Free Tier - Accidental Champion (Book 7) - Chapter 41 - I Hope This Works

Xavier watched the twenty-five B Grade Denizens amongst The Collector’s guards. He’d already marked each of them with a separate part of his mind. They were easy to spot with the two time dilation fields at play in the throne room.

They were the ones that were still moving—even if they weren’t moving fast.

To Xavier, they moved in slow motion, at roughly a tenth of his own speed. A strong advantage, but more was needed to even the playing field—especially if he didn’t want them dead.

I’ll try not kill them, but that doesn’t mean I won’t hurt them.

Xavier released a long, calming breath as he watched. He found himself unusually stressed. He’d been dreaming of and planning for this moment for over ten years.

The time when he would finally face The Collector.

And it turns out The Collector is far more powerful than I thought. Empress Larona lied to me. A lot.

It made him wonder what other lies she’d told.

Those thoughts were pushed from his mind as he focused on the present moment.

As the last of his breath was released, he slipped into a state of perfect inner calm—or as perfect as he could manage. That state of calm was always easiest to manage when there were no outside forces working against him.

Wonder why that might be…

Despite how it appeared, Xavier wasn’t inside the throne room. The man who’d stepped into the throne room and spoken to The Collector was one of his drones. The real Xavier was currently juggling two time dilation fields of his own—which meant, including The Collector’s Time mage’s spell, there were three active.

At lot to keep track of.

Both of his time dilation fields were powered by spell patterns he’d drawn in the hallway outside the throne room. The hallway ceilings were tall enough that making them fit was an easy task. When he’d been putting these steps of the plan in place, he’d deactivated his Time Alteration spell and allowed it to cooldown with Pocket Time Stream.

He wanted to be prepared for every eventuality, no matter how impossible that might actually be.

Twenty-five more Xavier-Drones stood just outside the throne room, under the same time dilation field as Palini and the real Xavier. He’d creased one drone for each B Grade, including The Collector. The drones weren’t as powerful as even a weak B Grade, but they would serve as a strong distraction.

Though the drones weren’t as strong as a B Grade Denizen, they were far more powerful than one might expect. When Xavier had stolen the Create Drone spell from the Arakashinai Queen, he’d not had a specific plan for what he would do with spell—he’d merely had a lot of ideas.

There had been a part of him that had wondered if he would want to do the same thing as the queen and create as many drones as he possibly could, then strengthen his mind enough to control them all at once, and expand his awareness so he could control them over an entire sector. Perhaps one day he would be able to rule each world himself.

That hadn’t ended up being the path he’d taken. And honestly? He was glad for it.

He’d decided, instead, that he needed to develop his trust in others. If his ultimate goal was to make the Greater Universe an all-around better place to live for everyone, there was no way he would be able to do all of that alone. Trust in the universe he wanted to live in would be widespread. It wouldn’t feel as hard as it did in the one he lived in now.

That was why he’d trained his old party and their families—that was how they’d become his family.

And that was why he’d taken a chance with Palini.

There was so much to be done. Far more than one person could achieve, even if they had a billion drones.

And so, Xavier’s working limit of drones was much lower than the Arakashinai Queen’s limit—and not just because he was D Grade while she’d been B Grade. He’d worked up to keeping one hundred drones active at a time. If he created one more than that, the first drone he’d made would die.

He couldn’t split his mind and focus and enter and control that many drones at once yet, however. Especially not in a fight like this. If he wanted to use his limit of drones, he would have to give the majority of them rudimentary orders to follow.

But he could split his mind and actively control thirty at once.

So, twenty-six drones, even in a fight like this? Well, that should be easy enough. In theory.

The drones themselves were far more powerful than they “should” have been. As he’d limited the number he could create, that allowed him to make the drones individually stronger than otherwise would have been possible.

Each of his drones were currently D Grade. Their levels and spells were heavily limited. There had been several different paths he could have taken the Create Drone spell, but every path but the one he’d taken would only serve to make the individual drones weaker.

