Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion - Chapter 42 - F Grade, E Grade… I Don’t Understand Any Of It Right Now

Once again, when they sold all of the corpses and items they’d looted from clearing a floor, they didn’t get a great deal of coin for them. It added up to a little more than seven thousand Lesser Spirit Coins.

Not for the first time, it made Xavier wonder how much more they could have earned had they sold off those items directly to crafters and dismantlers. He was quite sure the System Shop was cutting them out of a great deal of money, but he didn’t think on it too long. It wasn’t as though there were crafters in the tower he could sell to.

Even though they didn’t get much from selling off what they’d looted, after the others handed over the coins they’d gotten from their loot box just like they had the last time—and this time without any comment, as though it had already become a habit—Xavier ended up with 88,640 Lesser Spirit Coins.

To him, that number felt absolutely insane. But he supposed he’d spent 45,000 Lesser Spirit Coins on his Spirit Staff of Might, so gaining roughly double the number of coins as last time shouldn’t have been too surprising.

Will that number keep doubling, as we go up and up all of the floors?

He imagined having millions of Lesser Spirit Coins, or perhaps one day having Grand Spirit Coins. Maybe I already have enough to convert to Grand Spirit Coins, whatever they are…

Xavier recalled the first staff he’d seen when he’d looked at them in the System Shop. Stave of the Otherworldly Void Reaper. That thing had cost a billion Grand Spirit Coins.

The thought made him once more feel rather poor, but he knew he was just getting started.

The pang of guilt he felt at taking his party’s coins for himself was less than it had been before. It was beginning to feel more natural. They were all chipping in, helping him push through these floors.

But it did make him wonder if there was something he could do for them. They’d all risked their lives in that final fight against the Rat King. Part of him thought it would be better not to take them into the next floor when he cleared it, especially since they already knew it didn’t have a Safe Zone, but he wasn’t going to go with that instinct.

They were going to come along. And they were going to learn to fight as a team in a way that let Xavier still get all the kill contributions and “solo” the level. He had a few ideas he wanted to test when they farmed the next floor for Mastery Points, ideas that would work much better if the others gained their classes as well.

Though he did worry about how long that might take.

We’ve cleared two floors in about eight hours. We should definitely have a strong lead by now. He hoped.

But right now, he focused on the task at hand, opening the System Shop’s menu. The first thing he searched for were Spell Books. Though Spell Books were something he was still a little confused about. The Spell Book that he’d used to learn Spirit Break, the one that he’d gained from the loot box, hadn’t disappeared after he’d learnt the spell.

He still had it, it just… wouldn’t open. He’d deposited it into his Storage Ring, but he didn’t really know what to do with it. Now that he had a Spell Book, would gaining another one simply… place that new Spell Book into the one he already owned?

When he found the list for Spell Books, he frowned.

There were various different options, and all of them were incredibly expensive.

Spell Book Primer – Gravity Mage

This item costs 20 Grand Spirit Coins

Spell Book Primer – Elemental Mage

This item costs 10 Grand Spirit Coins

Spell Book Primer – Void Mage

This item costs 20 Grand Spirit Coins

Spell Book Primer – Necromancer

This item costs 15 Grand Spirit Coins

Spell Book Primer – Windwalker Mage

This item costs 10 Grand Spirit Coins

Xavier ran a hand through his hair. First, he didn’t understand what it meant by Spell Book Primer. The loot box had referred to the book he’d gained from it as simply a “Spell Book.”

Would this add spells to his own book?

Second, there was no information as to what the spell books contained, other than what they were called.

Gravity Mage, that sounds pretty cool.

One of his favourite books had a magic system where some characters could change how gravity worked for themselves or others, shifting up to down and vice versa, or untethering themselves from gravity altogether.

It was… confusing, sometimes, especially during fight scenes, but was also incredibly awesome.

Void Mage sounded interesting, too, though he really didn’t know what it would entail. The Necromancer spell book made him crinkle his nose and shudder slightly. As cool as necromancers were in fiction, he didn’t really want an army of decomposing smelly corpses following him around.

And there were probably moral implications to creating undead creatures… right? What if the souls of the deceased were trapped in the zombie-body, eternally forced to watch actions out of its own control? That wasn’t something he wanted to dabble in.

Still, necromancy is real? That’s awesome and terrifying at the same time. He felt like his mind was expanding, seeing all the new possibilities this Greater Universe could offer.

Third… he still didn’t know what a Grand Spirit Coin was, and how much it was worth. 20 Grand Spirit Coins doesn’t sound like a lot. Maybe I can afford one of these Spell Book Primers… The Gravity Mage one could be cool… or the Void Mage, but mostly because I like the sound of it.

As he had that third thought, the System Shop shifted, showing a coin conversion menu that he hadn’t seen before.

