Disclaimer: I do not own Overlord. That belongs to Kugane Maruyama, and all illustrations are made by So-Bin.
They teleported directly to the stadium floor, all of them arriving within the arena where they had left from earlier, with no stragglers appearing outside.
Punitto Moe, always one for thorough and rigorous testing when it came to trialing new game mechanics, attempted to organise the players into following a methodical testing process.
"For data testing purposes, we should trial our abilities and spells one by one, while the rest observe the outcome. For instance- "
"Hmmm yeah, fuck that." Ulbert leapt high into the artificial sky under the raw strength of his own physical power, an admirable feat for a min maxed magic caster, and spread his limbs wide like a four-pointed cross in the air. "I could barely contain myself outside! But I guess I could start off small!
"Napalm!"
An incredible torrent of fire burst into existence upon Ulbert's command, appearing more like a geyser of plasma than the pillar of flames the seventh-tier spell was meant to resemble, the spell being enhanced by the demon's powerful magic classes, limit broken magic damage stat, and bolstered by his World Disaster passive.
The radiating heat was enough for the arena sands near the violent inferno to rapidly melt into slag and glass, while the air itself was drawn into the ascending column to be consumed, forming a vacuum that only drew more sand and debris into the vortex of fire.
Momonga backpedaled rapidly when he felt the scorching heat appear so near to him, his high tier magic immunity overwhelmed by the strength of Ulbert's casting. The demon's World Disaster class naturally elevated his magic to stages beyond their normal parameters, surpassing Momonga's magic immunity to weigh heavily on his fire resistance from his divine class caster's robe.
'If this is what Ulbert considers starting small, then I want nothing to do with what he tries next.'
"Watch it!" Punitto also stumbled away from the powerful magic, the death vine's nature alignment having as much of a weakness to fire as Momonga as an undead.
High above the arena, Ulbert reached out with a clawed hand and made a snatching motion, dousing the flames abruptly, emulating tearing the fire out of reality with a clenched fist.
"My bad!" The unrepentant demon apologised with a grin, lowering himself from the overripe sky. "It's a little different now that we're alive, you know."
"Oi!"
Everyone looked at the bubbling pink slime that boiled furiously beside them.
"Look at what you did to the floor!"
Momonga glanced towards the section of floor close by and dropped his skeletal jaw wide upon seeing the destruction wrought by the spell.
A pool of molten rock and glass boiled away below the level of the ground, collapsing inwards as the liquefied flooring lost its cohesion. The radiant heat had spread beyond the radius of the original spell horizon, and cracks split their way through the stone floor beneath the sands, an orange glow rising from within them as streams of magma flowed into them.
The overall size of the affected area was perhaps thirty meters across, although the column of fire was perhaps half its size at most. The epicenter hadn't been melted; it had vaporised. A feat worthy of note considering most of the spell's power was in the rising flame column above. The damage to the floor was a secondary effect from the heat of the blast.
"Oh." Ulbert grinned sheepishly behind his mask. "In my defence, I had no idea that would happen."
"This is a lot different from the game." Said Tabula, analysing the destroyed floor of the coliseum. "The game floor would have been scorched black, but this is much more realistic."
"No kidding. Do you think this will repair itself over time, or can we repair it though the Source Menu?" Amanomahitotsu spoke to Momonga, but the blacksmith's attention was on the pool of lava before them.
Momonga's mind had blanked out at the destruction wrought upon his precious guild, but rebooted after being reminded of the auto-repair feature inherent to all guild bases. Given enough time, the floor should repair itself, but that was a feature of the game. Reality might not be so forgiving.
Momonga heaved in a deep breath, regardless of not having any organs, and sighed heavily to release the tension after witnessing the wanton destruction to their home.
"Okay. New rule. No destructive magic inside Nazarick." Momonga ordered his friends. "No Grand Catastrophe. No World Breaking. No Meteorfall, or Dimensional Slash, or Nuclear Strike, or anything.
"If you think it might explode, or obliterate, or incinerate, or immolate, or destroy, don't do it. I don't care if it squishes, no high-level attacks inside until we learn how to control ourselves." Momonga glowered at his friends. "We will familiarise ourselves with our own strength, before we destroy something we can't fix, but we must do it in a way where we still have an existing guild base afterwards.
"Oh, and Ulbert, if this floor doesn't repair itself automatically, or the guilds repair menu doesn't work, you'll be fixing that yourself." Momonga glared at his friend in reprimand.
"Yeah. Yeah, that's on me." Ulbert bowed deeply in acceptance.
"Or," Tabula interrupted the two. "We could try something else. We do have options, now. Time Reverse."
The illithid raised a clawed hand, the mottled greys and greens of his lovecraftian form vibrated and roiled beneath his flesh, as the murky grey of his eyes cleared to reveal an otherworldly reddish-black void that drained all light.
The players themselves were unaffected, as they all had passives or items that prevented them from being manipulated by time magic, so they were free to observe the awesome spectacle of the previous events reverse themselves into oblivion.
