Zarian struck first with a powerful dark javelin. Dax lunged out of the way with inches to spare, his aura crackling and sparking around him while it was ablaze.

The javelin landed with enough force to toss aside tons of rubble and throw some of the surviving bandits into the air. The eruptive force didn’t bother Dax much at all.

“Deal with the peons. Dax is mine!” Zarian sprinted at an angle to the side. He left Gilbert and Loner on their own against over thirty bandits.

“Any man who runs, I’ll track down personally!” Dax shouted at his underlings. Then he sprinted off to the side, mirroring Zarian’s angle.

Before they collided, Zarian yelled, “How does Aura Ignition work? I can barely grasp it!”

Dax said nothing.

He lunged into the air and cocked both of his hands back. Then he swung them forward for a powerful, air-bursting thunder clap.

A condensed sound wave rolled over the rubble, the puddles of water, and nearest walls. The wave blasted them in Zarian’s direction. Some of the debris flew at deadly speeds.

This time, Zarian didn’t leave himself open to powerful attacks. He formed two pillars.

One for him to kick off and stop his momentum. The other to defend against the magic thunder clap.

The latter grew strong and dense quickly. Zarian made the big dense pillar as tough as he could in an instant.

To Dax’s chagrin, the pillar outlasted their surroundings. The thunder wave blasted off the pillar’s face but couldn’t overcome it completely. Everything else around Zarian was swept away with the wave.

Zarian didn’t stay hiding behind his cover for long, juking back before Dax crashed straight through the pillar. The rampaging bandit went ape shit from there. He lunged and lunged, clawing and grasping, barreling forward like a beast, trying all he could to catch and smash Zarian into the wet ground.

Dax’s aura continued to spark and crackle around him, infusing him with an enormous power that intensified the atmosphere, pressuring Zarian. Even Dax’s mad roars came packed with such force they shook up Zarian’s head and deafened him some.

Dax didn’t care about anything in his way. He didn’t care about the pillars, spikes, and staves Zarian conjured and threw at the angry man. Dax smashed through them all like an unstoppable train.

It was all glorious.

Zarian wanted to see more. He wanted to know the difference between Dax at his base power and Dax under Aura Ignition.

Did it affect the stats? Did it affect everything? What were the consequences of using it?

Because of Fractured Mind and his other abilities, Zarian could pile up as many questions as he wanted in his head while concentrating on the fight. He used Wondrous Speed and Para’s help to stay out of harm’s way for as long as he could manage it.

The Parasite Cloak lashed out with tentacles to yank him out of danger or send him into a rapid swerve out of direct danger. Dax fell inches away from snatching Zarian by a limb or the breastplate multiple times, sometimes getting as close as a hairbreadth.

“Stop laughing!” Dax roared in his face.

Zarian hadn’t known he was laughing. That ruined his focus a little. Dax drew even closer than before. The bandit’s fingers flicked across Zarian’s breastplate with some force.

That was just enough for Zarian to trip up. Para missed her next tentacle grab.

Dax smiled as he lunged at Zarian’s vulnerable form, the wizard skipping backward off the flooded floor like a skipping stone. Dax lost his smile when Zarian revealed his surprise.

The wizard hit the bandit with – not one, not two, but three – dark beams he’d charged up and held in wait this whole time.

Dax roared and roared, but he couldn’t do a damn thing as the wizard smashed him into the foundations of the warehouse they’d crashed into. Then the triple dark beam attack combined into one big and dense beam that dug a furrow across the floor and broke into the storm drains below.

Zarian lost his smile. “Wait, no, I don’t want to lose him just yet.”

He dove underground.

All the light was gone now except for what little could shine through the hole above. Zarian saw perfectly in the dark. Thus, he felt disappointed when he found Dax struggling to get back to his feet.

The man didn’t look good. He was all beat up now. His Aura Ignition was gone.

Did he run out of juice already? How come? Was this the consequence of Aura Ignition? Deep exhaustion?

What else was there?

Also, now that Zarian thought about it, the quality of Dax’s Aura Ignition didn’t seem as potent as the one Foodie showed him. Foodie’s version of Aura Ignition was better even while she had a lower level than Dax.

“How did you learn it?” Zarian asked. “Who taught it to you?”

Dax chuckled wetly. He spat blood to the side. “I’m not telling you.”

Zarian hit the man in the chest with a blunted dark bolt.

Dax stumbled backward, grunting. If it was any other man, they would’ve had their chest caved in. Dax’s Mystic Toughness skill was as solid as Zarian hoped.

It was hard to focus on that when there was something even juicer dangling in front of him.

“Tell me,” Zarian ordered.

“No,” Dax spat.

Blunted dark bolts rained down on Dax. They came from the front, the sides, the back. The ones Zarian formed close to him packed a bigger punch.

Dax stumbled in all directions, rocked by a consistent barrage of attacks. The ones from the front staggered him backwards the most.

