The early morning shifted toward late morning. More blocky clouds appeared in the sky above the bombed out and devastated basin where Castle Grimrock had once stood.
A thousand men and women milled about nervously as two overtly powerful Master Rankers prowled among them. The leaders, a Level 70 Storm Blaster named Dawson and a Level 75 Blessed Cleric named Gisella, were the only two capable enough to serve as guides.
The guides weren’t necessary. They were merely a show of compliance and cooperation – puppets, really.
That way, nobody would do anything too stupid out of fear or irrationality. Or they would risk annoying Hannah, which could lead to a large swath of them getting harmed by a flex of her power.
Zarian and Hannah could easily sift through the masses on their own with their heightened aura abilities. Zarian, of course, would be better at it than Hannah. But she was growing more adept at working with aura.
While she lacked his finesse and artistry, she made up for it with down-to-the-basics effort. Her Mysticism stat had grown immense, too, getting further ahead of Zarian’s, at least when comparing raw stats.
Having high Mysticism lent her some more leeway even though she wasn’t a wizard like him.
Zarian couldn’t help but observe her. He was observing himself, too.
They were so much different now compared to who they were before Operation Save The Cook. Zarian felt as if the earlier version of him was dumber, weaker, less sophisticated, and less of everything.
Now, he was greater, more masterful.Turning his attention back to the non-rankers, Zarian felt even more intrigued as he compared himself to the weaker humans some more.
The difference in power was staggering. The camp of non-ranking adventurers comprised mostly late Level 30s and early Level 40s. There were some youngsters in the Level 20s, too.
Anyone below Level 40 might as well be a small rodent or a bug compared to the Master Rankers.
Zarian tried not to think too lowly of them. He also kept his power under wraps.
A combination of System Suppression and his own efforts ensured the Master Rankers avoided any unnecessary accidents. But the effort was a little more noticeable than before.
Granted, Zarian didn’t want outright suppression from the Star System, not when he was among strangers. He was also thriving on a post-growth high like no other. The dopamine rush was still doping him up, for good and bad, after coming out of the biggest post adventure growth he’d ever experienced.
Hannah was probably feeling the same way.
Neither of them were set on finding suitable skills just yet. They were just wandering about in camp and getting a feel for being Master Rankers among the non-rankers.
This is … intoxicating, Para shared via spider network. She wanted Zarian and Hannah to hear her while keeping the non-rankers ignorant. Have you looked at the stats? You should look at those.
Want to share, Zarian? Hannah asked via spider network.
Yeah, we can share. I also want to know about Dawson’s stats and some others. How big is the difference exactly? I can only examine their best stat, Zarian shared via spider network.
Oh, allow me, Para shared. I will be happy to investigate once we have our baseline set.
Zarian checked his stats.
He halted in surprise. Hannah stopped with him, which spooked the paranoid Dawson, the old man shaking like a leaf.
Gisella clenched her fist around the handle of her mace. She knew better than to take a swing, but that didn’t stop her from staying tense and ready.
Zarian paid them no mind as he saw how much his stats had ballooned. He made a quick judgment call and invested all of his Free Points in his Wonder stat. As the 90 stat dump into Wonder made his sense of highness ever greater, he shared his stats with Hannah.
Willpower: 715
Strength: 125
Agility: 112
Wonder: 712
Mysticism: 763
Total Stats: 2,427
Hannah shared her stats along with some interesting news. I just got a new epic achievement called One Thousand Mysticism. It gave me an extra +50 Mysticism for hitting the milestone.
Willpower: 569
Strength: 136
Agility: 260
Wonder: 551
Mysticism: 1050
Total Stats: 2,566
Zarian almost wanted to whistle. Hannah’s raw stats eclipsed his own.
He messaged Naomi on the spider network and asked about her stats. Just like Hannah, she’d gotten a new epic achievement. This one was called One Thousand Willpower, and it gave +50 to Willpower.
The results were respectable.
Willpower: 1087
Strength: 606
Agility: 522
Wonder: 128
Mysticism: 138
Total Stats: 2,481
Nobody had saved their Free Points. They all shared the same mentality of spending them while they had them, at least at the moment.
Zarian would have to play it safe when he cultivated Overwhelming Darkness the next time – the doomsday skill grew stronger the more stats he accrued.
Dawson and Gisella were waiting on the Master Rankers, the former sweating bullets. The two had no idea that the Floridians could communicate via the mind spiders inside the heads.
