Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 8) - Chapter 3 - Time to Claim This World

Palini didn’t understand.

Xavier Collins, the young, brave, and incredibly idealistic dragonkin he’d chosen to follow had always been more powerful and more skilled than he should be, but something fundamental had changed. And it wasn’t his advancement to C Grade he was seeing. That had changed him drastically. Yet there was something else going on.

The moment—well, technically a few moments after—Xavier switched to using a spear, his physical combat ability had skyrocketed.

Palini had to bring in other B Grade Denizens to join the sparring match just to make things a little more even. At first, he’d brought in a B Grade swordsman from The Collector’s old guards. But not even that had given them the upper hand. Once Palini and the swordsman got in sync, something that didn’t take very long, they managed to get Xavier on the back foot.

For about three seconds.

Then something else shifted in Xavier and suddenly the two swordsmen’s weapons were flying through the air leaving them unarmed. Palini was on the ground with a boot in his neck and the other man had a spearhead hovering over his eye. The sparring match was over, and it had lasted less than ten seconds.

So Palini brought in increasingly more physical fighters from the B Grade Denizens arrayed in the room, pushing Xavier harder and harder, trying to find where his physical limit was. Palini had no doubt that if Xavier wished he could demolish everyone in that entire room—with the addition of his spells.

Now Palini was beginning to wonder if the man even needed his spells to do such a thing.

Xavier kept adapting. The harder they pushed him, the harder he became. It wasn’t only with the spear, either. The man used more than half a dozen different weapons, making what looked like decades worth of training adaptions in the span of seconds, minutes, and hours until the weapon in his hand started shifting on the fly, turning into whatever he needed at that moment.

It was like nothing Palini had seen before. For two solid weeks he’d fought Xavier while both of them wielded swords and he’d only seen glimpses of this kind of ability in him. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been physically capable of such feats, just that the training required should have taken several hundred unenhanced human lifetimes!

Xavier barely seemed to even work up a sweat.

He also, at times, appeared dumbfounded by his own progress and the things he was able to do. There was more than once that Palini had observed a widening of the eyes when he’d pulled off something particularly amazing. Then there were the strange shivers Palini couldn’t help but to have observed—shivers that often came before that amazing physical feat was accomplished.

When Xavier added his dragonkin wings into the mix, the entire flow of the sparring matches shifted.

There was a part of Palini that wanted to be angry with the man. That wanted to hate him for being so damned good. But that wasn’t a part of himself that he liked. He remembered feeling similar things whenever he observed particularly skilled fighters in the arena circuit. From where he’d sat watching, it appeared as though everything came effortlessly for them. That they didn’t even need to try, and yet they somehow always made it to the top—while Palini had had to claw his way there.

But once he’d let go of that animosity—that jealousy—toward fighters that were seemingly more naturally talented, he quickly discovered there was much that he could learn from them. He also found that it was difficult to see what went on behind the scenes. Observing a fight in the arena wasn’t the same as viewing someone’s training. You were seeing the final product, not everything that went into making it. Not every misstep or injury along the way.

But what he was seeing in Xavier felt like something else. Xavier was improving in leaps and bounds right before his eyes. In ways that all logic and prior experience told him shouldn’t be possible. If it were anyone else, he’d think the man was lying to him. Hustling him somehow by misrepresenting his current level of skills.

And yet he isn’t.

Still, Palini didn’t feel hate. Didn’t feel angry. He wasn’t even jealous. Was it frustrating? Of course. But why wouldn’t he want the man he decided to follow to be like this? Xavier had an impossible mission—to save the universe—a mission he’d shared with Palini.

Seeing the man fight and adapt like this was comforting.

And he’s willing to share his secrets with others.

But despite how comforting it was, it was equally baffling. Even more than that, it was exciting. Palini was seeing something incredibly unique. Not only seeing it—he was a part of it.

Xavier Collins is going to change everything.

~

Sovereign Rewke Fouran stared into the stained-glass mirror wearing a deep frown.

He stood ramrod straight inside his private study, a place few people ever had the privilege of laying eyes on. The study was in a permanent state of time dilation thanks to the efforts of his most powerful Time mages. The stained-glass mirror was the sovereign’s study, and its existence was how he’d gotten so far over the years. Though he liked to think he would have come this far without the mirror, he knew that simply wasn’t true.

Without the mirror, this sector never would have bent to his rule.

