Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion - Chapter 54 - Blazing Your Own Path Is What Creates The Strongest Denizens

Xavier, Howard, Siobhan and Justin returned to the Staging Room.

Xavier wanted to check his stats. To see exactly how much he’d gained. But more than that, he wanted to check what classes he would get to choose from.

Howard placed a hand on his shoulder. “That was…” The man shook his head. “That was insane.” He removed his hand and went over to his loot box, still shaking his head, muttering, “Insane,” several more times.

Justin’s eyes were a little wide, staring at him. “You defeated an entire army. That level 40 hell beast. And you did it in less than two minutes! We had to wait longer to get back to the Staging Room! You’re a monster, Xavier. An absolute, bloody monster!” He smiled at the end of it, blunting the word “monster,” to show he meant it in a good way. Though the wideness in his eyes did show a hint of fear.

Justin walked off to his own loot box, and it was just Xavier and Siobhan standing by the door to the tower floors.

Siobhan tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Her forehead was creased, her head down. She tilted up her chin and looked him in the eye. “I’m sorry I doubted your actions before with the hell beast. The world is… different now. We have to be different. Thank you, for letting us come along with you, up the tower. We wouldn’t be able to gain these advantages without you. And, seeing what you did today… you could have just as easily kicked as to the curb and soloed the entire tower yourself. Howard may have been right, about you lacking combat experience, but you’re a powerhouse. You can just… trample the enemy without a second thought.”

Xavier frowned. He gestured toward the door. “That might be true of the tower, but I don’t know how true it will be in the long run.” He clenched a fist around his staff. “I know that I could do this on my own, but I don’t want to. I fear that by myself, all I would do would be focus on the accumulation of power. Of reaching the next floor, the next step. I might not slow down to realise I needed more training, or that something could be done in a better way.”

He turned to face the door. “If I hadn’t stopped to train on this floor, upping the rank of my skills and spells, and getting many of my attributes to the 100-point threshold, there’s no way I would have been able to clear the floor in less than a minute and a half.” He rubbed the back of his head. “And I would have gone for my next class before reaching the threshold for Speed and Strength.

“I could do this tower by myself, but having you guys along puts things in perspective. When I return to Earth, it won’t just be me against the enemy. There will be millions—billions—of other humans to protect. By helping the three of you level up and gain the first clear title, I’m creating more elites that can help Earth. Not to mention, I’m learning how to keep others safe, a skill I’m sure I’ll need… And when we clear the tenth floor and can return, I won’t be returning alone. I might be powerful, but I can’t be in more than one place at once.”

“I was worried you’d realise you didn’t need us at all, after that,” Siobhan said.

Xavier had considered it. After he’d defeated that hell beast and basked in the breeze, standing beneath the twin alien suns on a battlefield filled with death that he’d been the cause of, he’d considered leaving his party behind.

He’d looked over at Howard, Siobhan and Justin in the silence that had followed the battle, the timer in the top-right corner of his vision, slowly ticking down to zero. They’d walked around the corpses of the fallen elven soldiers, looting all their weapons and gear, finding any valuables they could, and all Xavier had thought was how much he didn’t need them.

But that… that was the loner in him talking. The part of him that was used to not taking help from others. They each had value, even if that value wasn’t always evident. Howard helped him to decide to farm and train on the third floor. Justin and Siobhan had helped him decide to push his stats to their 100-point threshold before gaining his class.

He might not be able to think of the other ways they could help, but that was half the point.

Besides, he would need their help when they returned to Earth. He didn’t know how strong the people there would be. He didn’t know what danger they were currently in. The titles his party would gain just by being carried by him through the tower alone would make them incredibly strong compared to a normal human Denizen.

He might be able to take down an army by himself, but he didn’t know how many armies there would be, and he couldn’t exactly teleport from one place to another.

It’s better to have them along. Better to help them get stronger. As long as helping them doesn’t get me killed. There’s no way I would have gotten Ranked 2 on the top 100 list if I hadn’t slowed down.

Xavier gestured over to the loot boxes. “Go see what your reward is. I’m going to have a look at my class selection.”

Siobhan nodded, turning away from him.

Xavier sat down, cross-legged on the floor a few steps away from the tower door, and willed the prompt to appear. He could have looked at his class selection back on the third floor, but he wanted to do it here, where his mind was the most clear, where he could consult the others on his choice—if he wished to.

When the menu opened up, he frowned, looking at the first few choices.

He hadn’t expected them to be so… basic.

Telekinetic Mage – Common Class

Punch Mage – Common Class

Spirit Mage – Uncommon Class

Punch Mage? Really?

Though the class name sounded ridiculous, it also sounded kind of… well, awesome.