Zarian let the old man and paladin woman wait as he called for Gilbert and Bianca’s stats, making further comparisons.
Gilbert’s stats:
Willpower: 354
Strength: 584
This book’s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Agility: 317
Wonder: 658
Mysticism: 408
Total Stats: 2,321
Interestingly enough, Bianca also had the epic milestone achievement, One Thousand Wonder, rewarding her +50 Wonder. The results led to this for Bianca.
Willpower: 356
Strength: 198
Agility: 271
Wonder: 1050
Mysticism: 476
Total Stats: 2,351
It looks like Hannah has us all beat in base stats, Naomi sent via spider network.
Well, that isn’t my true baseline, Zarian admitted via the network. My real baseline is much higher because of my new legendary trait … Overpowered Times Two.
<Overpowered Times Two (Legendary): Your raw power is immense. All of your stats are naturally +25% higher than the base. With some intense effort, you can power up to +50% in all stats instead. Or you can put your efforts into boosting one skill by +250%. Boosting one skill may come with some strain and risks of temporary debuffs.>
With some quick math, Zarian figured out his natural baseline without powering up and shared it with the others:
Willpower: 894
Strength: 156
Agility: 140
Wonder: 890
Mysticism: 953
Total Stats: 3,033
With some intense effort, Zarian’s powered-up baseline would look like this:
Willpower: 1073
Strength: 188
Agility: 168
Wonder: 1068
Mysticism: 1145
Total Stats: 3,642
And that was before applying hard or soft buffs that came from his other traits and skills.
“YOU ARE UTTER BULLSHIT!” Naomi roared from the mountain peak a few miles away. Her voice reached the basin with some oomph.
The non-ranked adventurers dove to the ground. They groveled, cowered, and begged for mercy. It was as if they thought an angry goddess, like a regressor of some sort, would smite them.
Zarian tried not to laugh. Naomi wasn’t wrong. He really was utter bullshit. But he wasn’t bullshit alone. The other Floridians had various ways to power up using their traits or skills, especially Naomi. She had Second Ignition, and probably the most powerful version of the trait.
However, that took Naomi some effort to grow. Zarian’s new legendary trait, Overpowered Times Two, was the most blatant power up of them all. The +250% boost to one skill could be so enormously devastating in any situation.
Zarian wasn’t sure what he would get to use that on.
But that was one of many interesting facets of his growth.
His Strength and Agility were outrageous, in his opinion.
It almost felt like a crime for a wizard to have over one hundred points in either stat. That was without considering his Parasite Cloak +3’s physical boosts, which had the immense benefit of a boost from his divine trait, Thematic Law/Floridian Mindset.
Zarian could kill these men and women with no magic. He could rip their heads off from between their shoulders like tearing paper in two. He could slap their heads and make them explode.
He could also kill them without touching them. Without even casting a spell or doing much of anything. His aura alone – pure aura, at that – was more than enough to press down on the non-rankers and turn them into paste.
He’d gotten great at killing ever since he arrived at the Infinita Star System. But the ease with which he could kill a thousand people like it was a walk in the park was frankly scary.
They could do nothing to threaten him.
They had nothing that could harm him.
Hannah was similar. He saw it in her eyes. They shone with a cold, calculative bronze light. She looked at the non-rankers like they weren’t real people.
How could they be when it would be so easy to eliminate them?
They weren’t like children. Children, even with levels and classes, still needed protection as they grew up.
These grown men and women were adventurers. Yet, it didn’t feel like they were. It felt like they were weak things.
“You’ve seen some hard fighting, yeah?” Dawson asked nervously.
Zarian’s eyes swiveled toward the impish and scarecrow-like old man.
Hannah tilted her head and furrowed her brow.
She seemed slightly annoyed to have her thoughts interrupted, but not enough to act out. Zarian waited patiently as his powerful lion tail and monstrous cloak swayed and wavered behind him.
Dawson gulped. He rubbed the sweat off his forehead. He smiled a crooked and deathly afraid smile. “I can tell by the look of your eyes, milord. You’re, uh, measuring us. It’ll be easy to wipe us out in one go, huh? With a snap of your fingers, we’ll be all dead.”
“Not a snap of the fingers,” Zarian said. “It would only take a thought.”
“Oh. Ah. Well, yeah, I suppose it would, wouldn’t it? We must be babes in the cradle compared to you. Ah, no, not even. Bugs, really?” Dawson bobbed his bald head a few times as he kept sweating profusely. “We, uh, saw how easily your daughter and her friends took out the Rat Adventurer Guild. I can only imagine how much scarier you and milady are.”