The cracked and molten floor pulled itself back together, followed by the plasma-like pillar of flames reappearing into being, only to implode upon itself as it drained the radiant energy whence it came.
The reversal of time might have taken a little over a minute to undo the entire event, a record amount of time to be reversed, so it was no surprise that the caster nearly keeled over from exhaustion once the destruction was undone. Time magic was super finicky, especially in a live MMORPG that catered to hundreds of millions of clients per day. The amount of mana it cost to turn back five seconds was steep, so sixty seconds was atrocious.
"Shit." Tabula gasped, hands on his hips as he was heavily drained of energy. "So this… is what… mana… depletion… feels like."
"But impressive, nonetheless." Yamaiko placed a hand on the occultist's shoulder, transferring mana to her friend to alleviate his exhaustion.
"Thank you."
"No worries."
Momonga, however, was flooded by a tidal wave of thoughts and theories that would have turned his human brain to mush, and some others had also caught onto the implications of possessing time magic in reality.
"Time magic." Blue Planet gawped wildly, eyes burning like micro stars. "That was your solution? Fucking with time?!"
"In retrospect, it may not have been my best idea." Tabula tried to downplay his actions, but the grand elemental was having none of it.
"You could have blown us off the face of the fucking earth! No! You could have turned the whole planet into a skid mark on the ass of the fucking universe! Do you even know how space-time works, you fucking lunatic!?" Blue Planet reamed the culprit, the spirit almost frothing at the mouth.
'Perhaps we have different trains of thought, after all? Is it just me that thinks that having time magic is broken?' Momonga thought privately to himself.
"Peace, Blue Planet!" Yamaiko intervened, calming the angry spirit with an application of magic to dispel status abnormalities. With a soft glow, the enraged elemental deflated, as all of his anger drained from his body.
"I deserved that." Tabula took responsibility for his actions, although Momonga wasn't sure what he had done that warranted Blue Planet's vitriol.
"That and more!" Blue Planet growled.
"I don't get it." Peroroncino aided in the intervention. "What's so bad about time reversal? Fixed the floor, didn't it?"
"No, he was right to act that way." Tabula replied in defence of Blue Planet's heated response. "I didn't even think. I really could have destroyed us right now, and just after Momonga told us not to use dangerous magic, too. Blue Planet was right. Playing with time could have destroyed the entire world."
Not wanting to admit his own ignorance on the matter, Momonga opted to keep silent while the others explained why messing around with time was a bad idea. He just thought it was a cool yet completely broken game mechanic that they could exploit in the real world.
"In the game—and there it is, again!" Tabula commented to himself. "In Yggdrasil, time magic was something that could be used to manipulate time, and while there were a bunch of rules and conditions that went into it, you could effectively do anything with it, so long as you know the spells."
"So, where does the problem come in?" Asked Nishikienrai.
"The problem is that this is reality, not a game!" Blue Planet yelled, regaining some of his previous ire. "We have no idea how space time works, since, you know, no one has actually manipulated time before!
"At best, it all works out fine and dandy, apparently. Nothing happened. But worst-case scenario is we send the whole damned planet off on some other tangent of annihilation."
"That could still be happening as we speak. Eventually, maybe." Tabula supplied unhelpfully, in which he received a withering glare in response.
"Maybe you could reword it in a way for us less intellectually inclined? Thanks." Ulbert complained.
"Sure." Blue Planet complied, still surly. "See, the game kept a live, current backup of all gameplay, in real time, of around an hour. Using time magic, you could rewind everything and everyone back in time, provided there wasn't anything interfering, like immunity, fixed events, or World Items.
"The system took that record, along with everyone's unique player bubble, and crunched it into an algorithm that allowed for the simulation of realistic time warping game mechanics, within the parameters outlined by the system." Blue Planet posited. "Basically, time magic was a thing possible for high end players to get their hands on.
"Because of the immense difficulty in programming time manipulation to include every player, and the immeasurable amount of data that needed to be logged and calculated, it was simpler for the devs to make time magic immunity an easy to achieve requirement for level one hundred gameplay, while making it near impossible to gain the actual time manipulating abilities."
"I still don't see how this could have destroyed us." Said Peroroncino.
"I'm getting there, alright!" Blue Planet barked.
"Hey, hey, hey! Easy, I'm sorry! Okay?" The bird man apologised. "I'm only curious, is all. Just wondering where all this exposition was going."
The fey elemental huffed, accepting the apology regardless of his friend's insincerity.
"In the game, time manipulation is possible." Blue Planet continued. "It's a thing that exists, because it was a digital world where anything is possible with a bit of programming knowledge.
"Reality, on the other hand, has rules. It has laws. Physics. Something that should normally stand in contravention of the frivolity of magic. Although that doesn't seem to be the case here in this world, fucking with time has some unbelievably dangerous consequences, if you don't know how it'll affect your local space-time." Blue Planet glared heavily at the illithid, who had fully recovered from his previous incapacitation.
"Something I overlooked." Tabula acknowledged. "Unless this world is a flat earth that exists in a fixed position in the centre of the universe, then it should be reasonable to assume we are, in fact, on a celestial body whirling its way through space.
