Zarian was thankful his room’s personal kitchen area was enormous. It had a long kitchen island that was perfect for laying out multiple meals or a few bodies in Para’s case.

The wizard and his cloak ate their ravenous fill. Empress Ruvaria provided more food until their hunger was sated. Then Zarian was back on his gravity spell study, but this time he included Para more.

She worked as his soundboard as he discussed some of his ideas aloud. She either debated with him or pointed out the parts he’d overlooked.

Despite being a parasitic article of clothing, she was hooked up well to his body where she could pull from his senses, his memories, and even his thoughts, which made it easier for her to predict when he was going too far down into the rabbit hole. Then she would pull him out and help him refocus.

Eventually, they included some spectral spiders for experimental purposes. They used their arcane webbing to play with gravity runes that were tiny pieces that made up the whole gravity spell.

There was no other spell that allowed him to try out pieces of itself before learning the complete spell. Only with the gravity spell could Zarian attempt mini trial runs, and he wouldn’t have known to do this if Para hadn’t suggested it.

Hours became days. Ruvaria remained in his room, watching his process. Para moved about with multiple arms and hands to jot down notes or flip through grimoire pages for Zarian while he was making notes on the living room screen.

Spectral spiders looked at the notes and tried to replicate certain runes for practice in their webbing. Most of the time, nothing major happened other than tiny fluctuations of gravity – they once sent a mug flying across the room.

Zarian kept encouraging them to go bigger.

When they did, the entire gravity of the room flipped.

Zarian felt his stomach roll and his heart pound hard as he tumbled toward the ceiling with a large sofa following him. He blinked once, felt an enormous burst of magic, and saw everything freeze in place.

Ruvaria canceled the gravity mishap and returned all of Zarian’s stuff to where they belonged. She even placed him down gently on the sofa, which was surprisingly kind of her.

“Be more careful or you’ll throw the entire tower into the sky,” Ruvaria scolded.

“Yes, ma’am,” Zarian replied, sitting heels together, left hand left knee, right hand right knee, just like a Boot Marine at boot camp.

“Also, you and Para missed certain parts of the temporal section and how gravity affects time. Also, recheck your notes on gravity and dimensions. Redo them if you must. You want to be sure of what limitations you set for yourself with gravity or you’ll attract more than you should beyond the Star System. You’ve already attracted too much attention.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Zarian and Para said together. The spectral spiders saluted.

Then Zarian asked, “You know more about the Star System and what goes beyond than someone in the Lesser World should.”

“I may be a coward, but I’m not dumb. Now go back to studying you foolish and apocalyptic fiend of a child.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Zarian said alone.

Later on, Zarian vaguely recalled Bianca bursting into the room and scooping up the empress. Bianca was complaining about how the empress was smelly, her hair was a horrible mess, and that the elf abuela shouldn’t stay so long in a man’s room without checking in with the girls.

Once Bianca had a hold of her, the empress seemed powerless. She looked to Zarian for help.

There was no help he could provide. Not against Bianca and girl stuff.

More days passed by. Nothing major required his attention on the Spectral Spider Network +2. He’d made some awesome progress on the gravity spell and solved issues that had stumped him prior to the trait upgrade.

Empress Ruvaria’s occasional help was a godly gift that kept on giving. Para and the spectral spiders were brilliant assistants, sometimes filling holes in Zarian’s unraveling studying process.

He was no longer bothered by failure and setbacks. He accepted each difficult moment as a worthy puzzle waiting for him to unravel unless Para figured it out first.

Then she would tease him a little. She gave him clues instead of outright saying it because he would learn better that way.

So many people were afraid to fail because it seemed like failure was life or death.

He’d thought the same when he was younger, which was an anxious mentality to have. Failure had meant he wouldn’t eat consistently. Or he wouldn’t be able to hold down a job. Or he would end up in jail, or worse, dead.

He was free from those mundane consequences now.

He had more universe-breaking consequences to overcome, but that was a problem for later. All that mattered was the gravity spell. That and when his people wanted his attention.