Zarian stopped the attacks just when Dax crashed down to his knees. Rain water sluiced past them with a powerful tug. They were both soaked to the bone.

“You’re a real tough guy,” Zarian said.

“And you’re an asshole,” Dax replied.

“That’s rich coming from you.”

“Let me guess. You don’t approve of how we make business here. But guess what? That’s just how it is. Good? Evil? It’s all a sham! Two sides of the same coin! And that coin purchases the flesh, labor, and suffering of all men! So what if I benefit?! If it ain’t me, it’s gonna be somebody else!”

Dax leered up at Zarian. “It’ll be you next, won’t it? I don’t have to be good or evil to tell you’re deep in the black with the evil side. You get those crazy thoughts in your head, right? Whispering to you on how to do things for the best results. I could’ve been like you, but I stayed neutral. I didn’t want to be evil’s fuck toy.”

The neutral alignment couldn’t directly feel good or evil unless it was overt. Zarian had kept his evil alignment mostly covert.

But now that Dax had pointed it out, Zarian let the evil alignment unfurl from out of him.

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The bandit leader shook. His eyes widened as the evil alignment suffocated the storm drain passage they were in. The darkness became viler, colder, more malicious.

The glint of light behind Zarian faded out. All that remained was the roaring water and the creeping monster of darkness and evil that had Dax kneeling.

“Go on. Do your worst,” Dax taunted, trembling fists clenched.

Zarian cast a small Quagmire Pit under one of Dax’s legs. Right after that, he called up the Dread Mire Bite.

Since the quagmire was small, the snapping jaws didn’t do as much damage. But they were still ferocious enough to tear into Dax’s leg and have the man howling in pain.

With Dax distracted, Zarian slipped his aura into Dax’s aura. He worked faster than ever before. With more care, too. He didn’t want to give Dax any warning that he was messing around inside of his aura.

Someone who had Aura Ignition would be in tune with their aura. What if Dax had a way to block out Zarian’s manipulation?

Since the bandit leader was focused on his bitten leg, he wouldn’t notice anything amiss if Zarian made any mistakes. That was a good thing, because this skill was more complex than the last ones. It was a much higher quality of a skill, which would produce a more powerful Level 0 copy.

Zarian worked as fast and efficiently as he could. He still made mistakes. He still had to repeat the process. But he kept going until he finally got the last part to seal Operation Skill Steal.

Zarian looped a string of aura into the Level 0 skill. He froze as a wave of Mysticism encompassed his flesh. He felt sturdier, much sturdier.

The parasitic threads inside of him quivered with thrill. Para waved the cloak behind him, rejoicing in his change. She could feel every bit, after all.

It wasn’t Aura Ignition. But it was almost the next best thing.

Willful Strength. Wondrous Speed. Mystic Toughness.

With these three copied skills, Zarian felt like the most bullshit wizard anyone could ever face. Once he copied them over to the others, his party could perform above and beyond, even against the most grave of future challenges.

There were more notifications waiting for Zarian. Gilbert and Loner were doing well to mop up the remaining bandits.

Zarian was glad he’d dropped an entire building on them first, making them softer for his companions to steamroll over. Gilbert should grow decently from this.

“I think I’m done here,” Zarian said. “I’ll learn Aura Ignition without you. You’ve shown me a lot that I’ll need to contemplate later.”

“Alright, kill me then.” Dax lifted his chin.

“Thanks for the good fight. That was fun.” Zarian reformed his dense sword of darkness.

He lit the blade with Black Fire and Bloody Lifesteal. A red glow pulsated from around the sword, infused with black and gray flames.

Zarian prepared to swing.

Dax exploded forward with a single-leg lunge. His hand reached for Zarian’s neck.

Bars of darkness slammed down between them, stopping Dax short. His fingers clawed inches away from touching Zarian, the bandit leader roaring the whole time.

“My boss will kill you!” Dax roared.

“Not unless I kill him first.”

The bars squeezed in on Dax, trapping his arm and neck. He tried to pull away as Zarian moved to the side and held up the nodachi.

Then, with one smooth and powerful cut using his enhanced physicality and the mysticism of darkness, Zarian executed the bandit leader.

When Zarian returned to the surface, he found Gilbert and Loner sitting among the ruins of another smashed and blasted apart building. There were dead bandits strewn all around them. Gilbert looked beat up. He was out of aura.

His gear had lost all of its enchantments after being overstressed. The breastplate was gone, and the rest of his clothing was reduced to mere scraps. His war club was gone, tossed aside after getting snapped into splinters.

Zarian looked around with his own eyes and the eyes of his Spectral Spider Network. He nodded in satisfaction.

The Bramblevale Bandits weren’t wholly destroyed. However, their main headquarters was here in Central Bramblevale. They were wrecked as power players.