"Regarding the latter, that would mean we are on a globe rotating hundreds of metres per second, while orbiting a star at tens of thousands of kilometres per hour. The local solar system would be moving through space at nearly a million kilometres per hour, around the singularity at the centre of this galaxy, while the galaxy itself is also likely travelling at millions of kilometres per hour. Relativistically speaking, we could be moving through space at maybe ten million kilometres per hour, one percent the speed of light, and we wouldn't even know!
"This is an important concept to understand, because messing with time, without understanding how we interact with our local space-time, could obliterate us." Tabula said gravely, explaining the severity of his mistake. "I could have accidentally reversed time in a small area around me, in which case only that small area gets sent… oh, I don't know, maybe a hundred and fifty thousand kilometers back in time."
A muted cosmic horror dawned deep within Momonga's mind. Piecing together the relevant information, he was beginning to understand the picture that was being painted for them.
"You mean we could have been flung into outer space or something?!"
"That, or possibly it could have ripped the planet out of orbit from the local system, which would freeze the planet solid, and send us hurling along a vector that could've seen us out of this galaxy, or careening into another celestial body like a star, or a black hole." Blue Planet shrugged. "Who knows? Depends on how the magic works."
"So… how does the magic work?" Amanomahitotsu asked quietly.
"If it's like everything else, then probably how it was described in the game lore. I don't quite remember." Punitto scratched the bark of his forehead with the knots on his limbs. "Something about the world, or realm? The devs were pretty loose when using terms like 'world', 'realm', and 'dimension'. They were mostly interchangeable, if I remember correctly."
Meanwhile, Peroroncino was still staring between Tabula and Blue Planet, bereft of words.
"How do you know all this shit?" He asked, completely bewildered. "Why?"
"I don't know. I sometimes amaze myself with the amount of random or useless information I pick up." Blue Planet grinned helplessly. "Took me years to learn proper life skills and stuff. But random bits and bobs? Perfect memory."
Momonga pushed the feelings of existential dread brought up by the incident behind him and made to reaffirm his decree, caution taking precedence over his excitement. They would no longer be spamming magic mindlessly without regard to the consequences inherent in such thoughtless carelessness.
"Be careful." Momonga reiterated. "I think we should hold off on the more powerful magic abilities until we are more familiar with our power."
"Very well." Said Touch Me, nodding in agreement. "I can only imagine how we might accidentally destroy ourselves. "Could you imagine how my skill World Break works in reality?"
"Don't use that ability. Ever." Punitto demanded. "No dimensional slashes, either. And Ulbert, you're banned from casting magic over the seventh tier. That shit you pulled with a seventh-tier spell was dangerous. Until we learn more about how our magic works, you're on probation, Mister World Disaster."
"Aw, and I so did want to try maximising Nuclear Blast and setting it off inside our guild." Ulbert muttered sarcastically, before he grinned sadistically. "Don't worry, I get it. I'm dangerous."
Tabula scoffed.
"On that note, I agree with what Momonga said. Nothing too powerful. Start as small as you can and work your way up to where you think it might start getting out of hand." The brain eater supported the decision to restrain themselves. "That means no summons either. At least no high-level ones, or anything that may think for itself."
Momonga also agreed on the condition. Summoning something that could think for itself was a bad idea, not if they had no idea if it would be obedient.
"If there's nothing else, spread out and start practicing. The sooner we familiarise ourselves with our powers, the safer and more prepared we will be."
The players had only begun to split up when a vast array of light erupted from beneath their feet. Massive arcane sigils and indecipherable glyphs arced high into the sky from the arena floor, as countless rings containing unknown instructions in the secret arts that none of them could comprehend. The blazing energy that formed these markings whipped up a stiff gale that blew through the arena, and a muted hum of power filled acoustic coliseum shell.
In the centre of the rotating amalgamation of mystical jargon and laser-like array of magic was Yamaiko, who stood tall with her hand raised high above her. Upon her finger a brilliant star burned with the power of a hundred suns, the Shooting Star gleaming so brightly as to turn the artificial night of the Sixth Floor into day.
"Oh, come on!" Punitto yelled over the ringing hum of the channeling Super Tier spell. "Yamaiko!"
"It's like Ulbert said! I guess I can't hold myself back!" Yamaiko yelled in return. Her face was stretched into a beatific smile, although with her new appearance it would have given their human selves nightmares for the rest of their mortal lives. "I need to do this!"
The players deduced that she was once again going all in, one of her most grievous failings in personality, as she cast the Super Tier spell Wish Upon a Star. It wasn't hard for them to imagine exactly what it was she was wishing for, as her earlier excitement had already given them a solid idea.
"Wish magic! This feeling is indescribable! I can barely contain it!" Yamaiko yelled over the thrum of the deep magic.
The players could only stand back and hope, as they had no desire to interrupt her heartfelt wish, her desire, that she would risk her life to cast the yet untested, dangerous Super Tier spells. On the other hand, they were reluctant to stop her, as she was both too far gone in the channeling of the spell, and would only run away to try again somewhere else. They knew her too well to bother trying.
