Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 2) - Chapter 35 - Battle Mind

“Xavier!” Hands shook his shoulders. He barely registered them. Barely registered his name being called. “Xavier! The wave has started!”

All Xavier could do was stare at the notification he’d just received.

F Grade Denizen’s muscular structure considered volatile.

He stared at the countdown timer. It kept ticking down, and down, and down.

Degeneration Countdown Timer: 47 hours 59 minutes and 41 seconds.

Degeneration…

“What the hell did I just do to myself?” Xavier muttered. He blinked. A young man, standing in front of him, suddenly came into focus. His face was frantic. His hands still on Xavier’s shoulders. “Justin?” Then the sounds of horns and war drums met his hears, and he registered what Justin had said.

The next wave had started.

Xavier stood. He touched a hand to his stomach. The agony that had taken over his body was gone. Completely. If anything, he felt stronger than he ever had—probably because of the stats he’d just gained.

Twenty points to three different attributes. And what in the Greater Universe is a trait?

And he’d gained sixranks in Assimilate Properties after what he’d done. Though now he realised what he’d just done might very well get him killed.

“They’re heading toward the wall! Xavier! They’ll come into the castle if you’re not out there!”

Xavier released a sigh. He had less than two days to figure out how not to die. Because of his own stubbornness. Because he thought he knew better. Because he thought he could do anything, despite being told otherwise by the System itself.

All while continuing to face the Endless Horde’s waves. Why, exactly, had he been so compelled to notlisten to the System’s recommendation?

Without a word to Justin, Xavier leapt back over the wall. Before he’d fallen to the ground, he’d split his mind in two parts once more.

Split Mind has reached Rank 6

Whoa, that was fast.

Splitting his mind came far more easily this time than it had the first time. He supposed that made sense, considering he had a skill for it now. He wondered whether he could already split it into three parts, but right now wasn’t exactly the best time for him to try.

He had more pressing matters to deal with.

One mind—what he decided to dub his battle mind—focused purely on the fight in front of him. The first thing he did was search for the E Grade boss. Xavier didn’t have the best mobility on the battlefield. This wave was a mixed humanoid wave, filled with predominantly humans, elves, and demonkin. He had to kill roughly a thousand enemies before he came across the E Grade.

A damned mage.

He wasn’t worried about the magic it had control of—he was worried about whether or not it would submit to his mind control.

The other part of his mind put itself toward the task of figuring out just what the hell he was going to do about this degeneration countdown.

The notification said my body will break down because of the E Grade impurity. It doesn’t take a genius to think that if I advance to E Grade, the Unidentified Material will no longer be an issue, as I’ll be of the same Grade.

If that were true, it would mean he would have to figure out how to advance to E Grade in less than two days. He had no idea if that would be enough time to reach the 1,000-point threshold for Strength, Speed, and Toughness, but he supposed it would have to be. Assuming that even mattered anymore.

Though in came the otherproblem—perhaps the biggest problem now. He didn’t actually know how to advance to E Grade.

One damned step at a time.

The thought didn’t bring him a whole lot of comfort.

There was another possible solution. The notification didn’t say he would die when the countdown timer reached the end—it said he would degenerate. And this coming just after he’d gained a trait—whatever that was—called Tissue Regeneration.

What if the trait, and my Toughness, was able to fight back the degeneration? The two simply cancelling each other out?

That wasn’t exactly a plan, however. More like a naive hope. If that were true, if he failed advancing to E Grade before the countdown ended, then he would be perfectly fine. But it wasn’t exactly as though there was a way for him to test out that theory.

I’m holding my own against these waves, but they’re only going to keep getting stronger. My power has been inching upward, far slower than I’d like. What happens if my power goes backward?

He’d have to abandon this place. That, or get himself very dead.

I’m not going to abandon this place. I’ll just have to get myself to E Grade. That’s my plan anyway, isn’t it?

He didn’t know if two days would be enough time—he would just have to make it enough time.

The deadline fuelled him.

In his battle mind consciousness, he cast Willpower Infusion. Purple mist flowed out from his staff and headed straight for the E Grade mage. The mage was a demonkin. She wore blood red robes that clung to her figure, wielded a staff with a blood red gem, and her horns glowed… blood red.

I guess I know what her favourite colour is.

The mage tried to cast several spells on Xavier, but his Soul Block spell was more than enough to keep them at bay. When the purple mist reached the woman, Xavier fully expected it not to work. Some minds were simply stronger than others, making the spell impossible.

This, however, wasn’t one of those times.

