Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 2) - Chapter 36 - Several Plans

Clouds drifted in front of the moon, further dimming the darkness of the night. Xavier held one of the Elemental Hydra’s fangs between his thumb and forefinger. Moving it left and right in the torch’s light. He didn’t need the torchlight to see—he saw plenty well in the dark these days. But it did help him see the details.

The fang was whiter than he’d imagined it would be. He hadn’t even needed to clean it. He would have thought a beast like that would have yellowed teeth, maybe some even rotted. But he supposed his own teeth grew back when he chipped them—maybe they were resistant to deterioration. Especially since this beast had Tissue Regeneration.

A small shard of this might bring my death. He hadn’t even consumed an entire tooth. But it also brought me a new trait, and a total of sixty attribute points. Not to mention the six ranks I gained, which brought me even more points.

Justin had dismantled more materials from the Elemental Hydra. They were in a small pile by the parapet. There was still time before the next wave. The most time he’d had between waves in a while.

What happens if I consume another shard of this? Does that trait get stronger? It should certainly boost my attributes. Will that only be by two points?

He had a feeling it would be by four points each, but it was only a suspicion. He was tempted. Verytempted, to find out. But he was also worried. There was a very good chance that consuming more of the E Grade material would simply speed up the countdown until his degeneration.

But what if my regeneration becomes strong enough to completely counteract whatever this “degeneration” is? Is that a risk I’m willing to take, when there could be other ways out of this?

Then, there were the Elemental Hydra claws. He placed the fang onto the ground, near a pile of hundreds more, and picked up one of the claws. He didn’t have quite as many of those. He touched the tip with his finger. A drop of blood dripped down his skin. The wound quickly healed.

What happens if I consume this, too?

“You are not really thinking of doing this again, are you?”

Xavier looked over at where Adviser Kalren was slumped, his back against the opposite wall, a concerned look on his face.

“You want power. I understand that,” the old man said. “But this is a terrible way to get it.”

Xavier tilted his head to the side. “You understand it?” He frowned. He wanted to say more. How could you understand it? You’re weak. But he bit his tongue, turning his gaze back to the claw. He sighed and placed it down next to the others. “Maybe this isn’t the way,” he said, thinking, Not yet, at least.

There was still more for him to do.

Justin was still working on the Hydra, dislodging claws from its feet. It was gruesome work. He looked over at Xavier. “I think I have an idea.” He stood from where he’d been kneeling, leant Soultaker against the battlement’s wall, and walked over. “The trait you received, it’s called Tissue Regeneration?”

“Yeah. I guess it must be something unique to the hydra. How it’s able to regrow those heads—at least, to a point.”

Justin nodded. “Makes sense. But there are other things that Tissue Regeneration could do.” He ran a hand over his chin, which was full of stubble—the beginning attempts at a beard. “When we build muscle, for instance—”

Xavier perked up. “The muscle tears, breaks down before its healed stronger.”

“Exactly. For slow-twitch and fast-twitch muscle fibres. And I imagine it would work for conditioning your body against harm, right? Like, growing callouses on your skin?”

Xavier stood. “You think I should train more?”

Justin shrugged. “It’s your physical stats that you’re trying to get to 1,000 points, right?”

“Even if that does work for him, it will not help him advance to E Grade,” Adviser Kalren cut in. “It will help him fight better, but otherwise…”

“What do you know about the advancement to E Grade?” Xavier asked.

The old man blinked. “Very… very little, I’m afraid. But I think you must gain enough levels—”

“No, I don’t mean that. I mean, does it take a long time? Is it painful? Will I somehow be incapacitated? Unable to fight?”

Adviser Kalren raised his chin. Looked to be in thought. He bobbed his head in a nod. “Yes. I… I seem to remember something about that. I think the transformation can take several minutes.”

“Several minutes,” Justin muttered. “That… that doesn’t sound good. What if it happens in the middle of a wave? He’ll be defenceless.”

Xavier was thinking the exact same thing. He could take a hit. Several hits, really. But just how many sustained hits could he take? And what if there were E Grade enemies involved while he was advancing?

Adviser Kalren shrugged. “He’ll just have to trigger the advancement while he is between waves.” He looked at Xavier. “That sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?”

Xavier grunted his response. He had something else in mind. Something that would prevent him from being able to rest between waves. He turned, rested his hands on the parapet, and looked out at the waves of the Endless Horde. Then he looked farther, at what was beyond them.

The portals the horde came through. Portals from worlds all around the sector.

