the morning to the night, and it had only leveled up once so far. Which was kind of sad because he was already excited about its first advancement.

It will come to me in due time, Zarian thought as he summoned dozens of spectral spiders.

As the spiders went forth to scout and explore, he squatted against the wall. Para dropped boxes of food and spare corpses in front of them from the cloak’s pocket dimension.

The Dark Lord and Parasite Cloak +2 enjoyed a pre-dungeon-crawl feast as Zarian patched himself and Para into various spiders to see things from their exploratory view.

Some spiders crawled under the mushroom caps where little magical critters lurked. A few spiders couldn’t help but snatch up the Level 8 or Level 9 insectoid beasts while on the move, which was an interesting experience for Zarian.

He could acquire all the senses of a spectral spider when observing through them. But these days, he didn’t shy away from experiencing the taste of whatever creatures the spectral spiders feasted on. He’d grown quite used to it now.

It was also a little interesting to think how just one bug that was the size of someone’s thumb was possibly a danger to some Level 3 human teenager stuck behind the walls in the garden kingdom.

“Maybe this is a thing a nepo baby says, but I’m really glad I got the head start in this universe,” Zarian said. “How would the others feel if they compared their starts as Level 1s to the little bugs in a place like this?”

Then again, levels didn’t indicate how many stats and abilities certain creatures had. So a Level 9 bug might only have a small amount of attributes. Or it had enough to fly like a bullet and kill a Level 1 human in one shot.

Zarian let himself muse about stats and levels using a small portion of his highly organized magic mindframe. Another part of his mindframe was still focused on what the spiders were seeing as they crawled around.

The spiders found a split in the hallway. Some stayed behind and waited. One group of spiders went to the left. A different group went to the right.

Zarian and Para enjoyed their delightful meal. They had plenty more in the cloak’s pocket dimension, too, just in case this turned out to be a long crawl.

By the time they finished, Zarian noticed their first complication.

The group of spiders that went down the left path had disappeared. The connection with them had blinked out. The last thing Zarian was able to feel from them were the telltale signs of teleportation and warp magic.

Zarian doubted the spiders had perished. They were probably placed somewhere else and cut off. Or the dungeon had ejected them from its personal dimension, which was a valid way to cut down Zarian’s abilities to explore remotely.

Not bad, not bad, Zarian thought.

He almost wanted to bring Hannah down here for her to see. But he figured Empress Ruvaria wanted him to crawl the dungeon as part of her continuous evaluation of him.

Or is this petty revenge for calling her out into public earlier?

She was very introverted. He should take more care of that.

The spiders that had gone down the right tunnel found another split. They stopped there and waited.

Zarian stood up. Para used little tongue-like tendrils to lick off crumbs and clean him up. Then Zarian removed his shirt while Para slurped into his back.

She appeared as ragged threads and numerous limbs from around his waist as Zarian went shirtless.

With his shirt secured in the pocket dimension, Zarian rolled around his shoulders and felt his muscles loosen up. Then he headed forward at a steady pace.

He looked around with his eyes, taking in the mystical sights of magic dungeon bugs, glowing blue motes of concentrated aura, and the combination of dangling roots around his head and rising mushrooms from the loam-covered floor.

Meanwhile, Zarian pushed his Basic Aura Manipulation harder and harder at a gradual rise in intensity. He smiled when he felt some quirky resistance from the epic dungeon.

Even though it was fourteen levels lower than the Madness Wizard, it was high in quality. Thus, the Enriched Faerie Dungeon had unique traits of its own.

The dungeon pushed back heavily against his aura manipulation. Zarian felt suppressed while using a trait he prided himself on.

Of course, he could hold his own. He had the Aura Channeler trait that made his aura manipulation highly efficient, while also making him resistant to aura disruptions. Then there was his wizard hat, with the skill advanced to +2 and up to Level 34.

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Altogether, he had a frankly powerful combination of abilities supported by 536 Mysticism. The suppression should buckle against him once he applied enough force.

Zarian kept pushing.

The suppression didn’t buckle.

Huh! I’m actually not getting my way for once, Zarian realized, feeling shocked after five minutes of difficult shoving. This dungeon has some powerful traits. Nothing has kept my aura manipulation under constant pressure before.

So far, Zarian couldn’t reliably observe things with his aura manipulation any further than a dozen feet in all directions. In fact, the aura suppression was worse coming from the walls.

That left him a little more blind than usual.