Momonga himself hoped that her wish would come true, as it would be a clear and simple avenue to summon the rest of their friends and family to this new world, and it would be well worth the expenditure of the divine class ring's magic. He himself also possessed the ultra-rare gacha item Shooting Star, having spent his entire end-of-year bonus on rolling for it some two years ago, which he remembered being jealous of Yamaiko who got it on her first try.
None of them moved from where they stood, riveted in place by the sheer ephemeral beauty of the Super Tier magic, and the force of emotion behind its casting. Yamaiko brought the Shooting Star to her mouth and soundlessly whispered her heart's wish, which went unheard by her fellow players in Ainz Ooal Gown, who stood in support of their friend.
The spell reached its peak in that moment, as the dome composed of magic circles expanded to encompass the entire arena floor, and the hum became a roaring crescendo. A vast unseen pressure rushed away from Yamaiko, as if a tremendous force was reaching out from the epicenter far into the cosmos beyond, yet it disturbed nothing in its passage outwards.
Yet the glorious display of light and magic came crashing down, and the arcane construct shattered into a million pieces, as did the hopes of everyone present. Jagged fragments of light rained onto the arena floor, vanishing into nothingness as the spell tore itself apart, unable to pierce the hidden veil that prevented the spell from being consummated.
"Damn it!" Yamaiko yelled in the newly restored silence.
She fell to her knees and began pummeling the ground, each strike excavating a fist-sized hole that sent tremors through the floor and clouds of dust to billowing away from her in the impromptu frustration management.
"Are you okay, Yamaiko?" Bukubukuchaguma oozed across the sands to place an appendage on the Nephilim's shoulders.
"Yeah. I'm alright." Yamaiko shrugged, climbing to her feet and dusting herself off of any debris. "I guess it's not going to be that simple."
"Huh? You're fine?" The slime backed off for, not wanting to have dirt absorbed through her.
"Yeah, I'm good." The Nephilim stretched her back and swung her arms about to shake off her former anger, smiling. "You think I'd let that failure get me down? It's not fun if it's not a challenge."
"Well, okay then." Bukubukuchaguma gave her friend a brief hug, before oozing back to let the fuming mad Punitto get to her.
"Yamaiko." The Death Vine slithered over.
"Save it, Punitto." Yamaiko cut him off before he could work himself into a frenzy. "I've been thinking about it all night, and there weren't any obvious dangers to it. I just needed to try it. Besides, you wouldn't be this mad if the others hadn't been pissing you off all night first. I took a risk, and I was the only one at risk."
"Yes, thankfully, you were the only one at risk." Punitto reached out and gently bopped her on the head. "If I'm angry, it's because I care, you know that, right?"
"You're not mad?"
"Oh, blindingly so. I'm telling you this so you know exactly how much you deserve this punishment, and the depth of how I really feel."
From the void of his inventory, Punitto withdrew a massive replica of a twentieth century wooden baseball bat. The other players were well acquainted with this divine class weapon, having seen it in action many times over the previous years.
One material known to have been used in its construction was a branch of the Yggdrasil, one of the rarest materials in-game. However, poor luck with the random number generator during its harvest had given it the worst possible stats, and for an end game item its material value was of the lowest quality possible for its grade.
Not wanting to throw it out, Punitto had fashioned it into a weapon that had somehow bypassed one of the core mechanics in the game; nil friendly fire. Normally, allies could not damage each other, whether they were from a guild, a clan, or a temporary party. However, this item was made to utilise exploits as a workaround to that pesky system.
The weapon class itself fell under Magical Warhammer, capable of being wielded by both melee and caster class players, while the data crystals embedded into it were comprised of healing and support class enchantments. Two data crystals had been unlike the others, however, one of which cancelled out its ability to deal damage, and another had been to give it tremendous amounts of the knockback effect.
This combination meant that it no longer registered as a damage dealing weapon, and instead behaved only as a support item, something that worked on allies.
Embossed into the rich wood of the striking face of the bat was the name it had been given when the crafting process was complete.
Bonk.
A support item that could inflict knockback onto allies. It was truly a one-of-a-kind item.
"Punitto, this is reality now. Let's not get too crazy." Yamaiko scrambled away from the pursuing Death Vine.
"Don't worry, this'll beat the stupid out of you, I know it. It has all the standard fixer uppers. This will cleanse you of insanity, madness, blindness, deafness, and whatever else is afflicting your brain!" Punitto gave chase to the fleeing Nephilim. "Come back here! Let me heal you!"
Punitto used a gap closing ability, blinking next to Yamaiko while swinging the bat in an underhanded arc to smack her in the back, launching her into the air and screaming high over the arena walls.
"That's still busted, even in reality." Peroroncino griped, as one who had been on the receiving end more often than the others.
"It doesn't deal damage, so damage calculations aren't done. No damage calculation means no resistance check, and that means a complete bypass of knockback resistance." Nishikienrai commentated. "Although, I guess it's moot now, if friendly fire is off."
