Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 6) - Chapter 55 - Following Footsteps Already Tread

Xavier gazed upon the massive pattern of runes he’d drawn over the battlements of the Bright City of Aethisa. The pattern was contained within his time dilation field, the dwarves along the wall as frozen as the Phoexian flights above.

The pattern contained thousands of different runes. From where he stood, it was difficult to take it all in. There was a beauty in the way the runes were put together. The way they slotted in, side by side. Not as mundane as a jigsaw puzzle, nor as engineered as a motherboard.

The more he looked at it, the more natural it appeared, which he knew seemed absurd—but it was natural in the way that DNA forms, or that constellations gather in the sky.

Xavier, still holding the Lost Bone of a Dead God in his right hand in the form of a stylus, ran his thumb along the rough surface of the instrument, then focused his mind once more.

The moment of truth was upon him. He’d drawn this pattern with a specific intention—to emulate the temporary spell he held within his mind. The gravity spell Untethered.

According to everything he knew about Inscribing and runes, there was no reason for this to work. Xavier had attempted to draw runes he didn’t fully understand before. The drawing of them hadn’t been the problem—the activating of them had.

Runes were the language of the universe. They were, he had become certain, what the System used to manipulate reality. They were what the Universe Hopper who created the Hell Moons of Thazamar had used to power the respawning of the demons within them.

They were beneath every spell he cast.

Runes drew on the power of the universe itself, but the strength of a rune drawn by an Inscriber relied on the rank of the Inscribing spell coupled with their attributes.

That was why Xavier had no idea whether he would be able to power this pattern. It wasn’t a single rune, or a few different runes etched into one of his arrows. It was so much more.

He sighed, feeling himself hesitating, procrastinating. The longer he took to do this the more he could believe it would work.

Xavier pushed himself forward and touched the stylus to the pattern. As he did, he fell into the required meditative state. His mind felt fatigued, sluggish after the intense concentration required to draw the pattern in the first place.

Still, his mind responded to his need.

The rune his stylus touched took on a dim glow. That glow spread from the first rune onto the next, and then the next.

Xavier felt the connection open—the connection to the universe. The one that powered runes. He furrowed his brow, continuing to hold the stylus up, observing that dim glow flow from rune to rune as it spread across the interconnecting web that made up the entirety of the spell’s pattern.

The more it spread, the larger that connection to the universe became. He could sense it more strongly than ever before.

Something else was happening, too. The strain he was feeling upon himself wasn’t merely mental, but physical. As though something was pulling at him. Probing him.

Testing him.

A bead of sweat dripped into his eye as he gritted his teeth. Xavier’s hand threatened to shake. He took control, keeping his body steady. Keeping his mind steady.

Never before had he experienced anything like this before when activating a rune—not even when he’d activated the most powerful ones he possessed, nor when attempting to activate ones he lacked the proficiency to use.

Those hadn’t hurt. They simply hadn’t worked.

Xavier’s entire body knotted with tension. That dim glow still spread from the heart of the pattern outward, but the rate at which it moved became agonising for him to watch, like a man lying half-dead in the desert, watching a trickle of water crawl toward him from a mile away.

Gritting his teeth wasn’t enough. Xavier’s mouth opened in a scream as he felt like his mind, body, and soul were being torn apart at the seams by whatever it was that was pulling and pulling at him. Some unseen force he couldn’t fight.

Slowly and yet all at once, the dim glow stopped spreading. It receded back to the centre, back to the rune Xavier touched with the stylus, until it too went dark.

The knots of tension untied, drifted away, the pain along with them.

Xavier sagged. Almost fell over. Kept himself upright from sheer force of will alone.

The pattern of runes he’d drawn in the air flickered out of existence, disappearing as though it had never been there at all.

Seeing that made his body crumble. He sunk to the floor, his backside thumping to the hot stone. He stared at the stylus in his hand, sweat still dripping into his eyes, the tension and pain he’d experienced but a moment ago lingering in his memory.

It had been working. The runes had glowed, spreading across the entire pattern. The connection to the universe had been there, growing, becoming more powerful.

Yet he’d failed.

I suppose you think that was all for nothing, Xavier said to his soul bound weapon.

The Lost Bone of a Dead God was quiet for a time before finally responding. On the contrary, I think you should try again.

Xavier sat there, his gaze drifting from the stylus up to the space in front of him where the pattern he’d lovingly and painstakingly created had recently been.

A great weariness settled over him at the idea of drawing that pattern again. At the concentration the task would require. At the intricacy of the work. The slowness of the movement.

He didn’t jump up and begin drawing the next pattern right away. Instead, he summoned three things from his Storage Ring.

First, he summoned a thermos of coffee along with a mug. The Storage Ring kept the coffee at the perfect temperature. He poured himself a cup.

Second, he produced a bowl of steamed rice, vegetables, and beef with black bean sauce lathered all through it. He may have chugged that bottle of water, but he couldn’t recall the last time he’d had a meal.

The third thing he summoned was a paperback book. He’d had someone find this while he was back on Earth. He enjoyed reading He Who Fights With Beasts, but there was something about the fantasy novels he’d grown up reading, the nostalgia of revisiting those old worlds.

He sipped the coffee and ate his meal with one hand and held the book—The Magician by Raymond E Fiest—open with his other, the world frozen around him.

Back on the hundredth floor of the Tower of Champions, Liana had taught Xavier something more than simply how to use his Time Alteration spell. She’d taught him the importance of self-care. Of taking a break from something difficult. And she’d shown him that within the confines of the time dilation field, a time mage could always find that freedom.

