Accidental Champion of Earth - Chapter 25 - Lesser Butcher

Xavier stood in the middle of the dark forest on the first floor of the Tower of Champions, staring down ten massive level 10 Black Pumas each twice the size of a lion. Their eyes glowed an eerie yellow and their fangs and claws looked sharper than ever.

The grey Mage robes Xavier wore felt thinner than ever, too, and he worried his Toughness, even at 32, wouldn’t be high enough for him to survive an onslaught from so many foes.

But if he did everything right, he wouldn’t have to worry about that.

Xavier cast Spiritual Trifecta. The silver glow engulfed him, and any ounce of doubt he’d felt disappeared in a flash as power throbbed through every vein and muscle in his entire body.

He took a step forward, casting Heavy Telekinesis a split-second before the first of the ten Black Pumas could reach him.

As all ten of the Black Pumas were clustered together, Xavier managed to capture every single one of them into his spell. They were flung up off the ground. Yelps released from their terrifying maws, making them seem far less threatening than a moment before.

It was the first time Xavier had cast Heavy Telekinesis since gaining all of his titles. Not only that, but Spiritual Trifecta also further strengthened the spell, infusing its power into his magic.

The Black Puma soared backward through the air. A part of Xavier was simply astounded by the fact that his spell was strong enough to pick them up at all. How much do there things weigh? He remembered hearing something about male Lions weighing over 400 pounds, and these beasts were twicethat size.

And with one spell, he’d flung ten of them!

Can my spell, infused with Spiritual Trifecta, really move more than 8000 at once pounds?

The first of the Black Pumas soaring through the air slammed into a tree. The tree snapped in half, breaking at the trunk. And it wasn’t the only thing that snapped. There was a symphony of cracks, as though every single bone in the monster’s body was cracking all at once.

You have defeated a Level 10 Black Puma!

You have gained 1000 Mastery Points.

You have gained 1000 Spirit Energy.

Xavier’s eyes widened. With one spell?

Another Black Puma hit a tree, and he received a second kill notification. The rest followed quickly after, until all ten Black Pumas had been defeated.

Congratulations, you have reached level 5!

Your health has been regenerated by 50%!

Your Spirit Energy limit has increased by 100!

You have received +1 Intelligence, +1 Willpower and +1 Spirit!

You have received +5 free stat points!

All your spells have refreshed and are no longer on cooldown!

Xavier shook his head, a little surprised by how easy that had been. He wasn’t surprised by gaining the next level. That was the reasonhe’d wanted to gather ten of them together.

Then another notification popped up.

Heavy Telekinesis has taken a step forward on the path!

Heavy Telekinesis is now a Rank 3 spell.

One cannot walk backward on the path.

Spiritual Trifecta has taken a step forward on the path!

Spiritual Trifecta is now a Rank 3 spell.

One cannot walk backward on the path.

What? Xavier thought. How did that happen? He hadn’t unlocked any Upgrade Quests for the two remaining spells he possessed, like he had when they were Rank 1. He’d just thought he hadn’t done what he’d needed to to unlock them yet. Maybe Upgrade Quests are only from Rank 1 to Rank 2?

He was tempted to take out his Tower of Champions manual and riffle through it to see what it said on the subject, but he shook his head, stopping himself. That’s what Siobhan will be doing. I need to keep moving.

Xavier stepped over to the first of the Black Puma corpses when yet another notification appeared.

Title Unlocked!

Lesser Butcher: This is a common title. You have slain 10 enemies in a single strike. Whether you have slain small field mice or fearsome dragons, this feat’s reward is the same.

You have received +1 to all stats!

Xavier laughed. He couldn’t help himself. He certainly hadn’t expected to gain a title for that! And the fact that the title was called Lesser Butcher made him wonder. How many more enemies would he need to slay at once to gain the next title? Would slaying twenty or fifty at once gain him Minor Butcher? What would he need for Greater Butcher? Is there a Legendary Butcher title?

I think I’m getting ahead of myself.