"On. Friendly fire is on. If we can hurt each other that means friendly fire is on."
"You know what I meant!"
"Still funny, though." Ulbert laughed, pointing above the coliseum walls where a disheveled Yamaiko was flying back in.
"What's funny?" Punitto walked over to them.
"That Bonk still sends people- "
Ulbert was launched out of the arena from a direct strike to the face.
"Yeah. That is funny." Punitto twirled the bat in his hands and taking a few practice swings.
"Careful!" Momonga leapt back, not wanting to experience being batted away like the others.
"Not to worry, Momonga. I have it all under control." The Death Vine replied, though his gave was locked onto Tabula.
"Oh, get it over with, then." Tabula approached the still fuming Druid plant heteromorph. "You won't be happy until you do."
"Gladly." Said Punitto, swing the bat down on top of the Brain Eater's head.
A large plume of dust kicked up as the player was cratered into the arena floor in an explosion of force.
"Would it make you feel better if I said ow, too?" Tabula climbed out of the small hole in the floor, wiping his body down even if there was no dust stuck in his film covered skin.
"No, but it might if you told me how that felt."
"Didn't hurt at all, not even when I was pancaked. Not sure if that was because of my high resistance, or because of the one second damage immunity it gives."
Momonga was once again impressed by the pair's ability to seamlessly connect their thoughts, turning Tabula's punishment into another trial of their new bodies, abilities, and items.
"That was fun." Ulbert teleported next to them, returning from wherever he had landed.
"It kind of was." Yamaiko landed amongst them.
"Hey, just to be sure. What was your wish, exactly?" Amanomahitotsu interjected, wanting to clear up the previous events.
"I wished for my sister to be summoned into the arena exactly where we are, as her player avatar from Yggdrasil. Too bad that was a failure though, the ring is meant to cover the experience cost of the ring, so if it failed, I guess we'll have to try something else."
"That wasn't a total failure, per se." Said Momonga, having formed a conclusion from his own observations. "Wish failure is characteristically marked by the Super Tier spell turning red, if the experience cost isn't met, but the ring Shooting Star covers the required cost, fulling any and every wish.
"Wish rejection, however, is marked by the spell exploding, as this one did."
"Wish rejection? Yes, you're right." Ulbert wondered, pinching his goatee in thought. "That wish didn't fail, it was rejected. Denied."
"By what, though?" Asked Peroroncino.
"It could only be a World Item." Momonga suggested, stunning the group into silence. "That is the only power that trumps Super Tier magic. That, or something from this world that stands on that level."
The players considered the ramifications of their being World Items in play, or powers on that level in this reality.
"It doesn't have to be World Items, though, or a world level power." Said Blue Planet. "Punitto mentioned it before. The devs were pretty fluid on defining terms in the lore like 'world', 'dimension', 'realm', or 'plane' and things like that.
"But Super Tier magic doesn't have global range. Sure, some of them had some pretty insane ranges, but none of them covered an entire world. You couldn't cast Super Tier attack magic from one side of Helheim to hit enemies on the other side of the world, neither could it be used to attack other worlds like Midgard."
"You're saying that the wish was rejected because it couldn't penetrate between worlds." Punitto summarised. "Plausible, if not definitive, but we have no way to confirm it."
"Regardless, it didn't work, but it is an important distinction to make." Said Momonga, glad that someone else could put his vague hypothesis into better words. "Good work, everyone."
"So do we have a World Item that would help us, er… breach into another world?" Nishikienrai asked, looking to the Guild Master and the only player keeping the guild alive.
"No." Momonga shook his head. "That would require the likes of Ouroboros."
"Wow. Could you imagine that level of power, though?" Ulbert whistled. "We have magic now, so we can do magicky things, but to rewrite all of reality to your will, to change the laws of the universe permanently? Oh, what a wonder that would be."
"That sounds terrifying." Bukubukuchaguma shuddered, sending ripples through her body. "I can only imagine this weirdo turning reality into some kind of lewd porn physics reality." She pointed at her brother.
"You imagine me doing lewd things to every living thing throughout the universe, huh? That's weird, sis." Peroroncino snickered, darting out of her reach as she swung at him.
"Fuck off."
The players descended once more into bantering and bickering, debating and speculating about what they could achieve the ultimate power of Ouroboros in their hands.
"Back to the grind again, shall we?" Touch Me cut through the chatter.
"Yeah. Sure." Nishikienrai placed his hands behind his head and walked away from the group, numerous shadows and other skills coming into play as he vanished from their sights.
The group splintered apart, leaving Momonga to his thoughts. He stood by while his friends drifted off in pairs or by themselves, all finding their own space in the vast arena, but was surprised that Touch Me remained behind with him.
"I thought you'd want space to practice your physical skills, Touch." Said Momonga.
"Maybe later." Said Touch Me. "Practicing my abilities seems redundant to me. Doesn't it seem like that to you, too? You used magic instinctively outside. It's much the same for myself, I can… intuitively understand my abilities and limits, you could call it."
