Overpowered Wizard B3 Ch97: Nuclear Spider Farming

Holy shit.

The shade spiders were putting in the work!

Zarian had jumped from 545 to 615 TP in the time it took him to read the notifications. He hadn’t even planned on having a fast start, but his shade spiders would certainly ensure that he wasn’t lagging.

He was glad he’d worked on them consistently during his absolute training, getting them to advancement +2 despite how difficult that was.

We could probably stay here and send out waves upon waves of shade spiders, Para suggested via mind. With our abilities for efficient aura expenses and for recouping aura combined with the independence of each shade spider, we can theoretically do this until the end of the event.

Zarian wasn’t so sure. Wouldn’t that be lazy?

Para replied brilliantly. It would be efficient and thorough! The shade spiders can be everywhere while we can’t. And if there is anything that’s too hard for our shade spiders to defeat, wouldn’t it be faster for us to go straight to the problem instead of wandering around?

Sensing Zarian’s remaining hesitance, Para stayed on the attack. We are weakened by the bloodline debuff for having fake personas, and your Lion Prince is making you feel less important, which makes me think the odds are against us. So, we must act smarter, not harder, and ensure outright victory.

Zarian chewed on Para’s argument and couldn’t find any faults in her rationale.

There was the real danger that his vulnerabilities could lead to others getting lucky wins on him. Too many of those would screw Zarian and the other contestants out of a fair shot at the Final Round.

Sighing, Zarian conceded to Para’s point. “Whelp, now I gotta hope there are those who can beat my spiders. It’s a Super World, right? Must be greater than the usual Lesser World, so it ain’t an empty hope that’ll get Hopeland excited.”

“I’m sure we’ll soon find plenty of challenges we can address directly,” Para affirmed aloud.

With a nod, Zarian got to work by first examining his weaknesses.

The Darkrun Debuff felt like a 20% weakness across the board.

The Lion Princess debuff felt like he was unimportant and less fortunate. So maybe another 10% across the board, although that wasn’t a static debuff and might grow or shrink depending on the situation.

That left him at 70% of full capability.

Though that was not really true.

He wasn’t using his wizard hat, which reduced his capability closer to half. So he was probably around 50% of his natural power.

Most adventurers would’ve found that impossible to overcome, but Zarian had so many tools as the Sorcerer Prince that he’d already hatched a plan with his free evil +11 to break his own limitations.

First, he upgraded the wards with more rigorous and harder to breach and detect defensive magic. He used Ruvaria’s teaching to interconnect the wards, ensuring they were balanced when regarding power output and aura intake.

That way, they could remain long-lasting while being greater than the sum of their parts, making Zarian’s camp even more secure, harder to detect, and even harder to approach without enough Willpower, Wonder, and/or Mysticism.

Then he placed down more aura-gathering arrays. But there was a limit to how many he could maintain.

Arrays had a tendency to wear out and break down quickly once activated, and these aura-gathering arrays needed aura to draw more aura.

Being close to each other, ironically, made it more difficult to do their job, because they could draw on each other’s auras. So Zarian couldn’t scale that exponentially, but he didn’t need that much either.

His 1310 Mysticism and Aura Transcendence were great enough to make shade spider production a simple endeavor, even if a consistently costly one. That, and he had a few other tricks up his sleeve, or specifically, in Para’s pocket dimension.

Zarian pulled out an irradiated cube the size of his head, a gift from Hannah. It was the closest thing Hannah could produce that was like a nuclear rod, but cube-shaped, while producing more energy than pure aura could.

It was a creation she’d stumbled upon while studying her own Aura Power Plant trait with her Cube Magic Queendom skill, which was an exciting accident. However, the Star System had immediately intervened with letting Hannah have practical uses for the cube other than it being nuclear.

That was the first time the Star System had limited something directly, which made Ruvaria laugh once, because that had happened plenty of times to the Sorceress Queen and ancestors, apparently.

Thus, Hannah had agreed to let go of pursuing nuclear magic gear until the Champion Ranks, which had mollified the Star System. That, of course, didn’t mean she wasn’t already drafting ideas for when they hit the Level 200s. And that didn’t mean she couldn’t create more nuclear cubes and pass them around.

Hence, Zarian having one that he could abuse the hell out of.

First, he wrapped the neon-green and irradiating cube in containment wards that slowed the magic leakage, protecting the vitality of himself and the others. As tough as he was, he wasn’t immune to nuclear magic radiation, so he still had to handle the shiny green cube with care.

Once sufficiently warded and secured, he planted more arrays while using tendrils of sorcery to act as magic power cables, hooking the nuclear cube to him at the shoulders and ribs. Finally, he drew power from the nuclear cube a little at a time while letting one of his newest traits cycle the irradiated magic energy into aura.