Was this all of Ruvaria’s intention by having him put in the Enriched Faerie Dungeon? Was he supposed to have all his key aura abilities and scouting tricks removed from play, just so he had a more challenging crawl?

No, that didn’t seem right to him. The empress was known as the Sorceress Queen for a reason.

Zarian wasn’t here to crawl a dungeon in a mundane manner. He was here to use his magic while under more unique and challenging conditions.

Undaunted, he kept going at a steady pace down the hallway and took the left at the T-junction. He summoned more spectral spiders to lead the way in the direction where a group had disappeared.

Para had the bright idea to number the spectral spider groups, which entered Zarian’s head as a thought he could analyze through his High Rune Mindframe. Things remained safe as he kept a portion of his mind unraveled for Para, and that led to unique mental exchanges between them.

It might not seem like much, but the distinction came down to time and clarity. Before the new skill, Zarian had to feel out pulses and interpret them within a millisecond.

Now it was down to almost a nanosecond for him to understand Para. That also meant his physical senses and the way the parasite enhanced his body was greater, sharper, and more unified than before.

Zarian kept playing a shoving match against the dungeon’s aura suppression shenanigans. Para helped check on their spider teams.

Team 1 remained at the first T-junction. Team 2 waited at the junction down the other hallway, the one to the right.

Team 4 was leading the way down the leftward hallway, going past the section where Team 3 had disappeared. Nothing seemed to happen, so they kept going.

Team 4 kept searching for traps and using their acute observation and spectral qualities to scout as thoroughly as possible.

Zarian used his Identify trait and found nothing too special other than uncommon and rare quality mushrooms. The roots were also uncommon and rare materials that were decent for crafting. The Level 8 and Level 9 bugs remained nonissues.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary for a while. Then things suddenly changed when a spectral spider phased through some mushrooms that looked like any other.

However, something very magical was triggered.

Together! Zarian thought.

Yes! Para replied in his head.

The duo cast their own versions of Void Authority simultaneously. They had never done this exact spell cast together, but they had done double-casts before and saw how that could intensify an outcome.

As an oval ring of mushrooms flashed with dimensional and warp-like effects, Zarian and Para used two sides of his brain to cast their two separate spells. They unified their casts by being perfectly in sync with their intentions and desired outcomes, which was made even smoother by the High Rune Mindframe skill, facilitating the timing to near perfection.

Even then, the powerful and warped teleportation trap nearly overcame them. They were almost a hairbreadth too late for their double Void Authority to do anything.

All teleportation magic used some part of the void to transition from place to place, which made it possible for Zarian to influence that.

The problem was the addition of high quality warp magic, which made void magic weaker. Somehow, the Enriched Faerie Dungeon could layer warp magic over teleportation magic skillfully without one canceling out the other. Thankfully, Zarian and Para doubling up on one spell while nearly in perfect sync became the great equalizer against the trap.

The warped teleportation stopped with a thunderous clap, like two storm fronts slamming bluntly in the atmosphere. The surrounding air warbled as Zarian and Para combined their willful and mystical might even further for a flourishing finish.

They snapped the trap in half and dissipated all the teleportation and warp energy into useless kinetic force.

The trap blasted outward. Roots ripped free from the ceiling. Mushrooms and dirt flew away in scattering waves down both ends of the hallway. Stone pieces from the wall tumbled as fast-moving rubble.

The blast rolled over Zarian, and he stood his ground like he was facing a little breeze. Heavy darkness made by aura manipulation and his Dark Affinity covered his body. A tiny bit of the blast wave got past his darkness, but his parasite-enforced body barely felt anything.

The destruction ended. A crater remained where Zarian and Para had blown up a teleportation trap, with them standing in the middle.

Team 4 was gone, having been sent away before Zarian and Para stopped the trap. Then again, that was probably for the better, or they would’ve gotten blown up.

“Heh heh heh,” Zarian chuckled. “How much you bet that the old lady didn’t have ‘self-explosion in a teleportation trap on her’ bingo cards?”

Para formed a mouth and vocal chords from Zarian’s bare shoulder. “Bingo cards. I can see from your memories it is a type of game from your birth world in the other universe. This is you joking about coming up with surprising solutions while calling the empress old, I imagine. But as for a literal answer, I am not sure, because the empress has lived for ten thousand years. Maybe she has it on the cards. She has known Outsiders before us, after all.”

“Huh, you might be right in the literal sense.” Zarian nodded. “Geeze, Para, you’re becoming so smart. One day you’ll be smarter than me, if you aren’t already. Keep it up. You’re making me feel proud of your growth every day.”