"That's the problem." Momonga shook his head. "It was instinctive. There was no thought put into it, or any regard for consequences. That's how accidents happen, and how you get bonked by Punitto."
"I see. I was wrong then, but I'd still like to train with you." Touch Me nodded at him, chuckling. "It would allow me to test my limits practically."
"Just take it easy on me, alright?" Momonga strode an appropriate distance away.
"Sure. So, what should we test first?" Touch Me took a basic martial pose at a duel's distance away.
"Should we try taking damage first, to see what pain feels like? I also want to see if I can sense my HP like I can sense my MP."
Touch Me switched to a defensive stance, though he unequipped his shield Earth Recover, which vanished amongst the twinkling particles indicative of placing something into an inventory.
"First tier magic then." Momonga raised a hand. "Magic Arrow."
Blue light etched a circle into the air before him, arcane scripts and geometric patterns flowing rapidly to fill the shape, completing the magic circle within milliseconds. Although it may have happened faster than his human eyes could ha e hoped to see, his vision as an overlord was far superior, and he could individually trace the patterns before the circle completed.
Paying it no more attention, Momonga focused on the sensation of having a microscopic amount of his mana be drained into the spell, his passive mana regeneration replenishing his reserves before the spell was even cast.
A bolt of energy faintly resembling an arrow took shape, its brilliant blue-white glow making it appear more ethereal than substantial as a side effect of being backed by a powerful magical attack stat. It shot from the magic circle that formed it, flying swiftly with unerring accuracy at the paladin in front of him.
It fizzled into nothingness well before it reached him.
"First tier magic? I thought you wanted to test damage?"
"Just warming up. Boosted Magic: Magic Arrow."
As Momonga began casting, he intuitively perceived that he could somehow wrangle control over the meta magic. Normally, boosting would drive a spell's stats to the casters' highest tier they had mastered, which, in this case was the tenth tier. However, he had instinctively suppressed the spells tier down to only the second tier with merely a thought, something that intrigued him greatly.
Like the previous spell, this one fizzled out well before it reached the paladin.
"Did that fail? That didn't look close to a boosted Magic Arrow. Is something wrong?"
"No, you normally can't choose what tier you boost a spell to." Momonga informed the paladin. "But that was a second tier Magic Arrow."
"Really? So, you've found another change in the system, then?" Touch Me referenced to the changes they'd found in their NPCs.
"Yeah. I wonder how the changes work? I mean, why are some things exactly the same and some things are different? What separates the two?"
"I guess it could be another project for you casters to work on. Let's get back to the testing. I'm a little excited about discovering something new." Touch Me repositioned himself, preparing to withstand higher level magic.
"What tier of magic immunity do you have, Touch Me? I guess starting off from the beginning is rather pointless."
"Depends, really. I have dual magic immunities. Nothing below the sixth tier will work on me, even if you boost it. Otherwise, eighth tier is the next threshold."
"Tch, I forgot about that. Then let's try Napalm again. I don't have a fire affinity, or Ulbert's ridiculous magic stat or his World Disaster buff, so it shouldn't be close to what he cast. You willing to tank an eighth tier Napalm?"
"Go ahead. It should only do a little damage. My fire res is pretty decent."
"Very well then. Boosted Magic: Napalm."
Unlike Ulbert's fire storm, the pillar of flame magic that engulfed the World Champion didn't possess the same ferocity that melted the arena floor. The spell's area of effect was approximately the same size as Ulbert's, but had only a third of the heat, and while the sand below turned cherry red, it didn't melt into glass.
Touch Me endured the spell easily, relaxing from his defensive position to spread his arms wide in the fire.
"Hey, that's pretty good." The paladin held his hands out in front of himself, as if he were warming up before a hearth flame and not standing in the middle of a ten-metre-wide, fifty-metre-tall fire spout.
"Show off." Momonga laughed, cancelling his spell. "How about ninth tier Napalm?"
"If it's only a little more dangerous than this, then I have nothing to worry about."
Momonga could hear the smirk in the insectoid's voice, and prepared to up the ante in his casting. The difference between Ulbert's casting and Momonga's was like night and day, and while boosting lower tier magic strengthened a spells damage, it was naturally inferior to higher tier spells of a similar nature.
Here, boosting the seventh-tier spell Napalm to the ninth-tier of power would strengthen it greatly, but it would still fall a little short of the raw power and scale possessed by the similar ninth-tier, fire magic spell Vermillion Nova.
Typically, boosting magic was only used when a player didn't have a higher tier equivalent, necessitating its use when the caster required a type advantage, or required another likewise situational use of a certain spell.
However, through his instinctive understanding of his power, Momonga concluded that perhaps boosting Napalm would be considered excessive. In his mind's eye, he could see how much more powerful boosting the spell to the ninth tier would be, where he could accurately gauge his magic power through pure imagination.
Elevating Napalm to the ninth tier would nearly double its current effective power, pushing it close to that of Ulbert's spell. It would infringe upon their self-imposed restrictions to limit their power, breaking his own orders.