The Arakashinai Queen had needed drones of every type to run her society. She’d needed drones to build cities, farm food, fight wars, create portals.

Xavier needed his drones for a single purpose: Battle.

To that end, they’d been created in his image. They couldn’t be as strong as him. That would be a monumental cheat. Disappointing though it may be that he couldn’t literally clone himself, Xavier had enough “cheats” at his disposal that he didn’t lament it too much.

The drones had a cap of being 75 levels lower than his own. Though that sounded like a lot of levels, he was hoping he could slowly close that gap as he pushed the spell’s rank higher when he reached C Grade. He knew that, especially in the higher grades, a different in even a single level could create a large gap in power.

The drones had other hard limits, too—any Mastery Points they gained went to Xavier, which meant they couldn’t become stronger than they’d been when they were created. If he wanted to keep them as strong as possible, every time something influenced the strength of a drone he could make, he would need to cycle out the ones currently active for newly created ones.

Another limitation of the drones was how many attribute points they could hold. As he’d chosen the spell’s path that allowed him to create the drones in his own image, that meant their attributes were based on his own—but again, he couldn’t simply clone himself, so they couldn’t have the same number of points as he did. Thus, they were limited by a percentage modifier. It was actually the level limitation that controlled the modifier. He hadn’t been given an exact number by the System, and there were so many other things that affected attributes—like skills, which they were limited on, and armour, weapons, attunements—it wasn’t something he’d taken time to do the math on, but it seemed to make the drones roughly half as strong as he was.

Half as strong was a massive drop in power, but that was only when one didn’t consider that he could have a hundred drones attacking an enemy all at once.

But the thing that made these drones more powerful than they “should” be?

Well, that was something very, very interesting.

When Xavier created his first drone, he was incredibly intrigued by it. Xavier had inserted his consciousness into other Denizens and even beasts in the past. He’d become especially adept at it when practicing on the Arak drones before facing the queen. But this was an entirely different experience.

He didn’t need to use Willpower Infusion to enter the minds of his own drones. He had a connection with them that was so natural and fluid it had taken him a little while to even understand what was happening.

Xavier’s mind could flow into the minds of the Xavier-drones with a fluidity he’d never before experienced. It didn’t require breaking down defences. It didn’t require subtle mind manipulation. It barely even required him to think.

It was simply his will.

That fluidity of mind possession extended to the entirety of the drones. Each drone possessed their own spiritual sense which he could hijack, effectively extending his own spiritual sense. With that sense, he could see inside the drones, look at their cores and energy channels, with the same level of detail that he could look at his own.

He quickly discovered that while Xavier’s natural attribute cores had been shattered, the drones he created didn’t suffer from this. They each possessed the cores that had broken inside of him—a Spirit, Willpower, Speed, and Intelligence Core.

They did not, however, possess the artificial cores he’d created. Xavier had posited this was because the System had yet to recognise those cores.

But, created in his image as they were, they also possessed another core, a core the System had taken pains to recognise.

A Reality Core.

That meant that like Xavier himself, and his found family that he’d trained, his drones weren’t simply Denizens—they were Cultivators.

Tier 2 Cultivators just like him.

Xavier watched the reactions of the different B Grade Denizens in the room as the other twenty-five drones he’d kept back in the hallway flooded through the massive doors. Their reaction speeds were limited by the difference in the flow of time, but their eyes widened almost instantly at the sight of more Xaviers flooding through.

But Xavier could tell that reaction was one of confusion rather than fear. These Denizens, like The Collector, weren’t yet taking him as seriously as they should.

Palini stood behind the real Xavier, shifting his weight from foot to foot, his sword drawn, clutched tightly in his hand. The man wanted to fight, wanted to be in there, but he listened when Xavier ordered for him to remain until he said otherwise.

