Dawn’s light appeared on the eastern horizon of a gray winter morning. Thin beams streamed between the ice-coated trees, frost-covered hedges, and weathered statues.

It was all nice and picturesque, or it would’ve been if Ezda wasn’t moving so fast while Zarian rode on her back.

She was transformed into her more giant bestial form as she took them back south, which was an unnecessary mode of transportation for Zarian. He could move on his own feet fairly fast.

He couldn’t fly reliably well right now, but he could leap far and glide while Para was shifted into her winged form.

Or he could cast Void Authority to enhance his next Void Step, which would’ve taken him most of the way back to the village. That was something he should learn to abuse more often instead of thinking about it in hindsight.

Yet, there was a certain primal thrill he felt while riding on gnoll elder, a Level 91 Blood Brute. Especially when she was a hulking beast straight out of fantasy.

It was like riding the giant version of a hyena who could eat an entire tavern’s supply of food and some patrons as dessert.

Granted, that matched Zarian perfectly.

He and his cloak could do the same, or more so.

As the new winter day turned brighter, the snow-laden ground trembled under the rapid fall of Ezda’s heavy paws. Thick clouds of snow rose in her careless wake. Smaller and weaker beasts ran in terror or were trampled over by the massive gnoll.

South of the Blood Prairies, everything truly was prey compared to Ezda.

Zarian remained perfectly fine while he had locks of Ezda’s hair gripped tightly in his fists. His Parasite Cloak +2 served as his saddle while strapped onto Ezda’s back. Para had even formed a backrest for Zarian’s comfort while she flicked forth thin scythes to slash down branches in the way of his face.

Zarian enjoyed the ride without having to concern himself with any of the annoying parts. Hell, he even dug his heels into the gnoll elder’s back and let out a whoop. “Faster, Ezda, faster!”

Ezda laughed. She triggered a skill. Her blood glowed brightly under her fur. She buffed up, becoming even larger. Then she ran so fast she became a locomotive of destruction.

Zarian had to brace himself. A parasite-made harness reached across his chest and strapped him down, keeping him from getting bucked off.

Ezda’s footfalls impacted the earth and snow so hard she left behind wide craters. Small trees and natural landscaping fell over from the sheer force of her movements.

Para had to work even faster to slash apart and move aside branches before they hit Zarian’s face. Thankfully, there were plenty of fields or areas with tall trees along the journey. Para didn’t have to overwork herself and could enjoy the ride, too.

“Weee!” cheered the Parasite Cloak +2.

Eventually, Zarian requested for Ezda to slow down. The crimson glow of her blood faded from under her fur. She dropped to a more casual pace before they broke free of a tree line and reached a road between fortress communities of the former North Crown Peak.

They were getting closer to Zarian’s village now.

The other party members were still busy or coming back from their own adventures, so he didn’t need to rush any further. There were no more lesser aberrations in the area. Luciana hadn’t followed through with any more trouble, for now at least.

Alright, I think this is the perfect time to choose which spell I should advance.

The ride on Ezda’s back was distracting enough to keep him from over-analyzing the next decision. When playing the role of a wizard with a Fractured Mind, it was easy to go down several rabbit holes and get stuck in all of them.

Zarian had concluded that he shouldn’t wait to learn a new spell before he started advancing spells. At least not at Level 1 for the advanced grimoires.

He could start waiting when the advanced grimoires reached Level 10, since it took longer to reach Level 25, and who knew how long it would take to reach the next skill advancement after that.

There wasn’t any reliable information on that, but Zarian figured it would be Level 50. He could be wrong.

But after spending many years snapping the spines of cosmic systems and having some preview of their setup before his darkness consumed them, he would like to think that his hunch was right.

Granted, that depended on if the skill avoided a total reset to Level 1 because of an evolution. So far, he had a couple of skills working their way up to the Level 50 milestone right now, such as the Parasite Cloak +2 and Spectral Spider Network +2.

Maybe they might reset again from an evolution at Level 50. Or maybe they would keep going to reach Level 100 or whatever.

So, that was the skinny of what Zarian knew or could guess so far on skill advancements. With that out of the way, it was time to avoid overthinking this spell advancement decision.

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Which one would it be? Which one?

Would it be this one:

Or:

Or:

Alrighty, then!

Two epic spells. One legendary spell. The obvious choice would be to make the higher quality spell stronger with an advancement.

However, Zarian wasn’t so sure about that because Void Step was his most used spell from the voidling grimoire. There was also the hidden usefulness of Void Authority that could expand to being even more useful after an advancement.

Zarian assumed that advancing a spell would add a +1 to it instead of making it a higher quality. Or maybe it would become a higher quality.