His frown deepened the longer he stared into the mirror. Something strange was happening in the Ventorin sector. He’d been watching, waiting to see what came of that young dragonkin’s foolish adventure. There was a strange confidence about the man, something that attracted Rewke to him. Something that made him believe his plan of killing The Collector could actually come to pass.

Then, through the mirror, he’d seen what The Collector had done in response.

The stained-glass mirror showed him everything Sovereign Rewke Fouran wanted to see, but it didn’t show these things clearly. According to the device’s description, there was no way its observation could be detected. It was hidden from the eyes of even the most powerful Denizen in the Greater Universe. But hiding such a thing came at the cost of clarity.

The more the device could be detected in a certain situation, the less clear the image it showed him became.

At first, Sovereign Rewke Fouran had been able to see everything. The Collector’s throne room had always been an open book to him, and that was no exception when Xavier Collins came calling with his drones and Palini Damascus following along like a stray dog who’d found a new master.

Then Xavier had pushed The Collector through a portal. Rewke watched closely as the tables turned on the young dragonkin who had performed, up until then, far better than he could have dreamed.

In the vacuum of space, The Collector had turned the tables. With the stained-glass mirror, Rewke followed the man as he returned to his throne room to announce the young dragonkin’s death…

Only, Rewke didn’t think he was dead.

Then everything went dark and remained that way. The stained-glass mirror was so afraid of being detected it wouldn’t show him a single thing.

Xavier Collins had thrown Rewke’s most generous offer of becoming his Sector Warden right back into his face.

“Why… why can’t I see anything?” the sovereign seethed.

The Collector didn’t have the ability to detect the sovereign’s stained-glass mirror. In fact, none of the rulers of the neighbouring sectors could detect it. Even the most powerful among them only made the mirror lose 20 to 40 percent of its clarity. So, what was happening?

The young dragonkin couldn’t possibly be responsible for this, could he?

Sovereign Rewke Fouran bent his head forward. It must be him. And if it was, it meant that Rewke had underestimated the man. He hadn’t just thrown the Sovereign’s offer back into his face—he was planning something bigger. Something much bigger… He intended to become the ruler of the Venturin Sector all by himself.

  And I can't let that happen. If he’s powerful enough to take down the Collector and block my observations, what else could it be hiding?

The man had said he was D-grade, but somehow, he must have lied—even through a system contract. To have that ability was unheard of. The sovereign could not let that stand. And if Xavier Collins had killed the Collector, well that meant there was an opening in the Ventorin sector that had never been there before. An opportunity he could not pass up. Because soon others would know what happened there.

I can’t let Xavier Collins rule. He’s come too far too fast. If that power is left unchecked…

“I’ll have to put him down. I suppose I’ll have to kill Palini while I’m there.” Rewke tilted his head to the side. “Maybe his family, depending on what he told his wife…”

Sovereign Rewke Fouran smiled. It had been a long time since he’d left the Orin sector, and an even longer time since he’d expanded his dominion.

“I suppose it’s time I find a Sector Warden.”

The moment Xavier Collins lays claim to the Ventorin sector, I’ll be there to challenge him.

~

The plan was simple, but not easy.

Xavier needed to show the Ventorin sector that he and his people were in charge, and that it wasn’t worth coming up against them. With his return to the Tower of Champions hanging over his head, he wasn’t entirely sure how that would work.

But he had a plan.

Palini Damascus.

Just as Sovereign Rewke Fouran had offered Xavier the role of Sector Warden, so had Xavier offered Palini that same role. The man had not refused. Xavier was confident Palini would be able to lead the sector in his absence, and Xavier also knew there would be a lot of times when he was absent.

What he wasn’t confident of was Palini’s ability to prevent enemies from moving into the sector. The Ventorin sector had always been considered one of the weakest sectors in the area. Some of its more immediate neighbours—like the Orin sector—were considered twice as powerful.

The sovereign wouldn’t need to come himself. He could send an army, with a vanguard of B Grades at its head. Palini wouldn’t stand a chance against them, and as far as I know all the other B Grades in this sector are already in this room with me.

That was where Xavier’s offer of power came into play.

For four months after he’d finally advanced to C Grade, Xavier had trained inside that time dilation field. He’d trained with Palini and the other B Grades, along with the dozens of C Grades, too, having them enter the sparring sessions as Xavier learnt how to fight increasingly more enemies with no-spell melee combat alone.