Xavier needed this coup to happen fast. Needed the B Grade Denizens occupied and distracted enough that he could go straight for The Collector.

The drones each targeted a specific Denizen from The Collector’s B Grade guards. This was the part of the plan Xavier had the most doubt in, as he’d never tried something like it before. He’d never been able to try anything like it before. Not until now.

Honestly, in his mind, the plan was simply too good to be true. Which usually meant something about it was likely to go terribly wrong.

Xavier had created these drones after they’d entered the city. In fact, he’d created them in the very hallway he was standing in. They had the limit of only being able to hold five spells. He couldn’t simply choose different spells for different drones, either. Whatever spellset he chose for the drones would be what they had for the next thousand drones he created.

Fortunately, he’d taken this into account when he’d travelled to Ventorin. He hadn’t known exactly what he would face—hadn’t even known if he would need to use his Create Drone spell. But he’d ensured that the next drones he created, he would be able to choose a spellset for them.

Once he’d come up with a plan—with the help of Palini, even if the man had grumbled at some of the specifics—Xavier then chose the spells.

He really only needed two main spells to make this work: Strike-Out and Time Alteration.

Xavier could have commanded the drones individually to follow his orders and perform these spells on targets he chose for them, but he’d recognised how limited their ability to follow orders were in the past, and he knew he couldn’t leave any of this to chance.

In his real body, Xavier nervously tapped his foot on the ground. While in twenty-six other bodies, he cast the necessary spells.

Strike-Out was cast on their hands, just as Palini had cast it on his own hands when he’d grabbed that drone and sunk his bone claws into its neck in the Roving Seed Base during their fight. That had allowed him to enter Xavier’s time dilation field.

This approach worked on a similar theory. He just needed his drones to be fast enough.

Then, he needed them to be protected.

Twenty-six pairs of hands grabbed twenty-six heads. Even The Collector himself wasn’t spared. The two spells couldn’t be cast simultaneously, but the instant Strike-Out was active, Xavier made each drone cast Time Alteration to create an incredibly limited field. Time Alteration had the restriction that the caster needed to remain within the field—it couldn’t simply be placed on another being or area.

So, Xavier had the field only cover a foot around each drone. With their hands touching the enemy B Grades using spatial distortion spell Strike-Out, those denizens were encased in the same field even if they were on opposite sides of the grand throne room.

Then, time was slowed down in every one of those fields.

When the real Xavier stepped inside that throne room, with Palini at his back, what he saw was fifty-two statues. The drones and the B Grades they targeted were essentially frozen in time.

“Holy hell,” Palini said. “You actually did it.” He frowned at Xavier. “How much does it hurt?”

Xavier released a long breath. This was why Palini had been so reticent. As Xavier didn’t want this step of the plan to fail, he’d of course had his mind in each of those drones.

Which meant that twenty-six parts of his mind were now currently working on a different time stream to his main consciousness.

That wasn’t all, either. When his mind was inside the drones he took on the mental burden of the spells they were using, not to mention the physical pain their bodies endured. The mental burden of twenty-six Time Alteration spells being active all at once was actually something Xavier could handle with a certain amount of ease—that is, if there weren’t also other forces at work.

Xavier was powerful. Incredibly so. But even he had limits. One of those limits was related to his grade. At D Grade, he couldn’t push his Time Alteration spell to a higher rank until he advanced. When he’d faced powerful entities in the past, ones that had no ability to alter time, he’d felt their influence on his time dilation fields all the same, or he’d felt them able to alter the speed of their mind to compensate to a degree and fight back in other ways—like The Nightmare had.

This was something he’d been aware of, something he’d even been able to combat quite successful, but it hadn’t been something he fully understood until he spoke to Palini about it.

The man explained to him that a spell’s rank, naturally, hindered a spell’s strength considerably. Palini didn’t understand the exact mechanisms, but he knew that a D Grade spell could be broken by a strong C Grade and definitely by a B Grade.