“Hello, my alpha. I’ve come to tell you that I must go to report to my tribe now.” Ezda shifted from foot to foot nervously as she looked about the messy room. It was as if she was ashamed to break into a sacred place, one that belonged to her alpha.

Zarian burst free from a small hill of notes Para had made with stencil and paper. His hair was wild and mangy. He’d skipped a few meals, so he was a little skinnier than he should be. And his room had seen little cleaning because the fluctuations of chaos would ruin most efforts to clean it up.

And Zarian felt more creative when it was messy.

Spectral spiders crawled everywhere as they conducted mini magic tests with gravity runes and arcane webbing. A few pieces of furniture were orbiting around the room or clumped together because of some of their practical experiments.

It was less a sacred place and more of the laboratory of a madman.

Now that I think about it, doesn’t me living in a tower as a wizard mean I have a Wizard’s Tower? Zarian wondered as he strolled through the mess.

Parasite limbs swept mountainous stacks of paper out of his way as he approached the humanoid gnoll.

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Ezda looked even better than the last time he saw her. She was wearing a dress now with sandals. And her fangs looked even whiter. Her locks were shorter, but now they had red ribbons woven into them.

She looked girlier than ever before, even while standing close to seven feet tall.

What happened to his brutal savage?

She looks happier. Zarian smiled. I guess if I think about it a little, I can infer why Ezda is here in the first place.

“I understand why,” Zarian said.

“You do?” Ezda asked.

“You’ve completed your mission by learning to integrate into human society. While other gnolls might be incapable of transforming like you, they don’t truly need to transform to hold back their urges.”

Zarian grasped his chin thoughtfully.

“It hasn’t been a long experiment, but it’s been long enough for you to see things from our perspective before reporting back to the other elders. From there, you and the other elders will implement ways for your tribe to adapt to the changing times. And you can better convince them to join the freedom alignment while serving under me as your alpha.”

Ezda gawked at him.

Zarian reached up and patted the side of her face. Then he pinched her cheek and shook it a little. Ezda buckled a little from the show of affection, leaving Zarian to carry the conversation.

“The biggest problem is dealing with your young in the prairie pits and bloodletting. I understand that gnolls breed fast, and without a means to control your own population, it can get out of hand. I’ve thought about that problem, and while I haven’t been there myself to see things, I can offer a suggestion.”

“I await whatever advice you have,” Ezda said eagerly, snapping out of her shock.

“Get a dungeon core and plant it nearby. Let the dungeon deal with your young. Those who survive will not only be better at dealing with dungeons, but they won’t be so intense when dealing with each other or other humanoids. You could also farm resources from the dungeon and make it a mutual relationship.”

This was a messed up thing to suggest. And he hadn’t visited the site to see things himself. But if everything about the gnolls having an outrageous population issue and needing to cull themselves was true, then there had to be a better option than throwing their young into pits for them to eradicate themselves.

They could eradicate themselves against dungeon monsters, feed the dungeon, and then let the rest of the tribe celebrate the survivors and farm resources from the dungeon.

Despite the gruesome suggestion, Ezda glowed with adoration from hearing his advice. “This is … brilliant! But it is difficult. To get a dungeon core from a dungeon would require great luck, would it not?”

“Or it would require another dungeon boss who is a glitch in the matrix, isn’t that right, Hannah?” Zarian asked.

A few seconds later, Hannah’s voice transmitted through the room’s enchanted intercom. “Yes, that would be correct.”

Zarian imagined Hannah had kept tabs on him consistently. He wouldn’t be surprised if she’d picked up a few new tricks based on his studies and live practices of gravity.

“It would be a little inconvenient, but if you’re fast enough, we can lend you our dungeon boss to help you get a dungeon core. I’m more inclined to let this happen since you’re taking a guest with you to the Blood Prairies and to your stronghold, I imagine,” Zarian said, looking past Ezda.

The human-shifted gnoll hadn’t come alone. Naomi was leaning against the wall near the entrance to Zarian’s room.

She wasn’t as unreadable to him as the last time he saw her. She still had a tranquil attitude, as if what happened weeks ago was an afterthought, but that was all a part of her poker face.