That would probably send ripples throughout the Bramblevale township region and affect the bottom line of the mysterious bosses. They would know Zarian had done it. They would know of the black wizard called Darkrun.

Good.

“I got all three.” He smiled.

“I’m Level 33 now.” Gilbert shook his head. “Damn. I didn’t know I could fight like that. I have to give Naomi credit, her Tranquil Mind skill really helped take a bit of the edge off.”

“Even as a Level 0 skill?”

“It ain’t much. But I made the most out of it. Sometimes that little bit can help, y’know? It made me mindful of the Willpower stat, at least.”

“Good, because the latest Level 0 skills are split between all the stats. You’ll like them. They’ll make you even tankier and stronger. Faster, too. Naomi’s going to become a beast with these. So will Bianca.”

“Hannah?”

“I think she’ll be able to punch a man’s skull apart easier.”

Gilbert roared with laughter. “Is that the bar now? Punch a man’s skull like busting a pinata?”

Zarian gave him a cheeky grin, letting the glow of a nearby magic light shine on his face. Some of his evil alignment oozed out.

“Yeah, that’s the bar. Even Hannah should be able to get her hands dirty if she wants.”

Gilbert lost his smile. He shook his head. “Chief, your evilness is showing.”

“Oh, come on! Let me enjoy this!”

“Chief! Pull back on the evil. God almighty.”

“Boo. No fun.” Zarian frowned, before grinning again. “I’ll get Hannah to enchant us some fishing rods–”

“Lord, I’m sorry, but this one cannot be saved. I suppose it’s a testament of my patience to witness his evil with my own eyes and ears, unable to do a damn thing about it. I’ll pray over it … as we’re fishing and boozing.”

Zarian shook his head at the man of faith. It was so easy to twist them around. It was damn fortunate he had a decent handle on the evil alignment.

If it could stay at evil +2, then he could incorporate it better for the long run. Then again, the gods had shown they could be meddlesome.

A new notification popped up overhead:

Zarian nodded as he received another notification.

Gilbert was now Level 34.

Loner was Level 31 now.

“Skills?” Zarian asked.

“All advanced to +1, chief.” Gilbert smiled.

“Good man.”

“How about you?”

Zarian held up two fingers. “I’m this much away from the first class advancement. However, I will not choose it until all of you catch up. So … don’t keep me waiting for long.”

“Roger that!”

He could also use the opportunity to raise his skills and get the gravity spell. That might lead to more rewards with his advancement.

“Let’s get going. We’re out of time.” Zarian willed for parasite tentacles to wrap around Gilbert and Loner.

“Uh, can we walk?”

“I’m watching the soldiers close in around us through the Spectral Spider Network. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve burned through enough aura where I’d like to sit down and recover.”

“Go on and take the wheel!”

Zarian shot into the air with his companions. Gilbert tried not to scream. Loner remained silent the whole way. Zarian spiraled through the air with them, barely able to control himself without proper aerodynamics.

It was still a lot of fun as he zipped by stone towers and over rooftops with parapets. He soared over streets that were active with people of affluence and above alleyways where the destitute huddled together for warmth

He sent a message ahead using a spectral spider he left in the mansion. Bianca created a distraction by casting a bright searing flash in the opposite direction of where Zarian, Gilbert, and Loner flew.

The soldiers responded hard in the direction of the distraction. Before anyone noticed, two Floridians and a skeleton slipped back into the barrier.

Zarian copied all three new skills over to the rest of his party members. He watched them move about like true superhumans. Some more than others based on which skills matched up well with their stats.

They were going to need a lot of practice to use their skills in concert or to switch between them on different occasions. But from what Zarian could tell, they were physically more capable than ever.

They even tested Hannah when Zarian dumped a random corpse and raised it as a skeleton dummy with a Reinforcement enchantment. She punched through the skull with no effort and sent its head flying in ivory pieces across the polished lobby floor.

The acolytes serving as an audience clapped in applause. Their eyes glimmered with amazement at Hannah and the others.

Their approval was nice, but it wasn’t the cherry on top. Zarian could let his physical stats fall behind for a long while now. He didn’t have to worry about those as much anymore.

For the next dozen, two dozen, maybe three dozen levels, he planned to put 2 Free points in Wonder and 3 Free points in Mysticism per a level. Because of his class as the Black Wizard Apprentice, he automatically gained +2 Willpower and +3 Mysticism per a level.

In summary, he was looking at +2 Willpower, +2 Wonder, and +6 Mysticism per level from now on. Of course, this didn’t account for any new points he’d gained upon his first class advancement.

Maybe when he reached Level 60 he would reassess from there.

His mentality, fortune, and magical potential were going to skyrocket. Most of his abilities scaled well or partially with those main three stats.

The only nonoptimal part of his profile was how Adrenaline Jolt scaled with Agility only. Zarian figured he would fix that later or keep pushing aura manipulation to make it work for him.