The mist flowed straight into the demonkin’s eyes, nostrils, ears, mouth. Xavier felt the woman’s mind try to block him. Try to stop him from taking over. Felt her fear—her panic. But she wasn’t strong enough to resist.

Willpower Infusion has taken a step forward on the path!

Willpower Infusion is now a Rank 20 spell.

One cannot walk backward on the path.

Xavier grinned, looking at the notification. He’d gained a fair few ranks in the past few waves. And now, another one.

He took control, then sicked the E Grade wave boss on her own people. The control he had over the demonkin felt stronger than any other control he’d had over the other wave bosses in the past.

This spell keeps getting stronger and stronger. I wonder what it will be like at Rank 50. Or when I’m E Grade… Maybe then I’ll be able to turn an entire wave against itself. Or one wave against another…

Now there’s an idea.

So far, in this wave, he’d been using small pulses of Soul Strike to keep his cooldowns short—sixty to a hundred infused souls per spell. Now that his control over this E Grade was so strong?

He unleashed a 1,200-infused Soul Strike on the enemies at the opposite side of the castle. The cooldown would take twenty minutes—a long ass time when in the middle of a wave—but he reckoned the devastation would be worth it.

Thousands of enemies met their deaths at a single one of his spells.

God, he felt so… exhilarated! Sometimes he worried, about how amazing the power he wielded felt. About that addiction he had for more. About how satisfying it was to harvest so many souls. But those times were coming few and far between after all the carnage he’d caused on this floor.

With the E Grade demonkin fighting on his side, the rest of the wave was cleared before the cooldown met its end.

The E Grade wave boss went down easily enough—especially when he turned its spells on itself. For a moment, he imagined how what he was doing must look to the demonkin. He could see the fear in the woman’s eyes. See the way her body shook with the anticipation of her death. He didn’t revel in her fear—for that, he was glad. But that didn’t mean he felt pity for her.

When he returned to the parapet, Justin’s mouth was agape. The teenaged Airborne Duellist picked up his jaw. “You completed that wave in twenty-two minutes.”

Xavier should have been proud of that—it was his best time for a long while. Instead, he just parked himself on the stone floor, back against the parapet, and told Justin about the predicament he’d gotten himself into.

~

Xavier had Justin rouse Adviser Kalren from his sleep. It was a strange sight, seeing the wizened old man running up the battlements’ stone steps, his robes fluttering about his skinny frame. The man was some sort of scholar class. Yet the strangest thing about his running was that it was faster than Usain Bolt on the hundred metre.

What an odd new reality we live in.

The man wasn’t short of breath when he came to stand across from Xavier. Xavier quickly informed him of what had happened.

“What blessed you with the stupidity to go against the System’s recommendation?” The words tumbled out of the old man’s mouth so fast it seemed he hadn’t realised he’d said them until he’d reached the end of the question. “Ah, apologies, I did not mean to speak to you like that. After all you have done for—”

Xavier raised a hand, quieting the man. “You’re right. It wasa stupid thing to do.” He didn’t like admitting that much. Besides, he wondered if it even had been a bad idea—maybe that made him even more stupid.

He hated the System telling him what to do. He was grateful for all the titles he’d received. Grateful for being a True Progenitor. But that didn’t mean the System was looking out for him. It was keeping him from Earth—keeping him from those who needed his help the most.

“But what’s done is done. Now, I need to search for a solution,” Xavier said.

The adviser slouched back against the opposite wall. He ran a hand through his beard, his head down, forehead creased in thought. He let out a sigh that made him sound like he was a thousand years old and very, very tired. “I do not see what you can do. Pushing to E Grade, as you say, is your only objective.”

Xavier leant forward. “I still don’t know how to dothat. I’ve got my secondary core. My stats are higher than a normal level 100 Denizen’s would be. Hell, I can defeat E Grades. Your own legends spoke about Denizens reaching E Grade before reaching Level 100.”

“As I have said before, those might very well be mere fictions. We must work with what we know. If levels are the only thing that will get you there—”

“I’ll need to gain thirty-nine levels in less than forty-eight hours?” Xavier asked. “When the only enemies out there that are even offering me Mastery Points are the E Grades, only forty-seven of which I’ll be able to face between now and then?” He shook his head. “That isn’t enough.”

“No. It is not enough.” The adviser slid down to the ground. “Why did you do this to yourself? Why did you risk all you have accomplished?”

Xavier frowned. He stood, faced the Endless Horde, resting his hands on the parapet and leaning heavily on it. “Because it still isn’t enough.”