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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.

Zarian felt truly acquainted with the entity that wanted to take over and consumed everything. He glared through his aura and didn’t back down to his Overwhelming Darkness. He made another promise to himself to control it. He felt confident about it now that he had a grand power like Aura Mastery.

After a while, he turned his attention to other interesting things inside of him. Such as his traits! He could see the profile runes more clearly for those. He saw how his traits were deeply grafted onto his soul. Or maybe it was the other way around?

“Why are traits and skills so different?” Zarian asked. “It’s like the skills are more surface level attachments or engravings. While traits seemed more like extensions of my soul.”

Zarian looked over as some mushrooms lost their mystical glow, becoming dim and lackluster. Para was feasting on aura nonstop, letting her parasite nature go on a rampage. It seemed like she would keep consuming and consuming until all the mushrooms lost their aura. Then a great wave of new aura swept through, and Zarian’s vision turned searing white from how bright it all was.

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Dimming down his aura perception further, he looked with normal vision and saw that the mushrooms were looking brighter and more magical again. He had a hunch that the wave of intense aura came from his teacher, who was still laying on her belly and kicking her legs idly behind her.

She had a knowing smirk on her face.

Para laughed and waved about her extra limbs, her aura chasing after the remnants of their teacher’s aura before it faded completely. Zarian waited for an answer from Ruvaria about traits and skills being different.

Ruvaria humored him. “Traits come from within, which the system enhances. Skills are more like tools delivered from the system based on what you should be able to handle or what’s already inside of you.”

Ruvaria rolled over onto her back, her hair spilling over the mushroom’s edge like a golden-silver waterfall. She idly reached up and waved her hands around, attracting a few colorful aura motes that danced around her fingers as she explained further.

“While skills seem more like attachments, they are a more controllable medium for the Star System to evaluate as you grow with experience. Traits, however, aren’t as simple for the Star System to evaluate other than to describe them with qualities. Traits have different factors that are more inherent to us.”

“Well, if that’s the case, why is Overwhelming Darkness a skill instead of a trait?” Zarian asked, confused.

“If it was a trait, it would’ve most likely consumed the entirety of your soul. I think there is a more intelligent architect who specifically had your darkness skill made that way to help you,” Ruvaria said. “Thus, its range of power is narrowed specifically to save you and all of us. That’s my theory. It’s quite fascinating to observe with my peripherals. I cannot look at it head on without flinching. It is horrifying.”

Zarian was a little surprised to hear that from Ruvaria. It seemed like the Sorceress Queen could do anything, so she should have nothing to fear. She could technically seal him away for a long time.

But even she was unnerved by Overwhelming Darkness and couldn’t face it directly.

“I’m going to control it,” Zarian said. “I have to.”

“Yes, you have to,” she agreed. “For now, continue your self-discovery of Aura Mastery.”

Zarian did as he was told, following Para’s example of pure aura maneuvers and exploration.

He noticed how certain skills were still restrictive, designed to follow certain parameters, but he could pump more aura into them or use them more finely with a masterful approach. When he experimented with his traits, each one felt more flexible and uniquely influential for his Aura Mastery.

He kept flipping between skills and traits to play with until he landed on Spectral Spider Network +2 and fed more aura into his spiders.

Each of their pale blue and ghostly bodies lit up with mini twinkling stars. Each one admitted their own spheres of aura without him having to do much, making them all tiny Aura Masters.

Their aura seemed sticky and stealthy, which represented them well. They blended with their environment even more than already. When they shot out some arcane webbing, they could manipulate it with a more masterful approach, making it all seem artful and mystical.

Zarian looked down at the palm of his hand. He focused and gathered some aura into a ball. He noted how most of it was dark except for some little pinpricks of light, which were traces of pure aura.

The dark ball felt weightier without costing him too much effort to create. Then he condensed the dark ball and gathered more from the nearby shadows.

He kept condensing and condensing. Eventually, he had enough for him to aim and shoot a beam of darkness made from Aura Mastery and Dark Affinity.

The two traits combined weren’t much compared to his original straight darkness. They had a sliver of a fraction of power compared to Overwhelming Darkness. But Aura Mastery and Dark Affinity certainly had some push to them, and it wasn’t hard or costly for him.

“I wouldn’t focus too much on attacking with that,” Ruvaria said. “For the meanwhile, focus on enhancing what you’re already doing. Make more out of your current abilities.”

“Then I guess I should get going,” Zarian said. “We’ve been in the dungeon for a while. I need to address everyone and head out.”

“You don’t have to go yet. We still have plenty of time.” Ruvaria giggled again, her voice a musical pleasure.

Zarian thought about it for a few seconds. Then instead of answering he turned his aura perception outward. He noticed the heavy flow of aura and the dungeon runes that made the Enriched Faerie Dungeon possible.

His perception swept over the Faerie Guardian, which remained openly visible to him. He noticed some unique mystical traits that were fused with the entire dungeon.

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.