"On second thought, perhaps it would be too powerful to cast. You mentioned that you could instinctively understand your own abilities, Touch Me, so you'll have to take my word for it. It seems you're too strong to be damaged enough to feel pain, not without me casting stronger spells. We did agree not to do that, after all."
"I guess you're right, Momonga. Ha! Too powerful, eh?" Touch Me chuckled. "OP broken hacks. Please nerf!"
Both players burst into laughter, remembering their time in Yggdrasil when other players cried over Ainz Ooal Gown's unbelievably powerful players.
"That's creepy, you know?" Bukubukuchaguma interrupted the duo. Behind the slime, her brother hovered over her, the two of them joining the pair.
"Your voices sound different, and it makes your laugh creepy as heck." She complained. "You sound like the villains from some bad anime I've voiced, Momonga, and you're even worse, Touch!"
"See? What did I tell you, sis?" Peroroncino landed beside her. "You're the only person whose voice is the same."
"What gives? Aren't you going to try out your powers?" Momonga questioned the siblings.
"Honestly, I don't see the point." Peroroncino remarked candidly. "I just… know my power, I guess. Every time I try to think of how to use my skills, it just clicks in my head."
"Kind of takes all the fun out of it." Bukubukuchaguma pulled herself into a humanoid shape, however lacking in definition her form may have appeared. "I think trying out our abilities is a waste of time, if we aren't finding anything new."
"Well, you're not wrong." Momonga conceded. "It only takes a moment of thought, but I find all my skills and magic are a part of me now."
"You get it, right?" Peroroncino waved his hands in the air. "It's all there in my head. I don't know how else to explain it."
"It's more fun using our powers." Bukubukuchaguma added. "I don't want to test my skills in the arena, I want to explore the world, damn it!"
Momonga agreed with every statement they made. In the Meeting Room, they had been excited to use identification magic on some items, to feel the rush of knowledge in their minds.
Safety was important, but repeatedly using low level magic when they could perceive the extant and limits of their abilities wasn't anywhere near as fun. Casting Napalm almost seemed lame compared to appraising a magic item. It didn't feel as real, as if practicing real magic could ever feel tedious. They had already experienced this self-same awe when they gained their abilities in Yggdrasil for the first time.
"Perhaps that's it after all." Momonga wondered aloud.
"Huh?"
"We aren't doing anything new, or anything different. Having this power feels amazing, but using it for something as mundane as practice?" Momonga shook his head. "It's not the same. I want to explore my power, not play with it."
"Yeah, that's it." Touch Me nodded. "I don't want to pretend at being powerful. I already know I'm powerful."
Touch me moved.
A large shock wave exploded before them, a result of the paladin's high-speed movement, as he ran circles around them. He reappeared in exactly the same place, as if he hadn't looped them over a dozen times in a fraction of a second.
"I want to run. I want to… do something. For real, though. Not for pretend." Touch Me held out his arm and clenched his fist, a silver blade bright as moonlight appearing in his grasp. "It's just as amazing as in the game, but now that we have this power, this real power, I want to go out and use it."
Touch Me's word struck a chord in Momonga. Yggdrasil might have been a game, but its graphics and realism were sublime. They had already used these spells a thousand times before in a thousand different battles. They already knew their powers; they were familiar. They had experienced that plenty in Yggdrasil.
What they wanted now was to explore their power. To use it in new ways that they just couldn't in the game. To find something new and experience everything for real.
"In the Meeting Room." Peroroncino mused. "I appraised my bow and felt the information in my head. That was exciting. Coming down here and firing trick shots; not so much. I could already do that in the game. Yeah, its neat being able to do it in my head, instead of seeing a pop up in front of me, but it isn't new.
"I'm terrible at this. You know what I mean. Like, all this." Peroroncino gestured at the other players, who were blatantly ignoring the rule to restrain themselves, and were now tossing around tenth tier magic. "This? This is boring."
"We've already done this. Everyone has. It's, like, the first thing you do when you get a new skill. You go to the arena and spam the shit out of it until you're familiar with it. This isn't anything we haven't already done before." Said Bukubukuchaguma.
"You're right. I get it." Momonga agreed. "It was important that we tried. It allowed us to understand our abilities naturally, after all."
"But didn't you say you found something new?" Touch Me directed to Momonga. "Something about controlling your boosted magic?"
Peroroncino snickered.
Ignoring the Birdman, Momonga remembered that he had indeed made a new discovery about his magic, but it wasn't anything remarkable.
In the game, using meta magic to boost the tier of a spell was commonplace. The only difference being that it would normally boost the spell to the highest possible tier available to the caster. Reducing the tier that a spell could be elevated to was new, but hardly useful. Quite the opposite, really.
"So, you found something?" Peroroncino raised a feathered brow.
"Not really. A useless gimmick is all."
"But it is something." Touch Me insisted. "It's not a normal factor of your magic. Perhaps if you tried thinking outside the box a little, you might find another use you didn't think of."
"That's not exactly easy, Touch. I don't know what I don't know, you know?"
