Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion - Chapter 43 - Whose Call Will You Answer?

In the Staging Room of the Tower of Champions, Xavier walked up to the door that would take him and his party to the third floor.

Before moving forward, he looked at his stats and other information.

XAVIER COLLINS

Age: 20

Race: Human

Grade: F

Moral Faction: World Defender (Planet Earth)

Class: Basic Mage

Level 8

Strength: 81 (85)

Speed: 77 (81)

Toughness: 89 (94)

Intelligence: 92 (99)

Willpower: 83 (87)

Spirit: 100

Mastery Points until next level: 51700/200000

Available Spirit Energy: 10800/10800

Available Skill Points: 0

Free stat points remaining: 0

Titles: Bloodied Hands, Born on a Battlefield, Settlement Defender, Quester, First Defender of Planet Earth, Lesser Butcher, Survivor, First Floor Ranked 42, Second Floor Climber, Solo Tower Climber 2, 1st Second Floor Climber, 500 Stats, First to 500 Stats

Spells List:

Spiritual Trifecta – Rank 3

Heavy Telekinesis – Rank 3

Spirit Break – Rank 1

Skills List:

Staff Mastery – Rank 1

Physical Resistance – Rank 2

Magical Potency – Rank 4

Magical Resistance – Rank 1

Physical Damage – Rank 1

Lesser Spirit Coins: 68,640

Xavier couldn’t help but smile at how much his stats had gone up. I’m becoming a force to be reckoned with. He clutched his Spirit Staff of Might tightly. Then frowned, remembering the difference between a Lesser Spirit Coin and that of a Grand Spirit Coin.

I wonder what the difference between an F Grade Denizen and an A Grade Denizen is… He’d only guessed it went from F, to E, D, C, B, A. For all he knew they could be ranked differently, but it made sense to him.

He sighed. Perhaps he was only a force to be reckoned with compared with others at his own level.

We’ll farm this floor until I reach level 10. If it doesn’t take too long, maybe I’ll get the others to level 10 as well—or maybe on the next floor. He supposed that would all depend on how easy this floor was to farm.

There will be no Safe Zone. Hopefully it isn’t some sort of maze of shifting tunnels like the last floor. Maybe it won’t be dark this time. It had been a few days since he’d seen the sun.

He turned to Howard, Siobhan and Justin. Howard held his tower shield in one hand, his sword in the other. Justin had his long, slender sword that he’d gotten from his first loot box. Siobhan her metal staff with the purple crystal at the end.

Xavier looked at the dark-brown wood of his own staff. It had lost much of its heft as he’d already gained a fair amount of Strength since he’d bought it. Maybe I need to invest in another staff soon…

“Are we all ready?” he said to the others.

They each nodded. There was more eagerness on their faces than usual. Probably because they would actually get to fight on this floor. At least for a little while, before Xavier was ready to clear it.

“All right.” Xavier put his hand on the doorhandle. “Let’s do this.”

The notification popped up the instant Xavier’s hand had touched the handle.

Tower of Champions.

The Tower of Champions is where World Defenders prove themselves, fighting for rewards, upgrades and powerups.

Open Levels:

3 of 1000.

Which level would you like to enter?

Three, he thought, then was teleported straight out of the Staging Room.

Xavier blinked, shielded his eyes with his left hand. Wherever he stood, it was impossibly bright. Though it didn’t take his eyes long to adjust. He furrowed his brow, narrowing his eyes at the sky as the others appeared on either side of him.

“Huh.” Xavier looked from one end of the sky to the other. “Two suns.” The massive glowing, orange orbs of fire seemed to hang closer to this planet than the sun back on Earth did. Either that, or both these suns were significantly larger.

This planet…

“We’re on another world?” Howard asked.

“I don’t think it’s… real,” Siobhan said. “Like the other floors, the system creates it for the Tower.

Howard scratched at his chin with the top of his tower shield. “How does that make it not real?” He raised an eyebrow at her.

Siobhan opened her mouth. Frowned. Then closed her mouth again and shook her head.

Xavier smiled. He didn’t much mind whether this place had been created or not. It felt real. Just like the dark forest on the first floor had felt real. And the underground tunnels on the second.