<Aura Purification (Legendary): There’s aura in all things as long as you’re willing to search, filter, and purify. Magic being spent around you can be a great source of aura you can use to recover aura faster. Doing so grants +150% Mysticism.>

The great part was the buff to Mysticism, which pushed his recovery rate even faster, which also made every magic that scaled with Mysticism stronger. He also applied a tiny layer of void magic around himself to trigger other buffs and push his magical abilities further higher, which also raised his aura recovery rate.

Juiced to the gills, Zarian produced the next wave of shade spiders and found it laughably easy.

All at once, he raised a battalion of two thousand shade spiders and sent them all in one direction.

After waiting for a short time, he raised another two-thousand strong shade spider battalion and sent them in a different direction.

He repeated the process, sending battalions in four cardinal directions and in the directions in between. The shade spiders moved quickly to back up the forward scouts, and once they went far enough, they broke down into smaller brigades, companies, and platoons of adventurous and battle-ready shade spiders.

The killing grew exponentially as they came across thicker and more dangerous pockets of monsters. The Tournament Points rapidly climbed up so fast Zarian got distracted by the numbers going up and the happy juices buzzing through his brain.

“Starlight,” he said.

“Yes, Isaiah?” The tails flicked amusingly.

“I am an undeserving recipient of your genius. How can I ever repay you?”

“Well … you can start by having those corpses sent our way. If you’re going to kill and gather points exponentially, I can exponentially eat and build my existential meatiness as high as I can.”

“How far can you push that?”

“There’s a limit depending on how much access to aura I have. Since we have no real aura limits while we’re like this, I’m going to stuff myself and be weightier than ever! And that should lead to making you physically greater, too!”

“Hell yeah. Let’s go!”

***

Bradley ‘Rocket’ Fitzgerald was contemplating if he and his companions should surrender their points to Isaiah.

They’d just finished conducting a final weapons check and inventory when he saw another battalion of cat-sized shadow spiders scurrying out into the steamy jungle beyond the wards.

He’d lost count of how many Isaiah had summoned and sent out. Each time Bradley had seen those things scuttling by from up close, the well-trained drop trooper couldn’t stop himself from shuddering under his armor at the sight of them.

The spiders didn’t seem like much at first glance, but each of those things had a potent power to them that was unsettling. They also dressed up in shadowy cosplay with swords, shields, wizard hats, knives, and little instruments, like they were part of some massive nerd event.

Why the hell were the ‘musician’ spiders equipped with little flutes and drums and lutes and going out merrily into the sweaty jungle?

Bradley had come from a version of Earth that was further into the future and had the super soldier technology that was once a thing of Science Fiction.

When he and his companions had passed through a portal during a drop mission and became Outsiders in the Infinita Star System Universes, they stuck to what they knew and infused magic with their gear and weaponry.

Each of them had picked up some crafting abilities to maintain their gear and steadily advance the stuff, and so far, their team of four had looked like hot shit in their corner of the Infinita Star System. They’d saved kingdoms from barbaric attackers and had princesses throw balls and celebrations for the armored heroes. And they’d made it all look easy for a while.

The fun had died down after the Darkrun Apocalypse happened followed by all the cosmic rumors picked up and spread about by diviners and those who communed with the gods closely.

When Bradley had heard about the Carrowmore Tournament and the likelihood of the Dark Lord – now called the Dark Emperor – showing up there, he and his boys had taken it upon themselves to check things out. They’d thought themselves capable of hitting the Dark Emperor with some holy grenades and a sealing trap to put that bastard away for a long time.

Then they’d ended up at the so-called tournament starting point and got surrounded by so many powerful creatures, the confidence Bradley and his companions had going in got crushed.

The last five days of getting caught up in the Carrowmore madness had rocked their foundations further. Then they’d ended up under Madeline’s charm, which had Rocket’s stomach still roiling with disgust at the thought of how she twisted and manipulated him and made him feel lesser.

Madline was dead now, and her killer was sitting in the air, legs folded like some powerful monk deity. Her killer and consumer of human flesh had a neon green cube that Bradley swore was the magical equivalent of a fucking nuclear core floating above his head. There were shimmering scripts and symbols wrapped tightly around it as tendrils of green power connected to Isaiah while changing into another magical substance that seemed like pure aura to Bradley.

How the fuck? Bradley couldn’t wrap his mind around that. Who was this Isaiah Skybreaker guy really? Was this what it took to face the Dark Emperor and The Dragoness?