In most cases.

The reason this hadn’t been much of a problem for Xavier was because his attributes being so damned insane helped to offset a spell’s rank restrictions—that was why Palini couldn’t do a thing to “break” the time dilation field when he was inside the Roving Seed Base. He wasn’t able to push his will against it as he would have been able to do against someone weaker than himself.

“From how fast you moved, I simply assumed you were B Grade,” the man had muttered during his explanation. “Honestly, I didn’t even try to push against the time dilation field.” He shrugged. “I didn’t think it would work.”

Xavier knew it wouldn’t have worked. But he remembered how the World Destroyer had been able to limit his use of the time dilation field he’d had active when he’d encountered it on the eightieth floor with the other, C Grade version of himself. He’d needed to put almost his entire mind toward keeping that shield going.

And though Xavier was powerful, his mind wasn’t powerful enough to push back against twenty-six B Grades simultaneously.

Not for very long, anyway.

In the hallway, when his enemies had realised he’d had a time dilation field active, The Collector and every single one of his B Grade guards had started to push against it at once. Sweat had started to drip from his brow with the effort to keep the spell active. Even with the B Grades working at a tenth the speed he was, the combined strength of their mind had battered against him like the buffeting winds of a powerful hurricane.

Xavier had weathered the storm, sent in his drones, and had them cast their spells.

Yet even still he felt their combined will pushing against him. Only now, their will was pushing against the individual Time Alteration spells that his drones held active—his drones that were significantly weaker than himself—the mental load of holding strong against so many attacks on individual spells rather than on a single spell he could muster his entire mental defence against was far more than he’d anticipated.

The resulting headache was a pain so excruciating it was making it difficult for him to think at a time when he needed the greater part of his mind.

Xavier gritted his teeth. “I’ve felt worse,” was all he replied. “They won’t be frozen long. You ready, Palini?”

The C Grades in the throne room, unlike the B Grades, weren’t a significant problem. But they were still a problem. They were only affected by the initial time dilation field Xavier had active—for even with the time mage who controlled the one over the throne room frozen, her spell remained in play. If those C Grades were able to work together and target one of his drones with concentrated attacks, they would likely be able to defeat it. And with what Xavier had to do, and the pain he was enduring, he was in no position to defend his drones, even if only a single one.

“Indeed, Xavier. You do your part, I’ll do mine.” Palini moved in front of the amassed drones, ready to intercept any attacks that came their way. “I hope this works.”

“You and me both,” Xavier muttered.

He snapped his large, black dragon wings open and leapt into the air, flying over the heads of every Denizen in the room until he alighted in front of Gregori The Collector.

The thought came to him that he could call upon the Spirit of Time. She could show him the different unfoldings, show him how this plan would turn out.

But he left that as a last resort.

Xavier tilted his head to one side, looking his enemy up and down. The chiselled muscles and lack of armour as though he wasn’t vulnerable. The face that somehow sneered even with a shocked expression. The man was encased in something, too—a smoky red haze. Some defensive spell Xavier hadn’t given much thought to.

Though this was the first time Xavier had stood face-to-face with The Collector, the man represented everything he hated. Rage burned within him, and he had the sudden urge to punch The Collector right in the face.

But that would only serve to envelop him in the time dilation shield Xavier was inside, cancelling out the one the drone had on the man.

Xavier frowned. Something felt… off. An itch at the back of his mind warned of imminent danger, but with his mind in strained and in agony from pushing against so many B Grades he couldn’t figure out what he was feeling, or what the threat was.

It all became clear a fraction of a second before The Collector moved, a wicked grin sliding onto his face as he slipped under the drone’s glowing hands that were supposed to be holding him frozen in a time dilation field.

He isn’t trapped!

Gregori The Collector’s massive fist, a gauntlet of moving, red smoke encasing it, crashed into Xavier’s nose faster than he could react.