The breeze was cool and calm, wafting in from the left—who knew whether that was north, south, east or west. They stood in a large field, and the breeze played with the long grass that was all around them.

He picked a long blade of grass and looked at it. It was… purple. He chuckled and shook his head, letting the blade of grass go. It drifted in the air for a bit before falling to the ground.

“So, what now?” Justin asked, his gaze panning in front of them. “I don’t see any beasts.”

“And where’s the door back to the Staging Room?” Siobhan asked.

Right, Xavier thought. I should be looking for that.

Howard kicked something metallic with his heavy boots. “I think this is the door. Trapdoor, at least.”

Xavier looked at his feet. There was a large trapdoor on the ground, making a smooth surface for them all to stand upon in the middle of the grassland, and he got the sense Howard was right. Odd place for it.

That’s when they heard a persistent thud, thud,thud, coming from their right, almost like the beating of a heart. Though it’d have to be a bloody big heart to beat that loudly. Xavier gripped his staff, readying himself for a fight. He hadn’t imagined the field would remain peaceful for long.

His eyes widened when he saw what was heading toward them. It looked like… like an army. At that moment, it was a fair distance away, almost as far as his eye could see across the field. But it was definitely an army. Rows of men—and women, no doubt—marching forward at a steady clip.

Toward them.

“Oh.” Justin turned his hilt around in his hand. “Is that…”

“An army?” Siobhan finished.

Howard grunted. “Sure looks like one. And that thudding? War drums.”

A thrill ran through Xavier at the sight of it. He couldn’t quite tell how many soldiers there were. Maybe five hundred? “Are we supposed to fight the army?” So far, all they’d been expected to do was fight beasts. Not… humans. Or, other sentient races like humans.

Some of those beasts had been sentient, he thought. The Puma Prime, the Rat King. They could talk… not that I much liked what they had to say. And the goblins. They might not have spoken to me, not in a language I could understand, but they were definitely sentient.

Xavier considered their situation. Even if the soldiers ended up being human, if they had to kill them to clear this floor… he would do it. He couldn’t just return to the Staging Room and give up his clearing of the tower floors.

He didn’t want to kill people, but he would do whatever he had to do save his world.

Though fighting five hundred soldiers seemed like an impossible task, even for someone like him. The soldiers, at this distance, were too far away for him to scan, so he couldn’t even tell what level they were at.

Then another thudding sounded. This time, the thudding came from the other direction.

Xavier whirled around.

On the other side of them, there was another army. This one looked about the same size as the first. Five hundred soldiers. Marching unrelentingly toward the very spot where Xavier and his party stood.

“They’re marching toward each other,” Siobhan said.

Xavier narrowed his gaze. “And we’re stuck right in the middle.”

Justin tapped his foot on the door back to the Staging Room. “They’re equal distances apart. That means when the fighting starts… it’ll be right over our exit out of here.”

“So.” Howard sighed. “We’re in the middle of two opposing armies. What, exactly, are we supposed to do?”

Xavier, staring toward the army on their left, could make out the soldiers marching a little better now—though he still wasn’t able to scan them. Maybe if I had the Identify skill, I’d be able to use it at range…

“Do they look like elves to you?” Xavier asked. From what he could make out of the people walking toward them, many of them seemed rather pale considering this world had two suns, and their hair was white-blonde. He could even make out pointed ears.

“Yeah,” Siobhan said. “Those are elves all right.”

“These ones look human,” Justin said. “I think.”

The teenager was facing the other direction.

“Is that who we fight with?” Howard asked. “Or is that… racist?” He scratched at his chin with his tower shield again.

Siobhan tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “What’s the odds that both armies just attack us? What if we can’t pick a side at all?”

Howard grunted. “That… that’d be bad.”

“Bad sounds like an understatement,” Justin muttered.

Xavier, sick of standing around waiting for both of the armies to reach them, willed the question toward the System, hoping something would come of it. He was more than a little surprised when a notification popped up in his vision.

Welcome to the Third Floor of the Tower of Champions.

The Third Floor of the Tower of Champions is a test of your leadership capabilities and your might in battle. An army of Elves and an army of Humans are to clash upon this world. You must choose which army to fight with, and which to fight against.

Each army is 500 soldiers strong, and they have each summoned a Champion to lead them.

Whose call will you answer?