Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion - Chapter 56 - Soul Reaper

“Xavier?” Someone shoved his shoulder. “Xavier, are you all right? Xavier!”

Xavier’s eyes snapped open. He looked up. Howard crouched by him, a hand on his shoulder. He yanked his hand away when Xavier opened his eyes, standing and taking a quick step back.

Siobhan and Justin stood behind Howard. Justin’s eyes widened, staring into Xavier’s. Siobhan’s face lit up in a smile.

“Your eyes!” Siobhan said.

Xavier sat up. The pain he’d felt what must have been only a moment ago was gone. He shook his head, feeling a little disorientated. The world looked… different, in a way he couldn’t figure out. He blinked over at Siobhan. “What do you mean, my eyes? What’s wrong with my eyes?”

“They’re silver,” Howard said matter-of-factly. “They weren’t silver before.” He frowned, looked at Siobhan and Justin. “Were they?”

Siobhan shook her head. “They were grass-green. Now they look like the silver of the moon.”

“All right,” Xavier said. “That’s… weird.”

“Why did you fall down?” Justin asked.

Howard rubbed at his stubbled chin. “I’d like to know the answer to that myself.”

Xavier touched a hand to his head. Though the pain was gone, his head felt… tender? No. It felt full. Like something had been put inside it that hadn’t been there before. He stood up. “I chose my class, and activated the change.”

Siobhan’s eyebrows shot up to the top of her forehead. “You did? Well, no wonder the System doesn’t want you doing that in the middle of combat! You’d likely get killed during the change if it makes you fall unconscious.”

Her eyes lit up again, and she was practically jittering with excitement. It was good to see her like this, after she’d been so subdued when he’d used that hell beast to rank-up his Spirit Break spell.

“So, what class did you choose?” Siobhan asked. “It must have been a good one, considering how strong you are!”

Xavier smiled, rubbed the back of his neck. He wasn’t exactly sure how the others would react to the name of his new class. He still didn’t know much about it himself—there were a bunch of notifications waiting for him to look at, ones that had appeared after he’d stood, shaking off the sudden unconsciousness.

“I’ll tell you more about it soon, I’ve still got a lot of things to go through.”

Siobhan’s face fell a little, though the smile remained. “Well, when you’re done, let us know. We were thinking it might be time to head down to the tavern. See if there are any others there. We’ve got a lot of knowledge between the four of us now. Knowledge that could really help them.”

Xavier nodded. Howard had mentioned something about getting rest after the third floor. He supposed visiting the tavern, seeing if there were others from their cohort down there, would be a wise decision.

But honestly, all he wanted to do was keep clearing floors. Especially now he’d gotten his next class.

Soul Reaper.

He waited for the others to head back to the loot boxes, where they started chatting. He tuned them out, sitting cross-legged once more on the floor of the Staging Room by the tower door.

He could barely contain his excitement.

My eyes have turned silver? He looked around at the others again, trying to ascertain what it was that was different about them—what it was that he could see now that he couldn’t see before. There’s a glow about them. An almost indiscernible glow. Like… an aura, maybe?

He didn’t know what it was, but he looked forward to finding out.

No longer able to contain himself, he opened the notifications that were waiting for him.

Congratulations, XAVIER COLLINS! You have upgraded your class from BASIC MAGE to SOUL REAPER (EPIC).

You have 2 Spell Upgrades and 1 Skill Transfer pending.

You have gained the spell Spirit Infusion.

You have gained the spell Soul Harvest.

You have gained the spell Soul Strike.

You have gained the spell Soul Block.

You have gained the spell Soul Harden.

These spells are locked to your class and cannot be forgotten unless you change to an incompatible class.

Xavier felt floored by the number of spells he’d just learnt. He’d gone from knowing three spells to knowing eight? He wondered if that was because he’d chosen an epic class, or if all classes gave that many spells.

He tilted his head to the side, looked at the names of each of them. They certainly seemed to fit a pattern.

All right. Looks like I have a lot to figure out here.

One thing he was very glad for was that he wouldn’t need to pick and choose which spells to keep. When he’d gained his first spells, he’d had to “forget” some of them, like Summon and Cast Element. He found it a little bit strange that he didn’t have to forget any of these spells, but he was very, very glad for it.

Slowly, he looked at the description of each of the spells that he’d gained.