He turned his attention back on task. Though he was glad for the level he’d gained, the ranks he’d gained for his two spells, and the Lesser Butcher title, he couldn’t let it slow him down.

As he put all of the enemies into his Storage Ring, which he noticed was filling up fast, he applied the free stats he’d just gained. At first, he thought he should put a point into Speed, but then he realised he could already run faster than the Black Pumas. If he started to run a lotfaster than them, they wouldn’t be able to keep up and his plan would no longer work.

More speed will surely help me on the higher levels, but I have to focus on what’s in front of me. Besides, I just gained a point in Speed—and every other attribute—from the Lesser Butcher title.

Instead, he put 2 points into Intelligence, 2 into Spirit and 1 into Toughness—because one can never be too resistant to enemy attacks.

The Intelligence would further strengthen his Heavy Telekinesis spell, the Spirit his Spiritual Trifecta spell along with his Spirit Energy limit—he was sure that the spells would require even more Spirit Energy now they’d gained another Rank, though he hoped they hadn’t gone up by too much. And the Toughness would, well, help keep him from dying.

Because as it had been incredibly easy to take down ten of the Black Pumas at once, he was going to see if he could double that.

I’ve been in here for over half an hour now, he thought as he started running again. I wonder how many enemies the teams from established worlds have taken down. I wonder how many enemies there are in this place to begin with…

As he ran, he looked at how many Mastery Points he needed to gain for the next level.

Mastery Points until next level: 100/24000

Double what I needed last time. That, of course, came as no surprise. As he ran, capturing more and more Black Pumas’ aggression, having them trail behind him one by one, he thought about the first floor of the Tower of Champions, a theory forming in his mind.

Every single other person I’ve seen, both in the hallway, in the tavern, and in my party, are at level 4. I already think that every other Denizen in the Tower of Champions came here at level 4. If they, like me, only had a few Mastery Points, they would need to gain roughly 12000 to get to level 5.

Xavier couldn’t imagine a team going through the first floor withoutgaining a level, and if the whole party were participating in the fight, they would gain about 250 Mastery points per kill, which meant there would need to be… 48 Black Pumas here for each party member to gain a single level.

Would killing forty-eight pumas really take some parties an entire week? I’ve already killed twelve. Then there would be any Mastery Points gained from the boss. The System seemed to have some sort of odd logic to it. His first quest had fifty enemies.

What if this floor had 50 enemies in it too?

It’s a working theory…

If it did, he might only be able to gain one more level from this place, unless the boss gave a lot more than the average Black Puma.

I’m making a lot of assumptions here. He found that with the added Intelligence he’d gained, his mind worked a lot more efficiently. He also found that it worked faster, and never wanted to stop. There was always something running around his mind, no matter what he was doing.

Except when he was fighting. Then it just seemed to be him against the world. His mind, for the most part, would clear, and all he had to do was survive. Maybe that, and the fact that he was so damn powerful for his level, was the reason he was feeling so excited to keep fighting. To keep gaining levels.

He knew why he was doing this. He wanted to gain these titles so that he could give the people of his world a fighting chance against the invaders on Earth. But he had to admit there was a selfish part of him that really loved thinking of himself as the hero. Not only that, he really, really, enjoyed being powerful.

That’s not such a bad thing, is it?

Maybe that was why, as he ran, he didn’t stop when he reached twenty Black Pumas trailing behind him. Nor did he stop when there were twenty-four—enough for him to gain a level from.

He ran until he’d gathered thirty-five of them. Glancing behind him every few minutes, he’d made sure they were all of the same level. Not a single one had been over level 10.

This is… ambitious.

He wanted to gather more. If he’d been right about how many enemies there were on this floor, that would be two more level 10 Black Pumas, then the boss of the level. But he didn’t want to risk encountering that boss with this many other enemies around him.

It had taken him an hour and a half to gather these enemies. His legs still hadn’t become tired and heavy, though there was a thin sheen of sweat covering his forehead, and he breathed a little heavier than usual.

Here goes nothing, Xavier thought. I really, really hope I don’t die.

He was pretty sure he wouldn’t.