Para’s mouth curved into a toothy smile, sharp teeth glinting from Zarian’s shoulder. Then her mouth faded away.

Zarian could feel her happy afterglow from the compliment, which he allowed to bleed into him through a few carefully placed checkpoints in his High Rune Mindframe.

Zarian summoned Team 5 and sent the spectral spiders forward. He kept one spider on the brim of his crooked wizard hat, for just in case purposes.

He kept pushing against the aura suppression. He also turned toward other unique dungeon bugs scuttling or flying about. A distinct part of his partitioned mind had a strange thought that grew more and more reasonable as he unraveled a little.

Zarian knelt down. The parasite kilt extended strands and hairs in all directions and poked at every mushroom along the way. Some strands went deeper into the dirt floor, deeper than the spectral spiders could go.

Para used her magical touch to control some of Zarian’s aura and push it down her strands. She had a hard time against the dungeon’s aura suppression, so Zarian covered her experiments by pushing an even harder wall of aura against the dungeon’s suppression.

Dark blue and greenish blue sparks ignited in the air. Little strings of aura electricity crawled over the roots and mushrooms, leaving some smoky and blackened.

The friction between Zarian’s aura manipulation and the dungeon’s aura suppression was like a mini-storm.

It was hard work, and a part of Zarian’s mind was burning up from the heavy aura shoving match. But this was why he had 424 Willpower and a Floridian Mindset, to help him push and endure these almost mental challenges.

He couldn’t stop the dungeon from doling out its powerful suppression. But he could certainly keep going no matter the difficulty and mental burn.

Other than covering Para as she experimented with a side project, he focused on the bugs crawling around under mushroom caps and in the dirt. He gave his spiders an important order. He needed them to dance, so they broke down to boogie harder like never before.

They even formed two rows of spiders. One spider danced down the lane in celebration before another did the same.

Zarian could tell the spectral spiders had learned from their fellow spiders in the Dancing Librarian Dungeon that Reiki was boss over. Their studying of ancient moves showed with their rising dance progression.

When Zarian thought they celebrated enough, he grabbed up a handful of moist earth, little mushrooms, and magic bugs. Then he spoke to the handful directly.

“Hello, hello, can you hear me, you old creepy crawler? It’s your favorite apocalyptic, evil-doer of freedom. You know, Zarian Darkrun. I haven’t been to your temple in a while, but since this place is almost part of your domain, I figured the empress can’t keep you out entirely. Any chance you can deliver me some free aid by helping me find an old elf?”

Zarian waited to see if anything would happen. After a while, he concluded that the message to Hisscreep had failed to reach or the Leggy Old Man couldn’t help, at least not directly.

That was part of the issue with being a leader of an entirely different alignment that prided itself on freedom. The gods couldn’t provide boons as much as before, at least outside of their temples and altars. Of course, that didn’t mean they couldn’t mess around and still find ways to influence events.

Zarian’s failed experiment was still worth a shot, just to see if Empress Ruvaria’s controls were airtight. They seemed to be. Who else could mess with the gods as much as her while still in the Lesser Worlds?

Well, the answer to that is me, but I’m not fair whatsoever, Zarian thought.

Moving on, Zarian felt Para’s excitement, which made him thrilled. Instead of reading her thoughts as if they were his own, he waited until she formed a toothy mouth on his shoulder.

“The network beneath the mushroom rings differs from what we are seeing on the surface. When you use Identify on the surface, you are not seeing the complete picture,” Para explained.

“But you can see with your threads while digging down further than the spiders could go. You can use my Identify trait while I’m unraveling for you,” Zarian said, connecting the dots.

“Yes, which is why I am quite confident about the nature of the traps. And we should prepare to hurry.”

“Oh, why is that?”

“The traps are set by a single fungi creature that is a Level 90 Faerie Guardian. Its best alpha skill is Dimensional Network. The creature is in the roots above, too, because those are more extensions from the creature. I concluded it could probably unleash its magic wherever it wants through its expanded and stealthy network of a dungeon-fused body,” Para explained.

“Oh.”

Zarian and Team 5 moved with a hustle. The dungeon’s mushrooms and roots wriggled and squirmed all around them, showing signs of aggression from a singular creature who was done with all false pretenses.

Zarian and Para prepared to cast Void Authority together. They expected the same traps from before, warp-layered teleportation to the unknown.

Instead of that, a portal opened at the far end of the hallway they were heading down. Zarian’s eyes widened as dark and highly pressurized water rushed out of the portal and roared down straight at him.