Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion - Chapter 69 - Your Knowledge Is But A Seed Deep In Damp Earth

Again and again, Xavier controlled his aura, containing it within his Spirit Core. Until finally, he’d done it ten times in a row. And still with fifteen minutes remaining until the Tower of Champions reopened its door to them.

He couldn’t help but pump his fist into the air when the notification popped up into his vision.

Skill Quest Complete!

You unlocked and learned the skill Aura-Control!

Aura-Control – Rank 1

You are a student of the Greater Universe. Your knowledge is but a seed deep in damp earth, but soon it will grow roots and break up through the surface of the ground.

May your knowledge of the Greater Universe blossom.

+5% Aura Strength.

+20% Spirit Energyrecovery.

+10% Spirit.

Xavier blinked, staring at the text before him. The description of the skill was… different to other skill descriptions he’d encountered.

A student of the Greater Universe? May my knowledge of the universe blossom?

The description spoke in metaphor, which he didn’t find particularly helpful, but he did find it intriguing. My knowledge will grow… like the insights I get when meditating?

He shook his head, instead focusing on the material rewards the skill had brought him. He started from the bottom, as those were the ones he understood more readily.

+10% Spirit? That brings it up by almost 20 points!

He was surprised the reward was so tangible. Spirit was now well and truly his strongest stat.

Xavier paused, stopping his incessant pacing instantly as a realisation hit him—

After he’d gotten Soultaker, his scythe-staff, he’d tested how it strengthened his stats. He’d felt like there was something different about the weapon than there had been about his last weapon, the Spirit Staff of Might.

While he’d not had much reason to deposit his Spirit Staff of Might into his Storage when he’d had it, basically always keeping the thing in hand since he’d gotten it after clearing the first floor, he’d deposited Soultaker into his Storage Ring many times.

And the stats that he’d gotten from the weapon? They remained for at least an hour after the weapon was no longer in his grasp.

He wasn’t sure if it was because the weapon was more powerful, or if he were more powerful, or even if it had something to do with his class. But he’d made a habit of taking the weapon out once every hour to ensure he got the full benefit of wielding it for his Spirit attribute when meditating and creating Lesser Spirit Coins.

But in the last few hours, he’d been too busy focusing on his Spirit Core and trying to unlock Aura-Control.

Without Soultaker in hand, he totalled his stats including all his percentage bonuses from everything but scythe-staff mastery, as he wasn’t holding the weapon.

It equalled 910.

If I take out and hold the Soultaker weapon, it will push me to over 1000.

He summoned Soultaker from his Storage Ring, and held the glorious weapon in both hands, waiting for the title to appear.

His cumulative stats were an effective 1041…

Yet nothing happened. He sighed, thinking it through. He was ninety-nine percent sure that hitting 1000 stats would get him another title, but he supposed it didn’t count when equipment was what got him there.

Did hitting a 100-point threshold because of equipment-stats count?

He wasn’t sure, but he imagined by the time he’d gotten all those titles from completing the third floor, he wouldn’t have needed either his Spirit Staff of Might or his Robes of Intelligence for such a feat, so it wouldn’t have had any bearing on his choice of class at level 10.

Xavier deposited the weapon back into his inventory, now benefiting from its increased stats for another hour. Somehow, he had an inherent knowledge that that would only work with a single weapon at a time. He couldn’t buy a thousand Soultakers—assuming he could even afford them—and rotate them through his Storage Ring to get a thousand times the benefit.

Which was a shame, really.

Xavier ran through his stats again, taking away any conditional changes—his Robes of Intelligence, the stats he gained from Soultaker, and the stats he gained from holding a staff-scythe weapon.

Without those, his cumulative effective stats were “only” at 904.

96 more stat points, whether from static percentage gains, levels or titles, and I’ll reach 1000 cumulative effective stat points. I’ll reach it on this next floor easily.

Now that little detour was done with, and he soon had another title to look forward to, Xavier focused on the other benefits the Aura-Control skill gave him. He was surprised by the +20% Spirit Recovery. Unlike Meditation, it didn’t require him to do anything. It was just a flat recovery gain that would always have an effect.