It was still something he was learning how to do, but more and more lately, he let himself slip into a zone where he could actually relax. Where the tension could leak from him. Where the responsibilities weighing him down were lifted, even if for a short time. And right now, his mind needed respite after what he’d just done.

Hell, his entire being needed a break after all he’d gone through.

Once he completed his break, slipping in a bookmark and closing The Magician somewhere halfway, he popped back to his feet, the stylus held poised in his right hand, and got back to work with a renewed vigour.

Xavier drew the entire pattern of runes that made up the Untethered spell for a second time. As had happened the last time he’d done this, notifications popped up in his vision and were ignored.

The strokes of his stylus were swifter and more confident than they’d been the first time he’d drawn the pattern. The already familiar runes were considerably easier to draw, his muscle memory and skill strengthened by the difficulty of drawing the unfamiliar runes.

The other runes in the pattern weren’t easy, but the same level of difficulty wasn’t there. He still gained ranks, even if he didn’t pay attention to the notifications. Sweat still beaded his brow with the effort exerted. And when he hovered in the air, muscles in his body shifted and strained to stabilise him.

But his second attempt went more smoothly.

The first time, it was as though he’d trudged through a dense forest, having to cut down branches and sever vines, and clear large boulders from his path. Now, while the path was still wild and unkempt, he was following footsteps already tread.

Like neuron pathways in the brain, the more an action is repeated, the more defined that pathway becomes, the easier the action.

Xavier still lost track of time as the pattern formed in the air before him. When it was done, he alighted onto the hot stone battlements and beamed at the pattern once more.

Tilting his head to the side, he noticed it was more defined than the last time. The first pattern had possessed imperfections he hadn’t even been aware of until he looked at the second pattern.

Did those imperfections stop the pattern from functioning? Or is it something else?

He shuddered as he recalled the feeling of being pulled and torn apart when he’d attempted to activate the first pattern. Something like that had never happened to him when using a rune before.

Then again, he’d never tried something like this before.

Xavier, stylus still in hand, stepped up to the pattern. Standing this close, he couldn’t see it all with the naked eye, but his Farscope offered him the perfect vantage point to take it all in.

He was about to touch the stylus to the same rune he’d used the previous time, but he stopped himself. When last he’d done this, the dim glow from the first rune had spread outward, flowing from one to the next.

What if…

Xavier flapped his wings and hovered in the air. Using his Farscope ability, he took in the entire pattern and identified the centre rune. He positioned himself in front of that rune, reached out with his stylus, and touched it.

His mind was still fatigued, like after the first time he’d drawn the pattern, but that fatigue didn’t cut as deep. Falling into the meditative state, he attempted to activate the pattern once more.

The pull on him remained. This time he was aware of its coming. He didn’t split his mind—the task, like creating the pattern itself, required complete concentration. Though he didn’t split his mind, he had the requisite discipline to ignore the pain, to put it out of conscious thought.

And so the pulling of his mind, body, and soul was no longer his concern. It became background noise that failed to penetrate his focus, He’d survived the first attempt, he would survive the second.

The centre rune glowed. The rune’s glow was almost imperceptibly brighter this time. A good sign.

That glow expanded outward, flowing from one rune to the next with alacrity. A grin slipped onto Xavier’s face. Pride swelled within him.

The glow spread and spread, reaching toward the far corners of the pattern, farther than his first attempt.

It’s going to work!

It spread and spread until it suddenly ceased. The glow of the runes receded.

The pattern flickered away.

Xavier flapped his wings ponderously as he remained in the air a moment after the pattern had disappeared. Now his task was done—even if the task had failed—he became aware of the tension and pain in his body and mind. As his awareness filled with it, it was already easing, flooding out of him.

He didn’t collapse this time, even if a part of him wanted to. He didn’t let a sense of failure creep into his thoughts, either.

Failure was a step toward progress.

Xavier didn’t take a break between creating the second and first patterns. He turned toward his task almost immediately, only taking a moment to read the notifications he’d ignored.

Inscribing has taken a step forward on the path!

Inscribing is now a Rank 135 spell.

…

Inscribing is now a Rank 140 spell.

One cannot walk backward on the path.

Ten more ranks in Inscribing.

Not as many as he’d gained the first time he’d drawn the pattern, but it was still a massive amount of progress, making him aware that he only had ten more ranks to gain in the spell before it reached the limit for D Grade.

He hadn’t gained a single level since he’d returned to the Tower of Champions. It would be some time until he reached Level 300. It would likely be even more time than that before he felt ready to advance to C Grade.

Rank 150 would just have to be enough.

Besides, Xavier wasn’t certain his rank in Inscribing was what prevented the pattern from fully activating.

He threw himself into drawing a third pattern. The flow of the movements, the stroke of the stylus, every line and curve of the runes once more became his entire focus until he drew the final rune in the pattern for a third time.

Xavier admired his work. Notifications had popped up and were yet again ignored—though he had a slight awareness of the fact that less had appeared.

The third pattern was crisper and more detailed than the last.

Again, imperfections he hadn’t noticed had been ironed out by his newfound proficiency.

Again, Xavier touched his stylus to the dead centre rune. Watched it glow. Watched it spread. Ignored the pull at him, the tension, the pain.

Thirteen times, Xavier drew that pattern.

Twelve times, he failed to activate it.

On his thirteenth attempt, the pattern worked.