But that wasn’t all he’d trained while in the time dilation field. The physical aspect was only the two months—with the second month introducing the use of his wings back into his combat. After that, he’d focused on quantifying just how much more powerful all of his individual spells had become. He also created a new army of drones—drones that would help protect the sector in his stead.

The problem with those drones, however, was that if Xavier was in a different universe on a floor of the Tower of Champions, he wouldn’t have a direct link to them anymore. He wouldn’t be able to command them from that far away—he wasn’t even sure if he’d be able to command them from the tower while not on a floor. And as their minds were rudimentary compared to his own and completely lacking in personality, they wouldn’t be able to make decisions. They would need to follow strict orders.

Their presence would help but wouldn’t be near enough.

Now those four months had passed, Xavier moved his focus from his own training to training Palini. The man’s cultivation had been improving every single day since Xavier had given him Reality Energy, but there was a lot more for him to learn if he was going to be powerful enough to stand against the Ventorin sector’s many enemies in Xavier’s absence.

Xavier didn’t only train Palini, either. He trained every Denizen who’d been in that room when he’d killed The Collector. At first, he was hesitant to do this. Yes, they’d sworn their loyalty. Yes, they’d signed truth contracts. But he hadn’t made them sign binding system contracts—and he wasn’t about to. They could leave his service, if they so wished. Take what he taught them to his enemies or be kidnapped and have their secrets stolen from their brain.

But Xavier was being watched. By the Old Man and others. People who would see what he could do and, if they were powerful and smart enough, find ways to recreate it. Not only that, he knew for a fact that these abilities would spread, fast, even if he chose not to teach another person. Simply having these powers in this universe and having the System assimilate them meant they would spread.

I can’t hide my power. I have to trust those I’ve chosen. I have to allow these secrets to spread. I have to show the universe what unity looks like before it’s ever going to accept it.

When Xavier had finished his work, two years had passed inside that time dilation field.

Time. God, it was such a strange thing for Xavier these days, to the point where it was beginning to lose all meaning. With the abilities he had he could spend thousands of years in time dilation fields before ever having to face the World Destroyer. And the more time he spent becoming powerful inside a time dilation field, the more powerful his time dilation fields became, only increasing the potential numbers of years he could pass in them…

His mind spun whenever he thought about it.

When Xavier finally dropped the time dilation field, he looked around at the people he’d spent the last two years with. Palini, a man he’d met that very same day and also over two years ago. The B Grades and C Grades that were once forced to serve The Collector—also people he’d met that day.

Xavier felt like he knew each and every one of them on a deeper level than should have been possible. They weren’t like his core, found family, but… They felt like brothers- and sisters-in-arms. He felt connected to them in a way he didn’t expect. There were parts of him that wanted to recoil from that connection. Parts that simply weren’t used to it—especially to this many people. Even back on Earth, being the leader of Collinsville, he hadn’t felt this level of connection to the people around him until he’d spent that time with his old party and their families inside the Roving Seed Base, a base that he’d ended up utilising with the people in this room.

Doing so had almost felt like a betrayal at first, but they never stepped inside the houses of his friends, and in the end there was no harm having them there.

When Xavier had first spoken to these Denizens about how their sector would be run, how a council would be formed, he’d seen things differently to how he saw them now. None of the fundamental details of what he said would change, but now those in the room—every single one of them—had not only Reality Cores, but the ability to create spell patterns.

And it was no longer only the Time mages in the room who could stop time.

Each of these Denizens, including Palini, had limitations that Xavier and his found family lacked. None of them had advanced in the Denizen path while inside that time dilation field, which meant the spells that they could learn themselves were currently limited. They couldn’t be a master-of-all-trades like Xavier considered himself to be becoming.

But the sheer change in their power was still monumental, especially for the B Grades among them. As Xavier helped each of them increase their own power, they returned to their physical sparring.

He had to push himself harder and harder to fight them all. His mental construct helped him adapt more and more to the fights. Showing these Denizens how to become powerful had ultimately helped him become more powerful.

It was invigorating.

But now, it was time to move forward with his plan. Stepping out of that time dilation field meant time would finally start moving, and the consequences of his actions would begin.

The ruler of this sector was dead, and now everyone within the sector had actually had time to read the notification that appeared after the man’s death, they would all know about it.

“Time to claim this world,” Palini said by his side.

Xavier inclined his head and brought up the notification he’d received from the System.