Bradley was stunned, his Willpower cracked and slow to recover. And just when he thought he was recomposing himself, another two thousand freaky shadow spiders rose from the shade under the jungle trees and foliage before marching out.

And if that wasn’t scary enough, the sky rained corpses of creatures Bradley could vaguely describe, each one mutilated and wrapped in black magic webbing. The webbed corpses didn’t even fall far before getting snapped up by one of nine giant blue fox tails that slavered, slurped, crunched, and outright devoured the corpses in less than a second before reaching out to snap out another one.

It was … a whole meat grinder.

More and more corpses rained from the air, dropped by something vaguely dark and terrifying, and the tails ate faster and faster. They munched gleefully while making even louder smacking sounds or voicing their pleasure of the constant feast.

“Delicious!” growled the so-called Starlight. “So much new food. All enriched by a Super World. Feed me more, Isaiah. Feed me more!”

“Rocket?” called Turret. “What’s our next move?”

Arty and Shield stood awkwardly in wait for his command.

Bradley looked from his boys to the monstrous ‘fox devil’ who could wipe out the drop troopers without even trying if Isaiah and Starlight wanted to.

“We’re surrendering to Isaiah. This ain’t for us.” Bradley pretended not to notice the relief the others showed through their drop armor.

Being the leader meant it was up to Bradley to make the hard calls, and some of those hard calls required him to eat humble pie.

At the very least, they would return to their original world with some legendary gear that they’d got for a steal, so it wasn’t all a complete loss. He would just have nightmares for a while from having someone fuck with his head and puppet his body. And from seeing a fox devil and his man-eating and talking tails handle nuclear energy like it was child’s play while sending out an endless army of cosplay shadow spiders.

Decision made, Bradley and the others moved carefully toward Isaiah to surrender their points to him and head home.

Unfortunately, something thunderous and stormy interrupted them with a triumphant roar, lashing the ground with thick cords of lightning that sent the drop troopers scrambling backward.

Standing at the center of the commotion was the dvergr guy, Valin, who wielded two legendary hammers in each hand.

“ISAIAH SKYBREAKER! I challenge you!”

“Is he a freaking idiot?” Shield asked. “Isaiah can crush all of us!”

“I like his moxie, though,” Turret said.

“No, something’s different!” Arty explained.

“What do you mean?” Bradley asked.

“I’m scanning him. It’s as if … Valin jumped into a new tier of power. No. Almost like two tiers of power! It’s to where I can’t scan it fully! It’s consistent, too, so it’s not some temporary power up!”

Rocket cursed. That bastard Valin was hiding his true power the whole time. The dvergr was probably mythical, which meant the drop troopers were way too close to the action!

Cutting through the noise of a sudden power up, a dark and creepy laughter filled the warded area. Something about that laugh made Bradley want to piss himself and beg for his life.

Bradley considered himself a proud man, too, but Isaiah’s horrifying nature was undeniable.

Who the hell is this guy?! Bradley wondered as he and his friends retreated further and further.

“I want to be merciful, Valin,” Isaiah said casually. “But I’ll stop holding back if you interrupt Starlight’s meal. She’s sensitive about that.”

“I will not hesitate to suck the flesh off your bones, Valin,” Starlight warned. “Take this opportunity to leave. We can always fight later.”

“NAY! I will accept nothing less than to face you here and now! You say you wish to overcome The Dragoness and the Dark Emperor? So do I?! Now face me, Isaiah Skybreaker, and let me show you the grand powers I’ve held in secret for many years! All it would take is one hit!”

“I won’t even give you one hit,” Isaiah declared.

“We’ll see about that!”

Like an explosion of thunder and lightning and air-shaking magic, the fighting began, with Valin striking first.

Dozens of jungle trees got torn from the roots and clods of fresh jungle earth went splattering everywhere, raining down all over the running drop troopers.

Bradley urged his guys to move faster, use their physical abilities for extra speed, and get the hell out of there as Valin fought like some jacked-up thunder demigod. 

Yet, throughout that powerful display, Isaiah’s voice remained clear with a sinister bent.

“It hasn’t been long, Valin, but I will remember you as a fun fellow every time I look upon your skeleton.”

Bradley pissed himself midrun, but he didn’t stop. He kept going. His men ran harder with him. They left the warded camp far behind them and passed further devastation where shade spiders slaughtered monsters wholesale with their great and dark powers.

Bradley and his friends passed through countless parties and platoons and companies of the spiders, hoping beyond hope they wouldn’t attack, hoping beyond hope the spiders would just let him and his troopers through.

The spiders let them run, but the chilling fear of Isaiah treating a Powered-Up Valin like an easy match stayed with Bradley no matter how far he and his friends went.