Free Tier - Accidental Champion (Book 7) - Chapter 16 - Grasshopper

Xavier’s old party members stepped into the clearing that had just formed in the forest, staring around at the structures that had sprouted from the ground—the four three-bedroom houses on the left and the large tavern-like building on the right.

“Whoa.” Justin looked about. “This is much nicer than the last clearing you trained in, I have to say.”

“Is this a Seed Sanctuary, like Collinsville?” Siobhan frowned as she looked at the edges of the clearing. “There are no defensive walls.”

“It’s not a Seed Sanctuary, though it is similar,” Xavier said. “It’s a Roving Seed Base. When activated, the owner of the base provides their intentions to the seed, and it grows to fill their needs. This is just its initial form. With sufficient energy, it can be altered to almost anything I wish, and its boundaries can grow. Though if I want to change the strength of the materials, I’ll need to provide it with higher grade beast parts.” Xavier shrugged. “That’s what the description said.”

He walked into the clearing, smiling at the structures. He was proud of this place. It wasn’t quite like the personal space Empress Larona had, but it was a step in the right direction.

“The Roving Seed Base is actually a spatial item. I can alter the structure of the base, put furniture inside the houses, even grow new plants in the gardens. Then, when I want to move it to a new area, all I need to do is feed it enough energy and it will shrink back into a seed. The next time I plant it, it’ll grow back to the exact specifications as before. If I’d just brewed a coffee and left it on the table in one of the houses, it’ll still be steaming a year later when the seed is replanted.

“At this stage, it still needs a large area to be planted. But later, when it’s more evolved, it will only take up a small amount of space—about as much as a telephone booth. Though, of course, it’ll be bigger on the inside. Much bigger.” He looked at Siobhan. “As to why there are no walls, we don’t need them.”

“You said this is our new home?” Howard’s voice sounded carefully neutral.

Xavier knew what the man was thinking. He nodded at the houses. “I made the place big enough to bring your family here, if you wish.” He looked at Justin and Siobhan. “All your families. But I want the three of you to get situated first. There are things I want to teach you.”

Howard looked relieved, then determined. He gave Xavier a nod.

Justin’s excitement grew. He looked like he wanted to check out the building, but at the same time was eager to train. Siobhan simply wore a thoughtful expression.

Xavier walked to the centre of the clearing, onto the circle of smooth wood. Then he extended his wings and flapped them, rising upward into the air. He drew Bones, currently in the form of a sword, and shifted the soulbound weapon into a stylus.

Then he began drawing the Time Alteration spell pattern.

Xavier attained a state of inner calm as he drew the pattern. There was a part of him that was still frustrated about how long it took him to draw these patterns. Before, when he could simply cast Time Alteration as a normal spell, that hadn’t bothered him. Now that he needed to draw the entire pattern before being able to stop time, the drawbacks of spell patterns were becoming far more evident.

But that was okay. Though his cores were still well and truly shattered, he had an idea about how he might be able to cast spells normally again—even if he couldn’t repair his cores. He’d learnt a good deal about Reality Energy back in the tavern when he’d fallen into that trance, allowing him to finally use items like his Storage Ring and Farscope lens again, but there were a lot of things he hadn’t had the time to test.

He quickly fell into that trance-like state of pure focus as he worked. Unlike when he’d first started drawing these patterns again after the shattering of his cores, where he’d needed to rebuild the neural pathways and muscle memory until the act of drawing runes felt natural again, drawing this pattern felt natural almost instantly.

Xavier lost himself in the careful, graceful movements of his stylus as it curved and flowed. Runes appeared before him one after the other. In what felt like no time at all, but must have been at a day or two given how long it had taken him to draw a pattern the last time, the young dragonkin had completed his task.

As he hovered back to the ground, the pattern of runes glowing above with a line of energy connecting him to it, he found the others still waiting around him. Though he could check through the memory and reference his internal clock, he instead asked them how long he’d been drawing for. He’d been so focused that he hadn’t even noticed the sun going down and rising once, or maybe twice, more.

“Three hours,” Justin said with a shrug. “Give or take.”

Xavier was so taken aback that he actually took a full retreating step. “Three hours?”

“Is that strange?” Siobhan asked.

He gazed up at the Time Alteration spell pattern. “The last time I drew this it took three days.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I assumed I would be faster as I regained my expertise and grew familiar with the pattern, but I’m not sure I’ve ever drawn a spell pattern that fast. Even before…”

It still wasn’t fast enough to be useable in battle, not unless the field had been prepped well ahead of time, but it still blew him away.

He hadn’t even been enhancing the speed of his movements with Reality Energy.

“Looks like that advancement has done more than you realise,” Howard said. “So, will that pattern stop time?”

In answer to the man’s question, Xavier initiated the pattern. It glowed green and he watched as the time dilation field’s barrier grew to encompass the entire Roving Seed Base.

The space was larger than the last clearing he’d trained in. In the last clearing, he’d been able to hold the spell active for two years. As this area was larger, he estimated he could hold it for at least a year. He pushed his senses toward the potential energy the spell pattern held, feeling for the time it could be active. He was getting far better at predicting it. Except…

Xavier’s forehead creased. “That can’t be right,” he muttered.