Spirit Infusion – Rank 1

Spirit Infusion is a rare Mage spell that is rarely learnt by human Mages and is only available to those with a naturally strong Spirit. Spirit Infusion has two paths: the path of defence, and the path of offence.

The path of defence allows the user to imbue Spirit Energy into their armour and weapons. Armour and weapons infused with defensive Spirit Energy gain a stronger physical and magical resistance and strengthen the durability of whatever material they are infused into.

The path of offense allows the user to imbue Spirit Energy into their armour and weapons. Armour infused with offensive Spirit Energy deals magical damage to those who strike it, and weapons that are infused with offensive Spirit Energy deal more physical and magical damage per strike and per spell.

Unlike other spells, there is no way to generalise with Spirit Infusion. The user must choose which path they wish to follow.

One cannot walk backward on the path.

Xavier frowned. Spirit Infusion sounded pretty great, except for the fact that he couldn’t generalise with it like he had with his other Spirit-based spells. He sighed, not sure which he would choose to use as they both had their merits.

I’ll decide later, once I’ve tested out both paths.

Each of the paths sounded great to him right now.

He moved onto the next spell.

Soul Harvest – Rank 1

Soul Harvest is an epic spell specific to the Reaper line of classes. Soul Harvest has only one utility, and one path: it is used to harvest the souls of those a Soul Reaper slays.

One cannot walk backward on the path.

Short and sweet, and exactly what I expected. Xavier wondered if the spell would let him harvest multiple souls at once. Would he need to place his hand on each of the corpses? Or could he do it from afar?

That all sounds rather grim.

He winced at his bad, unintentional pun, then looked at the next spell in line.

Soul Strike– Rank 1

Soul Strike is an epic spell specific to the Reaper line of classes and requires harvested souls to cast. Soul Strike has several different paths, and is a difficult spell to master.

Soul Strike is an offensive spell that uses harvested souls against an enemy. Soul Strike causes soul damage, which is different to magical damage and difficult to protect against.

This spell has three paths: long-range attacks, short-range attacks, or generalising between the two.

The user may use as many harvested souls in a Soul Strike as they wish.

Generalising with Soul Strike weakens the strength of each attack by a third.

One cannot walk backward on the path.

Xavier leant back. Another spell that didn’t lend itself well to generalising. At least it can be used to generalise. That was another decision he would have to leave until later, once he’d had a chance to see what the spell could actually do. I suppose that means I’ll need to harvest some souls.

The one thing his mind latched onto about the description was the fact that the user could use as many harvested souls in a strike as they wished. It made him wonder if there was a limit to the number of souls that he could keep harvested. For instance, could he have harvested that entire army of souls?

He shuddered, still getting used to this line of thought. Did I really choose a class that lets me harvest other people’s souls? What does that make me, some kind of devil?

Xavier pushed that thought away, and ploughed on.

Soul Block– Rank 1

Soul Block is an epic spell specific to the Reaper line of classes and requires harvested souls to cast. Soul Block has several different paths, and is a difficult spell to master.

Soul Block is a defensive spell that uses harvested souls against an enemy. Soul Block can be used to block a single enemy strike.

This spell has three paths: magical defence, physical defence, or generalising between the two.

The user may use as many harvested souls in a Soul Block as they wish.

Generalising with Soul Block weakens the strength of each block by a third.

One cannot walk backward on the path.

Soul Block and Soul Strike looked remarkably similar, like they were sister-spells, designed to work in unison. Though he supposed that would depend upon how many souls one had harvested.

Right now, I can’t use a single one of these soul spells, can I?

He looked at the last of the five spells that he’d gained.

Soul Harden– Rank 1

Soul Harden is an epic spell specific to the Reaper line of classes and requires harvested souls to cast. Soul Harden has only one utility, and one path: to protect one’s soul.

One cannot walk backward on the path.

Xavier’s forehead creased as he read the final spell. He reread the spell three times, trying to glean some of hidden information from it. But there was none.

Why would I need to harden my soul, and what does that get me? Xavier wondered. Protection against soul damage?

All in all, he didn’t know how to feel about the five spells that he’d just gained from attaining the Soul Reaper class, but one thing was certain, something that made him feel a little uneasy, but more than a little excited…

He couldn’t wait to harvest his first soul.