For some time now, he’d had the plan—or rather the thought—to turn the fight around. To, instead of waiting, take the fight straight to the next wave before it had a chance to march on him. But he hadn’t known how the System would react to such a thing. It might very well let the entire Endless Horde attack him at once. Or perhaps it would simply activate the next wave right away.

He didn’t know, and the only way to find out was to try. But it wasn’t something he’d wanted to attempt until he advanced to E Grade.

But if the only way for me to advance to E Grade is to get to Level 100, and I have less than two days to get there, I’m going to need to get more Mastery Points than are available in the coming waves. A lot more.

“Tissue Regeneration…” Xavier muttered, contemplating what Justin had said. Strength was his weakest stat. He still needed 135 more points until he reached 1,000 for that one, and he didn’t have any skills like Running that were helping him get there.

But what if Strength Training was a skill? He’d tried to train his Strength before. He’d made some progress—gaining a few attribute points the Tower of Champions had let him start entering floors, but no skills had ever showed up. The same had been for Running.

What if I was doing something wrong? What if there’s a way to gain a strength training skill that I’m simply not aware of?

“How much time until the next wave?”

“Five minutes,” Justin responded. “Not much time.”

Xavier grunted. He turned away from the waves, sprinted for the opposite wall, and leapt straight over it. He’d spent six weeks in this place. In that time, he’d gotten fairly familiar with the outer bailey. To one side of the bailey was a line of wagons. They must have led out to the farms outside of the castle—farms that had no doubt been burned to the ground by the Endless Horde as they destroyed every inch of the kingdom before finally making their way here.

It had been a long time since Xavier had tested his Strength. He remembered, back in the tower, picking up a vending machine and pressing it over his head. He smirked. That would be child’s play now.

So how in the world was he going to find something strong enough to test his Strength?

At one wall was a pile of massive boulders. A similar pile was on the battlements. These would have been used by the defending soldiers to throw down at the enemy as they tried to scale the walls, he supposed, but with Xavier there, they’d never needed to perform such a tactic.

He stepped over to the boulders and picked one up. His mind, still used to his old level of Strength back before he’d been integrated, had expected to struggle with this. But of course, he didn’t struggle. The boulder felt light. Incredibly light.

Soultaker is probably heavier than this thing. It’s a miracle Justin can even use the weapon for dismantling.

But this is my only option right now.

He walked the boulder over to the wagon on the other side. Then thought better of this strategy and pulled the wagon over to the boulders.

A moment later, he had the entire pile of boulders stacked into the wagon. Must be reinforced to hold this much weight. That was something he was glad for, otherwise this foolish plan might not even be possible.

Xavier spent the next few minutes lifting the wagon off the ground to try and get some sort of pump into his muscles. At first, he performed deadlifts with the wagon. Lifting one side of it to put it on two wheels. As he did so, he frowned. It felt… somewhat difficult, but more like how difficult a push-up feels to someone who can do a hundred of them.

Not difficult enough for what I need.

The he let go of one of the wagons handles and used one hand instead.

That’s a little bit harder…

But he was sure that he could make this harder. He did one-handed, one-legged deadlifts, smiling all the while. It still took twenty reps for it to feel hard enough, but it was good to know he was finding out what he was currently capable of.

The leverage of only lifting one side of this thing must be making it a hell of a lot easier.

He lowered the wagon back to the ground and walked around it, rubbing the back of his neck, wondering what else he could do with it.

I can’t bench press the thing. There isn’t enough room beneath it. He tilted his head to the side. Can I press it over my head? Would that even work? He didn’t know, but he was willing to try. The problem was, the damned wagon wasn’t exactly a conventional weight. Even if he could do a lot of reps with it, it might be difficult to getthe thing balanced atop his hands from where it sat, especially as he didn’t want any of the boulders to fall out of it.

It took him less than thirty seconds—by crawling under the damned wagon and crouching as low as he could—to press it up over his head then squat upward out of the crouch.

Once he picked one leg off the ground and did a one-legged squat—also known as a pistol squat—he realised he’d finally found a difficult exercise for himself.

He was on his fifth rep when the war drums sounded.

I have a plan. Several plans.

He was going to build up his Strength. His Speed. His Toughness. He was going to hit that 1,000-point threshold for each of them within the next day. He might not know how, but he would bloody well do it.

Then, he wasn’t going to sit and wait for the next waves to come.

He was going to finally take the fight to the enemy—it was the only way he would get to Level 100, then E Grade in time.