“What is it?” Siobhan asked, sounding concerned.

“Nothing’s wrong, just something isn’t adding up.”

Xavier checked again, then again, until he was sure there was no way he was making a mistake. “I estimated that I would be able to hold this spell pattern active for about a year, given the area.”

“By the sound of your voice, I’m guessing it’s far short of that,” Justin said.

“No. It’s not short. It’s… Three times as long.”

“That’s good.” Howard grunted. “So why do you sound disappointed?”

Xavier shook his head. “I’m not disappointed. Just… surprised.”

He was more than surprised. He was currently bringing up his stat sheet and examining the line of energy connecting him to the spell, while splitting his mind into several parts to try to figure out how he’d estimated it so wrong.

Xavier knew why, of course—it was because of his strange advancement to Tier 2. It had made him stronger in every way, yet that newfound power wasn’t reflected in his stats by the System, so he had no way to quantify it.

If this lasts for three years instead of one, does that mean I’m three times stronger?

That thought didn’t sit right with him. Three times stronger was… Insane. Nutty. Deranged. There was no chance the advancement had had that strong of an effect.

Was there?

Xavier pushed those thoughts aside for now. He intended to test himself, to try to quantify the changes that had been brought on by becoming “Tier 2.” But he had a lot of other things he wished to do first.

One step at a time.

Justin rubbed his hands together, staring at Xavier with intensity. “So, Grand Master, where do we start? What are you going to have us do? How, exactly, are you going to make us powerful like you?”

“Well, Grasshopper,” Xavier smiled. “First, we’re going to work on drawing runes.”

The energy in Justin’s eyes drained away at those words, but only for a moment before a look of determination replaced his previous excitement. “If it will allow us to do this.” He waved a hand at the spell pattern and the world frozen outside the base. “Then let’s get drawing.” A stylus appeared in his hand. Xavier was glad the man had it. He’d instructed them all to acquire a stylus on their return to Collinsville.

The fact that none of them had access to the Inscribing spell wasn’t a problem. Xavier himself didn’t currently have access to that spell, after all. Though it would be beneficial for them to gain it, the simple act of drawing more runes would allow them to achieve a Spell Quest for it.

“So, how has your homework been going?” Xavier asked. He was acutely aware that though he’d been gone for well over two years from his perspective, it hadn’t been near as long for any of them. He didn’t expect them to have made much progress. Though before he’d gotten the Time Alteration spell pattern to work back in that clearing, they’d been in Collinsville for several months, and he hadn’t been updated on their progress.

“We all have the Inscribing spell now,” Siobhan said. “I’ve gotten mine up to Rank 40.”

Xavier raised an eyebrow. Considering their other obligations back in Collinsville, he was impressed. He knew Inscribing wasn’t the only thing they’d been working on. He hadn’t even been sure if they would have gotten the spell at all, let alone ranked it up so much already.

“Rank 35,” Howard said.

Justin ran a hand through his hair and had a sheepish look, which made Xavier expect the young swordsman’s Inscribing rank was much lower than other two. “Rank 75.”

Siobhan gaped. “How’d you manage that? You said you didn’t like Inscribing!”

Howard frowned. “Impressive. I’ve never even seen you practice.”

“Well, I, uh, knew how powerful it made Xavier, so I’ve been practicing at every opportunity.” Justin bit his lip. “And… I figured out how to split my mind. Xavier’s always talking about it, and it sounds like a really important skill.” He tapped his forehead with his stylus. “So, I’ve always got one part of my mind thinking about the different runes I’ve seen, constantly tracing the lines and curves, imagining the actions of my wrist, my forearm, the flick of the stylus…” He shrugged. “I didn’t realise it was working so much better than what you guys were doing.”

Xavier smiled and shook his head. “That’s amazing, Justin. What made you think to do that?” Xavier couldn’t help but be impressed. Justin was a decent fighter—even a good one, considering his grade—but he’d always seemed a bit excitable, like he took things less seriously than others.

He was all the more glad that he’d brought the three of them here.

Perhaps I’ve been underestimating him. Maybe I’m underestimating all of them.

Justin straightened. “Well, back when I was an Olympic fencer, I told my coach how frustrated I was about all my missed opportunities to practice. I was young, and impatient, and wanted to be better. I complained about having to sit on the bus for half an hour on the way to school, and half an hour on the way home, and all the other times I’m stuck doing something other than training, or when I’m injured, or simply can’t train because it would push my body over the edge.

“My coach just looked at me for a long while. I figured he would tell me to be patient and responsible, that rest was important, and that I have other obligations other than fencing. I’d heard the lecture before, from more than one person… Except, that isn’t what he said. After a bit of silence, he raised his chin, and begun telling me about something called motor imagery, or mental practice.

“Pre-System, there were a bunch of studies in sport science done on how imagining doing an action can stimulate the same parts of the brain that are activated when actually doing the movement. They can even activate the muscle a tiny amount and help build muscle memory. I hadn’t really thought about it until you gave us that homework, and when I did want to implement it, I ran into a problem—how would I be able to do it while in combat? While training? That’s when I thought to split my mind.”