That will make creating Lesser Spirit Coins even easier… and I suppose it will help me in combat.

Then, finally, he looked at the one benefit he felt helped him the least.

+5% Aura Strength.

He supposed it was a good thing that his aura would be stronger when he let it free, or flared it, but though he’d posited a few possible uses for it, he wasn’t sure if it would be beneficial to him on a floor-by-floor basis.

Then again… if flaring his aura gave his party members a headache, what might it do to enemy beasts? And now it was a little bit stronger…

It might help me in battle. Even the tiniest bit more edge could help me shave an extra second off clearing a floor, and that might make all the difference in reaching the top 100.

Another minute ticked by. The fourth floor of the Tower of Champions would soon open up to him and his party. He told the others what had happened when he’d unlocked the skill, and about their bonuses, then he’d headed to the System Store in search of better armour.

He was sick of wearing his Robes of Intelligence and was glad that his Soul Reaper class let him wear any type of armour he wished.

Now, he just had to decide what type of armour that would be.

When he opened the System Shop’s terminal, he instantly had second thoughts.

Not wearing heavily protective armour had benefits to him that wearing armour simply didn’t. This was something he’d been debating with himself ever since he’d spent all his coin on Soultaker.

If I’d had armour, my Physical and Magical Resistances wouldn’t have been able to level so effectively. If they hadn’t levelled so effectively, they wouldn’t have pushed me past the 100-point thresholds… and I’d simply be weaker.

He shifted from foot to foot.

Does that rule out something like full plate armour?

Xavier sighed, once again wondering what the right choice would be. I suppose I could purchase a better set of robes, something that offers me higher stats. It won’t help me get the 1000-point title, but it will help me get stronger.

More stats would never be a bad thing.

And there was something else we were offered from that first loot box, after clearing the first floor. Enchantments. Is that something that can be applied to our equipment?

Perhaps he should have spent more time contemplating this during his time away from the tower. Then again, if he had, he wouldn’t have discovered his Spirit Core.

The Tower of Champions will be locked to you for 90 hours. You have 9 minutes and ten seconds remaining.

Xavier sifted through the different screens, finding that enchantments were like buffs for someone’s equipment. They had different ratings, starting at +1 stat points for a single stat, applied to a pierce of equipment for a period of time—several minutes to several hours. Then you could purchase an all-stat enchantment at +1, but it cost… twelve times as much as the first enchantment.

The most expensive enchantment Xavier could see under his search terms cost 90,000 Lesser Spirit Coins and could enchant armour with +20 Toughness for ten minutes.

That’s ridiculously expensive.

Xavier tilted his head to the side. He could see the utility in these enchantments and could imagine that other parties—especially from integrated worlds—would be utilising them heavily.

Especially if they were rich Denizens, backed by strong families.

Seems like a cheat.

He brought this up with Siobhan. The woman perked up. She took her Tower of Champions manual out of her Storage Ring—the first time he’d seen her do that for a little while—and flicked to a page. When she found what she was after, her eyes quickly flicked across the text.

“Only enchantments received from loot boxes can be used within a floor of the Tower of Champions.” She nodded, looking up at him. “I remember reading that after the first loot box we looked at. I didn’t bother bringing it up because we hadn’t seen anymore enchantments after that first one.”

Xavier wasn’t disappointed. In fact, he was glad. Established Denizens already had enough advantages. This would’ve just been one more.

It also meant he didn’t need to think about them. At least, not until he was back on Earth.

“Having trouble deciding what armour to get?” Howard asked.

Xavier grunted, explaining his resistance predicament.

Howard nodded along. “Then just go for robes.” The man shrugged. “I don’t think anything out there can do you serious damage. Not anymore, anyway. Maybe on the later floors, we’ll cross that bridge. But a boost to your Spirit or Intelligence? Well, that’ll only add to the damage youdo. It’s the obvious choice.”