“I’m not getting much better staying around our little village here. I figured Ezda can show me around the Blood Prairies and I can help her improve her Willpower while being a training partner for their rising gnolls,” Naomi said. “If there’s a dungeon that you want me to conquer while escorting Reiki to grab a core, I can do that, too.”

Zarian nodded. “Sounds like a plan. The kiddos will be sad that Reiki’s cafe will be shut down for a while. But it’s for a quote-unquote good cause.”

“Are you sure you want to do this much for us?” Ezda asked.

“Yesterday’s enemies are today’s friends. But how do we stay friends? The best way I can think of is making long-lasting changes that are more helpful than letting things stay the same. That is what you call real progression.”

Ezda lunged in for a big hug, sweeping Zarian off his feet. His face was stuffed into her chest for long enough where he was a little concerned about how he would draw his next breath until she finally let go.

Then Ezda went a step further and nuzzled Zarian with her human face. He gave her some head pats and scratches behind her ears until she was satisfied.

Hannah called for Ezda to come down to the basement where the dungeon waited and the core waited. Once Ezda was gone, Zarian and Naomi mostly had the room to themselves as Para and the spectral spiders made themselves scarce.

“You smell,” Naomi said. “You need to take a shower.”

Zarian smirked. “We’ve breathed enough of each other’s funk to tell each other apart by smell. Now you’re complaining before heading out to the Blood Prairies. Don’t be so weak, Marine.”

Naomi snorted. She almost smiled.

Zarian looked Naomi up and down. “You look good.”

“I do what I can.”

“You do the best that you can. You hold nothing back.”

Naomi arched an eyebrow. “You’ve changed.”

“I’ve upgraded my Fractured Mind to Unraveled Mind. It’s given me some new perspective on things. I even have a better idea of what’s going on between us.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

“You dream of being stronger than me.”

For the first time in a while, Naomi’s poker face cracked. Zarian grinned as he watched Naomi try to hide the chink in her armor.

Zarian leveraged his advantage and went on the attack – verbally.

“We’ve joked about it before. Or maybe it was a subject that has come up in a non serious manner. But it was never non serious for you. Somehow, someway, you want to overcome me and my darkness. Which is why you reacted so strongly when I made my claim for you in front of Ekri the Tailor, because he was someone you wanted to step on as you climb up the ladder of power.”

“I don’t want to step on you, Zarian,” she said.

“Maybe you don’t. Or maybe you do.” Zarian crossed the distance between them. He looked down into her eyes. “Love and war are two sides of the same coin, some would say. For you, Naomi, they might as well be the same thing. Do you really think you can beat me?”

Naomi’s brown eyes locked onto his. She didn’t waver. She refused to look away.

She looked like the most stubborn mortal anyone could ever meet.

He liked that a lot about her, despite the futility of her dream.

“So you’ve made your choice,” Naomi said. “You’re going to be the big fisher.”

“There wasn’t much of a choice. I am what I am. But don’t pretend that this is all about me. You’re the one who wants to do the fishing, but what you’re trying to fish is unbeatable.” Zarian leaned down until his mouth was close to Naomi’s ear. “I’d like to see you try.”

He backed off after that. Naomi had little else to say. She left his room without even exchanging a goodbye.

“The mating practices of humans continue to confuse me,” Para said, using his upper arm to speak from.

“Think of it this way, Para. We’re just two unique humans with a unique approach to sharing our feelings. And that’s mostly through the promises of violence, like any good pair of Marines.”

“I am not sure about feelings like those. They seem less reliable. But in practical applications such as combat, I can think of several ways that Naomi could defeat you as you are now. But if this is a battle where she wishes to fight the entirety of you, including Overwhelming Darkness, then this is impossible. She will be crushed like a bug.”

Zarian chuckled. “I think the same.”

“But?”

“I really want to see her try.”

Zarian continued his studying, but at a more even pace. He remembered to feed himself and Para more while also taking showers and cleaning up.

Eventually, Early Spring arrived. And while Zarian still had more gravity studying to do, it was about time he went outside and got some exercise.

It was Gilbert’s birthday month.

It was festival time.

And the terrorists were going to make their move.