1 Grand Spirit Coin = 10 Major Spirit Coins

1 Major Spirit Coin = 10 Greater Spirit Coins

1 Greater Spirit Coin = 10 Spirit Coins

1 Spirit Coin = 10 Minor Spirit Coins

1 Minor Spirit Coin = 10 Lesser Spirit Coins

You do not have enough Lesser Spirit Coins to convert to a single Grand Spirit Coin.

Xavier’s eyes widened as he looked at the conversion. At first glance, it didn’t look like much. One equalled ten, again and again… but his mind worked quickly.

I would need one hundred thousand Lesser Spirit Coins to make a single Grand Spirit Coin. Which means I would need two million Grand Spirit Coins to buy the Gravity Mage Spell Book Primer.

He shook his head. Were there really six different types of Spirit Coins, and they only had access to the worst of them. We can make them, as F Grade Denizens, but we wouldn’t be able to make them faster than we can gain them from killing beasts and clearing levels.

As he realised the conversion, the exact cost of the Stave of the Otherworldly Void Reaper began to sink in.

One billion Grand Spirit Coins would be… one hundred trillion Lesser Spirit Coins!

That number made him stumble back and realise just how bloody massive this Greater Universe must be, and just how powerful those at the top were. Just from looking at… money.

I’m pretty sure that’s a higher wealth divide than someone in a third world country versus the richest billionaire from before the System came.

Xavier shook his head, thinking about the different Spirit Coins. His mind was working, turning the currency over and over, as though on the cusp of figuring something out.

There are six different “levels” or “ranks” of coins,he mused. F Grade Denizens can create the lowest rank of coin, the Lesser Spirit Coin. If I were to logically play that out, then E Grade Denizens could create Minor Spirit Coins, D Grade normal Spirit Coins, and so on, until A Grade Denizens could make Grand Spirit Coins.

He chewed on the idea for a moment.

Six ranks of coins, six ranks of Denizens… It made sense.

He floated the idea to the others, explaining to them the currency conversion and the different types of coins.

Siobhan flicked through her Tower of Champions manual, shaking her head. “There isn’t any mention of any grade other than F.” She frowned, tilted her head to the side. “But this manual only appears to cover the first ten floors.”

“Do you think clearing the tenth floor will get us to the next grade? To E Grade?” Justin asked. “Or do we need to reach a certain level?”

Howard ran a hand across the stubble of his chin. “What exactly would getting to E Grade mean?”

“Maybe, when we get a chance, we can head down to the tavern,” Xavier said.

Howard grunted. “I could definitely use a drink. A few shots of scotch would go down nicely.”

“I think he means to ask the bartender what he knows about this.” Siobhan smirked.

Xavier nodded. That was what he’d meant. Though he supposed there wouldn’t be any harm in having a drink. Maybe two. They could use the break.

Just… not yet.

“We’ll clear a few more floors first. Move forward. Gain an even more solid lead before we risk it by taking a break,” Xavier said.

Howard nodded. “Speaking of moving forward. You find any health potions in there?”

Justin went back to looking. While he was there, he used the search term “manuals” and found an abundance of training manuals, skill manuals, even class manuals.

And, just like the Spell Book Primers, all of them were prohibitively expensive. In fact, they were more expensive than the primers. The cheapest of them cost 100 Grand Spirit Coins.

Ten million Lesser Spirit Coins, or over a hundred times more than we have right now. Champions from established worlds have access to even more than I’d thought…

He sighed. Bought the health potions—there were, unfortunately, no Spirit Energy potions that he could find, but as he had quite a large Spirit Energy Reserve and had been fighting beasts a higher level than himself, killing them with ease, he’d never had an issue running out of it while clearing the floors.

The health potions were called—big surprise—LesserHealth Potions. The System Shop had Minor Health Potions, which he could have technically afforded, but they said that they didn’t work on F Grade Denizens, only those at E Grade.

F Grade, E Grade… I don’t understand any of it right now, but something tells me this will be very important later.

The Lesser Health Potions were somewhat affordable—as far as he could tell—at 500 Lesser Spirit Coins each, so he bought 10 for each of them. He figured they’d only use them when it was life or death, or to get through a floor faster, so there was no need to be stingy with them.

As he had plenty of Lesser Spirit Coins left and didn’t really know what to spend them on, he thought about outfitting the others with better gear.

For my plan to work, Howard will need far better than his basic armour. Xavier got a sword from his first loot box, but that won’t help for what we need to do, so I’m not sure what to get for him. I suppose they would all benefit from armour.

He thought about getting armour of his own, but apparently Basic Mage classes couldn’t wear Warrior armour. The restrictions weren’t based upon stats, but rather class, which Xavier thought was utterly ridiculous.

Am I going to be stuck wearing thin, barely protective robes for the rest of my life? Though when it came to equipment, he’d only been using search parameters that let him see items he could actually use and afford, so maybe there would be other things available to him if he had more coin or a different Mage class at level 10.

He looked over at the others. Before I outfit them, let’s get some training in and see if my plan can actually work, otherwise spending too much coin on them could end up being a total waste.

Xavier looked over at the door.

It was time to head to the third floor of the Tower of Champions.