Xavier blinked. He leant forward. He’d heard about this—that the brain treated mental rehearsal in a similar way to actually doing an action—but he’d never taken advantage of it. It always sounded like a poor man’s version of training. Certainly, he hadn’t taken advantage of it since he was integrated.

Why not just train?

But this sounded very interesting.

“Wait, so…” Xavier tilted his head to the side. “Have you gained ranks just by practicing in your mind?”

Justin grinned, then nodded. “Yeah. A bunch, actually. It’s no substitute for drawing the runes in person, but it helps a lot. You know, when the System said we’d be stuck on Earth between floors for an entire year, I couldn’t help but get pissed off thinking about how much progress I’d miss out on, even though I knew it was coming.” He looked at Xavier. “But it couldn’t have come at a better time.”

Xavier had been surprised when he’d first found out the System had given his old party a year break from the tower, but according to them it was normal. Adranial had told them about it. Adranial and her party would be hitting that break soon too, though they’d been going through the floors more slowly and methodically, and were sticking around a little longer to help out the other Champions—as per the contract they all signed with him.

Though Xavier wasn’t allowed to have information on floors he hadn’t cleared yet, the others were able to tell him that the breaks from the tower only got longer as a Champion progressed through the floors.

There were floors deep in the tower that had breaks of hundreds, even thousands, of years. The six-month break Xavier had been on previously, after the one hundredth floor—the break that the System had cut off prematurely at three months—was definitely way shorter than the normal break after that floor.

Thinking about the Tower of Champions brought back the fact that the System had kicked him from it because of his shattered cores. He winced at the thought and pushed it from his mind.

“Mental practice,” Xavier muttered. He couldn’t help but notice Siobhan and Howard were looking at Justin a little differently. Perhaps they hadn’t expected this from him either. “All right.” He clapped his hands. “I’ve changed my mind. Runes are the first thing that Justin will be working on.” He faced the others. “As for you two, you’ll be working on splitting your mind. I’d planned on having you gain the skill later, but if we implement mental practice, you’ll be able to progress all the more quickly.”

Xavier had Howard and Siobhan sit in the circle of smooth wood in the middle of the Roving Seed Base so they could meditate and work on splitting their minds. He made them try to hold two different thought streams simultaneously to begin with and would be giving them progressively harder tasks to accomplish once they’d mastered that.

When they were settled, he took Justin inside of the large, tavern-like building.

Technically, it was a tavern. He’d been eager to see the inside of the building. When he’d activated the Roving Seed Base, he’d had an image of what he’d wanted it to look like, but he knew it wouldn’t match that image exactly, and other parts of the base had already taken him by surprise. The item worked more on his intentions and needs rather than his exact specifications, though that would change in the future.

Stepping into the tavern, the two looked around. Xavier had deactivated his Farscope lens, else he would have been spoiled about the entire Roving Seed Base. He wanted to see every aspect of it in person, with his own eyes—it seemed more fun that way.

To one side of the building was a long bar. It wasn’t stocked with anything, that wasn’t how the place worked—it could only create so much. But there were a ton of different shelves behind that bar. One of the properties of the Roving Seed Base being a spatial device meant that any food or drink placed on those shelves would never spoil. There was no fridge or freezer, but different shelves would impart different temperatures to the items placed on them.

Only when someone reached for an item on one of the shelves did this process pause, otherwise their hand might get stuck and stop pumping blood, or if their will was stronger than the mechanism that made the device function it could crumble the entire base to dust.

He’d geeked out a little when he’d read all about this place. He’d actually first heard about the Roving Seed Base from one of the serials he’d read on the Entertainment Feed. He was glad to find that everything written about it in that story had been factual.

A long table with a bench on either side had been grown straight from the ground in front of the bar, with plenty of room for not just Xavier and his old party, but all of their families, too—if they chose to invite them along to this place. There was also a line of stools at the bar.

The building wasn’t just a tavern, however. On the other side was the training hall. There was no equipment in the training hall currently, but there was plenty of space for it. When he’d stopped at the System Shop, Xavier had purchased a good deal of equipment that he’d never used before—stuff that wasn’t inside the Staging Room back in the Tower of Champions, at least not in his.

He was eager to give it all a try.

Justin’s eyes were wide as he looked at the place. “This is awesome.” He stepped over to the training hall, drawing his sword and taking a few practice swipes. Then he glanced up at the very tall ceiling. White-feathered wings sprouted from his back, and he leapt into the air with a flap, launching himself across the long hall and swooping back around in a tight turn before he alighted in front of Xavier.

The young swordsman grinned. “Do you want to spar? Break this place in?” He nodded at the sword on Xavier’s hip. “I want to see you use that thing.”

“There will be time for that later.” Xavier produced a stool from his Storage Ring and placed it on the ground in the middle of the training hall, gesturing for Justin to sit. “First, show me everything you know about Inscribing.” He motioned at the air in front of the man. “Draw every single rune you know.”