For a moment, he imagined himself pummelling enemies with nothing but his fists. Punching through armour. Punching through swords. Breaking weapons and skulls alike with nothing but his bare hands.

But the fact that it was a common class meant it didn’t appeal to him at all. The same could be said for Telekinetic Mage. He wondered what gaining such a class would give him. He’d chosen to specialise in a specific aspect of telekinesis. Would choosing that class let him specialise in other aspects?

Spirit Mage was interesting, considering how much he relied on Spiritual Trifecta, and how strong Spirit Break was. But again, it was only an uncommonclass, and there were more things down the list.

Chain Breaker – Rare Class

Spirit Taker – Rare Class

Death Shaper – Rare Class

Xavier frowned, reading the classes but not really understandingwhat they meant. He had to admit, the names were pretty badass. But “badass” alone didn’t tell him anything.

He tilted his head to the side, staring at the class names. He didn’t know what the difference between a common class and an uncommon class was, nor the difference between an uncommon and a rare, but he imagined the rarer the class the stronger its potential.

Xavier cleared his throat, looking over at the others. “Does the Tower of Champions manual say anything about class selection?”

Siobhan, whose eyes had been glazed over, the loot box open where she knelt on the ground, looked over at him. “It wasn’t very specific. It didn’t have much more information than what I told you. Apparently in integrated worlds you can buy class manuals, and other information about classes.

“And it said that it can be better to select common classes as its easier to learn their strengths and weaknesses, as the information is more widely available, but that mastering classes of a higher rarity and blazing your own path is what creates the strongest Denizens in the end… but we haven’t come across any of those manuals in the System Shop despite searching for them. Only those Spell Book Primers.”

Yet another thing that long-integrated worlds have over us…

“Thanks,” Xavier said with a sigh. “I suppose I should have expected we’d be left in the dark.” He turned his attention back to the class list, considering what Siobhan had said.

Blazing your own path is what creates the strongest Denizens in the end.

That certainly made sense to him, and he’d already been leaning toward the rarer classes—there were yet more on the list he wanted to look at. He just wished he could be better informed.

Looking at the names of the classes did make him wonder where Spell Books came into play. If, for instance, he chose a Punch Mage, would he still be able to use the Spell Book Primer for a Gravity Mage? Or a Void Mage? Whatever that is. Or would learning such spells be a waste? Or, perhaps, not even possible?

One cannot walk backward on the path… there may be spells that are no longer available to me, depending upon what class I choose. Yet I have no idea of knowing whether that’s true or not, do I?

He frowned, willing more information to appear about the classes in front of him. He’d been able to see information about the Basic Mage and Basic Warrior classes, after all.

Why shouldn’t he be able to see more about these?

Chain BreakerClass (Rare):

A Chain Breaker is a mage that focuses on physical fighting. They can wear heavy armour and use any weapon they wish, and they are able to imbue spells into their weapons and armour to further enhance their power in physical combat.

Attributes per level: +3 Strength, +3 Toughness, +2 Intelligence, +2 Willpower, +13 free stat points.

Xavier’s eyes widened, reading the description. They can imbue spells into their weapons and armour? That sounded awesome, though he had no idea how that might work in practice.

If he imbued Heavy Telekinesis into his staff, what exactly would that do? He could imagine imbuing Spiritual Trifecta into his armour or a weapon…

Xavier shook his head, moving down to the number of attribute points the class offered. He would get 10 automatically allocated, and 13 free stat points. That’s 23! Right now I only get 8 per level! That was almost three times as many stat points per level.

Getting to level 10 really must change the playing field...

He frowned, wondering about something. He brought up the information for one of the earlier classes. The Punch Mage.

Punch Mage Class (Common):

A Punch Mage is a mage that focuses on physical fighting. Where others use weapons, a Punch Mage’s fists are their weapons. Punch Mages have a number of spells that increase their physical damage and defences, along with spells that can be imbued into their fists that explode on impact.

Attributes per level: +2 Strength, +2 Toughness, +2 Intelligence, +7 free stat points.

That offers way less attributes! And… fists that explode on impact? Imagining such a thing only made him chuckle.

He supposed it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he was being offered classes that were physical fighters after all the skull-bashing he’d been doing with his staff.

Xavier tilted his head to the side. A common class offered 13 total stat points—5 more than his Basic Mage class—but 10 less than a rare class.

All the more reason to choose a higher rarity.

He wondered how many choices most Denizens got when they reached level 10. Would they even be able to choose anything beyond common or uncommon?

Xavier scrolled down the menu, looking at the final two classes, both of which were a higher rarity. He didn’t feel the need to look at the other rare classes available in detail, not now that he was sure he would pick the strongest rarity available.

The two final classes? They were epic rarity.