The Master Rankers held their silence.
Dawson breathed hard. Gisella braced herself even harder.
The nearest adventurers stood like deer in headlights, eyes big and wide. Then, finally, Zarian broke the tension with a chuckle.
And an apology.
“Sorry, sorry, we’re being rude,” the Conquest Wizard said. “We’ve done a lot of killing last month. A lot, a lot of killing. It was non-stop killing, honestly. All the way to the bottom of the Grimrock Hell Gate. Only after we closed that thing did we finally stop killing.”
“Hell Gate?!” a man shrilled, his voice breaking.
“Good Gods, lay your protection over us all!” screamed a woman.
“Serveserf, guide me,” Gisella prayed softly.
More people shouted out. Some seemed ready to run. The camp of adventurers grew more riled up.
Hannah released a pulse of aura.
Her aura was like metal parts and electric synapses. The magic zipped, clanked, and shifted like an automated machine. The way it pressed upon the non-rankers was rough and inhuman, lacking Zarian’s finesse for sure.
It still got her message across.
She wanted the non-rankers to act orderly, and they complied pronto.
Zarian sighed as he reached over with his lion tail and smacked the tuft on Hannah’s face.
Dawson gawked. Gisella’s eyes opened wide like saucers.
The nearest non-rankers who saw that slowly inched away, as if expecting the Master Rankers to burst out into a crazed fight.
Hannah pouted. “What was that for?”
“Humble yourself,” Zarian demanded. “You’re being too rough. Don’t forget how it was last year. Don’t forget about the times when you were weak and helpless.”
Mouth flapping, Hannah couldn’t utter a word. A blush crept across her face. She nodded a bunch of times and turned to the camp leaders.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
“No, no, don’t apologize to me! There is no need! I’m just a lowly adventurer scum compared to the likes of you, milady!” Dawson squealed.
Gisella bopped the older man on the head with a loose fist. Dawson returned a withering glare, but the big woman didn’t care.
“Relax, old man. The Master Rankers are acting like sensible folks, so we’ll act the same. I’m not interested in scraping and bowing all the time, anyway.”
Gisella shook her head before looking at the Master Rankers head on. “For the sake of Serveserf’s unending patience, can we learn what you want with us? We ran out of proper provisions two days ago, by the way. But I’m willing to spare a little more patience for the ones who’d stopped a Hell Gate from breaking, but I pray you don’t push it any further.”
Dawson gasped like a fish out of water.
Zarian was a little surprised, too. Then again, Gisella had traditional good +2.
She had enough power to moxie her way through the intimidation factor wafting off the Master Rankers. He appreciated her frankness, honestly, because he didn’t realize these men and women had a food shortage problem.
Zarian did a quick scan with his aura to reconfirm. Gisella was speaking the truth. These adventurers were going hungry.
“Oh, fuck. We kept you waiting for a while,” Zarian said.
“Maybe we should hurry things along, then?” Hannah murmured.
Zarian nodded. “Yeah, okay, how about this? We want to copy some skills from your people. We also want to know about your stats for vanity’s sake. Don’t worry about secrets. Anyone who hears anything private about your profile won’t remember it.”
This time, both Dawson and Gisella looked equally worried.
Zarian smiled. “We’ll prefer not to force it out of you. Then again, that’ll be fucked up. I guess if you tell us no we’ll just leave disappointed.”
“We could just pay them gold,” Hannah suggested.
“Oh … yeah … people like gold. They’re not just shiny gifts for the kiddos, huh? I forget about that sometimes. We never have to pay for anything,” Zarian admitted.
Hannah grasped a strand of her hair and twisted it. “Yes, indeed. It would be an interesting change of pace. That and Bianca’s the one who usually likes to haggle and pay for stuff.”
“It just occurred to me that Bianca would’ve handled this better than us.”
“She’s closer to us than them, but she’s technically still a non-ranker. She can speak their language.”
“Ah, yeah, you’re right again.”
As the Master Rankers spoke, Dawson turned to his partner.
“I think things are going well,” he said.
Gisella snorted. “Everything that comes out of their mouth insults me. But I’ll keep putting aside my pride as Good God Serveserf would.”
Dawson shook his head at the woman. “Pride? What’s pride? In Evil God Hisscreep’s name, all that matters is survival. And riches.”
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