"I know‐ you're right. But what about those fixed spells, the ones that weren't designed to work with meta magic? Try those instead."
Momonga considered Touch Me's suggestion.
In Yggdrasil, most magic was designed to be compatible with meta magic enhancements, limited mainly to standard combat magic. You could boost magic to higher tiers to increase its power, or widen its area of effect, or triple its output.
However, there were still thousands of spells which were incompatible with certain meta magic. The meta enhancement 'maximise', was used to remove the random number generated component from damage calculation, forcing a spell to output its highest possible damage rating. While useful in that regard, it wasn't programmed to affect spells like Create Item, or See Through.
Another example was that certain fixed spells, or certain other varieties of spell types, weren't designed with meta magic in mind at all. You couldn't apply 'penetrate' to defensive magic, neither could you use 'widen' or 'extend' with the tenth-tier spell Create Fortress, no matter how awesome it would have been.
"Interesting. Very well, I'll try to affect common spells first, starting with Fly."
Momonga imagined the spell in his eye, processing the new knowledge awakened in his mind when it was brought to the forefront of his conscious. He already used the spell outside, when they flew about admiring the heavens and the earth.
The reason certain spells couldn't be enhanced was because they were incompatible with the coding of meta magic. 'Maximise' couldn't be applied, as there was no random factor in the flight duration. However, there was a curious factor when trying to apply 'boost' magic, which had been a major source of contention amongst the players over how it should have worked.
When called out on it, the developers' only response was to tell them to get over it, or to use the World Item Five Elements Overcoming, and have it changed via the in-game mechanic. Needless to say, the title of 'Shitty Devs', was well earned.
Regarding meta magic, the only enhancements that could be used on the spell Fly was the 'silent', 'extend', and 'widen' magic. Boosting the tier of a spell only affected damage calculations, and while it might be reasonable to assume that boosting this spell would increase your flight speed, that wasn't how the spell Fly was programmed.
Fly was designed to allow the caster to move in three dimensions, as the name implied, and it only had two factors to its coding. Fly had a duration for which the caster could fly, after which they would be forced to land, and a range which limited how far they could go, before also forcing them to land.
Flight speed, the velocity at which the caster could move through the air, was not a factor in the third-tier spell. There were higher tiers of flight magic that took this into consideration, but Fly was not one of them.
Theoretically, a caster who had a high agility stat and movement speed on the ground could soar swiftly indeed, but it was unlikely for a magic caster to possess a high agility stat in the first place. Some players had taken advantage of that particular game mechanic, but not in the way that Momonga was about to attempt.
It was this aspect of magic that Momonga thought to put to the test, to see if the limitations of their programming and coding could be overcome in this new reality. Consolidating all the relevant information in his mind, he tried to envision what would happen if he applied incompatible meta magic to the third-tier spell. To no surprise, his mind remained blank, and he saw nothing of the outcome.
'As I expected. I could imagine what would happen if I boosted Napalm, because it was a verified and knowable outcome, as programmed by the devs. This, on the other hand, is new territory. If I'm right, this could be the first breakthrough into opening new avenues of power for the guild. We won't just survive in this New World, we'll thrive.' Momonga juggled his thoughts in tandem with his calculations around the spell he was about to cast, alongside a burgeoning theory pulling itself together in the back of his mind.
Momonga was thankful that his new constitution as an Overlord had broken the limits of his previous human body, as his mind subconsciously made the calculations necessary to maintain stabilised flight, processing all the information in a second. As it was, his conscious only directed him to hover a metre in the air.
"Fly."
Without fanfare, Momonga rose to the expected height, and he knew in his mind exactly how long he could maintain the spell, and exactly he far he could go.
"All of that build up, for this?" Peroroncino asked incredulously. "What a let down."
"I was setting a baseline for comparison!" Momonga defended himself, embarrassed.
"Well? We're waiting."
Landing back on the arena floor, Momonga refocused on the third-tier spell Fly again. He envisioned casting it with the enhancements that would apply to his magic.
"Extend Magic: Fly."
Again, Momonga lifted off the floor, much to his friend's disappointment.
"That's it? Wasn't that something that could already be done?" Touch Me asked the caster.
"Boo! No more practicing! Just do it already!" Bukubukuchaguma jeered in faux anger.
"Fine! Fine. Punitto and Tabula would have appreciated my methods!"
"Yeah? Well, they're over there blowing each other up, so get over it and do it. You can join them afterwards, you nerds."
Momonga ignored his friend's ribbing and briefly considered the theory floating in the back of his mind. If he actually pulled this off, things would get interesting.
He focused all his attention back on the spell Fly, and this time he tried to reconcile the spell with the incompatible meta enhancements he sought to combine. Drawing upon his vast reserves of mana, he willed it to flow into the spell, regardless of his inability to calculate the two spells into a singular, fluid casting. Exercising his will, Momonga cast the experimental magic, bearing the full might of his magical power for the first time in the New World.
"Triplet Maximise Boosted Magic: Fly!"
Momonga saw light, then he saw colours, and finally there was darkness.
Then he exploded.