Xavier inclined his head. “Sounds reasonable.” Perhaps he’d hang onto his Robes of Intelligence, in case training his resistances ripped up his clothes too much again… he didn’t fancy standing naked in front of his party, and having something to change into before his new robes healed seemed like a good idea.

Justin shook his head. “So you’re going to be wearing flimsy robes because in the end it will increase your defence? The logic of that just feels backward.”

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Howard scratched as his beard. “Always thought that was a stupid saying. Cause, you know, losing a leg might not kill you but then hey, one leg isn’t exactly going to help you squat more weight. Unless it’s a robot leg, I guess… But in the Greater Universe? Maybe it’s got more relevance than we realise.”

The Tower of Champions will be locked to you for 90 hours. You have 4 minutes 32 seconds remaining.

Xavier turned away from the others, filtering out their conversation as it took a detour about whether the System supported cybernetic enhancements, and brought up the different robes available to him.

There were far, far too many. For a moment, the abundance of choice overwhelmed him.

Robes didn’t excite him near as much as getting a scythe had, so he flicked through the most expensive ones quickly, discarding anything that offered him more Toughness—and there were a surprising number of those—because he wanted to develop that without equipment enhancing it.

His current robes offered him a whopping +5 Intelligence, which meant they were an incredibly lacking aspect of his equipment.

I wonder how long wielding Soultaker will even make sense.

There were ten different sets of robes, each worth the same amount. Many of the robes had the stat they increased in their name. Intelligence this, Wisdom or Spirit that.

One set of robes caught his attention more than the others from its name alone.

Shrouded Robes

There robes require 100 Intelligence, 100 Spirit, and 100 Willpower to wear.

+20 Intelligence

+20 Spirit

+20 Willpower

+30% Spirit Energy recovery

+30% Magical Resistance

These robes have a self-repair feature fuelled by Spirit Energy.

This item costs 90000 Lesser Spirit Coins

While Xavier would have liked it more if the robes didn’t provide him with any Magical Resistance at all, he supposed he could always switch out to his Robes of Intelligence—which didn’t offer any sort of resistances—if he wished to train his Magical Resistance skill in particular.

The +20 to his mental stats and Spirit stat? That… that felt kind of insane to him. It offered 55 more stat points that his previous set of robes.

I’ve really been missing out.

The Spirit Energy recovery was a great bonus as well, even if he’d never run out in combat since facing those goblins in his first real fight.

But the self-repair feature at the end was what made him buy the robes immediately.

I can heal the robes with Spirit Energy… that’s awesome.

No more waiting until a floor was clear to fix his clothes.

Would you like to Fast Equip Shrouded Robes?

Yes, Xavier thought with more excitement than he’d anticipated.

His Robes of Intelligence were switched out for his Shrouded Robes in an instant. He took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and felt the rise in his stats. When he opened his eyes again, Howard, Siobhan and Justin were all staring it him.

“Whoa. Dark,” Justin said, eyes widening. “That’s going to look pretty badass with your scythe.”

“You look…” Siobhan smirked. “You look like a Sith lord.”

Xavier looked down at himself. He did kind of look like a Sith lord. The robes were made of a dark material that was smooth to the touch, but didn’t look like silk. There was a rope cord at his waist, pulled into a tight not. The robes had large, billowing sleeves, but as he moved around, somehow the sleeves didn’t feel as though they would hinder him in combat. Weird, System-magic, I suppose.

And the robes had a hood. He flipped the hood on and summoned his staff-scythe, Soultaker.

“He doesn’t look like a Sith,” Howard said blankly. “He looks like Death.”

Xavier smiled. He didn’t have a mirror on hand, but he could imagine how he looked.

“God, with that smile you look bloody terrifying.” Howard chuckled nervously. “Suppose you are bloody terrifying,” he muttered.

“One minute until the next floor,” Siobhan said, excitement shining through in her voice, that bright smile she’d worn when they’d all first met alighting her face.

Xavier swung his Soultaker scythe in a pleasing arc. “Time to get moving again,” he said, thinking, and time to start harvesting souls.