He didn’t know, and none of the books at the Dancing Librarian Dungeon had that piece of knowledge. At least none that he’d read through outside of sealing techniques.

“Ezda, do you have any wizards among the elders?” Zarian asked.

“No,” the transformed gnoll elder growled. “Wizardry requires much study. We do not spend the time studying. There are some gnolls who are magically gifted, but they are few of them. It was always better to progress ourselves with what’s present, with what’s reachable with our own claws and teeth. Or … that was what the evil alignment had made us assume. I’m … not sure anymore.”

Zarian waited to see if Ezda would continue. She fell silent while padding forward. She was clearly deep in her thoughts and feelings now that she didn’t feel the constant pressure of the traditional evil alignment.

Zarian was prepared to help if Ezda had a breakdown, but she remained okay for now.

Returning his attention back to his spell advancement decision, Zarian felt more alone in his class than ever before. Wizards weren’t popular. And from what he knew, they were fairly weak in the Star System, or at least by this world’s standards.

Zarian imagined the studying aspect and necessity to use a grimoire as a medium was not a solid selling point compared to using a skill that could conjure and throw a fireball instantly.

Additionally, Zarian was an abnormal wizard, and that was regardless of him being an existential threat to multiple universes and dimensions teeming with life.

Most wizards shouldn’t be able to use more than one spell at a time, but Zarian could use three spells at the same time now.

More importantly, wizard spells weren’t usually direct damage dealers. Zarian would be out of luck if it wasn’t for his old straight darkness when he first started adventuring in the Infinita Star System.

Beyond that, wizards were normally slower and weaker, since they had to put more points toward the esoteric stats, Mysticism chief above them. They also fought from the back and would gain little in vitality when leveling up.

Their squishiness would usually get them killed outside of an academic setting.

I’m the most bullshit wizard across all the lands, Zarian thought. So I should advance a spell that I want to see more use out of.

Void Step. That was the answer. It might not be a decision others would make, but it felt right with Zarian.

Oh, fuck, it did raise in quality!

Shit!

He might’ve changed his approach if he’d known that. Or if he had waited and tried to contact some wizards somehow.

He’d heard that an empire made of minor kingdoms and tribes to the far west had very knowledgeable wizards. But they would rarely come through the village. There was some info about an evil human city to the northeast, between the Blood Prairies and the Grimrock Castle Mountains that might have some solid info, but Zarian didn’t pay it too much mind right now unless spies were involved.

Zarian’s village mostly had foreigners who were adventurers from the eastern kingdoms of the Walled Continent, the ones across the Stone Sea River on the other side of the Grimrock Castle Mountains. None of the eastern kingdom guys were very intellectual, at least not the ones that he’d seen so far.

Maybe if he’d waited long enough, he would’ve seen more people crossing through from the west. He had doubts about the usefulness of people from the south, especially with how things were developing in the Eternal Garden Kingdom with their three-way civil war.

“Maybe I should’ve been more patient,” Zarian said.

“I don’t know what troubles you, my alpha, but it is said that if you are alive to see another day, then all lessons are worth learning,” Ezda said.

“Mm, yeah. Well. I have another legendary spell now,” Zarian said.

“A legendary spell?! That’s amazing!”

“I could’ve had a new mythical spell, however.”

Ezda made choking sounds and nearly stumbled over her own feet. Then she regained her balance and took longer to respond. “My alpha, you are truly one of power beyond this mere universe, even while on the mortal plane. Though, I must ask this. Can you not have that mythical spell later?”

Zarian chuckled. “Yeah, I can. I just have to be more patient.”

Ezda bobbed her large hyena-like head. Para reached around with a tentacle and patted Zarian on his head as an extra comforting move.

The wizard slapped at the tentacle lightly, in a joking manner, which only encouraged Para to give him more head pats until he gave up and accepted the treatment. At the very least, he had a new version of an old spell.

Zarian squinted at the description of Void Waltz. Why did he have a lot of dancing quirks related to him?

Maybe it was a coincidence.

Thankfully, a lot of time spent in the Dancing Librarian Dungeon had led to Zarian picking up a few moves here and there. He should probably consider himself lucky that Void Waltz still included the basic step from the original epic version.

I’ll get to choose another spell to advance once the voidling grimoire reaches Level 10.

And he had new spells to study. He should get on that when he could have a quiet sit down, but until then, it was about time he did a complete scan of the area with his spectral spiders.

Ride-or-Die Village was an active place, after all. It was on the frontier between a kingdom in civil war and all the savage things that would come down from the north, not including the wolf dragons and wolf kobolds.